Chapter 93: Three Alien Heroes Who Were Almost Blacklisted by Klein
The midday sun beat down heavily on the asphalt. The Rustbucket rumbled down the highway, its engine humming a familiar, slightly strained tune. Inside the RV, the atmosphere was thick with an absolute, stunned silence.
On the small television screen, a brightly colored animated series played out. The title card flashed with obnoxious, bold letters: Super Alien Heroes Brotherhood!
A booming, overly dramatic voiceover echoed from the tiny speakers. "...Brother One, the Monstrous Hand!...Brother Two, the Fiery Demon!...Brother Three, the Doggy! Together, they are... the Super Alien Heroes Brotherhood!"
Klein sat frozen on the sofa. His eyes were dead, staring blankly at the screen. Beside him, Ben looked as though someone had just hit pause on his reality.
A long, agonizing minute passed.
"...I am never using those three aliens again," Klein finally muttered, his voice flat and completely devoid of hope.
Ben's face contorted into a mask of pure outrage. He ground his teeth together, the sound audible over the cartoon's cheesy theme song. "...Someone is going to pay a heavy price for this!"
Klein didn't say another word. He didn't need to. His eyes simply narrowed, a dark, calculating glint flashing in his pupils. He sincerely hoped the producers of this garbage enjoyed their sleep tonight, because very soon, they wouldn't even know how their careers—and possibly their lives—met a sudden, tragic end.
"Uh... Cousin, are you okay?" Gwen leaned over, her brow furrowed. Klein's eerie, unblinking calm was far more terrifying than Ben's vocal rage.
"...I'm perfectly fine." Klein forced the corners of his mouth up into a stiff, unnatural smile.
"Cousin, how can you just sit there and take this?!" Ben slammed both hands onto the small dining table, launching himself to his feet. He thought Klein was actually letting this slide.
Klein shot Ben a look of deep exhaustion. 'You idiot,'he thought.'Do you not realize that the best kind of revenge is the kind the police can't trace back to you?'
"...Ah!"
Before Ben could continue his rant, the Rustbucket lurched violently. The brakes squealed, and the RV jerked to a sudden halt. Ben, completely off-balance, pitched forward and face-planted directly onto the linoleum floor.
Up in the driver's seat, Grandpa Max wrestled with the ignition. The engine sputtered, coughed out a pathetic wheeze, and died. He tried again. The RV lurched forward a few inches, shuddering violently before giving up the ghost once more.
There was no getting around it. They were stuck limping along the shoulder of the road until they found a commercial district to buy replacement parts. Calling for a tow or asking for a spare wasn't an option out here; the desert highway was completely deserted.
It took an agonizingly long time, but the sputtering Rustbucket finally limped into an area with actual human activity.
Grandpa Max guided the smoking vehicle into a parking space, letting out a heavy sigh. Everyone piled out into the fresh air. Max immediately popped the hood, waving away a cloud of gray smoke to inspect the damage.
Klein, Ben, and Gwen wandered off toward the main promenade to stretch their legs.
"...Hmm?! Is that...!" Ben suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, pointing a trembling finger at a massive billboard towering over the street.
The bright neon letters read: Cosmic Interstellar Cineplex.
Gwen followed his gaze, her eyes lighting up with curiosity. "What's wrong? What did you see?"
Klein tilted his head, feeling a bit out of his element. As a soul from another universe, the appeal of a standard movie theater didn't exactly thrill him.
"Kangaroo Commando! They're doing a live-action Kangaroo Commando performance today!" Ben practically vibrated with excitement, grabbing Klein's sleeve and tugging hard.
A live-action stage show?
Klein raised an eyebrow. That actually sounded mildly entertaining. He knew Kangaroo Commando was Ben's absolute favorite television superhero. Seeing a guy in a cheap suit bounce around a stage could be good for a laugh.
Ben immediately demanded they go watch the performance. Gwen, however, crossed her arms and glared. She wanted to drag Klein to a proper movie.
