Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The motorcycle engine revved, echoing across the broken desert pavement and carried out into the fields of shrubbery to either side. Under the hot rubber, grayed asphalt slapped and kicked up rocks serving almost as much a soundtrack as the radio which blared open and free. There were only two people in this whole wide world to hear it, and they were going to enjoy every second of it.

“Straight out of nowhere

And a little bit out of our minds

We were courting disaster

With one foot over the line”

They were coming back from somewhere that they shouldn't have been, but then again who got to say where they could be? Amongst all these beautiful mesas standing firm to their sides even as the frosty spring ground blurred past, was it any wonder that the mind would wish to wonder? Here there were few things to do, and to get away was one of those options.

The mountains spoke to them, telling them to come along and be there up on a rock, or a tree, or by a crevice dug into the earth by a centuries-old creek which sparkled under an expensive blue sky. To get away there at those places was to be able to get away in a way that so many people did not, and that was a shame. This was one of the best ways, the ways with the least self destruction that could be done on the reservation.

They were able to get far on this bike. Even further than horseback riding. Even further than should have been possible on wheels. A sacrifice of tranquility and scenic views for sheer speed and sights not seen before unless in glimpse.

One rider, from a small town, getting to see city lights that they so craved while standing on top of a mountain. The other rider, feeling the wind on their neck as they leaned upon their shoulder and stared at the sparkles and heard the sounds of the horns beeping. 

They had been anonymous, helmets showing nothing from behind their black visors as they had cruised the town. The town that one rider called “the big city” with stars in their eyes. How could they ever have had a different frame of reference, compared to their companion who had seen so many sights on the roads which eventually landed them in the Navajo Nation?

The driver turned their head to the rider, feeling their strong grip on their waist and imagining hands pressed softly. “¿Esto es lo que esperabas?”

In other words, “Is this what you expected?”

“Sí!” the rider on the back may as well have shrieked out the words. There was not much need for translation just from their tone alone.

A smile cracked on the driver's face, still invisible to her passenger. This was their “secret” language, from Elena Validus to the person who clung to her waist. It was another one of their secret thrills, to be able to speak in a way that next to no one around understood.

“How is your dad doing?” spoke the passenger, still in their “secret” language.

“Could be doing better.” Elena’s smile turned into a frown and froze in that position for the next few miles. If the landscape wasn't there to distract her, then there wasn't much but conversation. If the conversation veered that way, then her options were to get lost in the yellow markers drifting underneath them.

The passenger was quiet during this time too, allowing themselves to take in the landscape and the air, which felt exceptionally cool while riding in the seat even at this speed they were on now, which would be best called “cruising.” This was one of the best times to be wearing a jacket, their lucky number loud and clear on the stitching.

They leaned back, one hand resting on the cargo bags that sat behind them. The air leaked through their helmet’s visor and beneath their chin, giving the hints of earthy desert scents and that odd odor which came just before the wildflowers always seemed to bloom. They wanted more of this air. While this ride lasted, they had to squeeze every moment of it out. They had been waiting to go this far since the night they first had laid eyes on this pair of headlights and glossy red curves.

They clung onto Elena and hugged her in a way that they hoped would come off as an apology, then used their other hand to unzip their coat midway. They let the air in, it pouring over their chest and short sleeves then into the arms of their jacket.

Elena would forgive. That was part of their bond. That bond just had not appeared to have been sufficient for them to have noticed the way the tides had changed when it came to Elena's father, Victor. He was a jovial man just as his daughter was a jovial girl. It was hard to imagine that things could get bad enough to where the mention of him would cause her to completely shut off.

Elena turned her head over their way for a few seconds. It may have been that there was an arched eyebrow behind the helmet’s shroud. She turned her head back to the road and whistled before shouting, “YEAH BABY! SHOW IT OFF!”

The passenger felt some blood rush to their cheeks. To be fair, it was hard to tell if either of them were shouting or not. After all, to speak over the wind would be to open up your pipes until they were sore. Not being as loud as possible was going to be something that felt weird after this trip.

They pressed against Elena. The desert had many colors. This spot was a crossroads between where they had managed to reach before Elena came into their life and the elevation was lower, making the dirt lose its frost. Once upon a time this whole area was beneath a thick crust of snow, but now the spring had come and so the cold had become a lot less predictable. Without the moisture, it was that stark beige color which only seemed to contrast against the rust, deep browns, and orange colors of the landscape.

Hard to believe, but here there used to be people who lived. Just a lonesome house sitting in a cleared patch of dirt slowly shrinking since the time someone had left it behind. 

It was a shame to see such a place left to accumulate decay as the time went on by. The passenger had considered it a landmark since they first noticed it one time when they and their friends reached this spot without nightfall’s all concealing cloak. They had even once seen a lone coyote around these parts after the moon had become full in the sky, much to the fear of everyone who had been on that trip.

Their gaze lingered on the old hone and what remained from the indigenous people who had once been there and they caught the sight of a light plume of dirt coming from the dirt road weaving from behind the house. They grabbed Elena's shoulder and directed her that way.

“Ey! Some other adventurers!”

The passenger nodded. “Might be a few Wildcats.”

Elena slowed the bike some more, hoping to catch whoever it was on the road. The Wildcat was the mascot of the high school in the nearby but still very distant Chinle. Students there, especially ones who were big fans of the basketball team, would call themselves “Wildcats.” Seeing kids or even adults who had a truck and a heavy itch of boredom they needed to scratch around there was a big coincidence, sure, but it was definitely not unheard of.

The truck came down the road and something immediately seemed off. It was a heavy duty one, with a long bed that had a tarp cover rippling in the wind. It could have been an eccentric who got a hold of a cool ride, but it matched a description that they'd heard back in town.

The passenger reached for something in the back of their beltline in anticipation.

The truck pulled out into the road, its wheels bouncing as they touched pavement just over a block away from the motorcycle’s tip. From inside, it was clear that these were exactly the people that Elena and her passenger had suspected.

Elena raised her hand and waved, knowing that they had already seen the pair and that the best way to go about this was to hope that they could play the role of ignorant but friendly locals.

What she got in return was the tailgate of the truck slamming down and a greeting from a guy who had to be a mutant going by how much of a wall of meat he was. His greeting came in the form of a gun the size of a bazooka firing rapid bolts of red light straight at their heads. “Indians!”

Elena swerved the bike, kicking up speed and avoiding the next volley of beams. She belted out a few curse words, most of which about the guy's mom, before she took a gun from a strap on her leg and shot at his head. In response, a friend of his leaned out of the back of the truck, clinging to the tarp, and shot directly at them.

Elena hurried to brake and avoid the next few attacks. From behind, the passenger aimed over her shoulder and shot the new attacker straight in the head. Their body tumbled beside the motorcycle, now possessing nothing but a smoldering crater at the end of their neck.

“Great shot!”

“Thanks!”

“Wait?” the guy with the big gun pointed it back at them, stumbling from the motion of the truck. “Mexicans?”

The passenger shot at them several times, this time missing because Elena had to swerve the bike every which way to avoid the onslaught coming from the muscly guy.

Elena eyeballed the cargo, a bundle of Navajo artifacts, just behind the thug’s shoulder. “Aim for the tires!”

At once, the passenger took aim at the back tire to their right and sent an energy bolt from their weapon which blew the tire and nearly everything attached to it sky high. The thug yelped and staggered, falling over due to the weight of their weapon and the change in balance.

Sparks flew from the end of the truck, their hot mandarin touch falling against Elena and the passenger’s coats. With another precise swerve, Elena had them out of the way of its range.

Maybe only to make a point, the passenger shot the tire on the other side out as they raced by to the side of the driver. The truck thudded and screeched loudly, hammering into their ears almost as hard as the hammering in their own heart. 

From behind came more of the large red energy blasts, exploding the pavement into a rain of black pellets and dirt. The passenger clung to Elena with one arm and swiveled their upper body around to return fire without even having a look at what the villain was doing.

The thug grabbed onto one of the supports holding the tarp and swung up onto the top. Bringing themselves onto their knees, they aimed directly at the pair and began to fire.

“Elena!”

Elena shot the motorcycle out to the side and formed a wide C shape, throwing up dirt plumes in the air as they hit the dirt before once again reaching the pavement. The thug on top was forced onto their belly by the passenger's repeated shots at their head and body.

She caught sight of the driver, who was scanning the area with a stoic expression. That was, until they saw the motorcycle closing in and the facade shattered. They barked something into their radio, causing their thug to fire into the desert and miss every shot. The passenger in return blew holes in their tarp platform. They didn't stop shooting at the motorcycle until the tarp couldn't sustain their weight anymore and they fell into the cargo bay.

The cycle rode at the truck’s side, the driver now in awe at this sudden turn of events. Elena's heart fluttered. Look, this wasn’t abnormal for someone with Plumber training. That didn't mean that it was not an absolute thrill ride. She threw more speed into the cycle, just enough so the passenger could be the one to bang on the truck’s side.

Surprising strength bent the door inward with just a few firm knocks. Through the metal screeching and the continued gunfire, the passenger said, “Pull over!”

The truck driver shook their head and produced a pistol. The passenger pointed one right back at them. A high speed stand off which ended with the driver pulling the trigger and Elena once again getting them out of the way. Beds of shrubs exploded into three meter high dust spouts everywhere the gunfire hit.

Elena gnashed her teeth and risked pulling her hand off of a handle to fire one decisive shot straight into the hubcap of the truck.

The truck wilted some more, throwing the driver's head up against the broken glass in their window. They let out a gasp before slamming their foot on the brakes as though their getaway wasn't already dead in the water. 

The truck shrieked some more, then stopped. Elena grinned. “We got ‘em.”

The driver stumbled out, holding their bloodied head and aiming their gun wildly. The passenger was only able to get Elena out of the way thanks to the thug’s delirium.

Elena tumbled to the ground, rolling just like she knew how to. The passenger was a blur in her vision, still on the back of the cycle.

The passenger managed to get control, but that wasn't before the cycle smashed into the truck driver at full force and sent them flying down the street, legs flailing like a marionette. The motorcycle's brakes only fully worked after leaving a long skid mark, stopping right before the injured body of the driver.

The truck driver pushed themselves up and aimed for the passenger’s head. 

No choice. They shot the driver dead right there in the middle of the desert.

That should have been the end of it, but the thug in the back wasn't done. He lunged out from the truck slinging out insults at the pair and firing the gun wildly. The passenger took up speed once again and swerved around the other side of the truck.

Meanwhile, Elena jumped out of the way of the gunfire and rolled over into the perfect position for her to return fire. Only… she wasn't holding her gun anymore. She figured that out as she pulled at empty air like there was still a trigger while the barrel of an alien minigun stared her down.  She flapped her hands. “A la mierda!”

She rolled away, her vision blinded by the debris raining from around. Now, she had to rely on her memory and her other senses to get out of the way. Beneath the sound of the attacks, she noticed the motorcycle’s engine wasn't runnin. With that knowledge, she took to a smug sprint and threw herself where she thought there was a gap beneath the truck.

She shielded herself from the rain of destruction and wiped chunks of asphalt dust from her helmet. She grabbed something in her jacket’s breast pocket and whispered, “Hon, where you at?”

The boots crunched on the ruined pavement. The thug called out, “Come out, come out! Whoever you are! Not so tough now, are you?”

“Where he can't see me,” replied Elena's former passenger.

A gunshot rang and the thug threw himself out of the way of an incoming green light. He laughed. His army boots kicked gravel into Elena's face as he turned his hulking frame around in the direction of the laser fire.

He was ignorant to Elena striking out like a waiting rattler until she had dug a pocket knife into his calf. He howled in pain and threw his foot straight into her face, sending her helmet sky high and her body into the truck's side hard enough to crumple the metal around her.

Pain surged up her body and made itself manifest with a gasp, but that wasn't the only pain that was going to be inflicted. She retaliated with a kick straight to his nuts.

His face went red as his jaw stretched into a bellow of agony. Elena took this time to take her knife and then stab him firmly below the ribs. Before she could stab again, he grabbed her wrist and twisted it until a snap reverberated from within her forearm.

“Little man,” the mutant thug said, “you're out of your league.”

“You forgot about me, pendejo!” the passenger taunted, then sent three gunshots straight into his chest and gut.

He flopped to the ground and Elena coughed out a few compliments as she held her wrist and squirmed on the ground. She shoved herself up onto her knees.

“That looks bad,” said the passenger. They were on the way over to Elena when the thug's dark shape blocked her field of vision.

His skin didn't look very good where the shots had hit, but the way that he was still standing said everything about what Elena needed to know about what she was looking at.

She ducked away from a grab, adrenaline taking her now. Then another. She stomped on his toe and then swiped the knife from out of his chest, tossing it with all her night into his knee. As he went in to attack, the passenger shot him several more times—burning his flesh with every strike.

The staggering was enough for Elena to take her knife once again and then shove it into the thug's jaw. Then, she grabbed his chin and with her touch came a spread of pallor. The thug sputtered in shock.

“You're not the only mutant,” Elena said. Her influence spread to his muscles, which shrank until the final blow from her passenger turned his ribcage into swiss cheese.

He fell over on his face and the passenger finally moved from their hiding space to join up with Elena. Elena leaned against them, holding her wrist and grimacing in pain as she squeezed it and mended bones back together.

The passenger nudged the thug with their foot. “I think it's still alive.”

Elena sucked air through her teeth and released her hand, flailing it around now that her ability had finally finished its work. “GOD! I hate doing that!”

“Beating up bad guys?”

Just like that, they were back to practicing their Spanish with one another.

“No, using my powers! Now I'm hungry enough to eat a horse and my wrist still feels like someone took a damn cattle prod to it!” Elena doubled over, still holding her forearm.

“It's a good thing we're both freaks,” said the passenger. “No wonder why this jerk made it off with all that stuff from the museum.”

Elena's nostrils flared. Through the scents of the burnt dirt, toasted pavement and seared flesh, her senses picked up food. “Is that pizza?”

“I was JUST  about to mention it,” said the passenger. They took their helmet off and whipped their hair, pulling it back into a ragged ponytail. “Should've figured that you'd be hungrier than a Thalassian Trapper after all that.”

“You’ve got that planet on your mind,” Elena said. The brown skin and prominent eyebrows of her companion glowed like bronze to her eyes. She knew that this would always be one-sided. “Don't you, Kai?”

“Who wouldn't after all I've been through?” Kai said. She led Elena up to the front seat and slid behind the wheel, her muscles twitching from all the excitement. She drummed her fingers on the wheel. “I bet Grandpa Wes would love to fix this thing.”

Elena slid into the passenger side and bumped the pizza box in between them. She cracked the box open and took a slice of cold pepperoni out. “You're going to steal the Italian guy's pizza and his truck?”

Kai stopped, her face draining some color. “Well… I guess.”

“You’re a savage!” Elena said. She barely chewed her food before adding it to the tank. Then, when Kai gave her a blank stare, she course-corrected. “Not that kind of savage.”

Kai took a slice and giggled. She kissed Elena on the cheek. “Oh, I know. I just needed to score me some of this! A little reparation from Giorno de lo Whatever to the Diné for his crimes against its people.”

