Chapter 179: Preventing the Birth of the Mysterious Creature
"Alright, enough with the pleasantries. Cut to the chase. What exactly is this 'Paradox Project'?"
Klein waved a hand, slicing right through the thick air of theatrical nostalgia the time-traveler was desperately trying to build.
"Let me explain first..." Paradox struck a dramatic pose, fully prepared to concoct a mysterious, impressive monologue regarding his sudden appearance.
But when he opened his eyes and looked up, he found Klein already walking away, leading Ben and the others down the hall.
"Don't mind him," Klein muttered to his cousins, not even glancing back. "He's just a 120,000-year-old geezer who likes to hear himself talk."
"Wait! Wait!" Paradox broke character, hastily jogging over to block Klein's path. He threw his hands up in defeat. "Alright, alright, I'll tell you."
He cleared his throat, suddenly producing a brightly colored juice pouch from thin air. He casually sipped from the straw, explaining between drinks. "The Solada Base was constructed based on my super-genius theories. I discovered a unique temporal substance housed within quartz that can generate spacetime tunnels, allowing us to traverse past and future historical timelines."
Paradox took another loud slurp. "However, due to a microscopic miscalculation on my part, the experiment destabilized. It tore a massive hole in the current timeline. I was sucked into the Chronological Spacetime Axis and stranded there for roughly 120,000 years. Fortunately, I finally comprehended the sustainable nature of the universe's spacetime."
After delivering his backstory, Paradox raised his chin proudly, puffing out his chest as if to say, 'You don't need to hold back. Go ahead, worship and praise me!'
He waited. And waited.
The silence stretched on. When he finally cracked an eye open, he found Klein, Ben, Gwen, and Kevin huddled together, quietly discussing something else entirely.
Paradox's proud expression crumbled. His shoulders slumped. "How annoying," he grumbled under his breath.
Hearing the mutter, Klein finally turned his attention back to the time traveler. "Paradox, you're here for that mysterious creature too, aren't you?"
"Yes, that's right." Paradox straightened his coat, recovering his dignity. "I'll have to trouble you to act this time. After all, if he's allowed to continue his rampage, Earth will be destroyed."
Paradox had absolute faith in Klein's monstrous abilities. To him, this was just a simple message delivery.
"I can handle it, but I still want to clarify a few things first." Klein shoved his hands into his pockets. "Let's go. Take us to your former research base."
It was a blatant, unceremonious order.
"I'm a time traveler, not a taxi driver!" Paradox protested loudly, his pride taking another hit.
Klein didn't even blink. He just stared, utterly unmoved.
Helpless against the teenager's deadpan gaze, Paradox could only sigh. Grumbling under his breath, he snapped his fingers to transport Klein and his group to the ruins of his former research base in Solada Town.
In the blink of an eye, the world around them warped. The dusty shelves of the library dissolved, instantly replaced by the cold, metallic walls of an abandoned 1950s laboratory. In the center of the room sat a massive, circular quartz ring, dormant and cracked.
"Woah! How?! In an instant..." Kevin stumbled, his eyes wide as he frantically checked his surroundings. It was his first time experiencing instantaneous teleportation, and the sudden shift left him dizzy.
Beside him, Klein, Ben, and Gwen—who had jumped through time and space more times than they could count—remained completely unfazed. They didn't even stumble.
Seeing their bored reactions drained all the fun out of the trick for Paradox. He pouted slightly.
Gwen immediately knelt by the massive quartz ring, her eyes scanning the deep scorch marks on the floor. "He did come here."
"And the tracks only go in, not out. He didn't disappear after arriving..." Ben crossed his arms, piecing the puzzle together.
"He was born right here." Gwen looked up, meeting Ben's gaze. Their eyes lit up simultaneously. The evidence proved their theory.
Klein turned to Paradox, a sly, dangerous smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. His eyes narrowed. "Paradox, he really was created by you."
Good boy, Klein thought, thoroughly amused. I've got blackmail material on you now!
"Uh... you can't really say that." Paradox's gaze drifted to the ceiling, suddenly finding the rusty pipes fascinating. He scratched the back of his head. "Even someone like me, who has saved the universe hundreds of times, can miss a detail or two."
"Never mind. My conjectures are almost fully connected now anyway." Klein paced around the broken quartz. "That creature went through the phone booth, then to the police station, and finally the dormitory. These specific actions prove he wasn't originally some hyper-dimensional monster. He's retracing steps."
Paradox's eyes widened in realization. "You mean..."
"Let me prove it to you." Klein smiled.
He raised his wrist and slammed his palm down on the faceplate of the Another Omnitrix.
"Dot!"
A blinding, ghostly blue light erupted through the abandoned lab. The air pressure plummeted as Klein's form shifted, replaced by a being radiating pure, concentrated chronal energy.
"Let's go back to the past," Dot's voice echoed, layered and ethereal.
As the words fell, swirling blue and white flames burst from his body, enveloping Ben, Gwen, Kevin, and Paradox. The flames didn't burn; instead, they felt like a rush of cold wind as the fabric of reality peeled away.
The 1950s.
Solada Town Research Base.
The laboratory was no longer abandoned. Warm incandescent lights hummed overhead. Scientists in crisp white coats rushed between analog control panels, shouting measurements. In the center of it all stood a younger, ordinary Paradox, eagerly adjusting the dials on the giant quartz ring to stabilize a time-travel tunnel.
