CH 18: Taming the Krakken (E3)

"So what are you stuck with?" Drew asked curiously. Mom rule #1: when dealing with children, instead of being bland and boring, you've got to be expressional and emotional. Got to raise him right if she didn't want the destruction of the planet or a future galactic dictator.

And besides, the poor boy was an orphan. Or at least she assumed so since he didn't have any memories. She might as well show him some motherly love, treat him like a son even. "After all, actually making it is the important part, no? Maybe I can help?" She smiled.

"Can you?" Brainiac smirked, causing her to flash an offended smile :"Hey, I'll have you know that I'm a genius scientist myself! And even if I can't help you solve it directly, I can still give an imaginative idea!"

"Hahahaha, sure, sure." He rolled his eyes in amusement :"Haaah, well, the actual problem is the medium of the device. No matter how much I try, it reaches its limit too soon for my liking. What I can store in the state I can make is way, WAY too limited for me to be proud of it."

Annoyed, he set aside the laser and untransformed. Sitting with a frown and kicking the dirt. Being a genius was hard too. It wasn't like his device wasn't already working. It worked perfectly, but its usage was too limited. Way too limited for his technological standards, which had been raised to the max thanks to his Galvan and Cerebrocrustacean transformation.

It was annoying, but fulfilling at the same time. Having a challenge he knew he would succeed in, but needed hard work to complete with a perfect score, felt satisfying. No pressure, just impatience brought by ambition.

"Don't worry, Al. I'm sure you'll succeed." Max comforted by patting his back :"You're a bright and smart kid, after all. I'm definitely sure you'll succeed. I just hope you'll make sure that it's not used to harm the innocent."

"Hahahaha, don't worry, I know." He chuckled, leaning back on his hands and looking at the clear sky :"I have no reason to harm those that just want to live their lives without bothering others."

The two adults felt a sense of relief, before he laughed cheerfully :"But man, would I be lying if I didn't want some villain to try something so I could fry and blow them up! Boom, boom, boom! Explosions everywhere!"

"You don't really sound like a superhero right now." Zak deadpanned, and Alistair smirked at him :"And you'd know all about superheroes, eh, cryptid boy?" Causing an offended look to appear on his face :"Excuse me?! Hey, I'm the superhero-est superhero there is on Earth! AND I've been doing this a lot longer than either of you two!"

"Doing what? Fighting bad guys? Kicking villain butts?" Ben smirked, as did Alistair :"I can't begin to imagine how powerful the fleas on exotic and rare cryptids are!" Followed by Ben :"Yeah, just imagining the weapons of mass destruction they pull out gives me shivers!"

"... Pfthahahaha!" No longer capable of holding back, they both burst into laughter. Causing Zak to fold his arms in annoyance, face scrunched up in a deep frown as he mumbled :"Shut up!"

"Hey, you two better not make fun of my baby boy!" Drew glared, pinching Alistair's ear softly. But managing to embarrass said son in the process :"Mooom!" She raised an eyebrow :"What? I'm trying to look out for you."

"That's not how it goes with boys, Mrs Saturday." The noiret hissed softly, smirking :"Mothers aren't supposed to butt in the trash talking of boys. That will only lead to further embarrassment and teasing later on." 'Especially a mother with your butt will become most of the subject in teasing.'

Drew narrowed her eyes :"So I'm just supposed to sit aside and let you make fun of my son?" Causing him to roll his eyes :"We're not making fun of him. We're just having fun! Things like this happen in every boy friend group! If a guy actually gets offended by something like this, that means he can't take a joke and will actually be disliked by the other guys! Right, guys?"

"It's the truth." Ben smiled, while Max chuckled :"He's right, Drew. These things happen all the time! I've lost count of how much I've been made fun of by my friends and how much I've made fun of my friends! You should just leave the boys to be boys."

"... Huuuh, fine." With a sigh, she rolled her eyes and smirked :"I'll let you guys have your own style of fun." And finally let go of Alistair's poor ear. Rubbing his ear, he looked around :"So what should we do while we wait?"

"Hmm, how about you two actually show us your aliens?" Drew smiled, and Zak's face immediately lit up :"Right, right! Ben just randomly transformed, so we couldn't actually see it and Alistair only transformed, like, twice! You can show us their powers too!" Fisk nodded in excitement with him.

Alistair shrugged :"I don't see why not." As he got up, he received a challenging smirk from his best friend :"Then how about we let them judge who has the better aliens? You said grandpa and Gwen judging would be unfair, since they were my relatives. But we've just met the Saturday family! So, how about it?"

His goal was obvious. He wanted to show off in front of Drew, his first crush. "Hmph, is that so?" Alistair mused, looking at him haughtily :"I think you have Alzheimer's, Ben, cause you seem to have forgotten your place."

"Bring it on!" Ben smirked, and green and red lights illuminated the place.

-

A few hours later, when the sun had set, the group were inside of the submarine and under the water. Moving sneakily to where the poachers were. "Alright, everyone, we can't fool around here." Doc said :"I'm talking about you boys, understood?"

