New York was without a doubt the strangest stop they had made on this country-wide road trip yet, or at least that was Trixie's opinion.
Even before Max had stopped the Rust Bucket in front of the hotel that they were staying at for the night, the green-haired girl had already seen four mutant terrapins flying across the rooftops with ninja weapons, a blue rodent bbrakin the sound barrier, and a naval carrier flying over the New York skyline. But by far the strangest thing was how completely normal people on the street were acting. Even as a green monster and a Viking were trying to kill each other down the street, no one even spared them a glance.
Trixie didn't think she would ever understand humans.
At the moment, the Tennysons kids were wondering around the hotel lobby while Max went to get them checked in at the front desk. Trixie had to admit as she looked up at the crystal chandelier hanging over the well-furnished vestibule that staying here was going to be a lot better than sleeping in the cramped Rust Bucket.
"Wow, this hotel has everything," said Gwen giddily as she looked over the hotel's brochure. "Indoor pool, full-day spa – "
"Now don't get used to it," said Max humorously. "It's only for one night."
Ben looked like he was the only one that was disappointed they were going to be stay at a fabulous and comfortable hotel instead of spending another night in the RV. But his moodiness quickly perked up when he spotted something across the lobby.
The hotel theater was hosting something for Sumo Slammer, and as we all know from the incident in Washington, Ben would go to any lengths for anything related to the franchise. Which was exactly why Trixie looked worried when Ben started running off.
"Ooh, the new Sumo Slammers video game is in there!" said Ben excitedly. Trixie started to chase him, afraid he would do something stupid again, but he was thankfully cut off by the stern-looking security guard blocking the theater.
"Pass?" the guard questioned seriously.
Ben pretended to check his pockets and said, "Uh…must have left it inside. I'm one of the game pros testing out the system."
"VIPs only," said the guard strictly.
Ben slouched in defeat and dragged his feet back to the front desk, nearly running into Trixie, who was staring down the Omnitrix wielder with her arms crossed and a disapproving look.
"I know what you're thinking, Benjamin," said Trixie, leering warningly. "You are not going to use the Omnitrix to sneak back in there. Maxwell put a lot of effort into letting us spend the night in this fine establishment and we don't need you messing it up for everyone because you're greedy."
"Okay, okay, I won't, geez," groaned Ben, throwing his hands up in mock surrender.
Trixie glares at him for another few seconds, not fully believing Ben's words, but nonetheless slowly walked back to the front desk where Gwen and Max were finalizing their room. But just as she had predicted, Trixie had not even taken two steps before a bright green flash went off behind her.
The green-haired girl turned, but Ben was nowhere to be found. Already having her suspicions, Trixie shifted her attention to the Sumo Slammers exhibit and wouldn't you know it, Ghostfreak was slipping past the security guard in his ethereal form. The Ectonurite whispered something in the guard's ear that made him uncomfortable before sneaking inside. Trixie grinded her teeth and clenched her fists in frustration.
"Why does that irritating human never listen to word I say?" growled Trixie. "Of all the boneheaded – UGH! Accessing Ectonurite sequence!"
Her hair transformed into a mixed shade of black and gray and her eyes became a deep shade of purple with black cracks around the edges. Since she couldn't go invisible like Ghostfreak, Trixie had to slip through the floor into the basement, glide down the gray stone hallway, and float back up through the floor into the gaming exhibit.
Unsurprisingly, she saw Ghostfreak playing on a gaming system in the middle of the exhibit, too engrossed with Sumo Slammer to notice that Trixie had slipped inside behind him. The human Omnitrix glared as she reverted back to her natural state and walked up behind the Ectonurite. He still didn't notice she was there; that needed to change quickly.
"Initiate Omnitrix Deactivation sequence – Code 10," Trixie commanded aloud.
The Omnitrix beeped and flashed red, returning Ben to his human form and went into recharge mode. Ben looked down at himself, suddenly realizing that he wasn't Ghostfreak anymore.
"Huh? What the heck?" said Ben dimly. Trixie tapped him on the shoulder, forcing the young boy to finally acknowledge her presence. "What? Trixie? What're you doing here?"
"What am I doing in here?" Trixie practically screamed, jabbing Ben in the chest with her finger, making him stumble. "What are you doing in here? I have repeatedly told you time and time again that the Omnitrix is not a toy for you to use for your own personal enjoyment! It is the – "
"The most powerful and dangerous weapon in the universe – blah, blah, blah!" Ben said sarcastically while rolling his eyes. "Don't you ever get tired of saying that?"
"I wouldn't have to keep saying it if you would just get it through your thick skull!" snarled Trixie.
Ben opened his mouth to retort when he and Trixie felt a pair of strong hands on each of their shoulders. The children looked up and cowered under the heated gaze of the fierce-looking security guard.
"What do you two have to say for yourselves?" said the security guard, leering.
"Uh…game over?" Ben chuckled nervously. Trixie slapped him on the shoulder. "Ow!"
As expected, Ben and Trixie were immediately pulled up by their napes and tossed out onto the New York streets. If that wasn't bad enough, the security guard tracked down Gwen and Max and literally threw them out along with their luggage. The two unsuspecting Tennysons could only watch in a stupor.
"And never come back!" yelled the security guard.
"I told you not to sneak in there!" Trixie hissed at Ben. "I told you repeatedly not to use the Omnitrix to do something stupid and you still did it!"
"Hey, you got caught too," Ben countered.
"Because I was trying to stop you!" snapped Trixie.
"I can't believe you!" said Gwen in frustration. "I never even had a chance to take a shower – a real shower for the first time all summer! Plus, they had a spa – A SPA! Nice going, doofus!"
Ben Tennyson stayed silent, but was glowering the whole way as they walked back to the Rust Bucket parked across the street. The young boy thought it was unfair that all three of them were turning on him, but Trixie also thought it was unfair that they had to be punished for Ben's lack of thought.
It's only been a couple weeks since Ben and Gwen had found Trixie and the Omnitrix in that pod after it crash-landed in Yosemite Park and Trixie thought she was proggressing rather nicely in that short period of time. When she came out of that pod, she had been a blank slate lacking any real emotion, but now she was starting to learn about being human at an accelerated rate and she was becoming more expressive with her feelings. Unfortunately, most of those feelings were anger and exasperation towards Ben.
Time and time again, she had to tell him the difference between right and wrong and every time – every single fragging time – Ben would ignore her until he made the situation worse because of his thickheadedness. It was all starting to wear on Trixie; all of the rage and frustration she was keeping locked up inside her was starting to bubble up and Trixie was almost afraid she might actually explode in anger.
Her hands were starting shake as the emotions built up in her chest, opening and closing her finger repeatedly just to feel like she was doing something while Max was scolding his grandson.
"How do you expect me trust you if you keep misusing the Omnitrix?" Max berated Ben.
"Excuse me," scoffed Ben. "I used it a hundred times for good. Why can't I just use it once for me?"
"It's not how many times you use it, Ben," said Max. "It's how you use it."
"It was no big deal," Ben grumbled.
"To you," said Max. "And that's all you care about. So, no more Sumo Slammers stuff for two weeks. No comic, no trading cards, no – "
"Fair!" yelled Ben, jumping up angrily.
"Neither is being punished for your stupidity constantly," snapped Trixie from across the room. "That seems to be a recurring theme this whole trip, doesn't it? You do something stupid and everyone else has to pay for it. That stupid trading card in Washington, those bounty hunters in Slattersville, that giant rubber band ball in Sparksville – "
"So I made a couple of mistakes! Big deal!" Ben shouted back.
"Accidentally dropping Gwen's flash drive down the sink is a mistake!" shouted Trixie scathingly, marching up and getting right in Ben's face. "Ever since you found the Omnitrix, it's been one disaster after another! How I wish to Galvan Prime that it was Gwen who found the Omnitrix instead of you! At least she's responsible about it!"
