Ben 10: My Cousin is an OP Slacker — Chapter 217

Chapter 217: Proud Pierce

Klein and Verdona conversed in hushed tones, the casual cadence of their voices completely at odds with the chaotic battlefield around them. Manny and Helen, straining against the relentless tide of snarling Vulpimancers, couldn’t make out a single word.

“What are you two whispering about? Hurry up and escape!” Manny roared, his four eyes wide with panic as he threw a heavy punch at a leaping beast.

“The Null Void King is too powerful! We have to get out of here!” Helen added, her voice tight with anxiety.

Dr. Animo, currently styling himself as the Null Void King, flew toward them atop a massive mutant creature. A sickeningly arrogant smirk stretched across his pale face.

“Oh? Look what I’ve found. A pathetic rescue party, and…” Animo’s gloating voice trailed off.

His crazed eyes locked onto Klein’s bored gaze.

Just as Klein opened his mouth to offer a dry greeting, Animo slammed on the brakes. The mad scientist violently yanked his mount around and bolted in the opposite direction without a second thought.

Not only did he flee, but in his sheer terror of being caught, Animo commanded the remaining Vulpimancers to swarm the area, using them as meat shields to cover his desperate retreat.

“The Null Void King… he ran?” Helen muttered, her blasters lowering as she stared at the retreating speck in the sky.

“What exactly is going on?” Manny gasped. Knowing firsthand the terrifying power Dr. Animo wielded in this dimension, the two Plumber kids were utterly dumbfounded. Manny’s four eyes widened into perfect, comical circles.

“I don’t know. Maybe he left the stove on,” Klein remarked, his expression so deeply indifferent it seemed as if he were discussing the weather.

Verdona, having casually swatted away the remaining Vulpimancers with a flick of her glowing purple mana, floated forward. “What are you children still standing around for?” she urged.

Snapped out of their daze, Helen and Manny hurriedly took the lead, guiding the group toward Wolf Head’s hidden base.

Along the desolate, floating rock formations of the Null Void, Klein observed groups of ragged inhabitants. They were being herded and forced to strike pickaxes against the hard stone by hovering, bat-like Null Guardians. These were likely the unfortunate natives or long-term prisoners of this dimension.

“What are they digging for?” Klein asked. Though he usually couldn’t be bothered to care about the local politics of alternate dimensions, the sheer barrenness of the Null Void made him mildly curious. Could this broken wasteland actually hold valuable resources?

“They are being forced by the Null Void King to mine Taydenite,” Helen explained, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “It’s a rare mineral with an incredibly high energy yield.”

“Let’s pick up the pace,” Manny grunted. “It’s going to get ugly if the Null Void King regroups and comes looking for us.”

Despite witnessing Animo’s comical, unceremonious retreat, neither Helen nor Manny could fathom that the tyrant had actually been scared away by a teenager. Klein, meanwhile, didn’t think terrifying a traumatized Dr. Animo was a feat worth bragging about, so he kept his mouth shut and let them believe what they wanted.

The group eventually arrived at a dense, concealed asteroid belt. Deep within the floating debris field lay a cluster of specialized, interconnected asteroids. The eyeless flying dragon they had commandeered for transport touched down smoothly on the rocky surface of the outermost perimeter.

“Go in. Wolf Head is inside,” Helen said, pointing toward a neighboring asteroid connected by a crude stone bridge. A faint, flickering light spilled from the mouth of a dark cave.

Staring at the cave entrance, Verdona’s eyes narrowed. She clearly sensed a familiar energy signature. Her brows furrowed slightly before she drifted silently toward the opening.

Klein shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled after her.

Before they could even set foot on the stone bridge, a sharp, youthful voice called out from behind them. “Helen, Manny… who are these intruders?”

“They want to see Wolf Head,” Helen quickly explained.

Klein glanced over his shoulder. Descending slowly on a sputtering jetpack was a strange young man whose entire body was covered in sharp, dark purple quills. Even though this was their first face-to-face meeting, Klein easily deduced the boy’s identity. This had to be Helen’s brother, Pierce.

“Want to see Wolf Head?” Pierce sneered, tossing his jetpack aside as his boots hit the dirt. He cracked his knuckles, stalking forward. “You’ll have to defeat me first!”

Klein let out a quiet sigh. He really couldn’t be bothered to entertain an edgy teenager. Ignoring the display entirely, he turned back around and continued walking toward the cave.

Being completely dismissed caused Pierce’s face to flush with immediate rage. He leaped into the air, executing a tight front flip, and landed squarely in Klein’s path, blocking the bridge.

Klein stopped. He cast a deeply unimpressed look at the human hedgehog. “Don’t block the way.”

Pierce barked a harsh, mocking laugh at the sheer arrogance of the demand. “Or what? You’ll make me?”

