Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are ten seconds on the clock, the score two to one in their team’s favor. Cassie is snarling beside him, watching JT’s Marisa wheel above his head as he brings the ball closer and closer and takes the shot-

Ben snatches it out of the air just before it enters the goal, a single second left on the buzzer.

~~

“We were amazing,” Cassie says later, bounding around Ben’s legs as they head for the bike racks. “They only managed one goal and even then, they were cheating!” Ben laughs, hefting the terrier daemon off the ground and placing her in her basket on the back of his bike.

“They didn’t cheat, Cassie.” She huffs as he goes to unlock it.

“That bird made me think she was hurt, that is totally cheating.”

“I think that’s just what killdeer do.” Looking up, Ben’s surprised to see a gorgeous asian girl he almost recognizes standing on the other side of the bike. There’s a cat daemon sitting at her feet.

“Figures,” Cassie grumbles and he bops her on the head as he stands up, smiling.

“Hi!” The girl smiles back, her daemon chuckling.

“Hi yourself.” She pauses for a moment, looking him over. “Good game today.”

“Thanks,” Ben replies, feeling his face go hot. Desperate for something to say, he sticks out his hand. “I’m Ben Tennyson, and this is Cassie.”

“I know,” the girl says. She takes his hand and shakes it. “Julie Yamamoto and Ayaka.”

“Well, um,” he falters as he takes his hand back. Calculus! That’s where he knows her from, she’s in his class.

“Sorry we can’t talk,” Cassie says, tail wagging, “but we promised we’d go see our grandpa after the game.” That’s right, Ben had almost forgot with such a pretty girl in front of him.

“Okay,” Julie says, still smiling at them, “it was nice meeting you.”

“Same.” Settling in on his bike, Ben flashes her a grin. “See you in class tomorrow?” Ayaka purrs.

“We’ll look forward to it.”

~~

The Rustbucket is dark when they reach it, which immediately strikes Ben as odd.

“Grandpa Max?” he calls, knocking on the door. “Deana?” Something isn’t right, they’d known they would be coming, they should have been home. Ben fingers the golden MVP medal around his throat as Cassie picks up the fake rock by the stairs. He takes it and the key from her and steps inside.

The place is trashed.

“Something isn’t right,” Cassie says, tail still and muscles tense, “I can smell something.” Ben immediately goes into sneak mode.

“What?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t smelled it before.” Cautiously, Ben looks around the RV. There’s a light coming from under the bathroom door and he motions for his daemon to follow him to it. He wrenches the door open, Cassie growling at his heel

The room is empty.

“What’s going on?” Ben asks as they back away only for Cassie to turn on her heel and lunge at something to the side. Just in time Ben manages to dive to the side as an alien he doesn’t recognize slams the door shut and erupts into a pillar of tentacles. He just manages to rolls away as they fling forward in attack, slamming down on the Omnitrix-

That isn’t there anymore. After three years he really should be used to that.

Ben dodges another burst of tentacles and watches as they retreat back into the alien, coming together to reform a head and arms. He cringes and shudders.

“Creepy.” Charging forward the alien lashes out at him, tearing through anything he tries to hide behind. “Cassie, some help here!” he calls as he dives under the table, just to have it torn from the floor. He kicks his attacker in the chest, buying himself enough time to scramble away.

“Busy!” She growls, then snatches up the tail of the fox daemon she’s been struggling with in her jaws and bolts for the other end of the Rustbucket. For not the first or last time Ben silently praises how far they’ve learned to stretch their bond when the alien begins gasping in pain and abandons him to follow the daemons. Ben snatches up the fire extinguisher as he gives chase.

“Peekaboo!” When the intruder turns, he blasts it with the fire extinguisher, driving it back and compelling it to flee out the door with it’s daemon close behind.

“Who was that?” he asks, breathing heavily, and turns to Cassie. She’s still in fight mode and snarling at the open door.

“I don’t know, but they were looking for something.” Looking around at the items scattered around on the floor, Ben nods.

“The question is, what?” Carefully they make their way to the front of the RV. They settle into the seats and Ben begins to flip switches; one of the combinations, he knows, opens a secret panel. The whir of machinery says the one he’s entered is right. On the other side of the kitchen area a panel has opened, exposing a thick metal disc. When he picks it up it reveals a holographic image of Grandpa Max and his daemon.

“Hello Ben,” the hologram says, “I left this recording where I knew only you would find it. We’re in a bit of a situation-”

“Nothing we can’t handle,” Deana interrupts, “not anything you kids need to worry about.”

“There’s been increased alien activity on Earth recently, we’re investigating it.” The holograph flickers.

“Oh, and don’t worry about the Omnitrix,” holo-Deana says, “we’ve got it, safe and sound, nobody’ll get a hold of it.”

“Say hello to Gwen and Llyr for us. Love you, Max out.” Ben can feel the muscles in his shoulders knotting. Cassie is tense beside him.

“They’ve got the Omnitrix?”

~~

“Don’t run in the house!”

“Sorry, Torco!” Cassie is ahead of him as Ben tears through the house to their room, and already digging in their closet as he goes through the door. She drags out a familiar old shoe box, untouched in over a year now. Ben’s hands shake as he sinks to the floor beside her. Slowly, he opens the box as they both hold their breath.

The Omnitrix is right there.

~~

“So,” Ben says as Gwen’s martial arts class filters away, “how’s my favorite cousin?”

“Ben!” Gwen hugs him tight as Cassie licks her swan daemon’s head. “Still undefeated.” She pulls away with a smirk. “So, compliments- means you want something.” Ben’s smile falters.

“I have a problem,” he says as Cassie returns to his side, tense. “I need advice.” Llyr’s head tilts to the side and Gwen gives them an appraising look.

“Okay,” she says, “as soon as I change.”

~~

“It’s been fifteen minutes,” Cassie whines as Ben flops onto facedown on the bleachers, “how long does it take to change clothes?”

“Well she is a girl.”

“Hey!”

~~

“Well, that’s attractive.”

“Huh?” Blearily Ben blinks up at the ceiling, then realizes his cousin is back. “What took you so long?!” he asks, climbing to his feet. Eventually he’d decided to take a nap on one of the mats and it looks like the sun’s gone down in the meantime.

“I got sidetracked,” Gwen says, plainly, until Cassie snickers. Her nose is just inches from her and Llyr and she’s smirking as best a dog can.

“Oh you did, didn’t you,” she teases and Gwen goes pink. Llyr nips at her ear as she laughs openly.

It takes Ben a moment to get it, and when he does he gags.

“Gwendolyn Tennyson,” he admonishes and tries to ignore how much he sounds like his mom, “this is an emergency!”

“It’s okay,” Cassie mutters to Llyr, “the blond with the mantis?” The swan ducks his head toward her conspiratorially.

“They were too cute; we couldn’t just not.”

“No, I totally get it, they were. Knew he looked too happy to have Gwen pinning him down.”

“Can you two not?” Gwen’s face is red now and Ben is kind of hoping the Earth will open up and swallow him whole. His cousin shakes her head and looks back at him. “You needed help?” He happily jumps on the change of subject and holds up the Omnitrix, causing Llyr to puff up in surprise. Gwen looks confused.

“I need advice.” He and Cassie lead them to the bleachers and Ben pulls the metal disc from his pocket and hits play.

“Grandpa doesn’t have the Omnitrix,” Gwen says when the recording is done, looking up at her cousin curiously, “you do.”

“Yeah.” Ben nods. “He’s sending me some kind of message.” Sighing, he leans back against the seat behind him. “I think he wants me to put it back on.”

“Remember,” Llyr says, “he said it was your choice. You don’t have to put it on if you don’t want to.”

“I used to love the Omnitrix,” Ben sighs, turning the watch over in his hand, “it made me feel, special.” Cassie lays her head in his lap and Gwen’s hand falls to his shoulder.

“Ben,” his cousin says with a soft smile, “it wasn’t the watch. Anyway,” she pulls away again, “you’ve earned a shot at a normal life, if you put the Omnitrix back on, that goes out the window.”

“But if Grandpa needs help,” Cassie starts.

“He said he didn’t.”

“He also said he had the Omnitrix.”

“Do you remember how much trouble we had getting it off the last time?”

“The Omnitrix ain’t yours.” Starting, they turn to see a man in a hat and trenchcoat standing in the open doorway; Cassie and Llyr move to the bottom of the bleachers, taking an aggressive stance.

“Says who,” demands the terrier daemon, a growl in her voice and Llyr’s hissing providing an underline. The large salamander on the man’s shoulder growls back.

“Give it up!”

“No!” Jumping to their feet, Ben and Gwen make a beeline for the side door to the gymnasium, daemons on their heels. The first door opens easy and they make it down the hall in record time, but Ben slams against the other door with a thud.

Locked.

“Give it to me- now!” The man is behind them now and both Tennysons take a fighting stance.

“Or what?” Ben demands.

“Or this!” The man reaches up and grabs hold of his face pulling away until with a brief blue glow the visage of a human is replaced with a strange alien in a containment suit.

“Oh, that’s creepy,” Cassie says, rolling her eyes. Ben agrees. He saw Kevin mutate, and that alien at the Rustbucket, this is nothing. Gwen throws a burst of mana at the alien, only for him to disperse it with laser fire.

“Don’t make me use it on you,” he threatens, indicating his weapon.

“Who’s making?” Ben looks at Gwen as he asks only to find her climbing a magic stairway.

“Not Fish-face, that’s for sure,” she says as she reaches the top, releasing a stream of mana that grabs their assailant, binding him and lifting him into the air. Ben is suitably impressed.

“You’re getting good with that stuff,” he says with a smile and Gwen smirks back at him.

“Thanks.” Face falling to a serious expression, Ben steps forward, Cassie trotting ahead to snarl directly at the salamander daemon who’s fallen off her other half’s shoulder to the floor.

“I want answers, now,” she says, teeth bared.

“Otherwise…?” Ben smirks and shrugs exaggeratedly.

“I don’t know, we’ll overfeed you?” The alien glares harder than he already was.

“Do I look like somebody to joke with?”

“We’re duly deputized agents of the Plumbers,” his daemon says, “an intergalactic-”

“We know what they are,” Cassie growls.

“Our Grandpa Max used to be a Plumber,” Ben continues. The alien and his daemon blink in surprise.

“Max Tennyson?” he asks. “He was helping me with a case when he went missing.” Gwen steps forward.

“We’re looking for him.”

“He’s your grandfather? Then that would make you,” he eyes Ben, “the legendary Ben Tennyson.” Ben eyes him back.

“I guess so.”

“I owe you an apology,” the alien bows his head, “I thought you were a common thief, after the Omnitrix. If you release me, maybe we can find your grandfather together?” With a nod from Ben, Cassie reluctantly returns to his side. Gwen doesn’t let the alien go.

“Are you sure, Ben?” she asks and Ben nods again. With a deep breath, he steps to the side and looks at the Omnitrix. His grandfather needs his help; he just knows it…

“I’m sure.” The watch clicks into place on his wrist, as if it never even left. Reluctantly, Gwen releases the Plumber.

“I am Magister Labrid,” he says, picking up his daemon and replacing her on his shoulder, “this is Lel.”

“We’re Ben and Cassie,” Ben says, “and these are our cousins, Gwen and Llyr.” Lel nods at them politely.

“So,” Llyr says, “where do we start the search?”

“The last thing Max told me before he disappeared,” Labrid says, “was that there was an arms deal going down tonight at a local train depot. I think that would be a good place to start.” Now with some kind of clue, Ben perks up.

“Well then, let’s go!”

~~

“The Forever Knights-”

“A group of criminals who-”

“Yeah, we know, dealt with them before.” Lel scowls at Ben as Labrid continues.

“They’re supposed to show up here tonight to receive a shipment of illegal alien tech.”

“Who do they get it from?” Gwen asks, but Labrid only shrugs.

“Don’t know,” he says. “Max was going to tell me, but then he disappeared.” Seeing headlights approaching, Ben raises his hand to get their attention.

“Someone’s coming,” he whispers, and they all duck down behind the crates they’re using for cover as two trucks approach from opposite directions. They stop, facing each other, and the lights go out. In the dim glow of the depot’s security lights Ben can see people exit both trucks. From one come what appear to be normal humans, but the other is easily identifiable as the Forever Knights’ by the hooded cloaks the exiting men wear.

‘After all,’ he figures, ‘who else would dress like a cult?’

Once the trucks are seemingly emptied, another, smaller form steps lightly out of the shadows on the other side of them. The leader of the Knights visibly startles when he sees them.

“Where is Levin?” he demands. Ben carefully eyes the newcomer. The alien- and he’s definitely an alien, small and rat-like, with a mane full of quills, patchy grey fur, and the longest ears Ben has ever seen- gives the lead Knight an unimpressed look, then smiles emptily.

“He couldn’t make it,” he said, “had some bad chicken earlier.” His lips pull back to reveal a massive number of sharp teeth. “He sent me as a replacement.” The Forever Knights are clearly unhappy with the development, but do nothing more than shuffle in a vaguely threatening manner. The other humans don’t seem to care either way. Llyr hisses quietly and presses against Gwen’s side as he watches him account for the money and even Cassie’s fur stands on end when he picks up one of the laser lances the Forever Knights are buying.

“Let’s see how well these things work, huh?”

It takes all their willpower not to dive away when the blast flies not three feet above their heads. Labrid clutches his Lel close and even Ben finds his fingers buried in Cassie’s wiry fur. Llyr’s feathered head is up under Gwen’s armpit. From the shadows behind the alien, where two golden yellow eyes to match his shine in what little light there is, they can just barely hear a chuckle.

“They know we’re here,” Llyr whispers, and the cousins and their daemons share a look that says that whatever it is with him, they don’t want to face it in a fight. Not with that attitude.

“Those lances are level five tech! Earth has only level two!” Suddenly Labrid is out of cover, heading right for the crowd of enemies as they wheel the shipment from one truck to the other. “Hands above your heads, Airbreathers! By the authority of the Plumbers, you’re busted!”

Everything stops for a brief moment, then the suppliers reach up, much like Labrid did before, and tear away their faces to reveal the same sort of aliens that attacked Ben and Cassie earlier.

“Oh, that’s so creepy.”

“Isn’t it?!” The aliens come at them and Lel growls.

“Back off!” Labrid cries, firing his weapon at the ground and creating a wall of fire between them and the enemy.

“What now?” Ben asks.

“Standoff.” The aliens begin kicking dirt at the fire while behind them the Knights continue to load their truck. As he begins to try to dial the Omnitrix, he’s dimly aware of the rat-like alien sweeping forward to snatch the case of money from the lead Knight, the man’s wolfhound daemon latching onto his coat as he flees and being dragged into the darkness.

There’s a yelp, a burst of golden Dust, and Ben hears everyone’s breath hitch as the Knight collapses to the ground.

“Ben! Watch!” Gwen calls as one of the attacking aliens loops around to their exposed back, flinging it and it’s daemon, dead eyed and snarling, back with a blast of mana.

“I’m trying!” he responds, still fiddling. The watch isn’t working, its display a bright blue, and he can’t figure out how to make it work again. He runs to the nearest cover as more of the aliens start coming, Cassie covering his retreat. She snarls and snaps at any and all daemons that come close, dodging attacks by their other halves, and actively driving them back as well as one Lakeland Terrier can be expected to.

“Come on,” Ben pleas, pressing random buttons now, “this isn’t the time for a reboot!”

“Ben!”

“Come on!” Suddenly the Omnitrix glows and shifts on his wrist, the band narrowing, color changing. When it stops it immediately activates a holographic display showing an alien Ben doesn’t recognize. He flips through the selection frantically. “I don’t recognize any of these guys,” he says, but he hears Gwen and Cassie calling for help, so, “this one looks pretty good!”

In a flash of green his body is replaced with plant matter, long limbs, long body, and heat deep in his core. It is, he has to admit, an awesome look.

Doesn’t stop him and Cassie both gagging.

“What’s that smell?” he asks.

“I think it’s you!” They both shake their heads clear and with a push forward Ben sweeps aside the aliens surrounding them with one long arm. Gwen, Labrid, and their daemons are right where they started and covered with piles of off-yellow sludge. They struggle, but it’s not doing them any good.

“Get away from them!” Ben shouts, knocking away another group and launching stream of fire at the goo covering his team that easily burns it away. Cassie all-but roars as she launches herself at enemy daemons and Llyr quickly follows behind her biting at them and beating them with his massive white wings. Labrid opens fire again and Gwen is right at his back.

“I forgot how fun this is!”

Within minutes they’re beating the aliens back. They’re gathering up their daemons and their wounded and beating a sound retreat back the way they came. They don’t even bother to get their truck.

“Well, that’s them taken care of,” Ben says, returning to his normal shape in a flash of green. Labrid shakes his head and holds Lel close.

“But the Forever Knights got away,” he says, gesturing to the spot where their truck had sat. Gwen and Llyr are heading over to investigate. “We have no way of tracking them, or the laser lances.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Llyr mumbles, stepping from the shadows where the broker ran with the money. There’s a scrap of brown cloth in his bill. Gwen grins at the sight.

“I might be able to find their little friend.”

~~

“Those fuckers- Look at this, Sus, half of these are ones!”

“Ooo, bright of them.”

“Yeah, assholes after my own heart.”

When Gwen had announced that she could try to follow the energy trail from the piece of jacket back to the broker, Ben had thought it was a fantastic idea. Now that they’d found him, however…

He’s small, shorter than even Ben and definitely the thinnest person he’s seen of any species, but his daemon is easily the largest of them. She has to be as tall as her person, easily, and as big around as a bear. The teeth alone look like they’re as long as Ben’s thumb.

“So,” Gwen whispers, “what now?”

“I’m thinking…” Currently they’re hiding behind another set of crates in an abandoned warehouse, each with one hand on Labrid to keep him from running out and starting a fight again.

One of the alien’s ears twitches and swivels to face them, the owner going tense. His daemon rises to her feet and circles to face them. He follows more slowly after her, closing the suitcase of money as he goes and keeping one hand buried in her fur.

“We know you’re there,” he says, standing at his full height, quills raised. Ben would find it amusing if he and his daemon weren’t also staring right at them.

Gwen taps at Ben’s shoulder to get his attention, then motions to either side on the stack of crates. Split up, a good idea. He nods. As soon as she starts moving the appropriate ear on the criminal twitches, following her and Llyr’s movements. The other swivels back and forth, scanning the rest of the room. He and his daemon both begin backing for the door when Ben and Cassie head in the other direction.

Ben wants to unlock that species now, that’s cool.

The alien cuts and runs a breath before Gwen comes out from behind the crates, he and his daemon bee-lining for the door only to stop short when a wall of mana blocks their path. He spins on his heel but Ben is already there, about to slam down on the Omnitrix when a spray of quills flies from his mane. There’s only a split second between when Gwen’s mana wall stops them and when they’d have hit Ben’s face, and he has to remind himself to breathe as the wall closes to make a set of bubbles around the pair.

“Nice job,” Labrid says as he comes out from behind the crates. The entire team joins together in front of the criminal duo- both with their ears plastered back against their heads, glaring at Gwen- and he holds up a tablet like device towards them, pressing several buttons. “Argit,” he reads off the device, “born of Ari and Seorr. Record includes multiple counts of breaking and entering, theft, assault, grand larceny, dealing in illegal goods, and transport of illegal goods across system delineations. Also assault of a Plumber agent-”

“Never proven.”

“-slave trading-”

“You buy and sell one asshole relative, and this is how the law repays you.”

“-and one count of murder.”

“Any daemon goes for him I’m crushing their skull, it’s self-defense.” Labrid and Lel just glare at them.

“It seems some things run in the family.” Ben hadn’t thought Argit could glare harder than he’d been at Gwen, but the look he gives Labrid could melt concrete.

“Is there a reason you’re here or did you just wanna fuck with our day?”

“You shot at us,” Gwen says and he sneers at her.

“I shot in your direction, a warning. Though I’m beginning to wish I had shot you.”

“Do you know what powers those laser lances you were peddling?” Labrid asks and Argit rolls his eyes.

“Ether-point energy cells, duh.” He turns to Ben and Cassie. “A tip, kid, for if you ever get into the business: always know what you’re selling, could save your reputation and your life.” Frowning, Ben raises an eyebrow at him.

“Thanks,” he says, “I’ll keep that in mind should I decide to turn to crime.”

“They’re incredibly dangerous,” Labrid says, stepping closer, “they shouldn’t even be on this planet!” Susi huffs.

“And?”

“And,” Lel responds, “the Forever Knights drove off with a truckload of them during the fight. You know where they are.” Argit tilts his head to the side, ears twitching again, and eyes the Magister and his daemon suspiciously.

“I might have access to that information,” he says, “it’d fuck with my reputation if I told you.”

“If you don’t, I will personally throw you back in the Null Void.” Argit and Susi both tense up, eyes going wide, and Argit’s hand immediately tries to go for her fur.

“I know fighting dirty,” he growls, eyes narrowing as his lips draw away from his many, many teeth, “but that’s just cruel.”

“Look,” Ben says, stepping between the two, “here’s the deal, you help us, we let you go, okay?”

“Ben!” He gives Labrid a sharp look and the Magister backs down, though he and Gwen both look unconvinced. Cassie walks up to the bubble containing Susi and the two sniff at each other as best they can.

“And what’s to stop us just running as soon as you let us go, huh?”

“I think,” Labrid places a hand on Ben’s shoulder and he and Lel’s expressions are downright sinister, “I have an idea.”

~~

“This is disgusting,” Argit growls, scratching at his scalp and wiping the goo left beneath his nails on Ben’s sleeve.

“Hey,” Ben says, trying to scoot further away, “keep that gunk off the jacket!”

“Your jacket?! You poured this shit over my head!” He goes back to scratching and tearing with a hiss. “Gotta get it out of my mane, my fur, I think some of my piercings are glued on now!”

“Be glad we just glued your quills,” Gwen says, “or would you rather have gotten a shock collar like your daemon? At least she’s staying quiet.” Susi growls.

“‘They’re.’”

“Huh?” Llyr and Gwen look over the back of their chair at Argit and Susi.

“‘They’re’. I’m not a girl.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Ben and Cassie exchange a look as Magister Labrid’s vehicle falls into silence. This has just been a day for awkward.

“So,” Cassie asks, stretching to lay her paws on the back of Labrid’s seat, “you were telling us about the aliens?” From the way his shoulders lower and Lel seems to melt a little Ben has to assume they found the short exchange as uncomfortable as him and Cassie.

“I don’t know anything about the ones we fought today,” Labrid says, “I’ve never encountered them before.” Ben flips through the Omnitrix as best he can.

“Well, I can’t find anything like them in here, not that I know how to use this thing anymore.” Argit scoffs.

“Well that’s reassuring.” This time he wipes the gunk onto Gwen, who glares back at him.

“Hush, you.”

“There’s been a lot of alien activity on Earth lately,” Lel says, “don’t know why.”

“Gee,” Ben hears Susi mutter, “it’s almost like more people are moving here and starting lives. Who put this guy in charge?” The way Cassie looks askance at them tells him she heard, but he’s not sure anyone but those in the back caught it.

“Your grandfather thought maybe the weapons deal would lead us to whatever is causing all the interest. Now he’s missing.” Gwen chuckles.

“Knowing Grandpa he’s probably in a diner somewhere enjoying a roasted cockroach salad. It’s a wonder all that weird food didn’t kill him.” Ben sees red at the thought. Somewhere he can hear Cassie whine as his hand fists in her coat.

“Well he’s not dead!” he yells. “Now stop making jokes about him!” Gwen wheels back like she’s been hit, Llyr mirroring her actions, and Ben feels a hand on his arm. It’s Argit, his ears pinned back again.

“Kid,” he says, “calm down. There’s no need to scream.”

“She was-!” Argit’s hand tightens, Cassie’s head presses to Ben’s chin. He takes a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry Gwen.” She nods with a sad smile- “You’re just worried about Grandpa” -and he looks down at the Omnitrix again. “I just wish he were here, he’d know what to do. He always knows what to do.”

“Well, he ain’t,” Labrid says. Lel looks back at him with dark eyes.

“You’re the one with the Omnitrix, you’re going to have to figure out how to get things done on your own.” He takes another shuddering breath as Argit pats his arm.

“Happens to all of us eventually, kid.”

~~

Argit and Susi’s directions lead them to a large castle. Ben has to fight to keep from laughing at how obvious it is.

“Subtle,” he says, “who would think to look for Knights in here.” Susi chuckles as they bundle out of the truck.

“And yet you needed us.”

“So,” Argit asks, kicking a stone into the moat, “how do we get in.” Llyr somehow manages to smirk despite having a bill, a trick Ben’s always wanted to figure out.

“Gwen?” he asks. With a mirroring expression, she stands opposite the drawbridge, releasing a stream of mana to grab the top of it and heaving back with all her strength. Slowly yet surely it comes down.

“Huh,” Susi says as they cross. “Well, I’m impressed.” Argit scoffs.

“Don’t encourage them.”

The inside of the castle is lavishly decorated with statues and tapestries and curio cabinets, but ti’s unsettling quiet. Argit wipes more gunk on tapestries and furniture as they pass them.

“There’s no one here,” Gwen says, “are you sure this is the right place?” He nods.

“Kev said they had a secret door somewhere in here, keep looking.”

They comb thoroughly through the place, checking every book, every candlestick, just in case. Ben catches Argit pocketing cabinetfuls of jewels and jewelry, but decides to leave it. From what Labrid said they’ll be lucky if he doesn’t try to sell them for a profit at the end of this. Besides

“This place gives me the creeps,” he says, gently running his fingers over Cassie’s head.

“Yeah…” Suddenly a noise rings out beside them and they jump, knocking back into a pair of armor statues. Everyone turns to them, wide-eyed and tense, as they clatter to the floor.

“Heh, sorry guys,” Ben says, face getting warm, “guess I’m just feeling paranoid.” Llyr hisses.

“That might not be a bad thing…” Slowly, everyone follows the swan daemon’s line of sight.

The dragon statue at the front of the room just stood up.

“Fuck!” Like a spell broken that one word sends everybody moving, turning tail and running the opposite direction as fast as they can. Llyr, in need of a waddling start to fly, is snatched up in Susi’s jaws as they pass and keep pace just before Gwen. Labrid clutches Lel close with one hand. A swipe of the beast’s claws sends them tumbling with the wind off them but everyone rolls back to their feet and charges through the far door. There’s a crash as the dragon shoves its head into the doorway, roaring at them.

“Nobody move! Hands on your heads!”

Behind them is a dragon, in front of them is a battalion of Forever Knights wielding the same laser lances Argit sold them.

“Still happy you sold to them?”

“Just wish I coulda lived to pay my rent.”

With a deep breath Gwen forms a wall of mana between them and the Knights, sending it surging forward to fling them back. Quickly another troop takes their place and opens fire on them, forcing Gwen to form another shield. She and Labrid are just barely holding their own, she with mana blasts and him with laser fire, when the dragon roars again and they all hear the crashing of falling stones.

“Whoops,” Ben says as he turns to see the beast breaking through, and he immediately dials in the first selection he gets on the Omnitrix. In a flash of green he’s small and white and there’s about six of him and counting.

“Got him!” The hims shout as they dive on the dragon’s head. “Got him!” They bang on flat surfaces and yank on horns and teeth as it bucks and rolls like a mechanical bull. Occasionally they can see Cassie, darting between its legs to try to keep from stretching their bond too far and barking to get its attention whenever she can. The dragon rears, it rolls, it swipes at them with massive claws, but they hold on tight and multiply as needed, even when it flings its head from side to side. Eventually though, it becomes too much. Their grips weaken and with a massive shake of the head the dragon throws them off and into the nearest wall. “Don’t got him!”

Suddenly, instinct kicks in, and all at once the many, many Bens jump to their feet, take a deep breath, and scream.

The dragon trembles, roars, collapses into a pile of metal, faux skin, and wiring. The Bens beam widely through the resulting dust cloud at the cracking pile.

Whimpers catch their attention and they all flock to Cassie, collapsed on the ground with her ears pressed down as far against her skull as possible. Of course, loud, high-pitched voices to a dog…

“Cassie,” they say at once, “I’m so sorry, we didn’t mean to…”

“Sorry doesn’t help.” Still clutching their daemon, they turn to the others. Gwen is giving them a harsh look, rubbing at her ears, while Argit and Susi are in a similar state to Cassie. It doesn’t surprise them, with how well Argit heard before-

“We really are.”

“Don’t apologize just yet,” Labrid says, and the Bens notice that he’s loading all the laser lances he can find into a big pile. He seems to be listing while he does it, and something looks wrong with his suit. “We still need to destroy these.” Looking at the others, the Bens make a sorrowful noise in their throats.

“Just once more,” they say, “promise.” They combine into one as they approach the pile, take an exaggeratedly deep breath so everyone can cover their ears as best they can, and scream again.

This time the weapons explode into a pile of ashes.

“Heh,” Ben hears behind him, “thorough.” He starts to turn and look, but stops halfway. There’s a stream of blue liquid coming from the Magister’s suit, and a smoking puddle of it on the floor. Labrid is wavering. Lel is starting to flake gold dust.

“Hey,” he says, reverting back, “hey are you alright?”

Magister Labrid collapses and Ben is only just able to keep him from colliding with the floor completely.

“No,” he admits, voice weaker than it had been a minute ago. The leak seems to get worse as he talks. “Listen to me, Ben. You can’t help me but-”

“Let us try,” Gwen pleads, but he brushes her off. Lel climbs into his arms and he clutches her close.

“You need to complete the mission. Find out where the level five tech is coming from.”

“I will.” Ben hasn’t felt this serious in years, it’s unfamiliar, and not quite welcome. Lel smiles, shedding a whole cloud of Dust.

“We know you will, you’re Ben 10, you can do anything.” They can see Labrid getting more and more dehydrated, drying up inside his suit.

“Your grandpa was on the trail of something big,” he says weakly, “a conspiracy of some sort, undercover work. If you crack this case, maybe you can find him, help stop all this.” Gwen kneels beside them, placing a hand on Labrid’s shoulder.

“You can count on us.” He smiles.

“We know.”

He collapses into a pile of dust at the exact same moment as Lel explodes into a cloud of gold.

“Kecea…”

“Well,” Ben says, steeling himself and rising to his feet, he refuses to cry, not until the job is done, “let’s get going everybody.”

“Whoa, whoa!” Argit waves the hand that isn’t in his daemon’s fur and Susi bares a hint of teeth. “We filled our end of the bargain!”

“We need all the help we can get,” Cassie says.

“That’s nice,” Susi steps forward menacingly, “find someone else.”

“No,” Gwen says, reaching into Labrid’s pocket and pulling out a remote, “you see, I have the controller for that collar. You leave when I say you can.” She, Argit, and their daemons glare at each other.

“Oh joy. And how exactly are you going to find these guys? ‘Cause I don’t know shit about them!”

“We’ll think of something, we always do!”

“Fantastic, our hopes lie with you!” Ben shakes his head.

“These guys are gonna be the death of us, Cassie.” She doesn’t respond. “Cassie?”

“Ben!” She bounds to him from a corner, laser lance clutched in her mouth. “Lookie what I found!” He grins and takes it from her. They always think of something.

“Gwen,” he asks, “that trick you did to find Argit,” he raises the lance when they turn to look at him, “think you can do it again?”

~~

“I’ll drive,” Ben says when they get outside, bee-lining for Labrid’s truck. He’s stopped short by a hand on his arm.

“Come here, kid,” Argit says, motioning for Ben to lean in close, which he does, “little more…”

A thin hand collides with the back of Ben’s head.

“Really.” Argit breezes passed him while he’s stunned, hopping into the driver’s seat as Susi clambers into the back.

“You know,” Ben says, “you can be really mean.”

“And I almost like you.”

~~

“This is it, down that mineshaft.”

Parking behind a group of trees, the team slowly sneaks their way closer to the mineshaft in question. It’s been a long drive, and they’re all still sore, but even Argit is silent as they move. They crouch behind a series of empty minecarts.

“We’ll have to get passed the-” Ben begins to whisper, but is cut off by the guard at the elevator suddenly collapsing. His eyes go wide as Argit stands and stretches, then scratches more at his mane.

“Finally getting this shit out,” he says, and he’s right. Ben can see much more of the black quills than he’d been able to before.

“Is he okay?” Gwen asks as they approach.

“Sure,” Argit responds, kneeling beside the man, “as long as he’s not allergic. Just paralyzed.” Susi and Cassie growl and he pulls the man’s face away, revealing another tentacled alien. He hands the mask to Ben. “ID mask.”

“Huh.”

