Chapter 66: Sudden Turns
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Morning came too soon and not soon enough.
I'd spent half the night listening to Charmcaster's restless movements on the couch below, the other half aware of Gwen's wakeful tension above. The hammock had been about as comfortable as sleeping on a net made of dental floss. In those awake hours, my mind remained busy.
I thought about everything going on. Somehow, girl problems were harder to solve compared to Avenger-class threats. Charmcaster. Gwen. I didn't know how much of Charmcaster's behavior was real and how much of an act, but at least there was some truth in it. I could tell that much. Because of that, I decided not to call her out on her attempt at seduction.
When I finally gave up on sleep and rolled out of my torture device, I found Gwen already up, sitting at the dinette table with a cup of coffee and a look that could strip paint.
"Look who's up. We need to talk," she said without preamble.
"Good morning to you too," I muttered, stumbling toward the coffee pot. "Can this wait until I'm caffeinated?"
"No."
The steel in her voice made me pause. This wasn't cranky morning Gwen. This was something else.
I poured my coffee and sat across from her, trying not to wince at how the bench aggravated my hammock-induced back pain. "Okay. Talk."
She glanced toward the couch where Charmcaster was still bundled under blankets, then leaned forward, voice dropping. "I saw you last night. With her."
"Well, Gwen…"
"I'm not done." Her green eyes flashed. "I'm not stupid, Ben. I see how you look at her. How she looks at you. And I get it, okay? She's beautiful, she's powerful, she's mysterious and damaged and all the things guys find irresistible. You want to fix her soooobad, right?"
"...That's not it."
"I said I'm not done." She took a breath, visibly collecting herself. "I'm going to talk to her. Today. Set some ground rules. Because whether we like it or not, she's here, and this... whatever this is... needs to stop before someone gets hurt."
"Someone like you?" The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Gwen's face went very still. "What's that supposed to mean, you bastard?"
Me and my annoying mouth. "Nothing."
"No, please, explained Benjamin." Her voice had gone dangerously quiet. "What exactly do you think you know about how I feel?" Both of us knew, both of us had already confronted that, so my rage-baiting question was a stupid smack to the face.
The couch creaked, and we both froze. Charmcaster sat up, hair mussed, looking between us with those too-knowing violet eyes.
"Don't stop on my account," she said dryly, yawning. "Nothing like waking up to people discussing you like you're not there."
Gwen's jaw clenched, but she turned to face Charmcaster directly. "Fine. You want direct? Let's be direct. We need to talk. All of us."
"Before coffee?" Charmcaster stretched like a cat. "That's just cruel."
"Now."
Something in Gwen's tone must have gotten through because Charmcaster's smirk faded. She nodded slowly, pulling her knees up to her chest in that defensive gesture I was starting to recognize.
"Here's the situation," Gwen began, and I had to admire her courage. "We're stuck together, at least for now. I don't like it. You probably don't either. But it is what it is. So we need rules."
"Rules?" Charmcaster's eyebrow arched. "Let me guess, stay away from your boyfriend?"
"He's my cousin," Gwen glared at her. "Ben's not a prize to be won. He's a person. And using him as a pawn in whatever game you're playing stops now."
"Game?" Charmcaster's voice hardened. "You think I'm playing games? That I'm what, trying to seduce him to get at you? God, you really do think everything's about you, don't you?"
"Isn't it?" Gwen shot back. "The mysterious sorceress, batting her eyelashes, playing the damaged bird with the broken wing? I've seen this movie."
"Okay, that's enough," I started, but Charmcaster was already standing.
"You want to know what I think?" She moved closer to Gwen, energy crackling around her fingers. "I think you're terrified. Not of me. Of yourself. Of that power inside you that you can't control… that nearly destroyed the entire forest in a magical nuke to not only kill the birds and trees, but the plumbers nearby too, as well as Ben and me. The Ancient One and the Black Priestess would have been fine. But instead of dealing with it, you're projecting all your insecurities onto me."
"At least I don't manipulate people's emotions to get what I want," Gwen snapped. "Ben's an idiot, but he's a nice guy. I am not going to let you manipulate him."
Suddenly, I felt really awkward.
"No, you just pretend those emotions don't exist until they inconvenience you." Charmcaster's smile was sharp. "Did you know, spoiled princess, Ben has a cute girlfriend? He was on call with her last evening, I saw. Did he tell you about her?"
The temperature in the RV dropped about twenty degrees. Gwen's charms started glowing, and I saw Charmcaster's fingers twitch toward her bag.
"Stop," I said, standing between them. "Both of you. This isn't helping anyone."
