Chapter 208: The Otaku Obsessed with Gwen
It was a universally acknowledged truth that pregnant humans possessed temperaments akin to volatile gunpowder. If a single touch did not make them explode outright, their moods remained, at the very best, extremely unstable.
Ben was currently serving as the perfect example of this phenomenon, giving Kevin an endless amount of grief.
"Kevin, go get me the pickles."
"Kevin, go wash my clothes."
"Kevin, why are you so utterly useless?! You can't even handle a simple little task!"
Kevin slammed his hands down, his patience finally snapping. "Ben Tennyson! Haven't you had enough?!"
His glare clearly indicated that he had not signed up to be a glorified slave to a teenager going through an alien reproduction cycle.
"Wuwuwu..." Ben dramatically rubbed his eyes, feigning tears. "Kevin is making things so difficult for us poor mother... wait, father and son... or however many fetuses are in there! Never mind! The point is, I'm going to tell my cousin on you!"
Kevin felt his sanity crumbling, yet he found himself completely unable to do anything to retaliate against Ben's current state. He could only curse his own rotten luck. With their small group divided, Klein and Gwen were naturally going to act together, leaving him with no choice but to drag the 'pregnant' Ben along.
At that moment, Kevin and Ben were in the middle of testing whether the instant teleporter could be used normally. After a long, frustrating period of tinkering, Kevin wiped the grease from his forehead, absolutely certain that the broken machine was, in fact, completely dead.
"Kevin, how are things looking?" Ben ambled over with a curious expression, casually munching on a half-eaten pickle he held in his hand.
"It's completely unusable," Kevin muttered, pushing himself up from the floor and walking toward the warehouse door. "Let's go. Call the boss and Gwen. We need to go find Cooper."
"Cooper?" Ben paused, chewing thoughtfully as he tried to recall the name. "Blonde hair, not particularly tall, and a massive tech geek who is creepily obsessed with Gwen?"
Kevin shot him a surprised look. "You actually know him."
"I've met him a few times. My grandpa and his grandpa used to be colleagues back in their Plumber days."
"That makes things a lot easier. Saves me the trouble of explaining."
A short drive later, Kevin parked the car outside a quiet two-story suburban house.
As soon as Klein stepped out of the vehicle, his gaze drifted to the scattered, yellowing newspapers piled up on the ground by the front door. "Is no one home?"
Kevin did not find the sight particularly strange. "Cooper's parents are working abroad, and the guy himself practically lives in his laboratory. He never comes out."
"Hmm? The door is open." Gwen had originally stepped forward to knock, but her hand paused in mid-air when she noticed the front door was completely unlocked, hanging slightly ajar.
"Let's go inside and take a look," Klein said, taking the lead and pushing the door wide open.
Stepping into the house, they found the interior exactly as Klein had expected. It was dead silent, without a single soul in sight.
"Cooper must be running experiments in the basement right now. He always locks himself down there and refuses to leave the house," Kevin explained, handling the familiar layout and leading the group straight to the basement entrance.
Down in the basement laboratory, the air was stale.
Gwen wrinkled her nose, looking disdainfully at a heavily oil-stained shirt draped haphazardly over a rolling chair. "It is painfully obvious he really hasn't left the house in a very long time."
As Ben wandered through the cluttered space, his shoe squelched against a leftover piece of moldy pizza on the floor. "Eww..."
Disgusted, Ben subconsciously took a step back, reaching out to steady himself. His hand rested on the edge of a messy desk, his fingers brushing against a pile of crumpled, stiff tissues.
Realizing what he had just touched, Ben's eyes widened in sheer horror. He yanked his hand back as if he had just been electrocuted, frantically wiping his fingers on his pants.
Scanning the chaotic laboratory, Klein noticed several pieces of highly advanced technology scattered about, but he felt far too lazy to activate his system's automatic pickup function to gather them.
"This doesn't make sense. He isn't here," Kevin said, his brow furrowing in confusion as he picked up a device that vaguely resembled a flashlight. Curious, he pressed a button on its side.
The 'flashlight' itself did not react, but the main computer monitor on the desk suddenly flickered to life.
After a brief moment of black-and-white static, the screen cleared. A video began to play, displaying Cooper, who looked significantly chubbier than Klein and the others remembered.
"If anyone comes here..."
The Cooper on the screen did not even get the chance to finish his warning. Several DNAliens suddenly lunged from the shadows behind him, violently grabbing him and dragging him off-camera.
Klein crossed his arms, unable to stop himself from complaining about the incredibly old-fashioned plot development. "I am really getting fed up with this. Is it a rule that only DNAliens are allowed to capture people around here?"
