Chapter 227: Might As Well Just Release It
The horizon bled into a pale, bruised purple. After an exhausting, sleepless night wrestling with the overgrown green giant, dawn had finally arrived.
Given that the creature's eyes squeezed shut at the slightest hint of sunlight, they deduced it was strictly nocturnal—and effectively blind during the day. Leaving a three-meter-tall, sightless alien infant to stumble around Bellwood was a guaranteed recipe for disaster.
After a brief, unanimous vote, the team decided to haul the green giant back with them.
As for where to stash a massive, drooling alien toddler?
The answer, naturally, was Kevin's garage.
Where else could it go? Ben and Gwen's bedrooms certainly couldn't accommodate a creature that brushed the ceiling, and their parents would have a collective heart attack if they tried sneaking it through the front door. While Klein's custom doghouse was technically spacious enough, it was already occupied. Klein had absolutely no intention of hurting his own dog's feelings just to accommodate some random alien stray they had picked up off the street.
Later that day, sunlight filtered through the dusty windows of Kevin's garage.
The green giant sat heavily on the concrete floor, happily gnawing on a chunk of metal. With a sickening, metallic crunch, it casually plucked the custom rearview mirror right off Kevin's prized muscle car, popping it into its mouth like a shiny new teething ring.
"Hey! Get your grubby mitts off my ride!"
Kevin slapped his hands against the wall, his eyes bulging. He lunged forward, fully prepared to pry his precious rearview mirror out from between the giant's thick teeth.
"Wait, Kevin! Calm down!" Ben sprinted out from the sidelines, throwing his arms wide as he wedged himself between the furious teenager and the massive alien. "It's just a baby!"
If Ben hadn't intervened, the entire garage would have been reduced to rubble in the ensuing brawl.
Kevin paced back and forth, shooting venomous glares at Ben and the happily chewing green giant. Finally, he let out a long, defeated sigh. He turned his head away, dragging a hand down his face. "With a baby like this, I might as well just release it into the wild."
Seeing his younger cousin on the verge of a genuine breakdown, Klein stepped forward to fulfill his duties as the benevolent leader. He patted Kevin's shoulder. "Relax. I'll personally make sure this guy's parents compensate you handsomely later."
"Boss, that rearview mirror was custom-ordered... it's really expensive..."
Kevin's posture relaxed slightly at the promise of cash, but the raw heartbreak in his voice was impossible to miss.
"It's fine," Klein said, his tone smooth and entirely unbothered. "Anyone with the technology to casually travel across star systems is bound to be loaded. We'll just trick—ahem—persuade them to pay for ten or eight replacements. No problem."
Kevin blinked. He processed Klein's words, the gears turning in his head. The logic was flawless. A greedy spark instantly ignited in his dark eyes.
Having run various hustles with Klein for years, Kevin knew exactly what his leader was implying. The two of them immediately leaned in, their voices dropping into hushed, conspiratorial whispers as they began calculating extortion rates.
Watching the two of them plot, Ben and Gwen exchanged flat, thoroughly unimpressed glances. They both sighed and shrugged in unison.
The hours dragged on, the sun eventually dipping below the horizon to blanket the town in shadows.
A sleek, dark green sports car tore down a desolate rural highway. Attached to the rear bumper was a heavy-duty flatbed trailer, carrying the three-meter-tall green "baby," who sat happily watching the trees blur past.
Inside the cabin, the atmosphere was focused.
Gwen closed her eyes, her hands glowing with a soft, pink, ethereal light. She channeled her Mana, probing the jagged, black-and-red metal shard resting in her palm. It was the power core they had ripped out of a DNAlien earlier.
Of course, because the DNAliens hadn't completely shown their hand yet, the team wasn't entirely sure what the device was. However, given its blatantly extraterrestrial design, they logically assumed it was a piece of technology from the green giant's crashed spaceship.
As long as Gwen could trace the residual energy signature to its source, they could locate the ship and hand the oversized toddler back to its parents.
Meanwhile, miles away.
Deep inside an abandoned, cavernous mine pit on the outskirts of Bellwood, the miserable DNAliens remained blissfully unaware that the terrifying group they called the "Executioners" was rapidly approaching.
At this exact moment, the grotesque, mutated drones were swinging heavy steel pickaxes, diligently chipping away at the rock walls. They were desperate to harvest enough raw quartz to fuel the Highbreed's inter-dimensional jump gates.
Crack.
"Report, Overseer," a DNAlien wheezed, shuffling toward the back of the cavern. It held up a splintered wooden handle, the heavy iron head of the pickaxe completely snapped off. "The tool is broken again..."
"Then dig with your bare hands! You useless idiot!"
The DNAlien Overseer roared, spittle flying from its mandibles as it viciously kicked the subordinate away.
While the order was brutally inhumane, the Overseer had no other choice. They simply hadn't packed enough manual tools for this excavation. They had brought several heavy-duty, high-tech electric drills, but without their power cores, the machines were nothing more than expensive paperweights.
