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akinoameFirst off, I picked up Avatar: The Last Airbender on Amazon today (starting to miss the days when I could just call it Avatar, before James Cameron made everything confusing). It's $.50 more than it was the last time I saw, but two quarters isn't going to make a huge difference.
Second, I've finally gotten the PSP back from my brother. Still leveling up--I'm at 40, and I want to get to 45 before I face the boss. Mirage Arena time.
Third, I would like to apologize to Judd Lynn for this, the next chapter of "The Theory of Everything":
Chapter Six: The Secret of the Locket
Summary: Both Devlin and Gwen learn the truth of the lockets, shattering their worlds. And yet, this might be what they need to learn to trust one another.
The Theory of Everything
Chapter Six: “The Secret of the Locket”
Devlin knew the moment he opened the locket that he wasn’t going to like what was inside. Unlike his, this one had a photo in it—a fairly recent one of a young, smiling couple. Fears he didn’t realize he’d had were suddenly all confirmed: the couple was Kevin and Gwen. They were together in this strange new world. Somehow or another, they were together and happy.
“No,” he denied, feeling his world shatter around him.
It was wrong. It had to be. Gwen would never be with someone like Kevin, no matter how much he pretended he’d changed. He was a monster. And how could Ben let it happen? He’d never trust someone he cared about to someone that horrible.
But it explained the way Kevin hadn’t left Gwen’s side once they found her unconscious. And the smile she’d had for him when she saw him hovering over her. And Ben had been defensive of Kevin and even expected him to have his back in battle…
He squeezed shut Gwen’s locket, fighting off tears of anger and pain. Much as he wanted to deny it, it made too much sense. Kevin had inherited the locket from Elizabeth, just as Devlin had. He gave it to Gwen as a gift, and one of the two of them put that picture inside as a keepsake.
The sense of betrayal made him feel sick, and he swayed a little as he tried to cope with the hard truth. He sat down in the sand and held his head in his hands. Everything he’d ever known, everything he’d ever accepted had been turned on its head. His entire worldview had been destroyed, and somehow he had to accept it and move on. It was no wonder Gwendolyn had been so against time travel, if she had the slightest idea of what she’d caused the last time she’d done it. For a moment, Devlin hated her for it, but he forced himself to remember that this timeline had branched off of his own. The people in it weren’t necessarily the same people he knew. But saying it and believing it were two very different things.
He took a breath and stood up, tucking the locket in one of his belt pouches. He still had to get the Vivere Spell, and to do that, he had to confront them again.
And hopefully, he would get some answers along the way.
Ken opened his eyes with a start, realizing he’d dozed off. Groaning, he wiped the sleep from his eyes and looked across the room to his father. Still comatose, still waiting for his sons to save him. There hadn’t been any change since Gwendolyn used the Charm on him.
Ken stood up and cracked his back, heading to the kitchen for some breakfast and coffee. He’d been up all night monitoring the computer, chasing every electronic lead. Nothing came of it, and he’d had to reluctantly set the computer to alert him so he could relieve his eyestrain. He hated to admit it to himself, but he’d needed the break. He hadn’t been able to come up with a single reason why he couldn’t just leave it to the computer and his contacts to let him know when anything came up. He wasn’t going to make the situation any easier if he didn’t rest once in a while, no matter how hard it was.
He managed to eat some eggs and got himself another large coffee as he headed back to the computer. There were a couple of leads being followed by the Magical Division, and they promised to report back on anything they found. The Plumbers in the field were changing shifts and would pass along all information to the next shift. Nothing else to report.
Ken sighed and rubbed his eyes again before drinking some coffee. He hated this part. It was easier being out there—when you were fighting an enemy, you at least felt like you were contributing. Following trails of breadcrumbs and coordinating search patterns wasn’t his idea of useful. He felt completely powerless.
An alarm suddenly went off, and he immediately looked at his father’s monitor before realizing it was the activity alert. Magical activity had just been picked up downtown, where the high-end shops were. Bringing up communication channels to his family, he warned, “We might have found Charmcaster downtown. I’m heading there now.”
“Be careful,” Max warned. “Stay away from her arrays, and keep her from using that staff.”
“Got it,” Ken answered before transforming to XLR-8 and running off.
