Chapter 213: Want to Take My Son Away? Even My Dad Can't
Sandra Tennyson's voice hit a pitch that could shatter glass. "You're repeatedly deceiving us right to our faces!"
Having spent entirely too much time absorbing Klein's trollish habits, Ben muttered under his breath, "Well, it wouldn't really be deceiving you if it wasn't right to your faces."
"What did you just say?!" Sandra's furious glare snapped onto him like a laser sight. Ben instantly shrank back into the couch cushions like a frightened turtle.
Carl Tennyson crossed his arms, his expression a mix of deep disappointment and lingering shock. "We saw it, Ben. We saw you turn into that... that thing!"
"You guys probably just imagined it, right? Trick of the light?" Ben offered a weak, desperate smile, still trying to paddle his way out of a rapidly sinking boat.
Carl didn't even dignify that with a verbal response. He simply lunged forward, grabbed his son's left wrist, and aggressively tapped a rigid index finger against the bulky faceplate of the Omnitrix.
"I can explain!" Ben blurted out in panic, his eyes darting between his furious parents. He slumped his shoulders in defeat. "Alright, fine. It's really hard to explain."
Half an hour of exhausting, mind-bending exposition later...
"Anyway, that's pretty much the gist of it," Ben sighed, slumping deeper into the living room sofa. He rubbed his temples, looking utterly drained. "The Omnitrix lets me access the genetic codes of different alien species. I transform into alien heroes to fight the DNAliens who are trying to conquer Earth."
"And exactly when did saving the world become your personal mission?" Carl demanded, his brow furrowed so deeply it looked permanently creased.
"Five years ago," Ben mumbled, picking at a loose thread on his jeans. "Grandpa Max said that we all have a responsibility to protect..."
"Oh, I knew it! It's Dad again!" Carl threw his hands up in the air, his face twisting with exasperation. "Who else could it possibly be but him?"
Seeing his father's rising temper, Ben tried to run damage control for his grandfather. "Look, he wasn't really a regular plumber, he..."
"He deceived us!" Carl shouted, pacing across the carpet. "Your Uncle Frank and I always knew he had some other secret identity, but he just kept lying to our faces. He wouldn't say a single word about it! I refuse to let you grow up living in a lie like we did!"
Ben opened his mouth to argue, but the raw, protective anger radiating from his father shut him down. He lowered his head, staring miserably at his sneakers.
Right at that suffocating moment...
"Ahem. It seems I've dropped by at a rather bad time."
An old, steady, and incredibly familiar voice drifted in from the front hallway. The entire family whipped their heads toward the entrance. There, leaning casually against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his signature Hawaiian shirt, stood Grandpa Max.
"Grandpa?!" Ben's jaw practically hit the floor. He shot up from the sofa as if spring-loaded, his eyes wide with disbelief. "But you were already..."
A sharp, pointed look from the older man instantly cut Ben off. The teenager snapped his mouth shut, though his face remained a chaotic canvas of confusion and relief.
"I know I owe you both a very long, very clear explanation," Max said smoothly, stepping into the living room and locking eyes with Carl. "But right now, time is of the essence. Ben has to come with me."
To his immediate surprise, both Carl and Sandra formed a united, unyielding front. "Absolutely not!" they snapped in perfect unison.
"What exactly did we get from letting him run around the country with you?" Sandra demanded, stepping defensively in front of her son. "A fifteen-year-old boy who faces life-and-death situations every single day!"
Carl pointed a stern finger at his father. "This time, we are absolutely not letting him walk out that door with you!"
Watching his son march up to him with a face flushed with parental fury, Max frowned. "I am your father, Carl!"
"And you are going to regret this!" Max glared back, projecting absolute authority.
Perhaps it was decades of ingrained childhood obedience, or just sheer bloodline suppression, but Carl subconsciously flinched, his neck shrinking back a fraction. Yet, to his credit, the man planted his feet and refused to retreat a single inch.
Seeing Carl acting this stubborn, Max let out a heavy, defeated sigh. "Alright. Since you're so dead-set on this, how about a little wager? If you can physically remove that watch from Ben's wrist, I'll walk away and never bring this up again. But if you can't get it off, Ben comes with me tonight."
Ben's eyes instantly lit up like sparklers. He knew perfectly well that with his parents' mundane garage tools, prying the Omnitrix off his wrist was a literal impossibility. It was a guaranteed win.
But Carl scoffed, shaking his head. "Nice try, Dad. You've tricked me way too many times growing up. I am absolutely not falling for one of your rigged bets this time!"
Carl crossed his arms, an immovable object. "Whether that alien tech comes off or not, I am not letting Ben leave this house!"
A heavy, suffocating silence descended over the living room. The standoff had reached a total deadlock. Finally, Max dropped his shoulders, looking at his grandson with a helpless expression. "Sorry, Ben. I tried."