She bit into the slice and shook Elena with the other. Elena gave her a shove back. “Girl, I've taught you well!”

Kai laughed for a few seconds before choking on her pizza. Elena jumped into action, slapping her on the back. “Girl, breathe! You okay?”

Kai sucked in air harshly and she grabbed the door handle. Her Spanish was too broken by her panic for her to say it clearly. “Giorno!”

“That clown again,” said Elena. She took a gun from the floor. “Cockroaches and bed bugs have nothing on this guy.”

Kai reached for a gun too but Elena lowered her arm. “I can deal with this. You've been carrying me hard for someone who's got such precious cargo!”

Kai nodded, resting her hand on a jacket pocket right over her belly. She sat her gun in her lap and waited, watching like an eagle as Elena clicked the door open and followed her direction on where to go.

With the air now still, it was warm out here. Elena's wrist still ached, the weight of her new weapon seeming to agitate it somehow. She moved around the side of the truck, checking high and low before lunging to the back and directing her sights down the bed.

There was nobody there.

She stalked around to the other side and approached the motorcycle. She opened its bags, just to be sure that the guy hadn't figured out that they had alien artifacts there perfect for the black market. That, too, was undisturbed. She sighed and went up to the driver's side.

“Good news and bad news,” Elena said.

Kai was still too nervous to hold onto her Spanish. “Bad news first.”

“Giorno is gone. Like, vanished. But all our stuff is still here!”

Kai sighed and put her head against the wheel. “Figures. He probably had a teleporter or something like that. Guess we'll be seeing him again.”

Elena got back into the truck and called up Kai's grandpa. It would be easy enough to lie that they hadn't gone to the city and instead got jumped by museum thieves while exploring the desert. They just had to wait and enjoy their pizza.

***

The dirt blew across Eon’s waistcoat and beaded his helmet. His body was firmer than it had been for quite some time and never did he feel stronger than when he looked upon the weak. To think, this was the past for the “Prime” timeline. Two years from the so-called present, two girls in red having a laugh while basking in the sunbeams through armored truck windows.

Eon checked his gauntlet again, just to be certain. This was the correct timeline for certain. “Hmm… so that is why the Hive wanted her so badly.”

Elena Validus… he could grab her now. He could talk to her like he wanted to do desperately in the past. But this was the time to watch. To observe.

That white smile and those rosy cheeks from being in close proximity to a friend, they would die. Just as all hope would die. 

That girl will become Ben Tennyson’s most powerful enemy, and who was he to stop her?

With a simple tool, neither Paradox nor his little helper would dare to interfere.

Chapter Text

The sky was red as the petals in her fingers. Sometimes, she thought about the other people. The people who she loved. Maybe if she hadn't, she would have finally quenched this desire for revenge which burned deep inside her.

“Child, did I see you make that flower?” it was her neighbor, Doctor Animo. For many reasons, she was cold to him. For reasons she wasn't sure of, he wasn't nearly as cold toward her.

“Maybe you did,” Elena said, “maybe you didn't.”

“I am certain that I did. How did you make that flower, young lady? Can you create other things?” 

Elena ignored him. She ran her fingers along the petal.

“I will sneak you an extra ration bar again if you tell me,” Animo said. He wiggled his fingers and looked strangely curious. Friendly, even. And not in the way she was used to creepy looking older men being.

“We were enemies, remember?”

“But our boots are on the same ground now, young lady. It is inevitable before I break out! And then, you'll have not a soul to tell stories to in this desolate land!"

“So much for being friendly,” she said. She returned to picking at the petals, trying to ease turmoil in her mind that the odd man wasn't doing anything to help with.

Maybe she should've been friendlier back, but she'd been burned too much. And Animo made her uncomfortable in ways she couldn't imagine were common for a hive mind.

She paced, staring at her flower as Animo watched it. She felt a low growl, not directed at him but at the circumstances. At that red hot feeling that she knew was hate.

He was out there somewhere, Max Tennyson. He was the reason why her father was gone. He was the reason behind… something else. She wasn't entirely sure about that. All she knew was that the heart failure came on after so many hard fought battles. After she had been there standing in the corners, looking at his bloodshot eyes as he told her that he would figure it out, even as a year had turned into another and another. Long nights and the desire to escape, thanks to Max and his Plumbers.

Those same Plumbers who now were marching around the perimeter of the jail, watching her and the others and taking notes like they were little rats in a lab. Elena knew the risks of poking and prodding at things that could lash back out. And she would show them. She would show them, somehow.

The Null Void had no wind to speak of in these parts. The only thing that she could use to cool herself down from the fury might have been the nanochips, but they were her. They were a part of her… 

… Now? 

… No, they'd always been part of her…

She was sure of it again. They were always a part of her. She and they were the same. They were angry because she was angry. She wanted to be angrier because they wanted her to be angrier. Yet, she wasn't as angry as she could be.

She also wanted to think about the people she had loved before today. It wasn't precisely a “today” because here were no days in the Null Void, just a time where the Plumbers crammed her into a cell and shut out the boiling sky’s glow, but it still felt like a today. Yesterday, she boiled with so much rage that she thought she might break her binds and turn this entire infinity into her slaves. 

Today she, suppressing that rage, hummed a song and picked at the petals of an alien flower that she had cloned from a batch in the prison yard. “Just a scar somewhere down inside of me… something I cannot repair…”

When Elena thought about loved ones, she always seemed to draw from images of different times and places. Some were as distant as six years ago when her dad landed them in Los Angeles and she saw so many other Latinos it made her eyes sore, some were recent like the hands of a girl on her waist in a southwestern desert. 

She'd seen that girl again just about a week ago, just before they put her in the Null Void. When that Charles Zenith abducted her from her place where she could suppress her rage and threw her right back into competing for Ben Tennyson's attention. Even while she was doing it, Elena wondered why she had fought Kai so hard.

There's a bigger plan, she told herself. That eased her, made her sure of herself again. There was something to all of this. There would be no more competing when she was done. Everyone she loved would be a part of her, the Hive. Everyone she hated and who got in her way would die.

She picked a petal off the flower. “They love me…”

She caught it with her other hand and devoured it in moments, nanochips crawling to the surface of her skin to take it apart and reduce it to pure energy, stored right in her body.

“... They love me not…”

She took another petal and absorbed it. She rolled her shoulders and her teeth grinded at the sounds of the Plumbers talking up above.

“Elena Validus,” crooned Magister Patelliday, “charged with several cases of stalking, impersonation, attempted murder, battery and one instance of staging an attempt on conquering the planet. Somehow, she's the most well behaved of our new prisoners!”

A small green insect-like Plumber behind him grabbed at his legs and looked around the prison in fear. He locked eyes with Elena and yelped.

“I really don't know how you've gotten out of Plumber training with that sort of attitude,” said Patelliday.

“She's creepy! Look at her! There's no light in her eyes!”

“Well, that doesn't matter so long as she doesn't make a wreck of things. Not that she's got much of a choice with that thingamabob!” Patelliday gestured to Elena, highlighting the field of energy around her.

She raised her hand and several of her nanochips crawled off of her hand, using it like a launchpad. They got within a few meters of the Plumbers before falling dead, their biological components sizzling and giving off a rotted coppery odor.

Hobble ran away for a few moments before stopping. “So she's harmless?”

“Completely! Just don't get too close and you won't have any problems!”

“Is it really a good idea to have her in general pop?” Hobble got closer now, noticing the limits of Elena's range.

She gave him a smile. She wanted him to know exactly what she had in mind for him and every Plumber here in the Null Void. Judging by the way he yelped and hid behind the Magister, she came across loud and clear.

She picked off another petal. “They love me.”

Then, in the blink of an eye, a flash of pink blurred across her hands. Her perception wasn't slow, however, so she grabbed tightly onto the flower’s stem. Thorns dug up against her flesh as she tugged back against the pull of a long, shiny and pink tongue. “Let go of it! It's mine!”

At the other end of the impromptu tug-of-war was a green woman resembling cross between a human lady a frog with giant lips. As Elena pulled against her, the purple cap on her head swung around to reveal the pattern on her slimy skin. Attea, princess of the Incurseans and currently another prison rat.

“I don't see your name on it!” Attea said, her tongue strumming like a guitar string from being pulled to its absolute limit. “You're not even eating it!”

“I am too, witch!” Elena pulled and Attea’s heels dragged across the yellowish terrain.

“You're just picking at it!” Attea said. She used her tongue as a grappling hook and reeled herself in to kick Elena right in the stomach.

Elena flew back, releasing the flower straight into Attea's mouth. Attea crunched it with enough smug satisfaction to  send the red hot emotion boiling up through Elena. She slammed her fists into the ground, tearing it to pieces as the nanochips emerged formed as spikes to penetrate Attea's flesh.

Attea jumped away, kicking at one of the walls of the prison yard to go in for a punch that knocked Elena onto her back. 

Before Attea could move away, Elena shot a spike straight through her shoulder. As Attea grimaced, Elena grabbed her by the wrists and awaited the nanochips to return and rittle her full of thorns.

They caught the attention of another prisoner, a red haired cyborg named Rojo. She pumped her fists. “FIGHT! FIGHT! YOU GOT THIS, CHOLA!”

Was it a little odd that Elena felt excited by this? Perhaps, but it was good to feel powerful again. Especially after being jerked around by the most idiotic reality warper in existence.

Elena stabbed Attea through the knee. The nanochip spikes came in at speeds far exceeding hypersonic, moments from impaling her prey for the last time…

Only for pain to wrack Elena’s body. The spikes that were inside Attea retreated back into Elena, carrying some of the precious frog blood to attempt to soothe her condition. Only, this made it worse. The spikes flying through the air disintegrated. A waste of precious Hive resources.

Attea landed back on the ground, limping away and scowling at Rojo. “You were really gonna let her kill me?”

Rojo shrugged. “Who gives a crap if their sentence is longer? I'm in here for a long time! Might as well have a GOOD time too!”

Elena crawled away. As the nanochips tried to repair her and the Hive, the pain just got worse and worse. Hunger growled not just in her stomach anymore but her entire being. She should have been more careful. She hadn't absorbed enough subjects to be able to use her powers. Now she was going to die and take the Hive right then, right there.

Rojo turned over. She didn't sound nearly as concerned as her words would say. “Woah, chikita. You look even worse than before. What's going on with you?”

“It must be her MUTAAATION!” 

Even through the pain, that kind of enunciation was enough to get Elena to jerk her head up at the voice. That man who looked like a corpse, with his brain in an exposed dome held his fist high. Animo was still tailing her, from the looks of things.  She and Kai had ran into the freak on the Navajo Nation, while he was trying to make Gila monsters the size of Godzilla.

“Where'd you come from?” said Rojo.

“They transferred me here several cold rests ago because my GENIUS had surpassed the normal parameters of Plumber containment!” boasted Animo.

“I was talking about how you just popped up out of nowhere.”

“A GENIUS can be stealthy when he wishes to be!”

“Ugh. Okay,” Rojo said. “Now what was that about her being a mutant? Sure doesn't look like a mutant to me. Not like the freaks you make.”

“That's because she's what they call an Osmosian—IDIOTIC NAME given by an IDIOTIC MIND! Why, not all of these mutations involve absorption! How can a label possibly be applied to—”

“Okay. You don't need to ramble about it.” Rojo rolled her eyes. “So a mutant, but not a giant bat. Don't you think that you oughta have something else to call it than just a ‘mutation?’ Like, a ‘Quirk,’ or something?”

Elena curled into a ball. She pawed at the ground, consuming any microorganisms and plant life that she could to try to sustain the Hive’s energy demands. She managed to find enough strength from this to begin pushing herself off of the ground. “Don't talk about me like a science experiment!”

She fell back over and she got those quizzical looks again. Animo said, “You are not simple ‘science experiment,’ child. I would very much like to know more of you. It is a sad fate that possible kindred spirits will never learn each other's ways.”

Elena tried to push herself up and fell again. “We are not ‘kindred spirits’…”

Attea shouted from some ways out, “That's what you get!”

Elena searched around. If she was going to go out this way, done in by herself because of impulse, she was going to try to get at least one word in edgewise. She climbed onto her hands again, considering sacrificing parts of her body just to kill Attea wherever she may have been.

Then there was a purple rip through the air. Right between the inward curved rows and rows of prison cells, a swirling circle of light expanded until several figures emerged. Three took to the sky while a gigantic one lumbered free and hurtled to the ground, throwing a cloud of sediment into the air which vanished in an instant with a sweep of violet energy.

Several people were on the back of the giant, something like a rhinoceros dressed in red plates of armor and with a massive cannon for a horn. On his back was a woman, smooth skin with small scales exposed on her midriff and a man dressed in black with a long coat. A helmet with a visor the size of a person's face covered his head, which turned and faced Elena before he slid off and his boots hit the ground.

The Plumbers ended their stunned silence in an instant. From all sides of the prison, gunshots rained on the six new figures. 

“Honey Bun,” said the rhino. Plumber gunshots bounced off of his hide. “I think we're going to have to teach these guys a lesson.”

“Let’s a-not waste any time!” the woman turned invisible, gunshots missing her moments before she became impossible to be hit. The rhino slammed into the walls, causing the entire construct to shake and crack apart. Jet boosters roared from his back, allowing him to climb up by the rows and rows of platforms, ramming clear through them and sending Plumbers flying. An invisible force began to pick off Plumbers on the lowest floor.

Plumber guards armed with sticks streaking with violent energy came into the prison yard, scuffling with alien prisoners as they tried to reach the epicenter of the chaos.

“YES!” Animo ran and kicked a Plumber in the crotch before being quickly tackled by three others. Elena didn't know what was more of an insult, that they went so overboard or that they didn't even bother to taze him at all despite going overboard.

Rojo took a Plumber gun and killed several weaker ones, hooting along the way. “This is great! Wish I had all my gear!”

“I can help you with that,” said the man in black. He put a hand on Rojo’s shoulder and she glowed with purple power. In a flash, she was clad in dark armor imbued with a skull on her chest.

Rojo opened her hand, shiny metal claws coming out of the tops of her fingers. “Sweet. Oh, how I love a good prison break!” 

Rojo picked up a giant piece of metal and threw it at Patelliday’s head while he was attempting to fight off the others. He ducked and it decapitated Hobble.

She took a rifle from her belt decorated with a shark’s face and blew away all of the Plumbers restrained Animo. She jumped over some others, clawing their armor apart and giving her ample space to blast massive holes in the Plumbers, laughing along the way.

“Why?” Animo said, scrambling around for things to hide from the Plumbers with.

The man in black headed toward Elena. He fired beams from his hands, everything including Plumbers turning to dust and exploding on contact with them. He punched away a guard and vaporized them with one fell swoop.

“You can help,” Elena gasped.

The man in black crouched beside her. She couldn't see into his eyes nor read his intent, but when he presented his hand to her she took it. A familiarity passed through her from the way he gripped her, but the face of the person who it was didn't come. She could only think of the person from before. “Kai?”

No, this was a man.

What man held her hand like this?