It was still fairly early in the morning, hours before school started and before her parents had to leave for work, so Gwen figured it would be all right if she borrowed her mother’s car long enough to check Los Soledad for her locket. Keeping an eye on the time, she scanned the area, trying to track down the traces of her mana left behind on the necklace. Unfortunately, her mana was all over the scene, traces of magic and the use of her energy powers giving her false positives.
“Looking for something?” someone asked, and Gwen turned to see Devlin leaning against a building. Dangling from his hand was the locket.
“Thank you,” Gwen said, walking forward. But as she reached to take it from him, he pulled it away. “What are you doing? That’s mine—give it back.”
“No,” he answered, opening the locket momentarily to show it was empty. “This is my locket. This is yours.” And from his other hand, he produced an identical one, opening it to reveal the photo of her and Kevin.
Cautiously, Gwen took her locket, scanning for any trace of magic or anything wrong. Devlin watched her suspiciously, and she returned the favor as she asked, “Where did you get that?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. “But I think I know the answer to that already. Kevin gave you yours. My grandmother gave me mine.”
“Your grandmother?” Gwen whispered in surprise. “Who are you?”
Devlin reached into his pocket, and she immediately went on-guard, taking a step or two back and getting into a defensive stance. He pulled out a small, scarred silver bracelet and tossed it to her. Gwen kept one arm in a blocking position as she caught the bracelet and in the faint light of morning, read the name half-scratched out on the metal: Devlin Levin.
Ben had just warned her that he thought Devlin and Kevin were related. But to have an exact copy of her locket and to say it had come from his grandmother, that would have to mean…
Gwen sent out a beam of energy, catching Devlin by surprise as she used the construct to pin him to the side of the building. “Who are you? How did you really get that locket?”
“Devlin Levin Tennyson,” he choked out. “My biological father is Kevin Levin.”
No, this was crazy. There was no way…
“How am I supposed to believe you?” she cried. “You’ve already tried to steal from us! You wouldn’t tell us anything—how do I know you’re not lying?”
There was raw hatred in his eyes, too similar to Kevin when Ragnarok had attacked. “I thought trusting criminals came easy to you guys.”
Had it been Ben there, he coldly would have reiterated that Kevin had more than proven himself as a trusted friend, with that terrible, icy patience that always hit when he was too angry to show it. Gwen’s temper was more fire than ice. Her eyes glowed, and she caught the look of surprise and fear on Devlin’s face seconds before his eyes did the same, and she forced her way into his mind. Almost immediately, she was assailed with a deep sense of guilt and constant images of an older Ben, lying helpless in a hospital bed, hooked up to various machines.
“No,” she whispered, releasing Devlin. It was true. It was all true. He was Kevin’s son, and he was doing everything he could to help the Ben from his timeline.
Without meaning to, she looked at him with more scrutiny. Black hair, a little spiky, and long, tied back in a ponytail. Blue eyes, but a familiar face. There was no denying the resemblance now.
She couldn’t help but feel a pain in her heart when she couldn’t seem to find any trace of herself in there.
Once Devlin recovered from the shock and the memory, she looked up at him and asked, “What happened to Ben?”
“Exactly what I told you,” he answered. “In my timeline, Charmcaster cast the Mori Spell on him, draining his lifeforce. I stopped it, but I destroyed the counterspell too.”
Gwen felt shaky, though whether it was from the answers or the questions she now had, she wasn’t sure. “You said your dad…”
“He is,” Devlin affirmed. “Ben adopted me when I was eleven. He’s been my dad for about half my life.”
Devlin had hated Kevin the moment he realized who he was. He still hated him. Though she wasn’t sure she wanted confirmation, Gwen asked, “Kevin never joined us, did he?”
Devlin shook his head, his eyes closed. “No. He spent most of my childhood in the Null Void. That’s how I ended up with Ben anyway—Kevin told me to release him, and I’d had to fight my way in. I never imagined that Kevin wouldn’t want me, or that Ben would forgive me for everything that happened.”
“That’s Ben for you,” Gwen agreed, taking comfort from the one thing that seemed to be the same between timelines. But there was one thing she had to know, and she reluctantly asked, “What about your mother?”
“Don’t ask,” Devlin insisted. “Let’s just say that I never had the courage to ask her what she did for a living, but it meant I stayed home alone a lot at night and had to pretend nobody was home. Social services caught up with me when I was about ten, but by then, Mom was dead and Dad in was in the Null Void. I figure she probably met him through work, but again, I didn’t want to know.”
