Disclaimer: I don't own Ben 10.
Chapter 60:
1 Year and 6 Months Later.
Omnitrix City; Suburbs; December 19th, 2025; 7:38AM.
Ben's eyes creaked open slowly to the sound of chirping birds on a tree a block away, sometimes if he didn't actively filter it, his enhanced hearing would pick up small things like that so early in the morning. He shifted in bed until his shirtless form was pressed against another body, seeing a glimpse of auburn-locks buried between the comforter and a pillow; reaching his arm out, he nudged her shoulder, "Gwen…?" he whispered loud enough for anyone in the room to hear, "You awake?" he nudged her once more prompting her to groan and yank the comforter over where he assumed her face was.
"Do you have to be a doofus so early in the morning?" she grumbled, trying desperately to recapture the sweet bliss of slumber one last time before being forced to reenter the real world.
Ben chuckled, nudging her once more, "I just slept the entire night… no staying out until three in the morning or being called about a disaster at three in the morning, and do you hear that?"
Gwen finally gave up her quest for five more minutes of sleep and turned over in bed to face her husband, quickly rubbing the gunk from her eyes and fixing her bangs, "Hear what?" she asked, her eyes darting left to right in patient wait for a sound she was supposed to hear.
Ben turned over to stare straight up at the ceiling, scratching his chest with one hand, "Nothing, for a few miles, just nothing… no fires, no muggings, no alien mercenary trying to hunt me down, just… quiet," he gave a long satisfying sigh, slowly closing his eyes.
Gwen scooted over in bed, placing her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, the slow rhythmic beating that lulled her into a secure warmth since she was a teenager, "Hmmm…" she moaned as she settled herself against his solid form, "Maybe it's an early birthday gift? We are turning thirty, ya know?"
"Yea, I'm the one who paid for the giant gala you're throwing for it tonight," He groaned, wrapping his arm around her neck to where he could trace his fingers across her bare shoulder.
She scoffed in response, gently slapping his chest, "Don't forget you're announcing your big expansion to your big city too, I just thought it was a good opportunity to celebrate both."
Ben chuckled and caressed the spot she'd slapped to sooth it, "I can't believe we're about to be as old as the versions of us we saw in the future all those years ago… what a trip," he had been running from this moment almost his entire life, one way or the other, yet now that it was finally here, it really felt no different than any other time of his life.
Gwen leaned up and pressed her soft pink lips against his collar-bone, pecking slowly upwards as she spoke, "I think its safe to say by now that you've avoided that buzzkill future; he was alone, even I was barely around, you have a family."
Ben leaned his head back as to look into her eyes, the sparkling emerald jewels that could sway his heart on a glance, ever-so-slightly obstructed by her bangs strewn over her face; he lifted his free hand and gently brushed them out of the way of her eyes, her cheeks simmering red from the sensual look and gentle graze of his fingertips.
She stared at him in silence for nearly two full minutes and he stared back the entire time, until she finally caved first… rushing out of bed and towards the bathroom in just her teal spaghetti-strap top and cotton-white panties. Ben was still oblivious to what she was doing and slightly distracted by her rear on the way off the bed, not that he didn't have any idea of what she was up to but, he still felt it necessary to pose the question, "What exactly are you doing?" he asked but, instead of an answer, he received a plastic bottle of dark-blue mouthwash aimed at his head from out of sight within the bathroom.
He caught it before it connected, looking down at it with a raised brow, "Is this some sort of subtle way of telling me my breath stinks? Because we both just woke up and-" he was cut off when she exited the bathroom with her toothbrush in her mouth, and her pajamas completely absent from her person, "and… and…" he was quickly catching on to her meaning, tossing the covers off of himself and uncapping the mouthwash. "Jennifer's still here though? It's pretty late for her to not hear us," even while he pointed this out, he took a good swig of the dental-wash, swishing it around in between in his cheeks.
Gwendolyn removed the toothbrush from her mouth only to protest, "Jennifer hash been shleeping in 'till noon for the pasht monf," she said trying her best not to spit toothpaste all over the carpet. Ben and Gwen walked side-by-side into the bathroom to stand in front of the sink, dipping their heads almost simultaneously to spit before pulling back up to look into each others' eyes once again, "And you've been working late or early for months and we haven't fucked in almost just as long so if I have to use my powers to make this room sound proof?" she punctuated her sentence by backing her husband into the wall behind them until he was cornered, "I will," her pupils lit ablaze with a turquoise shimmer, as he looked into her eyes he could see the primal urge she'd been suppressing for quite sometime. Though she would become a little too distracted with her arousal to actually make the effort of mystically canceling out the noise from the room, completely forgetting to do so, despite how effortless the spell had become for the Sorceress Supreme since she began training again after the incident on Galvan-Prime.
