Mutant!GwevinAU! Ficlet: Her Kevin
A mismash of my various AUs plus the current canon version of CRAZY!MUTANT!Kevin spawned this little bit of Mutant!Gwevin and a little bit of implied DarkCaster (via Celeste)
Don't want to spoil the rest.
Enjoy!
"You Morningstars are all one trick ponies, you know that?"
Gwen swallowed the lump in her throat that the sound of the all too familiar distorted voice had summoned. She ignored the throbbing pain in her chest and the burn that marred her shoulder. She steeled herself and tried to stand up. The final few bits of pink energy in the air around her flickered out and the fuzzy, pleasant feeling that had been creeping over her dissipated and every other unpleasant feeling was slowly returning.
"Put me down! Miss Gwen is..."
The sentence was cut short as the crystal claw that held its speaker squeezed shut tighter.
Gwen braced herself and eased up onto unsteady legs.
No. No one else's children were going to hurt anymore. This battle had to end. It had to stop. After years of pain, cycles of hope and despair, it had to stop. Enough was enough.
"You all have the same weakness. You can't keep your hands to yourselves,"
There was a sneer in the distorted voice. The joyful malice that tugged at her heart was there.
Gwen sensed a burning aura of rage that was thinly veiled under a collected layer of composure standing next to her.
"Let her go. Or the lovely Gwen won't be able to protect you with all the Sparks on Anodyne,"
It wasn't a threat, it was a promise.
Gwen tried to concentrate on the source of it, but all she could make out was a dark blur. Her eyes wouldn't focus just yet. It hurt to smile, but she did anyway. What had the world come to, that it was reassuring and comforting to hear Darkstar's voice?
"I have Gwen to thank for this little trick. Your Dad knows all about it," Kevin growled, pressing his misshapen face against hers.
"Don't," came the stern command from Darkstar.
"Kevin, don't do this. Celeste...she's just a girl, she doesn't have anything to do with this. We dragged her into it!"
"She has everything to do with it, Gwen. You'll see. Once I burn out this little star,"
There was a shriek from the girl in the claw.
"Daddy!"
Suddenly, the blur beside her was gone.
There were no dark beams of energy.
There was only a manic scream, like a wounded animal was fighting for its life and a growl. There was a thump, followed by the dull sound of flesh being struck, the sound of metal bending and breaking.
The world slowly came back into focus.
There was a still, pale figure lay crumpled on the ground from where she had been unceremoniously dropped.
Darkstar was pounding away at the amalgam of Ben's aliens with a fierce tenacity that was all too familiar. His pale blue eyes were glassy and bloodshot. Gwen forced herself to take a step, but there was a searing pain in her thigh and something wet and warm began to trickle down her leg from the spot. A dark purple blotch started spreading across her blue leggings.
She took another step forward before she fell to her knees.
No. No. No.
Gwen couldn't let it end like this. If they failed...there was no one else who could stop him! There was no one else who could try! There were only the three...two of them who were still capable of...
Something large and powerful leapt over her with a rush of air and a surge of mana.
Gwen eased her head back to see...someone she hadn't seen in years...someone she couldn't be seeing.
Darkstar appeared just as stunned as someone who looked like he should be helping their enemy came to their aid instead.
A long mop of black hair hung over a pair of gills and a glowing lure protruded out of it. A flaming Pyronite hand seized a pair of blue wings and twisted them while two Vulpimancer arms shot quills into the thick, multicolored hide of Kevin Levin. The appearance of this familiar stranger seemed to momentarily freeze up at the sheer impossibility of what was attacking him in all the secret, weak places he had.
Three mismatched eyes met two before they flickered to a pair of pale blue eyes, conveying a hidden message. It was apparently understood because Darkstar smiled in a particularly devious way that Gwen had not seen in months. Twin beams of ebon energy roared out of his palms and engulfed the antagonistic Kevin. The air turned bitterly cold for a solid minute before it flickered out and a weakened, completely human, extremely pale Kevin Levin collapsed on the ground. Without hesitation, Darkstar pulled out a pair of handcuffs and placed them on human wrists before kicking the unconscious form of his enemy several times.
The remaining amalgam Kevin sat there and watched without saying a word. The wind blew his long black hair across his face, which obscured his eyes, though Gwen felt his mismatched gaze move up and down her form. She returned the favor in kind.
As Gwen looked the strange body over, she realized that it was different now than it was when she had seen it last. The Vulpimancer arms had stripes and the Kinecelerean tail was solid, not striped the way she remembered it.
Darkstar threw off his ruined gauntlets and started, as if remembering something very important. Without a word to either of his companions, he raced to the side of the fallen pre-teen. He scooped her up and began to rock her back and forth in his lap.
"The kid's okay. She's a good listener," the remaining Kevin rumbled.