"Okay, why don't we just cool down – " Gwen tried to make peace between the two.
"STAY OUT OF THIS!" Ben and Trixie snapped in unison; Gwen tried to make herself smaller in her seat.
"I'm the one who found the Omnitrix!" Ben spat in Trixie's face. "I'm the one with all the alien powers! You don't get to tell me what to do! You're not even a real person! You're just a talking instruction manual – "
BAM!
Gwen and Max gasped in shock as Ben dropped to the ground on his back, holding a hand over his left eye, looking up at Trixie with a stunned look on his face. The green-haired girl was horrified as she slowly looked down and saw her clenched fist hanging in the air where Ben's face had been a moment ago. Trixie pulled her hand against her chest, taking short, gasping breaths as her mind reeled over what she had just done.
Her hands were shaking again, not in anger, but in fear. She looked around at the Tennyson family and saw them all staring at her…staring at her like she was some kind of monster….
Trixie took a couple steps back, bumping into Max and jumping away from him, scared by the way he was looking at her as if she was something he couldn't recognize.
"Trixie…are you…?" Max said slowly, reaching out for her.
But he only needed to gently touch her shoulder for the human Omnitrix to let out a frightened scream that made Max, Gwen, and even Ben jump.
They were looking at her again…she couldn't stand the way they were looking at her…her mind was racing…she couldn't think straight…. Trixie closed her eyes, lowered her head, and shoved Max out of the way as she made a dash for the door, nearly tearing it off its hinges when she threw it open. Trixie pivoted on her feet, nearly tripping over herself,,, and ran down the street. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew that she couldn't go back to the Rust Bucket anymore.
"Trixie!" Gwen cried as she ran out the door with Max and Ben. "Trixie, come back!"
"Oh man, she hits hard for a girl," Ben groaned, rubbing the sore spot where she punched him - it was definitely going to leave a black eye. "Aw geez, now everyone's gonna make fun of me because I got beat up by a girl."
"Really, that's what you're worried about?" scoffed Gwen disgustedly. "Our friend is running lost and alone in the biggest city in the country."
"We have to find her before she gets herself in trouble," said Max, trying to keep a level head about the situation. "C'mon, she couldn't have gotten too far."
"You're a real jerk, you know that?" Gwen said the Ben before chasing after her grandfather.
Ben remained rooted in his spot for a moment, still rubbing the sore spot around his eye, when he felt the guilt starting to bubble in his stomach. Now that his head was clearer – and throbbing from his black eye – he remembered everything that he had said to Trixie and realized that Gwen was right: he was a jerk.
After running for what must have been ten city blocks, Trixie finally stopped in front of an arcade building called "Total Zone". She leaned forward with her hands on her knees to support herself as she took a moment to catch her breath.
She couldn't believe what she had just done. Sure, there were times when Trixie had slapped Ben when he deserved it, but all those instances were when he was in alien form. This was the first time Trixie had ever hit him with intention to harm. And now after what she did, Trixie's mind started to run off the worst possible scenarios. The way the Tennysons were looking at her obviously meant they weren't happy with what she did. What if they get angry at her? What if they just decide to drive away and leave her behind? What if –
"Calm down, Trixie, calm down," Trixie muttered to herself. "You just…you just need to pause for a moment and relax – think things over with a cool head." She took a couple of deep breathes and started to feel the adrenaline wear off. "Okay…okay…it's probably not that bad. No need to panic. You just…you just need to give everyone time to cool down. Yeah, that's it. Just give everyone a chance to calm down. You can…you can distract yourself for a couple hours and then go back. Everything should be okay then, right?"
Trixie didn't look as confident as she sounded, but knew there was no point in worrying about it right now. She was right; she needed to calm down before she went back to the Tennysons. And since she was already at an arcade, might as well occupy her mind with a few senseless video games while she's here.
The moment she walked through the doors, she was blasted with all kinds of noises, both electronic and human, and the large den was jammed packed with all kinds of devices that seemed archaic to someone who was tuned in with advanced technology. But she didn't come here to think about the Omnitrix or the person wearing it; she came here to clear her head.
Trixie stepped up to the only machine currently available – a baseball hitting simulator – and inserted the currency she occasionally got from Maxwell to pay for it. Trixie understood the basics of baseball from what she had seen on television and braced the faux bat on her shoulder while the pixelated pitcher started winding up their throw. But right at the moment when the simulated ball was thrown, the arcade machine suddenly beeped and flashed:
"Game over?" Trixie read aloud in surprise. "But I didn't even get a chance to play. Uh…hey, excuse me – "she called to a passing arcade employee, who looked mildly annoyed at Trixie. "Yes, excuse me. But this game just quit on me before I had a chance to use it."
"Read the sign, kid," said the employee rudely. "It says play at your own risk."
"What?" Trixie complained as the employee walked away. "You can't just take my money like that! It's not fair!"
"You're right, it totally not fair. You've just been ripped off, girl."
Trixie turned around at the voice and just now noticed another boy nearby leaning against one of the arcade machines.
He looked slightly older than Ben while thin and scrawny from lack of proper nourishment and pale skin from lack of sunlight, his black hair touched his shoulder and had dark-brown eyes. He wore a torn black T-shirt, black studded arm bands, brown cargo pants, black knee-length shoes, and a padlock necklace. He looked like the type of person that Max would tell her to stay away from, but the way he talked – like speaking from personal experience – made Trixie feel somewhat comfortable.
"Well, it wouldn't be the first time I've gotten the rougher end of a deal," Trixie complained, glaring at the back of the fleeing employee. "Just once I would like to go without someone trying to take advantage of me."
"Sounds like you have it tough," said the boy, smiling. "Tell you what, I'm gonna do you a little favor, but you owe me one."
The dark-haired boy stood up and walked over to the machine that ripped off Trixie. He pressed his hand flat against the screen and suddenly a surge of electricity flowed from his skin into the arcade device. The machine beeped and it started pouring out hundreds of quarters from the dispenser into a pile on the floor. Trixie's mouth fell in awe.
"Whoa, how'd you do that?" asked Trixie. "Are you one of those mutants I've been hearing about?"
"I guess you could say that," said the boy proudly.
"Well, thank you," said Trixie gratefully as she scooped up two handfuls of quarters and stuffed them in her pocket. "I'm Trixie, by the way. I don't really have a last name, so just call me Trixie."
"I'm Kevin Levin, but you can just call me Kevin," Kevin introduced himself pleasantly.
"Would you perhaps like to play the game of hockey on the air-powered table?" asked Trixie hopefully. She had only just met Kevin, but she was hoping that maybe he could be her first friend – she was basically obligated to follow Ben around because of the Omnitrix, so it didn't count.
"You are one weird chick, you know that?" Kevin chuckled and Trixie giggled in response. He was about to accept her offer when he noticed a couple of tough-looking teenagers walk around the corner. They spotted Kevin and bared their teeth and knuckles in his direction. "Uh, you know what, I really can't. I uh…kinda have to go somewhere. But, hey, we should totally hang sometime, Trix."
"Trix," repeated Trixie, grinning with excitement as her new friend walked away. "My first nickname…. Whoa, hey, watch it!" she snapped at the pair of teenagers as they pushed her out of the way.
Kevin looked over his shoulder when he saw the two teenagers and started walking faster towards the exit. Unfortunately, his escape was cut off by a third teenager that suddenly jumped out from behind one of the machines.
"Long time, no see," said the teenager as his gang surrounded Kevin. "Where you going, freak? Home to recharge your batteries?"
Kevin backed away from the punky-looking teen – he must have been the gang leader – but he walked back into the other two gang members that kept Kevin in his place. And the whole time, Trixie was watching from a few feet away. They had her new friend outnumbered and outmatched. She couldn't stand for that.
"Hey, leave him alone!" Trixie shouted at them, stomping up to the gang.