“Yeah,” she answered, nodding. Already, she was beginning to get a sense of how hard it had been for him, and she couldn’t help but feel for him. “But Kevin—our Kevin—is different from the one you knew.”
“I’m trying to tell myself that,” Devlin answered. “You and Ben are different enough that I can almost start to believe it, but the memories are still there.”
“How different?” Gwen asked, clutching the locket.
“Your powers, for one,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like that Ultimate Cannonbolt before, and Aunt Gwendolyn’s powers were blue, not pink.”
She smiled. “My powers changed a few years ago, thanks to my alien heritage. I guess she never learned to draw on that power.”
“Or she never knew,” he replied. “I’ve never heard anything about her and Kevin either.” Gwen nodded. She’d guessed that would be the case. “Ben, the rest of the family he gave me—they’ve done a lot to try to help me. I can’t let him down when he needs it the most. That’s why I have to have the Vivere Spell, and I need to make sure the Charmcaster here never gets the Mori Spell.”
Gwen hesitated. She had the book, and after being in his mind, she trusted him more, but there was still the team to think about. Ben wanted to trust him, and Kevin didn’t at all.
“I have to talk to Ben and Kevin first,” she said. “I need to convince them that you’re worth trusting.”
“You can’t tell them about me,” he pleaded.
“I won’t,” she promised. “But I do need to get them to trust you. And you’re going to too.”
Devlin hardly looked convinced that he could, and Gwen saw in that moment the influence of both of his fathers on him. He resembled Kevin, and to some extent, the reluctance was similar to the self-esteem issues he tried desperately to hide. But at the same time, there was a core of strength and a drive to commit himself to even the most hopeless of causes that was Ben through and through.
Timelines and worlds apart, Devlin was still family, and Gwen slowly gave him a light hug. He stiffened from the sudden physical contact; his family had always treaded lightly around him when it came to contact, never sure of how deep the scars of abuse ran, and he’d tried the past ten years never to let on. But those ten years had taught him he was safe and they would never try to hurt him. He just had to trust that this timeline’s variants of them wouldn’t either. Gwen had taken the first step, and now it was his turn. Hesitantly, he hugged her back.
When they let go, it was clear that Gwen was fighting back tears. She wiped her eyes and said, “I need to run to school now. But I’ll tell Ben and Kevin to meet with you, so you can tell them as much as you need to.”
“Okay,” he answered, nodding. “Good luck.”
“You too,” she said, heading back to the car and driving off.
She managed to get back home before her parents needed to leave, giving her enough time to put away her broken necklace and grab her things for school. But as she made her way to school, she ran into Ben and Julie walking the opposite way toward the public school.
“Hi, Gwen,” Julie greeted.
“Hey, what’s…” Ben was interrupted suddenly by his cousin grabbing him in a hug and burying her face in his shoulder. He traded looks of alarm with Julie before asking, “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing,” Gwen answered when she pulled away. She wiped her eyes and said. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
Ben was obviously confused, and he just answered, “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Julie gave Gwen a concerned look and asked, “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Gwen insisted, sniffing slightly as she dried her eyes. “I just ran into Devlin earlier.”
Immediately, Ben’s expression went hard, and Julie could almost feel the temperature drop a few degrees around him. Seriously, he asked, “Did he do anything?”
“No,” Gwen said. “No, it’s okay. He told me everything, and…”
Ben’s expression softened, waiting for her judgment. “And?”
“I believe him,” she affirmed. “I’d explain if I could, but just trust me on this.”
“Of course I trust you,” Ben insisted, and Julie offered a reassuring smile. “But did you find anything out about him and Kevin?”
She knew that question would come up. Now that she thought about it, it made perfect sense that Ben would jump to the conclusion that Kevin and Devlin were brothers. It made a lot more sense than the fact that they were father and son.
“No,” she lied. “But I don’t think they’re brothers.”
“Okay,” Ben answered. Wryly, he added, “I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t tell Kevin then, huh?”
Gwen laughed a little, feeling immensely better just from her cousin’s dumb sense of humor. “Yeah. Anyway, I’ll see you after school. Bye, guys.”
“Bye, Gwen,” Julie said.
They waved as Gwen walked away, and once they thought she was out of earshot, Julie asked, “What was all that about?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “That was weird. Even for us.”