"At least we know where he went, don't we?" Ben pointed out, not thinking much of the cliché.
"I don't care. Today, I am absolutely going to teach them a lesson. They think they are the only villains in the universe? They keep snatching up all the rotten jobs!" Klein declared, turning on his heel and marching directly out of the basement.
Seeing his reaction, Ben and the other two exchanged bewildered glances before shrugging helplessly and following him out.
Los Soledad.
"Isn't this the exact same place where we ran into that crazy doctor last time? Are you sure DNAliens would show up here?" Kevin looked at Gwen with deep suspicion, highly doubting the accuracy of her Mana sensing abilities.
"It is definitely here. Cooper has been here," Gwen stated firmly, confident that her Mana tracking was second to none on Earth.
Hearing her absolute certainty, Klein chose to trust Gwen's senses. He immediately instructed their designated scout dog, Ben, to go check the path ahead.
Ben was feeling rather brave today. He dove straight into the dark alleyway without a second of hesitation, completely unfazed by whatever monsters might pop out of the shadows.
Sure enough, the moment Ben walked forward, the group discovered a massive holographic cloaking field covering the entirety of Los Soledad. The desolate ruins they saw from the outside were nothing but a projected illusion.
Stepping through the barrier and entering the true Los Soledad, their eyes were immediately greeted by a landscape completely blanketed in pure white snow.
"Weather towers? And three of them!" Ben muttered, genuinely surprised by the sheer scale of the hidden construction. The more infrastructure the DNAliens built in this area, the more it indicated that whatever they were plotting was incredibly dangerous.
"What is that?" Gwen pointed toward a colossal, inverted U-shaped tower looming in the distance. A heavy premonition settled in her chest, warning her that something catastrophic would happen if that structure was allowed to remain standing.
Making a quick tactical decision, Gwen decided they needed to work together to destroy that giant building first. As for Cooper, the tech geek could afford to wait just a little bit longer.
Ben, Gwen, and Kevin immediately prepared to duck behind cover, looking for an opportunity to sneak into the facility unnoticed.
But before they could even crouch down, they looked up and saw Klein swaggering openly through the snow, marching straight toward a patrolling DNAlien.
Well, so much for sneaking in.
Ben and the others simply gave up on hiding and walked straight out into the open, silently praying that Cooper would not be killed in retaliation for their complete lack of stealth.
Seeing Klein approach so brazenly, the DNAlien opened its mouth, preparing to sound the alarm.
Klein reached out and ruthlessly slapped the creature across the face. "Only you guys get to capture people, right?!"
"You..."
Smack!
"You just have to snatch up all the rotten jobs, right?! Did I give you permission to capture him? Who gave you the guts to just kidnap people?!"
Smack! Smack!
"Are you even worthy of speaking to me?! Now go call your boss over here!"
With Klein's terrifying physical prowess backing every strike, the barrage of heavy slaps left the DNAlien's head ringing, its vision spinning wildly.
However, although DNAliens rarely spoke and were generally considered grunts, they still possessed a basic level of intelligence. The creature's internal database recognized the human standing in front of it. The Highbreed spaceship records clearly labeled this specific human as a supreme threat. Logically speaking, the DNAlien knew it absolutely should not provoke him.
But its internal programming overrode its fear. Its designated setting was just a minor mob character with zero lines and low intelligence. It had to attack.
'I am the one who caused the trouble,'the DNAlien thought through its daze.'If you have the guts, go find my boss!'
At this moment, the Highbreed stationed not far away inexplicably shivered.
The DNAlien let out a piercing shriek, lunging forward in a desperate attempt to pounce on Klein.
Klein simply raised his leg and kicked the DNAlien squarely in the chest, sending it flying backward into a snowbank. "I offer you the easy way out, and you choose the hard way."
"Let's go! Time to teach them a lesson!" Kevin shouted excitedly. He bounded forward, squatted down to brush aside the thick layer of snow, and slammed his hands against the solid ground, absorbing the dense stone to armor his entire body.
"Really... never mind," Gwen sighed helplessly, abandoning all thoughts of a tactical approach. Her eyes glowed with pink energy as she glared seriously at the swarm of DNAliens rushing toward them.
"The hero has arrived to make his grand appearance!" Ben declared, raising his left hand and dialing the Omnitrix with a confident smirk. "From now on, you can call me the Hot-Blooded Pregnant Mom!"
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me!
Want to read ahead on our official home, or unlock 50 advanced chapters to feed your addiction? Help keep this shameless translator alive here:
🌐 Read on our site: Search for Elysian Reads on Google or Check the link in my Webnovel Profile bio!
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters & Ad-Free): Search AkarinTL on Patreon
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]