Without another word, the older man turned on his heel, marched out of the living room, and exited the front door into the cool evening air. Once he was safely outside and hidden in the shadows of the porch, 'Max' reached up and grabbed his own face. With a fluid, rippling motion, the holographic disguise flickered and dissolved, revealing Klein's familiar, lazy smirk.
"Man, Ben's parents are a massive pain to deal with," Klein muttered, stretching his neck until it popped. He turned around, resting his hands on his hips as he appraised the quiet, suburban two-story house.
"Since I can't talk them into letting the kid go, I guess I'll just have to resort to kidnapping him out the back way." Klein tilted his head, his gaze locking thoughtfully onto a darkened window on the second floor.
Meanwhile, down in the Tennyson family garage.
Carl had dragged out a massive, intimidating pile of hacksaws, heavy-duty pliers, bolt cutters, and blowtorches. He was currently engaged in a sweaty, desperate war against the Omnitrix.
Ben sat slouched on a rickety folding chair, lazily extending his left arm across the workbench to let his father tinker away. His right elbow rested on the table, propping up his cheek as he stared at the wall, looking utterly, mind-numbingly bored.
Snap.
Carl threw down the broken handle of his thirteenth hacksaw blade, panting heavily. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, staring at the pristine alien metal in pure disbelief. "What on earth is this thing even made of? There isn't a single scratch on it!"
It was a rather ironic sight. A tiger of a son apparently had a completely ordinary father. After all, Ben was the absolute madman who had once popped the faceplate off the most powerful device in the universe using nothing but a cheap flathead screwdriver.
Carl let out an exhausted breath, tossing the useless tools aside. "Since I can't get it off, there's only one option left. Ben, you are officially grounded."
Ben's head snapped up, his utter boredom instantly replaced by sheer panic. "What?! No! You can't do that!"
"I absolutely can!" Carl barked back, pointing a stern finger at his son's chest. "And, I am strictly forbidding you from ever using that alien watch again!"
Defeated by the ultimate parental weapon, Ben slumped forward, burying his face in his hands.
Outside the house, the night breeze rustled the suburban trees. With a casual, gravity-defying leap, Klein vaulted up the side of the house, catching the ledge of the second-floor window with effortless grace.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Right as he secured his grip, a muffled ringing vibrated from his jacket pocket. Hanging from the window frame by one hand like a bored lemur, he fished out his phone with the other and flipped it open.
"Yo, Kevin. What's up?...Oh?...Mm, alright. Got it. Just sit tight, I'll head over there right after I extract the Dweeb from his domestic prison."
Snapping the phone shut, Klein shoved it back into his pocket and began jimmying the window lock.
Miles away, inside a dimly lit, abandoned warehouse overlooking the Bellwood shipping piers.
"Uh, Boss says he'll be here right after he finishes picking up Ben," Kevin announced, sliding his phone into his jeans. He turned his attention toward Gwen, who was intensely focused on a glowing laptop screen resting on a stack of wooden crates.
"Come over here and take a look at this first," Gwen ordered, her fingers flying across the keyboard. She pulled up a series of encrypted shipping manifests. "The port data shows that these specific cargo ships have been making frequent, highly irregular trips back and forth from this pier. But the weird part? They aren't importing any goods. They're only exporting local materials."
"So what?" Kevin shrugged his broad shoulders, perfectly content to let her do the heavy mental lifting.
Gwen shot him a flat, deeply unimpressed glare before pointing at a specific highlighted entry. "This particular ship—the Stasi—is listed as an unregistered cruise liner originating from Caston Island."
The moment the name dropped, Kevin's eyes widened in recognition. "Caston Island? Wait, didn't the military conduct massive nuclear bomb tests out there back in the day?"
Gwen paused, blinking in genuine surprise. She hadn't expected the resident street-thug-turned-mechanic to be brushed up on mid-century atomic history.
Catching her look, Kevin shoved his hands into his pockets and defended himself matter-of-factly. "What? It was on the History Channel. I watch TV."
Rolling her eyes, Gwen redirected her focus to the glowing screen, her brow furrowing in deep thought. "The real question is, what kind of goods would Bellwood possibly need to import from a radioactive wasteland like Caston Island?"
She tapped a pen against her chin. "If all of this smuggling is tied to the Highbreed, what exactly do they need irradiated materials for?"
Before she could connect the dots, a guttural, wet roar echoed through the cavernous warehouse, vibrating the metal catwalks above them. A DNAlien.
"Hey, look on the bright side," Kevin smirked, cracking his knuckles. "We can just ask them!"
He immediately dropped into a crouch, slamming his bare palm against the solid concrete floor. A wave of gray, rocky texture surged up his arm, rapidly encasing his entire body in dense, impenetrable stone armor. He stood back up, his heavy stone fists raised as he locked his sights on the approaching creature, ready to bash some answers out of it.
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