They all pile into the elevator, an even tighter squeeze than the truck with Susi there, and begin to descend. At first there seems to be nothing of interest, but as they get lower and lower suddenly aliens come into view, and a spaceship they’re all milling around and through. Most are roaming back and forth, but many are driving floating minecarts filled with goods in or empty ones out.

“Not exactly small, is it?” Llyr asks once they’ve reached the bottom and settled in behind more crates. They’re always available for some reason, and somewhere in Ben’s head he stores away the thought as a potential term paper basis.

“It’s the mothership,” he says out loud. The others give him a confused look. “Don’t you get it! Grandpa Max has to be in there.”

“If you say so,” Susi says. Gwen watches the aliens come and go.

“So how do we get in?” Ben worries his lip as he thinks, then pulls the mask from before out of his pocket.

“How does this work?” he asks Argit, and the alien’s ears twitch.

“Photonic displacement,” he says, “makes you look like whatever you tell it to.”

“So, if I wanted to look like one of them?”

“Hand it here.”

Gwen and Llyr wander off as Argit shows Ben how to upload, adjust, and set an image on the deceptively complex device. They return just as he’s put it on, giving himself the appearance of one of the aliens they’re attempting to evade. Gwen is driving a pair of carts in front of her. She smirks at the appreciative look the others give them.

“Figured Susi might need their own. Get in.”

~~

“Hey! How’s it going!” Ben says as he drives passed the aliens. So far nobody seems to have noticed that he’s not one of them, although he gets the occasional strange look, so he’s regarding this as a success. Cassie, meanwhile, has been fighting to maintain the zombie look the other daemons have. “I owe you a phonecall,” he says to one not long before turning into what seems to be an empty hallway. They can only hope he’s right.

“You, kid,” Argit says as he and Susi climb out of their cart, “are weird.”

“Just trying to fit in.” He removes the mask. “Gwen, can you see where Grandpa is?” She shivers, clutching Llyr to her chest for warmth, but nods.

“Give me a minute.” They stand in silence as she works, her eyes glowing pink. Ben worries his lip, the daemons stand on high alert, and Argit’s ears swivel like ballerinas. “I’m sorry, Ben,” she says when the glowing stops, and his heart sinks. “He was here, maybe a few weeks ago? But he’s not here now.” Cassie whines and Ben groans in tune.

“So, what now?” Argit asks. “Do we just go?”

“No.” Ben takes a deep breath, thinking about his grandfather, all the lessons he’d taught him. He wouldn’t turn and run, not when there was a job left to do. “You know,” he says, “when I was little, Grandpa Max taught me to ride my bike? He ran alongside me, holding me up while I pedaled. By the time I realized he had let go, I'd already been riding by myself for a long time.” He squares his shoulders, and steps back, surveying them like they were troops. Gwen and their daemons look inspired and moved, Argit and Susi just look confused. “Training wheels off, guys. We finish the mission.”

“Did that make any sense to you?” Ben hears behind him as he turns and walks away, cousin close behind.

“I think it might be a human thing.”

~~

In a large room that looks like it may be the bridge, they find what Argit terms a “door of interest”. Ben assumes this means his profit senses are tingling and stands aside with Gwen as Susi rips the access panel from the wall and their companion fiddles with the wires until the door opens.

“Look like a weapons room to you?” Gwen asks them as they look inside, at the walls lines with laser lances.

“Uh-huh.” She steps out in front of them, raising her hands, and streams of mana lightning spark from her hands and over the lances. One by one they explode loudly enough to make Argit, Susi, and Cassie cringe.

“Thanks, Red,” he sneers when she’s done, “I’m sure everybody in the mine totally didn’t hear that.” Ben’s shoulders slump.

“I really hope you’re wrong…”

The sounds of an unintelligible dialect echo through the room. When they look up, there’s an alien at the entrance of the room, and more coming.

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” The daemons all take aggressive stances as Gwen throws up a shield to defend from the hail of alien phlegm coming their way. Ben looks through the selection on the Omnitrix before settling on what looks to be the largest option. ‘Bigger is better’ has rarely failed him before. In a flash of green he’s massive, covered in thick skin with a long tail. A bipedal dinosaur.

“Oh awesome!” he says, and grins at the aliens. “You know what time it is? Hero time!”

He jumps into the air, belly flopping onto the enemy, and the fight is on. Left and right he’s knocking aside attackers, watching bursts of mana send them wheeling through the air. The daemons are snapping, snarling, hissing through the crowd. Gwen’s tossing people like dolls. Then Susi is tackling Cassie and Llyr to the ground, pinning them with their body, and Ben can see Argit shaking the last of the goo from his mane out the corner of his eye. Gwen has just enough time to throw up a shield between them, before he sneers and lets loose a massive spray of quills.

Any aliens the cousins hadn’t already knocked out go down then. Even Gwen looks impressed.

“We kicked butt!” Ben says as they regroup, grinning.

“So far,” Gwen responds, “there could be hundreds of these guys on here.”

“Then we leave,” Susi says, “rule number two, never stay longer than you have to.”

“What are you creatures doing on my ship?” They all visibly bite back groans as they turn to look at the entrance again. The alien there is massive and white and bears little resemblance to the ones they’ve been fighting. The group all look at each other. The message of “who the fuck is that?” is silently but adequately conveyed. “I do not repeat myself for lower life-forms. What are you doing on my ship?!”

“Leaving?” Argit offers hopefully, but the alien only stalks closer. Ben steps forward to meet him.

“Walk away now, and nobody gets hurt,” he says.

About a second later he’s across the room, colliding with a control panel.

The alien’s daemon, a large, colorful bird, dive bombs the team as he approaches Ben, grabbing him by the foot and slamming him against a wall. Ben gets a good kick to his chest in, but he just keeps coming until Gwen’s mana tendrils catch his arm. He slams Ben again with his free hand, then flings her into a control panel while he’s stunned. When he clears the stars from his eyes Ben can see Gwen pulling Argit free from alien’s grasp with a thick stream of magic, hear the yelp. With a roar he charges back in and manages to catch the enemy by surprise, stunning him with a blow the head that sends his face right into a pillar.

“He’s too strong,” he says, looking over his team. Gwen is breathing heavy, Argit is clutching a bloody ear- “Damnit, I liked that earring”- the daemons are struggling to fight something two of them can’t get near. “You guys get out of here, I’ll hold him off.” Gwen looks like she told him to eat his leg.

“I’m not leaving you here alone!”

“Well you don’t have to tell me twice,” grabbing Gwen’s arm, Argit shoves her toward the entrance, “Susi, we’re heading out!” Before Gwen can argue Susi has snatched Llyr up in their jaws once again and she has no choice but to follow them and Argit.

“Maggot! You would face me alone?” Ben turns to again face the large alien.

“Uh-huh.” He charges forward, grappling with his opponent.

“Vermin!” The alien throws a punch that sends him flying back into another control panel. Just how many do they have on this ship? He dodges another punch that collides with the panel he’s just destroyed. “Filthy creature!” He dodges again. And again. “Hold still!”

“Why would I do that?” He darts to the side and starts to run, only to be caught by the tail and slung back and forth, against panel, wall, floor, like a child throwing a tantrum.

“You’ve ruined everything by discovering this location! You’ve set our plans back months!” The alien picks him up by the tail and neck and throws him across the room at yet another control panel. He grabs Ben by the head, forcing him to look at him as he speaks. “Inferior scum, I have to move my ship, find a new hiding place, sterilize the area-” Ben’s eyes blow wide.

“Sterilize?”

“Destroy all life within five miles of here. No witnesses will live to tell the tale.” He glares, lips drawing back in a snarl.

“You can’t!” He breaks free, just for a second, before he’s caught by the throat.

“I can and I will.”

“Let me go!” Ben takes full advantage of his longer neck in this form, bending his head down to dig his teeth into the alien’s hand. It tastes like broccoli and screams.

“Filth!” He throws Ben aside, clutching his wounded appendage. “You’ve infected me!” This turns out to have made him even more mad, as he grabs Ben by the head and shoulder and bodily hauls him towards the nearest window despite his struggling.

“Get off my ship!”

There’s a crash and he’s falling. He can just make out Cassie diving after him.

Magic weaves around them and brings them lightly to the ground. Cassie begins fidgeting within seconds of their landing. Susi and Argit do too and Argit’s ears are aimed right at the ship. They’re all shying away from it.

“He’s going to destroy the whole area,” Ben says, “unless we stop him!”

“Then making sure he doesn’t take off is probably step one,” Argit starts for the nearest engine and Ben and Gwen follow closely behind, Gwen forming a staircase so they can reach it. Up close Ben can just hear the low hum, more feel it than anything. He begins to smash at it.

“Where do I-” The hum kicks up to a low roar and lights start to go on.

“There!” Argit directs him to a loose panel, ears swiveling all the way, and Ben wrenches is off, reaching inside and tearing out handfuls of cables until smoke begins to rise from the engine. The two boys jump off just as the other engines begin to throw fire, Ben landing first and Argit using him as a stepping stone to the ground. He and Susi are immediately off like a shot. “Haul it, you morons!”

Reverting to normal, Ben follows after them, with Cassie leading his way and Llyr and Gwen just beside him.

“What’s going to happen?” Gwen calls ahead.

“First it’ll fall in our direction, then, boom!”

They manage to find a little more speed in them, and Gwen finds the energy for more staircases.

They’ve just made it to solid ground, above ground, when the blast comes, shaking the Earth and sending them flying.

Ben can’t help a whimper when he lands and bounces, twice. It’s been a long, hard night. His first act, when he can bring himself to sit up, is to make sure Cassie is okay, then check over the others. Susi has wandered over and is sniffing at Cassie, asking her if she’s alright. Argit is standing, if wobbly, and his ear doesn’t seem to be bleeding anymore. Gwen is back on her feet, battered and bruised but alive, with a bedraggled Llyr clutched in her arms. Everyone is fine.

“So,” Gwen asks once they’re all up and steady, “what do we do now?” Llyr is still in her arms, tired with his head on her shoulder.

“First up,” Ben says, “I think we can let Argit and Susi go now.” The two look expectant, and Gwen nods, handing Argit both the key to the collar and the remote. “And second, we keep looking for Grandpa Max. The best way is probably to keep working at this mystery of his.”

“I think so, too.” Cassie steps forward, towards Argit and Susi, watching as he releases his daemon.

“Susi,” she asks, “Argit?” They give her a questioning look and Ben steps up beside her.

“Listen, you guys were actually a real help. You know a lot and are pretty good in a fight and…” He sighs. “We could use you two on the team.”

“Ben!”

“What do you say?” He holds out a friendly hand. “Teammates?” Argit visibly relaxes and he gives a small smile.

“Ben,” he says, and suddenly there’s a prickling along Ben’s front and the world begins to go dark, “over my dead body.”

~~

When he and Gwen wake up, their daemons beside them, the sun is rising and Ben just knows his parents are going to have a conniption. Gwen and Llyr are immediately growling about Argit and Susi and ‘assholes’ and betrayal, but Ben can’t bring himself to be too mad at them.

“Hey, Gwen,” he calls with a grin, “looks like they left us the truck!”

Chapter Text

They’re flying over the countryside, Ben in a new alien form he’s named Jetray and Cassie hanging from his talons in a hammock made from his jacket, patrolling for any sign of those strange aliens from before when the Omnitrix begins beeping and blinking. At first they think it’s going to time out and they land as quickly as possible, but it doesn’t.

“Umm,” Jetray says as a holographic map suddenly pops out of the Omnitrix, a red light blinking not far from where they are.

“We really need to figure out how this thing works.” Cassie shuffles out of her hammock, jumping up and steadying her forepaws on Jetray’s side for better look. “I mean what even is that?” Jetray shrugs.

“I don’t know, but it might be important.” He’d been about to turn around and head home so they wouldn’t miss curfew, but this… “Get back in the jacket, Cassie, we’re gonna check it out.”

“Shouldn’t we call Gwen and Llyr first?” He smirks and shakes his head.

“Nah, I’m sure we can handle it.”

~~

The Omnitrix really does time not long after, but Jetray is fast and they’re able to walk the last few miles through farmland to what looks to be a giant factory with “ice” written on a sign in big, bold capitals. There’s a hole in the side facing them, easily large enough for a grown man to walk through, that looks like something blasted its way out from inside. The tatters of metal at the edges are all melted and curled. Cassie sniffs at them curiously.

“Whatever did this was packing some serious heat,” she says, and Ben nods along as they step inside.

The interior of the building seems undamaged, not a scorch mark or even a paper out of place. They’re in a mostly bare room, with a desk and chair to one side and two metal doors leading in. There’s a steel hatch beside the one on the far wall, with a raised conveyor belt leading from it. A badge is blinking on the desk.

“Guess we can track Plumbers now,” Ben says as he picks it up, turning it over in his hand. Cassie follows him and paws at his leg anxiously.

“Do you think maybe it’s…” She doesn’t have to finish the sentence.

Grandpa Max and Deana.

“If it is,” Ben says, “then they’re probably out chasing whatever made that hole.” Smiling at his daemon, he holds out the badge to her. “Get sniffing, Cassie.”

~~

The scent leads out one of the doors and through the front door of the factory, but Cassie loses it there. Instead they end up following the scent of roasting corn, assuming that if they can find whatever made that hole then they’ll find their missing grandfather.

The giant burst of fire that suddenly appears deep among the corn ten minutes into their search makes this much easier.

When they reach the blast site they see a handful of police officers and their daemons lying unconscious among the scorch marks and torn earth, a Pyronite standing over them. That explains that.

“Hey,” Ben shouts, dialing up Jetray again. He’s going to need to be able to fly for this. “Get away from them!” In a flash of green light he’s red and winged again, Cassie growling at his feet while the Pyronite’s tiny deer daemon backs up behind him.

“Stay away from me!” The Pyronite sends a blast of fire their way, one they nimbly dodge. As Cassie cuts around them to go for their daemon, Jetray tackles them to the ground. In a blaze of fire they shove him off, flipping him onto his own back and pinning him.

“Hey! Get off me!” Shooting lasers from his eyes, Jetray blasts the Pyronite into the air, then follows after when he stays there, throwing more fire. They circle the open patch in the corn, the Pyronite dodging and throwing fireballs as Jetray tries to knock him out of the sky.

“Ben stop!” He hears Cassie yelling at him, but ignores her. If he can just hit this guy… “Ben, you’re upsetting the cow and I’m very small!” Blinking, he looks down to see that where there’d been a deer no bigger than a textbook was now a large cow. Cassie doesn’t even reach her knee.

She keeps trying to stomp on her.

Ben and the Pyronite land in unison, both running to their daemons’ sides. The hero scoops his small terrier into his arms and watches as the alien redirects his daemon’s attention with interest. If they aren’t settled, then that means they’re likely no older than them, probably younger.

“Monarch, calm down,” the Pyronite says soothingly, “it’s okay.” Monarch rears as best she can.

“It is not okay people keep attacking us,” she bellows, pawing furiously at the dirt, “first the police and now these guys we were just supposed to be practicing knocking cans off a fence!”

“Relax,” her other half keeps saying, “everything’s going to be fine.” He adopts a teasing tone. “We’re okay, Moonarch.”

Ben has never seen such a hateful look on a cow. He hadn’t even known they could look hateful. With a snort Monarch headbutts the Pyronite in the chest, coming away with a patch of coal dust and embers that she vigorously shakes off.

“You can’t soothe me with bad puns, Albright!”

“Bess, sweetie.” His smirk is audible and the tension seems to start to leave Monarch, the taut muscles in her shoulders relaxing.

“You’re the worst.”

“Udderly horrible.” She turns to Jetray and Cassie just as the green light envelopes them again and turns Jetray back into Ben.

“I don’t know him, I swear.” Cassie laughs, tail beginning to wag.

“Oh don’t worry, Ben’s the same way.” Ben shakes his head. Once Cassie is enjoying somebody’s company, he doesn’t really have much chance of fighting them until they throw a punch or a wall.

“What’s going on here,” he asks, stepping toward them, “why are the police after you?” He’s getting the feeling his grandfather isn’t involved in this at all, he’d have shown up by now if he was, which means something else is going on.

“They think I started a bunch of fires around town,” Albright responds. “They saw I was on fire and decided to put the blame on me.”

“They hit us with a car,” Monarch moos, “then locked us in a freezer and stole our badge.” Ben and Cassie share a look as pieces start falling into place.

“We escaped, but they brought guns with them this time.” Cassie’s tail has stopped.

“That explains the fireball.” Ben nods, then opens his mouth to speak just as a groan comes from across the clearing. A quick glance shows that the sheriff is waking up and they have to think fast, because Ben is certain he won’t listen to a teenager talking to his suspect.

“Come on! Run!” He motions Albright and Monarch in front of him, he and Cassie right on their heels as they head back into the corn.

~~

The quartet end up ducking into what’s left of an old barn, Ben and Cassie leading the way with Albright and Monarch, now a doe, close behind. The building’s been cleaved in two, a clean cut.

“So,” Ben asks when they’ve caught their breathe, “you’re an alien.” Albright gives him a look.

“Half alien,” he says, and his Pyronite form fades away to reveal a black teen who’s definitely younger then Ben. “My mom is human, and I thought I was too until we woke up with our bed on fire.” Monarch lays down on the floor so she can be level with Cassie.

“Very distressing,” she says, “Dad had to come put it out and explain everything to us. About how he’s a Plumber. She blinks, then starts to explain. “An inter-”

“Galactic police officer, we know.” Cassie’s tail wags again. “We work with them.” Ben digs into his pocket and pulls out the badge from earlier, handing it out to Albright.

“We found this back at the factory, I’m gonna assume it’s yours.” Albright’s eyes light up and he smiles at them, then sticks out a hand to shake.

“I’m Alan, Alan Albright, and she’s Monarch.” Ben grins back and accept the offer.

“Ben Tennyson and Cassiopeia.”

“Everybody calls me Cassie.” Monarch looks relieved.

“I sure hope so.” The boys chuckle over them as they shake. Ben turns back to look over the cornfields when they stop.

“So, now the million-dollar question is, what do we do?”

~~

The answer turns out to be “wait for Monarch to step outside for some air and come back asking about the weird blue flashes out in the corn”. This confuses the others, and the boys decide to climb as far up the side of the barn as they can to investigate. Low and behold, there are strange flashes of blue light coming out from over the stalks of corn, far into the fields. The boys climb back down as quickly as they can.

“Okay,” Ben says as they stroke their daemons, recovering from stretching their bonds just that bit far, “we have to go check that out.”

The journey goes quick. They’re forced to dash across the occasional bare spot in the corn, but they see and hear no one as they go. Soon they’re hiding in the corn, watching as people in bizarre suits run over the bare paths and clearings in the corn with what look like metal detectors. Where each is waved it flashes bright blue, leaving a stream of light like electricity shooting over the stalks, and leaves behind a patch of some form of metal.

“What are they doing?” Alan asks, standing for a better view, only to be pulled down and shushed by Ben and the daemons. “Sorry.”

They watch the people work. When they seem to be done one of them, a supervisor Ben supposes, pulls out a large remote and flips a switch. The metal seems to come to life, a blue glow starting in one clearing and visibly spreading down the paths. A hum starts up, and the ground begins to tremor. Suddenly a mechanical groan begins to sound and the group turn towards it to see a truly massive machine, bigger than any building in the area, rising accordion-like from the earth. Clouds begin to gather at the top of it, swirling in the sky. Thunder crashes.

Ben and the others step out onto the nearest path as the temperature sharply drops and it begins to snow.

“It’s some sort’ve weather changing device,” Cassie says, sticking close to Ben’s side.

“But who would want to make it snow here? And why?”

“Alright, freeze!” Everyone turns at once and Ben wonders how they didn’t notice two police cars pull up and empty out not twelve feet away. Two of the officers are armed.

“I took it easy on you, Alan, out of respect for your folks,” the sheriff says, stepping closer and glaring accusingly at Alan and Monarch, “but you built this machine. You’re stealing all the heat to feed your powers.”

“We’re fourteen!!” Monarch exclaims, rearing back and looking at the other officers and their daemons like she can’t believe they don’t find the idea absolutely insane. Ben agrees with her, even Cooper couldn’t have put that together.

“It’s not like that,” Alan says, and steps up to the sheriff, only to be confronted by an armed deputy.

“Stay away from him,” the man says and pumps his rifle.

Suddenly everybody scatters as Monarch, now towering over everyone and thing, brings her hooves down almost on the deputy’s nose. She thrashes and kicks, driving the officers and their daemons back, until finally stopping face to face with the sheriff, so close that the clouds of mist puffing from her nose are breaking over his.

“Illia,” he says, glancing to his side, but the rottweiler daemon standing there just looks at him like he’s mad.

“I’m not antagonizing the moose,” she says, “we’ll die!” The other police daemons seem to agree with her, as they all take the most non-aggressive stances they can. The sheriff and his deputies don’t follow their lead.

“We’re taking you in, Alan,” he says around Monarch’s bulk, “you and your accomplice both.” Ben blinks, not certain when he became an accomplice but getting flashbacks to hanging out with Kevin anyway. The deputy from before steps forward.

From the corn comes two blasts of the same blue light from before, leaving the two deputies that had stayed by the cars and their daemons frozen in a coating of the same metal that covers the ground. Teens and officers both back away as the same people in suits from before step out of the stalks, devices held high as they walk toward them as a group, dead-eyed daemons following at their heels.

“What did you do to my men?!” Instead of responding to the sheriff’s demand, the people fire upon them, freezing his remaining deputy as the rest of them just manage to dodge. Monarch becomes a goat as Alan shifts back into his Pyronite form and both go on the offensive. A zombie-like daemon is headbutted back into the corn, person collapsing from the distance. Two more of the strangers are taken down with Alan’s fire as he ducks and weaves through the air in avoidance of their blasts. The sheriff jumps on one’s back, redirecting their attack to freeze one of their allies before tearing the wiring out of the box at the front of their suit and shoving them away as it explodes.

“Can’t take too many of these,” he says. Ben smirks from where he’s been dialing up the Omnitrix. For a moment he’d been tempted to try something new, but for now he decides to stick to what he knows.

“You won’t have to,” he replies and slams down on the faceplate, green glow enveloping him and fading away to reveal Swampfire. With a well-aimed fireball he takes one of the people out clean as they try to freeze Cassie without hitting their own fox daemon, then grabs another from behind him and heaves them over his shoulder. Their helmet tears off in his hands.

On the ground in front of him is one of the aliens from the week before, the ones he’d fought with Gwen and Argit. He starts when he sees them and they wave the tentacles around their mouth at him.

“It’s one of the-” Suddenly Cassie is at his side again, growling, and the alien stands and looms closer.

“We are the DNAliens,” they say, “and we will destroy you all!” Swampfire’s eyes narrow.

“Whatever.” He lays the alien out with a single punch.

“What’s going on,” the sheriff asks, appearing at Swampfire’s side and surveying the bunch of aliens and daemons laid out on the ground. Alan and Monarch turn to him as well, the same question written on their face.

“We’ve been on their ship before,” Swampfire says, carefully, “and it was really cold. I think they may need low temperatures.”

“So they built a device to make it cold wherever they want?” Cassie doesn’t look happy with the idea, even as she voices it. Monarch does her best imitation of a shrug.

“It makes sense I guess…”

A flash of blue fills Swampfire’s vision.

~~

When his own heat finally thaws him, his first thought is worry for Cassie. Thankfully she’s right by his side, frozen in the same metal, and he immediately kneels to begin thawing her out. The sheriff and Illia are frozen too, and down the path Alan and Monarch are backing away from six armed DNAliens. As soon as she’s free Cassie runs for them.

“Need some help?”

“Yes!” Stopping not far away, Swampfire concentrates and releases a yellow gas from his hands that sinks into the nearby stalks of corn. They seem to come to life, growing and changing into massive tentacles that snatch up the DNAliens. One is able to get a blast at a vine, destroying it, but is quickly swiped up by another. The vines slam the aliens together and drop them in a pile in the middle of the path.

“You beat them!” Alan cheers as Swampfire and Cassie reach them. Cassie shakes her head.

“Not all of them.” She looks up at the top of the tower, followed by the others, to see the DNAliens, all armed, that stand at the top. “We need to take down that tower.”

“Alan, Monarch,” Swampfire turns to them, “you guys need to take them out so we can take this thing down.” Monarch makes a pained sound.

“Are you sure? I hate flying.” Alan scratches at her ears.

“I do too, sweetie, but, we going to have to.” The goat looks at Cassie and her other half with pleading eyes then, when they shake their heads in confirmation, groans and becomes a songbird, heading straight for the top with Alan close behind. For a minute Swampfire and Cassie just watch them work, dodging blasts and throwing fire, dive-bombing daemons when Monarch can, but the moment doesn’t last before they have to head for the tower themselves. A blast of fire takes out one DNAlien in their way, the second collapsing when Cassie shakes their rat demon in her mouth, and they’re quickly at the base of the tower. As one they begin to push.

Nothing happens.

“Gonna need some leverage for this stunt.” Swampfire’s root-like feet embed themselves in the ground, tearing through the metal to the earth below and settling in as deep as they can. “Okay. Here goes.” With a groan he and Cassie start again and slowly, painfully slowly, the tower begins to tilt. As it tilts further, the more they can see of the dirt-covered base, which is hardly a base at all. The tower is balanced, not grounded. They only need to get it about two feet off of straight before its own weight brings it crashing down.

“Wow,” Alan says when he lands, Monarch changing back into the same small deer they’d first seen as soon as she finds the ground beside him, “that was cool.” Swampfire smirks and turns back into Ben in a flash of light.

“Yeah, it was. Good job up there.”

“Thanks.” Together, they turn to the officers, still frozen alongside their daemons. “I guess we’ve got to go thaw them out now, huh?”

“We could leave them.”

“Monarch, no.” Ben and Cassie laugh, then Ben motions to the officers.

“Well, have at, buddy.”

~~

“Wuh- what happened,” the sheriff asks as he finishes thawing, Illia pawing at his legs in relief as Alan steps away. Ben grins.

“Alan defeated the aliens, destroyed their weather machine, then used his powers to free everyone from suspended animation.” While that sinks in, slow as he expects it to, he and Cassie turn to Alan and Monarch. “We were wondering if you would join our team. There’s a lot of aliens out there to fight, and we could use a powerhouse like you.” Alan looks almost embarrassed at the complement, and is about to respond when the sheriff steps forward and places a hand on his shoulder.

“He can’t,” he says. “He’s gonna be too busy helping me round up any other aliens who might still be hiding in town.” Alan is still smiling, if less so, and opens his mouth to speak-

“No!” Suddenly Monarch is a massive two-humped camel, even bigger than the moose, and is shoving Alan passed hero and police alike. “I am done. We have been chased and attacked and chased again and hit by a car, and nobody, nobody is going to go volunteering us to get any more involved in this shit than we already have been!” She pauses long enough to nod at Ben and Cassie- “Thank you, really”-and glare at the sheriff- “Drop dead”- then continues her way down the path. Alan breaks off and places a hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“If you need any help, just call.”

“Will do.” With a smile Alan nods, then turns to chase after his daemon, who’s going off without him.

“Monarch, wait up!”

~~

Ben and Cassie are halfway home before they realize they’re going to have to turn around and get Alan’s number.

Chapter Text

“I can’t believe I’m letting you in here.”

“Look, I’m not standing out in the rain just because you’re paranoid.”

“When I let you in my last place things started going missing afterward.”

“That sounds like a you-problem.” Argit keeps his most neutral expression on as he walks through the room. Every item in front of him has been carefully vetted, he knows, to be sure it is no more or less than exactly what their ‘host’ is willing to sell.

Also, to be sure none of it is both valuable and easily stolen. He’s going to have to tone things down some if he wants to keep profitably robbing him.

“I got another three dozen of those in the back,” Vulcanus says as Argit trails his fingers over a blaster. The paint job is new, but he’s been involved in the business for as long as he can remember and he can see the damage the weapon’s incurred. If this is the one of three dozen Vulcanus decided to use as an example- but then it doesn’t look like anything Kevin couldn’t repair for him.

“It’s a nice array you’ve got,” he says, “but what about those incendiary grenades I asked after?”

“We couldn’t get a hold of them after all,” Hadrien answers. Argit can hear Vulcanus scratch his scales and buries his hand in Susi’s fur.

“Shame.” Well, he supposes, at least the other dealer has some of what he was looking for, and extras too. Window shopping, not just for the holidays anymore. Rolling his shoulders, Argit turns back to Vulcanus with a tight smile. “How much you asking for the blasters?”

“For you? Fifteen grand.” Susi huffs.

“Highway robbery,” they say, slipping out from under Argit’s hand and continuing to inspect the merchandise.

“We have to make up for our, missing, goods somehow,” Vulkanus replies with a glare.

“With the condition that one is in? Ten grand, tops.” Hadrien rattles his scales and Argit raises a brow.

“Twelve.”

“The work I’m gonna have to do to get them in sellable condition, I oughta offer eight.”

“The lowest we’re going.”

“Then we’ll have to take our business elsewhere-”

“Argit.” Holding up a hand to pause the haggling, he turns to see his daemon plodding over with something in their mouth.

“What’cha got, Sus?” It turns out to be a thick metal disc Argit immediately recognizes as a holoviewer. Plumber issue, few years old. “Where’d you get this, man?”

“Client traded it for some low-grade stuff, parts. Just got some old human talking gibberish on it, total scam.” Argit turns it over thoughtfully as Susi returns to their normal spot at his shoulder, mouth by his ear. An old human huh…

“You think the kids would want it?” Susi whispers. He hums noncommittally.

Argit’s tried to not give them any space in his head for the past two weeks. Only that required to avoid anything that could get him involved in their chaos. After all, all he and Susi had been doing was making a living and what had they done? Drag them along on some attempt to stop an invasion. Force them into danger. Remove his first and best means of defense. Put a shock collar on his beautiful Susi. He wasn’t sure how they had survived, how any of them had survived. If nothing else if he and the daemons hadn’t heard that ship’s engines starting, if he hadn’t been there to tell Ben where to hit and what to go for, the chances that they’d have been able to save the town beside that mine were low.

The idea that his help is all that kept hundreds of people from dying totally hasn’t kept him up.

Argit fingers the chunk missing from his ear. He’d really, really liked that earring.

“I got a client collects Plumber crap,” he says aloud, flashing some tooth at Vulcanus and his daemon, “give you a hundred for it. And ten-five for the blasters.” Vulcanus gives him an appraising look, he and Hadrien clearly trying to suss out his angle, then nods.

“Deal.”

~~

“So, how do we find the brats?”

“From what I’ve seen, same way we find Kevin and Annelie,” Susi replies, “find the nearest fire or falling building.”

~~

Argit is endlessly amused when the trick, once again, works. Not only does the nearest collapsing building contain the Tennysons, it’s also on fire.

“Remind me to keep Kev from ever re-meeting these people,” he says, quilling a fleeing alien of the same tentacled type they’d dealt with before- are apparently still dealing with- after it jumps out a window, “the planet just might explode.”

“Or at least catch fire.”

The front door of the building flies off, a blazing hunk of wood and metal, and crashes to the ground feet away from the pair as another trio of the unfamiliar species flee at top speed, their daemons across their shoulders. Susi’s jumped back up from their defensive crouch and Argit is preparing to quill them when a blast of magic flies out the door after them. Gwen follows close behind it, her bird daemon tucked under one arm, skidding to a stop outside the door and blasting again. Both attacks miss.

“Gwen!” Green light flashes in the entryway as Ben exits with Cassie at his heels, turning from the Necrofriggian they’d seen in one of the windows back into a human. The building is groaning behind him, and Argit can hear the pops and crashes of supports coming loose. Susi jumps between him and the building as Gwen drops her daemon and creates a wall between the fire and her fleeing cousin.

Buildings collapsing into flaming piles of rubble turn out to be extremely loud, magic barriers or no.

The first thing Argit hears when his poor, abused ears stop ringing is Cassie calling Susi’s name. She’s bounding for them when he looks up, Ben following behind with a slower pace and a smile. Llyr and Gwen clearly aren’t as enthused as they carry the rear, giving them the same look Vulcanus and Hadrien had.

“What are you doing here?” Ben asks as Cassie and Susi sniff each other in greeting.

“Surprisingly,” Argit responds, “looking for you.”

“Well, you found us.”

“And whatever you need will have to wait,” Gwen says, “we have to follow those guys, Ben.” The boys turn to look in the direction the aliens ran. There’s nothing there.

“I think we lost them, Gwen.” Both Tennysons and their daemons look aggravated. Susi backs back to Argit’s shoulder

“So,” they ask, “what were you kids doing in a burning building anyway?” Cassie sighs.