Jennifer's eyes snapped open to the sound of her parents making far too much noise in their room for this time of day, groaning aloud to nobody, her cursed super hearing captured every movement they made to a disgusting degree of detail, forcing her to grab her wireless headphones off the nightstand by her bed. To the shock of her parents and the genius physicians at Tennyson Tower, Jennifer was maturing at a rate that was unexpected to say the least; in only a year and a half, her maturity and physical age had tripled that time frame. It was predicted her growth would slow down once she hit puberty and the daunting idea that she would age to dust in less than a fraction of a humans lifespan forced Ben and Gwen to ask the only expert they knew for a second opinion. Having been saved by the young girl, this past Summer, when Azmuth was asked to do a full diagnostic on Jennifer's biological system using far more advanced, he was more than happy to oblige. He discovered the problem with their original assessment, their limited understanding of Omni-Energy and lower level of medical technology made the mistake of assuming she would cease growing once hitting puberty. In reality, Jennifer wouldn't stop her accelerated rate of aging and maturing until she reached the end of a female human's puberty. So, they figured she wouldn't stop aging until she reached at least age twenty-four or twenty-five.
At this point, Jennifer was an eight-year-old girl with the body and maturity of a sixteen year old, she would normally sleep in till later in the afternoon due to the fact that her father would leave so early leaving her free to slumber in the silence of an empty house. She continued to stare up at the white ceiling, lying in bed with her brunette hair splayed around her head across her pillow, she lifted her phone up in front of her face just long enough to pick a song to drown out the sound of her parents being disgusting.
She slid her feet off the bed and placed them flat on the floor as the song began playing in her ears; she casually reached under her bed and pulled out a large plastic bottle of clear liquid with a fancy label stuck to the side, taking a long swig of the contents before tucking it back under her bed and quivering for a second from the sting in the back of her throat. Having discovered one ability she didn't retain from her father, was his super-metabolism, which meant she could get drunk and was keen on experimenting with it.
~My world is burning down around me~ My deep despair is what surrounds me, yeah~
After what happened on Galvan-Prime with Malware, she honestly thought things were going to be different, that her Dad was going to somehow change, and actually start putting his family before being a hero. She was very wrong. In the weeks following their return from space, things fell right back into their usual motions; her mother began practicing magic regularly again which left her even more occupied than she had been before, and her father was the same old story. Constantly at peace summits or meetings with the U.N, if it were always about being out saving someone than maybe she could understand but, it was almost always about grandstanding for some event or the other. Sometimes she felt like she didn't even exist, why else would they feel so caviler about not hiding the fact that they're having sex three thin sets of drywall away?
~Your dark decay~ I feel so sad~ It's black and grey~ I hate you Dad~ You never change~ You only lie~ It's all the same~
Jennifer sighed, staring at the wall as she adjusted to the buzz, she finally decided on getting up, dashing around the room at half the speed of sound in a blur of speed and stopped in her tracks in front of the mirror. She looked over her outfit of brown cargo-shorts and a casual black t-shirt with a purple stripe down the middle and around the collar; she gave her best fake smile to herself before frowning with a sigh, grabbing the pink hair-tie off her nightstand, she tucked her headphones into her ears a little snugger so she could listen while she ran.
Jennifer glanced back at her bed, dropping to her knees, and pulling the bottle back out, staring at its contents before twisting the cap off and taking another gulp or two. She'd been doing this for some time and the sheer fact her parents hadn't noticed compelled her drink even more to numb the thought that they just didn't care enough to notice. She frowned back down at the bottle and tossed it lazily back under the bed, darting out the door and out of the house without holding back her speed nearly as much as she had been all morning. Ever since she learned to master her powers, she used them for almost everything, simply out of convenience.
The house shook as the door slammed shut behind her, prompting the master bedroom to creak open a minute later, glancing around at the empty house, Ben closed the door once again, turning around to face Gwendolyn completely naked on the bed and on all fours facing him. She wiggled her rear in the air for him though he refused to drop the bedsheet currently covering his lower half, "Jennifer woke up, you did remember the whole 'soundproof the room spell' thing, right?" he questioned her, raising his brow as a look of sudden shock overwrote her aroused expression.
She gasped lightly, quickly allowing her hands and knees to buckle as she fell face first into the sheets, her rather large breasts sinking into the mattress as she fell flat, reaching out to cover her head with the closest pillow on the massive double-king sized bed, "I'm a bad mom," she announced into the bedsheets with a muffled voice.
Ben sighed disappointedly, not sure what awkward conversation this would span with their daughter later, he shuffled back to the bed and sat next to her, still refusing to lift her head out from the smothering sheets, "No… you aren't a bad mom, you're just a horny dweeb."
…
Omnitrix City; Tennyson Tower; December 19th, 2025; 8:19AM.
Jennifer dashed through the streets while listening to her music, weaving around bystanders and through morning traffic at a controlled mach two, she could feel the brisk morning air against her face as she rushed through towards Tennyson Towers, and never felt calmer as she focused on her breathing. The Omni-Energy coursing through her veins surged as she sped up, crossing the thirty-five mile distance between her house and the tower in just forty-seconds.
As she approached, she noticed that the twenty-second story window was completely destroyed including the frame which had been bent and melted outward from an explosion; Jennifer's enhanced vision detected this, and the fight still going on in the street directly in front of the tower she called her second home. Her white high-top sneakers skated across the asphalt for several feet before Jennifer came to a full stop, she took in her surroundings like she'd been trained to do, casing the environment for ways to help.
