The tower of Dr. Zalost had been scrapped and its materials recycled. It contained more than enough wood to make the Kids Next Door happy for months. Earth, however, no longer had a Kids Next Door, Ben heard and Dexter learned through a passing conversation of little other importance.

Rex and Noah had a quick talk with their comrades who all, in turn, had a fairly big conversation with Dexter and Ben, the older. Apparently this had worked and the next day, the younger versions were assured, would be different.

"And," the older Ben added, "if you need to disguise yourselves, we do have uniforms you can steal."

"Alright!" the younger Ben said loudly, malapropos of appropriateness, "Sorry, but your shoulder width is, like, ten inches smaller than mine, Dex."

After a dinner, which, despite the chef responsible, was surprisingly filling and delicious. This was primarily because they had not eaten in a day. Dexter and Ben retired to their room where, Ben was determined, they were going to reflect.

"Hey Dex," Ben asked, "What did you mean you'd destroyed the world with scientific curiosity?"

Dexter chuckled nervously, "Heh heh, you mean you heard that?"

"Yeah, I mean, when did you destroy the world?"

Dexter sighed, "Alright, Benjamin, it's a bit of a long story."

Ben decided, "I think we have time."

Dexter sighed and began, "It all started several years ago. I sent out a homing beacon in hopes of being the first to discover extraterrestrial life."

"Way ahead of you!" Ben noted.

"Yes, well, a funny thing happened. Afterwards I was out looking at the stars, pleading to them to deliver me proof of alien life. Almost magically, a meteor landed directly in front of me. From it emerged a gooey green alien lifeform."

"Single cellular life, bummer. Thought you were a scientist? Shoulda known most of the life in the universe is single cellular."

"Not quite single cellular. I captured it for further study, running analysis after analysis on it. Under the microscope I noticed the tissue sample had the strange ability to assimilate other organisms. As I began another tissue sample for DNA analysis, the gooey alien escaped its confinement. I grabbed it, but it split and the pieces ducked into a nearby pipe."

"And so you always wore purple cleaning gloves, so the next time you absolutely had to hold onto something, it'd slip though your fingers." Dexter glared at Ben. "What? That's been bothering me for a long time."

"...As I searched for it, it sought out other organisms to possess. I'm not entirely certain how it managed to infect my family, but very soon they were creating a transceiver with parts in my own lab, carved from blueprints carved in a table."

"Guess no one told them about pencils," Ben found this detail fairly strange.

"I fought my own family, rendering them unconscious, and killing the gooey aliens as they tried to escape once more. Then I destroyed the transceiver. I was almost positive I had destroyed the transceiver before it was activated."

"And you probably did." Then the purpose of the conversation dawned on Ben, " I still don't get how you destroyed the planet."

"It was a few years later when the first terrafusers fell to earth. I analyzed the fusion matter under the microscope and, much to my horror, it behaved the exact same way the gooey aliens had."

"Wait, hold up," Ben interjected, "what are you saying?"

Dexter continued, "I'm the one who tipped off Lord Fuse to the presence of Earth. What I found was a scout ship. The transceiver was obviously a beacon of some kind to help Lord Fuse find us. Because of me, many people died, and it's only a mercy I had the technology to defeat the invasion."

Ben let some time pass before talking again, "You know, Dex, it's not really your fault. You must have destroyed the transceiver."

"How do you know?"

"They sent the probe here in the first place, so, I mean, obviously they knew where we were." Ben relaxed with a small grunt, "We're just lucky you found them first and stopped them. If it'd been anyone else's ridiculously advanced labratory, Fuse would have been here sooner and we might not have been able to fight its invasion off."

"What about my original signal?" Dexter asked, having not expected his laid bare guilt to be brushed aside.

"I'll be the Plumbers blocked it. Besides, I have it on pretty good authority that someone else told Lord Fuse where Earth was."