Chapter 241: Crazy Gopher
"Wait, Big Bro! I still have something to say!" Vulkanus yelped, his massive, rocky frame suddenly shivering. A primal surge of survival instinct completely overwhelmed his usual arrogance.
He frantically shifted his gaze toward Klein. The teenager's right hand was already resting casually on the dial of the Another Omnitrix. He hadn't pressed it yet, but the silent threat was deafeningly clear. His indifferent posture practically screamed, 'Go on, give me one good reason not to smash this dial.'
"Big Bro, look, everything in my factory is completely legal! I have the permits!" Vulkanus stammered, raising his heavy hands in a placating gesture. "Logically speaking, the Plumbers have absolutely no right... no right at all to arrest me."
Klein's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. Even through that tiny gap, Vulkanus could vividly glimpse the raw, unfiltered killing intent brewing within those dark pupils. The Detrovite's mechanical suit whirred as he took a nervous step back. See, the kid was getting impatient again.
Vulkanus genuinely couldn't understand what was wrong with this violent universe. Wouldn't it be infinitely better to have less senseless fighting and focus more on truth, goodness, and the beauty of a well-run business? Of course, if the difference in their strength wasn't so laughably one-sided, he would absolutely advocate for beating the kid to a pulp. But ideals aside, the current situation was incredibly urgent.
"Wait, just let me explain..."
"Wait for your grandma's Dweeb!" Klein snapped, his patience finally snapping like a dry twig. "You've made me wait three separate times already, and you're still yelling out excuses! Don't you know the rule that things don't go beyond three?"
A blinding flash of crimson light illuminated the cavern. The transformation was completed in the blink of an eye, and a massive, four-fingered red fist materialized right in front of Vulkanus's face in the very next instant.
The grotesque, bulging muscles of the alien looked as though they were cast from solid iron and bronze. Every single inch of that towering crimson physique contained an unimaginable, monstrous strength. Without a shred of hesitation, Four Arms drove a devastating punch directly into Vulkanus's ugly mug.
"Ugh..." A sickening crunch echoed through the factory. His brain felt so violently compressed against his skull that it was on the verge of exploding. Vulkanus's mind instantly went completely blank, his vision swimming with dark spots.
Right before a second, iron-pot-sized red fist came crashing down on him, his very last coherent thought drifted through his ringing head. 'Things don't go beyond three... does Earth even have this saying? Damn it, I was way too hasty.'
Seeing their boss being mercilessly beaten into the dirt, Vulkanus's short, pickaxe-wielding subordinates immediately dropped whatever they were doing. They let out high-pitched battle cries and tried to swarm over to help him.
But they hadn't even managed to take two steps before a shimmering, transparent purple barrier materialized out of thin air, completely blocking their path.
"Waga waga!" the little alien miners shrieked, banging their tools against the mana shield.
Klein couldn't understand a single word of their bizarre native tongue. But just by looking at their frantic, anxious expressions and aggressive gestures, he could roughly guess the gist of their complaints. It probably wasn't anything pleasant.
After absorbing two more devastating punches without uttering a single word, Vulkanus choked on his own blood. He swallowed a mouthful of broken teeth and desperately threw his arms up to protect his head, shouting continuously at the top of his lungs. "No explosion! No explosion! I swear, I never said I was going to detonate the bomb!"
As his desperate words echoed through the cavern, the relentless, rain-like barrage of agonizing pain on his body gradually ground to a halt.
"Wouldn't it have been infinitely better to just say that from the very start?" Four Arms smirked, his deep voice rumbling with dry amusement. He reached out with one of his lower arms and effortlessly hauled the battered Detrovite back onto his feet.
Klein hadn't actually intended to beat Vulkanus to death from the beginning. If he had truly wanted to kill the guy, the alien warlord wouldn't have even been able to draw breath to speak after that very first punch.
It was just that this particular guy talked way too much. Klein was genuinely worried that the criminal would try to stall for time and come up with even more convoluted nonsense. So, he simply used his fists to efficiently educate the other party on exactly what to say and what not to say.
Vulkanus was completely numb, his entire body throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache. The only reason he had started rambling earlier was because he still had a whole speech prepared. He knew perfectly well that Klein was worried about him triggering the explosives and destroying the surrounding environment. Because of that, Vulkanus had decided to simply surrender the bombs, abandon the entire factory operation, and leave the planet directly so as not to make things difficult for this terrifying kid.
He had foolishly thought that explaining his peaceful surrender would make him seem sensible and cooperative. He had hoped to earn a tiny bit of goodwill, ensuring that he wouldn't just get beaten to a pulp for absolutely no reason if they ever had the misfortune of crossing paths again in the future.
But he certainly didn't expect that before he even had a chance to act sensible, the other side would physically beat the sense right into him.
"Everything is finally settled!" Kevin announced, stretching his arms over his head. "Let's hurry up and get out of here. If we drive fast, maybe we can still make it to that nearby barbecue restaurant. I am absolutely starving, man. If we're any later, that place is going to be packed to the brim."
Kevin casually cast a sideways glance at the groaning Vulkanus, who currently wore an expression that screamed 'how could things possibly get this messed up.' The Osmosian snorted, completely ignored the defeated villain, and confidently turned to walk out of the cavern.
"Wait a second, isn't something missing?" Ben asked, scratching the back of his head with a deeply puzzled frown.
"Oh, yeah... Uncle Moles is completely gone," Kevin noted, pausing in his tracks and walking back toward the group.
