Chapter 209: All for Naught, Ben Becomes a Mother
"Swampfire!"
Klein slapped the dial of the Another Omnitrix. A blinding, ghostly blue light flashed across the snowy landscape, and the humanoid plant alien materialized in a burst of sparks.
Without missing a beat, he tapped the Omnitrix symbol on his chest. "Ultimate Swampfire!"
Another surge of ghostly blue energy erupted. Ultimate Swampfire's new form was heavily armored, his torso resembling a hardened, ancient tree stump. His head, back, and shoulders were composed of volatile, bubbling spheres of blue liquid fire, radiating an intense, suffocating heat.
"Since you're so eager to die," Klein's voice echoed, deep and completely devoid of mercy, "then die."
A nearby DNAlien trembled, its grotesque eye twitching in sheer panic. Listen to that! Is that something a righteous hero is supposed to say?!
Ultimate Swampfire casually raised his hands. Blue flames swept out like a roaring tsunami, devouring everything in their path. The terrifying, concentrated heat instantly began to vaporize all the accumulated snow blanketing the abandoned town of Los Soledad.
Even with the three massive Weather Towers operating at full capacity, they couldn't offset the sheer atmospheric shift caused by the ultimate alien.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The entire street ahead was swallowed by a merciless sea of blue fire. The dilapidated houses along the way were instantly reduced to glowing slag. As for the DNAliens caught in the epicenter of the blaze... not even a trace of ash remained.
Ben's right hand paused awkwardly over the Omnitrix on his left wrist. He hadn't even popped the dial up yet, and the battle was already completely over.
"Forget being a hot-blooded hero," Ben muttered, his shoulders slumping. "Just call me a neglected, bitter housewife."
He stared intently at Ultimate Swampfire, his eyes filled with a deep, comical resentment at having his spotlight stolen yet again.
"Don't fight anymore! Don't set any more fires!"
At that moment, a desperate, booming voice echoed from afar. With a heavy thud, a towering Highbreed Commander landed directly in front of Ultimate Swampfire.
"I... hot! It's so hot!"
In his frantic rush to surrender, the Highbreed hadn't noticed that the ground beneath his feet had been completely liquefied by the recent blast of blue flames, reaching temperatures of at least a thousand degrees. For a Highbreed—a species that notoriously despised high temperatures and preferred the freezing cold—this was absolute torture. He hopped from foot to foot, his pristine white armor scorching.
After a long, agonizing moment, the Highbreed, looking as if his immense pride had been completely shattered, finally spoke between heavy pants. "What... what did we do wrong this time?"
"Kevin," Ultimate Swampfire said, gesturing with a flaming hand for the Osmosian to step forward.
Kevin nodded, stepping around a puddle of molten asphalt, and pulled a crumpled photo from his pocket. "You tied up this fatty, right? He's one of ours."
"Hiss..." The Highbreed Commander stroked his chin, squinting at the photo. "This fatty... he looks a bit peculiar. But we didn't catch him."
Hearing this, Kevin frowned, ready to argue, until he glanced down at his own hand. The person in the photo wasn't Cooper at all, but some random, slicked-back-haired fatty he had accidentally printed out.
"Sorry, wrong one!" Kevin quickly shoved the paper away and pulled out another photo. "This is the right one."
The Highbreed leaned in to inspect the second photo. "..."
This one... they actually had tied him up.
The Highbreed cursed his luck internally. Is this world really that small? I kidnap one random human, and it just so happens to be someone connected to you, Klein?
But there was no choice. They absolutely couldn't win in a straight fight against this monster. They could only swallow their pride and accept their terrible luck. As long as their grand machine was still intact, a minor setback could be tolerated.
Defeated, the Highbreed waved a hand, ordering his surviving DNAlien subordinates to bring out the prisoner.
Moments later, Cooper was dragged forward. The poor kid was being treated like a pack mule, pushed and shoved by the grotesque aliens. He raised his head, blinking through the smoke. His gaze passed over Kevin, skipped past Ben, glanced at Klein, and finally locked onto Gwen.
Cooper's intense, starry-eyed gaze made Gwen frown in extreme discomfort, and she subconsciously took two steps back to hide behind Klein.
But Cooper didn't notice the awkwardness at all. Instead, his gamer-addled brain immediately processed the situation like a cutscene. "Gwen! I'm so touched that you rushed all this way to save me! It's exactly like when Princess Elena bravely rescued me from the Ultimate Suffering Concentration Camp in my game last week!"
"Are you having hallucinations?" Kevin glared at Cooper, his fists clenching unhappily. "How dare you spread weird rumors about my sister-in-law."
"Uh... I didn't! I really didn't! Hallu... what?" Cooper stammered, completely stunned by Kevin's aggressive defense of Klein's girl. He quickly tried to backtrack and argue his case.
But everyone present clearly didn't believe a word he said, and the collective gazes aimed at him grew increasingly strange and full of pity.
Sigh, I might as well just die right here, Cooper thought, suddenly feeling that if he had known this day would come, he would have preferred never being born.
The Highbreed Commander didn't care in the slightest about Cooper's internal teenage crisis. "Since the person has been returned to you unhurt, then..."