“We were tracking a group of DNAliens, hoping they’d lead us to another of their bases, and ended up here.”

“There were,” Ben says, looking back at the wreckage, “complications.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Gwen sighs too, crossing her arms. “We just lost our only lead.” Argit glances at Susi, who cranes to see passed the Tennysons and nods. He puts on his most charming smile.

“Lucky you guys we’re here then,” he says, and gestures behind them. The DNAlien- apparently that’s what they’re calling them now, okay, kinda weird but Argit can deal- is still laying on the ground where it fell, clear of the wreckage. Gwen and Llyr’s eyes go wide, while Ben breaks into a grin and Cassie’s tail begins to wag like mad.

“Argit, you’re a lifesaver!”

“Damn right I am. Now, like I was saying-” They’re gone, trotting over to the downed enemy. Argit sighs and shakes his head. Susi merely squares their shoulders and follows them.

He, of course, follows Susi. There’s not much choice in the matter.

“I am not tracking them down again,” they growl once he’s caught up, “I’d have to sniff them out and Ben smells like Kev’s socks.”

“How long will he be out?” Gwen asks as they approach. Argit shrugs.

“Shouldn’t be too long, I only got him with a few quills. Another hour, hour and a half, maybe, tops?”

“Plenty of time to move him somewhere secure,” she says, and picks up the DNAlien in a bubble similar to the ones she caught he and Susi in. At least she’s not using that trick on just them.

“Do you know a place we can interrogate him?” Ben asks Argit and Susi looks at him like he’s stupid.

“What makes you think we’d know a place?” they counter and the two human pairs share a look before Ben shrugs.

“You seem like the type.”

It wouldn’t be so annoying if he wasn’t right.

“There’s an old house two blocks down, nobody’ll be there.”

~~

“How do you kno-”

“Owner’s visiting his gran.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

~~

Several things have been determined by the time their prisoner wakes up:

One- Todd has no food worth eating in his house.

Two- Gwen and spiders, not a combo, very important information.

Three- the DNAliens have been stealing parts from various machines and the Tennysons want to know why.

Four- Argit is too comfortable with a knife in his hand to be allowed to help with the interrogation.

Five- Susi, on the other hand, is more than welcome to sit with the prisoner’s daemon and flash their big, sharp teeth as Ben and Gwen ask questions.

~~

“It’s about time you came to.”

Ben is serious, enough so that it’s almost amusing, arms crossed, glaring down at the prisoner. Cassie is glaring beside him, lips pulled back in a silent snarl, and Llyr stands by her, head held low. Gwen rounds out the bunch in front of the DNAlien, as serious as her cousin, hands swirling with magic. The DNAlien rears back in preparation to spit goo at them, but Susi growls at his side, displaying their sharp canines and the bird daemon trapped under their paw. He swallows his mucus and shies away.

Argit has a sudden craving for popcorn.

“Why are you guys stealing parts,” Ben demands, “what are you building?” The other alien snorts.

“The way to victory.” The cousins glare harder.

“Are you sure you don’t to borrow my knife?” Argit asks from his spot beside Susi. They roll their eyes and shift into a more comfortable position, the smaller daemon letting out a cry when they just happen to put more weight on it. Worry flashes in the DNAlien’s eye.

“Where,” Ben growls, slamming his hands down on either arm of the chair the prisoner has been tied to. It’s an impressive display, especially when the magic around Gwen’s hands flares and Susi pulls their lips just a bit further back. The DNAlien can’t be blamed for shivering, or for finally breaking when Susi opens their mouth wide.

“An old building, abandoned, was missing part of the roof before we found it. Smells like cheese. Now let Mirèio go!” Susi looks to the Tennysons for confirmation, listing to the side when Ben nods. As the daemon struggles to it’s other half’s lap, Argit pulls out his phone and starts typing.

‘kev looking for an old abandoned building’ ‘is missing some roof’

‘why’

‘need to find it’

He swears he can hear Kevin rolling his eyes before responding, even over Ben suggesting flying up and searching the city from the sky.

‘north of storage, first left, third right’ ‘you’ll know it’

‘thanks buddy’

“Got it!” Argit hops to his feet, Susi chuckling beside him, and grins at the Tennysons. “Shall we?”

“You know where it is?” Gwen asks, following him as he and his daemon head for the door. The others are close behind.

“I know a guy.”

Rule Three: Sometimes knowing someone who knew what you wanted was as god as knowing yourself.

~~

“Why are we stealing a car?”

“Van, Red, and would you rather walk all the way across town?”

“There are these things called buses.”

“Susi won’t fit.”

“Well, that sounds like a you-problem.”

“Guys, please…”

~~

The DNAlien is right, the place has definitely had some roof missing until recently. The patch doesn’t even blend in.

“And we’re sure this is the right place?” Ben asks as he climbs out of the van. Susi and Cassie respond in unison.

“Oh yeah.”

“I think the cheese actually overpowers the DNAliens.”

“Scary.”

“Quiet.” At Ben’s prompting the group sneaks around the side of the building. There are noises coming from inside- machinery and tools whirring, people talking. About fifteen feet up there’s a line of windows, half of which are open. Gwen activates her magic, an offer of stairs, and Ben nods. At Argit’s mimed suggestion they move carefully, as close together as they can without touching daemons, so as to minimize the chances of anyone seeing the glow of magic that would come from larger platforms. A metal walkway extends along the wall on the other side of the windows and on Llyr’s ‘clear’ they clamber through as quietly as they can.

Argit is proud of just how quiet that is, given the clambering involves squeezing a nearly five-foot-tall and over five-hundred pound ecnoel through a foot-and-a-half wide opening.

“Wow.”

“What are they making?” Gwen asks as they look over the factory floor. Any machinery that was there before the DNAliens arrived is gone, and instead the building is filled with workers putting together all sorts of things.

“That’s a generator I think,” Argit says.

“And that’s definitely an engine, we sold one like that to a guy when we left Khoros, remember?”

“Oh yeah. And that lot are retooling laser lance casings.” He half rises from their group crouch, ignoring Gwen’s hand as she grabs the back of his jacket to try to pull him back. “I don’t recognize that though.” In the corner, he points to where a group of DNAliens are crowded around a massive machine. It’s only half built, and a cluster of them are arguing with each other over a set of blueprints.

“Whatever it is,” Gwen says, hand falling to Llyr’s head, “if can’t be anything good.” Cassie begins to growl, low in her throat.

“It’s like they’re stocking their entire, whatever this is.” Ben face goes cold and serious again, he begins to dial the Omnitrix. His hand doesn’t even raise before Argit and Susi are well away.

“They won’t be after we’re done,” the ‘infamous’ hero says and slams down on the faceplate. In a flash of bright green his human shape is replaced with that of a winged red amphibian.

“Huh,” Llyr says, “Jetray this time.”

The flash catches the attention of every DNAlien in the building and Argit is happy they moved when all those eyes turn to the others. Ina heartbeat Jetray has swooped down to place Cassie on the factory floor and is circling above the sea of heads, firing lasers from his eyes and tail. Gwen and Llyr aren’t far behind either, Llyr swooping from the walkway like a bird on fire and Gwen charging after on her magic platforms, throwing magic left and right. By the time Argit and Susi find the actual stairs down to the floor there have been three different explosions.

“Why are we here again?” he hisses into their ear, climbing onto their back.

“I didn’t want to have to search for them again. After that it’s all a blur.”

The good news is, Gwen doesn’t have to waste time and energy on shields anymore. Susi is large enough, and with Argit riding maneuverable enough, that anywhere they choose to be space just magically appears, and if that space just so happens to have been previously filled with tentacled aliens trying to attack with mucus, well they’re going to just have to deal.

‘Dealing’, it turns out, involves a lot of accidentally gluing each other to the floor.

In fact, Gwen only needs to put up one shield after Susi and Argit join the fray.

“Red!” he yells as Susi charges forward to snatch Cassie up in their jaws, beating a fast-paced retreat behind Gwen and Llyr as Jetray’s lasers come dangerously close to the generators and the stacks of fuel behind them.

The shield only just goes up before the explosion and they’re all amazed it doesn’t shatter. Not that they have much time to think about that as Jetray flies backwards over their heads.

“Ben!” As soon as it’s safe the shield goes down and they all, Cassie especially, hightail it towards Jetray, who flashes green and becomes Ben once more with a groan as they approach. The dog daemon is immediately in his lap, in his arms, as Gwen helps him up. “Are you okay?” He doesn’t speak for a minute, just stroking Cassie’s fur and staring at the flaming wreckage surrounding what used to be a wall and is now a very impressive hole.

“Why,” he finally says, “is it always fire lately?”

The others can only shrug.

~~

“I could really use a smoothie right now.”

“What’s that?”

“You don’t know what a smoothie is?”

“Ben, he doesn’t know what a smoothie is.”

“You poor man.”

“What the fuck…?”

“Welcome to our suffering, Rat.”

~~

They end up at a food stand, sitting in the stolen van to avoid the rain, with about seven different kinds of smoothie and a cup of water. Ben’s claimed three of the smoothies for himself and Cassie, Gwen has one, and the last three and the water have all been decreed- By the Power of Ben- as Argit’s. To ensure he gets the full range of smoothie flavor, apparently, and to cleanse his taste buds between said smoothies. The cups are sitting on the floor in front of them, tops discarded, each being lapped at in turn as Susi chuckles behind him and Ben and Cassie watch with bated breath.

“So?” Argit shrugs.

“I’m still breathing,” he says, and they deflate as Susi, Gwen, and Llyr all but collapse in laughter.

“Don’t worry, Ben,” the alien daemon says, “as far as he’s concerned food falls into ‘poison’, ‘not poison’, and ‘Kev’s cooking’.” This doesn’t soothe Ben or his daemon, and Gwen pats her cousin’s arm sympathetically, still smiling.

“Anyway,” Llyr says, “didn’t you two say you were looking for us?” That’s right, they were-!

“We came across this,” Argit says, pulling the holoviewer from one of his pockets, glad it seems to have suffered no damage. “Haven’t turned it on, but the guy said there was an old human on it and I thought it might have something to do with your problems.” He jumps back as Ben shoots forward and snatches the holoviewer from his hand, knocking over one of the smoothies. Susi sniffs the puddle, laps at it experimentally, then makes a face.

“I am so glad I don’t have to eat.”

Ben is almost frantic as he fumbles with the device and Argit thinks back to the boy’s worrying about his grandfather. He doesn’t understand the situation, can’t imagine ever getting so upset because a member of his family had gone missing. Kevin maybe, but a relative? The machine springs to life and the fuzzy blue hologram of a portly old human appears with a large dog daemon by his side. The Tennysons’ breath hitches.

“Ben,” the hologram says, “if you found this message, you must be in pretty deep.” Argit doesn’t like the sound of that, in about a hundred different ways. “There’s a lot of things I can’t reveal yet-” getting worse- “but here’s one thing I can- you can’t go it alone.” What was it with humans and ‘alone’? Erinaens couldn’t go five paces without running into a relative or the mate of a relative and that was how they tended to like it. “By now, you’re probably meeting some of the other Plumber’s kids, but you have to find more. You need to put together a team.”

‘Gather children to fight the alien threat.’ That didn’t sound ominous at all.

“Grandpa is right,” Ben says, clutching the holoviewer tight, “we’re going to need help.”

Argit does not approve of the look they give him and his daemon. No, no. It is not happening. He is not fighting someone else’s battles just because a pair of kids gave him a pleading look that made him think of something, someone, he couldn’t quite place. Just because for the second time in his life somebody had been happy to see him a second time. Just because they were kids and fighting alone and their grandfather wanted kids working this job. Just because that town-

He groans.

“You people are going to be the death of us.”

Chapter Text

Ben and Cassie are sitting on the curb, same as they’ve been for the last half hour, smoothie forgotten by their side, watching and rewatching Grandpa Max’s recording.

This would be worrying enough if it wasn’t for the third night in a row.

“I don’t consider myself an expert in humans,” Argit says, sitting a little way away with Gwen and their daemons, watching Ben and making their way through their own third smoothies, “but I’m pretty sure that ain’t healthy behavior.” Gwen shakes her head.

“No, it’s not. Ben!” He doesn’t look up and she frowns. “Are you okay?” Still nothing. “I think he’s broken.”

“Shame, he was handy.” Gwen watches with suspicion as he sets down his smoothie and plods over to her cousin with Susi. The breath catches in her throat for a split second when he snatches the holoviewer from Ben’s hand.

“Hey!” Ben surges to his feet and Llyr heads in as Cassie begins growling. Gwen follows close behind- it won’t do to have Argit dead, no matter how she feels about him or how little he seems to be affected by the fierce glare on her cousin’s face.

“If you haven’t figured out what he’s saying by now, you’re not going to,” he says simply before offering the device back, “and if you just wanna hear his voice you can do that on your own time, we have shit to do.” The worst thing, Gwen figures, is that he has a point. They have a conspiracy to figure out, DNAliens to stop, a grandfather to find, and sitting around doing nothing isn’t going to get any of that done. Ben seems to agree, given how he and Cassie both deflate.

“You’re right,” he says and his tone says he’s almost as annoyed by that as Gwen is. Breathing deeply, he squares his shoulders and stands up straight. “First up, we need to get a team together, like Grandpa said.”

Pocketing the holoviewer, he begins to fiddle with the Omnitrix. It takes several minutes, but eventually a holographic map of the city appears above his wrist. Several spots are flashing red.

“The Omnitrix can track Plumbers’ badges,” Cassie explains, “we can use it to find other Plumbers, or at least their kids.” Argit and Susi huff, Llyr nips at Susi’s ankle. They’ve made their thoughts on having ‘kids’ doing this stuff clear, despite how surely Ben and Gwen have proven they can handle themselves and Argit’s own teenhood.

“This one is closest,” Ben says, pointing the blip out, “we’ll start there.” Gwen starts trying to remember what bus that would be and when the next one is, but her thoughts and hopes shatter when rather than being sensible Ben turns to Argit.

“We’re gonna need a ride.”

~~

“You should’ve turned right three blocks down.”

“We’re taking the overpass, it’s faster.”

“The traffic is shit!”

“I’m sorry, do you wanna drive? Oh, wait-” Between the quill-filled mane and the fact that he’s the one driving Gwen can’t reach out and smack Argit upside the head, so she instead takes pleasure in Susi’s yelp as Llyr bites at them.

“You’re really going to try to tell me you have a license?”

“More of one than you.”

“It doesn’t count if it’s forged.”

“If the police accept it, it counts. And you don’t even have that.”

“That’s because some of us have morals.” Ben groans.

“Can you two spend one hour without fighting?”

“No.” “Stay out of this, Ben.”

“Anyway, you lose a lot of money worrying about fucking ‘morals’.”

“Which explains why you’re wanted for slave trading.”

“Oh don’t you even-” There’s a massive crash and Argit slams on the brakes as the overpass shakes. They all scramble out of their stolen SUV. The road is cracking to pieces to their right ahead of them and Gwen and Ben both run to the barriers to see what’s happening. Her heart sinks and Llyr and Cassie make little pained sounds.

A large truck on the underpass has had an accident and slammed sideways against the pillar holding the overpass up. It’s on fire now and with every passing second the road above is coming closer to collapsing onto it. With a shudder a large chunk of roadway, complete with car and passengers, begins to fall.

“Gwen!” Llyr cries, taking wing as she uses a series of magic platforms to get close enough to see what she’s doing. As the car falls she forms another platform, this one on a gentle slope, that catches it and slowly brings in to the safety of the ground. Another tremor breaks her concentration and she’s forced to back up as the road falls even farther. People begin to climb out of their cars- ‘finally, did they not notice it was giving way before now?’- and head towards safety, only to be knocked to their knees by another shift and more of the asphalt and concrete falling away. Ignoring the knot of worry in her stomach, Gwen builds another slide, this one person-sized, and sighs as people and their daemons use it to escape to safety.

On the other side of the collapse she sees a flash of green light and looks up in time to watch Humongasaur jump down to the other road, growing to a massive size and attempting to shore up the overpass.

“Get the people down!” he says, which Gwen thinks is pretty stupid because she’s already doing that, but what are you going to do? She’s happy to see that already the people at the bottom of her slide have begun helping each other, ensuring they can stand, helping them get away from the destruction, and surprised to see Argit at the truck. The fire is at the cab, but Susi is trying to be keeping it at bay with kicked dirt and dust, and the driver appears to be regaining consciousness. Although given Argit looks like he’s growling at him as he helps him crawl out of his rig he probably doesn’t want to be.

“Ben, the girl!” When Gwen looks, Cassie has run to the end of her bond with Ben, but still can’t quite reach the young woman wobbling around in the middle of the road.

“Hands full!” There’s a car coming and she’s walking right into its path, it won’t be able to stop in time-

A boy surrounded by a sparkling golden glow swoops in out of nowhere, snatching her up before the impact. The oncoming car twists sideways as it stops, but nobody is hurt.

The last person goes down Gwen’s slide and as soon as she sees him being helped to his feet she drops the platform. Instead she turns her powers to Argit and the truck driver, grabbing them and their daemons with tendrils of magic and moving them as far from the overpass as she can.

“Everybody’s okay!” Llyr calls to Ben as soon as they’re clear. He nods and steps away, watching as half the roadway collapses entirely onto the burning truck, taking the cars with it. Cassie rushes back to his side as Gwen and Llyr descend to join them.

“Are you guys alright?”

“Yeah,” Ben says, rolling his shoulders, “really sore though.”

“You’ll be happy to hear,” Susi announces as they approach where Argit is looking over the driver, “that the only injury the guy has is a twisted wrist. And smoke inhalation but Argit’s got that too and it seems mild. Nothing to worry about.” Gwen’s glad to hear it, although she has her doubts. Behind Susi she can see the man coughing softly, and Argit shaking as he suppresses his own.

“Good,” Ben says beside her. Cassie walks up and bumps heads with the larger daemon.

“Do you guys know the new dude?” Susi starts and follows the others’ eyes, tilting their head to one side when they see the boy knelt at the side of the road beside the rescued girl.

“No.”

“When did he get here?” Argit’s ears are twitching in his direction as he catches up with them. Of course he hadn’t noticed.

“While you were busy.”

The girl, dressed in a school uniform for some reason, is panicking as they approach, clutching her lizard daemon to her chest as the boy gently calms her.

“These guys saved you,” he says as they close in on them and Gwen can’t help but smile at his soft tone.

“Your friend’s the one who saved you,” Ben says with a smile, “he’s just being modest.”

‘He’s got a badge,’ Gwen notices when he turns to looks them over. He’s using it in place of a belt buckle.

“Thank you,” his daemon says and Gwen’s eyes are pulled to her, a drab green parrot that seem out of place sitting beside such a handsome face, “whoever you are.” The boy stood and stepped towards them, leaving the girl behind.

“Something strange has been happening to the girls at our school lately,” he says, gesturing to his friend. Cassie is practically bouncing with excitement.

“Glad to help!” Ben pats her head fondly.

“We made a good team out there.” He looks the boy over, grinning broadly when he reaches his waist. “You have a Plumbers badge.” The boy looks down, fingers his badge- this is about the point Gwen decides she needs to know his name- and smiles.

“My dad gave it to me.” He looks up at them, “You know about the Plumbers?”

“You could say that,” Argit says. He and Susi are behind the rest of them, having hung back as they approached.

“I’m Ben Tennyson, and this is Cassie,” Ben says, gesturing as he speaks. “That’s Argit and Susi, and Gwen and Llyr.” The boy tilts his head.

“Ben as in ‘Ben Tennyson’?” He smiles and moves closer, extending a hand to shake. “I’m a huge fan of yours, but I’d heard you disappeared. I’m Mike Morningstar, this is Ruth.” Argit seems reluctant to shake when he reaches to him, quills raised, but does so, and Susi steps forward to sniff at the much smaller daemon. Ruth hardly moves, sitting regally on his shoulder. They reach Gwen and Llyr last, and when she grasps his hand a shock runs through her, electricity arcing over their skin. She jumps back, almost missing Argit’s hiss when Mike smiles at her.

“Wow,” he says. “That’s never happened before.” She looks him over, then meets his eyes as innocently as she can.

“Maybe it’s because we both have powers?” He glances over his shoulder, then smirks at her.

“That’s a theory.” How does he manage to make it sound that charming? Ruth nibbles at his ear, feathers fluffing.

“We should get Trina home, Mike.” He sighs, then turns to look at the girl.

“You’re right.” Walking away, he gathers Trina in his arms. “Afterwards, why don’t we meet up at my place and talk?” Ben, Gwen, and their daemons all grin.

“Sure.”

“Sounds good.” Argit just shrugs.

“Uh-huh, sure.” Gwen manages to wait until Mike and Ruth have flown out of sight before turning to glower at Argit.

“‘Uh-huh, sure’?!” He glowers back.

“We don’t know if we can trust this guy yet.”

“We can trust him fine. He helped that girl-”

“She said she was running from something, he shushed her before she could say what.”

“She was in shock, anything she says right now can’t be trusted anyway until she calms down.”

“And then he immediately starts going all fanboy over Ben-”

“He’s famous, what do you want from him!”

“-then flirting with you?” Gwen’s glower upgrades to a glare.

“And what exactly is wrong with him flirting with me?” Scoffing, Argit rolls his eyes so hard his head goes with them.

“With you? Just, listen, flirting is one thing but with everything else- I’m not saying he’s evil, I’m just saying I don’t trust him yet and don’t think you should.”

“Well I do, he’s perfectly nice and-”

“Okay!” Ben steps between them once their daemons start tensing up, hands raised. “That’s enough. We’re going to go talk to him anyway, we’ll see what we think of him then, alright?”

They all nod.

~~

Mike’s house is huge, a mansion, with a circle driveway and fountains. It’s like something out of a movie and Gwen and Llyr both find themselves impressed as the group heads up the walk.

“We expect you to behave, Argit.”

“Behave? When do I not behave?” Ben fidgets, glancing between Gwen and Argit.

“Well,” he says, “you can be kind of mouthy.”

“If this Mike guy can’t handle that,” Susi says, “then he should grow sharper quills.”

“What should happen,” Llyr hisses, “is you two should grow some manners.”

“Everybody,” Ben says, “needs to relax. Everything’ll be fine.” They stop at the door.

“Just,” Argit says, grabbing Ben’s hand as he goes to ring the bell, “be careful, everybody. That little shock trick he pulled with Red means he has energy powers, and people with those can be a danger to themselves and others.” A familiar look crosses Ben and Cassie’s faces, the one that means they’re thinking about Kevin and Annelie. Gwen doesn’t think the situations are at all similar. She rings the bell.

“It’ll be fine, Mike’s totally sane.” Argit snorts.

“He’s into you.”

The door opens.

“Knew you’d find me,” Mike says with a soft smile and Gwen feels several things melt a little. He is good. Ben smiles back at him, gesturing at the house.

“Nice place you have here.” Mike rolls his eyes.

“Thanks. Mom and her new husband live in the main house.” Gwen about chokes and Llyr does at the realization that there’s another one. She sees Argit’s and Susi’s ears perk at the mention. “They leave me alone, let me do what I want.”

“Cool.” He steps back into the house, gesturing them inside.

“After you.”

“Behave,” Gwen hisses into Argit’s ear as she walks inside, then flashes a smile at Mike. Ruth spreads her wings for her.

Inside, the front room is full of desks, tables, computers. All the décor seems to have been removed in favor of turning it into Mike’s own little base of operations. The closest there is to decoration is the multitude of perches scattered around, typical for perching bird daemons, all various heights, types, sizes, textures, along with colors and patterns.

“What is all this stuff,” Cassie asks, sniffing about the place. Ben is trailing behind her with a grin.

“Dad’s Plumber things,” Ruth replies, “we brought them over from his headquarters.” Mike steps into place beside Gwen.

“I could take you there later, if you want,” he says, in a ‘come hither’ tone, and she smiles. Ben doesn’t notice, of course.

“We’d all like to go,” he says, still looking around.

“Could be worth a look.” Argit’s also looking around- and probably pocketing things but Gwen doesn’t want to start a fuss in front of Mike and anyway Susi is blocking her view- but his ears are focused on them. Suddenly Mike’s hand is around her arm and Ruth’s on the wing.

“Here,” he says, leading her across the room, “let me show you something.” Halfway she feels a faint burning sensation and falters, but catches herself as he lets go.

Huh, did Ruth’s feathers always look so nice, or is it the perch she’s chosen?

“I’m patched into the global Plumber’s monitoring network,” Mike says, gesturing to the wall-sized display he’s led her too. He turns gracefully to survey the graphs, maps, charts it shows. “It’s connected to everything, global and interplanetary internet, Earth-bound law enforcement frequencies, and of course the badge communication channel.”

“Communication channel?” Ruth turns a lovely brown eye to Susi.

“You do know about the communication function, don’t you?” Their lips pull back for a fraction of a moment before Argit’s hand is in their fur.

“We don’t exactly have a badge between us,” he says curtly.

“So,” Gwen says, drawing attention away from their mouthy associates and onto her, god Mike’s eyes are even prettier than Ruth’s, “you keep an eye on things with this stuff, then use your powers to help people.” She smiles at him. “You’re like your neighborhood’s own superhero.” He smiles back.

“I never thought about it like that,” he says, “but I guess you’re right.”

“Of course we are,” Llyr says, and ducks his head shyly when Ruth looks at him.

“You know what I’m thinking?” Ben asks brightly. “You should join our team!” Cassie bounces.

“Yeah!”

“Hold up!” Argit steps between Ben and Mike. “You don’t even know this guy!”

“What’s to know? He’s got the powers; he’s got the gear-”

“I have ex-boyfriends with that, I sure as fuck wouldn’t work with them!” Ben and Cassie both give him a harsh look.

“And it’s what Grandpa told us to do.” Turning away, they approach Mike. “Our Grandpa Max was a Plumber, and he disappeared looking into this big alien conspiracy that's going on against Earth. We're trying to find him so we can stop it. Want to help?” Mike smiles at Gwen again and it’s dazzling.

“I’d love to.”

The lights go out, flicker, and come back on. Mike seems uncomfortable when they’re off.

“Sorry,” he says, “the electricity’s been a little undependable lately.”

“Has it?” Argit asks in that half-sarcastic, half-intrigued tone she’s already learned he gets whenever he’s got an idea. Thankfully nobody bothers to answer.

“Hey,” Cassie says, “check out the power spike at the local substation.” Everyone turns to look and as she said, one of the charts shows a spike in power at that location.

“You said something strange was happening in town, right?” Ben gestures at the display. “I’d say this definitely qualifies.

“If you need to check it out,” Llyr says, waddling forward, “we’ll help.” Ruth alights back to Mike’s shoulder.

“Thanks.”

Mike heads out the door and they all follow loosely behind, Llyr mooning at Ruth all the way. Argit stops long enough to give Gwen an appraising look, moving on when she glares. Wordlessly, she rubs the spot on her arm where he touched her, ignoring the dark mark there.

It’s probably just a bruise from the overpass.

~~

Argit makes Mike and Ruth sit in the back of the SUV, with Susi taking the spot beside Gwen and Llyr that normally sits empty. He and Gwen pointedly don’t argue about it all the way to the substation.

“Stay sharp,” Ben says as they head in through the unlocked gate, “we’ve got company.”

The air is full of static, and Susi and Cassie both mutter about the smell of ozone. All around them is an electric hum, and in front a strange buzz.

“Sounds like that buzzing sound you always hear in old monster movies,” Mike says, staying close to her.

“It’s loose electricity, buzzes when it gets bad,” Argit says, “be careful.”

They round a corner and standing there, between two pieces of machinery Gwen doesn’t recognize, is what she’s relatively sure is a teenage girl. Her skin is grey, wrinkled, and thin, her lips pulled far from the teeth. Her hair is mussed, her eyes glowing, and electricity is coming from the machines and flowing into her upraised arms. Ben and Cassie take a sharp step back, almost a tumble, and Mike immediately steps between the girl and Gwen.

When she notices them, she growls, her eyes losing their glow, and yanks a piece of equipment off the ground to throw at them. Gwen muscles her way passed Mike and forms a shield that the machinery bounces harmlessly off, then backs up as three more girls, all the same but for different hair styles and colors, come out of nowhere and join the first in shambling towards them.

“The girls here,” Cassie says, voice strained, “kinda weird.”

“They’re wearing our school uniform,” Ruth responds, “but I don’t recognize any of them.”

“Neither do I.” One of the girls yanks a pole from the ground and Mike, ever proactive, steps forward and shoots a pair of golden blasts at the zombie girls’ feet, knocking them away and kicking up a cloud of dust.

“Energy blasts,” Ben cries, “nice!” But Mike looks concerned.

“Try not to hurt them,” he says, “Maybe we can try to reverse this, whatever it is!” The girls charge from the dust cloud with a roar and Argit shoves his way in front of the other boys, downing them in a hail of quills. Mike and Ruth look shocked.

Gwen wants to wipe the smug look Argit gives them right off his face.

“Done.”

“Nice work,” Ben says, patting his shoulder. “I wonder what they were doing.” Mike opens his mouth, but Susi interrupts him.

“Feeding.” The others turn to look at them. “We have a lot of experience with navivores, energy-eaters. That’s what they are.”

“What I wanna know,” Argit says, “is what so many of them are doing here at the same time. It’s practically a universal constant that navivores get really territorial about their meals.” Mike steps back to stand beside Gwen as the Erinaen talks and she certainly doesn’t refuse when he offers her his hand. It burns a little, but it’s worth it-

“Hey hey hey!” Suddenly Argit is shoving them apart, standing between her and Mike and she want so badly to hit him for it- “They also get real fucking flirty when they’re hungry!”

“Argit!”

“What are you trying to say?” Mike asks, arching a perfect eyebrow.

“That I know you’re a navivore and I don’t want you touching the kids until I know they aren’t on the menu!” Ruth ruffles her feathers.

“A pretty hefty accusation…”

“Oh I’m just getting started; also, pretty you have something to do with those girls!”

“Argit, lay off!” Grabbing his shoulder, Gwen shoves the alien away with a snarl. He doesn’t stop glaring. “You’ve done nothing but rag on about him since we met him!”

“This isn’t normal, Red!”

“That doesn’t mean he’s involved!”

“Navivores don’t behave like this without a stronger one giving the okay, he fits the bill!”

“You don’t even know he’s a-”

“He’s been feeding off you all night!” It takes all her strength not to hit him.

“Just because you like to think everybody is an asshole it doesn’t mean they are, just that you are.” Argit hisses and backs away.

“You know what, fuck it, he can have you-”

“Argit!”

“-I hope Sparkles there drains you till there’s nothing left, and I hope you burn him out!”

Gwen is breathing heavy when Ben grabs Argit and pulls him aside, but she tries to calm herself when Mike places his hand on her arm again. It won’t do to look bad in front of him, anyone but him.

“It looks like Ben’s about to give him a major chewing out,” he says into her ear and his breath feels so nice, smells so nice, “how about we go get dinner?”

“That sounds good.” His hand drops to hers as he leads her back out of the substation. She can vaguely feel it burning, but it doesn’t matter, she’s next to Mike. She’s next to Mike and he’s so warm, and soft, and gentle. His hair is so lovely and his voice as he talks about where they might go is perfection. He’s amazing. Something in her notices how little energy he gives off, that can’t be right, or normal

She wants to help him.

~~

“Come on, you should see this.” Gwen follows, as she and Llyr have for what feels like only minutes, as Mike and Ruth lead the way into a large, tower-like building. She knows there’s a word for it, but she can’t think of it, not with him beside her.

“I’m really glad we met, Gwen,” he says as they crest a flight of stairs opening out onto a platform. Gwen smiles.

“I am too.”

“I knew there was something special about you the first time we met.”

“I felt it too.” Mike closes the space between them until they’re less than a foot apart, staring down at her with those wonderful, perfect blue eyes.

“And now? All of those other girls? Mean nothing.” He takes her arms in his hands again and she all but melts into his touch, breathless. Electricity arcs between them again, like, like “Your energy is like nothing I’ve ever felt before, when it flows through me I feel, invincible.”

There’s that golden glow again, filling her eyes, and she’s just so tired, and her arms burn, and Mike is right there, so comforting…

“From the moment I touched you, Gwen, I knew I’d found the only girl I would ever need.”

~~

“Gwen!”

“What did we fucking say?!”

The boys…

“Get away from her, Morningstar!” Mike sets her down and the gold leaves with him. She can see, she can see the boys, and Susi, Cassie… fighting… she can hardly keep her eyes open…

A flash of green. Jetray.

Crashes.

Blasts.

Barking.

“I can’t get a shot, Ben!”

“Kinda got my own problems!”

More blasts.

A scream.