"Hey! What do you guys think will happen if this heavy thing falls all the way down?" a somewhat muffled, eccentric voice echoed from not too far away. Everyone immediately whipped their heads around to look.
They saw the crazy old Uncle Moles actively gnawing on a thick, industrial-grade steel cable. Sparks flew as he chewed. This guy really had some incredibly durable teeth.
The heavy steel cable was already almost entirely bitten through. And the massive object it was suspending directly below a gaping chasm was... that terrifying, half-human-tall alien bomb.
"Wait! Don't do that!" Ben screamed, his eyes widening in sheer panic.
But he hadn't even finished his sentence before the frayed steel cable finally snapped with a sharp twang, snapping just like Ben's rapidly breaking heartstrings.
The massive explosive plummeted straight down into a dark, vertical metal passage. Although Ben had absolutely no idea exactly how deep that shaft went or where it ultimately led, the implications were terrifying.
Based on the heavy infiltration of magma in the surrounding caverns, and Vulkanus's original, psychotic intention to turn this entire planet into his fiery new 'homeland,' that shaft had to extend deep into the asthenosphere beneath the Earth's crust. It would be completely flooded with thousands of degrees of boiling, molten rock.
Combine that volatile environment with a highly unstable alien tech bomb of completely unknown destructive power, and the results would be catastrophic. Ben could already vividly imagine a massive, newly formed super-volcano violently erupting right beneath their feet.
Just as he was frantically reaching for his Omnitrix, fully intending to transform into Jetray to dive down and intercept the falling explosive, the unthinkable happened.
The bomb, two-thirds of which had already vanished into the dark metal pipe, suddenly jerked to a complete halt. It was tightly wrapped in a faint, glowing purple light, and it slowly floated right back up to the surface.
Seeing this miraculous save, Ben excitedly looked back over his shoulder.
He saw Gwen standing tall, her right hand raised high and heavily condensed with swirling pinkish-purple Mana. Noticing his relieved gaze, she couldn't help but flash a smug smile and tease him. "You're really slow to react today, Dweeb."
Ben completely ignored Gwen's playful teasing. The rapid, terrifying emotional roller coaster of the last thirty seconds had drained his adrenaline, making him just want to collapse and relax.
Klein, who was standing nearby in his towering Four Arms form, hadn't reacted much to the falling bomb at all. He knew perfectly well that his cousins were more than competent enough to handle a simple falling object.
"That old guy is gone again," Ben pointed out, gesturing to the empty space where the crazy man had just been chewing on metal.
Hearing this, Kevin also looked around the cavern with a deep sigh. "Just don't mind him... He's a certified lunatic."
A short while later, Klein and the group cautiously made their way back to Uncle Moles's personal underground cave, the very place where the eccentric man stored his own stash of explosives.
As they stepped inside, they immediately noticed that the dusty explosive boxes scattered around the room were now densely connected by a web of strange, blinking metallic objects.
Upon closer inspection, a cold sweat broke out on Kevin's neck. These strange objects all had bright red digital countdowns actively ticking away on their surfaces. It didn't take a genius to roughly guess exactly what these things were.
And the all-too-familiar, unhinged voice echoing from the tunnel behind them immediately confirmed their worst fears. "I've been thinking really, really hard about how to stop that big ugly Vulkanus from causing any more trouble down here. Then I had a brilliant thought! As long as I just blow this entire place to kingdom come, Vulkanus won't ever be able to come back and cause trouble anymore!"
This crazy old gopher was truly out of his mind. The timer set on the rigged explosives was so incredibly short that even he wouldn't have enough time to escape the blast radius.
The very second he finished his triumphant little speech, the timers hit zero. The massive pile of explosives was instantly ignited.
A roaring tidal wave of explosive, superheated flames filled the entire underground space, instantly sweeping toward the group with devastating speed.
However, in front of Klein, who had smoothly tapped his dial and transformed in a fraction of a second, the raging inferno was no different from a movie being put on pause.
As XLR8, the world around him ground to an absolute standstill. He casually ran back and forth through the frozen explosion a few times, effortlessly scooping up Ben, Gwen, Kevin, and even the crazy old man, depositing them all safely back into the seats of Kevin's car.
Reverting to his human form, Klein calmly sat in the driver's seat. He leaned back, 'slowly waiting' for the heavily modified vehicle to engage its thrusters and fly them all back up the tunnel to the surface. With the danger completely neutralized, the smooth ascent felt as boring and leisurely as riding a cheap, coin-operated kiddie ride outside a supermarket.
Surface.
The cool night air washed over the hood of the car. In the distance, the massive underground rhinos that they had tied up earlier were still peacefully, slowly gnawing on large chunks of limestone, completely oblivious to the chaos below.
"We almost got blown into a million pieces down there!" Ben yelled, glaring furiously at Uncle Moles as they stepped out of the vehicle.
But the eccentric old man seemed completely unconcerned by the near-death experience. He just scratched his chin and let out a goofy laugh. "Eh hehe... You know, all that running around made me work up an appetite. Speaking of which, I'm a bit hungry. Do you guys want to..."
"No! We don't want anything!" the trio shouted in unison.
It wasn't until Kevin's black and green sports car peeled out, speeding away into the desert night, that Uncle Moles finally stopped waving. He shrugged his shoulders with complete indifference, wiped a line of drool from his chin, and happily ambled over toward the herd of grazing underground rhinos to find himself a rocky midnight snack.
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