Albedo was transformed into Negative Rath, swinging his bladed knuckles at a large silver android that appeared to be an empty suit of automated armor, after one more wild lunge missing its target the android grabbed hold of Rath's arm, tossing him back through the street over Jennifer's head. His three-hundred-pound feline body slammed into a parked car, crushing the roof, and shattering the front windshield.
Jennifer scowled at the robotic fiend as it turned around to face the opponent it had just discarded and subsequently her as well; she responded by swiping her index and pointer finger quickly over the dial to the pristine-white Omnitrix wrapped around her wrist. The android raised its arm and fired a powerful crimson beam of energy from the opened tips of its mechanical fingers, the blast passed right through a flash of amethyst light as Frostmoth floated up into the sky in a cloud of cryogenic-mist.
"Haven't the Weapon Masters gotten tired of me humiliating them yet? What good is one Techadon going to-" her raspy Necrofrigian voice was cut off by an attack from behind, she didn't see it coming quickly enough to phase through it and therefore was struck in the back by two explosive projectiles. Frostmoth reeled back through the air, trying to get some distance between herself and her opponent long enough for her to figure out who was attacking them.
A humanoid alien hidden completely by a burgundy suit of high-tech war armor, currently using jet-propulsion from the twin rockets on his back to stay at eye level with Frostmoth; a crimson flash of light caught both villains attention as it was well known who the bigger threat to them was. After being given advise from Azmuth on how to rectify the corrupted Omni-Energy from his Ultimatrix effecting his physical health, Albedo was now able to access the full power of his watch including Master Control, just like Ben, the only difference being how powerful either watch actually was. Being as fused to his Omnitrix and its Omni-Energy as Ben is, his transformations would likely always be superior to Albedo's own forms. Still, transforming instantly into an evolved Pyronite was pretty handy when he was mostly used to changing into one before the other with the evolutionary function alone.
Ultimate Heatblast's bright-blue plasma surged through the charcoal skin coating his humanoid form, the craters in his shoulders billowed with blue flames, and a third volcanic crater on his back erupting with heat which seared the asphalt beneath where he was standing. Frostmoth watched from above as the enemy she obviously recognized as Six-Six from her father's rogues gallery open fired with plasma bullets from the gatling-unit in his armored forearms. Ultimate Negative Heatblast stood without flinching as each of the bullets were vaporized by his intense aura causing the air around him to shimmer with a heat-mirage. He looked up with his volcanic slits meeting Frostmoth's bug-eyes, nodding to her as though she'd done this with him many times, and she had.
Six-Six attempted to fly down and confront the Pyronite but, found himself distracted by a flash of bright-purple light exploding behind him; as the mercenary for hire turned around to face it, he was met with a magenta crystal-fist cracking the side of his helmet with a single right-hook. Six-Six was sent spinning until his stabilizers reobtained his balance in the air, getting a good look at the female Crystalsapien before being struck by a beam of rainbow-cascaded light energy in the chest, knocking him back through the air. Like many of her father's aliens, the form she dubbed Prisma didn't look much different, if at all, than Chromastone.
The Techadon robot marched forwards, targeting Heatblast who also casually walked towards his opponent, now that Jennifer evened up the odds, he could pay his full attention to the droid. First, the evolved Pyronite lifted his hand, making the shape of a gun out of his thumb and pointer finger as he took aim. Ultimate Heatblast could focus the heat into pure plasma to such a precise degree that it might as well have been a super-heated bullet that could melt through virtually any substance. Albedo pulled his thumb down as though he were pulling the trigger, launching a single pulse of blue plasma energy, cutting a small hole straight through the center of the android, though it didn't stop its march. The Techadon raised both arms aiming his hands at Ultimate Heatblast and firing thick twin-beams of crimson that whizzed passed the Pyronite's blue-flaming skull as he tilted his head slightly at the last second. Ultimate Heatblast frowned with an agitated expression on his glowing face, he retracted his hand and cupped it together with his opposite hand generating a powerful force between his hands. Sparks of gold and blue arced between his palms as bolts of plasma built up into an energy with a potency akin to nuclear fusion; the white light from between his hands enveloped the entire street briefly.
Meanwhile, Prisma blocked four oncoming miniature-missile explosions with her crystal forearm, swinging her arm through the smoke she was able to react just in time to avoid an electrified net, cutting her flight to allow gravity to pull her out of the way as the net passed overhead. She caught herself long before she hit the ground, floating up and around Six-Six in an attempt to confuse his scanners. He lost sight of her for only a brief moment and yet, that was enough as he felt a tapping on his shoulder. The mercenary tuned in the air with expert reflexes, avoiding another sucker punch to the face and aiming the barrel to a laser cannon on his forearm in her face.
"I wouldn't do that if-" he didn't wait for her to finish her warning before firing the cannon at her head at point blank range; the smoke from the small explosion slowly cleared and Prisma had not only tanked the detonation but, also absorbed the energy used against her. Prisma's crystal body was now glowing with a rainbow-cascaded aura as she processed the absorbed energy and redirected it through her arms, aiming her fists at Six-Six, he was blasted out of the sky with twice the force she was hit with.