She can see, Ruth, falling, falling, where’s Llyr? Where’s her Llyr? Her daemon?

She forces herself up enough to scan around, can’t be far, no pain, there! Her hand disappears in the Dust on his feathers, he nuzzles it

More green, Ben is unconscious why is Ben unconscious why is Mike

She gets to her knees. Llyr struggles to stand, she tries to join him

His hand is in Susi’s fur why is his hand- only Argit’s hand goes there

They’re walking, stumbling, moving forward

They’re glowing gold, he’s glowing gold, Susi’s not his, he attacked Ben-

How dare he.

“What are you-” He starts when she grabs his arm and she pulls

Gwen can feel his energy, her energy, Susi’s energy flowing into her, filling her. Her face filling out, strength returning. She doesn’t stop, not until the gold of his skin flakes away, until the color fades away, until his skin is tight and grey like the girls at the substation. Until he collapses at her feet, Ruth flailing around him and squawking in fury. Llyr easily knocks her away.

“Gwen, are you okay?” Ben and Cassie rush to them, wobbly on their feet but alright, and Ben catches her in a hug.

“We’re fine. Are you guys..?”

“Fine,” he turns to look at Argit and Susi, collapsed in one each other and shaking, Gwen feels a pang, “we’ll all be fine.” Taking a step back, Gwen looks at Mike. She can’t believe she ever found this, thing worth her time.

“I don’t think you’ll be needing this anymore,” she says, and snatches the badge off his belt, swooping Llyr up under one arm while she’s down there.

‘After all’, she thinks as she pockets it and adjusts him to cradle in her arms, ‘one of us should have one.’

~~

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, Argit, you were right.”

“You were being stupid, I expect it from you.” ... “I didn’t really hope he killed you. You’re not that bad. Quite.”

“Apology accepted. Thanks for coming to save me.”

“Thanks for actually saving us. You did good back there; I was almost impressed.”

“Wait, did you just compliment me?”

“Yeah, yeah, never mention it again and I won’t mention how you got yourself eaten by a guy with a glitter trail.”

“…Deal.”

Chapter Text

“Don’t sit on that, it’s worth more than you!” Ben jumps up off a machine they don’t recognize, Cassie whining at his feet and following Susi with big, wet eyes.

“Come on Argit, please? Ken was supposed to back from college two days ago. The police said we should wait and see if he turns up but-” Argit and Susi snort in unison and Llyr feels a hiss build in his throat at their sneer.

“And isn’t that just like law enforcement,” Argit says, absently waving the clipboard he’s been taking inventory on, “guy vanishes into thin air and they don’t even wanna try to find him.” He waves the clipboard pointedly at the Tennysons. “Watch, if he turns up dead they’re gonna try and say it was that missing grandad of yours, just so they don’t have to do an actual investigation.” Susi shakes their head as he titters disapprovingly. Llyr can see Gwen’s fists clench out the corner of his eye and anger building in them as he flaps his wings in agitation.

“You wouldn’t be so flippant if it was your brother gone!” he honks, and Susi lowers their head to level with him.

“If it were our brother we’d still have nearly ten left.” They straighten, then stretch. “This is the problem with only having a few cubs in your life, you lose one and everyone loses their minds.“

“Why do you even need our help anyway?” Argit asks, eyeing the others suspiciously.

“Gwen and I don’t know how to drive.” The alien pair narrow their eyes skeptically at them.

“So? Nobody in your family who can wants to go search for this guy? Nearly as bad as mine...”

“Guys, please?” Cassie asks, lying on her belly and trying to look as downtrodden as she can.

“No. I’ve got a living to make, you lot are already taking up too much of our time with the important stuff.” Gwen’s hand falls to Llyr’s knob as she steps forward.

“I’ll pay you.” Argit’s eyes light up and Susi’s ears prick.

“Now that,” the alien says, leaning against a box with a grin, “we like to hear.”

~~

Of course this is the night it takes longer for him to find a car that will fit all six of them without somebody having to touch Susi than it does to steal it.

In the end they end up tearing two of the backseats out of a blazer and crowding in, Ben and Cassie riding shotgun and Gwen and Llyr settled in the back with Susi. As usual, they and Argit make sure to throw on a set of ID masks to avoid breaking the masquerade (Llyr finds the polar bear shape Susi chooses too inconspicuous, but acknowledges that with someone their size there aren’t many options), and off they go. They spend ten minutes trying to get across how wonderful Ken and Ríonach are- talking about how he plays in a band, she’s the faster runner they know, they took Cassie and Ben to their first soccer game- before the Tennysons let the car fall into silence. Argit has nothing but smart remarks and if they hadn’t known better they’d have thought Susi was moping.

Llyr is grateful when they pull passed the ‘Welcome to Santa Mira’ sign.

~~

“This is the fifth garage we’ve checked, if they aren’t here-”

“Then we’ll check more.” Ben spares the time to glare at Argit before looking inside the building. His eyes light up. “There’s the Awesomemobile!” Argit and Susi look inside and mutter between themselves about somebody having an aneurysm while Gwen and Llyr go to try the nearby door.

“It’s locked. Looks like they’re closed already.” Brushing passed her, Argit cracks his knuckles. He’s at the door for maybe twenty seconds before it pops open.

“Not anymore.”

The Tennysons breeze passed him and head straight for the car. It doesn’t look damaged, there are a few more pieces of duct tape holding the front bumper on than Llyr remembers but that number was never set. Immediately everyone sets to checking every panel for clues and it isn’t two minutes before Ben opens the back doors.

“Fucking shit!”

“How does Ríonach live like this?!”

“Shut the fucking door!”

Ben has the decency to look sheepish as he does, smiling apologetically to the more sensitive members of the team and their punished noses.

“Good news,” he says, “we have Ken’s laundry, so hopefully Cassie and Susi can track him.” Cassie snorts, pawing at her nose.

“If he smells like that Llyr can. When’s the last time he washed?”

“Don’t you live with Ben?”

“Yes, but I have to suffer through him.”

Gwen bites her lip, popping the hood and going to inspect the engine. She and Llyr don’t know much about cars, but they aren’t finding much elsewhere. She’s looking at it in confusion when her daemon jumps up to see for himself. Llyr lets out a confused honk that gets the other’s attention, tilts his head to the side, and pecks at the only thing before them that doesn’t have rust.

“Gwen?” Ben asks as the rest of the team crowds around, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t think this is supposed to be here,” she says, and picks the purple and black device off the air filter. Argit clicks his tongue in interest and she hands it over without prompting. “Do you know what it is?”

“Combustion disruptor,” he says. When the others give him a further questioning stare he continues, “it releases a pulse that causes a bunch of important parts of a combustion engine to shake bad enough to just not work while it’s active.” He shoves it in a pocket. “Old tech, most of the galaxy’s moved on by now.” The Tennysons’ eyes narrow.

“So, sabotage?” Gwen nods, stroking Llyr’s neck as his feathers begin to fluff in anger.

“That’s what it sounds like. But why would anyone target Ken?”

“What are you lot doing here?”

Somehow two local men, one with ‘Shem’ written on this shirt and both looking stereotypically redneck, have snuck up on them. They sneer at the teenagers, their daemons standing vigil behind them.

“We’re looking for my brother,” Gwen says, stepping forward, “this is his car. Where is he?” The men’s expressions don’t change, even as Shem shrugs.

“Something’s wrong with them.” Llyr starts and turns to see that the space Gwen had occupied is now full of Susi, still a stark white.

“Yeah.” Cassie is at his other side.

“What do you mean?” They gesture towards the men’s daemons, standing stock still.

“Something’s wrong with their eyes.” He can see it once Cassie points it out, he’d been too worried about Ríonach, too focused on the men, to notice the emptiness to their daemons’ eyes.

“And I’m massive,” Susi notes, “and a predator, that deer should be trying to avoid me.” They’re right, the doe hasn’t even looked at Susi, despite their looking like a polar bear of all things. It’s not right, they’re acting almost dead, and he knows he’s seen that glassy stare before… He realizes when Gwen’s knelt down beside the box not-Shem had been carrying, demanding answers for what’s inside.

With a great honk he throws himself at not-Shem’s housecat, pecking at her and beating her with his wings. To the side he can make out Cassie biting at the flank of the doe, Susi rearing up behind them, slamming onto the deer as Cassie darts aside. Shem collapses and not-Shem throws his head back, throat swelling like a toad’s. The daemons dart for Gwen as she throws up a shield against the assault and as thick yellow bile flies from the man’s mouth Argit shoots a spray of quills into his back.

The bile collapses in a noxious puddle on the floor as Gwen drops her shield and Ben steps forward to pull the ID masks off the DNAliens. His expression is deathly serious.

“Somebody grab a sock,” he says, “we need to find Ken and Ríonach now.”

~~

The sign on the fence says ‘The Hatchery’ and he and Gwen may not be horror people but they’ve seen enough movies to get a sense of foreboding just seeing it. The building on the other side is huge and discomforting and Argit- having shed his ID mask along with Susi three blocks back- grumbles about it as they find a hole in the fence and slip through.

Llyr can’t help but notice the large size of it, and how clean the cuts are.

“Well,” Ben says as they hide behind a large tank overlooking three large troughs of green water protruding from the building, “I can only see one way to get in without being detected…”

“No.” Argit shakes his head. The effect would probably have been more forceful had his fur not been plastered to his skin with rain, leaving his quills exposed and giving him the look of a really bad attempt at a felt hedgehog, but it’s still obvious that this is where he draws the line. Llyr is ready to argue- he’s a swan, water is his thing even if it does have a worrying vibe to it- but doesn’t when he feels Gwen’s curiosity. She doesn’t want to go in either, but he knows enough to know she would be loathe to agree with the alien. “I’m not going in there.”

“We don’t have a choice.” Ben glares at him again and Argit just lifts an eyebrow.

“If there’s trouble on the other end of that, Susi and Cassie’ll be useless in the water.” He sighs. “Susi and I have broken into worse places than this. Give us ten minutes to scope it out and we’ll be in without any trouble.”

“We don’t have that much-” Ben’s words fall on deaf ears; the pair have already vanished into the stormy night.

“I guess we wait then.” Ben gives Gwen a questioning look, but they all know he won’t leave without the rest of their team, and Cassie sits to wait by Gwen. Llyr wonders if maybe he could manage a quick paddle without being spotted, since they’re going to be hanging around anyway.

~~

They finish their scoping in five minutes, rather than the projected ten. Susi and Argit suddenly appear out of the darkness and begin to herd the group around to another side of the building, passed two patrols, and in through an unlocked fire door.

“We could’ve found Ken by now,” Gwen says, but there’s no real malice behind it and Llyr can tell that she mostly wants to prevent Argit being smug.

“We don’t know what was in that water,” he responds as Susi, Ben, and Cassie trot ahead, “I’ve seen nature shows, you guys have parasites that eat your brain floating around in that shit.”

“That’s only in the Southeast.”

“You just want me to die a horrible death.”

“It would be nice…”

“Shh!” Llyr has to bite back a surprised honk as Ben stops, Cassie moving in front of him and Susi stepping back to cover them. The team is standing at a door and when Ben motions them forward they see the ends of the troughs from outside.

The room is filled with DNAliens.

“So, still upset you didn’t swim in?” Nobody pays any mind to the half-hearted remark, all watching the milling aliens as they stack pallets and check panels. Cassie looks somewhere between wanting to run and fight.

Llyr starts when he sees a familiar mass of black and tan fur and begins to frantically bite at Gwen’s leg.

“Llyr!” she whispers harshly. “What is it?”

“Ríonach!” He stretches a wing in the wolf’s direction and Gwen gasps. She has almost the same dead-eyed look as the other daemons in the room, almost as little pep to her step. The DNAlien next to her turns and they can just make out a human face beneath the tentacles and slick purple skin. Gwen grabs onto Argit’s arm like it’s a lifeline.

“Can you paralyze them?” she asks frantically. He looks where she’s pointing and nods.

“Yeah, I could get them from here, but that’d bring the rest of them down on top of us. I can’t quill all of them.” Ben nods in unison with his cousin.

“But if we handle the rest, us and Susi,” he says, “you can take them down without hurting them?”

“Easy.” The Tennysons break out into identical grins.

“Quill away, buddy.”

Argit’s aim is spot on and he manages to silently paralyze both Ken and Ríonach with ease, along with two other pairs that were within range. The DNAliens that turn at the disturbance and see their enemies at the door are met with blasts of magic and a flash of green light that fades to reveal Big Chill, flanked by a trio of angry daemons. Phlegm, magic, ice, fur, and feathers fly, joined by the occasional quill or two, until the room is silent, every last DNAlien and daemon incapacitated in some way or another.

“I can see the family resemblance,” Argit says as they approach where he’s kneeling beside Ken, checking to be sure he’s breathing. The cousins glare at him. “Can’t always be sure how an Offworlder is going to handle it.”

“We have to get that thing off him,” Gwen says, heart openly breaking as Llyr nuzzles Ríonach’s stiff form. She reaches out for the alien part of him, only for Argit to grab her wrist.

“Woah! Don’t touch it! You don’t know where it’s been or what it does!” She glares at him.

“It’s been on my brother!”

“I’ve smelled his laundry, that’s not a comfort!”

“Severe genetic damage detected.” The pair and their daemons start at the voice, then turn to stare at Ben, who along with Cassie is staring at the watch.

“Hello.” Ben says. “Um, Omnitrix, is that you?”

“Genetic code splicing error. Should we attempt to repair?”

“Try to fix Ken?” He looks to the others, but they’re all looking at the Omnitrix like it’s grown legs and begun to tap dance. Ben makes his own decision. “Yeah, let’s do it!”

“What are you doing?” Gwen asks, concerned, as he reaches out and grabs a hold of the alien infesting his cousin.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out!” The Omnitrix begins to glow on his wrist and long tentacles sprout from the alien, wrapping themselves around Ben’s face and wrists. Llyr and Susi have to put themselves bodily between Gwen and her cousin to prevent her from getting herself entangled, the idea that she might lose both of them clearly too much in the moment. The glow intensifies, spreading and brightening until they have to look away, and when it fades Ben is unharmed and holding a small, octopus-like creature in his hand. Ken’s face is back to normal, and the rest of the alien body slips away from him like a suddenly foul smelling suit.

The Tennyson family is one unit again, Gwen throwing her arms around her brother as Ben hovers at their side, Cassie and Llyr both nuzzling and grooming Ríonach. With the parasite, which had taken most of the venom, gone the paralysis quickly begins to fade and their relatives are able to help them off their sides.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Llyr says, rubbing his head against Ríonach’s neck even as she tries and fails to pull away from he and Cassie’s ministrations.

“No no no,” she whines, tail limp and ears flat, “we fucked up, we fucked up, we fucked up!”

“Ríonach, what’s wrong, what did you do?”

“They have Grandpa.” All eyes are on Ken as he answers for his daemon, green eyes wide and pleading and guilty. “He and Deana came to save us but, we couldn’t control ourselves… We attacked them, we turned them over to those-” He’s shaking and Gwen pulls him into another hug. “It was a trap; they were using us to lure them in so they couldn’t interfere with their plans…” Ben grasps him by the shoulders and Cassie lovingly licks Ríonach’s ears.

“We’re gonna go save them,” he says, “don’t worry.” In an instant the shaken pair’s expressions go hard and they surge to their feet as best their weak, wobbly bodies can.

“We’re going with you.” The cousins are thrown off for a second, but smile in the end. Ben nods.

“Damnit,” Argit says behind them, “he’s another one.” Susi tuts at them all.

~~

They’re easy enough to find. Ríonach already has their scent, so she leads the way through the halls as they evade workers and patrols. Ben and Cassie are right behind her, Gwen, Ken, Llyr, and Argit after them, with Susi bringing up the rear. Ken is still visibly guilty, even with a mission and a vague resemblance of a plan, and Gwen and Llyr try to reassure him that he and Ríonach aren’t to blame, that they did nothing wrong, have nothing to be sorry for. Quickly though, they’re superseded by Argit and Susi, telling him about all the bizarre things they’ve seen people do to family, from eating their children’s shoes to their selling their own mother on the black market.

They don’t approve, but by the story of the guy who tried to sell his own wife counterfeit jewelry Ken is muffling laughter and smiling again, so they don’t argue.

His face drops again though when Ríonach indicates a door and they go through. Grandpa Max and Deana are sitting on the floor, bound by thick red tentacles, and Ben, Gwen, and their daemons quickly bound towards them as the others hover by the doorway. As soon as the tentacles have been pried away and they’re able they’re on their feet, Max wrapping his younger grandchildren in a hug and Deana licking at Cassie and Llyr, stubby tail wagging like mad. Max’s grin only softens when he looks up and sees Ken slowly shuffling his way inside. Ríonach is only just beside him, her head low and tail firmly between her legs.

“Grandpa, I-” Ken tries to start, but chokes, “I’m just- We’re so-” Max wraps his arms around him too, drawing him close and squeezing tight. Deana’s muzzle, grey with age, presses into the fur of Ríonach’s neck. The two both melt into the touch.

“We’re so glad you kids are safe,” Grandpa Max says, then turns back to the younger Tennysons. “We always knew you could do it, Ben, if we couldn’t. We’ve heard what you’ve been up to, you’ve been doing a great job.”

“And what about Red and I? What are we, rat shit?” Ken’s hands have to fly to his mouth to hold back a laugh and even Gwen can’t resist a smile as Grandpa Max turns at meets Argit’s challenging look like he hadn’t even noticed he and the megafauna beside him were there.

“Grandpa Max, Deana, these are Argit and Susi.” Even Cassie is smirking as she speaks. Unlike her other half she knows better than to take all the credit. “Argit, Susi, Grandpa Max and Deana.” Llyr is almost as surprised as Max is, though for entirely different reasons, mostly to do with this kind of being the second time Argit’s complimented him and Gwen and if this becomes a habit he may need therapy.

“Hello Susi, Argit,” Deana says, nodding approvingly at them. Susi nods back.

“Deana.” Momentarily silenced by surprise- not that Llyr can blame him, he has clearly offended Argit with his insinuation that Ben and Cassie are the only ones pulling their weight- it takes Max a moment or so to regain his bearings, and when he does he decides on a change of topic.

“We’re not done here,” he says, and leads them all to a large window overlooking what turns out to be a docking area. Outside a number of DNAliens are putting pallets of large, strange eggs into trucks.

“What are they doing?” Gwen asks.

“Those eggs contain xenocytes, like the one they used on Ken,” Max explains. “They’re shipping them somewhere.” Ben’s eyes narrow.

“They have enough there to make a whole army…” Backing away from the window, Grandpa Max turns to face them with a firm look.

“We need to stop them- destroy the trucks, destroy the eggs- before they can ship out. Understood?” The Tennysons nod firmly, while Argit grumbles about not being paid enough for this shit as he and Susi allow themselves to be pulled along by the tide of ‘heroes’. Grandpa Max and Deana don’t follow them.

~~

“So, what’s the plan?” Ken asks halfway down to the docking area.

“Gwen and I handle the trucks, you and Argit destroy the eggs!”

“That’s a plan?!” Argit snorts.

“It’s better than what he normally gives us!”

~~

Llyr and Cassie turn out to be useless in the fight. Both Gwen and Jetray are airborne, firing at trucks from a distance, and they can’t get close enough to do anything without stretching their bonds with their other halves further than is safe.

He feels a bit jealous of Ríonach and Susi, who almost playfully romp around each other as they tear through enemy daemons, Argit and Ken smashing pallets of eggs within easy distance.

The job is done quick.

~~

They need the daemons with fur to track down Grandpa Max and Deana again. This time the room they find them in is larger, covered in the same red, fleshy substance but with a massive pile of eggs in the center. As they watch, a tube-like thing drops from a massive creature on the ceiling and another of the strange eggs they were just destroying is plopped out onto the pile. Everyone goes green.

“Okay, we can cross ‘see a birth’ off our bucket lists now. Let’s pray it never happens again.”

The sound of fighting draws them to the other side of the room, where Grandpa Max and Deana turn out to be in heated combat with a Highbreed and the giant cricket-like creature that is their daemon. Max is fending off the large alien’s blows with a great length of pipe (“Where do you people keep finding these things, there’s no piping”) while Deana darts around their legs in hot pursuit of the cricket. They all watch with bated breath as Grandpa Max is driven further and further back towards a wall until finally the Highbreed catches hold of his pipe, snatching it away and casting it aside. Hearts stop when they snatch up Grandpa Max as well.

“Let him go!” Before anyone can react Ken is out in the open, still a touch wobbly but glaring at the Highbreed like he’ll fight them himself. Ríonach follows his lead, diving into the fray and catching the cricket unawares she latches onto one leg and smirks when it and the Highbreed scream, Max falling to the floor. Suddenly Deana’s caught up and has another leg, and there’s a flash of green as Ben becomes Big Chill once more. Then Cassie is there at a third leg and Susi’s providing an opposing force with their grip on another, letting the others pull until there’s a tear and Dean’s comes off in her teeth. The Highbreed screams again, sharing their daemon’s pain as well as feeling that from Ben and now Gwen’s assaults. Another leg goes, and another. A lucky blow from the Highbreed knocks Gwen out of the air and Ken turns from where he’d been making sure his grandfather was okay toward the daemons.

“Susi, crush it!” The alien daemon gives Argit a look and with a wave of his hand they’re on top of the bug nearly the size of them, teeth sinking into the head until they drop to the floor through the cloud of Dust it’s become. There’s a moment of silence as the Highbreed falls over dead, then Llyr lets out a whistle.

“You two really can’t let that become a habit.”

“Too late.” Max tentatively pats Ken’s shoulder as the others crowd around.

“This isn’t over yet.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”

“We still need to destroy that,” he points to the creature that lays the eggs, “and make sure they can never use this place or this equipment again.”

“So,” Ken asks, fingers burying in Ríonach’s fur, “how do we do that?” Grandpa Max fidgets a bit and Deana bumps her head against his hand.

“I’d planned to use this.” He reaches into his satchel and pulls out a strange looking device. Argit and Susi immediately back away.

“A Null Void warp projector.” The others back up as well when they see he and Susi’s fur stand on end. Cassie and Ríonach step over to comfort Susi.

“Yes,” Max says, “if I remove the focusing lens, like so, it should work as a functional grenade. Press this button and everything in a half mile is gone.” If everyone hadn’t been tense already, they were at that.

“You were going to blow us all up?” Ben asks, voice weak.

“No,” Max shakes his head, “Only one person needs to be here to blow the grenade. I doubt you kids could get far enough before their reinforcements meant I had to blow this thing, but one of Gwen’s shields-”

“You are not killing yourself!” Llyr can feel the tears in Gwen’s eyes as sure as he can see them. Grandpa Max, puts a hand on her shoulder reassuringly.

“Gwen, it’s the only way to be sure that-”

“Give me that!” Suddenly all boldness Argit storms through them, snatching the grenade from Max’s hand with a scowl. “You may have faith in her but I don’t and I’m not dying because you’re an idiot!” He holds out his free hand towards the others. “Watchboy, phone, now.”

“What? Why?!”

“Because I need it!”

“Why my phone?!”

“Because you haven’t washed in longer than him,” Argit points at Ken, “and it aggravates me. Phone.” The boys both pout, but the others can’t hold back a snicker as Ben begrudgingly gives up his cellphone. Susi darts after and brings back the other half of the warp projector.

“The parts should work.”

“Good.” Max steps forward.

“What are you doing?”

“Two words, Tennyson,” Argit says, rolling his eyes, “fucking timer. Give me, say, ten minutes, and I’ll have a basic one set up and we can get out of here before you kill everyone in the town.”

“We don’t have ten minutes, Argit!”

“Actually,” Gwen puts a hand on her grandfather’s shoulder, “there’s only the one door, it’s a choke point. We can’t hold them off forever, but ten minutes is manageable.” Luckily, because Llyr can hear footfalls on the stairs. Ben joins in.

“And by the time it’s set, they’ll all be up here and we can leave through the window! There’s won’t be much of a fight to get out then!” Ken is grinning now, Ríonach and Cassie’s tails both wagging energetically.

“Sounds like a plan to us!” Looking around at them, Max and Deana sigh in unison.

“Alright then, let’s get fortifying.”

~~

“You said ten minutes!” Gwen yells back into the room fifteen minutes later, sending a DNAlien flying back into it’s friends with a kick as the daemons dart amongst theirs.

“Cut me some slack, it’s been a while!” Spidermonkey starts mid-webbing.

“’Been a while’, how often do you make bombs?!”

“Unless you wanna be an accessory, don’t ask!”

Llyr hisses at a lizard daemon as it scuttles closer, biting and shaking it as soon as he can and beating his wings against a small dog. He’s been worried during this whole operation, from when their brother hadn’t come home to now, but the delay is beginning to wear on him. Deana dives forward, taking a chunk out of another boxer, as he takes to the air to stop a songbird from divebombing Cassie. Ríonach is off to the side, in a stand-off with a porcupine daemon. Ken is holding off it’s other half with a brand new length of pipe.

“Tennysons!” They take that as their cue, falling back so Gwen can use her magic to shoves the enemy as far down the hall as possible and Ben can block the door with simply massive amounts of webbing. “Come on people, this place goes up in fifteen minutes and we sure as fuck aren’t gonna be here!”

Ken and Max shatter the window with ease, though Argit makes another comment about Tennysons and piping, and Gwen forms a stairway to the ground with her magic. Ben turns out to have been right, nobody had expected them to try to escape out the window and there’s minimal resistance, easily taken down by Spidermonkey. With adrenaline fueling them it takes ten minutes to reach the Blazer, another two for everyone to pile in- the biggest problem is fitting Deana, Ríonach, and Susi all in the back, but they adjust in motion and Argit and Ken, stuffed in with their daemons, succeed in not breaking any taboos- and they hit 100 mph in two minutes.

By the time the bomb blows it does nothing but cause some higher-than-average winds in the direction they’re going. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

“Red?” Argit asks after a few minutes of Deana quietly trying to talk Max into dialing it back down to the speed limit and not much else.

“Yeah?” He collapses over Susi and groans.

“You’re gonna be paying this off ‘til you’re eighty.”

Chapter Text

It starts when Gwen calls them, growling about Kevin 11 being on her couch.

Of course, Cassie and Ben rush there as quickly as they can, the last time they saw him may not have been horrible as far as their relationship, but he’s still extremely dangerous. They don’t even bother to knock before opening the door, worried that they’ll find anything from a bare building to a bloodbath.

He’s sitting there chatting with Ken while Argit stitches up a gash in his arm. For a brief moment Cassie thinks that if they get blood on that upholstery Aunt Natalie is going to have a fit and Dick will eat all of them in a blind fury.

Gwen and Llyr jump out of their seat, where they’d been openly glaring at their guests, and rush over to them.

“What is he doing here?” Ben asks, and Gwen shrugs animatedly.

“Argit brought them!” He turns to fix a stern look on the alien.

“Why would you bring Kevin 11 here?”

“Yeah, Susi-” Cassie recognizes Annelie’s voice and finally catches sight of her, a raven nestled in Susi’s dark fur, “-why did you bring us here of all places?” Her tone is teasing and Susi buries their muzzle in their paws, muttering something unintelligible. Cassie has to assume Kevin is smirking as well, because she sees Argit scowl and punch him in the chest, then the crazy teen laughs. It doesn’t sink in what it’s all about until she sees the tinge of pink in Ken’s cheeks.

Gwen and Llyr are glaring even harder.

Ben doesn’t pick up on it.

“Seriously Argit, what the fuck?” Argit huffs in that way they’ve already learned means “I don’t have to tell you shit” and Kevin laughs again. He gestures as he answers for him.

“We ran into some, trouble,” he turns and smirks at them. He has a bunch more scars than they remember, and a Null Guardian tattooed on his waist. “Needed a place to lie low for a little while, a day maybe.” Ben and Gwen both cross their arms and glare at him.

“So you decided to hole up with my cousins?” Kevin’s smirk grew wider.

“You’d prefer it was with you?”

“I’d rather you weren’t here at all.”

“Well,” he shrugs, and Argit smacks him again, presumably for moving while he’s sewing him back together, “sucks to be you.”

In less than a minute the humans and Argit are arguing, topics on display ranging from ‘how dare Argit bring Kevin over here without so much as a warning’ to “what do you mean he’s your best friend” to “it’s bad enough Argit does it but how dare you break into my house” (”I wouldn’t call it breaking-in,” Ken says in response to that one, and proceeds to swear up and down that it’s perfectly normal for a man to let a bloody ex-con into his house if he’s handsome and accompanied by someone he trusts. The others don’t buy it and Argit openly scowls when he calls Kevin handsome.) Cassie decides that Llyr, who’s still glaring death, has their daemon needs in hand and plods her way over to the others. Susi is all but attached to Ríonach’s hip, both laying on the carpet like thick fur rugs, and Cassie plants her forepaws in the massive daemon’s shoulder to get a better view of Annelie.

“I’m pretty sure,” she says, silently hoping she doesn’t get pecked for her trouble, after all Annelie was always the sensible one of her pair but she last saw her four years ago, “that this is only the third time I’ve seen you off Kevin’s shoulder.” The raven ruffles her feathers in what experience has taught Cassie counts for a shrug.

“Susi does in a pinch,” she says and eyes Cassie up. “A dog suits you.” For a minute Cassie isn’t sure how to respond. Dogs stereotypically go to certain kinds of people, and not all of those types are complimentary. After a moment she decides that if she’s questioning if it was an insult, it probably wasn’t.

“Thank you.” She hesitates for a moment before speaking again. “You know, I never pegged you and Kevin for ravens.”

“Is that so?” Annelie nestles herself deeper in Susi’s fur, tone lowering. Susi themselves shifts beneath them, throwing Cassie their impression of a smirk.

“And nobody expected me to settle as anything even close to an ecnoel-” they stretch, causing Cassie to slip from their shoulder and Annelie to take wing, “you can never tell.”

The statement throws Cassie off because while no one can tell what a daemon will settle as before their time, generally you can get an idea. Llyr spent the last six months before he settled as types of waterfowl, and Cassie herself had spent a year trying various dog shapes before one fit. Ríonach had flitted between species of wolf for three years prior to settling. It’s normal for a daemon to spend more time as a certain type of animal before they settle, but Susi’s tone suggests that theirs came completely out of left field.

For some reason she thinks about the ferret Annelie had been when they’d last seen each other.

Whichever way it seems the conversation is over, because the raven lands in Kevin’s lap and nestles herself into his jeans like she had Susi’s fur.

~~

It’s twenty minutes of arguing back and forth before Ken and Ríonach pull rank and declare that unless Aunt Natalie and Uncle Frank throw them out the ex-cons are staying. His sister and cousin aren’t happy about it, but both Kevin and Argit thank him and smile and he’s smug about it for the next forty minutes.

All Cassie can think, as Ben collapses, grumbling, onto the other couch and she leaps up to curl in his lap, is that this is going to be one hell of an interesting day.

~~

“Gwen,” Natalie asks when she comes home to see two aliens and a heavily injured teenager in her living room, “who are they?” Ken fidgets in his seat.

“Ben’s friend Argit,” Gwen answers, gesturing as she speaks, “and his friend Kevin. Ken invited them to stay the night.” Natalie gives her son a stern look, then turns an appraising one to their guests. With a snort Dick flies off her shoulder toward the dining room, his other half following close behind and muttering about needing a drink. The silence that follows is awkward.

“I wouldn’t say ‘friend’,” Argit says after a few minutes, “more ‘begrudging accomplice’.”

~~

“You tried to kill us!” Shuffling his feet guiltily, Kevin rolls his eyes.

“It was five years ago; can’t you just drop it?” Ben looks at him like he’s lost his mind, again.

“No!”

“Hey, Benny,” Argit asks from his spot on the floor, where he’s brushing tangles out of Susi’s fur with what Cassie is pretty sure is Gwen’s hairbrush, “what do you think of that latest Sumo Slammers game?”

The hero’s eyes light up.

So do Kevin’s.

Within ten minutes they’re talking like they’d never fought in their lives.

~~

The less that’s said about lunch the better. Suffice to say they are never ordering pizza together again.

~~

“We weren’t that bad!”

“No, really, we had to carry them back to the car, it was ridiculous!” The sinister look on Kevin and Argit’s faces as Ken and Gwen recount Ben’s first soccer game speaks loudly of a future of teasing.

He and Cassie nearly die when Gwen brings up the Thanksgiving Fiasco.

~~

They’ve been waiting fifteen minutes before Gwen gets tired of it and begins to stand up.

“There is no way it takes two men this long to gather up some snacks,” She says, and Cassie has to stop her following them into the kitchen by grabbing Llyr’s tail feathers in her teeth.