"Get lost before you break a nail, girly," one of the teens scoffed and shoved Trixie to the floor.
Trixie pushed herself up by her elbows and gritted her teeth, but the boys scoffed and turned their attention back on Kevin. As if it wasn't bad enough that she was constantly being dragged around by Ben, now these boys were literally pushing her around. Her frustration was reaching a boiling point and felt the sudden urge to sock them in the face too….
So why didn't she, Trixie thought with a dark smirk.
"Accessing Appoplexian sequence," she muttered.
"So, how's the hang out," Kevin asked them in a sarcastic manner. "Still trashed like I left it for you?"
"Yeah, and you're gonna pay," said the leader dangerously. "You can't take us all alone, freak."
Just as the gang leader was pulling back his fist to wail on Kevin, the punky teenagers (along with everyone else in the arcade) was rattled when they heard something that sounded terrifyingly akin to a tiger's roar.
Kevin and the street gang were looking around in a panic when the boy holding Kevin's left arm was suddenly ripped away and lifted off the ground by a pair of small hands. The helpless teenager flailed in the air while his gang members slowly backed away in terror and Kevin broke out in a wide grin.
Trixie was holding up the fattest of the teenage gang members over her head as if he weighed less than loaf of bread, baring her teeth and snarling monstrously. Since the arcade room was semi-dark, neither Kevin nor the street gang could tell the shading of Trixie's hair had turned into a mixture of orange and black stripes, or that her pupils had become slits and there were black markings around them. All they saw was a ten-year-old girl lifting their heaviest member in the air before she tossed him into the basketball game and scored three points. Trixie roared again and the arcade machines closest to her rattled like they were in a miniature earthquake; the street gang cried and some of them held each other.
"Let me tell you something, New York street punks!" yelled Trixie. "Nobody goes around picking on Trixie and Trixie's friends Kevin Levin! NOBODY!"
The Human Omnitrix pounced forward and tackled the gang leader to the ground, rolled around a couple times, and then flung him over her shoulder. The punk leader was sent flying across the arcade and slammed on top of the prize counter before falling over on the other side; the attendant screamed and ducked for safety. Trixie snapped her head to the last member of the street gang and snarled. The young punk screamed like a little girl and ran away. Normally, Trixie would have just accepted the victory and let him walk away, but the Appoplexian DNA was making her act on her impulses and caused her to chase after him.
The last of the teenage punks skidded around the back corner of the arcade room, nearly tripping over himself, and was starting to run past the air hockey table when Trixie suddenly leapt over the wall of arcade machines and tackled him to the ground. The gang member tried crawling away, but Trixie grabbed him by the back of his jacket and lifted him over her head. She turned to the air hockey table and flashed a predatory grin before slamming him down onto the game table. The air hockey field cracked in half and Trixie dropped the teenage punk in the middle of it, laughing when a pair of pucks tilted and smacked him in the head.
With her heightened sense of hearing, Trixie could tell that the arcade employees were calling security, which meant she needed to make herself scarce – she may have Appoplexian DNA, but she still had some intelligence left in her.
As she climbed on top of the arcade machines to leap across, she spotted Kevin staring at her from below. Instead of the horrified looks that the Tennyson's had given her when she clocked Ben, Kevin looked happy, if not excited to receive her help. The Human Omnitrix waved at him kindly before leaping across the arcade.
Five minutes later, Trixie was standing outside the arcade in her normal form once the Appoplexian DNA had run its course (she did have an altercation with a hot dog vendor before she changed back, but that was another story).
Now that the adrenaline was out of her system, the sudden realization of what Trixie had done came flooding back to her: she had used her powers on humans. Sure, she had done the same with people like Animo and those Friends of Fish imposters, but this had been different. Animo and the poachers had been criminals, but these were just a bunch of ne'er-do-well New York street urchins. The green-haired girl groaned and started pacing around with her hands in her hair.
"Ooh, I can't believe I just did that," groaned Trixie. "First I punched out Ben and now I went and did something like this. What is wrong with me today? I mean, it's not entirely without reason, right? Kevin helped me so I helped him in return. I was just returning a favor. Yeah, that's it, just returning a favor. I didn't do anything bad, right?"
"Trix!" Kevin called as he ran out of the arcade; Trixie yelped in surprise. "Trix, dude, that was totally awesome! Did you see what you did to those losers? I think you gave Mike a concussion! How did you do that?"
"Uh…well, you know," said Trixie, chuckling nervously and looked anywhere except Kevin. "Just…eat your vegetables, drink milk, and get a good night's sleep is all?"
"Cool," Kevin complimented. "Hey, you're new in town, right? Want a tour of New York?"
"Hmm…I don't know," Trixie mumbled thoughtfully. "I really should be getting back to my friends. Although, they probably don't want to see me any more after what I did. As you saw in there, I haven't exactly been in the best of moods today. They might still be angry with me."
"Then that works out perfectly for us," said Kevin. "We can go exploring around New York together while you give your friends some space. By the time you go back, I bet they'll have cooled their heads off then."
"Well, I guess it couldn't hurt," said Trixie, finding the logic in Kevin's statement.
"Sweet," Kevin cheered, throwing a friendly arm around her shoulder. "C'mon, I gotta how you this awesome pizza shop owned in Harlem with the weirdest toppings…."
Kevin's version of a New York City tour wasn't something Trixie would expect to see with a typical guide nor did most of it seem legal, but it was a lot more fun.
He had kept his words about visiting a small, hole-in-the-wall pizza shop that catered to a large selection of unusual toppings including jellybeans, sauerkraut, pickles, tuna fish, horseradish, and frog legs. Trixie and Kevin's learned they both have…unique tastes and enjoyed a pizza that made even the chef gag.
Kevin then took her to central park, where they spend nearly half an hour fishing in the big lake. They had caught four fish each until they were caught by the park police and hightailed it out of there. They managed to give the coppers the slip in record time and enjoyed grilled fish over a dumpster fire in the back alleys.
Afterwards, Kevin took her to a type of underground flea market where they sold all sorts of questionable items Trixie was certain were outlawed in multiple countries. Trixie was tempted to purchase something called a neurotomic protocore, but they had to bail quickly as the officer who followed them from the park barged in and everyone scrambled.
After such an action-packed day, Trixie was starting to forget the incident at the Rust Bucket and just wanted to enjoy Kevin's company. The two of them were so much alike in as many ways as they were opposites. Trixie couldn't stop smiling the entire day and wondered if this is what it was like to have a best friend.
"Hey, Kevin, I've been meaning to ask," said Trixie as they walked down 24th street together. "How did you get your power? Were you born with it or – "
"Yeah, it's something like that," Kevin nodded. "I'm like an energy sponge. Motors, air conditioners, lights, batteries – whatever gives off power. I soak it up and then I dish it out when I have to, or want to."
"I've always been so fascinated by mutations," said Trixie appreciatively. "The genetic alteration of what one would consider normal. Unfortunately, if there is one thing I have learned about the human race, it's that they don't accept anything that's considered strange or abnormal.
"Yeah, well, humans aren't the smartest people in the world," said Kevin, frowning. "Enough of this depressing stuff. C'mon, I'll show you where I live."
Ben, Gwen, and Max reconvened at the Rust Bucket many hours later after Trixie had run off.
"Either of you find her?" Max asked his grandchildren worriedly.
"She wasn't at the hotel," answered Gwen.
"She wasn't down by the docks either," said Ben. "You'd think a girl with green hair would be easy to find, but I found at least twelve girls with green hair. This city is weird."
"This is very bad," said Max. "Trixie is still new to this whole Earth thing and she could easily be swept up into something very bad, or fall in with the wrong crowd. We need to keep looking."
"Hey, why don't I turn into Jetray and get a bird's-eye view?" suggested Ben, already activating the Omnitrix and turning the dial. "Or maybe I can go Fasttrack and – "
"You going alien is what got us in this mess in the first place!" snapped Gwen, slapping her cousin's hand away from the Omnitrix.