"Understood, boys?" Alistair glanced at Ben and Zak, who looked annoyed :"What about you?! You're one of us too!" Ben glared. Turning to him, the noiret raised his eyebrows :"Ben, do I look like someone who'd mess around on a mission? I'm not a mirror, you know?"

"Whatever." He rolled her eyes. Eyes on the road —well, water— Doc addressed his son :"Zak, do you think you can control the Krakken this time? The reason why you couldn't control it before was maybe because it was too angry. But now, maybe it would work?"

"Dad, I'd love to try, but I really don't think my powers would work on her." Zak rubbed his neck :"It's not that there was resistance when I tried before, it was like my powers didn't even work on her!"

Drew spoke up from the copilot seat :"Doc, if he can't do it, I don't think we should force him. There might be a rebound or s side effect if he pushed himself too much." Thinking for a moment, Doc sighed softly :"Alright then. I thought we could convince the Krakken that we were allies. There would be any chances of her attacking then. But forget it if it could be harmful to Zak."

"Sorry, dad." Zak sighed. Glancing back, Doc smiled softly :"No problem, son. Your safety is more important to me." Looking at them, Alistair's heart ached. He couldn't lie, he was jealous of Zak. As more and more days passed, he felt increasingly lonely.

He missed his family. He missed his parents.

Fighting back the sadness, he hid it behind a smirk :"Actually, having the Krakken on our side might not be so impossible." They shot him curious looks, but he didn't elaborate. Coming to stand in the middle of the seats, he used his cryptid powers to locate the Krakken before he pointed at where he sensed her :"Go that way please."

"Huh? Why?" Doc looked confused :"Is there something there, Alistair?" But the noiret just giggled mischievously :"Just trust me, alright? You'll see what I mean when we get there." The couple looked at each other before Drew shrugged and they changed the way.

But after a few minutes, when they arrived at the place, their eyes bulged out in shock :"Shit, Alistair, why did you take us to the Krakken?!" Doc said, Drew following him :"How did you even know where it was?!"

Just as he was about to turn the wheel, Alistair grabbed it and kept it in place, causing them to continue. Even when Doc tried to turn it, it didn't budge under Alistair's hold. The boost in physical capabilities he got from scanning Zak's DNA was a lot.

Especially since it was at its prime. Something that Zak never reached because of losing his powers as a preteen. He had already shown feats like fighting easily against adults, pulling down trees and fighting against Argost, who was a Yeti. And that was when he was 11-13.

For Alistair, who had gotten all of his powers at their most powerful states, overpowering an adult was nothing at all. The physical capabilities of a Half-Human/Half-Cryptid were nothing to scoff at. Especially not when that cryptid half came from Kur, a freaking dragon.

"What are you doing?!" The scientist looked baffled, eyes widening in panic when the Krakken spotted them and came swimming with a roar. Knowing that Ben was about to transform, Alistair held up his hand. Signaling for him to wait.

Trusting his friend and knowing he's not a dumb one, Ben waited with a gulp. "Al, what are you doing?!" Gwen shouted in panic :"We're to become fish food! Ben, do something!"

"Calm down, everyone." The noiret said amidst everybody's panic at the approaching behemoth. But his smirk only widened to a villainous degree as his eyes lit up in red :"That included you!"

And suddenly, said giant stopped in her tracks. Coming to a complete and sudden stop in front of the submarine, causing the water to shake it along with them. Scaring them even further, thinking she had started attacking. But when they felt no further shaking they uncovered their eyes to see that the Krakken had come to a stop right in front of them.

It's giant eyes glowing red.

"Alistair, you..." Drew —along with her family— looked at the smug boy with disbelief. Especially Zak. Checking his newly trimmed nails, the noiret blew on them smugly :"Are awesome? Amazing? Fantastic? All of the above? Hahahaha, don't worry, I'll explain everything later."

-

"Alright, everybody ready?" Alistair looked around. Doc with his glow, Drew with her sword, Zak with his claw, Ben at standby and everybody else nodded. The noiret turned to Zak :"I've convinced the Krakken that we're allies. I'll leave it to you to send her my messages if needed, since I can't use my cryptid powers when I'm an alien."

Zak nodded, serious and excited to act the hero. In fact, Alistair didn't even need his help. Not at all. Not when he could transform at will and in less than seconds. He could always just untransform, give a few orders to the Krakken, then transform again.

But there was a huge —HUGE— problem with teen heroes like Ben and Zak. They could get seriously jealous. They were kids, so it was understandable. The problem was that it pissed him off, since these two didn't know when and where to be jealous.

But no matter how much it annoyed him, he had to be considerate of the punks. At least until he beat them into shape and made them understand that there is a time and place for everything. Rescuing lives and missions weren't included in the "places and times to be jealous at".

Oh, he was going to beat the lessons into their thick skulls. And he was going to enjoy every second of it oh. So. Much. Hope they liked Menace (Rath) as their teacher, because he was going to love it.

"See if you can find the eggs." Ben said as they started going up the ladder under the docks. While Alistair enjoyed the amazing view of Drew's wobbly ass as she climbed up, Gwen looked down at Ben and Alistair :"What about you?"

"Do you even need to ask?" They smirked, raising their left hands at the same time before green and red flashed.