Gwen's face flushed red with embarrassment, but Asher didn't seem to notice. He crumpled the napkin and tossed it into the trash before turning back to her. "Gwen, was there something else you needed?"
Seeing Asher's genuinely puzzled expression, Gwen felt momentarily speechless. She shook her head and walked out of the RV with her plate.
After breakfast, Max climbed back into the driver's seat and continued their journey to the amusement park. Soon, they merged onto a busier highway with significantly more traffic around them. The desolate wilderness they'd been traveling through was finally giving way to civilization.
But waiting in the RV during a long road trip was always tedious.
Ben lay pressed against the window, his breath fogging the glass as he stared at the passing scenery.
Just then, a small sedan pulled up alongside the old RV.
A young boy sat in the back seat, also looking out his window, staring directly at Ben.
"Hey there!" Ben extended his palm and waved.
The kid responded by pressing his face against the window and making an exaggerated, ridiculous face, tongue out, eyes crossed, the works. It was clearly provocative.
Ben's competitive spirit flared. He immediately returned the gesture, pressing his own face to the window and making an even more outrageous expression.
"You two are really..." Asher started to say the word childish, but caught himself. These two were actually the right age for this kind of behavior. He sighed internally.
He had a sinking feeling that the amusement park Grandpa Max mentioned would be crawling with kids just like this.
"That little punk!" Ben pulled back from the window indignantly after their brief "confrontation." He looked at Asher with an expectant gleam in his eyes. "Asher, could you transform into an alien hero to scare that guy? Just for a second?"
"This scene feels oddly familiar," Asher muttered with a frown, as if trying to match the situation to something in his memory.
He didn't dwell on it, though, and simply said, "Ben, the Omnitrix's transformations are too important. Unless it's an emergency, I won't use it just for fun."
"Besides, that watch isn't a toy," Gwen added, appearing from behind them with a lecturing tone. "If there's a real accident, the Omnitrix is our best tool for saving people."
"Come on, cousin, you're still as boring and uptight as ever," Ben complained. "How could there possibly be so many accidents anyway?"
As if fate itself had heard his words...
SCREECH!!
Max suddenly slammed on the brakes, and the RV lurched violently to a halt!
Asher reacted instantly, bracing himself against the walls with both hands. Ben and Gwen weren't as quick, they both nearly tumbled off their seats!
"Grandpa, what happened?" Asher asked, still holding himself steady as he looked toward Max.
Max's expression was serious as he peered through the windshield. "There's been a major traffic accident up ahead."
At his words, Asher, Ben, and Gwen all exchanged uncomfortable glances.
Are we cursed or something? Asher thought grimly. It's like we're the Grim Reaper's entourage, accidents happen wherever we go.
"If it's just a car accident, there'll be an ambulance to handle it, right? You don't need me to go out there," Asher said as he stood and walked to Max's side, leaning over to get a better look.
Before Max could answer, Asher saw everything clearly for himself.
Three large commercial trucks had collided at an intersection. One truck had tipped onto its side, and its trailer was now blocking the driver's door of another truck!
Inside that blocked truck, a delivery driver frantically pushed against his door, panic written all over his face. The door wouldn't budge, the weight of the overturned trailer was pinning it shut!
But that wasn't even the worst part.
Flames were already beginning to spread from the back of his truck. The vehicle could explode at any moment!
"Asher," Max said quietly, looking at him. No other words needed to be said.
"Understood, Grandpa." Asher's expression turned deadly serious.
He raised his left wrist and activated the Omnitrix's faceplate, watching the holographic display flicker to life. His fingers moved quickly across the dial, scrolling through the available alien forms.
This time, he rotated all the way to the last transformation, an alien he hadn't used yet.
Stinkfly!
BOOM!
He took several steps backward to the most open area of the RV, then slammed his palm down on the Omnitrix symbol!
As the brilliant green light erupted around him, an absolutely foul stench immediately filled the entire vehicle.
"Ugh, it smells terrible!" Max, Ben, and Gwen all covered their noses simultaneously, their faces contorting in disgust.