"Gwen is right, Ben," said Max seriously. "You've already done enough trouble with that watch. We don't need any more of it. Now come on – " He opened the door and walked inside the Rust Bucket. "Maybe we can search Midtown or Brooklyn in case she decided to get on the subway."
Gwen quickly followed her grandfather inside as the older man started up the RV, but Ben remained rooted in his spot, head hanging in shame. If anything happened to Trixie because he was a jerk….
Ben shook his head and hopped back inside the Rust Bucket before it took off.
Just as Max had predicted, Trixie did end up in the subway system that ran underneath the city, but it seemed like the station Kevin was leading her to have been abandoned for a while, either because there was a structural problem or simply fell out of use.
Kevin converted the abandoned station into a semi-livable quarter with a bunch of televisions and gaming systems scattered everywhere, a broken vending machine for sustenance, and a moth-eaten sofa with a few blankets draped over the back. It wasn't the kinda of place Trixie would prefer to live in, but it was adequate.
"You live here?" asked Trixie, eying the candy wrappers on the floor.
"Pretty much," said Kevin, shrugging. "It's not a five-star hotel, but at least I get the whole place to myself."
"What about your family?" asked Trixie.
"Long gone," Kevin scoffed. "Remember what you were saying about mutants earlier? Well, my folks weren't exactly thrilled with having a freak for a son. But hey, it's not all bad. This means I don't have to answer to anybody."
"Doesn't it ever get lonely?" asked Trixie.
"Yeah…sometimes," Kevin admitted. "But sometimes it's better than being around a bunch of people who only see you as a freak."
"Like that street gang that was after you?" asked Trixie. "Why were they after you, if you don't mind answering?"
"I…kinda trashed their hang out under the 39th street bridge," said Kevin. "But what about you? Sounds like you and your friends aren't getting along any more. Did something happen?"
"More like someone," Trixie scoffed. "We were going to be staying at a nice hotel that Maxwell was kind enough to pay for, and then Benjamin had to be his usual ignorant self and sneak into some stupid Sumo Slammers video game exhibit. I told him repeatedly not to do it, but he ignores me as usual and does it anyway. And as you can expect, he got caught and we got kicked out of the hotel." She walked over to the couch and plopped down with her arms crossed. "It's not the first time he's done something stupid that's gotten everyone else in trouble. He thinks he can do whatever he wants without consequences and then he expects me to clean up the mess for him. It's so unfair."
"That sounds rough," said Kevin sympathetically.
"It gets worse," said Trixie. "He then had the nerve to blame me for him getting caught and said something that...that made me feel bad. I was so upset that I…what's the expression? Punched his lights out? I know I should feel awful about doing it, but being able to express myself physically felt…good. Does that make me a bad person?"
"No, it means you're human," said Kevin kindly. He walked over to the couch, took a seat next to Trixie, and rested his hand on her shoulder. "It's not good to keep all those feelings bottled up inside; they'll just end up exploding like they did with your friends. Sometimes you just need to yell and punch stuff, or just sit down and talk about it to let off some of that steam. That doesn't make you a bad person, Trix. So…you feel better after talking about it?"
"Actually…yes, I do," said Trixie, surprised how relieved she was to finally talk about her feelings with the boy. "Thank you, Kevin."
"Hey, it's no big deal," said Kevin, waving it off. "But you know what would make you feel even better? Getting back at your friend."
"How do I do that?" asked Trixie curiously.
Kevin only smirked in response.
Both of them snuck out to the storage warehouse on the docks later that night. Trixie didn't feel right about sneaking out after dark when Maxwell had warned Benjamin multiple times in the past not to, but Kevin convinced her that – just this once – she should stop being responsible and have some fun. And after thinking about it, Trixie agreed, which was why they were pressing their backs against the wall outside the warehouse doors, keeping an eye out for any late-night guardsmen.
"Why are we here again?" asked Trixie.
"I got a tip that a new shipment of Sumo Slammer video games just came in today," Kevin informed her. "Your friend got you kicked out because he wanted to play it, so what better way to get back at him than having a copy of the game he wanted for yourself."
Trixie did have to admit that there was some logic to that.
Kevin walked up to the security keypad and destroyed it with his powers before turning to Trixie and asking: "Help me kick in the door."
With Kevin's powers combined with Trixie secretly slipping some Appoplexian DNA into her veins temporarily, they were able to bust down the door with a single kick. Unfortunately, neither one of them noticed that they had set off the silent alarm system – Kevin was too busy finding the light switch and Trixie had no idea what she was doing in the first place.
Kevin managed to flip on the lights eventually and illuminated the warehouse filled with thousands of shipment crates, much to Trixie amazement. Kevin walked over to one of the crates nearby and ripped the top open with a grin.
"Check it out," said Kevin, pulling out a copy of the Sumo Slammers game and tossing it to Trixie. "Merry early Christmas to you."
"Oh yeah," said Trixie amusingly as she caught the game. "I can't wait to see the look on Benjamin's face when – "
The Human Omnitrix was cut off when the glass panes of the windows suddenly shattered and cans exhaling smoke landed at their feet. Smoke grenades.
A beam of light flashed through the upper windows carried by the sound of a helicopter propeller and multiple police sirens. Trixie edged closer to one of the lower windows and peeked around the corner. Three heavily-armed helicopters, dozens of SWAT trucks, and a bunch of men armed to the teeth were circling the building.
"Seriously, all this for a couple of video games?" said Kevin, more annoyed than scared.
"What're we going to do?" Trixie asked him.
"We're getting out of here, that's what," said Kevin.
The dark-haired mutant took off running toward the opposite end of the warehouse and Trixie was right behind him, not caring that she dropped her newly acquired video game on the ground.
Unfortunately, the helicopter's spotlight landed on them midway and forced the pair to run in the opposite direction. But while Trixie kept going, Kevin stopped to absorb the energy from a nearby electric socket. Trixie had almost reached the warehouse exit when the doors were kicked in and the two police officers blocked her off.
"Freeze! Hands where I can see them!" shouted the officer, holding Trixie at gunpoint.
Trixie did as she was ordered and lifted her hands about her head, but she was saved in a timely fashion when Kevin drove by in a forklift and crashed the vehicle into the coppers before jumping out. The forklift carried the officers to the other side of the warehouse where they drove through the mountain of Sumo Slammer video game crates, which came tumbling down on their heads. They didn't get back up.
"Thanks for that," said Trixie gratefully.
"Any time," said Kevin, grinning. "Now let's go!"
They dashed out the door and started running for freedom when the end of the alleyway was suddenly blocked off by a police car. Kevin and Trixie pivoted on their heels and start to run back when another squad car blocks off their other escape route. And as if being trapped on both sides wasn't bad enough, one of the SWAT helicopters was flying low with its spotlight focused on them. With all of their escape routes blocked off, the children had no choice but to duck back inside the warehouse and slam the door behind them.
"There's no way out!" yelled Trixie. "We're going to go to jail and I still haven't gotten my tattoo!"
"Calm down, we'll find another way out of this," said Kevin coolly. But when he leaned over to peek outside, he didn't seem half as confident. "Uh…got any ideas? Like, maybe you can just punch them out like you did those losers at the arcade."
"Wait…I can do even better," said Trixie, suddenly coming to a realization. "I might have a way out of this, Kevin, but can you promise to keep a secret. It's very important."
"C'mon, Trix, you know you can trust me," said Kevin.
Trixie hesitated at first. Maxwell had always told her never to use her powers where people couldn't see her, because that usually meant it would come back to bite them in the future. But when she heard the clacking of over two dozen SWAT boots running around outside and started pounding against the door, Trixie suddenly realized she didn't care as much right now.
"Accessing Pyronite sequence," said Trixie.