“Dad?”

The man shook his head. “Victor is gone.”

Elena shuddered with the overwhelming waves of pain. Tears stung her eyes at this reminder and that's where it came, someone who could not possibly be out killing Plumbers. “Ben?”

The man in black nodded. He reached to his belt and uncovered a familiar green hourglass. “Not the one you knew. I've become enlightened. I am Eon.”

With a pulse of his power, it was as though she could feel the time leaving her body until she was restored to her former strength. She felt another shudder before diving into him, wrapping him in a hug. “Ben! I thought you abandoned me!”

“He did. Eon would never.” Eon petted her on the head. A touch of comfort, while he was blasting to ash chunks of the prison and massacring Plumbers by the dozens in the process.

She didn't feel for this Ben that same attraction which drove her out of her mind. In fact, there was something to him that seemed unattractive. There was a gulf between them, but she knew from his soft words and his hug that he still cares about her. Somehow she knew she still cared about him too. Was it love?

“Ben didn't know what he had, my dear. He still doesn't know what he has lost,” Eon said. “Now you are beyond him. You've found the right one… you've ascended.”

Eon pushed her away gently. “You are the Hive. Show them what you can do.”

The chaos had been fading out of her perception before her attention was turned. Yes. It was time to show them what the Hive could do.

She put her hand on the corpse of a Plumber, his flesh melting away at the rapid chewing and chittering of her nanochips, which returned to her and rolled up her form. She transformed, body becoming a glimmering brownish copper armorer over wires. Antlers grew from her head, just in time to cut apart the armor of a Plumber sent careening hee way by the others who had appeared in the sky.

Bodies dropped, some killed in the conventional way and others drained into husks by beams of black void. She absorbed another one and from there, a platform appeared as she stepped to the air, her arms spread wide. She floated, taking Eon as a passenger on a nearby platform.

“I can get used to this,” Eon said. A shot from Magister Patelliday nearly struck him in the head, but one of his allies was in between them at once.

It was a man wearing metal gauntlets and a helmet with narrow eye slits. The beam from Patelliday's gun absorbed into him, stopping just short of his flesh by a shroud of shadow. He bowed to Elena. “It is most pleasant to have such a… lovely… ally in this. You may call me Michael.”

Eon shot a beam at Patelliday, who dove out of the way and shot several more times, all being stopped by Michael. That was an interesting power… could be useful for the Hive. She would only need to see how it worked.

Another person came in and slammed into Patelliday, raking him against the crumbling prison walls as he yelled out insults in his high pitched drawl. Eon shrugged. “Guess Nemesis has this.”

“Most of these Plumbers are pushovers,” Michael scoffed. Screams and shouts rained from around. “It’s getting boring! Can there at least be a real fight here?”

“There's a tetramand over there. Fight them,” Eon said. Michael raced over to do battle with a four armed Plumber who was already being given trouble by a woman in full body purple armor.

Then, Elena saw a sparkle through the air. A green man fluttered about, grinning wide. It was Charles Zenith. 

“All this conflict! Isn't it just lovely? I've not had a meal this good in who knows when!”

“You can have more good meals if you join with us,” Eon said. “The Chronians will indulge your every impulse.”

Elena scoffed. “You don't want him.” 

A nanochip emerged and buried itself into Zenith’s brain stem, wiggling in before he could properly understand what that itch at the back of his skull was. She felt immense satisfaction now, staring at that face which had annoyed her so.

“Tell me where Kai Green and Max Tennyson are,” Elena said. She didn't need to say anything. In fact, she didn't even need to ask. The information coming through his mind from wanting to know the information was enough for her to know in an instant.

“Chinle, Arizona, and en route,” said Zenith.

Ben would be there too. The other Ben. The one who hadn’t even bothered to check on her when she got stuck in this slimy alien’s gameshow. “Good. That'll make this easy. Now, get over here. Your queen needs you.”

He flew to her hand and she grinned. She could reduce his body to nutrients in an instant, but it would be such a disservice to the trouble he'd caused her. So, she listened to his screams as the nanochips crawled beneath his skin in through his eyes and mouth. He shuddered on a platform made of the very things consuming him, flopping like a fish as he tried to dig them out but finding no success as they stripped away at him layer by layer. 

Only a scrap of yellow suit remained afterward, now no longer worth eating with how much power she had regained.

“Interesting information,” said Eon. He stepped onto what was left of a platform and lifted the piece of metal from Rojo’s throw and threw it back at some more Plumbers. “But we have just a few things left to do.”

Elena evaded an incoming projectile, a flash of orange and pale green that when embedded into the wall revealed itself to be a man scuffling with Magister Patelliday. That must have been Nemesis.

Patelliday clawed open Nemesis’s chest armor and kicked him. He shot him straight in the chest, but coils of wire fired from the Man's wrists and squeezed him on the neck. Nemesis pulled him in for a knee straight to the face.

Elena threw some nanochips at the Magister, who used Nemesis as a shield before tossing him to the ground. Nemesis took to this unkindly and launched him into the bottom of the next floor. When Patelliday came down, Elena wrapped him with a brace made of nanochips and bashed him through a skyscraper’s worth of floors.

He still kept moving. He shot her, blowing away her platform and forcing her to make a new one. Nemesis came rocketing back at him but the fishman rolled and clawed open the power armor some more. Before he could land a good hit, Attea sprung from behind and held him down long enough for Nemesis to land several punches to his jaw.

Patelliday threw Attea into Nemesis and blasted them both. He took cover when Elena and Eon landed near the others.

“We can't let the Magister live. EightEight jammed their signals, but he can easily radio if we leave,” said Eon. He grabbed Attea and her wounds healed. “Welcome to the team.”

Attea scoffed. “YEAH RIGHT!”

Her shoulder began to crumble. Eon said firmly, “You might want to reconsider.”

Attea’s eyes widened in horror. “Fine! Just tell me what we're doing!”

Eon started to reverse the decay. “We are going to release the Chronians from their dimensional lock. With their powers over space and time, every single person on this team will become an emperor of the cosmos. A multiverse under Attea. A multiverse under the Hive…”

“Alright,” Attea said. “Coulda left it at a universe and I woulda been fine! You didn't need to butter a girl up!”

Elena felt a frown tug at her face, but then in an instant this idea made sense. It was perfect for her.

Patelliday crawled out from his hiding spot. Eon and Nemesis aimed straight at his head, but Elena was quick to raise her hand.

“Explain,” said Nemesis.

“So long as we leave without him exiting the range of this barrier, it won't get in the way of my control. We can have a Plumber on the inside.”

Eon nodded. “Clever as I would expect.”

“Team,” Eon commanded. All the others still fighting paused what they were doing. The rhino had been subdued and he even showed signs of reacting. “Let's take five. We got who we were looking for.”

Rojo was in a shootout with Plumbers, Animo just beside her swatting at them with a baton. They both jerked their heads when Eon gestured at them.

“That includes you,” Eon said. “Join us.”

“I don't want a multiverse,” Rojo said. “Sounds stupid if you ask me. Like a movie or something with that Beneduck Cumbersome or whatever.”

“My genius would be wasted in an infinity,” said Animo.

“That was simpler terms,” Eon said. “We can negotiate later. Do you not want to beat the life out of a certain Tennyson child?”

“Can't argue with that,” Rojo said. She shot several of the Plumbers before ducking back to allow her rifle to cool. 

Animo scratched his chin. He met eyes with Elena. It was like he could see that there was something else inside of her. Something that she wasn't entirely sure what it was. He was probably thinking of that mutation again.  The man was crazy. He was crazy when she fought him two years ago. He looked even crazier now.

The woman in purple armor—EightEight, Elena knew from her connection to Patelliday the name of all the criminals she'd not been introduced to—slammed into the ground beside them. She and Rojo blasted at the Plumbers restraining the rhino Exoskull, before his Honey Bun joined in on freeing him. The giant erupted from his binds to join them, trampling over guards as he reached Eon. Soon, ten criminals were assembled.

“Looks like we've got a team back together,” Rojo said. She elbowed Animo. “Just don't bug me again.”

“What's this-a team you're a-speaking of?” said the lizard woman, Subdora.

“Back in the day,” Rojo said, “the boss called us the Negative 10.”

Attea rolled her eyes. “Only ten? You guys realize that I have an army, right?”

“And if we venture to Arizona, my technology will grant ME an army as well!” Animo was cackling. 

Elena narrowed her eyes at him. Definitely crazy. The inner machinations of that mind would be very interesting to see.

“We'll workshop the name,” Eon said. “For now, we have things to do that take precedence.”

The fabric of time and space ripped once again and Eon led the new team through. The ground rumbled under their steps as the prison finally collapsed. Not a single one of them had broken a sweat

Chapter Text

Kai was high. Very high. The sprawl of desert fields went on ad infinitum across her line of sight interrupted only briefly by the road below. When she swung her legs, they kicked the cold November wind.

This was one of the things that made home inescapable. The landscape. The desert. Some people might call it plain and maybe in some ways it was, but what was missing from those comments was that whoever said them never sat on top of a mountain. They never rode on the back of a horse through amber desert only to then need to climb some more. They didn't see the sky change its colors with their progress, or that tingle in their belly that maybe there was something that could be out there which only made it all the more thrilling.

The echoes came and they were Hank Williams crooning on, morose lyrics distorting from the elevation and ricocheting off of jagged stone. He sang of loneliness and abandonment. And maybe Kai was feeling a bit of that right now, deep down, but those worries were gone at the moment.

The feelings in her muscles, still hard from the climb, were signs. Markers of her unwinding. Whatever tightness knotted inside, undone and made into neat threads over which she could step.

Cars moved below, joining their echoes with Hank. Those headlights joined the sunrise in sending sparkles off broken fragments of bottles, she mimed taking the sound out of the air as it passed on by. She uncurled her fingers, blowing the “sound” down the way of the road as the real thing faded and the car vanished away into the early morning shadows.

She crossed her legs over the expanse below and tapped her heels against the edge of stone, shadows of cliff faces meeting the incoming glow of daylight below her rocking heels. These boots weren't the best for climbing, more for horseback, but she didn't climb because it was easy. The work made these moments special.

She stared across the landscape, at Chinle in the middle of those desert hues, and to the rest of the sky. Sips of water punctuated thoughts of moments with people she knew and thoughts of landscapes beyond. More cliffs to find and more things to discover. Histories, mysteries, and touching parts of heaven.

Heaven, she mused. She could fall right now and she wouldn't stand a chance unless she was very lucky. Hands grasping for outcroppings, cave openings, something to make her stop before she landed at the base of the hill. She didn't believe in that particular religion, but it was a brief brain tease as she waited for her grandpa to give the say that it was time to climb down. That hadn't come yet and hadn't come for an unusually long time, which she was grateful for.

Did he catch that dumb alien TV show she was on? Did he understand her embarrassment?

She glanced back, obviously not seeing Wes for the fact that he was down the hill over a hundred meters away, but still imagining him and deciding to not ask him the details. She didn't want to spoil the moment.

Or maybe he was worried about someone else who she'd seen at that show.

She sipped her water. What was left of her sweat was frigid, but the desert had its way of sapping moisture from everything in its proximity.

Her house looked so different from here. From the distance and the height, it wasn't like those model houses, it was more like a tiny thing lodged in dirt. She could barely make out the horse pen or stables where she spent so many hours, doing hard and honest work and having times where she smiled and she laughed.

“You find that medicine that you were looking for?” Grandpa Wes called.

Sometimes she got a pinch in her chest when she heard him call, and it wasn't ever so simple as having an obvious cause besides the ghosts which hung at the corners of her mind. Ghosts from their history, a constant tug of war, going on for years which slowly stretched the fabric on the leash around her neck.

That leash had gotten much longer since Elena left, maybe because he saw Kai wouldn't have been so hurt if she hadn't only had her. Or maybe he, somehow, saw some phoenix emerging from the ashes of that loss where there really wasn't one. A phoenix more ready to be the matriarch who Kai was destined to be.

And maybe that was where it stuck her? She wasn't ready to be the matriarch in his eyes. He proved it through small things. She couldn't even be sure this trip wasn't a test of her mettle.

She just had to absorb the moment and realize that, no, her grandpa was her friend. He was always her friend. Allow that terrible silence in Elena's absence be filled with country music and conversation.

She felt a weight from inside her ribcage, but allowed the winds to flutter it away. She smiled, kicking her legs some more and feeling that dirt rolling beneath the seat of her pants.

“You'll have to try this someday,” Kai called.

Grandpa Wes’s voice was muted lightly by the desert. “I'll remember to pack my jetpack next time.”

Kai chuckled. The moon was still partially out, fixing on her gaze. She wondered about some souls on a base out there in orbit, how things were going. She hoped that they could find something as wonderful as this.

“Trixie is asking for another snack down here,” Grandpa Wes said. “How many climbs do you think that you got in you?”

“How many do you have in you?” Kai said. 

Her grandpa was aging. Over time, his help on the farm has come later and with more creaking of joints. Her energy was a supernova, his was a measly generator chugging gasoline in one of Chinle's nastier neighborhoods.

“I can take about three,” Grandpa Wes said.

Him saying “three” meant more like “two.* Kai nodded and got to her feet, allowing that mountain dirt to cling to her pants. She looked over the edge and could see the signs of his smiling face.

Maybe it was a test. Maybe he was genuinely proud of her in these few seconds, where he could read that she was about to cut her projections in half. Take only one climb down because, after all, just because he could handle two didn't make it easy for him to handle two.

“Y’know, I'm hungry too,” Kai said, stretching in preparation for the descent. “I'm thinking… scrambled eggs.”

“Mm. Protein,” Wes said.

“It'll be my treat,” Kai said, as if she wasn't always the cook nowadays. She waved at Wes before she went over the cliff, deploying her advanced equipment. And started to come down, welcomed by a country jaunt.

She enjoyed every second. A spider on the wall.

***

Kai allowed the wind to blow through her hair from the rolled down window. The sun stood high in the clear sky now, blanketing the warm toned Arizona desert with even sunlight. Chain link fences blurred beside her head, seeming to radiate the heat which gave an even temperature to the breeze fluttering her hair.

The streets in Chinle, Arizona were not much different from any rural town in the desert. Cracked from the sun and age, and some had attempts to fill said cracks, which only left more stuff to get the truck to rattle and make the horses in the trailer complain. Along their sides, you had sidewalks and thin shrubbery with your occasional bird poop ridden streetlight baking in the sun.

Luckily for Kai, it was late in the year and that meant that the sun was not baking onto her so badly. When they passed into their street of small, green roofed houses there were arms already waving at her along the driveway. She waved back to them, having herself a little laugh out of sheer happiness to be seeing them again. By the time she got back from alien shenanigans and hosting tours in the museum out near Bellwood, it had been so late that she hadn't gotten to greet them and could only spare enough time for a single classic horror movie.

Wes stopped the truck and said, “They've been asking about you lately.”

“Moony isn't with them,” Kai observed. The pair of people who were now approaching the truck were siblings, while Moony absolutely was absolutely not with them. She was a proud adoptive parent of alien babies who all often needed to be taken to school up in a space station to learn lessons about their near-extinct culture.