Just as the Overseer was rubbing its temples in sheer frustration, two DNAlien sentries sprinted into the cavern from the surface. They tripped over their own feet, their bulbous eyes wide with absolute terror.
"Disaster, Overseer! Something terrible has happened!"
Seeing his subordinates flailing about in such a pathetic, undignified manner, the already stressed Overseer snapped. It marched forward and delivered a stinging backhand to the closest sentry's head.
"What now?! Why are you flailing around like a dying fish? Stop disgracing the glory of the Highbreed!"
The sentry cowered, clutching its bruised head. It spoke in a trembling, cautious whisper. "N-No, Overseer... we spotted a vehicle approaching the perimeter."
The Overseer's scowl deepened, its irritation flaring. "It's just a pathetic Earth vehicle! What is there to panic about?"
"The car... it belongs to Kevin Levin."
Dead silence fell over the cavern. The rhythmic sound of pickaxes striking stone instantly ceased.
"Everyone, attention!" The Overseer's voice cracked into a frantic shriek. "Quickly load the harvested quartz! We are evacuating this sector immediately!"
The DNAliens weren't necessarily afraid of dying in battle. What truly terrified them was the prospect of failing their mission. If they died and the quartz fell into enemy hands, the Highbreed masters would ensure their suffering extended far beyond death. All their grueling labor would be for nothing.
To their credit, the DNAliens possessed incredible execution speed when properly motivated by sheer terror.
In less than three minutes, the vast majority of the mined quartz was loaded onto hover-sleds and transported into the deeper tunnels. However, a small pile of freshly excavated ore remained scattered near the entrance, completely abandoned in the rush.
With no time left to secure it, the Overseer made a ruthless tactical decision. It ordered a handful of stragglers to stay behind, effectively sentencing them to death in order to lure Klein's group away from the main escape route.
Back on the surface.
Kevin, casually steering with one hand, suddenly narrowed his eyes. His headlights caught two grotesque, vaguely familiar figures leaping out of the brush and onto the asphalt ahead.
"DNAliens?!"
Kevin slammed his foot on the brake, ready to throw the car into park and crack some skulls. But before the car even fully stopped, the two DNAliens spun around and sprinted off the road, heading in the exact opposite direction of the mine.
"Don't even think about running!" Ben shouted, his hand hovering over the Omnitrix dial. He threw his door open, ready to transform into Jetray and chase them down from the sky.
Klein reached over from the backseat, grabbing Ben's shoulder. "Wait, Ben. Hold on. Something's off."
Klein's eyes tracked the fleeing monsters. These two had deliberately revealed themselves right in the middle of the road, only to immediately sprint away from their actual base of operations. The bait was painfully obvious.
"They don't want us getting anywhere near that mine pit, do they?" Gwen murmured, leaning against the window glass, her eyes narrowing at the retreating figures.
"Kevin. Floor it. Take us straight to the mine."
"You got it, Boss!"
Kevin slammed the door shut and stomped on the gas pedal. The engine roared to life, the tires squealing against the asphalt as the sports car shot forward like a bullet.
But to his surprise, barely a mile down the road, a dense barricade of DNAliens suddenly poured out from the tree line, blocking the entire width of the street.
Klein didn't even blink. "Run them over."
Kevin flashed a feral, bloodthirsty grin, his knuckles turning white on the leather steering wheel. "Good thing I just updated my premium!"
By the time the DNAliens registered the roaring engine, it was far too late. The heavy sports car slammed into their front line with a deafening crash, shattering bone and sending several bodies flying over thirty feet into the air.
The ones who were launched off the road into the dirt managed to survive the impact. The ones who fell directly into the car's path were violently crushed beneath the heavy tires.
By the time Klein and his crew finally pulled up to the entrance of the mine pit, only a few scattered, trembling DNAliens remained, standing guard over a small pile of glowing quartz ore.
Gwen stepped out of the car. Pink energy flared around her fists, and within seconds, she effortlessly dispatched the remaining stragglers, leaving them groaning in the dirt.
Ben walked over to the pile, crouching down to pick up a jagged chunk of the glowing crystal. "Why are they busting their backs mining quartz?"
Klein leaned against the hood of the car, his arms crossed. "Do you remember Professor Paradox's time machine?"
Ben's eyes widened slightly. "Wait... are you implying...?"
"Cross-dimensional teleportation devices generally require highly concentrated quartz as a base energy source," Klein stated, his voice flat.
A heavy silence settled over the group. Everyone present was fully aware of the Highbreed's grand design to launch a full-scale invasion of Earth.
They just hadn't expected the alien supremacists to be this relentlessly stubborn. Despite having their operations crushed time and time again, they still refused to back down.
Then again, considering the fanatical nature of the Highbreed, giving up probably wasn't an option they were capable of comprehending.
[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!]