Prisma turned at the sight of a bright white light engulfing most of the street as a Techadon robot stomped through the streets, crushing footsteps into the asphalt towards the epicenter of the light. Ultimate Negative Heatblast gathered all the energy he would need between his palms, having simply been waiting for the android to get within range. The Pyronite glanced up through his aura of bright-blue fire shimmering over his charcoal skin, the craters on his shoulder-blades and back erupted violently as the suit reached its bulky hand out at him. Heatblast quickly reeled one palm back with the energy gathered still in hand, he thrusted the energy straight forward, exploding on contact with the android's body. The reason Albedo waited for the enemy to get within range was so that he could release the full potential of the attack without damaging the surrounding city-block.
The white hot explosion detonated with the force of a large hydrogen bomb in the several kilotons, however; Ultimate Heatblast was more than fast enough with his reflexes to keep the entire explosion and its shockwave contained, even after it went off, within a virtually invisible bubble of heat absorption. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, Ultimate Heatblast was left standing on the street in front of a massive scorch mark and a pile of ash scattered to the wind.
Prisma approached him nonchalantly from behind dragging an unconscious Six-Six by the back of his armor's collar, she dropped him onto his back and transformed back into her human form with a tap of her chest-mounted Omnitrix dial, "You have got to teach me that move," she announced confidently.
Albedo returned to normal as well, turning around to face Jennifer and respond to her comment with a smile, "That move is something only an evolved Pyronite can execute, unfortunately you wont be able to use it," though he expressed some remorse, internally he was rather relieved that such power was still out of her grasp.
"Damn," she muttered to herself, casually putting her hands on her hips as she turned and kicked Six-Six's prone form lightly, "So, what exactly were these two doing here?" she glanced up at the massive hole in the exterior of the building, her eyes trailing down to the crater and pile of broken glass on the sidewalk below.
Albedo followed where she was staring and turned to look up at the damage as well, "As far as I was able to ascertain, Six-Six purchased a Techadon robot to assist him in breaking into the weapons vault," he scratched his silver-goatee for a moment, deep in thought on what exactly the mercenary could have been after.
"But, Six-Six is a mercenary for hire, right? So who hired him?" Jennifer proposed, turning her gaze back to her uncle, folding her arms over her chest.
Albedo glanced back at her and actually absorbed her presence for the first time since she'd gotten there, noticing the feint smell of alcohol and slightly disrupted equilibrium with his enhanced senses, "Unclear, however, I think what is clear is that it's still relatively early to be drinking, wouldn't you say?" he turned to walk back towards the Tower.
Jennifer rolled her eyes and followed after him, he never really understood the appeal to being inebriated all the time but, that only made him better suited to support his pseudo-niece, "Oh, c'mon Uncle A, it was only a few sips and besides you would have had wanted a drink too if you had woken up to what I did…" she tried her best to erase those memories from her morning, which was what the three shots worth of vodka were for.
"I fully understand the desire to erase your past, believe me, but I don't however understand why you would feel the need to do so yourself," Albedo glanced back at her as they approached the entrance to the building, stepping over large shards of broken glass, crunching beneath their heels, "I hope you know if you need to discuss your challenges with someone, I will always be here to support you."
This prompted a smile from Jennifer who reached out and clung to his arm, wrapping both of hers around his right arm as they walked, "Thanks, sometimes it feels like you're the only one who gets me, like my own parents are never around but, I can always count on you just to talk."
Albedo wasn't totally sure how to respond, he wasn't keen on throwing Ben or Gwen under the bus, especially not to their daughter; he rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand as they approached the elevator, "Your parents… they try their best be certain of no less than that, but regardless of their abilities they are still only human."
Jennifer's eyelids lowered slightly as she glanced down at her shoes, he pressed the button marked with an upwards arrow on the wall summoning the elevator to the ground floor, she sighed, "Yea, yea, I know. I just wish they would treat me like I'm as important as the world, for just one day."
As they entered the elevator, Albedo noticed her downdraught expression and couldn't help but feel bad for her; he was well aware of how Gwendolyn's training had significantly cut into the time she took to raise Jennifer, and being that he was already centuries old, he understood better than most how time can pass differently from the perspective of someone rapidly maturing. Alas, he couldn't think of anything to say that would comfort her in any meaningful way, choosing to stay silent as they made their way up towards the command-center.
…
Omnitrix City; Suburbs; December 19th, 2025; 4:06PM.
Moans of unbridled ecstasy echoed through the two story house from the master-bedroom, the creaking of the bed-frame as it rhythmically tapped against the wall; the slapping of moist skin followed the same rhythm as the smell of sweat and hot-bodies wafted through the room. With a final drawn out groan of female pleasure filling the house with the sweet sound of her release, Gwendolyn finally collapsed onto her back in a puddle of sweat.
Ben too shifted to the side, falling onto his back next to her as they both stared blankly up at the ceiling, catching their breaths with quick inhales and heavy exhales. Without even moving, he spoke up first, "Is that… enough for today? Cause… I can keep… going but… I just thought… maybe you were tired…" he insisted between each taxed breath.
