The recently resurrected Plumber had made the sensible decision to fall back. Still reeling from his brief stint in the afterlife, he retreated to headquarters to file a formal report and call in heavy reinforcements. Meanwhile, Klein and the rest of the crew pressed forward with their investigation.
As a brief aside—the Forever Knight castle they had just visited was now nothing more than a smoldering crater of rubble. The exact cause of its total annihilation remained a mystery to the general public, though a certain lazy anomaly might have had a hand in it.
Out in the desolate wilderness, beneath a canopy of glittering stars, Gwen hovered a few feet off the ground. She sat cross-legged in mid-air, bathed in the soft pinkish-purple glow of her own power. A confiscated Level 5 Tech blaster floated gently in front of her. Her brow furrowed in deep concentration as she channeled her Mana, tracing the residual energy signature left behind by whoever had last fired the weapon.
Down below, inside the idling muscle car, Kevin leaned over the steering wheel. He squinted up at the glowing Anodite through the windshield, sounding highly skeptical. "Is this actually going to work?"
"Relax, just trust Gwen," Ben replied from the passenger seat. Then, a thought struck him. He slowly turned his head, fixing Kevin with a dangerously flat stare. "Wait a minute. Didn't we destroy all of those weapons back at the castle? Why is there still one left?"
Kevin didn't even flinch. He offered a shameless, crooked grin. "I kept one as a souvenir. Pretty lucky I did, right?"
"Hey! It worked! Follow me!" Gwen's voice rang out from outside. Without waiting for a response, she shot forward through the night air, leaving a faint trail of pink Mana in her wake.
"Kevin, keep up," Klein drawled from the back seat, his tone perfectly relaxed as he lounged against the leather upholstery.
"No problem, boss," Kevin replied, slamming his foot on the gas.
At that exact moment, the Osmosian had absolutely no idea what kind of terrain he was about to subject his precious ride to.
Two minutes later.
"Please! Watch the branches! This paint job is custom!" Kevin gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. He ground his teeth together as the car bounced violently over jagged rocks and plowed through thick, thorny underbrush. Branches scraped against the doors with agonizing screeches.
Nobody offered him a shred of sympathy. Ben was busy watching Gwen, and Klein was practically dozing off in the back. Utterly helpless, Kevin could only swallow his complaints and silently shed tears for his beloved car's ruined clear coat.
They eventually parked outside an abandoned mining facility. Near the rusted chain-link gates, a lone guard stood watch. The man looked incredibly bored, leaning against a post and staring up at the night sky, seemingly counting the stars.
Hiding behind a cluster of boulders a short distance away, the group held a whispered tactical meeting on how to quietly deal with the unfortunate sentry.
Klein, pragmatic as ever, offered a simple solution. He suggested they just snap his neck and be done with it.
That proposal was immediately vetoed. He was just a gatekeeper, Gwen argued, and didn't deserve a lethal takedown.
Sighing at their bleeding-heart tendencies, Klein offered a compromise: he would quietly rip the guy's face off. If there was a DNAlien underneath, he would kill him. If not... well, oops.
Ben and Gwen stared at him in horrified disbelief. Why was his default setting always set to maximum lethality? It suddenly made perfect sense why Grandpa Max was always telling him to rein it in.
After a few more minutes of frantic, hushed persuasion, Klein finally rolled his eyes and backed down. He agreed to simply knock the poor bastard out.
"Kevin." Klein jerked his chin toward the guard, signaling the Osmosian to flank the target.
Moving with surprising stealth, they slipped through the shadows. The execution was swift and merciless. Klein materialized directly behind the guard like a ghost, sweeping his leg out in a brutal kick that shattered the man's balance. As the guard pitched forward, Kevin was already there, delivering a heavy, bone-rattling right hook straight to the temple.
The guard crumpled to the dirt without making a single sound. Their coordination was terrifyingly flawless.
"Kevin," Klein muttered, tilting his head toward the unconscious body. "Do the honors."
Kevin cracked his knuckles and knelt beside the fallen guard. "Hehehe... Let's see what you're hiding under there," he chuckled darkly. He grabbed the guard's face, his fingers probing the skin until he found the hidden seam. With a sharp tug, he ripped the ID Mask free.
The human disguise dissolved in a wash of static, revealing the grotesque, pale, multi-eyed visage of a DNAlien.
"He really is a DNAlien," Ben noted, stepping out from the shadows with Gwen right behind him.
"Which means we definitely found the right place," Gwen added, her hands glowing faintly as she scanned the perimeter.
