Chapter 171: Missing Cousin
Jagged streaks of white lightning tore across the suffocatingly dark sky, illuminating the torrential downpour. The wind howled, rattling the windows of the garage.
Ben burst through the door, his jacket dripping wet. "Kevin! I need to borrow your car! My cousin is missing!"
"What?!" Kevin dropped his wrench, his eyes going wide as panic seized his features. "The boss is missing?! Hold on, I'll call in every favor I've stacked up over the years! I'll rally all the brothers! No, wait, there's no time! I'll go with you right now to save the boss! Whoever dares lay a finger on my boss... I, Kevin Ethan Levin, will tear them apart!!!"
Frantic, Kevin grabbed Ben by the collar, dragging him toward the muscle car.
Ben sighed, peeling Kevin's iron grip off his jacket. "Not that cousin. It's my other cousin. Gwen's older brother. He's the one who went missing."
Kevin froze. The frantic, life-or-death energy drained from his body in an instant.
"Oh. So it's not the boss." Kevin scoffed, rolling his eyes as his posture relaxed. "I was wondering how a monster like the boss could possibly get kidnapped. Since it's just your other cousin, and I don't even know the guy, why the heck would I risk my baby out in this weather? So, no. Let me rephrase that. Hell no."
Having breathed a massive sigh of relief, Kevin acted as if he had just changed faces. He grabbed a microfiber towel and stubbornly began polishing a nonexistent smudge on his prized car, absolutely refusing to let another man's problems put miles on his engine.
"Then at least drive me there!" Ben pleaded, refusing to back down. "Come on, Kevin, please. He's family. He was supposed to be back home from college two days ago."
"Let me get this straight. You want me to waste my evening, driving my absolute pride and joy through a thunderstorm, just to track down some college kid?"
"I know it sounds crazy. The police told us to just wait for news. I want to believe he's fine, I just don't know where he is."
"Probably passed out at Hot Babe Beach, or raging in some underground nightclub. College kids live for that stuff." Kevin didn't even look up from the hood of his car, fully convinced that Ben was just being a meddling kid.
"No, he called home from a payphone while walking. He said his car broke down in Santa Mira, and then... nothing. Total radio silence. His parents are freaking out." Ben's jaw tightened, his usual goofy demeanor replaced by genuine anxiety.
Kevin stopped wiping the metal. He let out a long, exaggerated sigh. "And what exactly does that have to do with me? Please, enlighten me..."
"Kevin. Get in the car."
The voice cut through the sound of the rain like a blade. Ben and Kevin whipped their heads toward the garage entrance. Klein strolled in at a leisurely pace, his hands tucked into his pockets, with Gwen walking closely beside him.
Klein's expression was unreadable, but his voice carried a chilling weight. "Someone touched my cousin."
Kevin's posture snapped entirely straight. "What?! Someone actually had the guts to touch the boss's family?!" he roared, his face twisting into a mask of righteous fury. "They really don't know who they're messing with! Don't worry, boss! I'll get us there in record time!"
Without missing a beat, Kevin vaulted over the door of his muscle car, sliding into the driver's seat and firing up the engine in one fluid, practiced motion.
Ben watched the shameless display of absolute sycophancy, his mouth twitching violently.
The muscle car tore through the storm, its headlights cutting through the relentless sheets of rain.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Klein stared out the window, watching the blurred streetlights pass by. "Ken is a good guy," he murmured, a rare trace of softness in his tone. "He shouldn't be dragged into our mess."
Ken was Gwen's older brother. Klein still remembered the early days when Grandpa Max first took him in. Back then, Ken had worried that the new, quiet kid wouldn't fit into the Tennyson family dynamic. He had gone out of his way to stick close to Klein, acting like the ultimate supportive older brother from next door.
"Don't sweat it, boss. He'll be perfectly fine," Kevin chimed in from the driver's seat. Internally, Kevin wanted to mock the name 'Ken' for sounding like a plastic doll, but he possessed just enough survival instinct to keep his mouth shut.
"Cousin, do you have any idea who might have done this?" Gwen asked from the backseat, leaning forward with a worried frown.
"I have a pretty good guess," Klein replied, his eyes narrowing slightly.
He wasn't an idiot. Even though his memory of the original timeline's exact events was a bit fuzzy, he knew the Highbreed and their DNAlien foot soldiers hadn't been fully eradicated yet. Any sudden, bizarre disappearances happening right now had their filthy fingerprints all over them.
He had originally planned to just relax and enjoy a lazy road trip, but it seemed the universe had other plans. If he didn't deliver a brutal, unforgettable warning soon, these alien supremacists were going to start thinking they actually posed a threat.
Ben pressed his face against the rain-slicked glass, squinting at a weathered billboard illuminated by a flash of lightning. "Welcome to Santa Mira," he read aloud.
"This guy actually chose to spend his spring break in a backwater dump like this?" Kevin scoffed, tapping the steering wheel. "Your cousin sounds like a total loser."
Gwen shot him a glare in the rearview mirror. "He didn't choose to stay here. There isn't much he can do when his cool car breaks down in the middle of nowhere."
"Cool car?" Kevin's ears practically perked up. The word 'car' was the ultimate bait.