"Celeste! Baby? Honey? Sparkle Muffin?" he asked, cupping her cheek in his hand and kissing her forehead.
"Daddy? I let him take it. I did what you and Mr. Levin always said to do. I let him take it," Celeste explained weakly, voice barely above a whisper.
He ran his fingers through her white, limp hair and seized it in his fists, tugging on it slightly. When he seemed satisfied that it would stay on her head, he pulled his daughter against him tightly and saw liquid sparkles on his sunken cheeks.
"That's my girl," he whispered as he continued to rock her and even started to make a peculiar trilling sound that Gwen had never heard him make before.
Gwen looked away and straight into three eyes.
One green, two yellow.
She felt her own well up with tears.
"Gwen, I-"
His voice. It was his voice. It was distorted, to be sure, but its cadence was familiar. It was comforting and sweet. It took her back to times at Grandpa Max's favorite fishing spot where she had brought him smoothies when he had been hurt. She remembered dabbing his then striped tail with disinfectant and bandaging it.
At long last, here stood her Kevin.
"It's you. It's you, isn't it? You're my Kevin? From my world?"
She'd seen so many die over the years, but none of them were hers, she could tell. So many Bens, Charmcasters, Julies, and even Michaels had met their end as the now human version of Kevin Levin had torn his way through the various realities with the Map of Infinity. He'd been slowly eliminating all possible avenues for friendship and a cure, but they'd finally stopped him. She couldn't help but wonder what he'd be like now that the energy had been purged from his system.
She could care less.
Here at long last was her Kevin.
His heavy head nodded, but he said nothing. His wings drooped, almost as if they were ashamed of something.
Tears glistened in Gwen's eyes before they began to cascade down her face.
"Oh...Oh, Thank God it is you," she sobbed, throwing her arms around his head and digging her fingers into his dark hair. She kissed his thin, barely existent red lips over and over just because they were his and he was there.
"He never found you. I knew none of the ones he killed was you, but I wasn't sure where you were. You're here now, though and...and I was afraid I would never find you, either,"
The pain she felt earlier began to come back and she leaned on Kevin for support. He met her, gingerly picking her up in his vulpimancer arms. She pressed her cheek against his chest and listened to his large heart beating. She smiled at the familiar rumbling purr that started there.
Her eyelids began to grow heavy. Slowly, her eyes batted.
"Don't go. Stay here, with me, please?" she asked.
"Of course, I'm your Kevin. I'm not going anywhere,"
"Good," she whispered, leaning against his warm body.
Gwen smiled as she drifted off to sleep. The first peaceful sleep she had known for a very long time.
Don't want to spoil the rest.
Enjoy!
"You Morningstars are all one trick ponies, you know that?"
Gwen swallowed the lump in her throat that the sound of the all too familiar distorted voice had summoned. She ignored the throbbing pain in her chest and the burn that marred her shoulder. She steeled herself and tried to stand up. The final few bits of pink energy in the air around her flickered out and the fuzzy, pleasant feeling that had been creeping over her dissipated and every other unpleasant feeling was slowly returning.
"Put me down! Miss Gwen is..."
The sentence was cut short as the crystal claw that held its speaker squeezed shut tighter.
Gwen braced herself and eased up onto unsteady legs.
No. No one else's children were going to hurt anymore. This battle had to end. It had to stop. After years of pain, cycles of hope and despair, it had to stop. Enough was enough.
"You all have the same weakness. You can't keep your hands to yourselves,"
There was a sneer in the distorted voice. The joyful malice that tugged at her heart was there.
Gwen sensed a burning aura of rage that was thinly veiled under a collected layer of composure standing next to her.
"Let her go. Or the lovely Gwen won't be able to protect you with all the Sparks on Anodyne,"
It wasn't a threat, it was a promise.
Gwen tried to concentrate on the source of it, but all she could make out was a dark blur. Her eyes wouldn't focus just yet. It hurt to smile, but she did anyway. What had the world come to, that it was reassuring and comforting to hear Darkstar's voice?
"I have Gwen to thank for this little trick. Your Dad knows all about it," Kevin growled, pressing his misshapen face against hers.
"Don't," came the stern command from Darkstar.
"Kevin, don't do this. Celeste...she's just a girl, she doesn't have anything to do with this. We dragged her into it!"
"She has everything to do with it, Gwen. You'll see. Once I burn out this little star,"
There was a shriek from the girl in the claw.
"Daddy!"
Suddenly, the blur beside her was gone.
There were no dark beams of energy.
There was only a manic scream, like a wounded animal was fighting for its life and a growl. There was a thump, followed by the dull sound of flesh being struck, the sound of metal bending and breaking.
The world slowly came back into focus.
There was a still, pale figure lay crumpled on the ground from where she had been unceremoniously dropped.
