"Adjustments?!"
Ben and Gwen stared at the tiny alien in complete disbelief, their minds struggling to comprehend what they'd just heard.
Although they don't know much about the omnitrix and its functions they at least know that it's a high tech thing, much greater than what could be found on earth, after all it can transform a person into an alien, can any technology on earth do it? Of course not.
Then if this was alien technology far beyond Earth's comprehension. How could Rio possibly understand how to modify it?!
"Think of it this way," Grey Matter said calmly, standing up and dusting himself off. "If the Omnitrix is like a mobile phone, what I just did was switch it from 'Battery Saver' to 'Performance Mode'. It should keep me transformed a little longer."
The analogy seemed to help them grasp the concept, though their expressions still showed amazement.
"I feel there are other functions I could potentially access, but I currently do not possess the relevant information about them."
Now he needed to verify that his modifications had worked correctly and hadn't compromised the device's stability.
His enhanced intellect was already running diagnostic scenarios, checking for any potential issues with the adjustments he'd made.
The transformation time extension was just the beginning. With Grey Matter's genius- level understanding, the Omnitrix's true potential would slowly be unlocked, with one modification at a time.
He tapped the symbol again, and in a red flash, he reverted to his human form. Then he excitedly looked through the list of aliens, but to his disappointment there were still the same 10 aliens.
seeing the result he still got a bit disappointed, although he knew that there was only a slim chance of a new alien being unlocked but he was still anticipating it.
Then taking a breath and adjusting his mindset Rio stood up, cracked his neck and led his cousins outside. "Alright. Gear up. We're moving."
-----
In Grandma Vera's room, she was sleeping quietly, her hand falling out of the covers, hanging on the edge of the bed.
Just then, the same substance that attacked Marty when the crew just arrived at the retirement complex suddenly slithered out from somewhere.
It then slithered up her arm, suddenly waking her up as the slimy goo continued to do as it did with Marty, completely covering her head and face, making her faint before she could even scream or warn everyone in any way, shape, or form.
-----
Three children stood in the oppressive silence of Marty's living room. They were our Tennyson's Rio, Ben, and Gwen, going on their night hunt.
The air inside the room was stale, and the only sound was the frantic tick-tick-tick of a clock, counting down the seconds.
Using the flashlight on his phone, Rio swept the beam across the room. It was unnervingly normal.
"See?" Gwen murmured, her own water gun held tightly. "Nothing. It's just a creepy old house."
"Keep looking," Rio said, his voice low. "Don't touch anything. Just look for anything that feels... off."
He was about to move toward a cluttered desk when a transparent wireframe overlay instantly materialized on his phone.
>Not to interrupt your breaking and breaking security, but a minor environmental anomaly has been detected.
>Cross-referencing with cached visual data from previous visit, 16:32 hours. A stack of papers is now present on the central table. This object was not present during our initial break-in.
Rio's gaze drifted to the cluttered table. A neat stack of papers sat there that definitely hadn't been there earlier.
He slid them closer, flipping through them one by one. Bills. Coupons. A diner menu with a smiling cartoon waffle on the front. Normal stuff. Then, his fingers brushed against something different: a glossy, long slip of paper.
He held it up to his light.
The paper was in the name of the "Sunny Meadows Retirement Community." It seems to be some kind of receipt, but the only thing on it was a massive quantity of industrial-grade duct tape and heavy-duty plastic sheeting, nothing else.
A bad premonition went through Rio's mind. But before he could share his findings, a flicker of movement outside the window caught his eye–just a flicker in his peripheral vision.
But Rio acted instantly. He snapped his hand down, killing the phone light and plunging them into near-darkness.
"Get down!" he hissed.
They dropped below the windowsill. Peering over the ledge, they saw a figure shuffling down the street. It was an elderly woman in a housecoat, carrying a bag big enough to fit a person.
She paused under a streetlamp, looked around with a jerky motion, then darted into the shadows between two houses.
As she disappeared, Ben said, "She's heading toward the dumpsters."
-----
The fake Marty and another male senior were waiting by the dumpsters as the housecoat-wearing woman walked up to them.
"Is the food supply ready for transport?" She asked.
Looking closely in the faint light, she turned out to be Vera, or more accurately, an alien slime transformed into Vera.
"The pods are in the final stages of gestation." Fake Marty replied. " You brought one of the old ones. What about the young ones?"
"Too chewy." The fake Vera sighed and shook her head. "They need to age more before they get nice and tender."
"I'm not talking about eating. The brown hair one had seen me, and they might already suspect too much." The Fake Marty remarked.
To that, the other senior stepped out from behind him into the light of the light post, if the kid were here they would be dumbshoked as the appearance of the male senior was actually that of Grandpa Max.
The fake Max gave an evil smile then came up with an appropriate plan of action, telling fake Marty and fake Vera to prepare.
-----
The three Tennysons stood in the cold, open air, facing the three large dumpsters behind a mangled wire gate.
The scene was illuminated by the flickering pale glow of a single security light.
Foul stenches permeated the air. The stench of rotting garbage, rusting metal, and stagnant water.
It had taken a heated, whispered argument back in Marty's living room to get here.
"Are you insane?" Gwen had hissed. "We found the receipt! That's enough! We will take this to Grandpa now!"
"And say what?" Ben shot back. "That we broke in and found a receipt for tape? He'll think I'm making up stories! We have to see what's down there!"
"It's a trap, you moron!"
"No! This is how we bust this whole thing wide open!"
Rio had let them argue, his own mind working. Gwen was right; it was the logical choice. But Ben was also right; without proof, Max might dismiss it.
"Enough," Rio finally cut in. "We're going. But we do it our way. We stick together, and the second I say we leave, we run. Understood?"
With a frustrated sigh, Gwen nodded. If it were Ben in her spot, he would have already thrown his hands up in exasperation. Though she finally accepted as she knew that once Rio decided something, they weren't going to change it.
Now, standing before the dumpsters, the reality felt much heavier than it had inside Marty's house.
The wire gate was still mangled. Behind it, three large dumpsters sat exactly as Ben had described, but the oppressive atmosphere made them look like sleeping beasts in the dead night, waiting to just wake up and pounce on anyone who dared approach them.
"Which one was it?" Rio asked, his voice deliberately low.