Gwendolyn was still breathing just as hard as her husband, her short pixie-cut hair was a complete bird's nest almost as if someone had just finished pulling on it for an extended period. She used her flat palm to collect a myriad of sweat droplets by gliding her hand across her abdomen and under breasts, raising her hand to eye level to watching it drip down her hand, "Yea… I think… I'm good…" she huffed, dropping her hand to her side, closing her eyes, and leaning her head to the right so it was perched comfortably on Ben's shoulder.
The hero wiped the sweat from his forehead and dragged his hands down his face as he recollected his thoughts, he sighed and looked back up at the ceiling, "I kinda wish we could just spend all day in bed…" he mumbled, not looking forward to a big party and the speech he would haver to give in honor of it.
"Me too," Gwen tried to respond, still winded from the sex they'd just finish though, he didn't seem nearly as tired all of a sudden, "And… how come… you don't sound… like your limbs are going to… fall off?" she pulled her head away and took a long, deep, uninterrupted breath of air to refresh herself.
Ben turned and slid his legs off the bed, "You know I don't get tired like that anymore; I was just pretending…" he answered, grabbing a pair of boxer-briefs from the floor before sliding them on, "I just need to recharge."
"Just like an Omnitrix," Gwendolyn, having finally caught her breath, watched her well-built man stretching his back as he approached the bathroom door; finding herself subconsciously biting her lower lip, "Are you sure you don't want to go another round?" she pouted at him, lying completely naked on her side in bed, where he could see all of her when he turned around to answer.
"Err…" Ben chuckled nervously, habitually scratching the back of his neck, "Hard offer to pass on but, knowing how long you take to get ready; you should probably start showering."
Gwendolyn huffed air upwards blowing her strewn bangs out of her eyes, groaning into the bare mattress since they're wild love-making had knocked everything off the bed, she had nothing else to smother herself with, "No fair," she argued with a muffled voice.
Ben scoffed from inside the bathroom where he was washing his face and mouth off, "How is seven hours of sex not fair? Most women don't have a guy who can last more than thirty-seconds," he exited the bathroom with a hand-towel he was wiping his mouth with.
Gwendolyn grew a coy smile over her face, sitting up in bed so she could shrug her shoulders with more visible emphasis, "Yea, I guess it wouldn't be fair for you to get that mouth all dirty again after you just wiped it off…" she rolled her eyes, not looking at him for even a second, only innocently opening her legs so he could have a full view.
He stepped forwards shaking his head, "Talk about not fair," he muttered before grabbing her ankles and pulling her in as she giggled her way to sexual victory.
Just when he was about to dine-in, Ben's Omnitrix began flashing with an alert from Tennyson Tower, more specifically from Cooper within the command-center. They both groaned as Ben stood upright and Gwendolyn pulled her legs back, crawling away on the bed until she reached the nightstand where she grabbed the thin-slab of glass that was her phone. He watched her rear as she crawled away and rolled his eyes, answering frustratedly, "Coop, I'm in the middle of something, can it wait?" he asked impatiently.
"Depends, Six-Six attacked the tower this morning with a custom Techadon-bot; Albedo stopped him but now he's escaped Plumber transport, and as far as I can tell he's heading back to the tower as we speak," Cooper's voice didn't sound too concerned despite being in said tower and in just as much danger, he handled it with a calm-demeanor which is what made him perfect for this job. "The only ones on call are Jennifer and Albedo, the others are busy with a search-and-rescue in Taiwan from Wednesdays typhoon."
Ben looked back at his wife who had glanced up from her phone at the mention of her daughter's name, nodding to him as approval for him to take care of it, "No, don't send her, I mean them…" he rubbed the bridge of his nose and continued, "They need to be ready for the event tonight, I'll take care of it."
"Got it, boss."
The hero turned his attention back to his wife staring at him from the bed, she flashed a short smile and shook her head, "Don't look at me like that," she asserted, crawling back across the bed until she was in front of him, getting on her knees to be at eye level, "I had an amazing morning… and afternoon, now it's time to do what you do best," she placed either of her hands gently on his face, pulling herself in for a passionate kiss on the lips, feeling his warm body against her own, she never wanted to let go even though she knew she had to. Pulling back from their sensual lip-lock, she smiled, looking into his eyes, "Go be a hero."
Ben grinned happily at her reassurance, dashing around the room in a blur of motion, and leaving the house a split second later with a rush of wind passing through Gwen's hair on his way out.
…
Omnitrix City; Tennyson Tower; December 19th, 2025; 7:21PM.
Jennifer sighed loudly, sitting in one of the many fancy chairs at a round table in the back of the large auditorium which was decorated with light-blue and emerald-green themed decorations strewn across the walls; she was told to wear something nice but, her definition of nice didn't always fall in the same category as everyone else's. Instead of any sort of formal-wear, she was dressed in a plain black t-shirt beneath an amethyst colored hoodie marked with a large '10' in white across the torso; her jeans were hardly formal-wear either, however, the denim was better than the basketball-shorts she usually wore to these events in the recent months.
