After returning to the Rust Bucket, Evan went to ask Max about the Autobots and Decepticons. The old Plumber only frowned slightly before confirming everything Arcee had told him, which at least proved she had not been lying.
Max also casually dropped a bit of grandpa lore by explaining that, during the day, he and Stay Gold had already run into the Autobots and Decepticons more than once. In fact, after teaming up with the Autobots, the Plumbers had even managed to drive the Decepticons off Earth once before.
"It seems those Decepticons came back after finding out the Plumber left Earth," Max muttered, rubbing his temple lightly.
"We can deal with that later. Our next stop is Cape Canaveral."
He quickly turned his attention back to the main problem.
Earlier, while driving to pick up Evan, Max had turned on the radio and caught an interesting report about purple lightning appearing near Kennedy Space Center.
The last time they had seen anything related to purple lightning, it had been tied to that alien werewolf.
Their last clash with Evan had ended before anyone could settle the matter, since both sides were buried underground and forced to break away. Evan had transformed into Big Chill and flown out.
So, in a way, Evan did not think the werewolf was dead. It had proven to be strong enough to dig its way out before, so escaping and fleeing did not seem impossible.
...
The Rust Bucket soon pulled up near Kennedy Space Center as the group quickly put their plan together.
"Okay, here's the plan," Ben said. "I should go in as Diamondhead. No, wait, Four Arms. Then I get to the bottom of this purple lightning business."
"Actually," Max said, "I think I know someone who can get us inside with a lot less trouble."
"Really?" Ben asked. "Who?"
"No one special," Max replied with a smirk. "Just an old friend."
...
The group looked around at the displays and old photographs with awe when Dr. Shueman suddenly appeared before them.
"Max Tennyson!" he said. "Has it really been forty years?"
"Give or take," Max replied, shaking his hand.
"What happened to you? One day you were here, and the next day you were gone. Had to give your little walk to Armstrong."
"Wait a minute. Armstrong?" Ben blurted out. "As in Neil Armstrong from Apollo 11? Grandpa, you were supposed to be the first man on the moon?"
"Sure was," Dr. Shueman said. "Does this guy look familiar?"
He pointed to a picture of a younger Maxwell Tennyson wearing a spacesuit beside a shuttle preparing for launch.
"Best astronaut in the program."
"A different duty called," Max said.
"So, what can I help you with, Max?"
"Just playing tourist today," Max lied. "Wanted to show the youngsters around the old stomping grounds."
Ben was still looking around in amazement when he accidentally bumped into Dr. Viktor.
"Sorry, sir," Ben said.
Dr. Viktor looked down at the boy's wrist, and the moment he saw the Omnitrix, his eyes widened.
"You shouldn't be here," he said, turning to Dr. Shueman. "You brought unauthorized visitors into a classified area? Get rid of them."
Then he walked off.
Ben scoffed and rolled his eyes.
"What's his problem?" Ben asked. "All I did was bump into him."
"It's been a pretty crazy day with the delay and everything," Dr. Shueman said. "Maybe we should reschedule your tour. You remember the way out, right?"
After Dr. Shueman left, Max turned to the kids and smirked, pointing ahead.
Then he suddenly paused.
He did not see the Golds anywhere.
After a brief moment, he decided to ignore it for now. Evan and Orfevre were on Gold Ship watching duty, after all, so the space center should still be standing.
As the three of them walked off, Gold Ship was already walking off some distance behind them with a handful of pictures of Maxwell Tennyson in a spacesuit above her head. She moved quietly and carefully, slipping away without anyone noticing.
Her two older siblings were nowhere to be seen.
...
"So I never did wind up going into space with N.A.S.A.," Max finished, bringing his story to an end.
"Bummer." Ben crossed his arms. "Grandpa, don't you regret not becoming the first man on the moon?"
"Not really," Max replied with a small smile. "I just decided to take my leaps for mankind in other ways. Besides, Armstrong needed the attention more than I did."
As he finished speaking, he noticed a few employees walking down the hallway.
"Quiet."
He motioned for everyone to follow him toward a nearby door and waited until the employees disappeared around the corner.
Taking out a small hacking device, Max plugged it into the keypad beside the door.
A few beeps later, the passcode was bypassed, and the door slid open.
"Plumber standard issue," he said casually as he put the device away.
Gwen rolled her eyes.
"Is there anything the Plumbers don't have?"
Max chuckled before sitting down at the recording station and bringing up the security system.
"N.A.S.A. records just about everything," he said as rows of camera feeds appeared across the monitor. "Now, let's see if we can find that purple lightning."
