Chapter 71: The Bandit Squad and Klein, Respecter of the Elderly and the Young
The sliding glass doors of the mega-mall parted, welcoming Klein and the rest of the Tennyson crew back into the air-conditioned chaos. They immediately fanned out, dividing the massive commercial complex into search grids.
Unfortunately, after a grueling hour of dodging aggressive perfume salespeople and wandering through endless clothing racks, they reconvened by the central fountain. None of them had found a single trace of Sublimino.
However...
"Dweeb, I found another way to solve your little problem." Gwen reached into her shopping bag with a smug grin. Before Ben could react, metallic clicks echoed over the ambient mall music. She had slapped a pair of heavy-duty steel handcuffs onto his wrists, effectively locking his hands together. "As long as you can't touch the Omnitrix, you can't accidentally turn into a monster and wreck the place. Problem solved."
Ben yanked at the chain, glaring at her. "Are you kidding me?!"
Klein raised an eyebrow, genuinely impressed. "Where did you even get those?" He certainly hadn't expected a suburban shopping mall to stock police-grade restraints.
"Survival Gear City, right next to the food court," Gwen said, her eyes gleaming as she turned to Klein. "Cousin, do you want a pair too? They have all sorts of different styles. Fuzzy ones, neon ones..." She took a step toward him, fully prepared to drag him back to the store.
"No thanks. I'll leave the bondage gear to Ben," Klein refused flatly. Such premium items were best reserved for his cousin's suffering.
Just as Ben opened his mouth to complain again, a shadow fell over the atrium. A massive, oversized pocket watch descended from the vaulted ceiling on a thick cable, swinging like a pendulum in the center of the mall. Simultaneously, every single television, digital billboard, and directory screen flickered.
Sublimino's oversized face filled the monitors.
"All of you, stare at the swinging pocket watch!" the bizarre little man commanded through the mall's PA system. "Look deep into the center! Then, you will obey my commands!"
Klein let out a dry scoff. "Is he actually an idiot? After announcing his evil plan over the intercom, who in their right mind would actually look at the giant creepy watch?"
He glanced around, fully expecting the crowd to be laughing. Instead, he froze.
Almost every single shopper, cashier, and mall cop was staring blankly up at the swinging pendulum.
Klein pinched the bridge of his nose. Right. He had overestimated the average intelligence of a mall-goer. These people didn't know Sublimino had actual hypnotic abilities. They were probably staring at it out of sheer morbid curiosity, thinking, 'I'll just look for a second, what's a giant clock going to do to me?'
Anyone with half a brain who knew the truth would actively avoid looking.
Naturally, Klein turned his head—only to see Ben staring wide-eyed at the swinging pendulum, his jaw slightly slack.
Annoyance flared. Klein didn't even hesitate. He reached out and delivered a ruthless, echoing flick right to the center of Ben's forehead.
"Ow!" Ben snapped out of his daze, rubbing his head with his cuffed hands.
The sharp smack snapped Grandpa Max and Gwen out of their own trances. They blinked rapidly, realizing they had instinctively let their eyes drift toward the hypnotic swinging motion.
"Let's get out of here, now," Max ordered, his voice dropping into its serious, authoritative register. He grabbed his grandchildren by the shoulders, steering them toward the nearest alcove to break their line of sight.
Up in the broadcast room, Sublimino slammed a button on his control console. The giant pocket watch in the atrium flared with a strange, pulsing energy. It acted as a massive amplifier, broadcasting the hypnotic frequency across the entire complex. In an instant, the casual chatter of the mall died, replaced by the eerie, synchronized shuffling of hundreds of entranced shoppers.
"You!" Sublimino's voice boomed from the speakers. "Bring me all the valuable items in the mall! Empty the registers! Strip the jewelry stores!"
Peeking out from their hiding spot, Klein watched as the zombified crowd immediately began smashing display cases and looting stores with mindless efficiency.
Klein cracked his knuckles, stepping out of the alcove. "That guy has to be operating from the main broadcast room upstairs. Ben, let's go find that bald dwarf. If he can't fix whatever weird hypnotic trigger he put in your head, I'll just fold him into the shape of a pocket watch."
Klein never saw the point in holding back against D-list villains like Sublimino. They were practically begging to be bullied.