Kevin raised a brow at the smaller girl, clueless as to why she was talking to herself, but jumped back when Trixie's hair suddenly burst into a wavy mass of flames and bits of flaming pebbles formed around her eyes. When Trixie saw the stupefied look on Kevin's face, she couldn't resist laughing.
"Dude, your head's on fire!" Kevin yelped.
"I know," Trixie chuckled before grabbed Kevin's arm and pulled it over her shoulder. "Now hang on to me and don't let go. That is going to get very hectic."
The SWAT team finally manages to kick the door down…and immediately jump out of the path of the raging fireball flying over their heads.
The fireball swerved around the air through the ranks like a meteor and zoomed out into the bay; two of the SWAT helicopters quickly pursued the flames, not knowing it was a flaming ten-year-old girl with an eleven-year-old boy clinging to her back. The Human Omnitrix did a quick dive, touched the surface of the water, and then pulled back up just to show off.
"WOO-HOO!" Kevin screamed exhilarated. "And people call me a freak! How'd you do that?"
"Explanations later!" cried Trixie as she looked over her shoulders.
The SWAT helicopter was gaining on them fast and the armed forces tried shooting them down. Trixie leaned to the left to avoid the first few shots, then swerved to the right, and kept repeating this pattern while making their way towards the Statue of Liberty.
Trixie flew near the Statue's head, close enough for Kevin to run along the monument's face, and slipped through the spikes of its crown where the helicopters couldn't follow them. The SWAT teams quickly broke off pursuit and started flying around the Statue of Liberty, but they couldn't see the flying fireball as they went around the back.
"Where'd they go?" asked one of the SWAT pilots.
The helicopters continued to circle around the Statue of Liberty, not realizing that Kevin and Trixie were clinging to the underside of one of their vehicles. Kevin certainly looked like he was having a good time, but Trixie was nervously looked at her watch.
"I'm running out of time," Trixie informed Kevin. "I'll try losing them in the city."
Just as Trixie started to take off with Kevin, the SWAT teams finally noticed their little hiding place and started shooting up a storm. Thankfully, Trixie was too fast for them to get a good shot. Trixie dodged and curved around the bullets, some of them coming dangerously close to her head, as they flew over the bay directly into the city.
She made a tight curve around one of the skyscrapers, which nearly unbalanced a poor window washer who was stuck with the graveyard shift (though he did lose his favorite squeegee). Unfortunately, the SWAT helicopters were already on their trail again, so Trixie decided to take them down directly into street traffic, hoping they wouldn't be foolish enough to try and shoot in an area congested with civilians.
Her plan worked out perfectly as the SWAT team refrained from shooting them, but when Trixie chanced a look over her shoulder, a New York City tour bus came out of nowhere and railed them from the side. Trixie started spinning out of control and forced herself to climb higher until she could reorient herself. But as luck would have it, the moment Trixie was clear of civilians, the SWAT team started shooting again.
Trixie never noticed, as they zipped through the streets again, that they had passed the Rust Bucket and the Tennysons inside.
They flew past a camera crew by accident and Trixie stopped in midair when she realized their faces were sprayed all over the Time Square monitors – Kevin was actually bold to flash a peace sign. Predictably, the SWAT team started shooting them again and ended up killing the television monitors instead of their intended targets.
"These people just don't know when to quit!" screamed Trixie as she took off again with the SWAT teams in hot pursuit. She was starting to worry that they would actually chase her until time ran out until she stopped over a highway bridge and spotted a truck transporting cars driving by. "Wait, I've got an idea!"
Trixie dived in low to mingle with the traffic, making their way towards the towing truck, and managed to reach it in time before they started going through the tunnel. The SWAT helicopters had to break off pursuit before they crashed into the bridge and quickly altered their course to chase them on the other side. But when they reached the opposite end of the tunnel, they were surprised to find that the flying fireball was nowhere to be see.
"Hey, where'd that thing go?" asked one of the SWAT members.
The SWAT team was utterly baffled by the phenomenon that they failed to notice that Trixie – having reverted to her natural state – and Kevin were ducking inside one of the cars being towed. The trouble-making pair watched the SWAT helicopters get farther away, then turned to each other and shared an excited high-five.
A little while later, Kevin and Trixie managed to jump the truck when it turned into Brooklynn and made a run for it in case the SWAT decided to do another sweep; Kevin did just show his face in Time Square for everyone to see. They turned down a random dark alley and stopped for a moment to catch their breaths.
"So…you're not really human, are you?" asked Kevin. "You're a mutant like me. You have some power that lets you catch on fire and fly around like that?"
"I'm not a mutant, honestly," Trixie admitted. "I'm not even from this planet. I guess you could say I'm an alien. I have the power to merge my DNA with a million different species of aliens, but I only have access to eleven of them right now and I can only do partial transformations instead of full. The one you just saw me with was a Pyronite."
"So that thing you did back on the arcade when you beat up those losers?" asked Kevin, remembering Trixie's wild display.
"Appoplexian," answered Trixie simply. "They are a strong species, but they are very prone to their emotions – most common being anger."
"You are so awesome!" said Kevin excitedly. "Show me what other powers you can use."
"It doesn't work like that," said Trixie, shaking her head. "I can only access one alien at a time for a maximum of ten minutes. After that, I have to wait for my connection to recharge before I can access it again."
"Seems legit," said Kevin, nodded. Then a thought crossed the boy's mind and a wicked grin stretched across his face; the kind Trixie had seen on many villains in the past. "You know what? We should be partners. Between the two of us, with our powers, we could do whatever we want, whenever we want. And we'd totally cash in. What do you say, Trix?"
"I don't know…," murmured Trixie uncertainly.
"C'mon, Trix," said Kevin persuasively, offering his hand. "We're friends, right?"
Trixie bit her lip while her brain was running a million miles a minute. The rational part of Trixie's mind told her that Kevin was bad news and now that he knew about her powers, he would use them to get whatever he wanted. But another part of her brain reminded her that Kevin was her friend. He had been nothing but kind and supportive since the moment they met. He wasn't the kind of person who would take advantage of her…right?
"Yeah…friends," Trixie hesitated, but shook his hand nonetheless.
The Rust Bucket zipped through the city way faster than the recommended speed limit as Grandpa Max slammed his foot on the accelerator. They had seen the police chase on television and heard it on the radio, but it was so surreal to think that Trixie had somehow gone from a support character to a New York City criminal overnight. Ben was sitting in the passenger's seat next to his grandfather, slumping further into his seat and the radio continued to report the "flying meteor children" over the Manhattan skyline, his stomach feeling an uncomfortable amount of guilt.
"I just can't believe it," said Max, sighing in disappointment. "This is the kind of stunt I would expect you to pull, Ben, but not Trixie. She's always been such a good kid. How could it have gone so wrong so fast?"
"You do realize this is all your fault, Ben," Gwen told him from the table. "If Trixie ends up in prison, you'll be the one responsible."
"I know," said Ben depressingly. "You're right: it is my fault. I just hope Trixie is okay."
Gwen was stunned into silence in that moment. She had expected Ben to retaliate and argue that Trixie was the one in trouble, not him. The way he accepted responsibility so easy was a sign of just how bad things have gotten.
They needed to find Trixie – fast.
Kevin and Trixie returned to the subway system in another part of the city that was not abandoned like the one Kevin called home. The children climbed over the turnstile and stopped at the edge of the platform overlooking the railway beneath them.
"Check it out," said Kevin, pointing his thumb to a nearby lamp. "Give me a boost, I need to recharge."
Trixie cupped her hands together and lifted the dark-haired boy closer to the lamp for him to touch. Kevin quickly absorbed the lamps energy until it flickered off, then jumped back to the ground with his arms surging with electricity.
The mutant boy jumped onto the railway tracks with Trixie cautiously following behind, check up and down the tunnels to see if there were any trains headed their way. Kevin reached the train switch in between the tracks and used the energy he stored to force the machine alive and alter the course of the two tracks to meet one another. Trixie saw this and had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"What are we doing exactly, Kevin?" asked Trixie uncertainly.