"Let's go. Time to see what they're hiding downstairs," Klein said, stepping over the drooling alien and walking straight into the rusted industrial elevator.
The heavy metal grate slammed shut, and the lift began its long, screeching descent into the earth. The rock walls passing by were bare and unremarkable.
"Doesn't seem like much of a secret base to me," Kevin complained, leaning against the rusty railing. "Just looks like a bunch of dirt."
"Really?" Klein offered a faint, mysterious smirk, his eyes reflecting the dim emergency lights. "Just wait."
The elevator finally cleared the rock shaft, opening up into a cavernous underground expanse. The sheer scale of the cavern was stunning, but it was the object occupying the space that made everyone freeze. It wasn't just a mine. Resting in the center of the excavated hollow was a colossal, sleek, heavily armored alien spaceship.
"Wow. That is... huge," Kevin breathed, his eyes wide as he took in the sheer tonnage of extraterrestrial metal.
"Move. Hide first," Klein ordered, his voice dropping to a sharp whisper. He led the group behind a stack of heavy metal shipping crates. Crouching low, they carefully peeked around the edges to observe the staging area.
Ever since his little temporal espionage trip with Professor Paradox, Klein had developed a weird appreciation for the classics. Instead of immediately blowing up the front door and vaporizing everything in sight, his first instinct now was to attempt a proper stealth infiltration.
Down on the cavern floor, dozens of DNAliens scurried about like worker ants. They were busy loading glowing, volatile-looking minerals into anti-gravity hover-carts and pushing them up the main boarding ramp of the ship.
"This has to be their mothership," Ben whispered, his fists clenching. "Grandpa Max is probably locked up inside."
"But how are we supposed to get in there?" Gwen asked, studying the heavy patrols guarding the ramp. "There are too many of them to just walk past."
"Boss, what's the play?" Kevin looked to Klein for direction.
Klein tapped his chin, his eyes tracking the movement of the hover-carts. "That ID Mask you pulled off the guard upstairs. Can you use it?"
Kevin caught on instantly. A sly grin spread across his face. "The ID Mask? Of course. I can calibrate it to project pretty much any appearance."
Klein nodded, then turned to his cousin. "Gwen, grab one of those empty carts and bring it over here. Quietly."
Gwen focused her Mana. A tendril of pink energy snaked out across the floor, latching onto an unattended hover-cart near the edge of the staging area. With a gentle pull, she floated it silently over to their hiding spot behind the crates.
"Get in," Klein instructed. He didn't wait for Gwen to climb in; he simply picked her up by the waist and deposited her inside the deep metal bin before vaulting in himself. Ben scrambled in right after them, crouching low to stay out of sight.
Once the three of them were completely hidden beneath the rim of the cart, Kevin slapped the ID Mask onto his face. A wave of holographic static washed over him, projecting the ugly, pale form of a DNAlien. Grabbing the handles of the cart, Kevin pushed it out from the shadows and smoothly merged into the procession of alien workers heading up the ramp.
The two heavily armed DNAliens flanking the main airlock didn't even spare Kevin a second glance. The disguise worked perfectly.
As Kevin pushed the cart over the threshold, the sheer scale of the vessel's interior became apparent. The corridors were massive, lined with pulsing alien tech and glowing conduits. Once they were deep enough inside, Kevin broke off from the main procession, steering the cart down a dimly lit, deserted maintenance hallway.
He pushed it until they reached a dead end, far away from the patrol routes.
"Coast is clear," Kevin muttered.
Klein, Ben, and Gwen popped their heads over the edge of the cart, climbing out to inspect their surroundings.
"Where exactly are we?" Ben whispered, his breath pluming in the air. "Hiss... Man, it's freezing."
"It really is," Gwen agreed, her teeth chattering slightly as she wrapped her arms around herself. "Why is the climate control set so low?"
The ambient temperature in the corridor was biting, easily hovering near freezing. Ben and Gwen were shivering violently. Klein, possessing a vastly superior, anomaly-enhanced physique, didn't even feel a chill.
Glancing at his shivering cousin, Klein casually unzipped his long-sleeved jacket, slid it off his shoulders, and draped it over Gwen.
Gwen blinked, pulling the warm fabric tighter around her shoulders. A faint dusting of pink spread across her cheeks—whether from the biting cold or something else entirely was anyone's guess. She subtly buried her nose into the collar, taking a quiet breath. It smelled faintly of clean laundry detergent and something distinctly... Klein. It was surprisingly comforting.