The creature before them resembled a massive dragonfly-like insect. Four eye-stalks protruded from his head, each ending in an independently moving eyeball. His hands had become black, claw-like appendages. But the most memorable feature, by far, was the indescribable, nauseating stench emanating from his body!
Stinkfly!
"That big bug is so gross!" Ben complained, pinching his nose tightly. "It's like a hundred times worse than Aunt Vera's tuna casserole surprise!"
"It's not called 'Big Bug,' it's called Stinkfly!" the alien retorted in a buzzing, insectoid voice.
Stinkfly raised his head and flexed his sharp claws experimentally, then spread his four translucent wings. They began beating so rapidly they became a blur, creating a distinctive buzzing sound.
WHOOOOSH!
His claws easily opened the RV's window, and he shot out into the open air like a biological fighter jet, suspended in the sky!
He twisted his body mid-flight, testing Stinkfly's aerial maneuverability. Within seconds, he'd fully adapted to the alien's unique flight capabilities!
Everything felt perfect. He was ready.
"Alright then," Stinkfly muttered to himself as his four eye-stalks focused on the burning vehicle below. "First priority, put out that fire!"
His insectoid body swooped down like a dive-bombing aircraft!
"Wait, what kind of thing is that?!" someone in the growing crowd shouted.
"I saw something like that on TV once! People claimed they'd seen aliens, and that's exactly what they looked like!"
"Come on, the 'aliens' those people saw looked completely different from this thing!"
"Is it here to help? Or is it dangerous?"
Within moments, dozens of onlookers had spotted Stinkfly descending from the sky. Some were amazed, some were terrified, some were excited, and some actually started cheering!
The kid who'd been making faces at Ben earlier now had a look of pure terror on his face, shivering as he stared at the creature in the sky.
SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!
Stinkfly ignored the crowd's reactions entirely, focusing on the flames consuming the truck. His four eye-stalks fired streams of thick, viscous green slime with pinpoint accuracy, coating the fires!
All four stalks worked in perfect synchronization, spitting slime rapidly and precisely. Within seconds, the flames burning across the ground and vehicle were completely extinguished by the sticky, fire-retardant substance!
"Help! Somebody help me!" the trapped delivery driver screamed, noticing Stinkfly hovering in the sky. His voice was laced with fear as he continued pounding desperately on the jammed door.
"Don't worry, I'm coming right now!" Stinkfly called out.
His wings beat furiously as he flew to the roof of the pinned truck. His tail, sharp and pointed like a drill, whipped around with precision.
CRUNCH!
The stinger-like tail pierced straight through the truck's metal roof as if it were paper. He carefully peeled back the torn metal with his tail, rolling it aside and setting it gently on the ground nearby.
"Hold still!" Stinkfly commanded.
He reached down with both clawed hands, gripping the delivery driver firmly by the shoulders. His wings strained as he lifted the full-grown man straight up into the air with surprising ease!
Flying over ten meters away from the accident site, Stinkfly gently lowered the man to safety on solid ground.
Time elapsed: two minutes.
The entire emergency had been resolved!
"Asher handled such a major accident without even running out of transformation time," Max said with obvious pride, leaning against the RV's doorframe as he watched from a distance.
"And there's still time left on the clock!" Ben added excitedly.
After setting down the delivery driver, Stinkfly leaned close to the man's ear and whispered, "Just tell everyone I flew away, okay?"
Then his wings buzzed to life again, and he launched himself into the air, rapidly disappearing from everyone's sight!
Those who'd been trying to take photos or record videos for their fifteen minutes of fame stopped helplessly, watching Stinkfly's silhouette shrink to a tiny black dot in the sky. Disappointment was written all over their faces.
"Alright, Ben, Gwen, stay inside. I'm going to drive somewhere more secluded where we can wait for Asher to detransform," Max said calmly. He glanced up at the small black speck still visible in the sky, seeming to understand exactly what was happening.
He climbed back into the driver's seat and carefully maneuvered the RV away from the accident scene, heading toward a more isolated area.
Meanwhile, the tiny black dot in the sky began falling rapidly, growing larger and larger as it descended.
It was Stinkfly, plummeting back toward Earth!