Darkstar was pounding away at the amalgam of Ben's aliens with a fierce tenacity that was all too familiar. His pale blue eyes were glassy and bloodshot. Gwen forced herself to take a step, but there was a searing pain in her thigh and something wet and warm began to trickle down her leg from the spot. A dark purple blotch started spreading across her blue leggings.
She took another step forward before she fell to her knees.
No. No. No.
Gwen couldn't let it end like this. If they failed...there was no one else who could stop him! There was no one else who could try! There were only the three...two of them who were still capable of...
Something large and powerful leapt over her with a rush of air and a surge of mana.
Gwen eased her head back to see...someone she hadn't seen in years...someone she couldn't be seeing.
Darkstar appeared just as stunned as someone who looked like he should be helping their enemy came to their aid instead.
A long mop of black hair hung over a pair of gills and a glowing lure protruded out of it. A flaming Pyronite hand seized a pair of blue wings and twisted them while two Vulpimancer arms shot quills into the thick, multicolored hide of Kevin Levin. The appearance of this familiar stranger seemed to momentarily freeze up at the sheer impossibility of what was attacking him in all the secret, weak places he had.
Three mismatched eyes met two before they flickered to a pair of pale blue eyes, conveying a hidden message. It was apparently understood because Darkstar smiled in a particularly devious way that Gwen had not seen in months. Twin beams of ebon energy roared out of his palms and engulfed the antagonistic Kevin. The air turned bitterly cold for a solid minute before it flickered out and a weakened, completely human, extremely pale Kevin Levin collapsed on the ground. Without hesitation, Darkstar pulled out a pair of handcuffs and placed them on human wrists before kicking the unconscious form of his enemy several times.
The remaining amalgam Kevin sat there and watched without saying a word. The wind blew his long black hair across his face, which obscured his eyes, though Gwen felt his mismatched gaze move up and down her form. She returned the favor in kind.
As Gwen looked the strange body over, she realized that it was different now than it was when she had seen it last. The Vulpimancer arms had stripes and the Kinecelerean tail was solid, not striped the way she remembered it.
Darkstar threw off his ruined gauntlets and started, as if remembering something very important. Without a word to either of his companions, he raced to the side of the fallen pre-teen. He scooped her up and began to rock her back and forth in his lap.
"The kid's okay. She's a good listener," the remaining Kevin rumbled.
"Celeste! Baby? Honey? Sparkle Muffin?" he asked, cupping her cheek in his hand and kissing her forehead.
"Daddy? I let him take it. I did what you and Mr. Levin always said to do. I let him take it," Celeste explained weakly, voice barely above a whisper.
He ran his fingers through her white, limp hair and seized it in his fists, tugging on it slightly. When he seemed satisfied that it would stay on her head, he pulled his daughter against him tightly and saw liquid sparkles on his sunken cheeks.
"That's my girl," he whispered as he continued to rock her and even started to make a peculiar trilling sound that Gwen had never heard him make before.
Gwen looked away and straight into three eyes.
One green, two yellow.
She felt her own well up with tears.
"Gwen, I-"
His voice. It was his voice. It was distorted, to be sure, but its cadence was familiar. It was comforting and sweet. It took her back to times at Grandpa Max's favorite fishing spot where she had brought him smoothies when he had been hurt. She remembered dabbing his then striped tail with disinfectant and bandaging it.
At long last, here stood her Kevin.
"It's you. It's you, isn't it? You're my Kevin? From my world?"
She'd seen so many die over the years, but none of them were hers, she could tell. So many Bens, Charmcasters, Julies, and even Michaels had met their end as the now human version of Kevin Levin had torn his way through the various realities with the Map of Infinity. He'd been slowly eliminating all possible avenues for friendship and a cure, but they'd finally stopped him. She couldn't help but wonder what he'd be like now that the energy had been purged from his system.
She could care less.
Here at long last was her Kevin.
His heavy head nodded, but he said nothing. His wings drooped, almost as if they were ashamed of something.
Tears glistened in Gwen's eyes before they began to cascade down her face.
"Oh...Oh, Thank God it is you," she sobbed, throwing her arms around his head and digging her fingers into his dark hair. She kissed his thin, barely existent red lips over and over just because they were his and he was there.
"He never found you. I knew none of the ones he killed was you, but I wasn't sure where you were. You're here now, though and...and I was afraid I would never find you, either,"
The pain she felt earlier began to come back and she leaned on Kevin for support. He met her, gingerly picking her up in his vulpimancer arms. She pressed her cheek against his chest and listened to his large heart beating. She smiled at the familiar rumbling purr that started there.
Her eyelids began to grow heavy. Slowly, her eyes batted.
"Don't go. Stay here, with me, please?" she asked.
"Of course, I'm your Kevin. I'm not going anywhere,"
"Good," she whispered, leaning against his warm body.
Gwen smiled as she drifted off to sleep. The first peaceful sleep she had known for a very long time.