"A money train loaded with cash comes down this track," Kevin explained with a horribly gleeful look in his eyes. "So when it crashes into the oncoming passenger train – BOOM! Instant jackpot! You use that Appo – whatever it's called power and we carry the cash all the way to Miami!"
"But hundreds of innocent people will be killed!" gasped Trixie.
"Hey, no pain, no gain," said Kevin, shrugging nonchalantly at the idea of hundreds dying.
"You can't do this!" said Trixie firmly.
"Sure I can," said Kevin smugly. "I just switched the tracks."
"I mean, I'm not going to let you do this!" Trixie repeated, leering at her friend.
"…we shook on it," said Kevin in a dangerously low voice. "We're partners."
"No, this is going too far, Kevin," said Trixie.
"Then try and stop me, alien freak," hissed Kevin.
"I thought you were my friend…I thought there was finally someone who cared about me…," said Trixie in a soft, saddened voice. "But you don't care about anyone but yourself."
"Hey, I tried to help you," Kevin retorted. "Who was there for you when you blew it with your so-called friends?"
"You're right, you were there for me," Trixie agreed. "Which is why I have to be there for you. I have to stop you before you make a decision I know you're going to regret."
Trixie started to walk around the dark-haired boy when Kevin suddenly grabbed her by the shoulder, spun her around, and threw her back on the tracks and against the wall. Trixie pushed herself up on her hands and knees, wiping away the dirt on her face with the back of her hands, and gave Kevin a hard stare. The mutant boy slowly approached her with his hands sparking with electricity as the green-haired girl stood up.
"Oh, you do not want to make me mad," said Kevin snidely. "You wouldn't like me when I'm mad."
"That goes for both of us," said Trixie, clenching her fists. "Accessing Petrosapien sequence!"
Trixie's hair transformed into a rigid curtain of hard, light-green crystals with two crystal spikes appeared on each of her forearms and her eyes became solid yellow gemstones. Kevin was momentarily awestruck by her new transformation – and who could blame him – but his brain finally caught up with the times and glared angrily at his former partner. The dark-haired boy took a single step forward, but stopped himself from advancing when Trixie's hair suddenly came to life and suddenly fired a line of six crystal shards between them.
"Don't take another step, Kevin," Trixie warned him.
"Or what?" Kevin challenged mockingly. "You gonna make me some fancy earrings?"
"If you continue to go down this path, Kevin, I will stop you," said Trixie, her voice completely devoid of all emotion. "I still think we can be friends, but you need to stop this right now."
Kevin sneered at the Human Omnitrix, but he clearly wasn't afraid of her.
With a quick glance out of his peripheral, Kevin pivoted on his foot and ran back to the railway switcher. He slammed one hand on the machine and started to absorb the electrical energy before holding out the other hand and released the energy at Trixie.
The part-Petrosapien turned around so that her back was facing Kevin's direction, using her crystalized hair as a shield to deflect the electricity away from her and sending it into the ceiling. Trixie turned back around to face Kevin and nearly tripped over herself when she realized the mutant boy was running up to her. Before Trixie could put up her defenses, Kevin grabbed her by the arms and they begin to struggle for superiority.
Trixie quickly found herself being pushed back by Kevin as he was clearly the stronger of the two (it didn't seem like she possessed the Petrosapien's strength). The energy-absorbing mutant was close to shoving her down when an electrical surge passed through both children. Trixie's skin was tingling – it was like every muscle and sinew was being overcharged. The feedback between them finally reached its peak and blasted Kevin and Trixie to opposite sides of the tracks.
Trixie groaned as she sat up and rubbed her throbbing head…until she realized that her hand felt unusually hard.
Trixie looked down at herself and nearly jumped out of her skin in shock. Her hair still looked like a chandelier and her eyes were a pair of topaz, but the spikes had disappeared from both of her arms and were replaced by her entire right arm taking the shape of a fully-transformed Petrosapien. The Human Omnitrix looked over her limb in awe – it was still only a partial transformation, but her powers had evolved again.
"The energy feedback must have triggered a chemical reaction within my physiology," said Trixie thoughtfully. "I think I might actually – whoa!"
Trixie yelped when she looked ahead and ducked out of the way as three crystal shards came flying for her head. She flipped to the side using her new arm to support herself and landed on her feet, turning her focus to the source of the attack. As much as Trixie had seen in the past few weeks, it was nothing compared to seeing Kevin standing across the station, his head and left arm an exact copy of Ben's Diamondhead transformation.
"Kevin…how…?" questioned Trixie.
"I absorb energy, remember?" said Kevin wickedly. "You didn't think it was just electricity, did ya? I can absorb energy from everything, even people."
"You don't have to do this, Kevin," said Trixie.
Even as she said that, Trixie still swung her Petrosapien arm across the air and fired off a small cluster of green shards. Diamond-Kevin broke the crystal projectiles with his own arm and retaliated by slamming his fist into the ground, creating a pillar of crystal that slammed into Trixie's chest. The crystal-haired girl landed on her back, feeling her whole-body rattle from the hit.
On the positive side, it looked like her evolved powers had given her the Petrospaien invulnerability. On the negative side, Kevin had only had these powers for a few seconds and he was already more powerful than her.
"It's time I finally got what's coming to me," hissed Kevin. "Nobody's calling me freak anymore!" At that moment, both children could hear the blares of the subway train's horns and spotted their headlights down the dark tunnels. "Today is payday."
Trixie pushed herself up to her hands and knees, looking between the tunnels on opposite ends that were soon going to collide because of Kevin's tampering. There was no way she was strong enough to stop them even with a full transformation, and any attempt at trying to slow the down would likely result in some injury from the passengers. No, the only safe route was to switch the tracks back to their original paths. Since there was no way she would be able to run for the switcher without Kevin getting in the way, Trixie decided to dig deep for her inner-Ben and took a gamble by shooting a pair of crystal shards at the machine.
Thankfully, her gamble paid off. The tracks managed to switch themselves at the very last second, diverting the train carrying the money to its original course while the passenger train would pass harmlessly alongside it. But in her hurry to save lives, Trixie had complete forgotten that she was in the middle of the tracks!
The crystal-haired girl gasped in a panic, but Trixie calmed her mind and made a running leap at the train with her Petrospaien arm held out in front. Her crystalized limb slammed into the train car, keeping her temporarily suspended as she was carried by the train, and then pulled her body back so that she would flip on top of the subway roof. Kevin gnashed his teeth as he watched Trixie being carried away by the train after ruining his plans.
"You know what, forget the money," scoffed Kevin. "Time to get some priceless revenge."
Trixie was barely holding onto the edge of the train car since she only had strength in one arm and was flying through the tunnels at a blazing one hundred miles per hour. It was only a matter of time before her fingers slipped and the Human Omnitrix started bouncing from car to car. Just as she was about to fly over the third car, Trixie willed her hand to become a pointed blade like the one Ben often used as Diamondhead and stabbed her weapon through the train's roof. Her bladed hand ripped through a few feet of the metal before she finally stopped moving; she could hear the passengers screaming in a blind panic inside.
"I am going to be in so much trouble for this," groaned Trixie.
"And expect heavy delays on the uptown subway lines through fifty-first street," the Rust Bucket's radio told the Tennyson family as they drove through the exact area where Trixie and Kevin were. "There have been reports of…honestly I don't know what to call it. Just weird things have been happening down there, like something out of a sci-fi movie."
"That's gotta be Trixie," said Ben urgently. "Grandpa!"
"Go get her, Ben!" said Max. "We'll be right behind you!"