Gwen heard his comments and couldn’t help but smile. There was comfort in the familiar, and Ben’s reaction reminded her just how “okay” he really was.
It also meant that she had to do whatever she could to help Devlin save the Ben from his timeline, no matter how similar or different they were.
Ken was far from the first to arrive on the scene. Halfway there, he got a call from Carson, leader of one of the teams from the Magical Division. They and a few non-magical Plumbers were engaging Charmcaster, though keeping their distance. When he got there, he saw Charmcaster shielding herself from laser blasts and magical attacks, though she didn’t use her staff for counterattacks.
“Carson,” XLR-8 called, and the mage looked over at him. Despite his magic, he was armed with a pair of blasters. “I need to get close.”
Trusting him to signal everyone not to shoot, Ken rushed forward, catching Charmcaster off-guard as he ran in a tight circle around her. A tornado formed around her, lifting her off the ground, and there, the mages and Plumbers opened fire again.
“Dispedia,” Charmcaster announced, and suddenly a surge of energy burst forth, counteracting the wind and sending XLR-8 flying back. When she saw just who had attacked her, she smirked. “So, little brother comes back for round two. What’s wrong? Big brother too torn up to fight?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Ken challenged, changing to Upchuck. “Carson!”
“On it!” the mage answered, combining his blasters. A single, more powerful laser shot forth, and Upchuck swallowed it immediately. Charmcaster followed the action, too surprised to move, and she was hit when Upchuck regurgitated the blast at her. She flew back, going right through a window.
“I think that…” Carson started, but broken glass flew back at them, forcing him to raise a blue-green forcefield. “Never mind!”
Charmcaster leapt out of the storefront, wielding her staff. Ken and Carson froze, not wanting to force her to use it. A cruel smile formed on her face at the sight of the two men freezing in place.
“You’re afraid I’m going to use this,” she noticed. “Use up all the precious energy inside. Well, since your brother destroyed my book, I’m not exactly willing to use up all the power I’ve got right now on a couple of second-rate cops.” Carson bristled slightly, ready to object, but Charmcaster said, “But I can’t have you interfering either, so it looks like I’ll have to do something.” The staff glowed, and Ken and Carson fired on her, trying to knock it from her grasp before she could use the power. But the energy and lasers bounced away from her, and she shouted, “Awalketello follicget!”
Ornamental trees and even potted plants suddenly came to life, bursting free from the earth and attacking the forces assembled. Laughing, Charmcaster opened another fold in space and escaped, while Ken struggled with unusually tough morning glory vines. He switched to Wildvine, allowing him to merge with the plant and tame it again. As other mages and aliens began to free themselves from the other plants, Wildvine moved to help Carson out of a particularly thorny rosebush.
“Thanks,” Carson answered as Ken freed him, then reverted to human form. “I think that’s why I don’t garden. Well, other than the fact that I don’t have a green thumb. Well, I know my magic is kind of green—more of a blue-green then, maybe a teal?”
“Carson,” Ken called, trying to get the mage to focus. “Can you scan for Charmcaster’s magical signature?”
“Right.”
A blue-green glow formed around Carson’s hand as he waved it over the spot where Charmcaster had opened her fold. There was a ripple in the air, and a tear of energy appeared in light pink for a moment before fading.
“Got it,” he answered. “She’s heading for town center. With everyone else circling the city, she’s got nowhere to go but in.”
“On my way,” Ken answered, switching back to XLR-8 and dashing off.
This chapter’s title comes from the Power Rangers in Space classic by the same name, the source inspiration for this subplot. There was also inspiration borrowed from the Power Rangers RPM episode “Key to the Past” (which had also homaged the earlier episode). Power Rangers fans may also recognize another homage in Carson, directly ripped from Bridge Carson of SPD (Green Ranger, then Blue, then Red). As before, Charmcaster’s spells are ripped from the series (found on the Ben 10 Encyclopedia), though I did some guesswork on Dispedia. Devlin’s story about his mother is based on the only explanation I can come up with for why his mother would have been with his father, and how Devlin would have known his father for even part of his life (as indicated when he said Kevin spent “most” of Devlin’s childhood in the Null Void). I also wanted to emphasize that in the “Ken 10” universe, it’s highly unlikely that Gwen would have been Devlin’s mother; Alien Force, for all it sped into the crush between them, was sure not to have them officially hook up until Kevin was clearly on the light side. Gwen’s a very headstrong girl, and it would be very unlike her to “give in” to a still-evil Kevin, have a child, abandon that child, and not say anything to her family about it.