...
Ten minutes later, they stood outside the Kangaroo Commando performance venue.
Naturally, Klein had sided with Ben. The promise of live, chaotic theater was too good to pass up.
"I still don't get it. What is so appealing about an old, washed-up TV actor jumping around in tiny shorts?!" Gwen huffed, kicking at a loose pebble.
Klein sighed internally. Balancing the demands of his two cousins was a full-time job. If he hadn't genuinely wanted to see the ridiculous stage show himself, he wouldn't have played favorites.
He turned to Gwen, offering a placating smile. He promised to take her to whatever movie she wanted right after the show ended.
Gwen's eyes narrowed. She rejected the movie offer outright. Instead, she held out her hand and demanded to borrow his hypnotic pocket watch.
Klein blinked, a bit thrown off by the request. He hesitated for a second, but eventually nodded and handed it over. It wasn't like anything dangerous could happen. The last time Gwen used it on him, he woke up feeling perfectly fine, albeit with a strange gap in his memory. He assumed she just used it to make him clean the RV or do her chores. Plus, he always woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed, so it couldn't be anything too terrible.
The moment the cold metal of the watch touched Gwen's palm, her entire demeanor shifted. Her sulking vanished, replaced by a radiant, almost predatory smile. A distinct, thrilling gleam flashed in her eyes.
'Heh, she's still just a kid after all. Easily bribed with a shiny toy,' Klein thought, smiling fondly at her sudden change in mood.
"Let's go! Let's hurry up and watch this super cool Kangaroo Commando show!" Gwen cheered, grabbing Klein's arm and practically dragging him toward the entrance. She just wanted to get this stupid performance over with so she could finally...
Klein and Ben exchanged a thoroughly confused glance. They both shrugged helplessly and let themselves be pulled along.
Just as Ben turned to follow them, a heavy weight slammed into his back.
He stumbled forward, spinning around to see a guy stuffed into a horribly cheap, lumpy Four Arms mascot costume.
The guy inside the suit noticed Ben was just a kid and immediately struck a dramatic, wobbly pose. "Ah! Fear not, citizen! I am Brother One, the Monstrous Hand! Do you also love the Super Alien Heroes Brotherhood? The creator, Dean, is holding an exclusive autograph session right over there!"
The mascot tried to flex his foam muscles, lost his balance, and tipped over backward, hitting the pavement with a hollow thud.
"Ben, what's the hold-up? Come on!"
Klein and Gwen had stopped a few yards away, turning back when they realized they were missing a Dweeb.
Ben didn't move. He stood frozen, staring past the flailing mascot toward a small plaza across the street.
"Cousin!" Ben yelled, his voice cracking with sudden, intense adrenaline. "I found him! That guy!"
Klein followed Ben's pointing finger. Across the street, a man sat behind a folding table, scribbling his name for a long line of eager fans.
None of that mattered. What mattered was the massive, glossy banner hanging directly behind the table. It proudly displayed the title: Super Alien Heroes Brotherhood.
"Gwen, wait here a second," Klein said, his voice dropping an octave. The fond, lazy cousin was gone. His expression hardened into a mask of cold, predatory focus. "Ben and I have some business to take care of."
He cracked his knuckles, the sound sharp in the afternoon air. "Let's go show this hack what a real Alien Heroes Brotherhood looks like."
Gwen watched the two boys march off, a bead of sweat forming on her brow. "Cousin and Ben... they'll be careful not to kill anyone... right?"
She didn't try to stop them. No matter what happened, she was always on Klein's side. If that guy had angered her cousin, he deserved whatever was coming to him.
...
Across the plaza.
Dean, the self-proclaimed genius creator of the Super Alien Heroes Brotherhood, slouched in his folding chair. He scribbled his signature onto another poster, his voice dripping with bored apathy. "Yeah, yeah. Thank you all for your support. Next."
BOOM!
