MistressOfTime1218: Just something that came out when I was sick. Oh (Smiles) and here's a little challenge for my friend who calls himself FangsOfDoubt2012.

K-Chan: Hi!

MistressOfTime1218: (sweat drops) When did you show up?

K-Chan: When you mentioned he was going to be reading this.

MistressOfTime1218: Fine stick around. Anyway, my dear Fang please feel free to play along. Guess who.

K-Chan: Guess who what?

MistressOfTime1218: You'll see.

Anger. It was a common emotion. They had all dealt with it at one point in their lives and they knew they would have to deal with it again. They were only children, grade-schoolers at best, and were bound to have to come face to face with the unpleasant emotion when they were teenagers, adults, and even when they grew old. You could not avoid getting angry. But you could deal with it.

Kevin chose to attack. When he was angry he took it out on the whole world. He had fists flying in every direction at anything that moved. He yelled at anything close enough to hear him. He blamed the world for all his problems. People were afraid of him when he decided to throw a tantrum out in public. All in all, he was very difficult to control when he was in a bad mood. Lately, Kevin had taken up throwing punches at Gwen, only stopping when Ben told him that punching a girl was not going to make him feel any better. Only then did Kevin choose to quietly grumble to himself and take his anger in stride.

Gwen complained. She took out her frustrations on anyone who she thought to be at fault. Most of the time it was Ben. She would yell at him, mock him, hit him, anything to make her feel better. She liked the satisfaction of knowing that she had made someone suffer, supposedly, the same way she had. When he refused to respond to her antics she complained even more. Her voice had become synonymous with the word complain. Ben told Kevin that she was probably the personification of a complaint had been left unheard. Kevin did not understand a word of what Ben had said, but he somehow got the feeling that he agreed with the brunette.

Ben wrote it all out. When he had first started writing he thought he would be horrible at it. He never did get high marks in school, especially when it came to writing English papers, but he had been pleasantly surprised. The words came easily to him. It was if some type of magic took over him when he picked up a pen. The inked instrument was his almighty scepter and his words were the spells of legend. He had a knack for it. It was a gift, a raw talent he had never realized he possessed. Now writing was the equivalent of breathing to him. It was necessary to survive.

They all had different ways to deal with anger, and each way served each child with the result they desired. When only one of them was angry. However the result was not the same if something managed to upset all three of them at the same time. Which was exactly what had happened that day.

That particular day, a Saturday, the children had been taken to a zoo by Grandpa Max. Each had been excited about acting like normal children for a day.

Gwen had wanted to learn all she could in the short time she was there. She wanted to know everything about the creatures that had been caged for her to see. If there was one thing that could be said about the red head, it was that she loved to learn. A noble trait, even if practiced by one not so noble.

Kevin wanted to see the big dogs, so to speak. His interests had lain with the biggest animals in the entire establishment. The man-eaters like the lions and tigers. The ones that could crush you within seconds like rhinos and elephants. The ones that refused to be pushed around like the panthers and pythons.

Ben wanted to write about them. He wanted to observe them, try and talk to them, and see if they responded. He wanted to see if he could interact with them, maybe even get them to understand him. He wanted to try his luck with the cunning sneaky animals like the weasel and fox. He heard rumors that they understood humans and they were more than happy to prove it to whoever asked. If the rumors were true he wanted to see it for himself, and he wanted to commemorate it with a special piece of writing.

But none of them got their wish. The second they stepped into the Zoo Max had received an important message. Someone was in the facility waiting for him. Ben had seen the look in his eyes, the same longing and loneliness he had seen earlier that summer, he knew who had called. But Max simply put on a smile and told them to stay put until he returned. He promised he would not be long.

That had been two hours ago, and Ben, Gwen, and Kevin, were still on the same bench where Max had left them. And they were all angry. Very, very angry.

Gwen was complaining, Kevin was hitting her and telling her to shut up, while Ben kept ordering the older boy to stop while venting his frustration out on paper. It was tradition, it was routine, it was normal. None of them liked it, but that was how it was.

Truth be told, they weren't angry that their grandfather had ditched them. They weren't angry that they had been unable to do what they had planned on doing that morning. They were angry because they were alone. They were small children, and they had been left alone. It stung, it hurt them, Ben more so than the others. This had happened to him before. The only difference this time around was that he had company. Usually he was alone. He never wanted it to happen again. Each time it did, it hurt that much more.

People had passed them by. Families, couples, individuals, had glanced their way. They had this look in their eyes, this significant amount of pity, that just made Ben sick to his stomach. He did not want anyone to pity him. Pity was something given to you by people above you so you don't feel so small. It was cruel to pity someone. Ben did not like cruelty, especially when it was aimed straight at him.