"Ken's car. I'm telling you, it's amazing," Ben chimed in, puffing out his chest. "Ken is literally the coolest guy in the world. Well, besides Cousin Klein, obviously."
Kevin smirked, suddenly intrigued. "Alright, now you've got my attention. If you're putting him in the same sentence as the boss, I gotta see this guy."
"Ken has practically babied Ben since we were in diapers," Gwen interjected dryly. "Take his opinion with a massive grain of salt."
Of course, Gwen was just as biased. In her mind, her own flesh-and-blood brother didn't hold a candle to Klein's sheer presence. Pointing out Ben's bias was just her polite way of saving her brother's dignity.
"Let's hit the local auto repair shops," Klein instructed, breaking the chatter. "His car might have been towed. Even if he's not there, the vehicle should be."
"You got it, boss," Kevin said confidently. "How many repair shops could a ghost town like this possibly have?"
Forty minutes later.
"Five?! Five freakin' repair shops?!" Kevin yelled over the roaring thunder, his hair plastered to his forehead. "Why does this godforsaken dirt patch need five repair shops?!"
Since nobody had bothered to pack an umbrella, the group was forced to stand in the freezing rain, pressing their faces against the grimy glass windows of the closed garages.
In truth, Gwen could have easily conjured an Anodite mana shield to keep the rain off them. But the downpour provided the absolute perfect excuse to huddle shivering against Klein's side, soaking in his body heat. She wasn't about to ruin that opportunity with magic.
Ben wiped a circle of condensation off the glass. "This is the fifth one. If that cool car isn't in here, we're gonna have to... bingo!"
"Are we playing bingo now?" Kevin grumbled, trudging over through the mud to peer over Ben's shoulder.
Through the dim, shadowy interior of the garage, a boxy, faded yellow clunker sat elevated on a hydraulic lift.
Kevin stared at it. He blinked, wiping the rain from his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. "Wait. That is the 'cool car'?" He threw his head back and laughed. "Please! The Rustbucket is practically a Ferrari compared to that rolling trash can!"
Klein turned his head slowly, fixing Kevin with a deadpan stare. "Are you implying a Ferrari is somehow superior to the Rustbucket?"
Kevin choked on his laughter. The survival instinct kicked in hard. "Sorry, boss. I misspoke. The Rustbucket is a flawless masterpiece of automotive engineering."
Gwen tugged at the heavy padlock securing the garage's rolling shutter. "It's locked up tight for the night," she groaned, frustration bleeding into her voice.
Klein didn't even blink. He simply pointed a finger at the sturdy wooden side door. "Kevin. Go break that open."
Could Klein have shattered the door into splinters with a casual flick of his wrist? Absolutely. But what was the point of having eager subordinates if you didn't use them to do the heavy lifting?
"You got it, boss!" Kevin cracked his knuckles. He marched up to the wooden door, measured the distance, and took three steps back. Lowering his shoulder, he charged forward, slamming his entire body weight into the wood with a brutal shoulder tackle.
With a sharp crack, the door frame splintered, and the wooden door flew inward, banging loudly against the interior wall.
"Get in and search," Klein ordered, stepping over the broken wood and entering the dark, oil-scented garage. Ben, Gwen, and Kevin quickly filed in behind him.
Since the yellow clunker was actively being worked on, the doors were completely unlocked.
Kevin yanked the driver's side door open and shined a flashlight inside. He pulled out a duffel bag overflowing with crumpled shirts. "A giant bag of dirty laundry to take home for mommy to wash. Yep, we've got a textbook college student on our hands."
Ben and Gwen ignored him, rummaging through the glove compartment and the backseat, pulling out textbooks and empty snack wrappers. "Keep looking," Ben muttered. "There has to be something in here that points to where he went."
Klein leaned against a nearby workbench, crossing his arms and watching them tear the car apart. He was already slipping back into his default state of absolute laziness. He wasn't particularly worried. Even in the absolute worst-case scenario where Ken was already dead, Klein's unique connection to Alien X meant he could just rewrite reality and bring him back. There was no need to rush.
Up at the front of the car, Kevin popped the hood. He swept his flashlight over the greasy engine block, stopping abruptly. Wedged tightly against the internal combustion engine was a strange, hemispherical device. It was roughly the size of a palm, pulsing with a faint, ominous purple-black light.
"Whoa. What the heck is this?" Kevin reached down, prying the device loose from the metal and holding it up to the light.
"What did you find?" Ben and Gwen immediately abandoned the interior, rushing over to the hood.
Klein pushed off the workbench, taking two casual steps toward the group.
Suddenly, his footsteps stopped.
His eyes darted toward the rain-streaked window. The lazy indifference vanished from his posture, replaced by a razor-sharp stillness. Without making a single sound, Klein shifted his weight, gliding silently toward the side of the broken door and dropping into a low crouch in the shadows.
Oblivious to Klein's movement, Kevin turned the device over in his hands. "It's the only thing on this entire junk heap that isn't covered in rust," he explained, his tone shifting to that of a mechanic analyzing a foreign engine. "It's alien tech. Looks like a localized jammer. It projects a micro-field specifically designed to completely fry an internal combustion engine."
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/AkarinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/AkarinTL
🔗 All My Links: linktr[.]ee/AkarinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]