"She started it," Charmcaster muttered, and for a second she sounded like the teenager she wasn't. She was 24 years old, fighting with Gwen.
"I don't care who started it," I said, channeling my inner Grandpa Max. "We're ending it now. Gwen, say what you need to say. Hope, listen. Then we're going to figure out how to coexist without killing each other."
Gwen took a deep breath, visibly forcing herself to calm down. When she spoke again, her voice was steadier. "Fine. Ground rules. No using magic against each other. No manipulation, emotional or otherwise. And..." she hesitated, then forged ahead, "no using Ben as ammunition in our issues with each other."
Charmcaster studied her for a long moment. "Counter-proposal. I'll agree to all that if you acknowledge two things. One, I have more magical training and experience. Fighting me doesn't help either of us. Let me teach you."
"And two?" Gwen asked warily.
"Those items you 'borrowed' from my uncle? The charms, the book? They're family heirlooms. They belong to me."
"Not a chance," Gwen said immediately. "I need them. They're the only thing keeping my power under control. Plus, can you lie a little less? I saw when your Uncle stole the magic book. The charms must be stolen stuff, too."
"Keep believing what you want. At least let me teach you to control it without them," Charmcaster offered. "That's what you need, isn't it? Control? I can help with that."
I watched Gwen wrestle with the offer. Pride versus pragmatism. Fear versus need.
"And in exchange?" she asked finally.
"Shared custody," Charmcaster said. "The items stay with you for now, but I get access. At least to the book, yeah? Don't reject this. Please stop pretending your Anodite heritage doesn't give you an unfair advantage in this. You're not some poor human girl struggling with borrowed power. You're a walking nuclear reactor pretending to be a matchstick."
They stared at each other for a long moment. Then, surprisingly, Gwen nodded.
"Deal," she said. "But if you try to steal them…"
"I won't," Charmcaster interrupted. "Despite what you think, I do have some honor."
The door opened, and Grandpa Max climbed in, arms full of grocery bags. He took one look at our faces and sighed.
"Do I want to know?"
"The girls are bonding," I said with false cheer. "It's beautiful."
"Right." He set the bags down, pulling out eggs and bacon. "Well, bond over breakfast. We've got a situation."
That got everyone's attention.
"What kind of situation?" I asked.
"Got an alert from the Plumber network. Some kind of fungal creature terrorizing campers about fifty miles north. Local authorities are calling it a bear attack, but..." He pulled out his tablet, showing us a blurry photo that definitely wasn't a bear.
It looked like someone had crossed a mushroom with a linebacker and given it anger issues. Definitely alien.
"So we're going after it?" Gwen asked, already reaching for her laptop.
"That's the question." Grandpa looked troubled. "Normally, yes. But with everything that's happened, and with..." he glanced at Charmcaster, "additional complications, I'm wondering if we should call in backup. Let another Plumber unit handle it."
"You're benching us?" I couldn't keep the disbelief out of my voice. "Grandpa, we just fought an immortal vampire and won. I think we can handle an angry mushroom."
"It's not about capability," he said carefully. "It's about... dynamics. Team cohesion."
"You mean me," Charmcaster said flatly. "You think I'm a liability."
"I think you're a wild card," Grandpa corrected gently. "And wild cards can be assets or problems, depending on how they're played."
"Then let's find out which one I am," she challenged. "Give me a chance to prove I can be part of this."
I caught Gwen's eye and saw my own thoughts reflected there. This was a test. For all of us. "I vote we go," I said. "Having two magic users could be an advantage. Plus, if Charmcaster's going to stick around, we need to learn to work together sometime."
"I agree," Gwen added, surprising everyone, including herself. "Better to figure this out on a relatively simple mission than when the world's ending. Again."
Grandpa looked between the three of us, and I saw the moment he decided to trust us. "Alright. We'll check it out tomorrow morning. But if things go sideways—"
"We call for backup," I finished. "We know, Grandpa. We're not completely reckless."
He snorted. "Could've fooled me."
****
The rest of the day passed in relative peace. Charmcaster and Gwen actually managed to work together on what Charmcaster called "emotional grounding exercises." It mostly looked like meditation to me, but Gwen seemed to be getting something out of it.
I watched from the dinette, transformed into Feedback, pretending to read a comic book while actually studying their interaction. The hostility was still there, but muted. Channeled into something almost productive.
"Feel the energy," Charmcaster instructed, her voice unusually patient. "Don't try to control it. Just observe. It's like a river… you can't stop it, but you can guide it."
"Easy to say, but what if it wants to explode?" Gwen said through gritted teeth. "It wants to consume everything."