She watched with a flute of champagne being passed around by the wait-staff in her hand as people walked around and mingled, there had to be at least a hundred or more people already in attendance and yet the size of the room and the height of the ceiling made it feel like most guests still hadn't arrived. She glanced over at the stage with a giant banner hanging above it with 'Happy 30th' in giant golden letters plastered across it; Jennifer scoffed, having always hated these big events, regardless of the celebration they always seemed to drag on and on in her opinion. She took a sip from the flute and sneered, reeling back, and looking closely at the glass of bubbly-liquid, peering around at the guests in her vicinity, noticing no familiar faces, she pulled a flash from her sweater pocket. Nobody noticed as she poured white-rum into her glass and swirled it around with the motion of her wrist, pocketing the flask again. This time when she took a sip, a satisfying smile crawled over her lips.
After five or ten minutes, Gwendolyn finally arrived in a long royal-blue strapless pencil-dress and matching heels slowly scanning the crowd as she made her way to the table Jennifer was sitting at with her phone in her hand. Jennifer tried to forget what she'd heard that morning and smiled up at her mom as she approached with an arm out prompting the teenage girl to stand for a hug. "You look great mom," she said over Gwen's shoulder as they embraced, pulling back so she could see her lack of enthusiasm in her outfit.
"And… you look the same as always," Gwendolyn commented on the fact that she almost never dresses up for anything anymore but, noticed the distaste towards the comment on her daughter's face and attempted to course correct, "Beautiful, obviously," she chuckled a bit nervously, giving away her not-so-subtle save.
Jennifer giggled a bit genuinely, putting a hand on her mother's shoulder, "It's fine, Mom; you know I don't like long dresses and heels… but either way, I showed up, that counts right?" she shrugged.
Gwendolyn snickered at her, placing her hand over Jennifer's on her shoulder, "I suppose it does," once again, her eyes darted around in search for something, "Have you seen your father yet?" she asked without looking back at her.
"Haven't seen him all day, thought he was with you," recalling what they were doing when she left the house that morning, she casually took her hand off Gwendolyn's shoulder, sneakily wiping her hand off on her jeans.
Gwen's cheeks warmed up for a moment as the redness became too obvious to play off should she make eye contact with her own daughter at this point. She was still kicking herself for not deafening the room before she got intimate with Ben. "He was… he had to go stop Six-Six who broke out of containment during transport," she waited for the awkward tension to break before turning to look back at her daughter, who'd sat back down at the table, wiping her lips with an empty champagne-flute in her hand.
"Not surprising," Jennifer announced, glancing back up at her Mother who was glaring at her for drinking even something as light as chardonnay so boldly right in front of her, "It's just like Dad to be late to his own birthday party, I bet he doesn't even care enough to show up."
"Don't talk about your father that way," Gwen scoffed and took the empty glass from her which prompted her to sneer at her mother, before becoming agitated at her comments, "And you shouldn't be drinking, you're only sixteen."
Jennifer stood up with a frown, reached into her jacket-pocket, and pulled out her black flask, shaking it at her mother, "Actually, I'm only eight, so it's double not okay," she turned around while twisting the cap off of it, tipping her head back as she walked away with rum pouring down her throat.
Gwendolyn placed her face in her hand, shaking her head in disappointment, "What is going on with that girl?"
"Which girl?" a familiar voice spoke up from behind her.
Gwendolyn turned around to face Cooper in a nice black suit with Julie on his arm wearing a white long-sleeved backless dress, "You guys made it, you both look great!" she wrapped her arms around them individually as she greeted them.
"Wouldn't miss it," Julie commented with a smile.
Cooper looked to the left and right quickly before posing the question, "Where's the fam?" he asked.
Gwen sighed in response, "Jennifer is… being Jennifer, I guess, and I don't even know where Ben is right now," she folded her arms over her chest, feeling slightly abandoned at the moment.
"Has Jennifer had a tough time adjusting to her growth spurts?" Julie asked, glancing between her boyfriend and boss.
"It's even worse than that, she isn't just growing, she's aging… sometimes it's great and other times, I feel I don't even know her or who she's becoming," Gwendolyn noticed a waiter walking passed with a silver dish in his hand holding many identical champagne flutes, she didn't hesitate to grab one and down it in one gulp before setting the empty glass on the dish, grabbing another one, and nodding to the waiter who nervously smiled before walking away. She wiped the corner of her lip and sighed, "I really don't know what to do, the stress is killing me, I spent like seven hours-" she suddenly remembered who she was talking to and cleared her throat as if she'd choked on the alcohol she'd gulped down, "Excuse me, heh, I spent seven hours training today just trying to work it out of my system…"
Julie tried to reassure her with a bit medical expertise, "I'm sure it's just a phase she's going through, and with all the accelerated growing, she'll move on even faster than your typical teenager."
Gwendolyn checked her phone for the time and noticed her husband was officially late for the event, "Do you know where Ben is? I haven't heard from him since he left for that alert you sent this afternoon."
"He was finishing up last I checked, I'm sure he'll be here any minute."