'Hmm... maybe I can grab some spoils of war while we're at it,' Klein mused internally.
"Move!" Max called out, and the group broke into a sprint toward the glass elevators.
Up in his control room, Sublimino caught sight of them on the security monitors. He leaned into the microphone. "Stop them! Don't let them reach the elevators!"
The zombified shoppers turned in unison. A sea of blank-faced civilians, armed with shopping bags and mannequins, swarmed toward them.
"Split up! Run separately!" Max shouted, sharply veering left down a side corridor as a mob of teenagers tried to tackle him.
Gwen, knowing full well that hypnotized victims retained no memory of their actions, didn't bother holding back her secret. Her body flared with brilliant magenta energy. She shed her human disguise, transforming into her true Anodite form. Glowing with pure mana, she launched herself off the ground, flying straight up toward the higher floors where the broadcast room was located.
Ben sprinted frantically after her shadow, his cuffed hands pumping awkwardly in front of his chest. "Gwen! Wait! Give me the key first!"
Hearing his desperate shout, Gwen paused in mid-air. She looked down, a sheepish, awkward smile forming on her glowing purple face. "Uh... I think I left the shopping bag back where we were hiding!"
Ben groaned in pure agony. Left with no other choice, he spun around and sprinted back the way he came, a massive horde of hypnotized shoppers hot on his heels. He ducked and weaved until he reached a sporting goods store. Through the display window, a sudden flash of brilliant green light erupted.
The glass shattered outward in a shower of sparkling shards. Wildvine burst onto the concourse, his plant-like limbs stretching and snapping. "Let's see if you can hypnotize a weed!" he yelled, swinging his vines to sweep the crowd back without hurting them.
On the other side of the atrium, Klein hadn't bothered changing his trajectory. He simply kept jogging forward at a leisurely pace.
'Damn it, I'd like to see who actually has the guts to stop me,' he thought, his eyes narrowing.
Suddenly, a figure darted out from behind a planter, blocking his path. It was the frail old man who had volunteered alongside Ben earlier that day. The senior citizen raised his fists in a sloppy, zombified boxing stance.
Klein shook his head, a dry chuckle escaping his lips. "Old man, do you honestly think you can take me?"
He stopped walking and casually tapped the dial of the Another Omnitrix on his wrist. "Tell you what. I won't bully you. I'll even fight you with two hands tied behind my back!"
A quiet blue light flared, washing over the corridor.
When the light faded, a massive, three-meter-tall Tetramand stood in Klein's place. "Four Arms!" he bellowed.
True to his word, Four Arms casually folded his lower two arms behind his massive back, clenching his upper two hands into boulder-sized fists. He charged forward with a terrifying grin. Four Arms officially declared that all the elderly and children in this mall were his to handle! He gently but firmly scooped up the old man, tossing him into a nearby pile of plush toys, before wading into the crowd of hypnotized civilians, tossing them aside like ragdolls with absolute, careful precision.
Meanwhile, Grandpa Max was having a much harder time. Without his Plumber equipment, he was severely disadvantaged against a mob of innocent people he couldn't bring himself to hurt.
Breathing heavily, Max sprinted down a narrow walkway, only to skid to a halt. A fresh wave of hypnotized shoppers poured out of a department store, cutting off his forward path. He glanced back—more were closing in from behind.
Surrounded. Max lowered his center of gravity, raising his fists, prepared to fight his way out with pure martial arts.
"Grandpa!"
A thick, thorny green vine shot down from the balcony above. It wrapped securely around Max's waist and violently yanked him off his feet, pulling him straight up into the air.
Max grunted as he sailed over the railing, landing heavily on the second-floor tiles. He looked up to see the Florauna standing over him. "Ben!"
"Ben, hurry and find Sublimino!" Max ordered, quickly recovering his bearings. He knew exactly what the priority was.
Wildvine nodded his strange, flytrap-shaped head. He kept one vine wrapped securely around Max's waist, extended his other arm to latch onto the railing of the third floor, and violently retracted the limb, slingshotting both of them upward toward the broadcast room.
Down below, Four Arms was having the time of his life playing bowling with the hypnotized senior citizens and toddlers. However, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the flashes of green and magenta energy rapidly converging on the top floor. His cousin and dork of a female cousin were about to beat him to the punch.