Second, I've finally gotten the PSP back from my brother. Still leveling up--I'm at 40, and I want to get to 45 before I face the boss. Mirage Arena time.
Third, I would like to apologize to Judd Lynn for this, the next chapter of "The Theory of Everything":
Chapter Six: The Secret of the Locket
Summary: Both Devlin and Gwen learn the truth of the lockets, shattering their worlds. And yet, this might be what they need to learn to trust one another.
Chapter Six: “The Secret of the Locket”
Devlin knew the moment he opened the locket that he wasn’t going to like what was inside. Unlike his, this one had a photo in it—a fairly recent one of a young, smiling couple. Fears he didn’t realize he’d had were suddenly all confirmed: the couple was Kevin and Gwen. They were together in this strange new world. Somehow or another, they were together and happy.
“No,” he denied, feeling his world shatter around him.
It was wrong. It had to be. Gwen would never be with someone like Kevin, no matter how much he pretended he’d changed. He was a monster. And how could Ben let it happen? He’d never trust someone he cared about to someone that horrible.
But it explained the way Kevin hadn’t left Gwen’s side once they found her unconscious. And the smile she’d had for him when she saw him hovering over her. And Ben had been defensive of Kevin and even expected him to have his back in battle…
He squeezed shut Gwen’s locket, fighting off tears of anger and pain. Much as he wanted to deny it, it made too much sense. Kevin had inherited the locket from Elizabeth, just as Devlin had. He gave it to Gwen as a gift, and one of the two of them put that picture inside as a keepsake.
The sense of betrayal made him feel sick, and he swayed a little as he tried to cope with the hard truth. He sat down in the sand and held his head in his hands. Everything he’d ever known, everything he’d ever accepted had been turned on its head. His entire worldview had been destroyed, and somehow he had to accept it and move on. It was no wonder Gwendolyn had been so against time travel, if she had the slightest idea of what she’d caused the last time she’d done it. For a moment, Devlin hated her for it, but he forced himself to remember that this timeline had branched off of his own. The people in it weren’t necessarily the same people he knew. But saying it and believing it were two very different things.
He took a breath and stood up, tucking the locket in one of his belt pouches. He still had to get the Vivere Spell, and to do that, he had to confront them again.
And hopefully, he would get some answers along the way.
Ken opened his eyes with a start, realizing he’d dozed off. Groaning, he wiped the sleep from his eyes and looked across the room to his father. Still comatose, still waiting for his sons to save him. There hadn’t been any change since Gwendolyn used the Charm on him.
Ken stood up and cracked his back, heading to the kitchen for some breakfast and coffee. He’d been up all night monitoring the computer, chasing every electronic lead. Nothing came of it, and he’d had to reluctantly set the computer to alert him so he could relieve his eyestrain. He hated to admit it to himself, but he’d needed the break. He hadn’t been able to come up with a single reason why he couldn’t just leave it to the computer and his contacts to let him know when anything came up. He wasn’t going to make the situation any easier if he didn’t rest once in a while, no matter how hard it was.
He managed to eat some eggs and got himself another large coffee as he headed back to the computer. There were a couple of leads being followed by the Magical Division, and they promised to report back on anything they found. The Plumbers in the field were changing shifts and would pass along all information to the next shift. Nothing else to report.
Ken sighed and rubbed his eyes again before drinking some coffee. He hated this part. It was easier being out there—when you were fighting an enemy, you at least felt like you were contributing. Following trails of breadcrumbs and coordinating search patterns wasn’t his idea of useful. He felt completely powerless.
An alarm suddenly went off, and he immediately looked at his father’s monitor before realizing it was the activity alert. Magical activity had just been picked up downtown, where the high-end shops were. Bringing up communication channels to his family, he warned, “We might have found Charmcaster downtown. I’m heading there now.”
“Be careful,” Max warned. “Stay away from her arrays, and keep her from using that staff.”
“Got it,” Ken answered before transforming to XLR-8 and running off.
It was still fairly early in the morning, hours before school started and before her parents had to leave for work, so Gwen figured it would be all right if she borrowed her mother’s car long enough to check Los Soledad for her locket. Keeping an eye on the time, she scanned the area, trying to track down the traces of her mana left behind on the necklace. Unfortunately, her mana was all over the scene, traces of magic and the use of her energy powers giving her false positives.