While Max focused on searching through the recordings, Ben quickly lost interest.
With nothing exciting happening, he quietly slipped away to see if he could find something more fun to do.
At the same time, far below, in the holding area filled with discarded shuttles and old space travel parts...
"You sure Gold Ship isn't going to cause trouble?" Orfevre asked as she sat down on a battered old seat, stretching one arm out beside her.
"She won't do anything too outrageous unless she really wants to make Grandpa disappointed," Juryrigg replied as he kept tearing apart pieces of machinery and putting them back together again at a ridiculous speed.
As her older brother, Evan understood Gold Ship's personality very well. Other than literally tying her up, one of the best ways to keep her under control was to let her tie herself up. After the previous incident where she burned down half a baseball stadium, Max had looked genuinely disappointed in her.
And for Gold Ship, that mattered a lot.
She could joke around all she wanted, but the moment it came to worrying her favorite grandpa, she would actually hold herself back. He was old, and she knew it. If she pushed him too far and really made him worry so much that he ended up with a heart attack, she would never forgive herself.
That was why she had been much better behaved lately.
Her siblings could survive a few heart attacks. Grandpa Max, though?
She wasn't willing to take that risk.
"Here. Put this on."
Juryrigg held up a custom-made metal gauntlet.
With a sharp click, the metal snapped shut around her right wrist, making her hand look a little larger than normal.
Orfevre stood up and flexed her fingers once, testing it carefully. Then she gave her hand a quick flick, and the metal fingers extended outward as electricity crackled violently around them.
A rubber-covered glove beneath the gauntlet kept the current from shocking her hand.
She thrust her palm forward and slammed it against the side of a nearby abandoned ship. Electricity burst outward at once, leaving behind a huge scorched handprint on the metal.
"Not bad," she murmured, flexing her wrist lightly.
Then she noticed the gauntlet had already started to crack under the force of her power.
"Don't bother worrying about that," Juryrigg said with a casual wave. "These are one-time-use anyway. With your Aura, maybe you can get a few uses out of them before they fall apart. If you need to let it go, press the quick-release."
He pointed to a small red button on the side.
Orfevre pressed it.
The gauntlet opened at once, releasing her hand. The damaged metal dropped to the ground and broke apart almost immediately.
"It also works as a kill switch," Juryrigg explained as he walked over to grab a few more pieces he had made. "That way it won't get stuck to your hand if it breaks."
Because he had only had limited time and a pile of scrap to work with, there wasn't much decent material he could use.
Someone had already come through here and looted all the good stuff before he did.
Still, he came back with a few more special pieces he had made for his sister.
"You'll have to make do with these for now," he said with an easy smile. "Once I get my hands on better materials, I'll build you something with nanotech."
He spread his arms proudly, clearly satisfied with what he had managed to make out of little more than scrap metal.
Orfevre stared at him for a moment, and before she knew it, she felt a little more moved than she expected.
Even if they fought all the time, the two of them still cared about each other.
To think she had once hated him that much.
Back then, Orfevre had just been a shy, quiet girl with an older brother who seemed to enjoy bullying her for no reason. That had forced her to become sharper, to growl back, and to try fighting him whenever she could. She never won, but that never stopped her from trying.
And then one day, her brother had changed.
It had been so sudden that it felt like a complete turnaround, and it left everyone stunned.
Even after that, they had tried to stay cold toward him at first. But little by little, his change in attitude started to wear down the walls they had built around themselves. He had gone from being the worst brother imaginable to the caring older brother standing in front of her now.
He no longer mocked or belittled his siblings.
He took Gold Ship and Fenomeno to school and back home, bought them snacks and toys, played with them, and looked after them. He helped Dream Journey whenever he could. He even quietly sneaked out late at night to pick Nakayama Festa up after she had gone to some party and needed a ride home. And when he found out the bullies at school had been bothering the quiet, introverted Orfevre, he had dragged them off and made sure they learned their lesson.
The change had been so drastic that sometimes it really felt like he was a completely different person.
"What? See something you like?" Juryrigg asked when he noticed Orfevre suddenly smiling at him.
He turned his head and looked around as if he had somehow missed something.
Orfevre let out a soft snort before waving it off.
"Nothing, Ever."
Suddenly, the roar of an engine cut through the air and snapped the twins out of their moment of distraction. Both of them turned toward the sound just as a black armored truck came barreling straight toward them.
"Move!" Juryrigg shouted.
The twins instantly split apart, dashing in opposite directions.
The armored truck's tires screeched against the ground. Instead of continuing straight or going to Juryrigg, it suddenly swerved toward Orfevre.
"ORU!!" Juryrigg shouted in alarm.