Ben nodded in agreement as he unbuckled himself from the seat and ran to the back of the Rust Bucket. He wasted little time activating the Omnitrix's core and took less than a minute to find the specific alien he was looking for before slamming the core down. The Omnitrix must have somehow sensed Ben's desperation and complied with his wishes, because when the green light faded away, Jetray stood crouched in the middle of the RV.
"I'm going on ahead!" said Jetray.
"Be careful!" warned Gwen.
The Aerophibian opened the Rust Bucket door while it was still in motion, causing much of the oncoming traffic to swerve out of the way, and took off into the skies.
Back aboard the subway train, Trixie had been able to maintain her hold on the car's rooftop until her luck (and time) finally ran out. Trixie hadn't realized that it had already been ten minutes since she had transformed and stared at her arm despairingly as it returned to flesh and bone while her hair went limp around her shoulders.
"Now I know how Benjamin feels!" Trixie screamed, clinging to the surface of the train for dear life just as the train exited the tunnel. "I – can't – hold out. Ooh, I can't believe I'm saying this…but I wish Benjamin were here!"
"Your wish is my command!"
Trixie gasped and looked to the sky, spying a familiar red and yellow manta-like alien swooping down from above.
"Benjamin!" cried Trixie, happy to see him for the first time since this morning.
"I've got you!" said Jetray.
The aerophibian glided alongside the train until he was soaring side-by-side with his green-haired partner, which was fairly difficult considering the wind speeds around the train were doing a good job trying to throw him off course. It took some careful maneuvering around the trains slipstream, but Jetray managed to raise himself over the speeding train until he was on top of Trixie and cautiously pried the girl off with his small hands. He flipped the small girl around and held her close to his thin chest, wrapping one of his wings around her like a security blanket, before he finally pulled away from the train.
Now that he had the peace of mind knowing that Trixie was safe, the aerophibian stared down at the small girl and noticed the faraway look in her eyes.
"Trixie…," Jetray spoke cautiously. "Are you okay?"
"I screwed up, Benjamin…," Trixie murmured in a small, defeated voice. "I screwed up so bad."
Jetray managed to find the Rust Bucket parked on the side of the road in uptown Brooklyn and returned safely with Trixie in tow – and, of course, no New Yorker even spared a glance at the giant, talking manta ray alien like it was an everyday occurrence. Trixie officially decided she hated New York.
The green-haired girl took a seat on the edge of the couch while Maxwell stood over her, giving her a well-deserved scolding and Ben and Gwen could only look on with sympathy for the poor alien girl.
"I honestly don't know what to say to you, Trixie," said Max harshly. "This is the kind of thing I would expect from Ben and Gwen – " the Tennysons voiced their complaints, but Max held up a hand to silence them " – but this coming from you? You've always been so polite and responsible. I just can't imagine why you would go along with any of it."
"It's because I'm always so responsible that I wanted to do it," said Trixie honestly. "Every day, it feels like I always have to be the grown-up and do the right thing. I may be the sentient thoughts of the Omnitrix, but biologically speaking, I was just 'born' a few weeks ago when you three found me in Yosemite. I just thought for once I wanted to stop being responsible and just do something I wanted to do for a change…. I just wanted to be a kid."
The Rust Bucket became uncomfortably silent. Max's fierce look usually reserved for punishment softened sadly while Ben and Gwen shared guilty looks. It had suddenly dawned on everyone that they had seen Trixie as some wise, all-knowing alien encyclopedia that they had forgotten she was still only a child in both a physical and emotional sense.
"I'm…sorry…if we made you feel that way, Trixie," Max apologized. "But even still, you should have known what you were doing was wrong."
"I do know," Trixie admitted with a nod. "And I also know that Kevin is probably misusing the Petrosapien DNA he absorbed from me right now."
"Trixie's right," Gwen, more than happy to move on to a less uncomfortably subject. "There's no telling what he might do now."
"Okay, so where is he?" Max asked Trixie.
Trixie tilted her head and silently thought for a moment, trying to remember every detail about Kevin she had known from today. From all of their interactions, she knew that Kevin liked to take things for himself and he didn't like listening to authority. She knew that with his new powers, he could take whatever he wanted...or settle an old score with some thugs who were constantly harassing him. And Kevin just so happened to mention where their hideout was in passing.
"I think I know," said Trixie.
The 39th street was the source of many rumbles and crashes echoing in the nearly abandoned downtown neighborhood. The street gang that had harassed Kevin and Trixie had got their whole group together and had been making plans on how to get them back…until the ground was ripped open my many crystal spikes that destroyed what little property they had left. The gang members started whimpering like wounded dogs as a familiar half-boy, half-Petrosapien casually walked under the bridge, shooting crystal shards from his fingers.
"Uh, Kevin, we can work this out!" the leader pleaded desperately.
"I don't think so…," said Kevin threatening as he extended his hand into a blade.
If there was one thing that Trixie hated more than New York people, it was New York traffic. Nearly every street in the entire borough was jammed with back-to-back traffic with no sign of anyone moving over the last ten minutes. And worst of all were the morons who thought honking their horns would actually help…which was why Trixie had her face her hand hands when Maxwell repeatedly slammed her hand on the horn.
"Move it! Move it!" screamed Max impatiently.
"I'll go Jetray again," Ben suggested as he activated the Omnitrix core again. "I'll meet you all at the 39th street bridge."
"Hold it, Benjamin," Trixie interjected before the boy could slam the core down. The young boy stared as she walked to the back of the Rust Bucket and stood in front of the door. "Kevin is my responsibility. I'm the one who gave him his powers, even if it was against my wishes. If anyone is going to stop him, it's going to be me. Accessing Citracayah sequence!"
Her hair changed to streaks of black and blue with two strands sticking out of the side as they usually did, but now she had the addition of black fur running down her arms and ending in a pair of spiked, blue glove-like claws – another part of her evolution. Trixie pushed the door open, but had a little difficulty getting out since there was another car directly outside. After taking a moment to consider her opinions…Trixie decided not to be considerate and shoved the door open as far as it could while scraping the paint off the other car. And once she was finally out of the RV, she took off in a blue blur of speed.
After Kevin was through smashing everything in their hangout, the mutated boy laughed in the street gang's faces now that he had them pinned underneath a large drainage pipe.
"So much for your gang!" Kevin spat mockingly. Just as he started to consider petrifying them in crystal, his Petrosapien parts suddenly shattered and turned to dust on the ground. "Wha? What's going on?"
"You drained my powers, so therefore you also drained my limitations," Trixie zoomed in and informed the boy. "You can merge with alien DNA, but you can only use it for ten minutes at a time."
"Then it looks like you're going to give me some more, Trix!" said Kevin sternly.
"Not happening," said Trixie, crossing her arms defiantly.
"You don't have a choice," Kevin stated-matter-of-factly. With whatever energy he had left in his body, Kevin generated a load of electricity around his hands and held it over the heads of the street gang members. "I've still got enough juice to fry these guys."
He was true to his word – Kevin was about to release the energy he had stored up to incinerate the street gang when Trixie came up from behind and locks his arms into a Full Nelson, forcing him to shoot the energy at the bridge. But this was exactly what Kevin was hoping for.
The devious energy siphon slaps his hands on top of Trixie's and starts to drain the girl of her alien's DNA, cackling wickedly as his body starts to mutate to accommodate his new form. His flesh looked like a mangled mixture of blue and blacks with mismatched muscles bulging around his hands and legs, fur growing in patches around his body, and only the right side of his face had the Citrakayah markings around the eye, making him look even more deformed.
Fast-Kevin cackled wickedly at the feeling of new power coursing through his veins as he grinned over his shoulder, staring Trixie straight in the eye.
Before Citrakayah-Trixie could react, Fast-Kevin used his newfound speed to zip back until they slammed into the bridge wall, sandwiching Trixie in the middle. The Human Omnitrix gasped and released her hold, giving Kevin the chance to spin around and drill her across the face with a punch that must have gone fifty miles an hour. Trixie was thrown down the narrow waterway, hit her shoulder on a broken television that had no business being there, and slid on her front the rest of the way. The shapeshifting girl groaned as she pushed herself up again and gave Kevin a hard stare as he casually walked her way with a look of superiority, cracking his knuckles menacingly.