“Relax, it hasn’t been that long,” she mumbles. Ben nods and grabs Gwen’s arm to drag her back to the couch.

“Besides, maybe they decided to cook something.”

The fact that Annelie and Kevin laugh so hard they fall off the couch says that it’s probably not likely.

~~

“Who do you think’s going to win?” Ben asks nobody in particular. Everybody is crowded onto the stairs, trying to subtly eavesdrop on the conversation at the top of them. Argit had gone up to grab something at the behest of Ken and apparently met Aunt Natalie in the hall. They’re chatting, all smiles.

It’s the most passive-aggressive conversation any of them have ever heard, and four of them were raised by Natalie and Dick.

The sparrowhawk is glaring down his beak at Susi, who’s collapsed onto their side and is pointedly ignoring him back.

“I don’t know your mom,” Kevin says, “but Argit’s really good at this.” Ríonach shakes her head.

“One of them isn’t going to make it out of this alive.”

~~

They do all make it out alive, eventually, but it takes Kevin, Gwen, and their daemons rushing in to break up what’s quickly escalating into a true fight to make it happen.

~~

Eventually legs and wings do need to be stretched and the whole group finds themselves in the backyard. The humans and Argit lounge in the sunshine- though Ben and Gwen still sit furthest from Kevin there’s no fighting, so it’s an improvement over the early hours of the day- while the daemons frolic and stretch.

Well, most of them. Llyr decides to spend his time paddling around the pond Gwen’s parents installed when he settled, yelling back and forth with Susi, who sits at the edge of the water. Some of the remarks and insults between them even get cutting enough to have their other halves flinch.

Meanwhile Annelie is flying wide, slow laps around Kevin and the others, followed closely by Cassie and Ríonach. The canines are barking up a storm as they chase her, jumping every few feet in what hardly even counts as an attempt to catch her. Every few laps one will suddenly turn on her heels and come from the other direction, and each time she banks sharply, cutting over their other halves’ heads and making a knocking sound as she does. After a while, when her short legs are beginning to tire, Cassie puts on a burst of speed and makes a final jump, catching a single tail feather between her jaws and pulling it free with her weight. She pauses in surprise- she hadn’t expected to actually catch her- and can hear Annelie let out a fierce war-croak, looking up just in time to see her drop from the sky like a rock.

A large, black mammal lands not three inches from Cassie’s nose, growling playfully, and she can’t do anything but stare in surprise. None of the Tennysons can do anything but stare at Annelie, excepting the ones that are staring at Kevin. For her to still be able to change, for them to not be settled at their age-

Their eyes narrow threateningly, and even Ben has the sense to look away.

~~

Ten minutes later, everyone is crowded around Gwen and her laptop as she scours the Feliformia page on Wikipedia. (“They’re the only mammal shapes she ever takes anymore.”) After a frantic search of each page she finally comes up with a name- a binturong. With a grin she notes that they’re supposed to smell like popcorn.

Cassie is happy to confirm that she does.

~~

Ben and Cassie have to leave not long after their Uncle Frank gets home, but they do get the pleasure of watching he and Lilyfair plod into the living room and find extra people and daemons, one of whom is Argit, lazing around. He takes it fairly well, especially compared to Aunt Natalie, who’s on her fourth glass of wine, but still does a lot of head shaking while Lilyfair mutters about the sorts their children are getting involved with.

He declares that Kevin and Argit can stay the night, but are sleeping downstairs in the living room.

Cassie can’t blame him, she’s not sure she’d risk either of them sharing a bedroom with Ken or Gwen either.

~~

Ken calls at seven to relate the passive-aggressive war that went on at the dinner table that night. He laughs as he describes word for word what his mother, his sister, and Argit said to and about each other, and Ríonach can be heard joining in in the background when he mentions Susi sitting on Llyr.

~~

Gwen texts at eleven with a picture of Kevin, Argit, and Annelie all sleeping splayed across Susi’s back. The accompanying description is short and sweet.

‘I’ve never seen Ken lose a good mood so fast.’

~~

According the Gwen and Llyr the cons are gone by the time anyone wakes up the next morning. Natalie came downstairs to the dishes done and homemade biscuits keeping warm in the oven, and most of the family’s items are still where they left them (Gwen can’t find her hairbrush, and she’s pretty sure one of them used her toothbrush, but beyond that) which they all agree is, for Argit, a very kind gesture. Ken and Ríonach spend the day in a less than pleasant mood, as is to be expected after the night prior, and Ben and Cassie’s aunt and uncle are both more or less happy to see them go.

Nobody really expected them to stick around, and the day before had gone much better than most of them had thought it would, with little fighting and no bloodshed. In the end, the entire thing was a success, especially after Argit responded to a text from Ben to reassure them that they had all gotten home fine and were safe and sound. Everything had gone great.

Still, they could’ve at least said goodbye.

Chapter Text

“Looks like your tracking skills leave something to be desired, Benny.”

“No,” the hero says, motioning to the filth covered floor, “the tracks lead right here.” Argit sits up straighter on Susi’s back, ears twisting left and right.

“Well I can’t see or hear any more sign of them.”

“Cassie and Susi could sniff them down?”

“No, everything here smells like death and poop.” Continuing with their walk through the sewage treatment plant, Gwen releases something between a groan and a huff. Susi rolls their eyes. At least the human doesn’t have to smell the place as strongly as they and Cassie do.

“We should go,” Llyr finally says, “if they were here, they aren’t now, and standing around is only going to make it more likely we’ll get caught trespassing.” Everyone agrees, although begrudgingly in Ben and Cassie’s case, and they turn around, backtracking through the facility towards the latest in what is becoming a long line of vans.

“Argit.” Susi pauses when they see something glint under some pipes, lowering themselves as much as they can without becoming soaked with grime. Cassie is good enough to turn around and scrounge for the item for them. “Thanks Cass.“

“No problem,” she says, although Susi is sure she’ll think otherwise when Ben has to clean the sludge out of her fur later. Argit carefully takes the item from the terrier daemon, turning it back and forth with a smile.

“Good news, Watchboy,” he says, flipping a switch on the item and putting it in his pocket, “looks like your buddy came through here after all. Left his blaster behind.” Gwen crosses her arms, looking sternly down her nose at him.

“And you’re just going to keep it?” He shrugs and urges Susi on.

“Hey, their loss, my payday, Red.”

They grumble and snipe at each other the entire rest of the way outside, Ben constantly trying to keep the peace, and if Susi manages to ‘accidentally’ trod on Llyr a few times in that span, well, he deserves it for biting at their ankles when Cassie isn’t looking.

“We’ll pick up the search again tomorrow,” Ben says when they reach the van. He and Cassie immediately settle into the passengers seat with Gwen and Llyr directly behind them.

“We don’t even know where to start,” Argit grumbles, waiting for Susi to jump into the back before putting an ID mask on them. The backdoor slams shut and he puts on his own as he heads to the driver’s side.

“At the beginning,” Cassie says. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, they do say the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.”

“What sorta amateurs were they hanging out with?”

As they pull away Susi hears a thud outside, but when it doesn’t repeat they shrug and settle in for the drive back into the city proper. It was probably a rock or something.

~~

They spend the next hour of traffic arguing back and forth with Gwen and Llyr until they’re able to drop them off at home (Argit’d tried dropping her off down the street once before, just to get rid of her quicker, but that hadn’t flown), then the next ten discussing the ongoing invasion with Ben and Cassie. Once they’re gone the pair beeline for Jack’s garage, mechanic at the front door, chopshop at the back. He and Nymphadora swear back and forth that the van’s hardly worth the time spent talking, but Argit and Susi learned to haggle from their mother’s pouch and walk away with a good grand more than the original offer.

Neither one bothers to make it passed the couch when they get home.

~~

Cassie turns out to be right.

The ‘scene of the crime’ is three bus stops away, so they don’t bother getting a car. A good thing, because Argit twists his ankle during the ensuing fight. The team stays just long enough for Max and Deana to come and gather up the DNAliens that don’t manage to escape before heading on their merry way back home.

After a quick check to clarify that Ken and his wolf are still back off at college, Susi and Argit end up crashing on Ben and Cassie’s floor.

~~

“Guys, get up!”

Susi’s vision is blurry as they blink their eyes open. They can feel Argit burrow deeper into their thick fur and groan as Cassie fades into view.

“Three more hours, Cass,” he says, and with a bark she darts forward to wrap her teeth around a large paw and pull.

“Come on,” she manages around the foot in her mouth, “there’s been an alien attack!”

That gets them up, technically. Susi lets Argit set the pace and between his grumbling and dragging his feet he makes it clear that he’s in no rush to make it to the living room where Ben is waiting. Sleeping in ID masks hasn’t done either of them any good. The disguised Erinaen is still rubbing sleep from his eyes when they round the corner, so he freezes and gapes just a second behind his daemon.

Jack’s is on the news and it looks like a tornado went through it.

“What happened,” Susi cries, turning to Cassie.

“Apparently some people came in and attacked the place. The owner says they were aliens, or monsters, or something but the police are brushing that off.”

“You recognize this place,” Ben asks, watching Argit watch the screen.

“Yeah,” he says absently, “it’s a chop shop, where we sell the cars.” Susi paws at the floor. “Is everyone okay?” Cassie shakes her head.

“Three people are in the hospital and one’s missing.”

“Gwen’s already on her way over.” Argit nods and scratches Susi’s ears.

“Good. We gotta talk to Jack.”

~~

They take the bus again and between Gwen and Argit are able to talk their way into Jack’s room. The man’s surprise at the sight of them is clear on his face, what there is that’s not bandaged, though Susi ignores it in favor of loping over to the small ball of dark fluff beside him. Nymphadora shudders when they nudge her.

“Ari? What are you doing here? And who are they?”

“Some associates of mine,” Argit responds, waving the question off. “Saw you on the news, man, what happened?” Jack shudders and strokes Nymphadora’s fur. He eyes Ben and Gwen before speaking.

“A couple of guys showed up at the shop last night,” he says, “started going on about alien monsters.” He laughs mirthlessly. “Like they had room to talk. One of ‘em looked like a velociraptor fucked a Power Ranger and the other looked like somebody left their Machamp in the sun too long, but yeah, we got alien monsters.” Groaning, Jack leans back against his pillows. “One of ‘em started shooting up the place, hit me and two of the guys. Chrissie tried to stop ‘em, but…”

Argit and Susi share a worried look. Chrissie’s a mutant, and if they were looking to cause trouble for aliens it could be an easy mistake. Ben steps forward.

“But what, Jack?” Jack looks at him like he’d forgotten he was there, then turns back to Argit and Susi, picking up his daemon and holding her to his chest.

“They caught hold of her and drug her outta the shop,” he says, voice lower, more strained than it had been before. “They didn’t come back after that. Next people I saw were the cops.”

“We have to find her,” Gwen says from the door, and Susi has to agree. Argit nods and pats Jack’s arm.

“We’re gonna handle this, man, don’t worry.” For a moment Jack looks surprised again, but he looks at Cassie and Llyr, then at Susi, still disguised as a polar bear, and nods.

“Bring Chrissie back, if you can?” he asks. Susi can see Ben’s heart break and assumes Gwen is reacting the same. They can feel Argit getting angry, both of them getting angry. They don’t generally like people, but of the people they disliked the gang at Jack’s were pretty low on the list.

“We’ll try.” Jack nods in understanding.

“Thanks.”

The goodbyes are quick and quiet. Ben reassures Jack that there’s no sign the police know about his illegal activities and they make sure to close the door gently rather than letting it slam shut. As soon as they hear the click of the knob Susi lets the fur along their spine raise up. They know that under the ID mask Argit is too.

“First things first,” Ben says once they’re in the hall, “we need to check out the scene of the crime.” The others turn to Argit and Susi.

“You guys know where it is.” They nod in unison.

“We can catch the next bus out.” Cassie tilts her head.

“Bus?”

“Well it’s not like we’ve got anywhere to sell any cars we steal now, is it.”

~~

By the time they get there the police have long left the scene and the building stands empty. They’re cautious as they step inside.

“This place really has been blasted all to hell,” Gwen says as she fingers a scorched hole in one wall. Llyr is standing as close to her as possible without impeding her ability to walk and fight and the other daemons are doing the same. Something about seeing the destruction is creepy. Doubly so for Susi, who knows well that they and their other half are part of the group the attackers seemed to be targeting. They’re worried.

“Hey guys, over here!” Ben is waving his hand above his head as he kneels by a puddle of grease out back. Cassie is sniffing at tracks leading away from it.

“Don’t cars normally come in this part of a chop shop,” she asks. Susi nods.

“I don’t recognize what kind they are.”

“Kev’s gonna be quizzing us for a month after this…”

“Hush.”

“Move over,” Gwen says, cellphone at the ready, “if I get a picture we can take it back to base and look it up.”

~~

“Here we go!”

Everyone is in the local Plumber base, hovering around Gwen as she searches frantically for the proper tire tread pattern to match their suspect vehicle. Even Max is sitting in the chair next to hers, proudly watching her work.

“They go on medium class shipping trucks,” she says as they crowd around the screen, “like this.” A picture of a good-sized box truck appears on the monitor. “So if we can find something that looks like this leaving the area…” Max nods and stands up.

“Give me twenty minutes,” he says, “and I’ll have the video of every security camera in town for you.”

~~

To their surprise he does. Or at least to Susi and her other half’s surprise; the Tennysons look like they expected as much.

With systematic searching Gwen quickly finds a truck that matches the basic description leaving the area at around the time of the attack and uses the rest of the cameras to follow it through the city. She marks the last place it’s recorded and the direction it’s headed on a map and with Llyr’s help herds her team out after it.

They borrow Ed’s truck.

~~

They find the vehicle outside an abandoned factory- “Why is it always factories? Why can’t it be a restaurant or petting zoo for once?”- and don’t get halfway to the door before they have to duck behind some old crates as the door opens. A tetramand and kineceleran step out, armed with blasters and what looks to be catch poles and clearly expecting company.

“How close are they,” the tetramand asks, and Ben and Gwen step out of the shadows with their daemons.

“Very.” Susi and Argit stay under cover. Susi can manage in a straight fight, but Argit can’t. Hopefully they can surprise them later.

“Where’s the girl?” As soon as she asks Gwen has to throw up a shield, blaster fire erupting in their direction. Ben and Cassie are immediately behind her, trying to dial up something that can help when

“Ben!” A stray piece of mortar, knocked off the overhang above them, clips the boy’s head and he and Cassie are down. Llyr honks in distress, wings flapping, and Argit and Susi are forced to dart out and drag them back behind the extra cover of the crates while Gwen keeps them covered.

“Is he okay,” she asks, knocking the tetramand and his boar daemon back with a well-placed burst of magic. Llyr and Susi nudge Cassie worriedly and Argit nods.

“He’ll be fine,” he says, tearing a strip off his shirt to bandage the gash on his head. Normally he’d have used Ben’s, but his own smells cleaner. Either way the hero’s going to need stitches once this is over. “Needs to go on a diet though.” Another blast flies through the air.

“I’ve been telling him to cut back on the sweets.” She attacks again as their blasterfire shatters on her shield. “A little help here?” Argit pokes his head over the crates, ears pressed against his head.

“I can get the tetramand,” he says, “but that kineceleran girl is the fastest I’ve ever seen.”

“Well get to it then!” Susi and Llyr watch as she drops the shield in front of the crate and Argit fires a barrage of quills. His face immediately drops and he flees back behind the crate, shield rising again behind him.

“Okay maybe I can’t take the tetramand!”

“Holy fuck!”

“He must be a hybrid or deal with Erineans regularly because nobody takes that many quills and keeps coming!” A blast breaks through the shield and Argit and the daemons duck as it takes out a chunk of their crate.

“Ugh, I need to start wearing a helmet…” Blinking blearily, Ben rubs his head and immediately goes to dial the Omnitrix as Cassie tries to stand. Susi and Llyr sit on her as a small hand snatches away Ben’s wrist. “Argit..?” He’s glaring at him.

“You’ve got a concussion, Watchboy,” he growls, “we don’t fight with them.”

“But-”

“Stay!” Cassie tries to chew on Susi’s leg and the other daemon nips her ear for the trouble. These Tennysons are worse than Kevin and Annelie, they swear. “Red, if you can keep the kineceleran still for like, fifteen seconds, I can get her!”

“I make no promises!”

Susi doesn’t know what happens next, they’re too busy helping keep Cassie pinned and growling at Ben to stop trying to join the fight he is “under strict orders to stay behind cover” to watch and see. All they know is that there are more blasts and suddenly the overhang is falling again, more of it now and directly toward Argit and Gwen. They and Llyr dive for their other halves ending in a disturbing pile as Llyr tries to shield their partners and Susi finds themselves over top of him, brought down flat by the falling rubble.

They all try to fight that feeling of twisting nausea from all touching each other as Susi and Gwen release them from the pile of loose mortar. None of them are ready for the battlefield they come free to. Susi feels like they’re in a nightmare.

Ben and Cassie are on the field.

The enemy has Ben’s wrists ensnared.

They’re dragging him to their truck.

There’s an active Null Void Projector in the back.

“Susi, what’s worse? That they’re using a Null Void Projector, or that they found one that old that works?”

“That they’re using one.”

“I thought so.”

The moment Ben’s feet leave the ground they’re all out in the open. Susi can feel every raised hair along their spine, hear Argit’s blood pounding in their ears, as they catch the tetramand’s pole in their jaws, clenching tight and holding fast. Llyr is settled over Cassie, holding her steady as best he can. Argit, teeth bared and every quill raised in threat, opens fire on the kineceleran and lands a direct hit. She collapses and Gwen scoops up her pole as the tetramand rushes to help her.

Ben is more-or-less secure in the air, feet waving inches from the portal as he becomes more and more lucid.

Just as they seem to be doing well, pulling Ben back, Gwen and Argit on one pole and Susi at the other, the boar is a she-bear clawing at the alien daemon’s side.

“Susi!” They keep their grip on the pole- nobody else goes to the Null Void, not there, not ever- and kick out at the other daemon, sharp claws against claws and teeth. Vaguely they’re aware of the tetramand grabbing the other pole, of Argit losing his grip as he shakes it and darting as far away as their bond allows. Llyr lets out an ungodly shriek and dives forward, biting at the tetramand’s ankles as Gwen wraps her arms around the pole and, as the she-bear fights to get a grip on Susi’s neck through the fur, blasts him again.

Susi thinks that it must have been a good blow, because after he leaves their vision they hear a crash and his daemon collapses at their side.

Ben is listing now, one side further into the portal than not. Susi and Gwen both growl as they begin walking backwards, fighting with every step to drag him back.

As soon as both his shoes are cleared, the portal shuts down. Ben breaks into a grin, looking over their shoulders, and they turn to see Argit holding a remote controller. He waves it with a smirk.

“Fuckface dropped something.” With a laugh Susi bounds over, licking every inch of him they can reach, as they’re certain Cassie is doing to Ben behind them. When they part, Gwen still has her cousin locked in a tight hug. Argit sighs and shakes his head, then his expression falls as he notices the kineceleran and her snake, still paralyzed but conscious on the asphalt. The others watch in confusion as he pulls his translator from his pocket, shuts it off, and stalks over to her.

“Whud dho didk ak lak adh aai, aai didkdudok karo ad irr khad?!” Susi has to bite back laughter when he starts yelling, especially when they see the looks of confusion on the others faces. “Tho Nirr Aak?! Rourra?! Yai dairk'd kikd kid u didkak haro a dhoal kakkun houkk aai huxo da kok koakro da dho Nirr Vaak!! Yai aldhrokk kudk ad dadk uk hunnol, aai kdinlakko, ukk-kuak, rado-kluaak kulukado a dho kurua!!” If they could, Susi would go red just from the language, and while they’re glad the young ones can’t understand it they clearly get the gist. “E kkok daildoo aoulk klaak ik a dhud horrharo uk aai ud da kok koakro, koakro E rako, a!! E hako aai kod oudo uraxo ka krukiokikk!! E hako aail dharklov ulo dal ukuld a dlad ad aai! E hako aail kair ak kuok uua rako u didkak uld!! Cilr ik a u haro kanoholo uk lad aai-”

“Argit!” Ben lays a hand on his shoulder and Argit stops to glare at him, nose flaring with his heavy breathes. “I think they get the idea.”

“Tey ‘etter.” With a deep breath he forces himself to relax and turns his translator back on. “Call your Gramps, we’ll get these assholes squared away.”

“Wow,” Cassie says, as she and Llyr both come over to check on them, Ben and Gwen contacting their grandfather off to the side, “you two really have some beef with the Null Void.”

“Today,” Llyr adds, “the situation back at Santa Mira, you two take this really seriously.” Susi and Argit share a look before they answer.

“If you knew it like we do, you would too.”

~~

It only takes another ten minutes after they get them to the base for the paralysis to wear off the kineceleran, but they decide to keep her safely locked away in a cell until her friend wakes. Max decides to pass the next hour by looking them up, the others decide to spend it keeping an eye on them. Her daemon spends the entire time shifting back and forth from snake to lizard to mouse to bird to snake.

“We’ve been running into a lot of unsettled people haven’t we?” The others all look at Ben as he watches the daemon- Bradach, apparently- turn from a turtle into a cat. “I mean Alan, then Kevin, now these two?”

“Kevin’s old for it,” Gwen says, “but the others, not so much.”

“It’s still kinda weird, all these unsettled teens falling into our lives? All of them involved in alien stuff?”

“Think you’re kinda asking for that shit, Benny.” Argit takes a break from glaring at the pair in the cells to smirk at him. “You’re looking for a bunch of teenagers involved with aliens, some of them are gonna be unsettled.” Ben leans towards him.

“But the only one that hasn’t been is Mike.”

“He has a point there, Argit, it is a little odd.” Argit shrugs and buries his hand in Susi’s fur.

“Yeah, I guess. Not really worried about it yet.”

~~

“Helen Wheels and Emanuel Armstrong,” Max smiles as he sits down in front of their cells, “I wish we could’ve met under different circumstances.” Helen watches him suspiciously, while Manny crosses all four arms and glares. Deana and Max seem unfazed. “I worked with your parents, they were fine Plumbers.”

Helen manages to look even more suspicious, and even Bradach and Manny’s daemon- now known to be Teresa- are joining in.

“What do you mean?” Teresa asks, now in the form of a large dog, watching them warily.

“They were good at what they did,” Max says, passing a manila folder into each cell. Helen and Manny begin to flip through them. “Some people don’t take to a new planet, but they both did very well, married locals, had kids.” Manny shakes his head and Teresa becomes a lioness.

“No I, I remember the lab, I remember being normal, I-” Max makes a comforting noise in his throat.

“Sometimes, people can make themselves believe anything,” he says. “You kids were alone a long time, weren’t you? I think you probably convinced yourselves that somebody made you this way, that it was some plot, because it was easier than accepting that it was just fate and bad luck.” Manny doesn’t look convinced.

“No, it-”

“Manny.” Helen’s voice is quiet and Bradach has settled back down into a snake around her neck. “Please.”

The room is quiet for several minutes but for the shuffling of feet and the loud of Teresa’s loud licks across Manny’s arms. Eventually Max coughs.

“Maybe, you should tell me everything that’s happened the last few days…” When Manny stays silent, Helen strokes Bradach’s head and takes a deep breath.

“The other day,” she says, “we caught a DNAlien at the sewerage treatment plant-”

“So that’s where he went!”

“Ben hush!” Helen gives him a stern look while Cassie gnaws at his leg disapprovingly, then continues.

“We left, but then our radar said there were three more there, so we went back.” She pauses to eye the team. “We saw we were outnumbered, so we put a tracker on your car.”

Susi’s heart sinks. Before the attack on the garage had been worrying, but now- They should’ve known something was wrong when they heard that thud, they’re more experienced than that-

“When we followed it, we ended up at this garage-”

“So you shot up the place and kidnapped one of the workers.” Gwen and Llyr look like they want to be sympathetic, but just can’t manage it. “Where is she?” Helen shies away.

“We did what we did to all the aliens, we…”

“Sent her to the Null Void.”

“We thought it was a disintegrator,” Manny piped in, “it was supposed to destroy you.”

“Somehow that’s actually better,” Argit grumbles in Susi’s ear and they agree. Helen looks at them frantically, all but sweating guilt.

“We were just trying to- We didn’t mean to-”

“Trap a bunch of innocent people in an all-but-barren wasteland with the most violent and dangerous criminals the galaxy has to offer?” Argit scowls at them. “Well congratulations, you did anyway.” The kineceleran looks like she may cry. The Tennysons give Argit a sharp look.

“I’ve already told the Plumbers what happened,” Max says, “if you can provide us with a list of the people you sent there, we can try to bring home as many as we can.” Helen’s eyes light up, just a little.

“Even my brother?” Ben blinks.

“Brother?”

“Pierce.” Manny is still looking through the folder. “He fell in during one of our runs. Covered in quills and stuff, like your rat there.”

“Huh.” Argit leans against his daemon and looks at Ben and Gwen. “Explains why I couldn’t quill Fuckface there then.”

“Argit, be nice.” They aren’t going to be nice, Susi knows. Argit, same as her, can’t get the human mutant with the ferret daemon out of his head. They’re in the Null Void of all places, they don’t deserve that. Max smiles at the celled pair. “Even Pierce.”

Helen smiles. Susi wants to bite her.

“You kids should head home,” Deana says as Max stands and stretches. “We’ll handle things here.”

~~

It’s another sleepover night, with nobody willing to leave Ben’s side for more than a few minutes at a time.

Everyone dreams of the Null Void.

Nobody sleeps.

Chapter Text

“You ask a guy a simple favor, just one little ride to Mr Smoothie, and what do you get? A fifteen-minute lecture about how you don’t use your bike enough.” Cassie rolls her eyes, shuffling in the basket on the back of Ben’s bicycle.

“I told you it wouldn’t work unless you sucked up to him first, but would you listen? Nooo.” Still frowning, Ben reaches back and tugs at her ear.

“Yeah yeah, daemon knows best,” he grumbles, turning to avoid a plastic bag in the street. “Dad’s the worst.”

“Oh definitely.”

From seemingly nowhere a car goes by on their left, so close that Ben is forced to veer for the sidewalk to avoid being hit.

“Hey! Student drivers!” he yells as he rebalances the bike, Cassie barking a storm behind him. The car zigzags in front of them, grating heavily against a parked car as it passes. Their eyes go wide when they hear the screams.

“That’s no joyride!” Cassie exclaims, jumping to the asphalt as Ben stops and goes for the Omnitrix. The first alien to come up is Big Chill.

“That’ll work,” he says as he slams the faceplate down and is enveloped in familiar green light

~~

There’s blood on his pillow and his mouth hurts bad enough that Cassie is whining in his pain.

Scrambling into a sitting position, Ben’s hand flies to his mouth, digging for whatever sharp item is tearing into his cheek and gum. Cassie, still whining, buries her face in his lap.

“What the,” he gasps as his hand comes away clutching a small shard of steel, “how did that get there?” The night before starts coming to him, the lecture, the bike ride, the car- “What happened? When did we get home?”

“I don’t know,” Cassie says, no longer whining now that the metal is gone, though the cuts to Ben’s mouth are still killing him, “the last thing I remember is you dialing up Big Chill so we could help that driver…”

“Same here.” Talking hurts, it hurts bad, but he’s worried now and wants answers. They haven’t blacked out when they used an alien in ages, not since-

A shudder runs down his spine. Cassie is still laid out on the bedspread, fur standing up. Ben forces a smile.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he says and gets up, setting to changing out of last night’s clothes as if that will clear up the knot in his stomach.

“Ben,” she says forcefully and jumps down to the floor, circling him until they make eye contact, “don’t lie to me.”

It’s a minute or so of staring defiantly, desperately, into her dark eyes before he realizes she’s trembling. It’s another before he realizes that he is too.

“We should call the others,” he says and she nods.

“Now.”

~~

They get halfway through the call to Gwen when Ben decides he really needs to wait for his mouth to scab over before he does anything with it and switches to text.

~~

He still can’t talk without it hurting by the time the others arrive, so Cassie does the explaining, pacing back and forth along the coffee table with Ship following her like a shadow.

(Argit had questioned why they’d invited their girlfriends to help, but they're worried and even just Julie and Ayaka’s presence is helping.)

“Something,” she says once everybody is settled in, “is wrong with the Omnitrix.” Gwen, Julie, and their daemons start, and look at Ben worriedly. Argit shuffles in the other direction from him.

“What’s the problem,” Ayaka asks, her whiskers twitching.

“Ben dialed in Big Chill last night, and the next thing either of us remembers we were waking up in our bed with shards of metal between Ben’s teeth.” The terrier looks sympathetically at Ben. “Cut his mouth up pretty bad.”

“Was wondering how you’d managed to shut him up.” The girls turn as one to glare at Argit, who rolls his eyes and pushes away from Susi’s side. He motions to Ben as he cautiously walks over. “Open it up, Watchboy.”

Everyone watches with interest as he checks the inside of Ben’s mouth, hissing.

“Damn. Nice job there, Benny,” he says. He pulls away and almost pats him on the cheek. “You should see a professional about that, that’s pretty deep.” Cringing at the thought of having to explain to a doctor or dentist how he got a cut like that on the inside of his cheek, Ben widens his eyes and sticks out his lip, silently pleading with Argit, who simply balks. “Like fuck I’m sewing your mouth up. If nothing else I couldn’t get a good angle.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gwen says, shaking her head, “what matters is finding out what’s going on. Has this happened before?” Ben can see in her and Llyr’s eyes that they’re worrying about the same thing he and Cassie are- that this is another Ghostfreak situation. He slowly nods.

“We were thinking about it while we waited for you guys,” Cassie answers for him, “the last few times we’ve used Big Chill there have been, gaps, in our memories. But this is the first time it’s been this bad.” Llyr puffs up on Gwen’s lap as she leans back.

“First things first, we need to find out what’s going on when you turn into Big Chill,” he says, “then we’ll know how to proceed.”

“We can find out tonight,” Julie adds, “Ben can transform and we’ll follow him, take notes on where he goes and what he does.” Ship trills in what they can assume is agreement, and the others make similar affirmative sounds. Once everybody has nodded or similar, she turns to Ben.

“But first,” she says, Ayaka purring in her lap, “we’re getting you to a dentist.”

~~

Ben officially hates the dentist, and it’s only the fact that he can’t feel half his face that keeps him from griping about the visit the whole bus trip home.

~~

“Nice ride!”

“Thanks, took some hunting to find.” Groaning, Gwen crosses her arms and rolls her eyes and Ben fights not to laugh at the completely Done look on her face.

“I take it Jack reopened the shop?” Susi gasps and Argit clutches a hand to his chest.

“Red! How could you!” He puts his other hand against the back door of what Ben is reasonably sure is a Jaguar SUV. “I simply thought we should have the fastest and most maneuverable car possible for this.” She continues to glower at him and he breaks, snorting and grinning. “Okay, yeah Jack’s back in business. Been looking for one of these, figure I can get at least four grand out of him.” Gwen grumbles under her breath at him.

Julie and Ayaka look between them and Ben with concern and he shrugs.

“Tol’ ‘u ‘ey figh’.” Julie narrows her eyes, they both know that’s not the problem, but says nothing. “Le’s ge’ shtarted.”

Ben waits as they pile into the car- Argit at the wheel, Susi in the trunk, Julie and Ayaka in the passenger’s seat, Gwen and Llyr in the back- before going to the Omnitrix. Julie had said something earlier about control groups in experiments, so he thinks maybe he’ll try starting with somebody else, then turn into Big Chill so they can see the difference. He makes his choice, reaches down to pat Cassie’s head, and hits the faceplate. The familiar flash of green comes and goes and Jetray-

~~

He groans.

“Ben!” He can feel hands grab his shoulders, Cassie across his legs, dirt under his hands. Why is there dirt under his hands?

“Welcome back, Benny. Have a nice nap?” When he opens his eyes his vision is blurry, but he can just make out Julie and Gwen hovering over him.

“Where are we,” he asks as they help him sit up. Argit, Susi, and Llyr are standing just off to the side, and Ayaka is rubbing her head against Cassie’s, purring. He can feel his face again, which is a small relief. “What happened?”

“We’re in the middle of the desert, Ben,” Gwen says.

“And as for what happened-” Julie steps back and pulls her notepad out of her bag, “-6:30 pm, you turned into Big Chill-” Ben’s eyes blow wide and Cassie whimpers.

“Are you sure,” he asks. “I programmed Jetray!”

“And you got him,” Argit butts in, “for maybe half a second, then you turned into Big Chill.”