“Looking for something?” someone asked, and Gwen turned to see Devlin leaning against a building. Dangling from his hand was the locket.
“Thank you,” Gwen said, walking forward. But as she reached to take it from him, he pulled it away. “What are you doing? That’s mine—give it back.”
“No,” he answered, opening the locket momentarily to show it was empty. “This is my locket. This is yours.” And from his other hand, he produced an identical one, opening it to reveal the photo of her and Kevin.
Cautiously, Gwen took her locket, scanning for any trace of magic or anything wrong. Devlin watched her suspiciously, and she returned the favor as she asked, “Where did you get that?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. “But I think I know the answer to that already. Kevin gave you yours. My grandmother gave me mine.”
“Your grandmother?” Gwen whispered in surprise. “Who are you?”
Devlin reached into his pocket, and she immediately went on-guard, taking a step or two back and getting into a defensive stance. He pulled out a small, scarred silver bracelet and tossed it to her. Gwen kept one arm in a blocking position as she caught the bracelet and in the faint light of morning, read the name half-scratched out on the metal: Devlin Levin.
Ben had just warned her that he thought Devlin and Kevin were related. But to have an exact copy of her locket and to say it had come from his grandmother, that would have to mean…
Gwen sent out a beam of energy, catching Devlin by surprise as she used the construct to pin him to the side of the building. “Who are you? How did you really get that locket?”
“Devlin Levin Tennyson,” he choked out. “My biological father is Kevin Levin.”
No, this was crazy. There was no way…
“How am I supposed to believe you?” she cried. “You’ve already tried to steal from us! You wouldn’t tell us anything—how do I know you’re not lying?”
There was raw hatred in his eyes, too similar to Kevin when Ragnarok had attacked. “I thought trusting criminals came easy to you guys.”
Had it been Ben there, he coldly would have reiterated that Kevin had more than proven himself as a trusted friend, with that terrible, icy patience that always hit when he was too angry to show it. Gwen’s temper was more fire than ice. Her eyes glowed, and she caught the look of surprise and fear on Devlin’s face seconds before his eyes did the same, and she forced her way into his mind. Almost immediately, she was assailed with a deep sense of guilt and constant images of an older Ben, lying helpless in a hospital bed, hooked up to various machines.
“No,” she whispered, releasing Devlin. It was true. It was all true. He was Kevin’s son, and he was doing everything he could to help the Ben from his timeline.
Without meaning to, she looked at him with more scrutiny. Black hair, a little spiky, and long, tied back in a ponytail. Blue eyes, but a familiar face. There was no denying the resemblance now.
She couldn’t help but feel a pain in her heart when she couldn’t seem to find any trace of herself in there.
Once Devlin recovered from the shock and the memory, she looked up at him and asked, “What happened to Ben?”
“Exactly what I told you,” he answered. “In my timeline, Charmcaster cast the Mori Spell on him, draining his lifeforce. I stopped it, but I destroyed the counterspell too.”
Gwen felt shaky, though whether it was from the answers or the questions she now had, she wasn’t sure. “You said your dad…”
“He is,” Devlin affirmed. “Ben adopted me when I was eleven. He’s been my dad for about half my life.”
Devlin had hated Kevin the moment he realized who he was. He still hated him. Though she wasn’t sure she wanted confirmation, Gwen asked, “Kevin never joined us, did he?”
Devlin shook his head, his eyes closed. “No. He spent most of my childhood in the Null Void. That’s how I ended up with Ben anyway—Kevin told me to release him, and I’d had to fight my way in. I never imagined that Kevin wouldn’t want me, or that Ben would forgive me for everything that happened.”
“That’s Ben for you,” Gwen agreed, taking comfort from the one thing that seemed to be the same between timelines. But there was one thing she had to know, and she reluctantly asked, “What about your mother?”
“Don’t ask,” Devlin insisted. “Let’s just say that I never had the courage to ask her what she did for a living, but it meant I stayed home alone a lot at night and had to pretend nobody was home. Social services caught up with me when I was about ten, but by then, Mom was dead and Dad in was in the Null Void. I figure she probably met him through work, but again, I didn’t want to know.”
“Yeah,” she answered, nodding. Already, she was beginning to get a sense of how hard it had been for him, and she couldn’t help but feel for him. “But Kevin—our Kevin—is different from the one you knew.”
