A/N: Ugh. Sorry it took me *so freaking long* to finish this. Had a very crazy couple of weeks... well, let's finish this, and then there's an important author's note at the end.

Chapter 24

Ben's head was still spinning from not only the revelations he had received, but the things he had just witnessed-in the space between realities. But he tried to shake his head to forget about that. "Where's Charmcaster?" he asked. "She probably left," Kevin replied, who still looked a little dazed himself. Gwen appeared to look the least affected by what had just happened.

"But where would she go?" Ben wondered. "Good question, seeing as the house is all but destroyed," Kevin smirked, but Gwen added, "She might have rebuilt it. Now that I understand what happened, that would be no big deal for her-she's extremely powerful." "It's a good thing she's on our side," Kevin remarked.

"I'll go find her," Ben replied, and went off in one direction. Kevin and Gwen, meanwhile, turned to look at the assembled people around the crater where Vilgax's squashed remains laid, marveling that he was dead. "Hey!" a civilian asked, "Weren't you one of the ones who killed him?" "Yeah..." Gwen replied hesitantly, hoping to avoid celebrity status. The civilian however, just shook his head and remarked, "Madness. That's all I have to say."

Kevin was a little more interested in celebrity status, and asked, "Hey! Where's our medals? Our party? Or something? Come on! Give us some credit over here! We defeated an evil overlord for you!" The civilian shook his head again, and walked over to them, asking, "You don't understand, do you?"

"Understand what?" Kevin demanded. The civilian sighed, and replied, "Have you people been living under a rock or something? Well, before Vilgax came, the government had gone down and we were in a state of anarchy. No rules. No standards. People were getting murdered, robbed, and raped left and right. Then Vilgax came, and gave us a new sort of state of control. It wasn't much, but it took care of most of the crime-because people were too scared to break the 'rules' under his watch. People were too scared to do much of anything. But even that was better than what we'd had before."

"Vilgax was going to destroy this planet!" Kevin yelled incredulously, "Leave it as nothing more than a barren asteroid! And you're telling me you'd prefer it if we hadn't killed him?!"

"I'm not saying that," the man replied, "But what I am saying is that things probably are going to take a turn for the worse again. People think that the main gangs died out when Vilgax came, but they didn't. They're still out there. And they're probably going to try a hostile takeover of some sort. Or just leave us to fester in our anarchic state again. What I'm asking you is this: I know you just defeated Lord Vilgax, but are you prepared to deal with what's coming next?"

"I don't think anybody could be as difficult as what we just went through," Kevin replied, "Besides, these are just mere humans we're talking about, not aliens. We usually deal more often with aliens. Whatever comes next, we'll be more than ready. We have powers of our own, you know. If we needed to..." he touched the concrete to absorb it, and then morphed his hand into a hammer. The man's eyes widened for a moment, and then he just gave them a nod, and walked away.

Gwen then added, "He wasn't kidding about the gangs. I met one of them while I was... away from you guys. Their intentions did not appear nice." "Don't worry about it," Kevin replied, "They're the ones who have to worry, not us. We've got two Omnitrixes now, an Anodite, an Osmosian, and a sorceress. What could they possibly bring against us?"

Gwen realized that Kevin had a point, and she nodded in agreement. "What about Ben?" she asked, "You think he knows about any of this?" "Charmcaster told him, I think," Kevin replied, "And right now, I think we should just let them have their happy reunion. Wouldn't want to intrude on anything..." "Kevin!" Gwen glared at him. "Hey, I'm just speaking the truth," Kevin replied.

Ben had used Jetray to fly over to where his house was-and was surprised to find it fully standing again. Gwen was right, he thought to himself, she did rebuild it. She really is powerful.

For a moment, he thought again about Julie, and how much he was going to miss her. But then he decided to put her out of his mind. That's not my world anymore, he told himself, This is my world now. And there's only one person here that I could ever care about like that...

He then walked over to where the door was, and noticed it was ajar. He nudged it open cautiously, and walked in. He didn't have to take long to find Charmcaster, who was sitting on the couch with her back to him and head down. Clearly it looked like she was taking his absence hard.

"Charmcaster?" he asked cautiously. She wheeled around in shock, looking as if she was seeing a ghost. "You..." she whispered. "Yeah," Ben confirmed. "What happened?" Charmcaster asked, still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that he was back, "How did you get back here?" "It's a long story," Ben replied, looking exhausted, "And I think it can wait until later."

"You're right," Charmcaster agreed, getting to her feet, and walking towards him, and touching his face as if to make sure he was real. Then she grabbed him and pulled him in to kiss him. After they broke apart, she then began crying tears of joy. Ben held her close, and told her "Don't worry. Everything's gonna be alright now. It's all over. Now we have the rest of our lives to look forward to."

That didn't stop her from crying. And Ben thought, maybe, that wasn't a big deal. After everything that had happened, maybe it wasn't a bad idea to just let it all out for a little bit.

THE END

A/N: Dang. I'm actually kind of proud of myself on this ending. Normally, the resolution/last chapter is one of my weakest points in writing.

But, brief pride aside. Now a major question remains... as you might have noticed in this chapter, there was room left for more while at the same time still wrapping things up to leave it as is if necessary.

The question is... who wants a sequel?

I'm not gonna do it if there's no demand for it. I have a lot of stuff laid out so that I could do, potentially, two back-to-back sequels. To give a little sneak peek at what would happen: for starters, there'd be two major villains: one from Ben 10 fame (which I'll leave a secret for now) and a villain I've created-which, yes, has to do with the returning gangs. Also, the Plumbers will return, thus providing another opponent for the gangs. Essentially, war is going to take place, while at the same time the gang is dealing with the villain that they've already met from their world. Also... Julie's story may not be done yet.

Separately, I've also got an idea for a prequel focusing on Charmcaster... it may have to be M-rated though (in part because of when she brutally kills a bunch of gang members).

I have a poll on my profile that will let you vote on these options. Also, feel free to "comment" (leave a review) to speak your opinion on this idea. Thanks for the feedback you've given me on this story! It truly is appreciated, and feedback for this idea would be appreciated as well.