So she was met with only two childhood friends and many less smiling faces than she could have had. Only a pair of siblings, making their way down a driveway overgrown by dry grace. For siblings, these friends were likely the least “sibling” looking siblings who  anyone would ever lay their eyes on. The one leading the way was squat and a little pudgy, sporting glasses on her hooked nose. A necklace featuring a spider dangled over her short black top. Shortly behind her, lost in the dribbling of his ball was the brother who was taller than most fully grown Navajo men and lanky as a poorly stuffed scarecrow.

The sister, Carla, leaned against the window as Kai rolled it down some more. Whether it was she or Zeke who got here first, this was routine. Carla stretched and she raised a bottle of lemon lime sports drink. “Hey, ball?”

Kai nodded with the fury of a thousand suns and unlatched the truck door. Carla stepped back in time for the door swinging open, but Zeke hadn't noticed yet so his ball ended up ricocheting off the door and hitting him in the stomach. He wheezed and doubled over, much to his sister's lack of concern.

“Oops,” Carla said.

Zeke picked the ball up and started to dribble it. It was very difficult for anyone to muster up very much concern for Zeke when he was the kid who Kai met while he was poking a rattlesnake in the eye with a branch. Yeah… out here when you were a kid, lived in the same neighborhood as someone and had a big field to play in, you were inevitably friends. Being a shithead and being hurt were just about what anyone could expect from this friend.

“You thirsty?” asked Zeke as he led them down the driveway to the hoop missing its net.

Kai shook her head. She raised a bottle from the belt of her rock climbing harness and pressed a button on it, soon showcasing it filling through pulling the moisture in the air.

“That's some very impressive compactness to this tech,” Carla said, her dark eyes admiring the bottle.

Zeke grabbed the bottle, allowing the basketball to go bouncing away into another direction dangerously close to a window. “When can you get me one?” 

Kai moved and grabbed the ball from the air, quickly turning it into a spin on her index. “Standard procedure is one per Plumber unless lost or broken. Considering the damn thing can take a nuke going off inside it, let's just pretend I ‘lost’ it on my trip back home, eh?”

Zeke and Carla gave the water bottle even more awestruck looks. Kai felt that squeeze of discomfort in her stomach. It was not that they'd never been on space adventures with her—in fact, there was a pretty big life moment she had in Zeke's truck involving aliens—it was just that even after stuff like that they seemed to consider this stuff exotic. With even something as mundane as a water bottle being this big of a deal… it had a good way of making her feel out of place.

She'd hoped that a world with public alien superheroes would make her feel more normal back home, but a strange feeling carried over her as she flicked the ball to Zeke.

He caught it with his stomach and doubled over. “Oof! Captain Native America over here!”

He laughed but neither she nor Carla did. It was funny, but Kai wasn't too sure it was funny to her in the right way. 

Regardless, he started shooting the ball into the hoop with the smooth motions that only one who'd been on the team for years could. There was enough finesse behind his throw to make the ball bounce just the right way to lead it back to them, which is where the real game began.

Kai and the others scrambled for the ball. Before Zeke could get his hands back on it, Kai had scooped it up and shot it for the hoop. The amount of force was just right, but her aim led it to bounce from the hoop, to the ground and then into Carla's hungry arms.

Zeke leaned over her, dancing side to side and effortlessly putting his feet exactly where they needed to be to prevent he and his sister from taking a fall. “Gimme the ball!”

“Nuh-uh! You guys always got it!” Carla stepped on his foot as she headed up the driveway.

It was true that Kai and Zeke were more athletic than Carla, but the way Kai saw it was that if she just allowed Carla to get close to the hoop, it wouldn't feel like the authentic game that they all carved.

Kai hurried up in front of Carla and shimmied in her way. As Carla prepared throws, Kai was there to let her know that there was already going to be a hand in the way.

Zeke returned to his position near Carla, but this time chose to hover to one of her sides instead. Him and Kai fought for the space in front of her, giving each other shoves and playful taunts. When their arms were raised just right, Carla used her shorter height to her advantage and ducked between them. She shot for the hoop and landed another full hoop.

Kai wagged her eyebrows. She beamed as she jogged backward away from the hoop. “You've got skills!”

“What can I say,” Zeke said.

“No,” Carla said. She took advantage of her brother's distraction so that before either of the others were able to catch the ball, she had it again. “You try to ball with this jackass every day and not get better!”

“Come on,” Zeke said. He intercepted Carla’s throw this time. “I was tryna give you a compliment!”

“I don't want compliments,” Carla said, “I want the damn ball!”

Zeke raised it much higher than the slight portly stature of Carla could reach, even while jumping. “Oh? You want it? How you gonna get it?”

Kai jumped and snatched the ball from his cocky hand. She laughed as she bounced the ball down the driveway before turning in a U formation to get closer. She slipped between the siblings and threw the ball again. It bounced off the hoop and hit her in the forehead.

Zeke caught it when it ricocheted off. “Looks like somebody's got rus-tyyy!”

“You'd think my reaction times would be a lot better,” Kai said, joining in on her own ribbing. Now, there was that feeling that she was looking for. Like she wasn't so out of place.

Carla swept her hand up, knocking the ball free from Zeke and throwing them into another free-for-all to catch it. Zeke was, of course, the one to emerge victorious from that and he landed another successful basket.

“Take that!” He whooped and ran down the driveway in circles, pumping his fingers up in the air. “That's how you get a championship!”

Kai snorted. A smile curled at her lips. There were a lot of things to say about Kai finding competition fun. It sure made new friendships difficult and the last person she dated she wasn't even sure could be counted as one. Not helping was that she was just hostile to people of a certain disposition… a disposition like Zeke's, actually. Or like her Elena.

Seeing someone else showboating gave her a fire in her stomach that brought out a different energy from inside her. She took on that power and the power from being here, home, on her land, to move as smoothly as her cowgirl boots could allow her.

She swept up the ball and she tossed it, landing her first score. Of course, that left her tied with Carla and more or less irreconcilably behind in score from Zeke, who if she remembered correctly was either one or two scores ahead of them both.

Zeke took the ball as it went down the driveway, only to have Carla come in with a clean steal and throw the ball into the hoop. Zeke’s hair practically bristled at this upset. He went a little paler when Kai then yanked the ball away from Carla's possession and shoot for the hoop.

The ball missed and ended up back in the possession of the sibling, who sucked around and shouted out various schoolyard level taunts to one another as they attempted to distract each other enough for one to scoop it from between their feet. 

Kai laughed, trying to pretend that it wasn't at things like Zeke calling Carla a “booger” or insinuations that the other smelled like the gas from a sheep.

She went in for a grab, using a maneuver she wouldn't have ever expected to use against civilians to take the ball and then jump to slam it into the hoop. She planted her feet down beside the garage door and pumped her fists. “That's gotta be a tie!”

“Dude, that's what the hell! How're you beating me?” Zeke said.

“Some shit just doesn't make sense, buddy!” taunted Kai.

It made plenty of sense for Carla to come in and score again while they were both distracted showboating. She tossed another ball in the time it took for Kai and Zeke to swivel on their feet and see what she had just done.

Carla barked out the lyrics to a Tim McGraw song as she swayed her lips on a dance. “CHECK IT!!”

That same competitive spirit went through Kai once again. She swept past Carla, scooped the ball and had it stolen from her by Zeke who landed another dunk.

“And the champion isn't down!” taunted Zeke. He got the ball in his hands and continued to play with it.

“That's what I get for bragging,” Carla sighed. She wiped some dirt off her glasses that had accumulated from drifts coming off the desert.

“Don't worry, Carl!” Kai slapped her on the shoulder. “The game’s not over until one of us gets tired!”

Kai should have known not to tempt fate the way that she had. Moony wouldn't be a parent if she hadn't done it in the past and if she hadn't done it now, then maybe Ben Tennyson wouldn't have randomly jumped into their game.

He came in as a blue blur and then a green flash. He dunked the ball before Zeke or Carla could understand what was going on. Kai hurried over to him, “Ben! What are you—”

He shoved her out of the way and shot for the basket but ended up needing to dodge the ball from hitting his face. “Nuh-uh, Kai! I'm not letting ya distract me!”

“Who the hell—” Carla was interrupted by a tall muscular man with greasy black hair shoving her aside.

“Let me show you how to ball, Tennyson!” The man took the ball and paused to look at Zeke. “I didn't know Navajo came in this size. What's up, man?”

“We were playing basketball with our friend,” Zeke said. He looked to be having a slow time processing things. “And you showed up.”

He leaned over and looked her in the eyes. “Kai, who are the white people?”

“Kids, you really should introduce yourselves before getting involved on the game,” said a familiar voice. It was Max.

“Hey!” Carla shot finger guns at him.

“Look how you've grown!” Max said, hugging the teen around the shoulder. Zeke waved at him.

“How could they not know a world famous superhero team?” asked Ben. “I only saved the universe, like, five times! Where do I get my credit?”

Carla cringed and Zeke looked intrigued. Kai felt the pit deepening in her stomach, burrowing more as it became very clear that Gwen and Rook had come here too. She sighed and she crossed her hands. “Okay. Game's off.”

The discomfort was only just beginning. Time seemed to vanish away as the others hustled and bustled, oblivious to the waves of negativity going through her body.

She found her eyes moving to the driveway, that driveway that had been empty since a fateful and terrible day. Kai wished that she could climb another mesa, but she knew that she would have to take herself somewhere else this time. These people wouldn't appreciate it the same way that she would.

She slipped her hands into her pockets and she waved her hand for them to follow her. “Have you guys ever shoveled horse shit?”

The only ones who nodded were Max, Zeke and Carla.

“I'll give you a couple lessons in it.”

Ben slouched. “You're messing with me, aren't you?”

She felt a slight bit of amusement. It seemed like teasing was their way of getting along… whatever getting along was. “No.”

He still didn't seem to believe her. She would show him the ropes a little, she thought. She'd been a cowgirl longer than he was a superhero.

She wondered if Elena was still one too.

Chapter Text

Kai journeyed down the asphalt. That sun was coming on strong, but the cold still clung. If someone were to see this in a movie, she thought, there'd probably be a yellow filter put over it or heat lines warping the windows even though that didn't make any sense. She heard her unexpected guests, going a little quieter as her feet scooted across the gravel swept onto the road from wind and erosion.

She stopped and she slid a hand into her pocket as she stopped by the shell of a house, its driveway grown over as much as possible out in these conditions. Its cracked windows may as well have shown a void although through them she could easily see the dust film on tile and, more damning, the peeling poster of that band. The sun which penetrated through the shattered glass and hastily abandoned curtains had faded it, but she had seen it time and time again. 

There For Tomorrow. If that wasn't an ironic name for what happened, Kai did know what would be.

It was on this lonely street, framed by expensive grainy fields on two sides and on dusty and pocked roads neighbored by their own fields peaking heads from behind their angular roofs, that Kai had heard words that sent a rush of horror up through her body. Words like a hand that gripped around the organs inside her ribcage and sent bubbles up her throat.

“Dad found out.”

That they'd been hiding them. The damn nanochips. An obsession that ate away at Victor, and also Elena. Memories of the things had their way of unsettling Kai. There was nothing about those things that seemed right.

Yet, they weren't the thing that stuck with her about those words. She and Elena had lost control and that was the end for the two of them. Even though Elena denied it. 

Kai felt her fists clenching. Was there ever really anything there? And if there was, did this sting for Elena as much as it did for her? It was funny in the most unfunny way possible, that these kinds of thoughts will fill your head even if someone might call it irrational.

She took back to a stroll down the road, not bothering to look over her shoulder to see if anyone was following. She felt the light chatter of her teeth, not from cold or fear but from nerves. This tended to be when she got nasty. When she lashed out and pretended that she hated that new person.

But she held it back, and she daydreamed of My Chemical Romance playing through the desert as a girl was rocked around on horseback just a few miles out from these backyards. Cowboy hat protecting already tan skin from the beating of a winter sun, laughs being made over obvious discomfort.

“Where are you now?” Kai said.

Somewhere hopefully safe, she thought. Which she supposed was almost an embodiment of laughing over discomfort. Kai could swear her back still ached from where Elena had bit her. Yes, bit her.

Something about that made Kai feel sick the same way that thinking about those nanochips was. Elena was known to pull hair, but biting? She didn't bite.

There it was… that medicine she had from climbing that mountain. It was gone now. Disappeared in an instant.  She steadied her breaths and she listened to Ben coming down after her.

She clenched her jaw, dread sinking in as she thought that she could smile at his company. Maybe just ignore that There For Tomorrow room, as if that would be even possible while she was only a few steps away from knocking at that front door just like she had for months and months on end, through a couple birthdays and a birth day.

“Where you going?” Ben said.

“I'm gonna help my grandpa with the horses,” she said plainly.

“Oh. Uh…” Ben looked down the road to the sight of the horses’ trailer, now emptied. Trixie and the other were being led quietly into the pen. “You're really gonna make me shovel horse poop? I thought you were pulling my leg!”

“If you want it,” Kai said, “I'm not going to stop you.”

She felt her voice teetering around between shutting off, teasing, and going tight. The words squeezed and she was almost a little impressed with herself that this time she managed to avoid that instinct to fight.

She didn't realize that she was looking at the house again before Ben popped into her field of vision and looked it over. “Spooky. Is it haunted?”

“You can say that,” Kai said, casually as possible.

Carla pulled up and went to say something, but Kai threw out a small gesture to keep her quiet. As much as this was tensing her up, it wasn't really like it was Ben's fault. Although she was still wondering what the hell he was doing here.

Carla visibly struggled for something to fill the void of what she was going to say and failing. She stayed silent and clung to Kai's side, in her own way reminding her of the person whose phantom resided inside that house.

Ben hurried up to the house and he peered inside. “Hey! I had a poster like that!”

“Uh oh,” Carla said. Kai simply nodded.

Ben turned his head to Kai and Carla. Kevin took his place while Gwen, Max and Rook stood silent in different forms of disapproval. “What's that ‘uh oh’ all about?”

Carla cleared her throat. “Our ancestors are pretty clear about it, man. Ghosts are very dangerous. They bring sickness and death.”

“Well, I saved the world. If a ghost wants beef with me then they oughta know if it weren't for me, they'd be haunting space frog territory right now!”

Carla’s face soured as did Kai's. Ben looked overly confused for what should have been at least a little obvious.

“Ben,” Max said, “I think you should listen to them.”

Kai felt her nose wrinkle. Where was this respect for Elena's house, she wondered, when he had driven her and her dad out of Bellwood? Kai guessed she couldn't be sure that wasn't a lie or a stretching of the truth, but nevertheless the specter caressed her shoulders of nights beside the lantern and days watching Ed, Edd n Eddy interrupted by bitter conversation.

Ben eased and he scratched his head, shooting them an apologetic look as Kai tried to not imagine the door swinging open and there not being a ghost, but a girl in a red jacket asking them what the heck he was doing spying on her. Tried to not imagine all the things she'd wanted to say to that girl.