“I’m trying to tell myself that,” Devlin answered. “You and Ben are different enough that I can almost start to believe it, but the memories are still there.”
“How different?” Gwen asked, clutching the locket.
“Your powers, for one,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like that Ultimate Cannonbolt before, and Aunt Gwendolyn’s powers were blue, not pink.”
She smiled. “My powers changed a few years ago, thanks to my alien heritage. I guess she never learned to draw on that power.”
“Or she never knew,” he replied. “I’ve never heard anything about her and Kevin either.” Gwen nodded. She’d guessed that would be the case. “Ben, the rest of the family he gave me—they’ve done a lot to try to help me. I can’t let him down when he needs it the most. That’s why I have to have the Vivere Spell, and I need to make sure the Charmcaster here never gets the Mori Spell.”
Gwen hesitated. She had the book, and after being in his mind, she trusted him more, but there was still the team to think about. Ben wanted to trust him, and Kevin didn’t at all.
“I have to talk to Ben and Kevin first,” she said. “I need to convince them that you’re worth trusting.”
“You can’t tell them about me,” he pleaded.
“I won’t,” she promised. “But I do need to get them to trust you. And you’re going to too.”
Devlin hardly looked convinced that he could, and Gwen saw in that moment the influence of both of his fathers on him. He resembled Kevin, and to some extent, the reluctance was similar to the self-esteem issues he tried desperately to hide. But at the same time, there was a core of strength and a drive to commit himself to even the most hopeless of causes that was Ben through and through.
Timelines and worlds apart, Devlin was still family, and Gwen slowly gave him a light hug. He stiffened from the sudden physical contact; his family had always treaded lightly around him when it came to contact, never sure of how deep the scars of abuse ran, and he’d tried the past ten years never to let on. But those ten years had taught him he was safe and they would never try to hurt him. He just had to trust that this timeline’s variants of them wouldn’t either. Gwen had taken the first step, and now it was his turn. Hesitantly, he hugged her back.
When they let go, it was clear that Gwen was fighting back tears. She wiped her eyes and said, “I need to run to school now. But I’ll tell Ben and Kevin to meet with you, so you can tell them as much as you need to.”
“Okay,” he answered, nodding. “Good luck.”
“You too,” she said, heading back to the car and driving off.
She managed to get back home before her parents needed to leave, giving her enough time to put away her broken necklace and grab her things for school. But as she made her way to school, she ran into Ben and Julie walking the opposite way toward the public school.
“Hi, Gwen,” Julie greeted.
“Hey, what’s…” Ben was interrupted suddenly by his cousin grabbing him in a hug and burying her face in his shoulder. He traded looks of alarm with Julie before asking, “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing,” Gwen answered when she pulled away. She wiped her eyes and said. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
Ben was obviously confused, and he just answered, “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Julie gave Gwen a concerned look and asked, “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Gwen insisted, sniffing slightly as she dried her eyes. “I just ran into Devlin earlier.”
Immediately, Ben’s expression went hard, and Julie could almost feel the temperature drop a few degrees around him. Seriously, he asked, “Did he do anything?”
“No,” Gwen said. “No, it’s okay. He told me everything, and…”
Ben’s expression softened, waiting for her judgment. “And?”
“I believe him,” she affirmed. “I’d explain if I could, but just trust me on this.”
“Of course I trust you,” Ben insisted, and Julie offered a reassuring smile. “But did you find anything out about him and Kevin?”
She knew that question would come up. Now that she thought about it, it made perfect sense that Ben would jump to the conclusion that Kevin and Devlin were brothers. It made a lot more sense than the fact that they were father and son.
“No,” she lied. “But I don’t think they’re brothers.”
“Okay,” Ben answered. Wryly, he added, “I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t tell Kevin then, huh?”
Gwen laughed a little, feeling immensely better just from her cousin’s dumb sense of humor. “Yeah. Anyway, I’ll see you after school. Bye, guys.”
“Bye, Gwen,” Julie said.
They waved as Gwen walked away, and once they thought she was out of earshot, Julie asked, “What was all that about?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “That was weird. Even for us.”
Gwen heard his comments and couldn’t help but smile. There was comfort in the familiar, and Ben’s reaction reminded her just how “okay” he really was.