…
Ben was flying high above his own tower, in the clouds looking down on where he could see dozens of fancy cars parked and even more pulling up in the parking garage behind the building. He didn't want a giant party to celebrate something as mundane as his thirtieth birthday but, Gwendolyn did and despite his protest it did work out to announce the downtown expansion to New Xenon more conveniently. He didn't want to go down there, he didn't want to mingle, and he certainly didn't want to give a speech in front of a bunch of stiffs with fat-wallets but, he had to face the fact a long time ago that being a true hero doesn't just mean punching the hardest. A big part of his job was diplomacy and he couldn't do that as just this whirlwind of fists that takes out the bad guys… he unfortunately needed to be a politician to ensure the safety of the citizens living in his city.
"Why couldn't I have built, like, a water-park of intergalactic peace? Nobody ever gives speeches at waterparks," he muttered to himself in mock regret, folding his arms across his chest, "If I don't get down there soon though, Gwen and Jennifer are gonna be pissed at me."
Just before he made the effort of dropping his weight down towards ground level, a loud crack echoed through the upper atmosphere far above him; Ben turned to look up at the night sky though, all seemed quiet and there was no sign of a disturbance in the distance, "That was-" he was startled when he turned around to face two distinctly familiar humanoid figures floating in the sky in front of him, "…Weird."
The two figures were obviously a taller, buffer male and a much shorter female though, what made them so jarring to look at was their heavenly white-glowing wings jutting from their backs. Ben was taken aback, floating away from them slowly as he looked back and forth between the two, "Can I help you two with something? Directions?" From what he read on Cosmians within the databanks of Ben Ten Million's hyper-dimensional cube, he knew he had to be very cautious with his every move.
The female glanced up at her taller male partner; her eyes were as cold as they were black, her long dark hair matched those eyes in color as did her suit which was distinctly different from Celestial or Harmony's in design, "I think its talking to us," she spoke directly to her friend, intentionally ignoring the hero.
"If the reports are correct, he is the target," the male responded in a burly voice, his expression was as calm and emotionless as his female counterpart, and his armor matched hers in design and color as well. He was at least seven and a half feet tall while the female only seemed to be around six-foot-eight.
"The 'it' is him? He's so small," she argued aloud but, still refused to address the hero himself floating right in front of him; she closed the distance between them, floating around him in awe as she looked over his person, "He doesn't seem very impressive…" she saw the Omnitrix but, didn't even seem to recognize it.
"It's the aura, it matches our readings," the bulky male confirmed, holding his palm out the suit he was wearing projected a holographic image of a chart in an alien language, "Look for yourself."
She squinted her eyes, using her natural abilities to seek out his aura, "Oh, yea, it was so weak I wasn't sure…"
Ben put his hands up to ease any suspicion of danger or aggression from their minds, "You don't have to worry, I can help you out with whatever you need, look," the Omnitrix chimed once catching both extraterrestrials attention as the flood of emerald light consumed the man they were just facing. In his place was a six-foot-eleven man with identical, white-feathered wings glistening in the moon light along with his densely-weaved white-gold armored suit; his shoulder length blonde hair simmered with a golden aura of flames that ran down his entire body, surprising both of them equally with the shapeshifting display. "I'm just like one of you," he asserted.
"You are him after all, look at that, his aura went up by as crazy amount, did you see, Volt?" the female Cosmian was clearly the younger of the two based solely on her attitude and behavior thus far.
The male, who Ben now knew was named Volt, didn't seem too surprised after the initial shock of facing a shapeshifter faded; he closed his eyes and sighed, "I did promise you on the way here that you could kill this one so, get it over with now so we can go," Celestial's eyes widened at the sound of his casual attitude toward murdering the hero for no apparent reason.
"Wait, why!? Can't we talk about th-" He was cut off by the female Cosmian transmuting herself into light and crossing the distance between them in a fraction of a nanosecond, planting her boot against his chin with enough force to generate a shockwave that cleared the entire sky of clouds for over a hundred-miles. The entire sky shook vigorously with a powerful roll of thunder unlike anything Earth's nature had ever heard.
Celestial went flying back through the air for several miles, his wings shot out to either side catching himself and stopping his momentum; he quickly wiped the corner of his mouth where a trickle of blood swept down his gloved-hand.
"You're tougher than I thought, but your aura is still only fifteen-thousand… what a shame," the female Cosmian pointed out with an arrogant grin on her face, like she was enjoying the thrill of the fight, "This should still be fun though."
"Don't toy with your food, Valeria, I told you I'd only let you have the kill if you do it quickly so we can leave this backwater world," Volt announced his distaste from the sight of her holding back, making her keep her word in finishing the enemy with haste.
"Ugh, fiiine," Valeria called out, recalling her deal with her partner as they traveled the stars to get here, "I wanted to at least see if he could keep up."
Celestial did exactly that as this female warrior advanced at many times the speed of light, her fists moving in a vibrant flurry of motion as he did his best to mitigate each blow from doing serious damage, however, it was though he were moving in slow motion compared to her. He finally saw an opening and threw his fastest left-straight punch, his fist striking nothing but air she vanished from sight completely, dwarfing his capabilities in speed entirely. His fist cut through the air and sent a devastating shockwave through the atmosphere, echoing like the thunder of a crumbling mountain.