Gwen pulled Kevin's collar as he continued to cling to the window, even as their unexpectedly large group moved down the road to Kai's house.

“It's a lot of outsiders,” Carla said, speaking the Diné’s language.

Kai nodded. Their language, a bit like that of several alien cultures, was too complex even for Galvan tech. Made this conversation a little more private than it could have been. 

“Are you ready for it?” Carla said.

Kai shrugged her shoulders, an answer somewhere buried underneath a maelstrom. She watched the ground, finding that spot of tar beside broken pavement that came five steps before she was at her driveway. She pointed over to the house and said to the white people and aliens, “There's food in the house. Don't eat everything.”

The mention of food was enough to get most teens to head indoors. Only Ben and Carla stayed alongside Max who wasn't given as much of a greeting as he was clearly expecting.

“Hey Wes,” Max said.

Wes turned and Kai headed over to fill the horses’ water trough. She let the hiss of the water fill her ears as Ben stood nearby, squirming in obvious boredom already even though she hadn't even filled the first bucket.

Wes frowned lightly and after a moment's hesitation, smiled. “This is unexpected!”

“Ben abducted me,” Max mused.

“So I'm guessing that he's the reason why a whole platoon just marched into my house?” Wes said.

Max laughed. “Pretty much.”

“Alright,” Wes said, “then can he make himself useful and bring some water over this way?”

Carla headed to do some work on the farm, turning on goth music that she somehow managed to uncover in this country town. Maybe to try to distract herself. Listening to a guy comparing himself to a spider stalking a fly sure had its way of making Kai’s mind wander.

Ben shrugged. He started to fiddle with the Omnitrix. “I've got, like, ten aliens that can do this.”

“Ten? Last I checked it was just one,” Max smiled.

Ben had a big smug smile, like he was either satisfied that he'd confused Max or was going along with the joke. The respect he gave Max back there told Kai one thing, but it was clear that this was giving Carla a different impression. She continued to frown some more at Ben.

“I didn't protect you enough.”

Those were Carla’s words from two years ago when she found Kai in Elena's empty driveway. Kai couldn't help but have thought back then how ironic it was that Carla knew she needed someone like that all along, but that was in the past now. She understood what she meant a lot more now than she had back then. That gorge left in the aftermath wouldn't be filled ever, but maybe it could have been prevented.

The desire for that same kind of prevention rose like the water in Kai's bucket, and Kai was fearful of its approach.

She focused back on the water as it climbed up the walls of the dull metal, feeling Ben's presence as he muttered while going through his aliens. Discomfort sent shudders through her. Here, of all places, to see glimpses of that white hoodie. It rippled, turning to red in her mind’s eye.

Ben was just about to hit the Omnitrix when Wes waved his hand. “No. No cheating, young man. Do it the way everyone else does.”

“Aw, man!” Ben threw his hands up. “You couldn't have told me that before I went through the trouble of looking for the right alien?”

“I think you'll live with the minor inconvenience, Ben,” Wes said.

“What’s the point?” Ben said. “If I can do it the easy way, why go the hard way?”

Kai put her palm up against her forehead. The bucket was just about full. The time it took to argue could've been spent just doing it! She took the bucket and made a point to slosh it loud enough for Ben to hear it.

He turned around, catching a glimpse of Carla throwing out some chicken feed, and something seemed to click in his head albeit momentarily. He scooted a bucket over to where Kai began to fill it.

“Uh, pretty big buckets,” Ben said.

“Pretty good for filling the troughs,” Kai said, returning that same hesitant tone.

“You can carry these?”

“Yep,” Kai said. Trixie trotted along the edge of the pen, seeming to give her a look. Excited for some water after their trip, or wanting to be ridden again? She couldn't quite tell with all that was going on.

“That's a really cool horse,” Ben said. He sounded genuine and, charmingly enough, a little confused that he had an idea of what a “cool” horse was. He moved away from the buckets a little too fast and caused Trixie to back away. “It's kinda shy!”

Max leaned on the pen, putting together small talk with Grandpa Wes before Wes directed some of his attention toward Ben. “You need to take it a little easy.”

“That's what I'm doing,” Ben said. 

Kai carried the two massive buckets in either hand, going around the pen while still keeping an eye on him. That chestnut hair ruffled nicely in the desert wind and her heart tugged two ways at the sight of his demeanor. She said, “He's saying to not move too fast.”

She poured the water in, putting a hand in her pockets to look around the desert as if she'd find the jugs sitting there. They were objectively better for this than the buckets, but the buckets were nearer by. She continued, “It's Horse 101.”

“Eh,” Ben waved his hand. She could see that he was failing a silent test, not just from Carla but from Wes too.

Kind of felt good to see it happening to someone else… as awful as that seemed. Just, it was something that she could relate to, right? She wasn't bitter, was she?

No, she wasn't bitter. This was different than before and that was comforting in its own, weird way.

“Hello beautiful,” Elena had once said, moving up toward Trixie. Her eyes were full of awe, stars sparkling within deep brown irises. Her feet were slow even though Kai had practically been able to hear her heart thumping from two feet away. Those lips couldn't tell if they should smile or stay tight.

“What about all the cowboys in the movies who run up on their horses?” Ben said. “Those movies are black and white. No way they were fake horses.”

Kai scratched her head, remembering the exact kind of thing that he was talking about. She'd had this explained to her before and expected that same kind of thing to happen with Ben, but instead the silence was filled with a thick and invisible cloud growing stronger as time went by. She shared a glance with Wes and realized that she was holding this baton.

“Well,” Kai said. Trixie came closer, twitching with excitement over her offer of water. “.... Those were specially trained horses. Trixie here is an easy going horse. That's just how she got used to things.”

“You've got an easy going horse? Aren't you like a tomb raider or something?” Ben said.

Was he just forgetting that she'd not always been an adventurer? Kai shook her head. “Trixie doesn't do much adventuring. She'll ride up a mountain and stuff like that, but that's it.”

“Sounds like adventuring,” Ben said.

“Sounds like an easy trip,” Kai said.

“Aren't those kinda the same thing?” Ben said. 

Kai put her hands on her hips, feeling amusement with that little twitch of annoyance that helped making these playful teases come more naturally. “I dunno, do you get booby trapped while going on hikes?”

“Knowing me? I'd probably get a planet busting laser pointed at my head,” Ben said. “Or that Thunderpig guy would come for revenge again.”

Kai scratched her cheek. She got the impression that he didn't know how much she could relate to that kind of sentiment. “Probably.”

As far as she was concerned, random alien bullshit was better when it happened outside the house… with a few exceptions. There were always exceptions. Sort of like those horses on TV, she thought. If a horse could so easily be spooked then there had to have been some kind of thing that made them different—

While her mind was pondering that, Ben hopped over the fence and headed over behind Trixie. She and Wes had just enough time to call out to him before she whinnied and threw both of her hooves back. Kai's eyes focused on the cloud of dust from the aftermath, registering it as Ben, but he was already slammed into the pen hard enough to leave a small dent in the metal. The flash of green from him turning into an alien was what clued her in that she was looking the wrong way.

Lime-colored slime coated the fence and soaked the terrain, dripping off of the branches of shrubs and juniper trees. With an odd humming sound, the slime began to convene at one point underneath a hovering disk. Ben shook what might have been called a head and said, “Woah!”

The dust cloud was growing. Trixie was stirring up the ground and sending her pen-mate into a frenzy.

Kai helped Wes over the fence and looked at Ben again, who still seemed confused. 

“She told you to not run up on it!” Carla said. The chickens were freaking out too, clawing her legs. 

“I thought she was just playing around!” Ben said.

Kai moved over the fence, identifying through the dust where Trixie and the other had gone. She didn't have time to explain to him his mistake because there were still moments left where she could ease the animals. She directed him out of the pen, “You're freaking them out.”

Staying calm was important in this situation. Kai moved up to Trixie, barely noticing Ben actually comply before she saw the animal’s demeanor shift. She came up with confidence and lowered a hand to pet it. “Phew. That was close.”

“What do you mean?” Ben said, now already back in human form.

“You think I can stop a panicking animal just by talking sweet to it?” Kai teased.

“Uh… kinda?” Ben said.

Kai felt some of that hot bile in her chest growing more intense. It really wasn't his fault that she'd been abandoned. Betrayed before. Or that she just didn't understand this boyfriend thing. Nonetheless, there was still that deep dread.

“I… uh, wasn't kidding around,” Kai said. She heard the people yelling inside the house, sounded like music was playing. They might've been playing her dancing game, and for a second she was worried. That was Elena's favorite. What if they somehow broke it?

She silently shook it off. Elena wasn't coming back. It didn't matter, really.

Kevin burst out of the back door giggling. “Ben, you've gotta see this! Gwen's busting some crazy moves!”

“What?” Ben said. “Is everybody pranking me today?”

"I was not pranking you, man," Kai said, the chill of wonder from how the hell he misread her crawling up her back.

Kevin put his hand over his face. "That makes one of us."

The alien dog, Zed, was shortly behind Kevin. Wes’s gaze sparkled at the sight of it. “Oh, that's a very fine companion you got there!”

“Oh? Seriously?” Kevin said.

Zed approached Max and Wes, perhaps recognizing something in them or realizing that they both had some rabbit jerky to feed her. Wes said, “We've never met, have we?”

“Guess not,” Kevin said.

“Had a hard time imagining that you'd be on a team with the man who terrorized Cottonwood,” Wes said, this time to Kai.

Kai nodded, again flashing back to when Elena was on the rez. Kevin had been one of the people they hid her from. Once again, the world seemed to love its irony. Here he was, while she was gone.

Kevin rubbed his head. “Yeah. Sorry about that. My brain gets scrambled sometimes.”

“No need to apologize,” Wes said. “Some people are just… sick. And a Diné admires the effort that comes with attempting change.”

Ben seemed to be picking up on the fact that Wes seemed a lot friendlier to Kevin. His lip pushed out into a silent pout. “I change all the time. Into aliens and stuff.”

“Okay,” Wes said.

Ben stretched, looking at the desert with a mix of curiosity and boredom. “So… uh, Kai, what kind of stuff do you do out here? Like, to entertain yourself?”

“You talking me or everyone else?” Kai said.

“I guess I'm just wondering… I'm on a road trip, and I just oughta know things. To appreciate them a little better,” Ben said.

“You oughta ask Zeke about that,” Carla said. She pointed into the house. “My brother's got a hotline to one of the biggest things out here in Chinle.”

Kai eyed Ben with curiosity, which helped to form more anxiety. He was trying to do something positive here, wasn't he? Or, was her gut right about this whole thing?

“Maybe some of that superhero privilege will help you get a tour,” Carla said. She locked eyes with Kai. “Just don't go in half-cocked.”

Ben moved into the house, where he spent enough time being shocked at Gwen dancing and then getting Zeke’s attention for Kai to have a dialogue with Wes and Carla.

“How'd… this happen?” Carla said.

“It might've been my fault,” replied Wes.

And it carried on, private even though it was in front of Max. It felt good to vent a little. About London, the museum, Ben tricking her in Dos Santos, that weirdo Spanner and that even bigger weirdo gameshow host.

By the time Ben popped back out, she was even more wary. Hopefully the change of scenery would help this.

“Go, Wildcats!” Ben said.

***

Elena was inside a moment, inside a house, staring at them as they passed on by. She ran her fingers along the top of her old dresser, imagining the days when she'd pick up her music player and her headphones and play the rock music right into her ears. The days where she passed them to Kai.

She didn't know how she knew, but she could tell now exactly where her old friend was. She couldn't approach. The anger inside was bubbling too fiercely, knowing that Max was there too. There were years of things left unsaid and some way, something was telling her that it was natural that way. She hadn't proven… something just yet.

An old petal hit the floor and she found herself replaying a scene from her head. “She loves me.”

She crinkled her brow. A sign?

If it was, then her mission was still to appreciate this place. To open every door, maybe one last time. 

She moved over to the closet, and opened it into a plume of sunlight reflecting dust. Inside, she saw the red surface muted by shadows. Something identical to the coat she wore just this moment. She put her hand on the shoulder, watching it rock in the darkness.

“You can pack only one,” her father once said.

She almost felt like taking it, but Eon’s voice uttered into her ear. “The world we create together… you can come back all you want. If you please.”

She lowered her head and stared around the room. “Can they really not tell that we're here?”

“Do you want them to know?” Eon pressed his fingers on her shoulders.

She thought for a moment, that indecision racking her brain. She put her hand on his and tried to imagine the face of Ben behind that helmet. “Not right now. Maybe.”

Eon nodded. “Hate… it's more complex than many let on.”

She felt a tremble. He was so much more… understanding. She touched her old sleeve again. A relic, never taken apart and reassembled by her nanochips. She withdrew her hands and she sofly put another hand over Eon’s— her Ben’s hand.

“I want something better,” Elena said.

“I knew that you did,” Eon said.

She formed headphones over her ears, moving beside the vacant corner where her shoe rack once was and creaking the brown door open to the tight sprawl of a little hall and a dining room mixed with kitchen. Everything was still here. Even the framed photo of daisies over the old counter.

“This power drains me,” Eon said. “We best return to the others, if only for a few moments.”

She nodded. There was still a lot of work to do. She turned and moved past an old photo at the Wildcat Den, with familiar faces covered in dust. Watching Eon, her song played over her ears, player destined soon to be returned to nothing but nanites. Blocking the sounds of music floating away from Kai's yard.

Chapter Text

Two years ago...

Riding with Elena was different from riding with Grandpa Wes. Where with him there was a relaxed disposition as though hitting the saddle was as simple as settling into an old pair of jeans, Elena was wide eyed and twitchy. She more resembled a prairie dog than the smooth cowgirl rider that she obviously wanted to be.

Kai followed her down a dirt path, where they were heading nowhere in particular. She swayed with Trixie’s movements, resisting the big animal being pointless and asking for trouble. It would be an imperfection on a nearly perfect time. The air was cool, as it always seemed to be when with Elena. The fields went on and on, houses sprinkled in their spots acres and acres away.

“Woah! Oof!” Elena’s grunts came quietly as if she was trying to mask them underneath the clinking of spurs and buckles.

The hollow resonating of the guitar hitting Kai's lower back punctuated every few strides that pushed them forward. Kai watched the sky, just in case this was one of those times that something alien or cryptid decided to come to pay them a visit. It didn't happen often, but the chances were never zero. Especially with that secret invasion going on.

Truth be told, Kai was glad she had an excuse to not join up with whatever team the Tennysons were cooking up. Sure there was all the talk of eventually working with him, but her place was here. Or in a tomb, or on an alien planet. With Elena and sometimes her grandpa.

Technically, they were on patrol. She didn't know how Elena did it, but she had her way of making that not matter. Elena's grunts of discomfort were cut through by her saying in a wobbly tone, “Rocks!”

Kai could see them too. It was hard not to. The vegetation, low and dry, was scattered on a plain that from afar looked flat. While treading on it, you noticed all the little bumps. Said little bumps didn't compare to the cluster of stone, complete with a jutting leaning and slightly pointed tower, standing over brown grass like an island in a calm lake.