“6:32, ate drive-in stalls, 6:35, ate giant metal burger, 6:36, ate giant metal statue eating giant metal burger, 6:38, ate a bus, 6:41, ate a carwash sign, 6:42, ate the carwash, 6:43-”

“Wow,” Ben says, “you take great notes. No wonder you get straight A’s.”

“We lost you at around seven-thirty,” Llyr says, “you told us to stay away and then you phased through a building.”

“Very rude.”

“Hush, Argit.” Cassie gets to her feet.

“But you guys found us.” Susi shrugs.

“Gwen realized we could track the Omnitrix, so we did. And it led us here.” Ben looks around. ‘Here’ is a ditch in the desert, lined with metal scrap.

“So that’s why there was all that stuff in my teeth…” The others nod.

“We weren’t sure if it was safe to wake you up,” Gwen says, “so we looked up Big Chill’s species while we waited.” Ben blinks, mindlessly reaching out to scratch Cassie’s ears.

“Really?”

“‘Necrofriggians’, apparently,” Ayaka says. “The sites we found said that they reproduce every eighty years or so, feasting on metal and using it to build their nests.” Ben stares at the cat daemon in shock.

“So I’m…?”

“Gonna be a ma.” Argit pats his shoulder, and when he looks the alien is smirking. “Congratulations.” Shaking his head, Ben pulls Cassie back into his lap and looks around at the ditch again. A nest. Big Chill has been building a nest.

“But if Big Chill needs metal…” He can just imagine another round of losing control, of eating metal all over town like Julie said, what if people we in that bus-

“We’ve already got it covered,” Julie says, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Argit made some calls, half the scrap metal in Bellwood should be here by sundown.” Slowly, Ben nods.

“By sundown, okay, I can handle- Fuck!” Frantically, he begins to scramble to his feet. “What time is it?!”

~~

Late, turns out to be the answer. Late enough that his parents want his head and Gwen’s parents want her head and Julie’s parents have just about died.

For a while Ben considers the possibility that Argit is right and the whole ‘being an orphan’ thing isn’t really all that bad.

In the end they all have to spin lies like crazy people to avoid being grounded. (They all go with ‘we were studying and got so caught up we lost track of time and fell asleep in our books’ excuse. It works for the girls but Ben isn’t believed and has to cover his tracks with playing videogames with a friend.)

They go back to the ditch at sundown, Argit griping the whole way about how much money he now owes Kevin- “Thankfully he’s real nice about that shit, comparatively”- and filling them in on what other information he’s been able to dig up while they were all trying to not be killed and left out as a warning to future children.

Big Chill will line the rest of the ditch with metal, then begin to build a cocoon like nest in it, laying eggs as he goes along. When the babies hatch they’ll stick around long enough to get their bearings and Big Chill’s scent- “apparently they nest where they hatch”- then fly off into space to live off solar plasma for the next fifty-or-so years before joining the nearest colony.

“What, so I go through all this and I won’t even get to meet them?” Ben’s surprised at how crestfallen he is, but damnit he’s having to give up pizza until his mouth heals and he doesn’t even get to meet his own children. It’s not fair. Cassie whines in agreement.

“It’s okay,” Julie says, leaning against his side, “I brought a camera, so at least you’ll have video.”

Ben figures it will have to do and puts an arm around her shoulder.

When they reach their destination there’s a good ton of scrap metal lying beside the ditch and Ben isn’t sure it’s him that activates the watch when he sees it.

~~

When a flash of green brings Ben back to himself, the first thing he sees is a bunch of dots against the moon. Cassie starts with a low whine immediately.

Nobody had expected them to hatch so soon, but apparently sometime around two o’clock large, blue-patterned larvae had begun to chew their way free of the nest. Julie was good to her word and taped the entire thing as Big Chill’s babies, each covered in a cloud of Dust, crawled free of their nest and shifted into tiny, chubby versions of their mother. Ben couldn’t help but get a lump in his throat as the clouds of Dust formed into daemons, settling on the newborns heads and shoulders and in their pudgy arms. Cassie’s whining got worse there as well. The video showed them crowding around Big Chill, then flying away toward the moon. Showed him scooping up a tiny, tiny one- a quarter the size of it’s siblings, it’s daemon a pinprick of gold at the distance they’d been- and urge it toward the sky. Big Chill and Cassie watching them go, right up until he turned back to himself.

“If it makes you feel better,” Gwen says when they start to totally not tear up no way, “I’m pretty sure that small one’s going to end up back on Earth someday.”

“Don’t be so sure, Red,” Argit says, and leans on Ben’s back, “runts can surprise you.” Ben snorts.

It’s late, much later than anyone but Argit and Susi should be out, and they’re already sure to be grounded for life, but they pile back into the latest car anyway. The others talk about kids and family all the way home (Argit is quiet except to say he’s surprised to see his isn’t the only species born in a cloud of Dust) and, as expected, are grounded before any of them can get inside.

When Ben checks his email Julie’s already sent him the video.

‘Runts can surprise you’ Argit had said. For some reason, Ben thinks, that sounds like the greatest thing.

Chapter Text

“Please, Argit? I’m worried.” The Erinaen groans, rolling his eyes as he presses the ear that isn’t to his phone down against his head in an attempt to drown out the Tennysons’ noise.

“He probably just worked himself into a small coma, Kevin, you know how he is.”

“I first called him two days ago. Even at his worst he’d be awake by now.”

“Maybe he hasn’t gotten your messages- Don’t touch that, it’s dangerous and you don’t know what you’re doing!” With a hiss he glares at the Tennysons until they back from the tech they were inspecting. Susi trots forward to herd Cassie and Llyr away. “Did I not say I was done with the older brother thing?”

“Ages ago.” Kevin sighs on the other end of the line. “Look, I hope it’s nothing, but I want to be sure. Please.” Argit can practically hear him making the Puppy Eyes on the other end of the line and Annelie echoes the please in a piteous tone.

“Oh all right,” he says, “we’ll go check in on him, make sure he’s okay.”

“Thanks Hedgehog,” Kevin says, clearly relieved, “I’ll count this against your debt, make you some rabbit when we get back.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m holding you to that. Call ya soon, Earthboy.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Snapping his phone shut, Argit rolls his eyes and comes out from behind the crate he’s been using as cover. They’re in another abandoned factory and he’d taken Kevin’s call during the ass-end of a fight with yet more DNAliens. Things are getting to be predictable. Silently, he walks passed the Tennyson cousins and pulls a series of wires on the device they’d been looking at free.

“There, now you can do whatever.” They immediately close back in on it. “I’m gonna need to head out here in a few, Kev wants me to check in on one of his buddies. You want me to drop you off at home, or can you find your own way back?” Turning away from the machine again, Ben and Gwen both look suspiciously at him.

“Why doesn’t he check on them himself,” Ben asks.

“He’s off-world. Wanted to know if the guy wanted some tech he found, but he’s not answering his phone.” Argit shrugs. “I tried to tell him Cooper’d probably just found a new project or some tech or something and worked himself into a coma again, but he wouldn’t listen.” The others all blink.

“Cooper,” Ben asks, “short kid, pasty?”

“Blond hair? Wombat?”

“Big crush on Gwen?”

“Ben!”

“That sounds like him,” Susi says, stalking to their other half’s side. “You know him?” Argit’s nose scrunches.

“He’s into Red? And Kev had me thinking he had taste…” Gwen glares at him, Ben patting her shoulder as he responds to Susi.

“He’s helped us out a few times over the years, we don’t see him often. How does Kevin know him?”

“He’s a client. Kev’s sorta taken him under his wing.” The Tennysons have not looked so confused and concerned in the time Argit has known them, he’s sure.

“Well, if something’s wrong with him, we should go check it out,” Gwen says, shaking her head, and Argit smirks.

“Worried about your boytoy, Red?” She glares harder, Llyr hissing at her side.

“Where does he live,” Cassie asks.

“Grover Mills,” Susi responds, and Ben lights up.

“Cool! I can introduce you guys to Alan when we’re done.”

~~

The whole of the team isn’t even out of the van before Susi is snarling at the pile of newspapers on the front porch. Argit can’t blame them, he’s sneering at them himself, but the Tennysons don’t seem to notice even as they all walk passed them and through the unlocked door. There’s a layer of dust on everything.

“His lab’s in the basement,” Argit says as he leads the way. They’ve been here before, with Kevin and Annelie, and know what they’re doing.

“Why are we breaking in,” Gwen asks as he opens the door to the basement. No sound comes from down the stairs and he can feel the fur along his spine raise. If nothing else he should be able to hear snoring. “Why can’t we check with his folks?” Susi huffs.

“There’s no lights on, no air conditioner on, dust everywhere, and more than a week’s worth of papers on the porch,” they snarl, “what makes you think they’re around?”

“Something’s wrong,” Argit says, walking farther in, “Cooper never leaves his lab…” He flips the light switch at the base of the stairs and stiffens as his worries are verified. There’s no one there.

“This isn’t right.” Everyone filters into the room, looking around at the chaos.

“He really doesn’t leave his lab, does he,” Gwen asks as she picks up a dirty shirt off a table, gagging. Cassie is sniffing around, her fur on end. Ben steps into a pizza box and gags at the spare slice that sticks to his shoe. Argit and Susi prowl the room, ears pressed tight back against their heads.

“Cooper really needs a cleaning service or something.” Shuffling around some papers on a desk, Ben finds and lifts up a blaster of some kind. Before Argit and Gwen can tell him otherwise, he’s flipped the switch on the back of it and a paddle on the barrel begins to spin.

“Why do you people touch everything?!” Argit cries as a laser flies from the blaster and hits a nearby monitor. Llyr honks in surprise and the other two daemons jump when all the monitors spread around the room flip on, showing first static, then a clearly scared blond-haired boy.

“If anyone finds this recording-” Cooper suddenly dodges out of frame as a DNAlien lunges for him. As he runs farther from the camera the rest of the room is exposed to its view- a trio of DNAliens and their daemons dodging the boxes the fleeing boy throws in their paths, the overweight, mottled form of a wombat bowling over the daemons as they try to cut him off, a DNAlien popping up in front of Cooper, spitting a wad of adhesive spit onto his shoe and the floor around it. “No!″ The DNAliens dogpile him, one at each arm and another grasping his shoulders, the wombat surging forward to bury her teeth into an alien leg- not it’s daemon, the DNAlien itself- the kidnapper screaming. “No!” All of them fading from view, leaving nothing to say they’d even been there.

The team stands silent, staring.

“That’s our Raelene,” Susi finally says. Cassie and Llyr nod in agreement.

“Gwen,” Ben says, turning to his cousin, “can you track Cooper, figure out where they took him?”

“Probably.” Eyes and hands glowing, Gwen waves them over Cooper’s main desk, the one with the most monitors. “His energy resonance is really strong here.”

“Who’d have guessed.”

“Shut up. Got him.” She turns to the boys. “I can take us right to him.” Argit slaps Ben’s arm with a smirk.

“Strong attraction.”

“I will hurt you.”

“Okay, both of you stop.” Ben puts up his hands between Gwen, who’s glaring again, and Argit, who still smirks. “We need to focus on saving Cooper. But first,” he drops his hands and he and Cassie smile at each other, “why don’t we get some back-up?”

~~

“I know Monarch wasn’t too happy with the idea, but you said if we needed help we could call-”

“No, it’s fine,” Alan says, scratching behind his daemon’s ears. She’s a large, goat-like creature with long horns right now, but Argit and Susi already know from Ben that she’s unsettled. “We were really stressed, so Monarch was kinda, snippy.” The boy smiles widely. “We’d be happy to help you save your friend.”

“Great!” Ben and Cassie are grinning and Llyr is speaking in hushed tones with Monarch. Gwen reaches out to shake Alan’s hand.

“It’s nice to have you,” she says.

“Yeah, well, hold up, how old are you,” Argit asks. Alan looks even younger than Ben does and it worries him…

“Fourteen.” The Erinaen chokes on his own spit.

“No!”

“Argit..”

“We are not bringing a fourteen year old with us, this is where I’m drawing the line!” Alan’s face drops, though Monarch doesn’t look unhappy with his decision. Ben gives him a firm look.

“Cooper’s fourteen.”

“Cooper’s a kidnapping victim! They’re too young to be fighting, and too damn old for you to try to say you gotta bring ‘em.”

“He’s coming,” Gwen says like that’s final, and the way the others all stand up and head for the door with nary a look back at he and Susi it seems like it is. Argit wants to think Gwen’s doing it to spite him, but he’s pretty sure she actually thinks this is fine.

Sometimes they scare him more than Kevin does.

“They’re all too young for this shit, I swear…” he grumbles as he and Susi trail behind them to the car.

“We were younger than them when we first-”

“That was different and you know it.”

~~

“Los Soledad?”

“I swear if there’s another time monster here I’m leaving you brats to die.”

“There’s not anything here,” Alan says as they climb out of the car, holding Monarch close as a small deer. He’s right, from outside the broken walls of the base they can see nothing but rows upon rows of empty buildings, not even a single track in the dirt.

“I don’t think he’s here,” Ben says, turning to Gwen. “Are you sure you have the right place?”

“Of course I’m sure!” She sets Llyr down on the ground. “I’m not wrong!”

“It’s okay, Red,” Argit says, and she glares preemptively, “if love is blind of course you aren’t gonna know where you’re going.”

“Argit I swear if you don’t drop this-”

“They’re here.” Everybody stops and turns to Cassie. She’s sniffing around one of the large holes in the wall. “I can smell Cooper and Raelene…” Trailing off, nose still pressed to the ground, she follows the scent through the hole, and disappears.

“Cassie!!” Eyes blown wide with panic, Ben dives in after his daemon, followed closely by the rest of the team.

The base isn’t quite so empty on the other side.

They rush behind a stray engine that provides the nearest source of cover and gawk at the sight of hundreds, if not thousands, of DNAliens. They’re patrolling the area, unloading trucks, and driving flying carts around the base. In the background, a massive arc of stone and

“More of those weather changing machines,” Alan says. “Three of them can’t be good.” The others shake their heads.

“They must be using a cloaking device,” Argit says.

“So nobody will know what they’re up to,” Gwen finishes. They glare at each other again. Ben ignores them.

“I’ll bet money that’s what they needed Cooper for, to build it.”

“Well then,” Alan says, “we need to find him before he can build anything else for them!” He turns to Gwen. “You were tracking him, right?” She nods and her eyes glow again.

“This way.”

~~

They dodge DNAliens halfway across the base, half of them ending up on a roof at one point, before Gwen indicates a building. Argit’s picked the lock on the door within seconds and they all bustle in, Gwen immediately setting to testing each door for Cooper’s energy signature.

“Is this what every mission with you guys is like,” Alan whispers.

“Yep.”

The door at the very end of the hall is the one, and Argit and Alan grab Ben’s hand in unison when he goes to open it.

“And if there’s guards?” He looks between them, then at Gwen and Llyr, and sighs.

“Okay, okay,” he says, and they back away as he begins to dial the Omnitrix. In a flash of green he’s Goop, patting Cassie’s head lovingly before collapsing into a puddle and slipping under the door.

“That was weird…” Gwen scoffs.

“Ben in general is weird.”

Everything is quiet for the first few minutes, then a high-pitched sound comes through the door, driving Argit to his knees and leaving Susi and Cassie whining piles of fur. All of them have their ears pressed tight against their heads to keep out the piercing tone. Llyr is immediately at Cassie’s side, Gwen leaning over them, while Alan and Monarch hover over Argit and Susi. As soon as the sound stops, Argit buries a hand in Susi’s fur.

“We need to get in there,” Gwen says, and motions everyone to get back away from the door. “Alan, help me.” Once they’re about halfway down the hall, with everyone behind them, Alan shifts into Pyronite form and he and Gwen both fire on the door, blasting it off its hinges and across the room beyond.

Cooper is inside, standing behind Goop and two unconscious DNAliens. Cassie and Susi both rush forward, Cassie to sniff at Goop and Susi to sniff at the wombat collapsed over Cooper’s feet.

The blond blushes as soon as he sees Gwen.

“Is everything okay,” Gwen asks, and Ben reverts back to himself with a smile.

“Everything is great,” Cooper exclaims before he can speak, grinning and waving. “That was awesome, Gwen, when did you learn to do that, is it new?” Argit snorts as he continues to low-key gush.

“Ah, young love,” he says under his breath, and this time Gwen does swat him upside the head. Meanwhile Susi has lain down nose to nose with Raelene.

“Are you alright?”

“DNAliens taste like rot,” the wombat grumbles, and Susi smirks.

“That’s what you get for biting somebody other than Cooper.”

“Cooper tastes worse.”

“Hey!” For the first time since she’s come in he stops looking at Gwen, instead glaring at his daemon and roughly nudging her off his feet. She doesn’t seem to notice at all.

“Who are they?” Monarch steps forward, sniffing her politely.

“I’m Monarch,” she says, tapping a hoof on the floor, “and this is my Alan.”

“Raelene,” is the response, “this love-struck fool is Cooper.”

“Rae!” The others chuckle, and Cooper goes even redder when he sees Gwen’s joining in.

“I hate to interrupt,” Alan says, and all eyes turn to him, “but we should probably go before somebody figures out what’s happening.” Ben nods.

“You’re right, let’s move.”

They make it four buildings at a quick jog before they stop to check around a corner and Cooper all but collapses into the snow.

“I need. To rest.” He gasps, bent over with his hands on his knees and Alan’s hand on his shoulder. The other boy and his daemon look worried, especially as Raelene collapses again across his feet. Argit puts his hands on his hips and frowns at them.

“From now on,” he says, “Kev and I are making sure you get out of the house at least twice a week.”

“If we get out of here alive.” Shaking his head, Ben pulls away from the corner. “There’s an army of DNAliens walking around, and we have to destroy that cloaking device so they can’t hide behind it anymore.”

“Cooper made it, right,” Gwen asks, turning to Cooper, who immediately straightens up and pastes on his best smile. He doesn’t seem to notice Gwen rolling her eyes, or anyone else for that matter.

“And I can destroy it,” he says, “if I can get to it.” Ben sighs.

“Which brings us back to the DNAlien problem…” Alan mirrors his worried expression.

“How do you get passed an army…” Argit clenches his teeth, burying a hand in his daemon’s fur. He knows for a fact that Susi could outrun, out maneuver, any of the DNAliens on the base, and any of their daemons who could follow would be easy pickings-

“Before I made the big cloaking device, they let me make a prototype,” Cooper says, pulling a small machine out of his pocket.

‘Thank fuck,’ Argit thinks, ‘what was I thinking?!?’

“Raelene and I were going to use it to escape the first chance we got,” the boy continues, “but the field should be big enough to cover all of us-” he looks at Gwen and blushes again “-if we stand real close.” With a proper shove Gwen stumbles over to him, then turns and glares at Argit. He tries to look as innocent as possible.

“Give it a whirl, Cooper,” Alan says, looking hopeful, and with a smile the shorter boy flips a switch.

“I don’t feel invisible,” Ben says, and Cassie nods beside him.

“Yeah…” Cooper shakes his head fondly.

“Follow me.”

And with that he’s off with newfound energy, the rest of the group following behind him. Raelene begins to lag a bit and is scooped up in Susi’s jaws. Alan is flying beside them, trying this best to not melt the snow and give them away. After a few minutes it becomes clear that Cooper is leading them further onto the base, towards the arch.

“So, Coop,” Argit asks after a while moving in silence, “if you’re the hero now, does that mean you get the girl?” He is fairly certain Gwen’s glare is only getting more venomous as the night goes on, it’s fantastic.

“Drop it, Argit,” she growls.

“Never.” Suddenly, Ben’s hands fall onto each of their mouths. He wordlessly pushes them against a building as a DNAlien flying a cart goes by.

“It’s cloaking our appearances, not our voices,” he says, and the pair deflate guiltily. At least until the device still in Cooper’s hands begins to spark.

“Uh-oh.” Both Argit and Alan’s eyes go wide.

“‘Uh-oh’ what, Cooper?” He cringes.

“Well, every prototype has a few bugs…” At that point the machine begins to fizz and he throws it aside. They all watch it hit the snow only seconds before it explodes.

Suddenly all eyes are on them.

“What are they doing here?”

“Get them!”

“Shield please!” Argit cries as the daemons step in front of their other halves, baring teeth, flapping wings threateningly, and making the most intimidating noises they can. Monarch shifts into an okapi.

“You’re unsettled?” Cooper asks Alan as Gwen throws a shield up and DNAliens immediately ram into it. Ben gives him a venomous look.

“Not the time, Cooper!” He’s dialing up the Omnitrix as he speaks, watching the veritable army in front of them pound against his cousin’s shield.

“We can’t fight them all,” Gwen says, straining against the barrage.

“We still need to get Cooper to the cloaking device,” Alan responds.

“And we will!” Picking an alien, Ben’s hand hovers over the Omnitrix’s faceplate. “Argit, how many can you take out?” The Erinaen does some quick math.

“If I get in front of you guys, maybe ten at a time.”

“Even now they won’t touch the daemons,” Gwen adds, “Susi and Llyr can scatter them, give us some room.” Ben nods.

“And Monarch can be whatever she wants. Alan!” He turns to the younger teen. “You two get Cooper to the cloaking device, watch his back while he works!”

“What about-”

“When you’re done,” Argit adds, “all of you get out of here. We’ll do what we can.” Even Gwen blinks, surprised, at him, but there’s no more time to talk. Her shield begins to crack and she pushes in outward with all her might, shoving the enemy aside as in a flash of green Ben turns into Swampfire and Monarch, no longer confined, becomes a massive rhino. Argit can feel the ground shake as he moves forward and fires a barrage of quills, the front line collapsing as Ben and Gwen begin firing at those behind and Susi and Llyr charge in among them. He dodges two lunges, quilling them both, and a wad of acid before he starts fingering the knife in his pocket, he doesn’t like to use it but

“Argit!” He looks up and Gwen is building a staircase in the air. Every step seems to fade almost as soon as he lands on it, but he has just enough time to push off towards the next before it’s gone, climbing high enough to make his body ache with the distance from Susi. The look on Gwen’s face says she’s straining as well. Now with the high ground they have the advantage, firing magic and quills at the enemy with greater accuracy and less chance of hitting their own. To the side Argit can see Swampfire burning through anyone who gets in front of him, willing any living grass into life and to his aid, Cassie tearing into other daemons. Susi and Llyr are whirlwinds of black and white, snapping and kicking and swiping and beating and making the most horrible noises while they do it. Occasionally he’ll see the glow of fire to the north.

Suddenly there’s a pillar of fire and a series of explosions at the arch.

The remaining DNAliens fall into a frenzy, pushing passed Swampfire and the daemons in their rush to reach the arch and the fires burning around it. The fires, Argit realizes and knows Gwen does too from her gasp when she looks, that are burning everything on that end of the base.

“Cooper and Alan!” She yells and all six of them are already in motion, Llyr in the air beside her as she runs along magic platforms, Argit dropping to Susi’s back as they bolt passed, Swampfire and Cassie keeping pace with each other beside and beneath them. Nobody pays any attention to the group, all too concerned with saving their equipment and themselves from the flames. By the time they reach the others, the arch itself is burning, Alan is human again, leaning heavily against Cooper, and Raelene is standing over Monarch’s tiny form like a furred sentinel.

Never had a wombat looked so badass, nor a mouse-deer looked like a war hero. Especially with a Highbreed and their giant spider daemon burning not twenty feet away.

The team hardly breaks stride, pausing only long enough for Cooper to climb up to Gwen’s platform, Swampfire to scoop Alan into his arms, and Susi and Cassie to snatch up Raelene and Monarch respectively. Then they’re off again, dodging fire and falling pieces of building and arch as they go, making a beeline for the hole in the wall and the car beyond it.

Gwen dives for the passenger seat this time, Swampfire reverting back to Ben as soon as he’s piled Alan into the back and Cooper diving in beside the hybrid. Argit and Susi have by now almost perfected shutting the trunk while dismounting and heading for the driver’s side, and as soon as the door is shut behind him the alien is gunning it as far away from the only military base as possible.

It’s nearly fifteen miles before everybody’s heartrates slow to a safe level. Daemons are curled up in their other halves’ laps, Alan is laying against Cooper’s shoulder. Cooper is fussing over him like a new mom.

“That was amazing, Alan,” Gwen says, stroking the knob on Llyr’s bill, and the boy grins tiredly.

“I figured,” he says, “getting rid of their cloaking technology is nice and all, but we should probably try to at least set back whatever it is they’re doing too.” Cooper nods.

“Yeah. I think that was a portal or something they were building.”

“Well, it’s gonna be a while before they can move anything through it now,” Cassie says. She and Ben both smile at Alan and Monarch. “You did great, both of you.” They laugh, and Argit can see Alan looking at him in the rear-view mirror.

“So,” he asks, “can I be part of the team now?”

“Of course,” Argit says, and waits until Alan starts smirking to finish, “once you’re grown.”

“Argit.” Gwen gives him a look and smacks his arm. Ben mirrors her expression from the back. He just shakes his head.

“I told you, they’re too young for this stuff, it’s bad enough keeping an eye on you.” Ben rolls his eyes and grins at Alan.

“You’re totally in.” Alan grins back, and Cooper puts an arm around his shoulder.

“Great.”

Argit just sighs, shaking his head again and running a hand through what little remains of his mane. These people are going to kill his blood pressure.

Chapter Text

“Yes.” Portal on.

“No.” Portal off.

“Yes.” Portal on.

“No!” Portal off.

“There’s still innocent people in there!” Portal on.

“You have no idea. They’re a write-off.” Portal off.

“Just because your buddy is out-” Portal on.

“And traumatized!” Portal off.

Cassie growls at Susi from Ben’s side. They and Argit have been arguing against this idea ever since the heroes brought it up and now here they are arguing still. Actively preventing them from going in and saving people.

Portal on.

“I still can’t believe the Plumbers stopped after only getting five people out,” she hears Alan say in the background.

“That’s because they’re assholes and the Null Void is fucking dangerous,” Argit responds, glare still locked with Ben’s.

Portal off.

“I’ve been there before!”

Portal on.

“For an hour! You don’t know what you’ll be dealing with!”

Portal off.

“It’s not like you can’t pull me out if there’s trouble, that’s what the tether is for!”

Portal on.

“Because there’s nothing there that’ll cut a tether, right?”

Portal off.

Cassie hasn’t seen Susi look so mean as they do now. Even Gwen and Llyr aren’t getting involved in this fight.

“Somebody has to help those people, Argit.”

Porta- there’s a sharp sting along Cassie’s face and back. Ben collapses beside her. She can hear Gwen and Alan gasp as tiredness takes her.

“It’s not gonna be you,” she hears Argit say as her eyes drift shut, Susi growling behind him. “Any other little ‘heroes’ here?”

Portal off.

~~

“Thanks for helping out, Alan.”

“Just, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if there was someone we could help…”

“No, we totally get it.”

It’s been two days since Argit’s mutiny and they haven’t brought him along this time. They haven’t brought Gwen and Llyr either. The two had agreed with him when Ben and Cassie woke up the next morning. Agreed. As if that ever happened. Had said that if he was that intent that none of them enter the Null Void there was probably good reason.

Ben and Cassie weren’t about to let innocent people suffer just because the others were afraid.

Alan was too, Cassie could smell the fear and concern on him, but he was still there, still helping. She knew they’d done right by recruiting him.

“Okay,” Ben says, reshowing everything they’d gathered in the days before the mutiny, “when I say, you need to flip this switch here-” Alan nods. “-and if I tug on the tether-” Ben gives a yack on the line attached to his waist. There’s another attaching Cassie to him, thicker for the sake of safety. “If I do that then flip the switch by the reel and it’ll pull us back, alright?”

“Alright.” Alan’s hand hovers over the control panel and he chews his lip.

“Are you sure this is a good idea,” Monarch asks, today a zebra stamping her hooves with nerves. Cassie smiles as best she can.

“We’re just scouting the area now,” she says, “getting an idea of what we’ll be dealing with in there before we go in for real. It’ll be an hour tops.” The other daemon doesn’t look convinced, but doesn’t argue, going to stand behind Alan.

“Turn it on,” Ben says and Alan flips the switch. With a nasty hum the Null Void portal comes to life again, a mass of fleshy red through which they can just see open void and floating rocks. Ben picks Cassie up before stepping inside and she looks over his shoulder the whole way, trying to look comforting for Alan and Monarch.

Never mind the knot in her own stomach.

~~

The first thing Cassie notices once they’re in the Null Void is that there isn’t anything beneath them and they’re falling. Her first thought is “fuck”, followed by “I hope we don’t hit the ground too hard”, followed by “is there ground down there?” She then proceeds to beat herself up for thinking what has to be the least comforting thing one could think in this scenario. Howls are tearing themselves from her throat when Ben, falling faster, is enveloped in a flash of green and Jetray darts passed her, snatching her up in his claws. She has never been happier to have the Omnitrix around in her life.

“Okay,” he says, gently placing her on the largest piece of land in sight, “jetpacks probably would have been a good idea.”

“Yeah.” Looking around, Cassie sniffs at the bare stone. There’s not even dirt on the ground. “Was this place always so… barren?”

“I don’t know,” Jetray looks as creeped out as she feels by the bare rock and empty sky. She can’t even smell water. “We were sort’ve busy the last time we were in here, what with Kevin and Vilgax trying to kill us.” With a slap of the Omnitrix he reverts back to Ben and sets to checking the tethers while Cassie sniffs around.

The place doesn’t smell right. Occasionally she’ll catch a scent, but they don’t go as far as she’d like on the stone, and there are no plants to hold them, nor wind to carry them.

“What do you think?” Ben kneels beside her, hand on her back. She wonders what to say.

“If I didn’t know better,” she settles on, “I’d say this place was dead.” He nods and stands again.

“Let’s look around,” he says, heading in a random direction, running his hands over dark stone. Cassie follows close behind. The tether already cuts down on how far apart they can get by a fair margin, but not near enough to quell how wrong the place feels.

For a brief moment she wonders if they’re near one of the dead places, where daemons can’t go and their other halves cross to Separate them. The thought is worse than the falling before.

A growl comes from their right, above them, and they look up to see a Vulpimancer, massive and red, focused on them. The eyes of the large, furred creature beside it are bright. They know as soon as they crouch that they’re being hunted.

They run.

Cassie hears Ben’s tether snap behind them less than a second after the Vulpimancer and it’s daemon shake the ground with their landing and immediately know they they’re on their own as they dart around rocks and turns in vain attempts to throw their pursuers off. Two more pairs come in from the sides to join the hunt.

“Ben!!”

“Dialing and running aren’t a great combo, Cass!”

“Well make ‘em great!”

“If we die it’s your fault!” He slaps down on the Omnitrix, disappearing in a flash of green just as another Vulpimancer and it’s daemon jump out in front of them. The daemon goes to cave Cassie’s skull with it’s massive hooves, but before it can she’s scooped up in frigid arms and going up up up.

“Big Chill will do,” she says.

“He better.”

The pack follows them as they fly, jumping over gaps between the floating lands, keeping speed for long, long minutes before dropping away at a gorge even they can’t cross. A chorus of roars sound behind the heroes as they keep going. They won’t stop, can’t stop, until they find someplace safe to get their bearings and form a plan.

~~

“We’re stuck,” Ben says, holding the shorn end of the tether in his hand, and Cassie rolls her eyes.

“No shit, Sherlock,” she growls, looking over the edge of the small floating outcropping they’ve landed on, “now what do we do about it?”

“There has to be some way out, right? Or at least a way to get a message to the Plumbers. We just have to find it.” Cassie thinks about something Susi had once said, that everybody here was trapped. She wishes she were back in the Plumber base with Alan and Monarch, wonders when they’ll realize that something is wrong. “We should keep going.”

She doesn’t know if that’s a good idea, if maybe they should just stay where they know they’re safe, but can’t think of anything more proactive to do.

Ben decouples them, scoops her into his arms, and jumps to another large landmass.

~~

They’re attacked three more times in the next two hours or so, twice by ‘wildlife’ (actual wildlife the first time, the second by a group of aliens that must have been sentient by the daemons at their sides) and once by an Uxorite who very openly saw them as easy pickings. He was taken down easily enough, knocked out and left for what Cassie is fairly certain is dead, but she’s also reasonably sure he planned to eat Ben so she doesn’t feel too bad.

Not that she’s sure she can blame him, they haven’t seen any plants or water or small game since they got here. Occasionally a Null Guardian flies overhead, but beyond that, nothing but hunting predators.

“Cassie!” Ben reaches down and taps on her head, pointing around the corner of the cliff they’re pressed against. They’ve quickly learned to be cautious, to stay in the shadows and out of sight as much as possible. She pokes her head around the corner.