There was one person, though, who had stopped by the trio every few minutes who seemed different from the rest of the people. This person had hair that reminded him of the sun, with a pair of eyes that rivaled the beauty of sapphires. Those eyes held a different look in them than the others who had passed by. His eyes held nothing like pity. What they held was understanding. It was almost as if he had been through the same. Like this had happened to him too.

The teenager, he could not have been any older than 15, was accompanied by two others. One reminded him of Kevin. It was a boy, tall with dark hair and eyes. There was something about him, something about the way he moved, that reminded Ben of a snake. The other was a girl. She looked like some wannabe rocker with bubblegum pink hair. Her eyes were always focused on the boy with dark hair and for some reason Ben did not like her. She reminded him to much of Gwen.

At one point during the day Ben noticed a strange weight on his head. A chin had been placed atop his skull and was now was resting on his soft brown hair, with its owners eyes scanning through what he had written. The feeling was not uncomfortable. In fact it was almost soothing. He vaguely heard Kevin and Gwen trying to get Ben to tell the guy to get off, but the brunette saw no reason to. He wasn't hurting anybody.

"You're good." Ben looked up to see it was the blond boy, the same one that had been passing by them the entire day, who had chosen to come over to take a peak at what Ben had been writing. "You seem pretty mad though."

Emeralds met sapphires. "I kind of am."

The blond smiled. "You guys hungry?"

Ben's stomach growled, causing the young boy to blush. "A little."

The blond held out his hand. "I'll get you something to eat. My treat."

Ben wasted no time in reaching out for the teenager's hand, but before he got a chance to grab onto it Kevin pulled his arm back(Rather roughly if you asked Ben)

"Are you crazy?" He sounded so angry, and his gripped on Ben's arm tightened.

"No. I'm hungry."

Gwen reached over and pulled a few choice strands of brown hair. "Hey dweeb, didn't your parents ever tell you not to talk to strangers?"

He glared at his two attackers. "He can't be any more dangerous than you two, Mr. and Mrs. Vice grip." He yanked his arm away from his cousin and Kevin, picked up his notebook and pen, and clutched onto the arm of the blond teenager in front of him.

Kevin did not like it. The way Ben was holding onto that arm, the way the blond chuckled and ruffled the brunettes hair, reminded him too much of the couples he had seen that day. He never stopped to think that the show of affection was more or less like two siblings bonding with each other. All he knew was that the teenager was too close to Ben, and he did not like it. That was the only thing that made Kevin follow the two to a snack bar a few yards away from the bench he had been sitting on. Gwen followed closely behind, only because she did not want to be left alone.

The blond had been generous. He had gotten the three children exactly what they had asked for. Gwen received pink cotton candy and some fruit punch. Kevin got about seven bags of popcorn with three containers of soda. He had wanted the blond to go broke, but his plan had backfired when he was told he had to carry everything by himself. Ben had been given a cheeseburger with tomatoes and pickles with a strawberry banana smoothie. The blond's friends had shown up sometime during the ordering process and had questioned the blond as to why he had three children with him.

"They were on their own. Thought that I could show them around before this place closes."

Kevin had wanted to leave, Gwen had wanted to go find Max, but Ben had wanted to stay with the blond and his friends. In the end Kevin had refused to leave the 10 year old behind, and he made sure Gwen had no time to seriously consider it.

They unlikely group of boys and girls made their way through the entire zoo. They had seen everything they had wanted, and their older companions had told them stories about their favorite animals. The bubble gum girl, as Ben had so skillfully named her, had known a lot about the creatures they were seeing. But there was one animal that she knew little about. It was the ever skillful, always cunning, red fox. Ben had been a little disappointed. That had been the animal he had been most eager to learn about.

But the blond came to the rescue once more. He amazed Ben with his exiting tales of the small creature who stared at him through steel bars. He encouraged the young child to bond with the small animals whenever he got the chance. He promised him that it would always be worth it. Ben hung on his every word. He believed the teenager. Kevin did not.

When the zoo had announced that it was closing the blond and his friends took the three children back to the bench where he had found them. The teenagers had waited with them and the blond continued to tell his young admirer stories of the creature that had quickly become Ben's favorite animal.

It had been another twenty minutes before Max had come running back to the children he had abandoned that day. He was out of breath, and fairly suspicious of the teenagers who did not belong to him.

"Who are you?"

The blond shrugged with a sly smile on his face and chuckled when the old man narrowed his eyes. But the look did not faze him.

The teenager kneeled down so that he was leveled with young Ben Tennyson. "You're a good kid." He told him. "I don't know the full story, but there's something extra special about you." He ruffled the child's hair. "You got a gift in those writings you do and that heart of yours is as good as gold. A world like this needs those types of pure and innocent gifts. They're the types of things that are going to save it." His tone became somber. "Sometimes saving it is going to be a hard thing to do, because there are some people in this world who don't deserve to be saved in the first place."