When growing closer, the outcropping looked much less impressive. More like if a stack of furniture was warped and turned to stone instead of a giant. Of course, this was to be expected. The vibration that passed between them as they saw the low hanging platform was a spark of soft relief.

“Rocks!” carried the energy of when a traveler saw a rest stop. Riding was fun, but the horses and the riders needed their time to wait and enjoy the climate. Little huffs from Trixie and a change of breath told Kai that the animals were just as eager as the teens.

Once the horses were right beside the rocks, they disengaged. Elena deployed a portable water trough for the horses to gather around as Kai’s soles grinded dirt beneath.

They had a scan of the rocks, a check for rattlers and a good spot for them to start their rest. The tallest spot was decent, catching them in its shade and shrouding half of the stone beneath.

Elena nudged Kai. “Hey. Dare you to climb it.”

Kai rocked back and forth on her heels, her brows down in confusion. “Not much of a dare.”

When it came to climbing, the rock was basically nothing. Maybe if Kai had still been a preteen and had slim pickings, it would've seemed impressive. Now, not so much.

“That's why you should do it,” Elena said. “Dad likes to say, back to basics is good for the soul!”

She put her hands around Kai’s shoulders and shook her lightly, transferring kinetic energy that went straight into Kai’s chest and then into Kai’s arms. Kai cracked her knuckles and rubbed the palms of her gloves together. “You're way too persuasive.”

“Yet somehow I can't talk myself out of doing stupid shit,” Elena mused.

Kai grabbed onto the side of the rock and threw a wink her friend's way. “Probably what makes it easy for the rest of us!”

Elena chuckled. “Dude, since when?”

Kai was already almost to the top. Luckily for her, that same alien substance that gave her the bonus strength also made it extremely easy to maintain her muscles. Less luckily, that also meant that they were still tense and unable to shrug to help convey her tone. 

She said back, “So it's a little wishy-washy?”

Elena sat on a rock in the shade from the spire, scratching her face in response to Kai. “Wishy-washy? Like Layla?”

Kai sat on the top of the spire. Despite it being next to nothing of a climb, she felt her heart thumping with delight. Basics could be fun. “Nah, more like… inconsistent, you know? Girl's nothing but consistent with that jackass guy of hers. She'll figure it out.”

It was a classmate at school, not really someone they knew well but nonetheless a mild topic of conversation. It was just how things like this went. Small towns meant a vague familiarity at minimum.

Elena nodded, smiling lightly before she popped her neck and scrolled through a music playlist. “Get what you mean. I think. Oh, and Kai?”

Kai was just enjoying the slight change in the breeze when that question mark hit her with a jolt. “Hm?”

“I ever get obsessed with someone that bad, you'll know there's something wrong with me,” Elena said. She chuckled and Kai followed her into it.

But that was the weird thing. Something that undercut the joke. It was the same kind of thing that this time spent with Elena had clued Kai into: humor, but by way of something harsh and on her mind. Elena’s dad was obsessed, there was no two ways about it. Kai could acknowledge this, but what was the point in doing that? To spoil their good time?

Once the laughing was cleared, Elena fidgeted with her music some more before slapping it down onto her lap. “I've listened to all this shit for like a week. Hey Kai, you got something to do with that guitar?”

Kai swiveled around on the stone and peered at the back of Elena's head. “So you wanna hear Johnny Cash again?”

“C’mon,” Elena said, “improvise. Bet you've learned tons of how it works right now!”

She raised her music player and started playing a song. Kai's lips curled upward at her. “So instead of the same thing, you want the same thing but in a genre you hate by somebody who doesn't know what they're doing?”

“Yep!”

No real arguing with it there. Kai dismounted the guitar and stared into the distance, picturing landscapes that they hadn't quite reached. Tséyi, or Canyon de Chelly, waited near town with tall cliffs and beautifully tunneled wind. She couldn't compare to the land with the way it could so masterfully manipulate the air, but she could see her own contribution.

She attempted to memorize the song Elena played, as her pick ran over the chords. A light screw up was all it took to throw things off, yet somehow the anticipation behind those dark, bright and paradoxically sad eyes was enough for Kai to find the idea of a screw up much less intimidating than it ought to have been.

Elena rocked her head side to side, trying to pick up on the tune that Kai had decided to go for. She uttered lyrics, eyes winking with curiosity and uncertainty while cheer etched her face.  “Press your lips and surely you'll stay... love like winter...”

Kai felt a ping, that embarrassment from her tune not being recognized, but the glow behind Elena's gaze sent a spark which overpowered it. She leaned into her guitar and she strummed, the sounds of the song coming into her ears now from memories forming in that moment and Elena cheering her on with that same music player.

"Love like winter..."

Elena nodded to her, and she realized she had paused playing to listen. She shrugged. "Acoustic emo. Whatever works, I guess."

Elena chuckled and she moved her head, spasms of energy coming from the moment and into her legs causing her sneakers to scoot against the rock. "He wanted love, I taste of blood. He bit my lip and drank my war, from years before."

Kai turned her own voice into an echo. "He wanted love, I taste of blood."

"From years before!"

Kai stared over the the rise of the dusty terrain and tried to peer back in time. To think this girl here with her, just a few years before she'd known her mostly from summer visits and awkward soccer games. Now, they shared that chilly soul.

"It's in the blood, it's in the blood."

Maybe it was some weird kind of blood they were bound. Or maybe it was just a song that a couple giggly teenagers would get into. Hard to believe that she'd be so giggly, even as she stared into the sky and daydreamed about round alien faces. Even as her pocket still felt the phantom of the weight of a canister full of clinking, crawling things from the edge of the stars.

"She wanted love."

"Caught ya! You forgot a lyric!"

"Nah, girlfriend, I improvised it!" Elena winked, her pouty lips curling up.

And it snowballed, them picking their songs and ignoring how bad Kai was playing as the desert was filled with laughter, jokes, and an unidentifiable joyful core.

With a beep of a device and a punchy huff from Trixie, they got to their feet. This joy would serve them well as they headed to Zeke's game.

Chapter Text

Present day…

The water’s clattering against itself came to a stop with the squeak of a handle. Kai threw what was in the sink’s basin straight into her face. Ice cold, just like she needed it to be. The water fell down her chin, making ripples across the stagnant surface as she stared herself in the eye from the mirror.

Elena had been like a winter. It came in, blanketing you with its glittering presence. Warming you with the hot cocoa and a hug of a jacket. Then, it quietly slipped away and you knew that those things would never seem quite the same after all that had slipped away.

A shudder ripped up through her body. Kai sighed, slapping herself in the face. She uttered encouragement to herself. 

This was the Wildcat Den, the biggest building in Chinle. More specifically, the bathroom of the biggest building in Chinle. Students for years and years came through this exact spot, dripping sweat during games going horribly wrong or for simple breaks. Through this exact mirror, they roused themselves up in privacy from the others who they didn't wish to see their inner thoughts. It was tradition, even if it were a very new tradition. It was one she needed to follow.

She cringed and leaned over the sink, biting back her nerves and trying to free them from giving birth to frustration once again. A Navajo wasn't ever supposed to be angry. It was unproductive, as was taught. That never seemed to help Kai one bit.

A Navajo was also supposed to learn by trying. By making an effort. And oh boy, was this one hell of an effort. Hopefully that would help her instead of bite her like it had several times in the past.

“Alright,” she encouraged herself, “it's just new people. No big deal, right?”

Were Ben and Rook really “new” when she'd been on several adventures with them? Were Gwen or Max when she'd talked to them years ago and solved a werewolf mystery with them? If they weren't, it sure didn't feel like it. 

“They came here,” Wes said. He was over her belt’s communicator. Him and Max stayed back at the house to catch up but Kai knew when her grandpa was annoyed. He had clearly been annoyed when he saw Ben's small army and even more so when he could tell that Kai hadn't been why it came marching through their door, taking what it wanted and spooking the horses.

Carla, a hologram leaning against a stall, put it succinctly. “This outsider seems like an absolute fathead.”

“Agreed,” Wes said. He had seemed a little warm to Ben during limited interactions, but as everything happened back there and Ben managed to squeeze in bragging about holding the Big Bang before they left… Wes became a lot less impressed. Kai was fairly confident that he left that interaction only caring for Kevin's dog, especially with the way that he pushed for it to stay behind.

“You said he didn't even care about the museum out in Bellwood. You love that place!” said Carla. 

Kai felt a frown pull at her face. To her head came that image of Ben yawning and moaning while standing in the middle of beautiful relics of history telling the stories of the way that people were connected even when they were from different planets. She'd been so excited to host that tour that day. To share what they'd found and to see other people who were like her. Then, he botched the moment. 

She splashed more water into her face and muttered more encouragement. “Outsiders. Outsiders. Nobody's really an outsider. There's always something that can connect us.”

“But they are, Kai,” Wes said. “Many from the outside have made a point that they will ever truly understand us. And he's already stepped on that line.”

Kai sighed. “I can use a little more optimism here, you know? A little something to help me go out there? That would be really great.”

“We're just worried about you,” Carla said. Her voice had gone a little hoarse. “I like them a little too, if it helps. You sure you don't want the redhead instead?”

“She's taken,” Kai said. “Besides, I haven't gotten to know her! And I’m not into women!”

“You liked Moony.”

“But she’s an alien,” Kai said. “Gets weird when you bring that kind of thing in. And you totally misread that, anyhow.”

“Guess so,” Carla's hologram rubbed her head. She had someone else that she was going to mention, but Elena went without mentioning. It wasn't like “that” anyway. “Just… be careful.”

“Max wouldn't have an issue if you told him to leave,” Wes said. “Ben can pick you up on this road trip when you are out on an adventure of your own.”

Kai felt a stirring in her stomach. She imagined worlds bathed in alien sunlight, deserts made of azure grains of sand holding tombs with symbols shaped like men. She thought of dusty tombs and climbs on canyon walls.

“I'm done with being rude to Ben,” Kai said. “Not that it matters anyway.  For all I know, that douche Spanner will come and force our mouths together.”

“Some jerks from the future and a gameshow are not how you find Mr. Right,” Carla said.

Kai nodded. If she ever saw Spanner or Charles Zenith again, she'd give them a piece of her mind. Maybe she wouldn't be doubting this trip of a lifetime _as_ much if that clown car hadn't rolled up. Zombozo and his band of mutants were more tolerable clowns, and the last time she saw them she'd nearly had her head caved in.

Kai sighed. “It's not just the circus show. Think there might be a nugget in there of a decent man.”

“You've seen good nuggets before,” Carla said. “Just don't end up pregnant and with a moron riding off into the sunset bragging.”

“Ha ha,” Kai said, “very funny.”

Those uninitiated wouldn't guess that this was a call back to the time Kai had questioned Carla's taste in men. Carla laughed a little. “Uh… you know what? Might be worth it? Same way as a rollercoaster is. You know, so long as you don't get pregnant. Like I said.”

“Some sagely advice,” Kai said, “I'm sure that a white person is itching to put it on a spiritual postcard to get more tourists dumping crap in Tséyi’.”

Carla could barely suppress her laughter when she said, “Thanks. I'll see you in town.”

The hologram disappeared.

Wes said, “I know there's a weight on your shoulders, Kai. I just want you to know that you are much wiser than you were those days. I love you.”

The transmission ended.

Kai wiped her face and reached into one of the bags on her rock climbing harness to take out some eyeshadow. She reapplied it her best and then gawked at herself again.

She'd stood in here so many times during so many basketball games. She could hear her voice and Elena’s echoing in here as a boxy black jersey draped over her body and she made some weird kissy faces. A warm memory in a stinky place that needed its lights changed at that moment.

She was really going to do this, huh?

That was one hell of a bold prediction she made back there; “Done being rude to Ben”? She felt tired of it, but everyone was going to be rude every now and then. She guessed she was just going to have to be that person who overpromised. 

She slipped her gloves back on. “Alright… Ready or not, here I come.”

She stepped out into the stadium. Before her were rows and rows of seats, an expanse of yellow and black leading down to a glossy floor where upon she could see the others. Over the loudspeakers, she could hear There For Tomorrow.

Kai cocked her head and looked back, feeling the hollow echoes inside the near empty building sink into her. She breathed, grasping for a reasonable explanation.

That song… she knew it too well. It was on repeat during their days that they escaped to canyons and tops of water towers, and days sitting by the skatepark or playing soccer in the field of dirt. She also knew that jacket too well, a sign given years ago that Victor had finally got Elena that motorcycle she’d craved so badly.

It was also the same jacket she was wearing when that happened. When they got into a brief, gut-turning scuffle. Where Elena didn't act like the version of herself who Kai knew.

She saw the red amongst the rows of yellow and black, not seeing the figure’s face concealed underneath a drape of black hair and hands forming a pyramid pressed against her forehead. 

Kai hurried over to the ege of the seats and pointed across the stadium at the sitting figure. Her heart raced and she wasn't sure if it was from excitement or it was from resentment. All she knew was that her fingers bent the hard seats as she gripped their upper edges. She wanted to call out to Elena, but Ben and the others were shooting hoops with Zeke below and seeming to have a good time. She couldn't let her drama get in the way of that. Not anymore.

So she took to a sprint, rounding around the upper part of the arena. Elena hadn't been superhuman the same way that Kai was. She wouldn't be able to outrun Kai the normal way.

Down below, four pale faces and one brown shot up to look at Kai. Kai locked eyes with Ben several stories down, his eyebrows raised and jaw slack with confusion. “What?”

She didn't have time for him to give her any dopey expressions and ask her questions. She had the rest of the day as a tour guide—the irony wasn't lost on her that now he wanted to be a part of her tours—now, she had to get to the bottom of this mystery. Maybe it'd end with a hug, but given last time it was probably going to end with more unease.

Ben passed the ball over to Kevin and started up the nearest steps. His attention was turned to something else, something that Kai only caught a glimpse of as she moved past rectangular pillar after pillar. The floor squeaked underneath the soles of her boots. The reflections on the tiles were afterthoughts.

Elena had changed positions now. She was headed down the seats and instead of using the stairs, she was jumping down as many rows as she could. That was a clever way of getting ahead of somebody much faster than her. Just about what Kai would have expected out of her. But, Kai had been trained the same way. Even Ben had.

Kai grabbed the railings on top of the nearest set of seats and she vaulted herself over them, landing a good six rows down before she started to hop the rest of the seats. Across from her, moving in the two o'clock position was Elena doing very much the same movements.

The others had their attention turned now, but where Elena had been was now nothing. Kai and Ben stopped.

“What are you running for?” Kevin raised the ball over his head. “You can't just leave a guy holding the ball without an explanation! It’s bad manners, man!”

Gwen crossed her arms with a small grin. “Since when do you care about manners?”

“What? I care about manners,” Kevin said. He put his fist on his hip and puffed his chest out. “Street b-ball has a very complicated list of etiquette.”

“This isn’t street basketball,” Kai said. “It's rez ball.”

“There a difference?”

“I don't know. I don't play with strangers in New York or whatever!” She headed over to the staircase, still having a gaze at where Elena had once been. Was Ben seeing the same thing as her? There wasn't any telling unless she asked him.

