After several hours on the road, the group finally reached their destination.
NASA.
Waiting to greet them was a middle-aged man in a black suit.
"Long time no see, Max. It's been forty years, hasn't it?" The man spread his arms wide, walked over warmly, and gave Grandpa Max a hug.
"Yeah, time really does fly. I'm an old man now," Grandpa Max said with a hearty laugh.
"And these are...?"
"Oh, let me introduce them. This is Lucian, Ben, and Gwen. They're my grandchildren." Grandpa Max smiled gently, then introduced the middle-aged man in turn. "This is NASA's Director, and he's also in charge of this spacecraft launch project. Go on, say hello to Uncle."
"Hello, Uncle," the three of them said in unison.
After the greetings, the Director led Grandpa Max and the others farther into NASA.
They walked down a dim corridor.
Murals lined both sides of the hallway, depicting planets, spacecraft, rockets, astronauts, and more.
Every one of them was space-themed.
As he walked, the Director said with a smile, "Max, I never expected you to give that one small step to Armstrong back then."
"Wait a second." Ben raised a hand to stop him. "The Armstrong you mean is the one from Apollo 11, the first man to walk on the moon?"
"Of course." The Director smiled.
"Grandpa Max, you were supposed to be the first person on the moon?" Lucian looked at him with a complicated expression.
He knew Grandpa Max was amazing, but he had not expected him to be amazing to that extent.
The first person to walk on the moon. That was the kind of achievement that went down in history.
Grandpa Max gave a dry chuckle. "Something came up for me at the last minute..."
While they were talking, Ben was not paying attention and bumped into a burly man.
"Ow?" Ben grabbed his head and stumbled back two steps.
Lucian's gaze sharpened as he stared fixedly at the man.
He was wearing a white lab coat, had uneven eyes, and an extremely muscular build. Even the loose coat could not hide the bulging muscles underneath.
"Dr. Viktor, these are my friends," the Director said.
Dr. Viktor looked the group over from head to toe.
Then his pupils suddenly contracted slightly.
He had spotted the Omnitrixes on Lucian and Ben.
"They shouldn't be here," Dr. Viktor said coldly.
With that, he turned and left, disappearing into the depths of the corridor.
A short while later, the Director also left, saying he had important business to attend to.
He was not worried about Grandpa Max and the others wandering around, because all the important areas were secured by highly sophisticated locks. There was no way ordinary people could get in.
But he had clearly underestimated Grandpa Max.
Grandpa Max led Lucian and the others to the surveillance room.
Then he took out a small device.
After scanning the lock, the device extended a matching pair of keys, which he inserted into the access slot and used to open the surveillance room door with ease.
"We need to find the surveillance footage from the day the purple lightning appeared," Grandpa Max said as he began typing on the keyboard.
It did not take long for him to pull up the relevant footage.
"Grandpa, you're incredible." Ben gave him a thumbs-up.
The group began watching the recording.
In the footage, dark storm clouds filled the sky, purple lightning flashed, and wind and rain raged.
Because of the thunderstorm, the spacecraft had not launched and was left exposed to the cold wind and rain.
"Wait. Zoom in on the rooftop," Lucian suddenly said.
Grandpa Max immediately enlarged the rooftop area.
Gradually, a middle-aged man in a white lab coat came into view.
"Dr. Viktor!" Gwen could not help crying out.
"Looks like he definitely has something to do with the purple lightning," Grandpa Max said slowly.
"Heh, looks like it's time for the hero to make his entrance. Let this hero go beat up that big doctor!" Ben said excitedly.
"Let's go check out the other areas," Lucian said as he headed outside.
After getting through one checkpoint after another, the group soon arrived at a space junkyard...
...
Hi everyone, just a heads-up: I've finished translating this fic on Patreon, and I'll be releasing chapters here little by little, but at a faster pace. But if you already want to read the entire ending and support me, feel free to follow me on P--@-treon/PinkSnake.