Dot and the group materialized in the center of the room, still wreathed in ghostly blue light.
Kevin took one look at the swirling, roaring spacetime tunnel within the giant quartz ring and immediately scrambled backward. "Whoa! We won't get sucked in, will we?!"
He braced himself, only to realize his clothes weren't even fluttering. The terrifying gravitational pull of the portal had absolutely no effect on him.
"They can't see us." Gwen stepped right up to a frantic researcher and waved her hand directly in front of his face. The man didn't even blink, completely oblivious to her presence.
"Because we are currently outside of time," Paradox explained softly. He stared at Dot, sighing inwardly. What had taken him 120,000 agonizing years of isolation to achieve was nothing more than child's play for Klein's transformation.
"Watch. I'm right," Dot said confidently. He had already scanned the temporal history of this exact moment. He knew exactly how the dominoes would fall.
Midway through the chaotic experiment, a young research assistant suddenly recoiled in fright from a shower of sparks. He slipped on the polished floor, his elbow violently knocking over a critical calibration instrument.
Instantly, the quartz portal shrieked. The energy destabilized, shifting from a controlled gateway into a ravenous black hole. The suction force grew exponentially.
The younger Paradox screamed as he was ripped from his feet, sucked directly into the chronal void. A second later, the terrified assistant who caused the error was dragged in right behind him.
"It's that assistant!" Gwen gasped, the final piece clicking into place. "The experiment went wrong because of him. The mysterious creature... it's the assistant after being mutated by the time stream!"
"Of course! I should have thought of it sooner. It's Hugo!" Paradox slapped his forehead, finally recognizing the young man's face.
Without a word, Dot reached his hand out into the swirling, unstable chronal void. Plucking the timeline like a guitar string, he casually grabbed the hyper-dimensional monster that had been lurking in the temporal currents. With a simple squeeze of his fingers, he shrank the massive, terrifying creature down to the size of a marble, holding the screeching anomaly effortlessly in his palm.
"I could just strangle him right now, and that would solve the problem entirely..." Dot mused, his layered voice dripping with casual menace. "But you wouldn't want that, would you?"
Hearing the dry teasing in Dot's voice, Paradox let out a long breath, smiling with deep relief. "Of course not."
"Then are you ready, Ben? I'll drop you into the normal time flow in a moment. You go save the assistant." Dot shifted his glowing gaze to Ben.
Ben's goofy demeanor vanished. He nodded, his expression dead serious.
With a flash of blue light, the protective temporal barrier around Ben vanished, dropping him directly into the chaotic reality of the 1950s experiment.
The younger Paradox, who was currently clinging to a console and staring proudly at his unstable quartz portal, suddenly felt a presence. He whipped his head around to see a teenager in a green jacket standing right beside him.
"What the hell! Where did you come from?!" the younger Paradox yelled over the roaring machinery.
"You get in there!" Ben shouted back.
Without a second of hesitation, Ben planted his foot squarely on the scientist's backside and kicked Paradox directly into the spacetime tunnel.
Watching from outside of time, the present-day Paradox felt his mouth twitch violently. He rubbed his face. "Sometimes, Ben Tennyson is really super annoying."
"Agreed," Kevin nodded solemnly.
Inside the timeline, the portal's gravity was reaching critical mass. Research assistant Hugo was screaming, his fingers slipping from the metal grating as he was dragged toward the void.
Ben fought against the hurricane-force winds, walking toward the terrified man with heavy, agonizing steps. "Trust me! You don't want to get sucked in!"
The wind howled, threatening to lift Ben off his feet. "No, I need to be heavier!"
He slammed his hand onto the Omnitrix.
"Humungousaur!"
The massive, heavily armored dinosaur materialized, his sheer tonnage instantly anchoring him to the floor. The concrete cracked under his weight. Humungousaur lunged forward, his massive claws wrapping securely around Hugo just as the man lost his grip.
They remained in a tense stalemate, the portal screaming as it tried to devour the dinosaur. But the fragile quartz ring couldn't withstand the immense gravitational stress combined with Humungousaur's physical anchor.
With a deafening crack, the giant quartz shattered into a thousand pieces. The spacetime tunnel collapsed instantly, plunging the lab into sudden, eerie silence.
"Hoo... Hoo... Hoo..."
Hugo knelt on the scorched floor, gasping for air, his heart hammering against his ribs. When he finally gathered the courage to look up and thank the giant lizard that had just saved his life, the creature was already gone.
Back in the present.
A flash of blue light illuminated the ruined lab as Dot reappeared with Ben, Gwen, and Kevin in tow.
"I have to say, you were right." Paradox looked at Dot, his tone entirely sincere. "If you hadn't been curious enough to go back and look, Hugo would have been dead. I owe you my thanks."
A ghostly blue light washed over the alien, and Dot transformed back into Klein. He stretched his neck, offering the time traveler a lazy, calculating smirk.
"If you really want to thank me, can you pay back the money you owe me?"
Paradox froze. A bead of sweat formed on his brow. "Uh... aren't we friends? Friends shouldn't talk about such trivial, materialistic things."
He took a slow step backward, his eyes darting around the room before he suddenly clapped his hands together. "Oh, look at the time! That's right, I have other highly important matters to attend to across the multiverse. I'll be going now!"
Without waiting for a response, Paradox ripped open a glowing blue portal and dove into it, fleeing the scene as if his life depended on it.
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