It seemed silly that he would know Elena. That would be one hell of a coincidence, right? But not really . She was the daughter of Max's favorite pupil and Max was her grandpa's friend. If anything, Ben was more directly tied with her.

They kept sharing glances with one another as she made her way down each individual step. Ben's eyebrow was cocked like a cartoon character. His lips had that same catlike smile, but there was something ambiguous about it. Something off to it that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

The air was heavier, one that made her back arch a little. There was a presence that she could feel and that could mean some very unpleasant things in her culture.

She and Ben met back on the court after she finished climbing the stairs. She grabbed him by the wrist and was direct about it, albeit hushed. “Did you see Elena just now?”

“If we're talking Elena Validus,” said Ben. “Then yeah, I did… wait, how do you know her? Is she your ex girlfriend or something? Is that why you guys pulled each other's hair?”

He seemed a little too excited about the prospect. “No. We were close but I never… dated her, I guess.”

“Me too,” Ben said. “Awesome girl. First one I met who could score a soccer goal from across the field with, like, a million people between her and it. Oh, do you play soccer?”

“Not really. I'm bad at it,” Kai said. She had to admit she expected this conversation to be a lot tenser. The only things hinting so far that it was heavy were that lingering presence and them keeping their speech as whispers.

“Didn't know that she'd be friends with someone who didn't do soccer,” Ben said.

“Sounds like you need to get to know the people around you better.” Kai knew that she sounded blunt. Rude, even. That was one of the things that got people annoyed with her. Even with her friends.

Ben's eyebrows crunched together. “What's that supposed to—”

Kai readied for an argument and was instead met with him sighing.

Ben kicked his foot up against the floor. “—you know what? You're right.”

Kai wasn't expecting that one. The guy was a literal superhero. It wasn't exactly like he was afraid of conflict. The mysteries here went both ways, no doubts about it. 

Recognizing that didn't mean that she wasn't properly thrown off. She could only muster an, “Um, thanks?”

“Don't thank me, man! I'm still tryna figure this out without my brain short circuiting even more!”

Kai slid her fingers into her pockets and tilted her head. “If it helps, we met because her dad knew my grandpa.”

It was a good sign that Ben was still not all too bright that he took a while to piece together what the bridge between those two people was. “Oh! Because of my grandpa! It's all about grandpas! Grandpas all the way up!”

Here he was having his eureka moment while Kai stared straight through his head. The rows of seats spoke to her of times gone by and whispered new questions onto her ear. She really wanted to know exactly why Ben hadn't even bothered to try to speak with Elena back at the gameshow. Even she tried to say something before she got blown off.

That Elena back at the show was strange, almost as strange as this one that they had just seen. Kai was of the mind that if she hadn't seen that red motorcycle jacket then she wouldn't have recognized either girl. It was more like a vestige of things that had come by and maybe, just maybe, Ben had sensed it both times. Or maybe he was just scared of getting in too deep with someone.

She could relate.

“That was creepy, don't you think?”

“Now that you mention it,” said Ben, “that was definitely creepy. She vanished like she just shrank out of existence or she dissolved while I wasn't looking right at her.”

“Or like she's a ghost?”

Ben scratched his head. “Elena isn't dead.”

“She might not need to be dead,” Kai said. “People can haunt you. Even if they're away there somewhere, still breathing. Maybe especially, when they abandon you. Their breath in a way spits out that miasma that's left out into the world.”

Ben chuckled. “Dude, now you're creeping me out. I thought you were going to say that it was an Ectonurite hypnotizing us or something.”

“Guess we can't rule out supervillains,” Kai said. 

She felt a little annoyed. Can this guy ever be serious? How well did he even know Elena? Did he not try to talk to her during Charles Zenith’s show just because he didn't care too much about her?

His explanation about it being a supervillain would explain things. Or even a ghost who had found its way lurking these parts. 

“It has to be somebody playing mind tricks,” Ben said. “Better keep an eye out for anything weird. They've got a hold of our brains, but Gwen oughta be able to fix it if we need it.”

She patted the gun strapped over her backside. His was a simpler explanation that only needed physical action to deal with. In other words, sounded way better than tackling all those vestiges left around.

“Your sweet nothings done with yet?” said Kevin. He threw the ball their way and Kai caught it before it could hit Ben in the face.

“What's that even supposed to mean?” Ben tried to grab the ball from Kai while looking at Kevin, but this was a very dumb move. Kai was able to avoid him and make her way to the basket that the school had deployed for their visitors.

“Come on,” Zeke said, “toss me!”

“Since when are we on a team?”

“There's me, you, and your bilagaána boyfriend,” Zeke said, “and then there's Blue Guy, Gwen, and the headbanger on the other team! We're even!”

Gwen shook her head. “I'm not the sporty type. I was just subbing in until Kai got back.”

Gwen floated up to one of the seats and her glasses fell off. She scoffed and took another pair from thin air, one that looked a lot more flattering. A book glimmered into existence.

“Damn she's good,” Kai said. She shot for the hoop but it was even harder in here to score a goal than the driveway.

Rook grabbed the ball and threw it into the net. He chuckled. “This is kind of entertaining.”

Kai and Zeke ran for the ball, colliding with each other before Zeke fell on his tailbone. “Ay! Watch out! Teamwork, remember?”

“It's every man for themselves,” Kai said. “Teammate bounced, remember? It's no longer even!”

“But we're up against two mega beefcakes, man,” Zeke said. 

To emphasize this, Ben was getting creamed by both Rook and Kevin. They both at least had a foot on him and a lot of coordination even though Kai had just introduced Rook to the game this morning. They bounced poor Ben between their chests, stealing the ball from one another.

Ben fell to the floor. “Alright guys, now you're asking for it!”

He readied the Omnitrix and crossed his fingers as the feet of the other guys scooted around him. “Please don't be Way Big!”

“Way Big?” Zeke jumped. “No ‘way big’ anythings!”

Ben hit the watch and Kai felt herself cringe worse than the time that she had tasted the most sour curry in the galaxy. On top of that, there was a distinct chance she was going to get crushed too. She covered her body and waited for Ben's impatience to be the literal death of her.

Something whished over her head, pulling her hair by its air current. She uncovered her eyes before burying her face in her palms.

“HUMUNGOUSAUR!”

Kai felt a yell tugging at her. “That's just as bad as Way Big!”

“I'm not caving in the roof, am I?” Ben said. He pumped his fists as he spun around in the court, nearly toppling seats as he swept around and dragged heavy amounts of still air as he did so. His leathery scales and overlaying armor plates rippled as he laughed and plucked the ball up, taking Rook with him.

“Dude, what the hell?” said Zeke. He ducked underneath Humungousaur’s elbow. “Get that way big thing outta here!”

Ben yanked Rook away from the ball and gingerly planted it down the hoop. “He scores a HUMONGOUS goal! The crowd goes wild! Ben Tennyson does it again!”

Kai scrambled away from him before her head nearly got whacked by his long flat tail as he didn't pay attention. She climbed up a few nearby steps. If Elena was seeing this, she was probably seeing how dopey Ben could be.

Kevin coated himself in some of the floor's material. “Humungousaur is cheating, man!”

“You're just mad because you're vertically challenged,” Ben said as he bonked Kevin on the head with a finger.

“Ugh. Are you ten years old?” scowled Gwen.

Who was Kai kidding? Elena would've been laughing her butt off and throwing popcorn. Kai was the one who was annoyed… but was a competition, right? What did that make her want to do?

Kai called to the others. “I figured it out! How about it's everybody vs Humungousaur?”

Ben turned his head, “Huh?” 

The only one who seemed to hate this idea was Zeke, who ran to the edge of the court. “Yo, screw that! I'm not fighting a dinosaur!”

“Your loss,” said Kai. She jumped onto Humungousaur's tail and grabbed onto the big green sash that hung from his shoulders across his back, using that to climb up and take the ball from Ben’s surprised palm and vault into a score.

Ben lightly scooted her back as she landed for the ball, scooping it with his other hand just as Kevin came by to grab the ball and throw it for the hoop. Ben tried to intercept but Rook tethered himself to Ben's tree trunk arm and swung in to assure a dunk before landing and shooting the ball straight back into the basket.

Kai shot Ben's toe as she tried for the next grab. The court was too small for him to be much more than stationary. She took the ball, threw it over to Kevin, who then scored.

“No fair!” Ben accidentally flattened Kevin onto his back with a swipe of his arm.

“Oh, you're going down, dude,” Kevin said. He went for the ball, Ben stopped him, and Kai hopped over Humungousaur's paw to then throw her first real score.

She shuddered with joy and adrenaline. Her thoughts of Elena were almost gone, but the idea of her in those stands and cheering just like during a real Wildcats game only enhanced this experience. She'd hit the big leagues! No whooping in the stands this time—though that was fun too!

Ben grabbed her by the nape of her shirt and sat her away from the basket. She fell on her butt, but was still laughing because all this did was give Ben a disadvantage. Rook and Kevin scored several times in the time it took for him to clown around.

Gwen drew the score in the air with pink energy. Her eyes glittered. “Looks like you're losing, cuz. Not bad for the ‘vertically disinclined.’ ”

“You can fly! How about you go and even the odds?”

Gwen shot back, “Why don't you even the odds?” 

“Oh. Good idea,” Ben said. He vanished into a bubbling green flash.

“You better not try to cheat again!”

Kevin threw out his arms and said to Gwen, “Whose side are you on?”

“I'm just watching the game,” Gwen said. “Don't blame me if I want it to be more entertaining.”

Ben appeared as a small white and black creature with large arms and short legs.  As he ran toward the basket, he grabbed Rook by the ankles so that a duplicate of himself could shoot out and dunk the ball in the basket. 

Kai and Kevin attempted to get the ball but were marauded by trios of Ben's duplicates. They threw the ball between each other, dancing around Kai and Kevin while throwing taunts.

“How does it feel—”

“—to get ganged up on—”

“—by dudes smaller than you?”

There was a fault to his strategy that Kai saw through immediately. Zeke came through, ready to play again and offering an easy person to throw to. Kai shoved one of the Dittos in the face hard enough for it to fall over. When it landed, every Ditto on the court yelped in pain and felt their buttocks.

“That's a lame alien,” Kai took the ball and passed it to Zeke, who ran until Dittos gave him trouble. Then he gave it to Rook, who failed to score.

Didn't matter, though. The ball hit a Ditto in the face, causing all the others to flinch and then Zeke scored.

Ben changed into another alien, this time huge and red with four arms. Zeke jumped away from him in fear and he took the ball away, shoving the others away with his lower arms before he used his upper ones to score.

Ben pranced around, shoving Kevin away and snatching the ball using only one side of his body. “You guys can't beat me! I'm a god!”

Rook yanked the ball away from Ben with a tether and Zeke caught it for a score.

“Speaking of gods…” Ben grinned and put his hands on his hips.

“NO ALIEN X!” Gwen said. She stood up and crossed her arms. “That's a foul or whatever.”

Ben crossed one set of his arms. “Since when are you the referee?”

“Since you're doing something stupid? Is all the blood not going to your brain or something?”

Ben pouted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Just about everyone had a laugh at him except for Kai. She raked her hand across her face, blushing with embarrassment. As a finger passed over her eye, she saw another red jacket in the stands. The heat in her face changed.

She shoved past Ben, but by the time his bulky red arms had uncovered her vision the figure was gone out of the stands. “Ben, this place is either haunted or—”

Ben bubbled green. When she looked him in the eye, he was in that werewolf form of his.

“—This is ‘Alien X’ now?” Kai curled some of his fur from behind his ear around her finger. “You ever gonna decide on a name?”

Ben pawed her away. “Stupid watch gave me the wrong alien even for a game! What's wrong with using Alien X for a game?”

“Besides using God powers on your friends for no good reason?” said Gwen. “Nothing!”

“I'm guessing that G is a capital,” Kai said, glaring at Ben disapprovingly. The adrenaline was starting to fade and she was very aware now that she probably was going to smell bad. He barely put in any effort compared to her and he was going to bust that out?

Luckily it looked like everyone else was on her side. Ben threw out his hands and he turned back into human form. “Alright, alright. I'm sorry. Was just tryna play around. How about we go find something to eat? I'm getting tired of basketball anyway.”

“I'm game,” Zeke said. He pulled out some beef jerky from his pocket. “Working out gets me hungry and Carla's cooking makes me barf.”

Gwen closed her book. “Some local foods? There, assuredly, is interesting food on this reservation.”

“There's some southwest spice on this beef jerky!” Zeke waved his pocket snack.

Gwen visibly cringed. “I’ll… try that later.” 

“Eh, whatever. Me and Kai know a place,” said Zeke. He started to lead them out. “Tourists love it.” 

Kai knew exactly where he was going but she pulled Ben back away from the crowd. He frowned. “Look, Kai, you already said it—”

“I'm not talking about your God stunt,” Kai said. She was less annoyed than she expected and didn't even bother to sound more put off. This Elena thing just told her that it went both ways, that she needed to know Ben better too. “Remember that thing about getting to know the women in your life better?”

“Oh. Yeah. What do you wanna tell me?”

“Saw Elena again… just before the game was off.”

Ben’s eyes searched the arena. He squirmed and nodded. “It's gotta be a ghost or an alien messing with us.”

“It better leave us alone,” Kai said. The fact of the matter was, it didn't feel like a ghost. She was sure that was the same motorcycle jacket as those years ago. In the flesh.

She just couldn't rationalize how.

Chapter Text

The car door came to a thud beside Kai. As Ben settled into the right seat, she scooted to the other side of the car and leaned against the door to peer out of the window. She pressed her chin against her fist and let the soft crunches from her glove’s material folding beneath the weight. She searched the near barren parking lot for a ghost.

Maybe this seat was confusing her even more, she thought. The way the door raised against her shoulder and pressed her jacket’s fabric against her bicep. The cold and bright. It was a little reminiscent of an old lowrider.

Her hand slid across her lap, reaching for but not quite touching the handle before it rested. Her body anticipated jumping into to a backseat, but there wasn't the one she was seeking. All she saw on the bleached asphalt were what came of the desert trying to reclaim it: dirt, compacted from the last time that snow covered it and dried into lightly sparkling sandy puddles and thinly layered like a beauty queen’s powder puff.

She heard Kevin laughing a little and her eyelids narrowed as she shot a look to the back of his head through the front seat, but he wasn't looking at her. He was throwing a tease Ben's way.

“Real smooth, Ben,” Kevin said. He mocked wiping a tear from laughter before he jerked his head over to her.

Ben frowned and buckled. He and Kai exchanged a look with each other. If they had the same idea, she couldn't know, but he didn't seem nearly as offended as Kevin was acting like this was supposed to. 

She guessed sliding away from Ben already looked like one of their fights or a total failure to connect.

She also guessed that Ben knew she was thinking about Elena, and that he was also thinking about her. She flashed a little teeth. “So what? I'm still sitting next to him. I just don't like getting touched while sitting in a car.”

Kevin didn't buy it. He shrugged and chortled. “Whatever you say.”