It also meant that she had to do whatever she could to help Devlin save the Ben from his timeline, no matter how similar or different they were.
Ken was far from the first to arrive on the scene. Halfway there, he got a call from Carson, leader of one of the teams from the Magical Division. They and a few non-magical Plumbers were engaging Charmcaster, though keeping their distance. When he got there, he saw Charmcaster shielding herself from laser blasts and magical attacks, though she didn’t use her staff for counterattacks.
“Carson,” XLR-8 called, and the mage looked over at him. Despite his magic, he was armed with a pair of blasters. “I need to get close.”
Trusting him to signal everyone not to shoot, Ken rushed forward, catching Charmcaster off-guard as he ran in a tight circle around her. A tornado formed around her, lifting her off the ground, and there, the mages and Plumbers opened fire again.
“Dispedia,” Charmcaster announced, and suddenly a surge of energy burst forth, counteracting the wind and sending XLR-8 flying back. When she saw just who had attacked her, she smirked. “So, little brother comes back for round two. What’s wrong? Big brother too torn up to fight?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Ken challenged, changing to Upchuck. “Carson!”
“On it!” the mage answered, combining his blasters. A single, more powerful laser shot forth, and Upchuck swallowed it immediately. Charmcaster followed the action, too surprised to move, and she was hit when Upchuck regurgitated the blast at her. She flew back, going right through a window.
“I think that…” Carson started, but broken glass flew back at them, forcing him to raise a blue-green forcefield. “Never mind!”
Charmcaster leapt out of the storefront, wielding her staff. Ken and Carson froze, not wanting to force her to use it. A cruel smile formed on her face at the sight of the two men freezing in place.
“You’re afraid I’m going to use this,” she noticed. “Use up all the precious energy inside. Well, since your brother destroyed my book, I’m not exactly willing to use up all the power I’ve got right now on a couple of second-rate cops.” Carson bristled slightly, ready to object, but Charmcaster said, “But I can’t have you interfering either, so it looks like I’ll have to do something.” The staff glowed, and Ken and Carson fired on her, trying to knock it from her grasp before she could use the power. But the energy and lasers bounced away from her, and she shouted, “Awalketello follicget!”
Ornamental trees and even potted plants suddenly came to life, bursting free from the earth and attacking the forces assembled. Laughing, Charmcaster opened another fold in space and escaped, while Ken struggled with unusually tough morning glory vines. He switched to Wildvine, allowing him to merge with the plant and tame it again. As other mages and aliens began to free themselves from the other plants, Wildvine moved to help Carson out of a particularly thorny rosebush.
“Thanks,” Carson answered as Ken freed him, then reverted to human form. “I think that’s why I don’t garden. Well, other than the fact that I don’t have a green thumb. Well, I know my magic is kind of green—more of a blue-green then, maybe a teal?”
“Carson,” Ken called, trying to get the mage to focus. “Can you scan for Charmcaster’s magical signature?”
“Right.”
A blue-green glow formed around Carson’s hand as he waved it over the spot where Charmcaster had opened her fold. There was a ripple in the air, and a tear of energy appeared in light pink for a moment before fading.
“Got it,” he answered. “She’s heading for town center. With everyone else circling the city, she’s got nowhere to go but in.”
“On my way,” Ken answered, switching back to XLR-8 and dashing off.
This chapter’s title comes from the Power Rangers in Space classic by the same name, the source inspiration for this subplot. There was also inspiration borrowed from the Power Rangers RPM episode “Key to the Past” (which had also homaged the earlier episode). Power Rangers fans may also recognize another homage in Carson, directly ripped from Bridge Carson of SPD (Green Ranger, then Blue, then Red). As before, Charmcaster’s spells are ripped from the series (found on the Ben 10 Encyclopedia), though I did some guesswork on Dispedia. Devlin’s story about his mother is based on the only explanation I can come up with for why his mother would have been with his father, and how Devlin would have known his father for even part of his life (as indicated when he said Kevin spent “most” of Devlin’s childhood in the Null Void). I also wanted to emphasize that in the “Ken 10” universe, it’s highly unlikely that Gwen would have been Devlin’s mother; Alien Force, for all it sped into the crush between them, was sure not to have them officially hook up until Kevin was clearly on the light side. Gwen’s a very headstrong girl, and it would be very unlike her to “give in” to a still-evil Kevin, have a child, abandon that child, and not say anything to her family about it.