“I’m not saying we kill Granny Woods!” Peridot complained, “What would that even solve? We should ask Myrtle to torture her for information!”

“Damn it, Peri! We’re not torturing Granny Woods either!”

“Then what?! Sooner or later, those bastards are gonna find us!”

“Who, Peri?! Who is gonna find us?! Now we have this ticking time bomb in our ‘secret base’ and we have no idea who Granny Woods works for! It’s fine if it’s just Bandits or some gang, but what if it’s the actual government?!”

“Ummm, guys-”

“Maybe it is the scumbags in the government?! What difference does that make?!”

“The difference is that the government is a lot more freakin dangerous, okay?! What are we gonna do?! Fighting the military of an entire country?!”

“Of course not! We’ll just run away!”

“Run where?! Overseas?! Overseas where?!”

“Shut up!” Jade stood up and shouted angrily, “Listen to me!”

“What?!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Uh… Do you hear a clicking noise?” Jade pointed towards the assembled radio, which was making a quiet ‘tik-tik-tik’ sound.

“Damn it, Ollie! Did you turn it on?!” 

“I didn’t! It should be off…” Oliver picked up the tiny single-speaker radio and frowned, placing his ear right next to it, he could hear the sound a bit more clearly.

“It kinda sounds like a clock? Why would they put a clock in a radio? No wait, I didn’t see any clock when I was putting it together…”

He started taking it apart again and saw a small black beetle. It made clicking noises like a clock. The sound was getting louder and more frequent by the second.

“Kill it!” Peridot shouted as she tried to smash the bug with her flip-flop!

“It’s just a click beetle.” Jade used her hand to block the attack and then picked up the ‘cute’ little bug very gently as it freaked out, “Don’t be afraid little guy. We’ll let you go back outside in a second.”

*Click-click-click!*

“Wait… I hear more of them!” Oliver looked around anxiously and noticed that there were dozens of tiny beetles all around the room! All of them were making that strange clicking noise and it was getting louder by the second!

“They’re multiplying?!” Peri screamed and then threw her flip-flop out like a throwing weapon, accurately hitting one of the unlucky bugs on the forehead of her own statue!

*Pop~!*

*Pop~!*

“Ow!” Jade winced as the little bug in her palm exploded with a green flash and left a tiny pit on the center of her hand. At the same time, the other bug blasted apart the statue’s head completely!

“They’re bombs!” Peridot reached out and grabbed a beetle that was crawling up the back of Oliver’s shirt, tossing it out towards the wall and leaving a small hole after it exploded from the impact…

“I can see that! So will you stop destroying our house please?!” Oliver complained as he pulled a bug off his shoulder and conjured a block of gray metal around it. Compared to other types of Uranium, this kind really didn’t glow that much at all. In his perception, it was only as bright as his own body. There was barely even any noise as it was crushed inside the small cube.

Jade was also doing something similar. Forming some incredibly dense stone spheres and locking the flying bugs inside. The stones wouldn’t even be cracked by the explosion. She also had time to reach out and ‘fix’ the statue that lost its head, using the broken pieces of stone that were laying around.

“Ollie, is everything okay in there?!” Barilo’s deep voice came from right outside the stone door, though it was barely audible over the constantly ‘popping’ noises. The number of bugs was only growing and some of them exploded before Oliver and Jade had time to deal with them. Leaving small pits on the floor, walls, ceiling and destroying a lot of ‘priceless’ sculptures or other decorations in the living room!

“We’re fine, Barry! But be careful! We’re under attack!”

“I’ll come in and help!” The heavy stone door was actually very easy to open and close as long as someone was strong enough or had the ability to manipulate stones telekinetically. When the short and stocky boy pushed the door inward, a click beetle landed on his metal helmet and exploded!

“Ah~!” The metal wasn’t even slightly dented, but he was obviously surprised and dazed.

“Idiot! We didn’t tell you to open the door!” Peridot complained as she danced around the room, avoiding the clicking insects that were trying to attack her from various directions. She swung a broom and sent them flying towards the walls occasionally. Since the bristles were so soft, they wouldn’t kill or ‘detonate’ the bugs upon impact.

*Pop-pop-pop~!*

“Ow!” Jade cried out as she lost a chunk of stone on her left leg, but the gray ‘flesh’ rapidly regenerated. However, her hands and feet were both glowing brightly now. The living room was pretty large, but the temperature was still rising rapidly. Not to mention the green radiance from her glowing eyes.

“Peridot! Barry! You need to leave! Now!” Oliver shouted and pushed the stunned 150 cm tall man out the door. Barilo rolled across the ground outside before getting up and wobbling around.

“Shit!” Peridot stopped dancing around and left the ‘house’ as well. The stone door closed behind her back. The click beetles inside the room suddenly stopped ‘spawning’.

“Is it over?” Jade frowned as she looked around the living room that was covered in potholes. She could easily ‘fix’ all the ‘stone’ to a certain extent, but when it came to art, sometimes it was impossible to replicate something exactly the same as before. Not to mention the effort involved.

“No. That was just a test.” Oliver coughed a few times from the dust, then conjured up a heavy gray pickaxe in his right hand. His entire head was quickly covered by a gas mask and helmet, with a full tank of condensed air on his back. 

Thousands of tiny black gnats crawled out of the vents and then concentrated in one place near the center of the room, transforming into a short figure. Only about 140 cm tall, but not a bulky Dwarf. Their body was very lanky and scrawny, with an extra pair of arms under their normal ones, all covered in black carapace like an insect. Even their head was like an ant, with big pincers, compound eyes and antennae.

“Ah! Ollie! What is that thing?!”

“Hey! I don’t wanna hear that from a monster like ‘you’!” The giant humanoid ‘ant’ shouted in a shrill voice, “Ugly Elemental freak!”