He lowered a couple sunglasses as if this was a big dunk and Kai used a bit of that super strength she had to shake his seat.

“Woah!” Kevin said. “What was that for?”

“Why’s it so hard to believe?” Kai flicked a finger at the sunglasses. “It's not like you don't have your quirks.”

“Aw, denial. Not making it look any better, man” Kevin said. “Besides, the glasses are ‘cause this whole place hurts my eyes. How do you deal with it?”

Kai studied him. Sounded like this was all supposed to be his kind of banter. Not that different from hers, including that blurred line between being playful and making fun. “It’ll do that. I just got used to it, I guess.”

“Crazy that I don't have his problem,” Gwen said. She wiggled her glasses just to emphasize those lovely green eyes she had. Ben's were different, but just as nice.

“It's almost like Kev here's covering his butt,” Kai said.

Gwen chuckled. “Yeah. Hey babe, you gonna start the car?”

“Only when Kai decides where to go,” Kevin said.

“Follow Zeke,” Kai said. “He knows the spot too.”

She sank back. She stared out into the parking lot again. There was something rolling across the wintry blue which she glanced toward. Not an alien ship and definitely not a specter in a sheet. She pressed her chin into her palm and registered Ben doing the same. If his eyes hurt from the desert, he was powering through it.

The little rocks that poked from the asphalt shifted around as the car began to move and the radio came on. Kevin scanned the road and changed the channel to a CD. A very familiar gesture to go with the sight of a chain link fence that passed on by out of the corner of her eye beside a bleacher.

“Yesterday has been and gone

Tomorrow will I find the sun

Or will it rain?”

“Ozzy,” Kai said.

“You know the guy?” Kevin grinned at her through the rearview.

“Why not?” Kai said.

“He was expecting this to be a hillbilly town because of the radio,” Gwen teased.

This obviously got Kevin right where it tickled. “Yeah. Just didn't know there was good taste around here.”

“Don’t let him rub you the wrong way. He's been playing this one all the time since Ozzy died,” Gwen said. She shrugged her shoulders. “Wasn't nearly as obsessed as this before.”

Kai nodded, her lips tightening. Of course, any fan would go through a phase where they replayed things they loved as a tribute. Was that what she saw? A repeat? A replay? A revisit?

Maybe that wasn't as weird as it might have sounded.

***

Two years before...

“Living on the road my friend

Was gonna keep you free and clean

Now you wear your skin like iron

Your breath’s as hard as kerosene…”

The wires to Kai's earbuds carrying the lyrics to “Pancho and Lefty” hung around her chin. They caressed the high neck on her sweater with each breeze that pushed her bang into them. It tickled a little when it touched her skin, but she didn't have much time to fix it because she held her arms for balance on the top of her perch. 

She felt confident. Her chest swelled as she twisted around to go the other way. The metal underneath her feet rattled only slightly, and the links on the fence which she moved her fingers over the top of made little clinks that she could hear over Willie Nelson's soft voice.

A whistle interrupted the sensation and Kai turned her head to below where she saw Elena tracking her movements while balancing on a lower bleacher. “Yo, how are you doing that?”

“I can fly,” Kai said.

“Wait? Really?”

Kai shook her head with a bit of a smile. Not that it was super funny or stupid for saying—it was an easy mistake to make. There was no telling what kind of powers she could get from that substance. “Nah. Just feels like it.”

“You've got a climbing addiction,” Elena said. She stumbled and fell off of the bleachers. She landed on her tailbone and hissed as she pulled herself up.

Kai paused. “You okay?”

“I'm gonna be a little sore tomorrow,” Elena said. She got onto her feet and tailed Kai for a little bit while whistling a tune. “But I was gonna be sore anyway.”

“What's that about?” Kai said. Conversations like this had a way of pulling her in. Especially when it was clear that neither Zeke or Carla were along, which way increased the chance for some kind of alien or supernatural adventure.

Kai shifted over to the next step down on the bleachers before hopping down the aisle between them. She stuffed the earbuds into her collar while Elena circled around to meet her eyes and reached underneath her coat for something.

She sang with a playful glint to Kai. “I bet you never heard Marshall Dillon say, hey Ms. Kitty have you ever thought of running away?”

She got the lyrics wrong but the sentiment was there. She knew it wasn't really running away. Elena loved her dad way too much for that to happen and, frankly, Kai loved this place too much as well to ever leave it behind permanently. 

Kai started the conversation off with their customary Spanish. “What do you have up your sleeve there?”

Elena whipped out something bulbous and with a trigger. She posed like an old gunslinger before she shot the ground and pulled out a pair of cowboy hats before shooting it again.

“A portal gun?” Kai was pretty sure that her eyes almost fell out of her skull.  The Spanish sure was banished out of her for a few moments. “How’d you get one of those? Some people think they're a myth!”

“Yeah, so turns out they're just illegal ‘cause you can only safely use them in a couple places,” Elena shrugged.

Kai felt her eyebrows press down lower over her eyes. “Illegal? Elena, I don't know about that…”

“It's fine,” Elena said. “Dad gave me the okay. He knows I'm smart enough to not turn the fabric of space-time into a wet napkin, or whatever.”

Kai tilted her head and caught the hat thrown her way. “Not sure how to say it but, uh, you just used it to grab a hat.”

“I also used it to go to Neverland,” Elena said. “Guess Dad might trust me a bit too much…”

Kai clicked her teeth. "Did you say ‘Neverland?’ Are we talking about the fables? That Neverland, or Michael Jackson's?”

“The other one's closed,” Elena said. Her eyes sparkled some more. Seeming to sense that Kai wouldn't understand what she said next, she switched to English. “Though I heard there's a way to do that with this thing too. Like, go through time? Pretty much. Time and space, not too different. But it'd be kinda stupid to do that.”

“So… it's the fable one?” Kai said

She didn't want to think about the implications of everything that Elena said too hard. It just made her think of that guy who got lost in Tseyi back in the 70s and popped up alive and unaged. Just one of few things you heard down the Plumber grapevine that made eyebrows shoot right up your forehead.

“Pretty much,” Elena said. She posed again with the portal gun.

"Oh, you're teasing me,” Kai said.

Elena winked at her. "Get down here and I won't have to tease you so much!”

Kai redid her bun lower on her head so she could mount her cowgirl hat tightly onto her head and it wouldn't be picked off by the breeze as she headed down the steps in a hurry. She checked over her shoulder for any prying eyes. They would've gotten more than just a look at them punching holes in reality if there had been any for so long.

Elena tightened a scarf around her neck. Kai recognized the handiwork was from Carla just a few moments before Elena was ushering her through a gap that almost seemed to lead to open sky.

Instinctively, Kai waved her arms to stay balanced and the reflex only ended when she realized she was on firm ground. No, firm cloud. The cloud was wispy and drifted up her boots and high socks, but it sounded and felt like firm vinyl flooring beneath her heels.

Elena stepped in after her and did her own freakout before straightening up. She had a tense smile. “Yeah. You don't get used to it.”

Kai felt like her stomach was up in her throat. The platform—if you could call if that—wasn’t as big as a real cloud. It really tempted her to walk over and look to the ground below but the color of the sky already told her that the view would've been shadows. She thought again about that connect between space and time as Elena circled around, running her fingers through mist.

“Look at the beautiful stars,” Elena said.

Through the zigzag of staircases in the sky which traveled in ways a painter could only dream, the dome could be seen with a set of constellations that looked completely different from the blanket that covered the skies of Chinle. Breath escaped Kai and a cool feeling settled at the back of her throat.

“This…”

"I can't help but call it Neverland,” Elena said. “Maybe it's part of the Null Void. Or another Null Void. Or something else.”

“One of the other worlds,” Kai said.

“An alien planet?” Elena said. She noticed now that maybe wasn't the best time to confuse Kai with speaking Spanish. “Dunno if the physics would be so… wonky.”

Kai shook her head. She didn't mean an alien planet. “Chinle is in the Fourth World. The universe, the Fourth World, the final world.”

She'd always wondered if there were others that weren't described in the Navajo stories. Maybe she was projecting it onto something she hadn't seen, but these steps in midair and this disorder made her think of her people climbing up through the reed. 

Something knotted in her stomach, pure awe that forced her to rest her hands on her midsection. Elena patted her on the shoulder and startled her.

“Oh,” Elena said. “Sorry.” She played a song over her music player and waved it like smelling salts.

It did work to ground Kai into soon following Elena over across the cloud. She noticed it against the unfamiliar night sky: a door. Kai stopped in front of it and scratched her chin. It was attached to dead air.

“Yep. I think I oughta get you out of here before your head explodes,” Elena said. She opened a door a smidge and jumped. She slammed it closed, her skin growing visibly paler even though it was so dark out already.

Kai leaned over as if she was going to have a look straight through it, but Elena waved her over to another nearby. 

“Wrong one,” Elena said. She cleared her throat. “Many doors, am I right?”

Kai's mind cleared enough for her to think back to the way that Elena had mentioned being here before. She guessed she hadn't appreciated just how much experience that her friend had gathered under her belt. Even in some other strange dimension, she was more worldly. “How do you know so much stuff?”

“Guess it's a talent for falling ass-first into wild situations,” Elena mused.

“Then I'd know stuff too.” Kai said.

Elena smirked some more. A darkness crept into all that glittered on her face. The sweat still beading from what was behind the door looked as chilly as the winds of Neverland. “Guess that's true.”

It seemed like a good idea to diffuse situations. “Maybe it's just because I'm a bit of a seeker?”

“Ah, but both of us are too!” Elena opened the nearest door. She tapped her feet. “How about you go and seek this out? Ladies first.”

Kai dipped her head through the door frame and she smelled something unfamiliar that pulled her in. She marched toward a breeze that was cool and moist, but unlike the coming snow from the reservation. The sky was covered in an overcast that stretched along a rippling black-blue sheet that plunged between dark rocks. Kai tasted the salt on a cloud of fog that covered her before passing.

Like a magician, Elena was there after the puff of smoke. She was smiling and rubbing her head, inadvertently tipping her hat over to Kai. “Yeah, they exaggerate how much sunshine California gets sometimes.”

“California?” Kai was staring again. The portal they'd stepped through wasn't visible at all. What she was greeted by was to one side a landscape covered in low, yellow grass and green shrubs interspersed with towering evergreens that peeked over a hill. To the other was the sea, whipping white foam against stones that served as frames for more of those trees.

It was saltwater she'd been smelling. And there was something else. It was like the pinion trees that you reached once you got deep enough into the Painted Desert around her home, but it was different. Those conifers had their own scent to them, familiar but also different. The rocks here had an all new color.

"Yep,” Elena said. “An old haunt. The gang would roll up here sometimes."

The gang. Kai registered the portal gun mounted to Elena’s side and felt a slight pull at her lips. Concern, contemplation. It wasn't only being a seeker or dumb luck that let her see the other sides of things.

Not that it bothered her too much. It would be a little late to cast judgement now. Kai moved her chin toward Elena. "Am I about to meet some of Victor and your old friends?”

“Oh man, Kai, they'd love you. Think they'd be a little surprised, though.”

Kai moved along the coast toward a set of rocks that looked enough like steps for her to hop up on them. She held her arms out and gave a cat like grin to Elena, who grunted and pulled herself up to the side before landing at Kai's feet.

The magic of the air brushed through their hair and rippled their clothes. It was cold, so cold. Love like winter. So many winters to explore.

She sat down so that she was a little across from Elena. She sat her hands on her stomach as something stirred within. "You got a bite?”

"Yeah,” Elena said. She unzipped a small pack she had on her and undressed something wrapped in foil. "Pizza from the Junction in Chinle, but still piping hot for a bite in Cali. Sweet, right?”

Kai nodded and grabbed her slice. Normally a habit of eating pizza was terrible for you, but her body loved its carbohydrates maybe even more than it loved protein. She took a bite and absorbed the swirling stew of scents and the taste. “Only us.”

"Only us,” Elena said. She raised her pizza to toast and some tried to fall off. “Shit!”

Kai laughed watching Elena stuff all the bits into her mouth before they could touch the stone or her lap. She took another bite as Elena reached around for something to wipe her hands with. “This is so crazy.”

“Nothing too crazy,” Elena said with a wink. And of course, she was right.

The clouds in the sky had a row of bearded faces and little shapes made out of their grey underbellies. To think that any minute Kai could feel rain coming from a different sky… this had a feeling to it like staring at an animatronic. Familiar, not too crazy, super whimsical, and also just a little uncanny.

"Girlfriend," Kai said. The sea rumbled to punctuate her. "I think I'm gonna have to pick the next trip.”

“Oh really? Already tired of Cali?”

“No. I love it.” She watched some massive creature snort salty water into the air and her heart fluttered. “Appreciate the journey too, y’know?”

Elena said through a mouthful, "Oh, I get it.”

They both knew how much Elena liked to ride. On a horse that was breathing or was steel. They had the hats and none of the horses, but still shared a giggle. Elena pulled out a camera, “Hold it right there.”

Kai struck a little pose with her hat tipped and her hip cocked before the camera snapped. She rubbed her stomach a little, picked up her pizza, and reclined. “So that'll be one for the road.”

"Maybe you'll be showing it to one of your kids,” Elena mused.

"You saying that I oughta name one ‘California?’”

“I'm not not saying it.” Elena waved her hand like she was trying one of those mind tricks on TV.

Kai felt a chuckle tickle her. “You got me! Now I'm definitely doing it! What's ‘California’ mean, anyway?”

“What does that mean?” Elena said. She looked a little dopey then and it was a little hard to not grin at that. “California’s California.”

"Just figured it was Spanish. Don't wanna name my daughter something like ‘Devil World' or ‘Mr. Guy.’”

A light bulb might as well have appeared over Elena's head. “Oh… right! Yeah, I think it means ‘land of fire.'"

"Cool. Maybe I can tell them it's like Chinle. Gets pretty ‘fiery’ out in the summer.”

Elena chuckled and said, “True that. Personally, woulda just told her that she got named after a big-ass state.”

“Names gotta mean something,” Kai shrugged. She was almost to the crust on her pizza now. "Like, take me. ‘K’ai’ is supposed to mean ‘willow tree.’”

“So your name's been ‘Willow’ this whole time?”

Kai bounced that around in her head for a little bit while she waited to say something. There was no reason to hold it back. “Yeah, guess so. I'm Willow Jr, more like it.”

“Wait, you mean your mom's name is Kai, too?” Elena leaned so far forward she basically was folded in half. It wasn't a big surprise. Bringing up her mom wasn't exactly Kai's favorite subject.

“Supposed to mean protection and strength, like the trunk of the tree in a storm and its hiding branches. That's what Grandpa Wes said.” Kai munched on her pizza and wondered for a second if her mom would magically materialize. Speak of the devil and he will appear.

Elena's eyebrows arched high. “Christ, that's ironic.”

“I've been thinking about a redo,” Kai said. “Pretty sure Grandpa did too. Far as I'm concerned, I'm the original Kai."

“Ditto. So that mean a Kai Jr. in the future, since… y’know, talking about that?"

“I'll have to see their eyes before deciding on that one."