"Because you're fighting it. Stop pushing. Start flowing."
Purple and pink energy swirled between them, meeting in the middle like a mystical handshake. For a moment, just a moment, they were in perfect sync. Huh, isn't this basically Dual Cultivation? Crazy. I noted, missing those cultivation novels that hadn't yet become common on this old Internet.
Then Gwen's control slipped, and the energy burst outward. Charmcaster absorbed it smoothly, dispersing it into harmless sparkles. I made sure to watch that carefully. There was a reason I was transformed into Feedback. I wanted to make sure Charmcaster wasn't hurting Gwen or taking advantage of her.
Worrying was needless. Charmcaster wasn't actually 'absorbing' Gwen's powers for herself, but rather just releasing them into the atmosphere. She really was just trying to help Gwen.
"Better," she said. "You're learning."
"I still don't trust you," Gwen said bluntly.
"Good. Trust is earned, not given." Charmcaster's smile was almost approving. "But you're trying. That's more than most would do."
As night fell, I noticed small changes. Gwen had reorganized her bunk, making space for some of Charmcaster's spellbooks. Charmcaster had stopped hoarding food at dinner, actually passing the salt when asked. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless.
"This might actually work," I told Grandpa as we secured the RV for the night.
"Don't jinx it," he warned, but he was smiling.
I should have listened.
I woke to sunlight streaming through the windows and the sound of Gwen's voice, high and furious.
"That BITCH!"
I tumbled out of my hammock, instantly alert. "What? What happened?"
"THAT BITCH! THAT BITCH! THAT BITCH!"
Gwen stood in the middle of the RV, still in her pajamas, practically vibrating with rage. Her charm necklace was gone. The spot where she'd carefully placed the Archamada Book of Spells was empty.
"She took them," Gwen snarled. "She took everything and ran!"
My stomach dropped. I looked to the couch, already knowing what I'd find. Empty. No Charmcaster, no charm bag, and no sign she'd ever been there except for the absence of everything that mattered.
"When?" I asked, though I had a sinking feeling I already knew.
"Must have been right after we went to sleep." Grandpa emerged from his bed, looking every one of his years. "I should have posted a watch. Should have known..."
"She played us," Gwen said, and the hurt in her voice was worse than the anger. "All that talk about honor, about learning to work together. It was all just to get us to lower our guard."
I remembered Charmcaster's words from the night before. The something dangerous she needed to do. The someone she needed to find.
"She's going after her father's killer," I said quietly.
"What?" Gwen turned on me. "You knew she was planning something?"
"She mentioned... I told her not to. I thought I'd talked her out of it."
"Well, congratulations," Gwen said bitterly. "You thought wrong. And now she has an incredibly powerful spellbook and my only way to control my powers."
I wanted to remind her that Charmcaster had at least taught her meditation that'd help her control her powers, but I had a feeling she'd destroy me if I defended that girl any longer.
"We'll find her," Grandpa said firmly. "She can't have gotten far."
But I wasn't so sure. Charmcaster was resourceful, desperate, and now armed with even more magical power. She could be anywhere.
"Ben?" Gwen's voice was smaller now, the anger fading into something more vulnerable. "What if I lose control again? Without the charms..."
"You won't," I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. "We won't let that happen. You still have me, Gwen. She didn't manage to steal me, did she? Relax. It wasn't your charms that helped you last time but Feedback."
But as I looked at the empty space where Charmcaster had slept, I wondered if I'd just made the biggest mistake of my life. I'd vouched for her. Defended her. Maybe even started to care about her.
And she'd played us like a fiddle.
"I'm going to find her," I said, already reaching for the Omnitrix. "And when I do—"
"We'll find her," Gwen corrected. "Together. Because that's what family does."
Grandpa nodded, already pulling out his Plumber scanner. "She made her choice. Now we deal with the consequences. But first, we'd better stop her before she does something that can't be undone. If she's after a killer who managed to kill her father, she stands no chance."
As I watched them spring into action, I couldn't shake the memory of Charmcaster crying in my arms. I knew it was at least half real. Either way, even if all of it had been an act, we had a rogue sorceress to track down. And something told me she wasn't going to come quietly.
The betrayal stung, but underneath it was something worse. Worry. Because I knew where she was going, and I knew what happened to people who let revenge consume them. They became the very monsters they sought to destroy.
Thankfully, she'd told me her destination. Ledgerdomain. Limbo. And I knew someone who could take us there.
"Grandpa, please leave the mushroom issue to some other Plumber team. We're going to the X-Men."
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Author Note: Did not meet the goal😔see you guys on Sunday!
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