There’s another boy there, with brown skin covered in quills and a black and white, quill-filled mane. He sits in the light and at first Cassie wonders why (she also wonders how there’s light here at all, without any visible sun, but then her head starts hurting so she stops) until she sees the iguana stretched across his legs.

“Do you think that’s-” she asks and Ben nods.

“Pierce Wheels?” He waves a hand around the corner and the pair’s eyes dart to them. They glare and their muscles go tense.

“Who are you,” the boy asks, quills raising like Argit’s do when he feels threatened.

“Cassie and Ben,” she responds before her other half can start, “we know Helen and Bradach.” Suddenly Pierce surges to his feet, daemon falling out of his lap and shifting into an anole halfway to the ground- “That’s five unsettled daemons we’ve met so far in three months!”- and scurrying back up his leg towards his shoulder.

“You know Helen? Is she okay?!”

“She’s fine,” Ben says as they step out of the shadows, “she and Manny are doing community service for, well, throwing people in here.” Pierce nods, reaching up to rest a hand on his daemon as he looks around them.

“I swear, if I’d known that they were going here, if I’d known what here was like-” He stops and shakes his head. “It’s a nightmare.”

“Yeah, we were beginning to figure that out for ourselves.”

“I’m Gemma,” the lizard says, climbing further up to curl around Pierce’s ear. Cassie tries to smile at her.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Pierce steps closer to them.

“What are you doing here,” he asks, and Ben gives an embarrassed smile.

“Would you believe looking for you?”

The looks on their faces say no.

“The Plumbers came in looking for the innocent people you, your sister, and Manny sent here,” Cassie explains. “When they only managed to find and bring back five, we decided that we would try to find the rest of you. Then we got stuck.” Gemma climbs even higher, now into Pierce’s mane, as he tilts his head and looks at them questioningly.

“When did they come looking,” he asks and Ben shrugs.

“About a month ago, why?”

“Because,” his eyes narrow, “I’ve been here for nearly three and not a week after I showed up a trio of Plumbers showed up offering to help me get home.” Ben and Cassie’s eyes go wide.

“And you’re still here?!” Cassie can’t believe her ears, she hasn’t been here four hours and she already would give up her tail to get out and they refused help after a week?

“We didn’t like the look of them,” Gemma says, poking her little green head out from between white quills, “they were all in black and just, too friendly. It didn’t feel right.” Pierce nods.

“So we, well, ran. Haven’t seen any kind of Plumber or guard activity since, except the Null Guardians.”

Ben and Cassie share a look that speaks more than words.

That goes beyond weird and into worrying.

~~

“So, there’s no way out?”

“None that we’ve found.”

“Darn it.”

They’ve been walking again. Pierce showed them a spot where a small stream comes out of the rock face, traveling just a few feet before sinking back into the ground. Gemma’s pointed out where, if you dig into the piles of stone, you can find insects and edible molds that rarely see the sky. It worries Cassie. Ben is still searching for a way out, still looking for hope, but these two, they clearly are preparing them to stay. She doesn’t want to stay.

“What about those so-called Plumbers you talked to? Do you think they might have a way?” Pierce shrugs.

“Maybe, maybe not. We didn’t exactly want to follow them and risk getting caught, and we’ve been working too hard on surviving to go hunting and searching for them on the off chance they weren’t just a bunch of crazies who wanted to wear us as hats.” Neither of them can fault them that.

“There has to be some way out,” Ben says and the other teen rolls his eyes.

“It’s a penal colony, Ben, you aren’t supposed to get out. You’re supposed to stay here until you starve or someone eats you.”

Cassie looks at Gemma, still small and hidden, and thinks about Annelie and Kevin, thinks of Susi and Argit’s violent hatred of this place.

‘You aren’t supposed to get out.’

There’s a growling sound.

Huddling together, the small group begin to scan the area before their eyes slowly all begin to lock on a small creature up among the rocks. It’s bipedal and mottled blue, with glowing red eyes, long black claws, and a mouth full of pointy teeth. Everyone’s faces fall at once.

“Oh for the love of-”

Like a stampede another twenty of the things barrel down from the rocks towards them, claws scraping at the stone and fire flying from their mouths. The group turns and runs in unison, pushing themselves as fast as they can go to avoid being caught by the small aliens. Pierce snatches Gemma from his mane and stuffs her in his pocket mid-stride. Cassie yelps as she feels a stream of fire lick at her tail.

“How many times am I going to have to use the Omnitrix today?!” Ben yells as they jump off a small cliff, rolling and starting back at speed as soon as their feet are on the ground.

“Get used to it!”

“Shut up, Pierce!” Gemma sticks out her head with a hiss.

“Less talk, more run!”

One of the creatures jumps out in front of them and Cassie surges forward, grabbing its leg in her teeth and shaking until she tastes noxious blood before letting go and bounding after the boys.

“I can’t even see what I’ve got, the ground’s too uneven to look!”

“What good are you then?!”

“What did I just say?!”

Up ahead a pink glow begins to form in the air and Cassie can feel her and Ben’s hearts swell with hope. Hope that’s realized as the glow expands to show a small portal being physically held open by

“Gwen!”

“Come on!” She looks half dead with worry and they can see the Plumbers’ base behind her. Alan is beside her, looking even worse for wear than she does, and just behind them Argit and Susi look fit to murder.

For a moment Cassie wonders if maybe she and Ben could just start a new life here.

But the thought is for naught because by that point they’re at the portal and Gwen and Alan each have a hold of one of Ben’s arms and Cassie has no choice but to jump through after him. Her paws haven’t even touched the ground before nearly everyone is talking at once.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?!”“Are you okay?”“We’re fine.”“What the fuck did I tell you about going in there?!”“Glad to see you guys though.”“Do I have to chop off your fucking limbs to keep you out of trouble I mean really?!?!”“Cassiopeia, I should crush your skull-”“Glad to see you too.”“Susi, I’m sorry-”“I’m losing fur over you suicidal-”

“Um… Hi?” The room goes silent but for Argit and Susi’s snarls, and even those die down as they all turn to look at Pierce and Gemma, who's an iguana once again.

“Guys,” Ben says, grinning both with pride and joy that there’s a distraction, “Helen’s brother Pierce and Gemma.” Gwen smiles at him and shakes his hand. Alan, who’s stood beside them with Monarch, a hyrax now, mirrors the look.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Cassie looks at Argit and Susi, expecting them to be happy to see another member of Argit’s species- they’ve mentioned before that he’s the only Erinaen in the system- but instead they’re looking at him with concern.

“How the fuck,” Argit says, quietly, “have you survived the Null Void with your mane in that condition?” Everyone blinks, including Pierce and Gemma. Yeah, his quills look duller than Argit’s, but that doesn’t mean they’re in bad shape…

“Come here you little-” Argit storms over and grabs Pierce by the shirt, pulling him down to his level and burying his hand in his mane. When he pulls it away a handful of quills easily come with it.

‘Okay,’ Cassie thinks, ‘maybe his quills are in bad shape.’ While Susi continues to glare at her and Ben, Argit drags the other Erinaen over to some boxes and shoves him down onto the them, snarling the whole way about improper grooming and how he’s going to have whichever of his parents wasn’t human brought back to life and shot for not teaching him these things.

Nobody can resist chuckling when he walks around behind him and begins clearing out his mane himself. Alan pulls out his cell and starts taking video.

But the humor doesn’t last long for Cassie and Ben as Susi stalk closer to them, the others- including Gwen and Llyr- stepping aside to let them pass.

“We need to talk. Now.” They say, lips pulled back to show every large, sharp tooth, and Ben and Cassie share another look. With a hopeless shrug, they let the alien daemon herd them away from the greater group, just feeling the rant building behind them.

At least they were free of the Null Void.

Chapter Text

“There it is, just like your tip said.”

“Yep.” Alan cranes to see passed the driver’s seat. There’s an overturned truck in the road, just visible in the headlights. It looks like it’s blocked the entire street.

“This seems pretty pat,” Ben says vaguely from the passenger side.

“You think it’s a trap too?” Alan can see Argit’s ears twitch. “We can always turn around.” Ben shakes his head.

“I want to see what they’ve got planned.”

“Famous last words,” Monarch mutters under her breath and Alan taps her on the head reprovingly. Llyr’s giving her a hard look, but Susi’s chuckling behind them.

“Welcome to life with Tennysons.”

The SUV- Alan’s been part of the team less than a month and already he’s wondering where Argit finds all these things- comes to a stop a few feet in front of the truck and once they hear the trunk pop everyone begins piling out onto the asphalt. Alan shifts forms as soon as he’s clear of the car and Monarch is out of his arms.

“I’ll get the door,” he says, hands lighting, but Argit holds up a hand and Susi glides passed to stand between them and the truck.

“No, they are.” Argit nods in Ben and Gwen’s direction. Alan’s shoulders slump.

“Why us?” Gwen demands, arms crossed.

“You’re more powerful than me and I’m not sending the kitten to pop a trap.”

Alan is pretty sure if he never hears the word ‘kitten’ again in his life it’ll be too soon.

Grunting in aggravation Gwen walks around to the back of the truck, wrapping tendrils of magic around the handle and yanking the doors open. She looks inside a moment, blinking into the darkness, before reeling back and diving to the side, Llyr flapping wildly beside her. Monarch shifts into a buffalo and Susi snarls as their other halves grab her and pull her further away, a small horde of DNAliens erupting from the truck like a burst water main.

“Fuck!” The team scatters, Gwen brushing embers off one sleeve, as the horde release a rain of acid. Alan takes to the air and answers them with a rapid fire sequence of fireballs. The DNAliens are scattered further by Susi and Monarch charging in among them, snapping and stomping at whatever daemons they see. He sees more of them climbing over from the other side of the truck.

‘How many are there?!’

“Gwen, right!” She’s halfway up a set of magic platforms reaching to the roof of the SUV and at his yell she turns, priming and launching a bolt of magic into the group and sending them right back where they came from.

“Thanks!” They’re both forced to dodge, Gwen diving back behind the SUV, at another barrage of acid. Alan sees a flash of green on the ground and a streak of blue fuzz jump onto a DNAlien, flip them into a ditch, then land in a nearby tree.

Spidermonkey begins shooting wads of web at the mouths of the nearest DNAliens, flipping and diving through the trees to avoid wads of acid as he does, and Alan sets to clearing up what remains with fire. To the side, he can see flashes of magenta and hear loud honking as Gwen and Llyr fight off the second group.

“Oh for fuck’s sake-!” He turns in time to see the first waves of DNAliens emerging from a second truck collapse in a spray of quills and then has to dive for cover as those behind them, armed with blasters, start shooting everyone in sight. Within seconds Monarch is with him, followed by Argit and Gwen and their daemons.

“Where’s Ben?” Everyone’s eyes go wide and they start when they hear Cassie yelp. In an instant Gwen and Llyr are in motion, a magic shield already cracking under the barrage of blaster fire as they leave cover and head to the treeline.

“Red!”“Gwen!”

Argit snarls after them, then groans and shakes his head.

“Susi, kittens,” he growls and they immediately lay themselves over Monarch’s back, preventing her from moving. “Stay here.”

With that he’s out as well, grabbing the back of Gwen’s shirt and snarling something Alan can’t hear over the attack. She starts to snarl something back, but is interrupted by part of her shield shattering, a break of concentration Argit takes advantage of to start dragging her back to the SUV.

A Spidermonkey appears seemingly out of thin air with a metallic green bird at their side, shoving the pair back into cover and throwing themselves at the DNAliens.

Alan jumps up and leans over the hood as Susi growls at him to stay down- “They want to die, that’s their problem”- and watches the alien engage their enemy. To the side he can hear Argit and Gwen still snarling at each other and he’s willing to bet he’s still got a firm grip on her, since Llyr is hissing something about how Susi needs to get their paw off his wing. He tries to ignore them. He’s never seen anyone fight like this guy is. Jumping around, kicking, punching, launching off of people into other people. The others haven’t even managed to get to the “why the fuck do we keep you two?” stage of their arguing before-

“They’re retreating,” Alan says, shifting back. The instant he’s not on fire he feels a bony hand on his arm and is dragged back down to the asphalt, Argit shooting up to see for himself. That lasts all of four seconds before Gwen shoves him over and takes the lead. She watches with curiosity and suspicion- Alan attempts at one point to stand back up but is hissed and growled at for his trouble- head slowly turning. Her back tenses.

“He’s heading for Spidermonkey,” she says and then Argit and Susi let them all move, mostly because they’re crowding around the side of the SUV, fur on end, watching this stranger.

“Are you alright?” he asks as he helps Spidermonkey off the ground, his daemon landing on his shoulder. He’s awkward as he stands and Cassie sniffs at the stranger curiously.

“Uh, yeah, fine,” he says. “Who are you?”

“Just someone who saw a fellow arachnichimp in trouble,” the stranger responds, throwing back his shoulders and placing his hands on his hips, “and did what any of us would have done.”

Everyone except Spidermonkey and Cassie share an entirely unimpressed look.

“Well, we sure appreciate that,” Spidermonkey says, “but I’m not really one of you.” He slaps the Omnitrix and reverts back to his normal self. “See? I have this thing called the Omnitrix and I can become-”

“Any one of ten aliens!” The arachnichimp is all but bouncing and Alan can’t help but think he hasn’t seen anyone sound that excited since his sister was two and thought she’d met Cinderella at Wal*Mart. It’s weird. “You’re the famous Ben Tennyson aren’t you?” His voice goes vaguely dreamy. “I never thought I’d meet you.”

“Con,” Argit coughs not at all subtly. Gwen turns and glares at him, but Alan has to agree, especially when he sees the arachnichimp shoot him a brief but nasty look.

“Overacting,” he coughs in return, and takes small comfort in the fact that while Gwen glares at him as well, Argit smiles.

He’s having enough trouble getting the alien to see him as a real member of the team, any little approval helps.

“Hey,” Ben says, ignoring them, “maybe you could help us stop those DNAliens.” The arachnichimp’s head tilts to one side.

“DNAliens?” Cassie backs away to Ben’s side with a confused look.

“Those things that attacked us were DNAliens.” Ben mirrors her expression.

“You’ve never heard of-”

“No,” the stranger’s daemon answers, voice lilting, “and we’re sorry, but we can’t do anything more for you.” He reaches up and strokes her feathers.

“We have something important we have to do.” Ben and Cassie appear put out, but press forward nonetheless.

“Then maybe we can help you,” Ben offers and the stranger places his right hands on his chest.

“You know, you’re everything they say you are and more.” He looks off to the side.

(“Oh for the love of- he’s not even a good con,” Argit mutters under his breath.)

“If you really want to help,” he says as he turns back around, suddenly eager, “just tell me where there’s a cryogenics lab around here.” Ben blinks.

“A what?” The arachnichimp’s shoulders slump.

“It’s not important,” he says. “We’ll find it ourselves. Glad we could help you, at least.” With that he darts into the treeline, daemon taking wing beside him. The team follows as he stops on a branch several paces in and addresses Ben again.

“With any luck, my own mission will go as well.”

~~

“You are not still hung up on that wannabe con are you?”

“Will you stop calling him that?!”

“No, that was the worst attempt at a con I’ve seen all year.”

“Year is young.” Ben glares at Argit and Susi from his windowsill where he and Cassie have been staring out into space ever since they got back.

“He saved our lives!”

“He saved your life, we still had a chance.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as Argit,” Alan says from Ben’s desk, scratching around Monarch’s mule doe ears, “but that guy did set off my hinky meter.”

“Your what?” Gwen walks in with a soda, Lllyr under one arm, and comes to stand beside Alan.

“The kittens were just agreeing with me that that arachnichimp wasn’t worth worrying about.” Ben glared again.

“Don’t put words in his mouth.” Alan’s not entirely sure it counts as putting words in his mouth, given he does more-or-less agree.

“No, I am on his side here,” he says, “I just wouldn’t go so far as to accuse him of being a con artist yet.” Gwen looks between the three of them in confusion. Ben huffs and goes back to staring out the window.

“Look, if nothing else,” Argit says, flopping over on Ben’s bed, “you offered him help. You made the offer. You’re not obligated to try any harder or do anything more. If he shows up asking maybe, but now? He’s a big boy, Benny, he can take care of himself.” Alan and Gwen nod along in agreement.

Ben doesn’t look convinced.

~~

“-so he needs to go to the fortress it’s been hidden in and get it back, so he can prove he really is fit to be king. I agreed to help him.”

The rest of the team sits silent. When Ben had asked them all to meet up in front of his house they hadn’t been expecting to hear he’d gone looking for the stranger, and they especially hadn’t been expecting that story. Cassie’s tail is wagging back and forth as Monarch and Llyr stare at her slack-jawed. Argit and Susi have their faces in their hands, paws, whichever. Alan, Alan is firmly sure that Ben has lost his mind, that he couldn’t possibly have agreed to help this guy. Gwen hasn’t looked so concerned in the weeks he’s known her.

“That is…” Argit can’t even finish the sentence. His face falls back into his hand and he shakes his head for a good minute before he continues. “Benny, that’s the scam you pull on really, really stupid people.” Ben’s face goes red and Alan slips just ahead of Argit as the hero glares at him.

“He’s not running a con, Argit! He’s just a kid, who suddenly had a lot of responsibility and problems and stuff dropped in his lap and, and-”

“Benjamin!” Argit grabs his arm and gives it a light shake. “That’s how these things work! A con feeds off greed or compassion. Making yourself seem like your mark-” Ben pulls away, still glaring. Cassie’s tail has stopped wagging.

“It’s not like that,” she reiterates and Susi looks like they have no idea what to do.

“I’m with Argit on this one,” Alan says, stepping forward. “Something doesn’t seem right. If nothing else, it seems highly unlikely.” Ben and Cassie give him a glare too, and he wonders what exactly it is with this team and fighting. Gwen comes up beside him.

“Ben, look,” she says, “you shouldn’t be going off on your own with someone we don’t know.” Ben turns a brighter expression towards his cousin.

“I’m not going alone,” he says. “I told him I wouldn’t go without my friends.” Cassie glares at them as he says it, and Monarch shifts into a hyrax under her gaze. Susi’s fur begins to stand on end. Gwen sighs, and both Alan and Argit turn at the defeat in the sound.

“Where’s the fortress?”

“Red!” Ben grins at her, and gestures toward the sky.

“On the moon.”

~~

“We need to stop them before they do something stupid, or dangerous, or both.”

“Probably both.”

Alan is sitting in Argit’s apartment, eating leftover braised chicken and worrying. Argit is too, if the way he’s essentially emptied out the fridge onto the coffee table is anything to go by.

“Simian wants help breaking into someplace,” he says around a piece of chicken.

“You’d think that’d have been Ben’s first clue,” Argit replies, cutting up some meatloaf and putting it on a slice of pizza. Alan is beginning to worry about him too.

“We need to do something, make them listen to us…” Alan narrows his eyes. “We need to check his story.”

Three minutes later a tablet-like device lands on the table beside his plate. The screen shows what looks like a search engine.

“What’s this?”

“Exactly what it looks like.” Alan picks the device up and does so as Argit stands up and leaves down the hall. When he returns it’s with a second one. “You look up arachnichimp government, I’ll see what the fuck’s on your moon that’d be worth stealing.”

“So…” Alan starts to ask as he waits for his search to load. The connection here is horrible.

“Ethernet,” Argit says, “sorta like space internet. You can find out anything.”

“Huh.” It takes nearly two minutes for the search to load, then another two for the first page, which turns out to be conspiracy theories. The next promising looking one is about a popular fantasy series from the planet. The third about the military history of the species. “What did you say you were again?”

“Erinaen,” Argit answers, grumbling at his search. “There is nothing on that shitball I swear…”

“Says here you guys and the arachnichimps went to war like, 400 years ago.”

“Oh?”

“You won.”

“Awesome.” Another several minutes pass all but silently between them.

“Did you really not know that? I mean I thought that’d be something you’d teach your people.” Argit shrugs.

“Grew up off-world. Pierce’s the first Erinaen I’ve met in person who wasn’t immediate family.” Alan nods.

“You know,” he says, pressing another link in hopes of some actual information, “I don’t think I’ve ever met another Pyronite besides my dad. And every time I try to ask him about, anything about it, he changes the subject.” Argit gives him a look, it’s strange and part pitying. Alan is about the change the subject himself when he shrugs again.

“You can always look it up,” Argit says. “Shit, keep the tablet if you want, I can always get another easy. You can research at Cooper’s; he’s got a connection.” There’s a moment for the offer to sink in, then Alan smiles.

“Thanks man.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Argit puts the other tablet in front of Alan. “Check this out.” Alan’s eyes blow wide at what he sees.

“Oh,” he says, “this could be bad.”

“Horrible.”

“I think-” he turns back to his own research, this page looks promising and he begins to scroll- “I’m going to keep looking for the hole in his story.”

“Please do, I don’t think Benny’d listen to me here.”

~~

“Gwen!” Alan heaves a sigh of relief when she answers her badge, her voice almost more comforting than Monarch’s weight against his back. “Where are you?!”

“Heading for the moon, what’s up?”

“Get Ben on,” Monarch cuts in, “we need to talk, now!”

“Guys,” she starts and she sounds tired, “I know you worry but Ben trusts the prince, he identifies with him.”

“Red,” Argit growls, he and Susi crowded in beside Alan and Monarch, “this is a fucking emergency, get your cousin!” The other end of the line goes quiet and they all tense up until they hear footfalls.

“Ben, it’s Alan and Argit.”

“Gwen, we’re busy.”

“They say it’s an emergency.” There’s a groan at the other end and a “give us one minute” and then Ben is on. “Listen, guys, I told you-”

“Ben, arachnichimps haven’t had a monarchy in over 700 years,” Alan says before he can finish his sentence. The other end of the line goes quiet.

“…what?”

“The last king on the planet died 713 years ago without an heir. And his family had been just figureheads for a good four generations before that.” They can almost hear the tension on the line.

“It gets worse, Benny,” Argit says, “you know that ‘fortress on the moon’ story? The only thing up there is ruins. Ruins and one well-guarded communications relay tower powered by a sthenogen crystal. That thing goes down Earth loses its only legitimate way of communicating with the rest of the galaxy.”

“Are you sure?” Gwen asks, and Susi huffs.

“Of course we’re sure,” they say, “some of us actually do our research!”

We looked it up,” Alan clarifies, “and as far as we can tell it checks out. I don’t know what he’s up to, if this crystal is really valuable or something-” Argit shrugs beside him and makes a ‘so-so’ gesture, but he ignores him “-or if he’s up to something, but I do know that if you remove that crystal we’re sitting ducks out here with an invasion force breathing down our necks.”

The other end is still silent.

“Guys?”

“Thanks, guys,” Ben says. His voice is strained and cold. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”

“It’s alright,” Alan says.

“Yeah, we expect stupid from you. Red, that’s another story.” Alan bites back a chuckle. He can just see Gwen and Llyr fuming.

“We’ll catch up to you guys later,” Ben continues, “tell you when we land.”

“Okay.” He nods, but Alan notices that there’s no mention of what they’re going to do before then, and before he can figure out how he’s going to ask, the line is dead.

“Should we be worried?” Monarch asks. After all, Ben, Gwen, and their daemons are alone on a stranger’s ship. Argit just shrugs and collapses onto the couch.

“They’re big kids,” he says, “or so they keep telling us. They can handle themselves.”

~~

The others get home safely, though in rightly foul moods. Llyr is missing a few feathers, and Gwen has a shiner Argit compliments her on from when Simian apparently tried to escape. Ben and Cassie are just angry, glaring even more intensely at Simian and his daemon as they’re led away than they did at Alan and Argit before.

“Sorry again, guys,” Cassie says when the arachnichimp has been cuffed and handed over to the Plumbers, “we should’ve listened.”

“And we shouldn’t have just gone along to make Ben and Cassie happy,” Gwen adds. Alan waves them off.

“It’s okay guys, we’re just glad everything turned out alright,” he says.

“Although…” Argit has the most innocent impression he can manage, but is also glancing very pointedly at Simian’s now-ownerless ship. “We did have to work so hard…” Ben snorts and Llyr snaps at the fur of Susi’s ankle.

“We saw nothing,” the hero says, and as if to emphasize the point he turns and herds his cousin toward the Plumber truck waiting for them. Alan moves to follow, Monarch trotting ahead, when he feels a familiar bony hand on his arm.

“Yo, kitten,” Argit says with a toothy grin and points to the ship, “come on, we’ll teach you how to drive one of these.” After a moment’s hesitation, Alan smiles, nods, and the pair follow he and Susi up the lowered ramp.

After all, it’s already late, what’s a quick trip into orbit? And it’ll probably still be the faster ride home.

Chapter Text

There’s a picture window in the Tennyson household, looking out over the backyard, and Gwen and Llyr are glaring out it with all the force they can muster.

It’s started to melt.

“We can’t allow it,” the swan daemon says, lowering his head, his feathers raising under Gwen’s hand. “They can do better.”

“I know.”

Ken and Ríonach have been home for maybe five hours, Argit and Susi showed up at the door somewhere around hour three, and since then the two pairs have been sitting in the backyard talking. Gwen and Llyr were fine with that, at least as long as there was a respectful distance between them, but as time’s gone on Argit has been edging closer and closer to her brother (she will eat her own shoes before she acknowledges that Ken is moving too) until they’re hardly a foot apart. They’re holding hands now.

“He’s doing this to fuck with us.”

“They don’t even know each other.”

Gwen’s focus doesn’t break even when her phone rings, and she answers it without looking.

“Hello?”

“Gwen!” Ben’s voice comes over the line. “Gwen, the world’s ending!” Her hackles go up and she scowls as that mangy furball closes the gap and leans on Ken’s arm. Her brother is blushing.

“Tell me about it. At least this can’t get any worse.”

“Wah-?” Gwen can hear the gears turning in her cousin’s head. “Forget it, Gwen, the Highbreed are attacking! Now!”

That breaks her focus.

“What?!” she cries, turning on her heel and fighting the urge to pace. Llyr automatically goes to find her shoes.

“Highbreed, attacking, now, or later, or, Paradox is here! And Azmuth! We need to all meet them at the base!” Gwen nods, snatching her shoes from her daemon.

“Argit’s already here,” she says as she pulls them on in motion, “can you call Alan?”

“Yeah, meet you in fifteen minutes!” Her other shoe slips on as she reaches the back door, wrenching it open.

“Hey, Lothario,” Gwen calls as the boys turn to her, Susi raising slightly from where they’ve been curled up against Ríonach, “Ben called, it’s an emergency!” Argit and his daemon immediately scramble to their feet, Argit pausing a moment to briefly nuzzle Ken’s cheek before Gwen’s backing back into the house to let them in.

“What’s going on?” he asks as he and Susi put their ID masks back on on their way through the house. Gwen and Llyr easily keep step with them.

“The Highbreed are making their attack.” The alien cringes as they run out into the front yard.

“Oh fuck-”

~~

“So, when do we die?”

The base feels crowded when they arrive. Helen, Manny, Pierce, and their daemons are standing as out of the way as they can, especially given that Teresa is a bear again, but with all the equipment in the room, plus Grandpa Max, Ben, Paradox, and Azmuth and all their daemons, it’s already a tight squeeze. Susi and Argit have to stand in the doorway.

Gwen thinks this is probably a good thing, given the harsh look Jennett and Azmuth are giving them over his comment.

“About an hour from now, if we don’t stop the Highbreed,” Paradox says, Chronos cradled in one arm, and Argit nods like he’s not surprised.

“I couldn’t get a hold of Alan,” Ben says once Gwen and Llyr have reached him. Cassie is tense, serious at his side.

“He won’t answer his phone.”

“He’s probably at Cooper’s,” Gwen says, “he’ll call back. Don’t worry.” Grandpa Max pats them both on the shoulder and steps forward, addressing the two people who actually know what’s going on.

“We’ve been dealing with the Highbreed for months now,” he says, and Paradox looks almost sad.

“Unfortunately the situation with them has escalated.”

“In half of one of your hours,” Azmuth says, “the Highbreed will conquer my homeworld.”

“Destroying the only race with the technology to face them head-on,” Jennett adds. Looking around, Gwen is glad to see she’s not the only one chewing their lip and stroking their daemon.

“One half hour after that,” Paradox says, “they’ll launch a simultaneous attack on every inhabited planet in the galaxy.”

“That’s what we call ‘overachievers’,” she hears Teresa say behind her, and has to stop herself from chuckling. Llyr doesn’t succeed, but thankfully nobody is paying them any mind.

“The Highbreed attack plan has worked on a dozen worlds already,” Azmuth explains. “They send a small number of Highbreed to the target planet, then infiltrate the locals by turning them-”

“Into DNAlien slaves to build a jumpgate for them,” Susi says and the old Galvan and his daemon raise their brows at them. “Sorry, did Max not say that we’ve been dealing with them for months already?” Jennet coughs.

“A hyperspace jumpgate,” she explains for those of them that don’t know, a group that Gwen is sorry to say includes her, “is an interstellar shortcut allowing the Highbreed to send fleets of warships across the galaxy in a matter of seconds.” Everyone goes pale.

“We could hardly take down one of their ships,” Ben says quietly and Azmuth shakes his head.

“The ship you took down wasn’t a warship,” he says. Grandpa Max looks pained.

“It was a small cruiser.”

“Well,” Llyr says, looking up at Gwen with dark eyes, “I feel encouraged. How about you?”

“No force on this planet could stand against a Highbreed warship,” Paradox says. “They’re sending hundreds.”

“These people have way too much time and money on their hands.”

“Okay, we get it,” Manny growls, barging forward, “we’re fucked. What do we do?” Helen comes up behind him, Bradach an iguana stretched along her shoulder.

“Stop them from completing the gate.”

“Easier said than done.” Pierce is still worrying his lip. Gemma’s shifted into a turtle, hiding in her shell in his arms. Gwen remembers something.

“We saw the DNAliens building something,” she says, “an arch, at Los Soledad. Cooper thought it was some kind of portal.” Azmuth nods.

“That sounds like just what we’re looking for.”

“So we know where we have to go,” Teresa says, with a toothy smirk, “and we know what we have to do.” Manny mirrors her look.

“Go in, guns blazing.”

“Hold up.” Everyone looks at Ben. “We can’t be stupid about this. We’ll need all the power we can get. Alan, and anyone else we can get to help.” Manny scowls, but Teresa and the others all nod.

“We’ll get some supplies together,” Grandpa Max says, gesturing to Helen, Manny, and Pierce, “while you kids go find us some help.”

“May I suggest,” Azmuth says when Ben enthusiastically nods along to Max’s words, “that you send your teammates out for that job?” Ben raises a brow, frowning.

“Why?”

“I would have a word with the wielder of my Omnitrix, in private.”

Gwen, Argit, and their daemons share a concerned look, with some confusion on Argit and Susi’s end. Gwen suddenly remembers that they’ve never met Azmuth, and probably have no idea who he and Jennett are. She has to stop herself from smiling in amusement, instead going to place a hand on her cousin’s shoulder.

“We’ll be back before you know it,” she says, and he smiles back at her.

“Good luck.”

She, Argit, and the daemons shuffle over to Paradox’s side, watching as Max and the other kids filter out of the room. Ben smiles again, Cassie forces a wag of her tail, and they exchange a wave before suddenly they aren’t in the base anymore.

~~

“Did you see that?! It worked!”

“Okay, that’s really cool.”

“I told you!”

They’re in Cooper’s lab and just like Gwen had guessed, there’s Alan, gushing over Cooper’s latest invention. Or at least what she assumes is his latest invention. He’s wearing a strange glove and sticking his hand through a steel sheet and back again repeatedly.

“Alan,” she calls, and both boys plus their daemons turn to see them. All of them look surprised, but none displeased.

“Gwen,” Cooper says with a grin, “how did you get in here?”

“Why are you here,” Alan adds. For the briefest moment Gwen wants to turn around and leave, to not spoil the fun they’re clearly having.

“The Highbreed attack is coming,” Llyr answers for her, “we have to stop it.” In an instant Alan is at attention, Monarch shifting from a gazelle to a buffalo as she jumps to her feet. Raelene doesn’t, but she wouldn’t jump to her feet if you laid her on hot coals, so Gwen takes the way Cooper stands straighter as their acknowledgement of the seriousness of the situation.

“What are we waiting for then,” Alan asks. “Let’s go!” He bounds across the room to join them, Cooper hot of his heels and looking determined.

“I’m coming too.”

“No you’re not.” All attention turns to Argit. He isn’t even looking at them, he’s texting somebody and Gwen has the sudden urge to knock the phone from his hands.

“Argit…”

“It’s my planet we’re protecting,” Cooper says, glowering at the alien. He still doesn’t look up.

