Chapter 13
"Max!" Ben yelled in his direction as he walked over to him, clearly pissed off and followed by Gwen and Kevin. Max had been talking with Bones about attack strategy, and was slightly annoyed to be interrupted. "What is it?" he asked gruffly. Ben handed him a note that had been left by Nelson. He had woken up that morning to find the note next to him and Charmcaster gone. The note read, If you want to ever see her again, Tennyson, you and your friends will surrender yourselves to me.
Max looked up from reading the note and told Ben, "It's clearly a trap." "So?" Ben scoffed, "We need to form an offensive and get her back." Max thought for a moment, and then turned away with a "No." "No?! What are you talking about?!" Ben retorted. "No," Max replied firmly, "I'm not going to risk you guys or further soldiers by walking into their own territory. Besides, she'll probably get out on her own anyway."
"Don't you think she would have already done that if she could?" Gwen questioned him, and added, "We appreciate your concern, but we do need to get her back." "I'm not going to send in any Plumber soldiers," Max stated with a tone of finality. Ben stared at him, dumbfounded. "You're really willing to sacrifice a life just so you won't have to risk any more?!" "Exactly," Max agreed, "I'm not going to risk losing multiple lives in comparison to losing just one life."
Ben continue to stare in shock at Max. Only now was he beginning to realize that he did not share the same code of ethics as the Grandpa Max that he had known. "Fine," Gwen answered for him, "We'll rescue her ourselves." "Actually, you're not going to do that either," Max declared. "Oh?" Kevin asked challengingly, "And who's going to stop us?"
Max signaled to his soldiers, and within an instant there were guns trained on the three of them, ready to fire and execute them. Gwen's eyes widened in shock. "What are you doing?!" she shrieked, "We're your grandchildren!" "Be that as it may," Max growled, "I'm still prepared to do what I must for the sake of the greater good."
"And who says what the greater good is?!" Kevin snapped, "You?!" "Exactly," Max agreed, "We are the law of the universe. We can do with it what we want. You may have heard about something called the Replacement Project. Well, to put it simply, the human race is contributing absolutely nothing to the universe. All they do is eat away at themselves. You have those bastards in there"-he gestured to SOS territory-"And then you have those people who are too cowardly to do anything. Now, there are some species out there who contribute more to the universe who are not only almost extinct, but they have no home. Destroyed by someone like Vilgax. What will we do, you ask? We will exterminate the human race, and let a new species live here instead. We decided to keep you, because we thought you could be useful. But you're too attached to yourselves. To these humans."
Ben and Gwen both stood there, horrified at what they had just heard. "You'll commit genocide just to give a new species a home to live?!" Gwen asked incredulously, "You could just give them the home and leave us alone!" "Coexistence? We tried that," Max replied dismissively, "It's impossible. We tried leaving two species on one planet, but they would not stop fighting and they ended up destroying their own planet. What are you going to do to stop us, anyway? There's only three of you."
"First we're going to make it so there's four of us again," Ben declared, "And then we will stop you." "I guess I admire your bravery," Max shrugged, "But it will be for nothing." Then he turned to his soldiers and declared, "Kill them."
Gwen put up a mana shield barely in time to stop the onslaught of lasers and bullets. "This thing isn't going to hold forever!" Gwen informed them, "Got a plan?" "We go and rescue Charmcaster," Ben replied simply, "And then we deal with whatever business we need to deal with." "How do you propose to do that, going into a mass of armed psychos?" Kevin asked. "I have a plan," Ben stated, "It can be done without you two. You can just buy me time while I get over there." "Fine," Gwen agreed.
Ben switched on the Omnitrix and turned into... "Nanomech!" he squeaked. "Ah, good, they'll never find you then," Gwen commented, and then she opened the shield, and swiped a mana wave at the Plumbers, knocking down the first wave. Nanomech flew out, and started making a beeline directly for SOS territory. "There's a lot of these guys!" Kevin yelled, "What do we do?" "Just take out as many as we can!" Gwen replied, and Kevin grabbed a charging Plumber soldier, absorbed his metal armor, and then charged directly into the midst of the soldiers, bullets and lasers now simply bouncing off him. Gwen continued to shield herself from enemy weapons, occasionally throwing more mana bolts at them.
After a while, they had taken out several of the Plumber soldiers, but they were beginning to wear out. "Got a new plan?" Kevin yelled, and Gwen, realizing that Nanomech had gotten far enough anyway, nodded and replied, "Get over here!" Kevin obeyed and then Gwen used a teleportation spell to take them back to the house.
"Now what?" Bones growled, "Things are really beginning to get out of hand. Can't we just blow up the planet?" "No," Max replied firmly, "We need to make room for one of our other specimen. Let them go for now. We will focus on SOS for now, and wait for them to crawl out of the hole. The kids decide they want to bring the battle to us, then let them." "If they do get the witch back, then we are going to be in a lot of trouble," Bones warned him. "That's why I'm hoping that the SOS will take care of those enemies for us," Max agreed, "After all, the last time we let something play to chance, it worked out perfectly in our favor. I think we can take that risk again. Besides, we really don't have another choice." "Very well," Bones nodded, and went back to the soldiers, who were counting the dead.