Blue sapphires connected with green emeralds. There was a sort of understanding between the two refined pools of beauty.

"When you feel tired and think that you have nothing to fight for, if nothing else, remember one thing. You don't have to save the entire world."

Ben closed his eyes, letting the word soak in.

"You just need to save the worlds of those precious to you. Focus your mind on the ones you love, the people you wish to protect. They in turn will give you the strength you need to overcome even the toughest of battles."

Ben opened his eyes. "What if I'm not strong enough?" The child looked back up to the teenager with sadness in his emerald eyes. "I still don't understand how to control the power I have. I…" He could not even begin to explain how hard it was to have the Omnitrix. How much of a curse it seemed to be at times.

The blond smiled. "You're still just a kid Ben. You have all the time in the world to figure out how to control the power within you. Until then, don't be afraid to ask for help."

"That would be childish."

Ben's hair was ruffled once more. "You are a child. You can still ask questions about the world around you, you can still ask about the things you don't understand. Only by asking the hard questions will you be able to receive the answers you so desperately want to figure out."

He didn't care that he was in trouble. He didn't care that he had gotten the lecture of his life. He didn't care that he had been the only one grounded for going off with some group strangers. Had had a good day, and there was nothing anyone could to to spoil it.

The first thing he had done when he returned to the RV was sit at the table with a new notebook and pen in his second the pen had landed on the paper, everything that had happened that day began to pour out on the page. He had felt it the second the blond had left with his friends. Today was meant to happen. Today was supposed to be the day he was assured that he was doing something right. Today was supposed to be the day someone was able to put a smile back on his face. He knew he had to immortalize it somehow.

It drove Kevin crazy. So much so that he finally had to swallow his pride, sit opposite on the opposite side of Ben, and ask, "What are you doing?"

"Writing about today. The whole trip just gave me this great idea for a story." He seemed happy. There was a genuine smile on his face. One that had not appeared on his face in a long while.

It just ticked Kevin off.

Ben noticed. "Don't even think about going after Gwen. She has too many bruises already."

Kevin scoffed. "What else am I supposed to do? I need to vent somehow."

"How about something not so violent?"

"Like what?" Now he was starting to get angry. "I can't write like you, and I don't whine like the banshee in the front seat."

Ben giggled. "Banshee huh? I think it suits her." He paused in his writing spree for a second, before getting up from his spot at the table and running into his room.

When he returned he immediately walked over to Kevin and handed him a fairly large hardcover book with a pack of black charcoal pencils. Kevin did not know what to do. For a second he simply stared at the items in Ben's hands. He thought that it must have been some type of joke. But that smile Ben had on his face, that cute, sweet, and innocent smile, made it impossible for him to refuse.

Once he had taken the book and pencils form Ben's hands, the brunette went straight back to his notebook.

"It's a sketchbook." Kevin noticed the pages were perfect for charcoal.

Ben nodded. "Before I started writing I thought I'd try my luck with drawing."

"Did you suck?"

"I wasn't bad, but I didn't love it." He smiled at the ebony haired boy in front of him. "Maybe you'd be better off with it. It beats beating up Gwen every time you get mad."

Kevin shrugged. "When do you want these back?"

Ben laughed, "Never. They're gifts, you can keep them."

Kevin felt his face heat up. No one had ever given him anything without expecting something in return. Life was not free. He had to pay everyone for any gift he had ever received. He had never expected anyone , least of all Ben Tennyson, to offer him something just because they wanted him to be happy. This small gesture seemed almost too good to be true.

"You sure?"

"Positive." The smile on his lips began to reach his eyes. "Who knows, if you're good enough I might just ask you to draw for me."

Kevin gasped. "Really?"

"Yeah, if you don't mess up my characters." Kevin liked that voice. It was playful, it was cunning, it was almost fox like.

Kevin was still Kevin. He still got angry, and he still took it out on others, but in the end he found that it was better to draw out his emotions rather than violently lashing out. He also discovered that Ben was the perfect and ideal model for any and all types of artwork. Especially when he was deep in thought, mind focused on creating another story.

MistressOfTime1218: A Ben plushie goes to anyone who can guess who our mystery guests are. Especially you Fang.

K-Chan: Is it a magic warrior coming to save Ben from loneliness while making Kevin jealous and Gwen mad?

MistressOfTime1218: (Sweat drop) what did DarkMist put in your drink this morning?

K-Chan: She said it was sugar.

MistressOfTime1218: … Anyway please read and review. And please feel free to guess.