He spun around without hesitation and slammed his Omnitrix dial.
Golden light exploded outward.
Orfevre vanished a split second before the truck could hit her.
A moment later, she reappeared a short distance away in Fasttrack's arms as he set her down carefully.
"Thanks," Orfevre said.
Even with her Aura and armor, getting hit by a speeding armored truck probably would not have killed her. It still would have hurt like hell.
Fasttrack didn't answer. His narrowed eyes stayed fixed on the armored truck as it turned toward them once more.
Through the tinted windshield... There was no driver. The truck accelerated again, charging straight toward them.
Fasttrack lowered his stance. Instead of avoiding it, he sprinted directly at the incoming vehicle. Just before the collision, he tapped his Omnitrix dial.
Golden light burst across his body.
His lean blue-and-black frame rapidly expanded, muscles swelling as thick brown scales covered his body. He grew into a massive brown humanoid dinosaur with thick scales and enormous strength.
"Humungousaur!!"
With a deafening roar, the towering dinosaur alien crashed headfirst into the armored truck.
The impact stopped the speeding vehicle dead in its tracks.
Humungousaur planted both feet firmly into the ground before grabbing the truck by its front end and effortlessly lifting the entire thing into the air, ready to rip it apart.
Then the truck transformed. Its body twisted and unfolded into a towering black-and-silver robot nearly thirty feet tall.
Its heavy frame immediately crashed down onto Humungousaur, trying to crush him beneath its weight.
Humungousaur answered by growing even larger. His already massive body quickly became even larger until he stood at sixty feet tall. With a furious grunt, he lifted the robot with both hands and hurled it away.
The giant machine slammed into the ground, rolled several times, and gouged a deep trail through the earth before finally stopping.
It shook its head, then slowly pushed itself back up, and its crimson optics glared at the alien dinosaur.
Humungousaur stared back with glowing golden eyes. The anger on his face was impossible to hide. He answered with a furious roar that echoed across the scrapyard.
The robot raised one arm, transforming it into a massive cannon, and aimed it straight at him while energy began to gather at the muzzle.
Humungousaur charged.
Every thunderous footstep shook the ground beneath him. The instant the cannon fired, he leaped. The enormous sphere of energy shot harmlessly beneath him.
He landed hard in front of the robot, and the impact sent a shockwave outward. Before the robot could recover, Humungousaur grabbed it by the face and slammed it into the ground with enough force to crack the pavement beneath it.
"Let go of me, Vaxasaurian!" the robot roared as it desperately tried to pry Humungousaur's fingers away.
Without warning, old bandages shot through the air. They wrapped tightly around Humungousaur's arms from the back before violently yanking him backward.
Humungousaur turned just in time to see the alien mummy from before pulling on the bandages.
Before he could react again, a massive sonic screech slammed into him from the side. The shockwave knocked him off balance.
The robot instantly seized the opportunity. It pressed the glowing barrel of its cannon directly against Humungousaur's chest.
The point-blank blast exploded.
Humungousaur was launched backward like a cannonball before crashing into an abandoned rocket, the impact crumpling part of its metal frame.
He slowly shook his head and looked back toward the battlefield.
The robot had already regrouped. Standing beside it were the living mummy and the werewolf alien they had encountered before.
Humungousaur let out a snort.
"Isn't it a little early for Halloween?"
A killer transforming robot, a living mummy, and a werewolf. Apparently, when one opponent proved too difficult, the answer was simply calling in the rest of the gang for backup.
Too bad Evan had gotten used to fighting alone against groups a long time ago.
Back when he discovered that Orfevre had been bullied at school, he had gone there personally and beaten up everyone involved.
He still remembered the day a whole group of delinquents gathered together to jump him.
So he simply called ten ambulances in advance. By the time they arrived, every single delinquent was already lying on the ground waiting politely for help.
Facing the three aliens in front of him, Humungousaur reached up and tapped his Omnitrix dial.
Golden light burst outward once more.
His body shifted again.
This time, he became much shorter, with black fur and sharp quills extended from his head and back, streaked with glowing golden lines.
"Huh? You dare take the form of that puny creature?" the robot snapped, offended by the sudden change from a sixty-foot dinosaur to a three feet and eleven inches humanoid hedgehog.
Eclipse simply folded his arms. His golden eyes remained calm as he looked up at the three monsters towering over him.
"Pathetic."
His cold voice echoed across the scrapyard.
"You can't even recognize the one who's about to end you... even while I'm standing right in front of you."
"Fine." He tilted his head slightly, his voice turning colder. "Have you decided... Which one of you will die first?"