The implication was clear: Take your kid and get the hell out of my base. With the innate, arrogant pride of the Highbreed still lingering in his chest, speaking so politely and subtly was already pushing his absolute limit.
But Ultimate Swampfire clearly had no intention of fulfilling his wish. "Then what's that massive thing in the back for?"
Hearing this, the Highbreed immediately froze in terror. No! Why are you so ignorant of the unwritten rules of negotiation? Considering how cooperative I've been, can't you just give me some face and leave it alone?!
Just as the Highbreed frantically racked his brain, trying to fabricate a believable excuse for the existence of the gigantic, hundred-meter-tall jump-gate teleporter...
"Forget it. Whatever it is, dismantle it."
Ultimate Swampfire didn't even bother to wait for the Highbreed's explanation. He casually ordered them to turn their months of painstaking, secret labor into ashes.
"Wait! No—" The Highbreed Commander raised his hands, desperately wanting to struggle and defend his life's work.
Seeing the hesitation, Ultimate Swampfire simply stepped past the Highbreed. He raised both hands, and a sky-filling, roaring sea of blue fire surged directly toward the gigantic teleporter.
The extreme heat was instantaneous. More than a third of the hundred-meter-tall metal structure melted into glowing orange slag on contact. The massive support beams groaned and snapped, causing the entire upper half to topple backward and smash into a million burning pieces against the canyon walls.
A scholar can endure insults, but this is a step too far!
The Highbreed took a deep, trembling breath, his eyes bloodshot as he spoke in a low, furious voice. "Aren't you going too far?! So immorally making a mess of our territory! If you don't give me a proper explanation today, I'll—"
"Then you can die too."
Ultimate Swampfire's calm, completely indifferent words instantly shattered the Highbreed's fragile mental defense. Wait, no? Aren't you righteous Earth heroes usually bound by morality and logic? Why are you acting like a tyrant?!
Seeing Ultimate Swampfire casually raise his right hand, blue fire already pooling in his palm, the Highbreed once again chose to follow his heart and shut his mouth.
Finally, after a great deal of groveling and persuasion from the terrified Highbreed, a ghostly blue light flashed, and Ultimate Swampfire transformed back into Klein's relaxed, human form.
After seeing Klein and his terrifying group off, watching the black-and-green sports car kick up dust in the distance, a surviving DNAlien limped over to the Highbreed Commander's side. "Master... what do we do next?"
The Highbreed, his blood pressure boiling over, violently slapped the DNAlien away. "What else can we do?! Rebuild! Now get back to work, you useless trash!"
...
Meanwhile, inside Kevin's speeding sports car.
Ben was leaning forward from the backseat, excitedly telling Klein and the others how absolutely awful and pathetic the Highbreed's expression had been just now.
Right in the middle of his sentence, Ben suddenly stopped talking. His eyes glazed over, his gaze turning completely blank. Without a word of warning, he slammed his hand down on the Omnitrix.
A brilliant flash of green light illuminated the car's interior, and the moth-like, ghostly form of Big Chill appeared in the backseat.
Big Chill said absolutely nothing. He simply phased straight through the car door and flew off into the sky.
"Is Ben... going to drink molten iron again?" Kevin asked, keeping one hand on the steering wheel as he looked up at the flying Necrofriggian with a deeply puzzled expression.
"No, he seems a bit urgent," Klein noted, looking at Big Chill's retreating figure thoughtfully. He leaned back in the passenger seat and, without turning his head, instructed, "He's probably about to give birth. Follow him and see."
"Alright, Boss!" Kevin slammed his foot on the gas, the sports car roaring as it chased the alien through the sky.
On the quiet outskirts of Bellwood, a massive, complex nest made entirely of chewed and regurgitated molten iron stood out incongruously from the surrounding forest landscape.
By the time Klein, Kevin, and Gwen arrived and parked the car, Big Chill had already finished giving birth.
Gwen walked cautiously into the massive metal nest, her eyes wide with curiosity. Before she had even taken two steps, she noticed dozens of strange, glowing bubbles suddenly floating up from the crevices of the metal structure.
Just as she leaned in to get a closer look, the bubbles popped, circling around in the air before transforming into tiny, adorable Big Chill cubs.
The baby Necrofriggians clumsily flapped their little wings, chirping softly. Big Chill hovered over them, gently nudging the stumbling cubs upright with a motherly tenderness that was incredibly bizarre to see coming from Ben.
"Fly," Big Chill whispered, his voice echoing with a strange, instinctual warmth. "Return to your homeland in the stars."
Looking at the swarm of Big Chill cubs taking flight into the night sky, Klein's old, deeply ingrained gamer habit of collecting rare pets suddenly flared up. His fingers twitched. He really, really wanted to catch two of his good nephews and keep them as pets.
He looked up at the adorable little ice-moths... his literal nephews flying into the sky. Then he looked back down at their "mother" (his teenage cousin).
He stood there in silence, weighing the pros and cons for a long time. In the end, Klein sighed and gave up on the highly tempting idea. Some lines, he supposed, just shouldn't be crossed.
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