Alien gadgets and tangled wires covered almost every inch of the Rust Bucket's small table.
Rio sat amidst the chaos, his mind no cleaner. The recent encounters replayed endlessly in his mind, and he wasn't able to shake them off.
Gwen and Ben flailing in dark water, Grandpa Max's bandaged arm held stiffly at his side. In the animated world he remembered, such moments were fleeting—a quick cut to a joke and everyone was fine.
Here, the fear in their eyes was genuine, the pain was real, and the consequences didn't reset after twenty-two minutes.
He let out a rough breath and rubbed the back of his neck. His family was quite vulnerable. He just couldn't figure out how they managed to live in the show if they were constantly in such danger.
In the cartoon, the plot armor did its thing. Some unseen hand that made sure everything worked out in the end. Here, that hand felt full of weaknesses, and Rio was the only one who seemed to notice they were walking a tightrope.
So here he was, making weapons and armor for his family to protect them, even when they couldn't think fast enough to protect themselves.
Tasers were a good first step, but they felt so… weak. A weapon could be dropped. Wrestled away. His family needed protection that couldn't be taken away. Protection that was always there.
----
A bright green flash filled the cramped space, followed by the low hum of transformation.
Click. Whirr. Zap.
Tiny sparks popped as the wires and metal components were connected together.
He moved between forms, Grey Matter's genius designing what Upgrade's malleable body would then build.
When the work was finally done, lined up neatly on the table were several small, sleek objects.
They weren't obvious weapons. They were just small, metallic spheres, each about the size of a marble that kids play with.
They looked like jewelry. Utterly harmless. belying the sophisticated defensive technology packed within.
He had just finished lining up the last sphere when the clock caught his eye—it was already getting dark. With a tired sigh, he started to clean up, locking away tools and scraps one by one.
He had just snapped the final lock shut on a storage compartment when the door burst open.
Ben stumbled inside, breathing hard.
His shirt was torn, his jeans were smeared with dirt and grass stains, and a few dried leaves were stuck in his hair like he'd been rolling down a hill.
A fresh scratch on his cheek beaded with blood, completing the picture of a complete mess.
"Rio," he choked out, bracing himself against the doorframe, his chest heaving. "You are not going to believe what just happened to me."
Rio's eyes narrowed. This is it. The alien chase scene.
He set down the tool in his hand. His voice was low. Serious.
"What happened?"
-----
(Ben's POV)
The old man driving the golf cart pulled up to the complex's waste area, where a mangled wire gate stood partially open.
On a closer look, I realized it was Marty, Grandma Vera's neighbor, the one who used to give me candy.
He grabbed the rolled-up red carpet from the back like it weighed nothing and headed for the gate.
From the look of the carpet, something was wrapped in it, surely weighing quite a bit.
Then something impossible happened. His legs stretched upward, elongating like taffy until he was tall enough to simply step over the fence gate.
Reaching the other side, he shoved one of the three dumpsters aside, revealing a hidden gate beneath. Opening the gates, he unceremoniously dumped the rolled carpet into the darkness below.
While he was distracted, I crept closer, crouching by the gate to get a better look.
He was also about to disappear into the place below when he froze. Then, in a move that defied every law of biology I knew, his neck rotated a full 180 degrees until his eyes locked directly on mine.
"AAAHHHH"
I couldn't help it—a sharp squeal escaped my lips.
The rest of his body followed suit, spinning around to face me while his legs stayed planted. He let out a screech that sounded like nails on a chalkboard and lunged.
His arms stretched across the ten-foot gap between us, his hands snapping at my shoulders from between the wires of the fence, but I ducked and slipped down the road.
Scrambling to my feet, I bolted for the golf cart he'd left parked nearby. The keys were still in the ignition. Thanking every lucky star I could think of, I turned the key and slammed my foot down.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, my blood ran cold. Everything that was happening now was beyond my understanding.
Marty's body elongated as he ran. I had the cart floored, the speedometer trembling at 40 mph, and he was keeping pace.
"Okay. Creepy old guy coming right for me," I muttered, white-knuckling the steering wheel. "Maybe I wouldn't mind if this went back to being the most boring vacation spot ever."
That's when it got worse. Much worse.
His arms shot forward, stretching like insane rubber bands until his hands caught onto the front bumper. The cart skidded on the spot, engine whining in protest as he started pulling us backward with unbelievable strength.
Panic surged through me. My eyes darted around and found a set of golf clubs on the passenger seat. I grabbed a nine-iron, leaned out the side, and swung with all my strength. The club connected with a sickening thwack.
His arm was severed, and I finally broke free.
But the colors drained from my face. I just wanted to make him let go, not... cut it.
My eyes closed themselves, not wanting to see the bloody scene. though in that last moment, I saw that instead of any blood, bone, or muscle, the inside of his arm was a slimy green goo.
Although that surprised me, a sudden THUMP on the roof gave me an even worse shock, making my eyes wide open again—Marty was on top of the cart.
Coupled with the fact that I didn't have my hands on the steering wheel, the cart swerved, hit the sidewalk, and flipped, sending us flying into a tree.
The world spun.
A moment later, I groaned, my body aching from the impact with a tree. I tried to pull myself up, leaning heavily against the rough bark.
But Marty was faster. His body, which had converted into a green, blobby substance in seconds, reformed back into human shape much quicker than I could recover.
He took a menacing step toward me—then froze. His eyes widened in terror as a lawn sprinkler nearby sprayed water across his arm.
Smoke rose from the spots where the water hit. He let out a terrified, pained screech, clutched his arm, and fled.
I stayed there, slumped against the tree, my whole body aching. The only sound was my ragged breathing and the gentle, mocking tick-tick-tick of the sprinkler.
Adrenaline and blood pulsed through me so hard the veins in my forehead felt like they were about to burst. They throbbed so badly that my whole brain seemed to pound like my heart.
But in the end, just one thought echoed over and over in my pounding head:
-What the hell was that?-
-----
Ben, still dusty and disheveled, paced in front of the floral couch where Gwen and a weary-looking Max were seated. Rio stood quietly by the doorway, arms crossed, listening.
Rio had brought Ben straight to Max to report everything.
Max had been listening for five minutes straight. His face had gone from curious to doubtful to pure exhaustion.
"Let me see if I've got this straight," Max said slowly. "You decided to go for a walk and saw… an old woman who jumped on a wall like a spider, caught a fly with her mouth, and dropped from the ceiling with no problem."
Ben nodded vigorously, his eyes wide. "Yes! And then—"
Max held up a hand. "And then, Vera's neighbor Marty is apparently a monster who can spin his head around and stretch his body like rubber."
"Not rubber!" Ben insisted, his voice cracking. "It was like... slimy green goo! I hit his arm with a golf club, and it splattered! And when the sprinkler hit him, he started smoking! I swear, it was like acid splattered on him!"
Gwen couldn't take it anymore and finally spoke, her tone walking the fine line between pity and disbelief. She didn't always want to be against Ben, but he made it so hard. He came up with the wildest stories, and with his track record for trouble, it was difficult to take him seriously.
"Ben… maybe you just, I don't know, just stole the golf cart, crashed, and hit your head?"
"And now you wanna shift the blame to an imaginary creature."
"I didn't fall—I was thrown!" Ben's voice pitched even higher. "And I didn't hit my head! Rio, come on, you believe me, right?"
All eyes turned to Rio. In return, he looked at Ben's desperate, sincere face, then at Max's tired but concerned expression. and finally at Gwen's frown, which clearly said she didn't buy a word of it.
He took a breath. "We've already seen one strange thing this summer, so the line between possible and impossible is still not clear."