"Ooh, this is gonna be real fun!" cackled Kevin.
"This doesn't have to be this way, Kevin," said Trixie, her voice betraying no emotion. "You haven't gone too far yet. There's still time to turn back."
"You know, I'm real sick of your goody two-shoes act," Kevin scoffed. He zipped forward and Trixie rushed ahead at the same time, meeting in the middle with their hands grappling each other. "I'm gonna take all your alien powers!"
Trixie managed to briefly get the upper hand by kicking Kevin in the stomach and causing him to double over, but Kevin recovered fast with a striking uppercut that knocked Trixie off balance followed by a sweeping kick that dropped her on her back. Kevin brought his foot down on Trixie's head, but the shapeshifting girl rolled out of his reach and flipped around with her own sweeping kick to Kevin's shins, bringing him to a kneeling stance. Trixie tried throwing a punch at his face, but the boy effortlessly caught the knuckle in his hand, flashing a smug grin, and then pulled her in.
While the two part-humans are duking it out for dominance, the Rust Bucket arrives in time to see Trixie push off Kevin and kick him into the narrow waterway.
The Tennysons exited the RV and started climbing down to the area below as Kevin pounced out of the water, picked Trixie up by the front of her shirt, and zipped her to the opposite side of the area into the stone wall. Ben's hand twitched towards the Omnitrix, but he refrained himself from using it. Trixie said that she wanted to handle Kevin herself, so he would respect her wishes (especially after he was a huge jerk to her this morning).
Ben watched Trixie as she gave Kevin a quick kick in the chin, twisted his arm around, and carried him into one of the bridge's support pillars when Gwen tapped him on the shoulder. She didn't say any words, not wanting Kevin to know they were there, and gestured over her shoulder to the wreckage underneath the bridge. Ben saw the street gang lying helplessly under the broken pipe and nodded silently with his cousin. With a little help from all the Tennysons, they manage to move the pipe just enough for all of the gang members to crawl out of.
"Moving day," said Max. "Get out."
But back in the fight, Kevin switched positions with Trixie and slammed her face into the bridge support beam. Trixie tried to push herself free, but she could feel her connection with the Omnitrix starting to wane and it would only be a few seconds before she was powerless. She needed to make one last move.
Trixie stomped her foot on top of Kevin's, cause the mutant boy to howl in pain and provide an opening for Trixie to bash her knuckles across his face. Kevin slid back several feet, shaking his head to relieve some of the disorientation, when he realized that Trixie was…running away?
"Hey, where you going?" yelled Kevin. "You running away like a coward?"
"Not running away! Building momentum!"
The voice came up from behind Kevin, making the mutated boy spin around and realize too late what Trixie's plan had been.
Knowing that she couldn't beat him in direct combat, Trixie had taken advantage of Kevin's daze to zip around three city blocks before looping back to the bridge, building up her speed. Trixie gathered up all the momentum she had collected into her fist and grounded her foot ground in a forced attempt to stop until she was only within a few feet of Kevin's face. The mutant had no chance of defending herself and took the megaton punch to the face. The force of the punch lifted Kevin off the ground and threw him across the waterway like a speeding bullet into one of the bridge's support pillars, cracking the cement in half and burying him.
Kevin crawled out from underneath the concrete pile like a cockroach, dazed and weakened as he looked up pleading to Trixie, who had reverted back to her human form.
"All right, all right, I give, I give, I'm sorry!" Kevin pleaded. "Please, just…lighten up."
"I trusted you, Kevin," said Trixie sadly. "I thought you were my friend. But in the end, you just took advantage of me."
"I guess I went too wild with power," said Kevin, bowing his head remorsefully. "I don't have anyone else like you to help me."
"Then let me help you, Kevin," said Trixie, sounding hopeful as she approached him. "We can still be friends. I could help teach you how to use your powers properly. You could do so much good for the world. And more importantly, you wouldn't have to be alone anymore. You would have people who would trust and like you for who you are, not for what you can do." She offered her hand, smiling softly. "What do you say?"
"I say…," Kevin said slowly as he took her hand…and then dragged her down closer so that he could pin her to the ground, "you are such an idiot! Did your alien mommy drop you on your head when you were a little baby! I can't believe you actually bought that friendship bull!"
"Leave her alone!" shouted Ben, running to Trixie's aid.
"Pipe down, squirt!" snapped Kevin as he effortlessly kicked Ben away. "Now give me that power!"
He slapped both hands on either side of Trixie's face and started draining her energy at maximum power.
Just like the first time, Trixie felt like every cell in her body was being electrified, but this was something different – it made her feel powerful instead of weak. Kevin seemed to sense this as well because of the painful expression on his face as he tried to force the energy out of her. Neither one was sure what happened afterwards, but there was this bright glow of green energy flaring around Trixie's body before it exploded outwards.
Trixie was thrown across the ground, but was graciously caught by Ben, who offered her a friendly smile. Meanwhile, Kevin was thrown clean across the area and smashed through another pillar. With the loss of that second support structure, the entire bridge started to collapse on top of their heads and the Tennysons make a break for safety (Ben and Gwen were helping Trixie by offering their shoulders).
When the dust had settled, they managed to spot Kevin on the opposite end of the waterway in human form. The mutant boy seemed to be looking at his hands, trying to find something that was no longer there, and screamed.
"NOOO! You'll pay for this, Trix! You'll pay!"
And with that final statement, Kevin run off into the night.
The next morning, the Tennysons were finally leaving New York City for good (and Trixie could honestly say that she wasn't going to miss the place).
There was a stillness in the air that made everyone afraid to speak, but Trixie could tell that the Tennysons were glancing in her direction when they thought she wasn't looking. Max was constantly checking the rearview mirror, Gwen made occasional glances over her seat, and Ben was sitting across from her at the table, so it was hard for him not to look at her. And it wasn't that she didn't appreciate their concern, but Trixie really didn't feel like talking to them after everything that happened, choosing to stare out the window and let her mind wander.
"So…I never got to apologize for what I said," Ben spoke up, feeling a little awkward. "It wasn't right for me to say stuff like that because I was angry. I'm sorry."
"You really hurt me, Benjamin," said Trixie coolly, still looking out the window. "If there's one thing this whole experience has taught me, it's that I shouldn't bottle up my feelings any more. I'm angry with you, Benjamin. It'll be a long time before I can learn to forgive you."
"I get it," said Ben understandingly. "But what about that Kevin guy? Why would you team up with him when you knew he was bad news."
"As much as you find it hard to believe, Kevin and I are very much alike," said Trixie solemnly. "If you three hadn't found me, I might have ended up just like him – maybe even worse. That's why I have to believe that there is still some good in his somewhere. I just hope that one day, he figures it out for himself."
Meanwhile, in Kevin's abandoned subway home, the boy in question sat in the middle of the dark staring down at his own hand.
"If they thought I was a freak before," said Kevin in a slow, meaningful way as his hand suddenly caught fire. "Just wait until they see me now."
His wicked cackles echoed in the underground.
Trixie sees Kevin as a reflection of herself and what she might have become if the Tennysons hadn't been there to guide her. And Kevin understands Trixie in a way that neither Ben, Gwen, nor Max is able to, which is why Trixie wants to believe that he could be a good person even when the rest of the world thinks of him as a monster.
Trixie is going to be directly tied into every Kevin-related events, so expect a lot of Trixie-centric chapters whenever he comes up.
For those of you who might be worried, relax, Kevin and Trixie are not going to end up together – all canon pairing will remain the same, which means Trixie and Ben are not getting together either, but that's mostly because Trixie has different preferences.
Next episode: Skaath