It was worth noting that Klein's usual attire mirrored Ben's quite closely: dark cargo pants, a short-sleeved undershirt, and the signature jacket. Now standing in just his t-shirt, Klein looked completely unbothered by the frost in the air.
Watching this unfold, Ben felt a sudden, bizarre flash of childhood déjà vu. A familiar twinge of sibling jealousy flared up in his chest. He shot Klein a pointed look.
Klein caught the stare and raised an eyebrow. "Don't look at me like that, Dweeb. You already have your own jacket." He wasn't about to strip down to his bare chest just to be fair.
Kevin pulled the ID Mask off his face, the holographic disguise fizzling out. He immediately crossed his arms, shivering as the cold hit him. "Alright, we're in. What's the next move?"
Klein turned to the Anodite. "Gwen, can you get a read on Grandpa Max?"
"Let me try," she whispered. She closed her eyes, and a brilliant purple light bled through her eyelids. She cast her Mana outward, letting it seep through the metal bulkheads and scan the vast interior of the ship. Flashes of residual energy and fragmented echoes painted a picture in her mind.
After a tense minute, the glow faded. Gwen opened her eyes, shaking her head with a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry. He's not here right now. I can feel his trace, but it's old. He was on this ship... maybe a few weeks ago."
The news hit Ben hard. His shoulders slumped, and a heavy silence settled over the group. The cold air seemed to bite a little deeper. Memories flashed behind Ben's eyes—summer road trips in the Rustbucket, campfire stories, and the steady, unshakeable presence of the man who had raised him.
"When I was little," Ben started, his voice quiet but steady, "Grandpa Max taught me how to ride a bike. He ran behind me the whole time, holding the seat, keeping me balanced. I was so scared of falling. But by the time I finally looked back and realized he had let go... I was already riding on my own. I had gone so far without even knowing it."
Ben lifted his head, his green eyes hardening with newfound resolve. "He let go for a reason. There are no adults left to bail us out this time. We have to finish this mission ourselves."
Klein looked at Ben, a rare, genuine spark of approval in his eyes. He reached out and clapped a heavy hand on Ben's shoulder. "I've got your back, Dweeb. All the way."
Kevin nodded firmly, and Gwen offered a determined smile. United by a shared purpose, the four of them pressed deeper into the belly of the alien vessel.
They eventually breached a massive, vaulted chamber. The center of the room was dominated by a colossal, transparent cylindrical tank. It bubbled with a viscous, glowing red fluid. Suspended within the murky liquid were hundreds of dark red, pulsating fleshy masses. They looked like grotesque, oversized parasites, twitching blindly in their artificial womb.
Klein stepped up to the glass, tilting his head as he studied the disgusting Xenocytes. He tapped a finger against his chin, genuinely curious about how big of an explosion it would take to vaporize the entire tank.
Before he could test that theory, a loud crash echoed through the chamber.
CLANG!
Kevin had wandered off to the side, absorbed the metallic properties of a nearby bulkhead, and used his steel-plated fist to punch straight through a heavy security door.
Klein, Ben, and Gwen jogged over to the ruined doorway. Peering inside, their eyes widened. It was a massive storage vault. Row upon row of reinforced weapon racks stretched into the darkness, every single one fully stocked with high-grade, Level 5 Tech energy rifles.
"An armory," Gwen muttered, her eyes narrowing at the sheer volume of illegal firepower.
Without a second thought, she raised both hands toward the racks. A blinding surge of pink Mana erupted from her palms, sweeping through the vault like a tidal wave. The raw magical energy overloaded the power cells of the weapons. A chain reaction of deafening pops and crackles echoed out as hundreds of Level 5 Tech rifles simultaneously short-circuited, melting down into useless, smoking piles of slag.
Ben winced at the noise, glancing nervously over his shoulder. "Uh, wasn't that a little too loud?"
"So what if they hear us?" Klein shrugged, completely indifferent to the smoking ruins of the armory. "If they find us, we just fight our way out. Simple."
Kevin grinned, his steel fists clinking together as he backed up his boss. "Exactly. Besides, by the time those ugly freaks actually figure out where we are, we'll already be—"
"GRAAAARRRGH!"
A chorus of guttural, gurgling screeches shattered the quiet. The heavy blast doors at the far end of the chamber hissed open, and a massive swarm of furious DNAliens poured into the room, their weapons raised and their multi-eyed faces contorted in rage. They had them completely surrounded.
Ben slowly turned his head to look at Kevin, a triumphant, deadpan smirk on his face.
"Already what, Kevin?"
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