Klein didn’t waste another breath humoring him. A brilliant flash of golden light erupted from his right hand. The Ascalon divine sword materialized instantly, its heavy, ancient blade humming with latent power.

Sensing the overwhelming threat, the quills on Pierce’s body instinctively flared out. He reached to his left arm, snapping off one of his own elongated, hardened spikes to use as a makeshift blade, and lunged at Klein with a furious swing.

Klein barely shifted his stance. He took a casual half-step forward and flicked his wrist.

The golden blade met the organic spike. Pierce’s weapon shattered into useless fragments upon impact. Before the pieces even hit the ground, the cold, razor-sharp edge of Ascalon was resting gently against Pierce’s throat.

“I… lost,” Pierce choked out, his eyes wide with disbelief. He possessed formidable alien superpowers, yet he had been completely dismantled in a single second by what looked like an ordinary human.

Helen and Manny stood frozen in shock. They had fully expected Klein to win, given the absurd things they had seen him do, but they hadn’t anticipated him ending the fight without even bothering to touch the Omnitrix.

Manny, possessing zero tact, loudly blurted out, “Man, Pierce just got one-shotted.”

Pierce shot a venomous glare at his teammate. That commentary was entirely unnecessary. Swallowing his pride, he turned back to the glowing sword at his neck. “Alright. You win. You can go in and see Wolf Head.”

Klein dismissed Ascalon, the golden blade dissolving into motes of light.

Rubbing his neck, Pierce decided to offer a genuine word of advice. “Also, once you go inside… uh, no matter what he offers you to eat… do not accept it.”

The moment the warning left Pierce’s lips, a highly familiar, panicked yelp echoed from the depths of the cave. A burly figure draped in a heavy brown cloak sprinted out of the darkness.

Despite the rugged disguise, Klein recognized the man instantly. “Grandpa?”

Hearing the voice, Max Tennyson skidded to a halt. His eyes widened in absolute shock. “Klein?!”

“Wolf Head?!” Pierce echoed, looking back and forth between the two in utter confusion. What was going on here?

“Grandpa, your alias… it’s incredibly generic,” Klein noted dryly.

“Is it? I thought it sounded rather intimidating,” Max replied, rubbing his chin defensively.

The heartwarming family reunion was violently cut short. A voice trembling with apocalyptic fury echoed from behind them.

“Max! Tennyson!”

Max flinched so hard his spine popped. He immediately dove behind his grandson, using Klein as a human shield. He had absolutely no idea how his closely guarded secret of having multiple romantic partners across the galaxy had suddenly been exposed—and to his own Anodite wife, no less!

Worse, his wife looked entirely prepared to vaporize him on the spot.

“My life is over!” Max lamented, gripping Klein’s shoulders tightly.

Klein sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. As the one who had accidentally set this chain of events into motion, he supposed he had a moral obligation to keep his grandfather alive. As for the aftermath… he would just casually mention that Ben was the one who sold him out.

Raising his left arm, Klein tapped the faceplate of the Another Omnitrix, ready to intercept his enraged grandmother if she threw a lethal mana blast.

A blinding purple light saturated the cavern entrance, followed by a concussive shockwave. Verdona, wreathed in a terrifying aura of crackling Anodite mana, floated slowly into view.

“Still trying to hide behind the children?” Verdona’s voice was dangerously soft, carrying a killing intent that could freeze blood from a hundred meters away. “You can’t escape, Max.”

Ignorant of the family dynamics, Pierce’s heroic instincts kicked in. His quills bristled aggressively as he stepped directly into Verdona’s path. “If you want to hurt Wolf Head, you’ll have to get past me first!”

“Oh? Little boy, since you are so eager to die, I will gladly grant your wish!” Verdona snapped. She raised her right hand, and a massive surge of purple mana erupted from her palm.

The stone bridge instantly shattered into dust.

Pierce’s figure vanished into the abyss below.

“Pierce!” Max, Helen, and Manny screamed in unison, horrified that the boy had just been obliterated.

But a split second later, a sleek red blur shot up from beneath the crumbling debris.

“Jetray?!” Max gasped.

“Pierce!” Helen cried in relief.

Hovering in the air, Jetray held a thoroughly traumatized Pierce by the scruff of his neck. He flew over to the safety of the main asteroid and unceremoniously dropped the hedgehog boy onto the dirt.

A flash of ghostly blue light illuminated the area as Klein reverted to his human form. He stepped forward, placing himself between his grandparents. “Grandma, let’s calm down for a second.”

Pierce, still dizzy from the near-death experience, scrambled to his feet. “I can still fight— wait, Grandma?” His jaw dropped as he stared at Klein, then at Max, and finally at the glowing purple energy being. “Wolf Head is your grandpa… and the crazy glowing lady is your grandma?”

The gears in Pierce’s head slowly turned as he finally began to grasp the sheer absurdity of the situation.