Four Arms stopped his game. He grabbed the thick steel railing of the second floor, bent his massive, tree-trunk legs, and leaped.
The sheer kinetic force of his jump shattered the concrete floor beneath him. The railing he used as a launchpad buckled and tore free from its moorings. He shot upward like a quiet blue cannonball, hurtling directly toward the glass-fronted broadcast room suspended near the ceiling.
Boom!
Four Arms slammed into the room with the force of a meteor. The entire front wall, the reinforced glass, and a large chunk of the connecting floor instantly disintegrated into a cloud of pulverized drywall and twisted metal.
"Cough! Cough, cough, cough!"
Inside the ruined booth, Sublimino waved his hands frantically, trying to clear the thick cloud of dust.
As the debris settled, a massive shadow fell over the diminutive villain. Sublimino slowly looked up, his eyes widening in sheer terror as he took in the towering, four-armed giant looming over him.
"Y-you must obey... Ah!" Sublimino panicked, fumbling to pull out his personal pocket watch. He desperately tried to swing it in front of the Tetramand's face.
Four Arms didn't even blink. He simply raised one massive hand and swatted the villain like an annoying mosquito.
Smack.
Sublimino flew across the room, crashing into his own control console before slumping to the floor, completely unconscious. Four Arms had deliberately held back ninety-nine percent of his strength—after all, with Grandpa Max around, it wasn't exactly polite to turn a guy into red paste. Sublimino didn't look too great, sporting a massive bruise and a few broken ribs, but whether he survived the hospital trip would depend entirely on his own luck.
A quiet blue light flashed, and the hulking alien shrank back down into Klein's relaxed, human form.
Klein stepped over the groaning villain and casually picked up the dropped pocket watch.
Just then, Gwen floated through the massive hole in the wall, followed closely by Wildvine and Max. If they hadn't been delayed by the sheer absurdity of dodging darts thrown by hypnotized grandpas, they might have actually beaten Klein to the room.
Klein ignored them, leaning over the ruined console and pulling the microphone close to his mouth.
"You are all free," Klein's voice echoed through the mall's PA system. He simultaneously pressed the release button on Sublimino's master pocket watch.
Down in the atrium, the giant swinging pendulum stopped dead. A reverse frequency pulsed through the amplifiers. Instantly, the hundreds of hypnotized shoppers blinked, dropping their stolen goods and looking around in utter confusion.
Up in the booth, a red light flashed. Wildvine vanished, leaving a thoroughly exhausted Ben in his place.
"It's finally over..." Ben groaned. His eyes rolled back, and his legs gave out.
Fortunately, Max lunged forward, catching his grandson by the shoulders before he could faceplant into the rubble.
Two days later, the Rustbucket was fully repaired and cruising smoothly down the sunbaked highway.
Max was up front behind the wheel, humming a tune, while Klein, Ben, and Gwen lounged on the back sofas.
Klein was casually tossing Sublimino's pocket watch up and down, catching it with lazy precision.
Watching the silver casing glint in the sunlight, Gwen leaned forward, her eyes tracking the movement. "Cousin, do you want to try hypnotizing someone?"
Gwen had already made up her mind. Whether the watch's magic actually worked for Klein or not, she fully intended to pretend to be hypnotized.
Klein caught the watch and paused, looking at Gwen's overly expectant expression. He felt a brief flash of confusion at her eagerness, but he shook his head, rejecting the suggestion outright. "No. I'm not testing weird mind-control gadgets on my own family."
Gwen pouted, shifting closer. "Then... Cousin, can you at least lend me the pocket watch?"
A sudden, inexplicable chill prickled the back of Klein's neck. His overpowered intuition was screaming at him, though he had absolutely no idea why. Trusting his gut, he slipped the watch into his pocket. "Nope. Not lending it out."
Gwen's shoulders slumped, her face falling into a mask of deep disappointment. She looked so genuinely crushed that Klein's usually pragmatic heart softened just a fraction.
He sighed, pulling the watch back out. "Fine. You can play with it for a little while. Just don't break it."
"Great! Thank you, Cousin!" Gwen cheered, snatching the watch from his hand with lightning speed.
She turned away to examine her new prize. What Klein, in all his god-like detachment, completely failed to notice was the dark, entirely unclear emotion that briefly flashed through Gwen's eyes as she gripped the silver chain.
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