“One,” he says, “you’re too young and out of shape for this shit. Two, if I brought you into this fight Kevin would throw a fit.” Finally, he pockets his phone and gives them his full attention. “And by ‘throw a fit’ I mean he’ll have a fit and then throw me into the sun.” Cooper’s glower intensifies, as does Raelene’s when she plods up beside him. He huffs, then his eyes glow blue and suddenly he’s floating, scrap metal and pieces of tech whirling around him, shuffling apart, coming back together, bending and reforming around him until he’s looking down at them from the top of a large mech-suit.

“I’m coming too,” he repeats and Gwen and Alan smirk.

“Of course you are.”

~~

“How long is this gonna take?”

“Almost ready.”

They’re in Mount Rushmore now, waiting for Cooper to repair and make the necessary adjustments to a Null Transporter in the center of the room. There’s tension in the air, Llyr’s head is held low, Gwen is compulsively stroking his neck. Alan and Monarch aren’t sure entirely what’s going on, and seem to be taking their cues from Argit and Susi, who both look like somebody tried to fuck them over on an arms deal. Cooper looks up from his work, turning to Gwen for conformation.

“You’re sure you want me to do this?”

“No.” Gwen glares at Argit, then turns and nods at Cooper.

“Ben said ‘all the help we can get’.”

“Okay,” Cooper says, reluctantly turning back to his work. “Switching on.”

With a hum a golden forcefield generates from the rim of the machine, shooting up to the ceiling. In the center, the familiar form of Darkstar, kea daemon huddled on his shoulder, slowly fades into being. He looks around briefly, the tension in his own shoulders fading as he steps forward, hand raised.

“Free!” His enthusiasm lasts until hand meets forcefield, and he cries out in pain as a jolt went through him, knocking him backwards. Ruth briefly takes wing before settling back in her place. Out the corner of her eye Gwen sees Alan and Monarch cringe in sympathy.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Susi growls, “you two are staying there for however long we want you to.” Darkstar straightens, casually stroking Ruth’s drab feathers.

“The rat, and the lovely Gwen Tennyson. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” The lack of expression through his helmet was easily made up for by the sarcasm and disdain in his voice. Gwen was certain he was glaring as hard as Argit and Llyr were. Either way, she made sure to school her expression to something resembling neutral.

“We’re here to free you from the Null Void,” she says simply.

“Why?” Distrust is clear in his tone. “You put me here in the first place.”

“Well, Ben did.” Llyr nips at Susi’s ankle warningly. They need help.

“There’s a threat to the Earth,” Gwen says. “Ben needs your help. We all do.”

“And if I promise to help you?” Her skin starts to crawl. She really doesn’t like dealing with this guy, not after the things he’s pulled, but at this point…

“We let you out. Simple as that.” Ruth casually preens herself and Gwen could swear she hears a smirk in Darkstar’s voice when he speaks.

“Then we have an agreement, Lovely Gwen.” It’s the same smarmy charm he used on her before and even Alan is beginning to snarl at it. Monarch is pawing the ground in aggravation. Gwen remains calm.

“Let him out.” Cooper turns to her again, face contorted into a nasty scowl.

“I don’t like the way he talks to you,” he grinds out. Llyr snorts.

“None of us do.”

“We need him, guys,” Gwen says plainly, and the others all share a look before, still scowling, Cooper sighs and drops the forcefield. Darkstar floats to the ground between them, head tilted slightly as he looks at Gwen.

“And if I just left now?” Finally, Gwen smirks.

“You won’t have to worry about dying when the Earth explodes,” she says, then jabs a thumb at Argit and Susi, “because I will let them kill you.”

He may be too much of an ass to recognize her as a threat, but Susi’s teeth always make an impression.

~~

Julie’s room is way too small for both Susi and a buffalo, but Monarch refuses to be anything smaller as long as Darkstar is there.

“So the entire planet is going to be destroyed?” Julie asks, setting aside her homework. Gwen nods.

“We need all the help we can get.”

“Including him?” Ayaka is staring straight at Darkstar, straight at Ruth, as she speaks and Gwen can hear the boys chuckling behind her.

“Including him.” Ship, who’s been running around everyone’s feet, rushes back to his owner and jumps in her lap. Julie strokes his head affectionately before smirking.

“We’re in.”

~~

Gwen has no choice but to smirk when her cousin walks out of the base with Azmuth and the others and his eyes go wide.

“We brought some help,” she says as he looks over their haul, doing a double-take at Darkstar and finally stopping on-

“Hey Ben.”

“Julie?” Cassie leads the way as they run forward, rubbing her head against Ayaka’s. “Uh, what are you doing here?” She smiles sweetly.

“You need help.” Ben blinks at her.

“And you can help, how?” Even Darkstar, who has no idea, groans. Julie just smirks.

“Ship,” she prompts, gesturing to the mechamorph at her feet. Gwen laughs at the look on Ben’s face as he shifts and changes into the spaceship form he’d learned weeks before from the Forever Knights.

“Oh.” Slowly Ben’s expression changes from surprise to a broad grin. “Okay!” He steps back and surveys the group.

“Alright everybody,” Grandpa Max says, armed to the teeth as he steps forward and turns to Paradox, “let’s head out.” Paradox smiles.

“Let’s.”

~~

When they appear just outside Los Soledad there’s a car waiting for them, with an annoyingly familiar guy leaning against the hood. He smiles when he sees them.

“Hedgehog!”

“Earthboy!” In a heartbeat Argit has split off from the group and joined Kevin, the pair going through an elaborate handshake as Susi forces their way under Kevin’s free arm, Annelie lighting on their head as a magpie. Llyr hisses quietly as their old enemy casually scratches behind Susi’s ears. Sure, time travel was involved, but Argit had still been flirting with Gwen’s brother hardly an hour ago.

“You got Kevin involved?” Grandpa Max fidgets as he asks. Paradox is beside him, eyeing the older teen. Argit glowers at them both challengingly.

“What?” he asks, gesturing at Darkstar, “the skeezeball is fine, but my Kev’s where we draw the line?” There’s no real way to answer that without sounding like a jerk, but that doesn’t stop Gwen from tensing up when she sees Kevin draw himself to his full height and glare. It takes a moment to realize that the target isn’t her family, but behind them. When she looks, Darkstar has also drawn himself up and appears to be staring right back at him. Upon noticing her confusion, Susi just looks at her sympathetically.

“Navivores.”

“You do know what we’re doing, right?” Ben gets Kevin’s attention by stepping towards him as he talks and Kevin smirks, holding up his phone.

“Argit filled me in.” Ben nods.

“Why are we here, precisely?” Darkstar asks, looking into the seemingly empty base. Behind him, Cooper puts on and adjusts a pair of goggles.

“It’s the cloaking field,” he says, “they got it up and running again.” Shoulders slumping, Alan groans.

“After all the trouble we went through before?”

“Apparently.”

“Alright,” Grandpa Max says, turning to address the entire group, “we do this quick and easy; get in, destroy the gate, capture any Highbreed we find, get out. Okay?” Everyone nods, then Ben steps to his side.

“One more thing,” he says, and Gwen’s pretty sure she’s never seen him look so in charge before, “whatever we were before, today we’re a team. We look out for each other, we win or lose together.” Cassie stands solid at his side as he slams down on the Omnitrix, turning into Cannonbolt for the first time in years.

“Haven’t seen that one in a while,” Gwen says, breaking out a nervous smile as Llyr nibbles caringly at her fingers. Cannonbolt grins at her.

“What can I say? I’m feeling nostalgic.” And with that he turns and disappears onto the base.

“Holy shi-”

Gwen expects to see weather towers on the other side of the cloaking field, snow, the gate. She does not expect the literal army of DNAliens directly in front of them.

“‘Easy’,” she hears Annelie hiss, stepping off Susi’s head and into the shape of a lioness, “good one.”

“We can still turn around and die at home,” Argit says, just before a handful of the DNAliens spot them and send up the alarm call. “Or maybe not.”

All the DNAliens take up the screech and within seconds the horde is charging toward them, Darkstar’s attacked, and everyone is scattering.

Llyr is a mass of black and white rage beside Gwen as she charges through the crowd, attacking, shielding, dodging as the moment requires. Her magic platforms come in handy as steps to gain height, jump-off points for dodges and tackles. Magic flies around them, in blasts and arcs. Mana flows over and through her, in the punches and kicks she’s learned in her martial arts lessons, in her blasts, in every shield and stair. As the fight goes on, she can feel where everyone is, from the bundle of energy that is Ben and the Omnitrix to the nearly nonexistent Darkstar and Kevin.

Occasionally she catches glimpses of the others. Cannonbolt rolling down a squad to her right. Cooper or Ship’s missiles taking out whole streets in blasts of fire. Entire groups of DNAliens mysteriously falling, only for Paradox to suddenly appear between them. Alan lighting Pierce’s thrown quills on fire as Kevin, with a steel skin, tanks hits for them; their daemons all taking large forms to keep a distance between them and the enemy

For a brief moment, she manages to think that the three of them fight very well together for people who’ve never done so before.

She’s about to investigate one of the incidents she’s witnessed- Helen dragging Paradox and his rail daemon at top speed to a collapsed building where Argit is tending to a fallen Manny- when she sees Darkstar rise above the buildings, trails of dark light leading down from his hands, and she instead drops to the ground and heads in his direction. The last thing any of them need is for him to decide to make this place his own personal buffet, especially since all the DNAliens are mind-controlled victims. She arrives to a mass of unconscious humans, a sulking Darkstar, intrigued Cooper, and Cannonbolt, clearly wavering but still using the last of his strength to heal people with the Omnitrix.

“Warning—Energy reserves depleted,” the Omnitrix announces in her cousin’s voice. “Cycling to recharge mode.” The way Cannonbolt sways it’s clear he hasn’t heard a thing.

“Again,” he says before a bright flash of green overtakes him and Ben collapses into unconsciousness in the snow beside his daemon.

“Ben, are you okay?!” Gwen kneels beside her cousin as Llyr nudges Cassie’s side, gently grasping his arm.

“Come on, Benny,” Argit says, taking his other arm and helping him to his feet as he slowly comes back to (when did he get there? but then there’s Paradox so maybe-) “this is not the time.”

“What happened?”

“You misused the power of the Omnitrix,” Azmuth yells. He’s on Paradox’s shoulder and somehow this makes him more intimidating, even as Grandpa Max arrives and starts looking Ben and Gwen over, Deana thoroughly sniffing the younger daemons.

“I was helping people,” Ben counters.

“You were wasting power in a pointless exercise!” Jennett fidgets at Paradox’s side.

“Azmuth…”

“Good intentions, Ben,” Chronos says, “but in matters like this, timing is everything.”

“What does that mean,” Cassie asks. Paradox smiles.

“It will come to you.” Ben just glares, clenching his fists.

“Are you saying I can’t use the Omnitrix to cure the DNAliens?”

“Now that I’ve seen you do it,” Cooper says, attracting the whole reforming group’s attention even as they work to keep their enemies at bay, “maybe you don’t have to.” Again, his eyes go all blue and his mech-suit seems to explode around him, bits and pieces changing and reforming into several items that seem like a cross between a bug spray dispenser and a rifle. Gwen finds amusement in how the piece of metal Raelene has been sitting on doesn’t fly around like the others, instead immediately settling itself down gently in the snow as Cooper works. By the time he’s done the younger teen is breathing heavy, hands on his knees.

“What are those?” Ben asks, and Cooper looks up with a grin. Wordlessly, he grabs one out of the air and takes aim at a DNAlien Kevin is fighting. He pulls the trigger and in a flash of green the DNAlien flesh chars away, leaving Kevin to catch the unconscious woman left behind.

“Oh, I like that,” he says, flashing Cooper a grin and eyeing the weapon before going to set the poor woman somewhere she won’t be accidentally stepped on or run over or, given Darkstar is there, eaten.

“One shot will revert a DNAlien to a human,” Cooper says as everyone makes their way up as best they can to grab one.

“And it won’t hurt them?” Gwen asks.

“They’ll wake up with a little headache.” The look on his face when he says it reminds Gwen a little too much of Argit and Kevin, makes her doubt the honesty in the statement. She silently vows that when this is over she’s going to find him more friends.

With a smile Ben transforms into Jetray, and they’re off again.

~~

The battle continues, almost as fiercely as it went before. Everyone has at least one of Cooper’s blasters on them- Kevin’s decided to dual-wield the things, and is aggravatingly good with them- excepting Ben, who Gwen can see up ahead as Swampfire, using his flames and vines to subdue the DNAliens for easier blasting and to clear the way to the jumpgate for them, then Upchuck to play defense.

Somehow this makes watching it light up even worse.

“Guys,” she calls to the others, “it’s powering up!”

“What do we do now,” Alan asks, hovering close to Monarch.

“We break it.” Kevin and Annelie run past them, streaks of green and gold, and Kevin jumps and brings his fists down on one of the glowing cells of the gate. There are red sparks, for a brief moment, and a small billow of smoke as he’s sent flying back into the snow.

“Kev!” Argit and Susi head to them at top speed as Annelie helps Kevin sit back up, Paradox appearing at their other side.

“Not a scratch,” he says as Argit looks him over, “what’s that thing made of?”

“Neutronium carbon alloy,” Paradox answers and the look Kevin gives him is the stoniest Gwen’s seen in a while.

“Oh, well then.” As everyone gathers, Upchuck makes his way to the front of the of the pack.

“Everyone,” he says, “hit it together! On three! One! Two! Three!”

At once everyone attacks the cell Kevin had hit with everything and anything they have. Nobody breathes until the smoke has cleared away.

“Nothing.”

“We’re too weak.”

“Maybe not!” Everyone has to shuffle closer as Upchuck slaps the Omnitrix, changing into Waybig of all aliens in a flash of green. He moves to the side of the gate and wraps his arms around it, heaving upwards. At first it doesn’t appear to be doing anything, but as they all watch their side of the gate shifts and begins to rise, revealing long, thick cables going into the ground.

“It’s working, Ben,” Gwen yells to him, grinning broadly. “Keep trying!” He heaves harder.

“Back away,” Paradox yells suddenly, “it’s about to-”

Enough electricity arcs through and around the legs of the arch that Kevin’s eyes go bright blue and his hair goes on end just from proximity. The power visibly surges through Waybig as the while gate sparks, hums, and bursts to life.

The Earth trembles as Waybig collapses.

The warships arrive.

Everyone clings to their daemon.

~~

Cassie cries out as the familiar green flash engulfs Waybig, she and Ben both bursting awake with the pain of too much distance. In a heartbeat Deana has Cassie in her mouth and everyone, even Darkstar, is bolting for Ben’s side. He and his daemon don’t wait, as soon as they’re able they’re gunning for each other as well, Deana dropping her cargo as soon as she begins to struggle and Ben scooping her into his arms with tears on his face as soon as they collide.

“We’re too late…” Gwen says, Llyr still wrapped tight in her arms. She can feel him shake, but also knows he refuses to shy away from the warships slowly passing overhead.

“It’s never too late,” Ben says, his voice harsh and strained. He’s toying with Cassie’s wiry fur, cheek resting on her head. “We just need a new plan.” He goes silent, taking on a thoughtful expression.

Everyone waits expectantly, though not exactly patiently.

“I’m working on it!” he says when he realizes everyone is staring.

“That’s reassuring,” Annelie mutters, bundled against Kevin’s neck as a crow. Ruth and Raelene chuckle.

“Got it!” Ben gets to his feet, Gwen and Grandpa Max helping him to stand. Cassie settles in on his foot. “We break into the control room and force the Highbreed Commander to make his ships retreat!” There’s silence for a moment.

“That’s your big plan?” Darkstar’s tone is disbelieving and patronizing. Ben glowers at him.

“Hey, how many times have I beat you?”

“Twice-”

“Once; Red got you the first time.”

“-but just at this moment I can’t imagine how.”

“The control tower will be the most heavily guarded building in the city,” Grandpa Max says.

“Precisely my point,” Darkstar continues. “How do you propose to get inside?” Argit chuckles, he and Susi breaking into toothy smirks that have most everybody backing away. He turns to Kevin.

“Ravrsa?” Kevin grins in response, rolling his eyes in the most exaggerated manner Gwen has ever seen.

“Oh alright,” he says with faux-exasperation, “let me pull the car around.”

~~

“I think I’ve somehow managed to become even more scared of Kevin,” Gwen says as they start up the stairs to the command center, watching Kevin careen his car through anything and everything with maniacal glee, bullets, lasers, and missiles flying everywhere. Susi chuckles.

“Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet,” they say.

Gwen’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to know.

~~

Monarch shifts into a bison as Alan melts through the door to the command room and Ben becomes Arctiguana. Argit looks him over between turning to Gwen.

“Another old one?” Gwen nods. Llyr makes a noncommittal noise.

“I never was impressed with that one…”

“Tennyson,” the Highbreed commander says when Alan breaks through and they rush inside. “It is you, isn’t it? All of you lesser species look alike to me.” The entire team rolls their eyes.

“Yeah, yeah,” Articguana says. “You’re all superior and pureblooded and we’re all maggots. Don’t have time for that today.” The Commander, Gwen assumes, glares down at him, pulling himself to his full height.

“Do not mock me, Tennyson,” he growls. “You can die quickly with the rest of your insignificant race, or slowly at my hands.”

“Or, I was thinking, not at all.” Articguana glares right back. “Call it off.” The Commander scoffs.

“Foolish children,” he says. “Enough of this.” With a wave of his hand the DNAliens and other Highbreed in the room encircle them. “Destroy the others, leave Ben 10 to me.”

The next thing Gwen knows Articguana is breathing a cloud of ice and she has her own problems to worry about. Everywhere is fur and feather and acid and magic and fire and quills, for the first few moments she’s forced to keep a shield up just so she doesn’t get caught by friendly fire. She’s pushing a pair of DNAliens away at the end of the initial rush when the harsher phase breaks in.

“Filthy vermin,” the second Highbreed starts to say, large hand wrapping around her arm and pulling her backward, but before he can continue to both speak and fling her he lets out a scream and the hand is half off the wrist, Argit standing there with his hunting knife. The two manage to exchange brief smiles (‘thanks’ ‘no prob’) before the larger alien knocks Argit away and is blasted in turn by Alan, the fight on anew. Gwen and Alan manage to get a few attacks in while the daemons try to fight off his own large, scorpion-like daemon, right up until he gets a grip on Alan and uses him as a shield, brushing away the quills Argit shoots at him. He throws the hybrid into Gwen and looms over them before getting the knife again. Another combo platter of fire and mana slams into the Highbreed as he kicks Argit away, driving him back some, but not enough to stop his flinging Alan into the far wall and slamming Gwen’s head into a control panel. By the time she clears the stars from her eyes and her ears stop ringing, it’s just in time to hear breaking glass and see Argit fall.

Gwen isn’t sure what exactly happens then, but the next thing she knows she’s half out a window, Argit’s wrist clutched in her hand, and there’s a flaming Highbreed careening passed them towards the ground. She’s sure her eyes are as wide and terrified as Argit’s.

“I am really ready to retire,” he gasps, forcing a smile, and she forces one right back.

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Alan’s quickly at her side, clutching at Argit’s other hand and helping her to pull him inside. They’re daemons are all immediately one them, pushing their heads into chests and hands.

“This is going to give me a heart attack,” Alan says, and Monarch nods.

“If we live long enough.”

~~

“As soon as you give the order, the whole invasion’s over.”

The Highbreed Commander is laughing as they walk over to where Articguana has him frozen in ice. Argit and Llyr hiss at the sound, Susi growling between them.

“I don’t have the authority to call off the invasion,” he says, reeking of pride and condescension. “Only the Highbreed Supreme can end the attack, and he is beyond your reach, safe on the Homeworld.”

“Oh, that’s just fan-fucking-tastic.”

“Language, Kitten.”

“The world is ending; we’ll swear if we want.”

“On the Homeworld, huh?” Cassie wags her tail as Ben reverts back and gives Gwen a cunning look. She knows he’s thinking the same thing she is.

“Well thank you,” she says, “for opening us a door right to it.” Alan’s expression brightens, and Argit’s gets sinister. The Highbreed just seems shocked.

“Gwen?” Ben asks in an exaggerated manner, “May I borrow your phone?”

“Why, of course.” The Highbreed Commander is struggling against the ice now, frantically as Ben accepts the phone and begins dialing.

“Julie,” he says when she picks up, “we need to borrow Ship. Yep, gotta go in. Just send him right to the window. Thanks, Jules.” He’s smirking viciously as he hands the phone back.

“Plan: Take It Up the Ladder is a go.”

~~

“Okay, why are we letting Benny drive again?”

“Oh come on, Argit, I know what I’m doing.”

“I’d rather the mechamorph fly itself, if it’s all the same to you.”

Gwen rolls her eyes, happy to share an “I’m surrounded by morons” glance with Azmuth as the two continue to argue.

“Guys,” Alan says, “the jumpgate is coming up.”

“Great!” Ben smiles and dials the Omnitrix, changing into Brainstorm this time. “With my oversized cranium and intellectual superiority that naturally follows from it, this is obviously the correct form to pilot this vehicle under these trying conditions.” Azmuth, leaned forward in his seat, scans the controls.

“That's precisely why I should pilot this ship.” Brainstorm chuckles and Azmuth glares at him.

“Are you inferring that you’re smarter than me because your head is bigger?” he asks accusingly and Brainstorm looks askance at him.

“No,” he says. “I’m implying that I’m smarter than you because my brain is bigger.”

“If you’re gonna fly actually fly!” Argit cries from the far back and everyone looks up in time to see a warship looming over them. Alan dives to the front as the smaller daemons brace themselves and Jennett moves to shield Azmuth. Taking the controls he takes them into a sharp drop passed the immediate threat, then back into the air to evade a round of laser fire. He chews his lip as he brings them between two warships, just evading their attacks and flying free before they blow each other out of the sky.

Once they’re clear of danger he falls back into his seat, clutching Monarch as she climbs back into his lap. Gwen pats his arm, relieved, and Argit collapses over the back of his seat, beginning to pick at his hair.

“Oh, for a litter of you…”

“I’m gonna assume that’s a compliment.”

“Prepare yourselves,” Azmuth says, as if they didn’t just almost die, again. “The jumpgate can be disconcerting.” Gwen leans forward.

“How does it work?” she asks.

“It converts you into faster-than-light tachyons-”

“Broadcasts them to the receiver gate on the opposite side of the galaxy,” Brainstorm interrupts.

“-then reconstitutes you.”

“Oh.” She sits back again and shares a look with the others. They all just shrug.

Everyone braces themselves as they enter the gate.

It’s amazing. Outside the world seems to be undulating, a mass of shades of blue all whizzing by but moving at their own pace. Inside, Gwen can feel herself being pressed against her seat, feel Llyr pressing against her belly. She raises a hand and waves it back and forth, admiring the way it seems to leave a trail, as if somebody was using the Blur effect on it.

“That’s cool,” she says, and smiles at the reverberation in her own voice.

Exiting is almost and yet nothing like crashing into a brick wall. Even the daemons are visibly nauseous.

“We have arrived,” Azmuth says, looking straight ahead, but the others can see Brainstorm weaving and back up.

“I-I don’t feel so good…” Azmuth has just enough time to see Jennett scurrying up the back of their chair and to turn to address her before he’s covered in slime the color of bad cream. “Oh, my dear fellow,” Brainstorm says, looking and sounding contrite, “sincerest apologies.” The Greatest Mind in Five Galaxies just shakes his head, wiping off what puke he can as his daemon sits safe and sound above him.

“Ship!” The poor ship rocks violently and begins to list left.

“We’re hit!”

“Try to get us to the High Council building,” Azmuth says as Brainstorm fiddles with the controls, pointing, “the tall one, over there!”

“You mean the only one standing,” Alan asks, staring slack-jawed at the rubble that seems to make up what used to be a city, “what happened here?!”

“The end.”

Those are not the words you want to hear from an alien daemon as your living ship crashes into your enemy’s headquarters. Gwen can make out a flash of green during the crash, but not much else, and when everything stops spinning she has to fight to open her eyes.

“And today was looking so promising,” Argit says behind her.

“Yeah, things were going so well,” Alan agrees.

All Gwen can think is ‘why did I say things couldn’t get worse?’

They all collapse to the ground as Ship reverts back to his normal size and shape, half a puddle from pain and exhaustion. There are footsteps rushing closer.

“Ship,” she orders the little mechamorph, “you go hide until I call you, okay?”

“Shiiip…” The little guy look unsure, she waves him off.

“Go.” With a worried trill he follows orders, darting behind what she assumes is plumbing and out of sight. Not four feet away, Monarch becomes some sort’ve antelope.

Which is when the guards show up.

~~

“What happened?” Ben asks when he wakes up.

The situation does not look good. Everyone but the daemons is shackled to their own large pillar, with the daemons trapped in chains or cages, depending on their size. The only person free is Monarch, who was able to shift to a smaller size once their captors left and is now a raccoon, sitting on Alan’s shoulder and trying to pick his locks.

“The guards caught us,” Alan says, shivering against the cold of the room.

“The good news,” Gwen adds, “is that we made it to the Highbreed headquarters.”

“And Ship?” Ben’s eyes go wide with worry when he looks around and doesn’t see the mechamorph.

“He’s fine. I told him to hide until we called him.” Her cousin nods, and Gwen watches as he strains to free himself from bonds, clearly trying to go for the Omnitrix.

“If I could just reach the Omnitrix,” he confirms, and Azmuth rolls his eyes.

“Why would you need to reach it,” he asks, as if he’s talking to a particularly dim kindergartner. Ben blinks.

“Oh, right. Omnitrix-” the watch flickers when he calls it and Gwen blinks herself- “Humongasaur.”

True to form in a flash of green the tan-colored dinosauroid is standing where he cousin used to be, pillars bursting as he fills the space. His first act is to destroy the pillars holding Gwen and Alan, then Argit as they rush to release the daemons. Argit plucks one of his own quills and uses it to break Azmuth loose and within minutes the entire group is free.

There’s two guards conveniently outside the door when Humongasaur sends it flying across the hall, and one of them is still conscious when he picks it up off them. Gwen smirks at them, mana flowing around her hands.

“Take us to your leader.”

~~

“Who dares,” what Gwen assumes is the Highbreed Supreme says when Humongasaur throws the Highbreed guard bodily into the Council Chamber.

“I’m sorry, Master,” the guard says, getting to his feet, “they took me by surprise-” The Highbreed Supreme raises his hand, and with that the guard bows and leaves the room.

“You are the Earth vermin Ben 10,” he says, and Humongasaur steps forward.

“Ben Tennyson, yeah. You’re the Highbreed top banana, right?”

“I’ve read reports of your tenacity,” the Supreme says, and Gwen finds herself proud that they made enough of an impact for the top dog to have read the reports about them, “but truly your gall exceeds all description.”

“Thanks.” Humongasaur stands tall and straight. “I want you to call off the attack on Earth.”

“Just like that?”

“Pretty much. What have you got to gain from hurting us?”

“You are mongrels,” the Supreme says, “inferior life-forms. Your very existence is an affront to our purity.” Azmuth scoffs and Jennett rolls her eyes from their spot beside Gwen’s feet.

“Can we dispense with all these lies?” Azmuth asks.

“You accuse me of dishonesty.” The Highbreed Supreme seems to be getting upset now, just some. “Your race is the Galvan, correct? A slightly more intelligent form of pond scum.”

“Don't be fooled by his posturing, Ben,” Azmuth says, stepping forward. “They aren't attacking because of their supposed superiority. They're attacking because they're dying out.” He raises his voice.

“Their ridiculous belief in racial purity led to inbreeding, a loss of resistance to disease, and finally sterility. This is the last generation of Highbreeds, is it not?”

“You are correct, vermin,” the Highbreed Supreme admits, “but we will not perish alone. In a matter of hours my fleet will destroy not only Earth, but every known inhabited planet in this galaxy.” He waves to a series of screens hanging from the ceiling, displaying several planets and the Highbreed fleet. One screen in particular shows a familiar, pale-green planet exploding violently. “The fall of Galvan was the signal for our final attack to begin. Enjoy the view, you are about to witness the end of all life in the universe.”

Azmuth wilts as they all stare on in shock.

“All is lost,” he says. “They are far too powerful to fight.”

“Well, why fight them when we can help them?” As everybody turns to him questioningly, Humongasaur addresses the Omnitrix. “Omnitrix, can you repair the genetic damage to the Highbreed? All of them?”

“Genetic manipulation on that scale will require all available power,” the watch says, and forcibly reverts him back to his human self. “Genetic recombination sequences ready.”

“Benny, what are you doing...?”

“Just wait for it.” Ben holds up his wrist and, after a tense moment, a burst of light comes from the Omnitrix, spreading through and out of the room, blinding everyone. When they can see again, the Highbreed council doesn’t look the same. Their colors, and some their shapes, have changed drastically.

“What have you done?!” The Highbreed Supreme cries, looking down at himself.

“I ordered the Omnitrix to reprogram your DNA.” Ben says. Alan and Argit cringe alongside their daemons, even as Cassie wags her tail proudly.

“Ben…”

“Oh Benny…” He ignores them, beaming as he addresses the Omnitrix again.

“Program complete,” the Omnitrix announces, “all Highbreed in range of transmission are now genetically fused with random species from Omnitrix database.”

“‘In range of transmission’,” the Highbreed Supreme says, low and disbelieving, “with the jumpgates open for the attack!”

“Every Highbreed in the galaxy is now a, uh, how did you put it?” Azmuth asks, smirking.

“He called us mongrels,” Gwen responds.

“How could you do this?!” Ben’s face falls at the pain in the Highbreed’s voice.

“I don’t understand,” he says, “I saved you.”

“You have made us impure!” All the Highbreed council hang their heads. “There is only one honorable act left to us…” Gwen’s heart drops into her gut, she’s read some things about honor and the image of a room full of homemade nooses swings in her head.

“No!” The team turns as a new Highbreed appears behind them, with an arm like Swampfire’s. “There is another way!”

“Reiny!” Ben says, face bright again, and Cassie bounds forward to sniff at the cricket at the Highbreed’s feet.

“‘Reiny’?” Argit asks.

“Hush. It’s good to see you, man.” ‘Reiny’ merely pats Ben’s shoulder and addresses the council directly.

“This human once cured an ailment of mine by changing my DNA,” he says. “At first, I thought the impurity a curse, but with time I have come to know different. I have been healthier, heartier, since then. Master, I beseech you, let our species have the second chance I have gotten. Let us have a future.”

~~

“That’s the last of them,” Cassie says as they watch the tail end of the Highbreed fleet leave through the gate, tail wagging like mad. Grandpa Max is smiling, his hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“It’s a beautiful sight, isn’t it?” He rolls his shoulders. “We’ll get some people out here to start dismantling it tomorrow, when everyone has had a good night’s sleep.”

“Speaking of which, I have to go home,” Julie says. “Since it’s not the end of the world, I’m still under curfew.” Ben takes her hand in his and Gwen can’t stifle a giggle. When he looks back at the team, the lot are all looking at them like they’re a romance movie.

“Okay,” he says, turning back to Julie after giving the others a glower, “walk you to school tomorrow?” She smiles as she backs towards Ship.

“I’m looking forward to it.” She whistles to the others. “Anybody who’s riding with me may want to get on now!”

“What happened to Darkstar?” Gwen asks as they watch Pierce, Helen, and Grandpa Max join Julie. Argit chuckles.

“He and Kev got into an, altercation, after the fight and Kev put him in his place.”

“He and his parrot fucked right out of here,” Annelie finishes, flying over to land on Susi’s head. Kevin isn’t far behind, arm slung over Cooper’s shoulders.

“I’m gonna drop this guy off,” He says to Argit and Alan, “you guys coming along?” Suddenly he smirks at Alan. “Might be a tight squeeze though.” He and Cooper both go red, but Alan still nods.

“Oh fuck yeah we’re coming,” Susi says as Argit stretches, “I started this evening with Ríonach and I’m ending it with her damnit.” Llyr rears back, then follows after them as they pile into the back of Kevin’s car.

“Only over my dead body, you overweight rug!”

“That can be arranged.” Argit smirks, shaking his head, as Gwen feels her own blood pressure rise, following in her daemon’s footsteps as she bundles into the back with them all.

“Seriously Argit,” she says, “the minute either of you hurt them we’re leaving you to die.”

“Yeah, right.” It’s the start of another intense argument that’ll probably follow them all the way back to her house.

Outside, she can just about hear Kevin say something about how Cooper and Alan are “totally gonna have to share a seat now.”

~~

Less than a week later, people from across the galaxy are already gifting Ben medals of honor. None of the representatives know Gwen and the boys’ names.

She really wishes she was surprised.