The ground violently shuddered. A deafening crash echoed across the plaza as a massive, heavy object slammed into the concrete just a few yards away from the autograph table. Spiderweb cracks shot out from the impact crater, kicking up a thick cloud of dust and debris.
The crowd gasped, stumbling back.
As the dust slowly settled, a towering, four-armed, red-skinned behemoth stepped out of the crater. Four Arms cracked his massive knuckles, his four golden eyes glaring down at the terrified author.
"Brother One, the Monstrous Hand!" someone in the crowd squealed.
"It really is him! It's Brother One!"
Four Arms' face twitched with pure, unadulterated rage. He bared his teeth, his voice booming like thunder. "I am Four Arms!"
Before the crowd could process the correction, a woman pointed frantically at the sky. "What is that?!"
A blazing streak of fire tore through the clouds, descending like a localized meteor. The heat wave hit the plaza a second before the figure slammed into the pavement, sending a shockwave of sparks and superheated air washing over the onlookers.
The flames pulled back, revealing a humanoid figure made of dark red magma and roaring fire. Heatblast stood up, his fiery head crackling with intense heat.
"Brother Two, the Fiery Demon! It's— Ah!"
A fan in the front row didn't even get to finish his sentence. Heatblast closed the distance in a blur of motion, his burning hand grabbing the man by the collar of his shirt and lifting him off the ground.
"Say that name one more time," Heatblast hissed, his voice a dangerous, crackling inferno, "and I will turn you into a human torch."
The fan nodded frantically, his face pale with absolute terror. The rest of the crowd instantly clamped their mouths shut, too terrified to even breathe.
Heatblast dropped the trembling man and turned his burning gaze toward the autograph table.
Four Arms joined him, the ground shaking slightly with each heavy step the Tetramand took.
Behind the table, Dean was experiencing a total system failure. Cold sweat poured down his face, soaking his shirt in seconds. He stared at the twelve-foot-tall red giant and the literal walking volcano approaching him.
These weren't guys in foam suits. The heat radiating from the fire guy was blistering, and the sheer muscle mass of the four-armed giant was impossible to fake. These were the real deal.
Panic seized Dean's chest. What was the legal penalty for infringing on an actual, living alien's likeness?!
He wanted to run. He commanded his legs to move, but they had turned to absolute jelly. He couldn't even push his chair back, let alone stand up. He glanced frantically over his shoulder, hoping to call for security, only to find the space completely empty. The two security guards had taken one look at the aliens and bolted, leaving a cartoonish dust cloud in their wake.
Heatblast stopped right in front of the table. He reached out, his blazing fingers casually picking up a stack of glossy character prints.
"Little brother," Heatblast said, his voice dripping with dark amusement. "Did you draw these?"
Dean nodded instinctively, then violently shook his head side to side, his eyes wide with panic.
A massive, crimson arm—thicker than Dean's entire torso—slammed down onto his shoulder, pinning him to the chair. Four Arms leaned in close, his breath hot against Dean's face.
"I suggest you think very, very carefully before you answer," Four Arms growled.
Dean's bladder threatened to give out. The sweat dripping from his forehead was practically a waterfall now.
Heatblast flipped through the prints, the edges of the paper already browning from the ambient heat of his hands. "They're drawn quite well, honestly."
Dean let out a high-pitched, hysterical chuckle. "Thank you! Thank you for the compliment! I'm so glad you like them! Really!"
"Heh."
Heatblast let out a dry, mocking scoff.
In an instant, the stack of drawings burst into a blinding flash of fire. Within a fraction of a second, they were reduced to fine gray ash, scattering into the wind before they even hit the ground.
"Mercy! Please, Big Brother, have mercy!" Dean shrieked, his eyes bulging out of his skull. He was absolutely convinced he was going to be incinerated in the next three seconds.
He had only dared to steal the alien heroes' designs because he figured massive, world-saving extraterrestrials wouldn't care about a cheap comic book hustle. He never, in his wildest nightmares, expected them to actually show up and demand royalties in blood.
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