"Sorry, you missed," Celestial heard the voice coming from behind him, turning on a dime and swinging his arm at her in an attempt to backhand her in the face, only she was so much faster that by the time he'd swung she had already landed three different devastating blows to his chest. Once again, it happened to fast even his senses in this form didn't see it happening, he recoiled from the pain in his chest as blood poured from his mouth, dripping down his chin.
Celestial rushed Valeria with every ounce of speed he had left in him but, even as a beam of pure light, she intercepted his attack catching his outstretched fist in her petite right hand; the shockwave burst out the other side of her hand but, only managing to blow harmless wind in her face. She was smaller in size but, so much stronger it was a little ridiculous and hard to accept for someone like Ben. Valeria squeezed his fist tight, the sound of bones popping and fingers crunching echoed in the silence of the night-sky; Celestial ground his teeth, seething in pain as he grabbed his own wrist in an attempt to pull away.
"Awe, you want me to let go?" she teased him, releasing her grip just long enough to turn and sidekick him directly in the diaphragm with another sky-cracking shockwave echoing out around them. Celestial floated back holding his gut tightly as blood still dripped from his chin, he wasn't through yet though, he raised his uninjured fist in an attempt to rush and strike Valeria but, she was gone already. Appearing out of nowhere from his left side, chopping him in the throat and nearly shattering his wind-pipe, which would take time to heal even with his extensive regen-factor.
Celestial grabbed at his throat helplessly, choking on spit and blood as he once again floated aimlessly backwards, away from them out of pure survival instincts though this wouldn't help his situation. Valeria giggled manically, "You're so cute when you can't breath, and I bet all that blood just tastes to die for," she rushed forwards with insane speed and grabbed Celestial by the throat, forcing him to drop his own hand. Valeria stuck out her tongue and dragged it over his chin, licking the blood that spilled from his lips off and smiling at the taste, "Tastes like… weakness," she closed her eyes to savor it with an aroused expression.
"Enough games, end it…" Volt demanded, his burly voice the only thing so far capable of taming her enthusiasm over battle.
She let go of Celestial's throat allowing him to float of his own power again, he choked once again on his injured wind-pipe though, he did seem to be breathing more-so than even a minute ago so it was clear he was already healing. "You can be such a party-pooper sometimes, you know that, Volt?" she quickly grabbed Celestial by the shoulder and plunged her fist into his gut, once again knocking the air out of his lungs, sending him back through the air towards Tennyson Tower with yet another powerful shockwave, "That's okay though, I was done with em' anyways," she proceeded to vanish from sight, dematerializing and reappearing behind Celestial who was incoming from the right.
Valeria caught him by the end of his right-wing and pulled him into a right-uppercut into his abdomen which struck with enough force to tear directly through his body, pultruding out from his lower back. She then yanked him by his wing down at the speed of light, dragging him through the air, she stopped herself slamming her heels onto the roof of Tennyson Tower, however, she allowed the momentum to continue for Celestial whom she swung her arm down with slamming him face first into and through the roof.
He was swung downwards with so much force that he continued through each of the many dozens of floors, tearing through drywall, concrete, and steel girders without so much as slowing down. Every single window on each floor exploded outwards, shattering from the force, one by one consecutively as he tore through each floor. Celestial uncontrollably broke through floor after floor until eventually he broke through the ceiling of the ground-floor auditorium, cratering the ground as he shook the entire building with his final impact. Clouds of dry-wall dust and pieces of rubble rained down around the guests as the heroes attending the function approached the large crater, the screaming and stampeding didn't take long to start after the initial impact sounded through the hall.
Jennifer, who was staring at the massive hole in the ceiling finally tore her eyes away and dashed to the nearest wall, slapping her hand against the fire-alarm, which with her strength shattered it but, the alarm sounded none-the-less. Gwendolyn floated over the crater as Cooper, Julie, Albedo, and Rook all surrounded it, some of them staring up at the astonishing amount of large-holes leading from the roof to this point. Gwen knelt down in the crater next to Celestial who was unconscious and likely healing his wounds but, the sheer extend of the damage he'd already taken hurt the mage down to her core. Albedo approached, putting a hand on her shoulder, but he didn't know what to say yet so he allowed her to speak through a clenched jaw and rageful tears.
"Go up there… and kill whoever did this…" she muttered coldly up at him, receiving a dutiful nod from her husband's once rival as he quickly turned around, floating out of the crater and up through the many number of openings leading straight to the roof.
Jennifer noticed this and knew he wouldn't allow her to join should she ask, so she figured it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Normally that wouldn't be a very risky call to make, though she now had the transformation unlocked, it was clear she had no idea what a Cosmian is capable of.
…
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I'd like to think of the Cosmians as a mix between Viltrumites from Invincible and Saiyan's from Dragonball Z.
Who are they? Why did they target Ben? Find out on the next episode of FUTURE BOUND!