If All Else Fails

***If All Else Fails*** is the twenty-first *Omniverse* episode of *Clock 10: Choose Your Own Adventure*.

## Plot

The episode begins with Molly debriefing he team. In the Pacific Northwest, a group of Highbreed have been located. Notably, the group is incredibly hostile, and doesn't appear to have been affected by the Omnitrix's DNA wave that repaired the species at the end of the war a year prior. As Clock utilized a larger team to stop the Highbreed before, Molly works on getting teams together for the group.

The Plumber HQ prison situation has changed to some extent. Prisoners are required to be a part of one of two programs. The first, which Fistina is a part of, is to earn their freedom by becoming Plumbers. The second puts the prisoners into the a task force program, making them work for black op missions in exchange for years off their sentences, and their lives not being taken if they fail. Molly has Fistina take the team on a tour of the new prisoner area, where power dampening technology allows the prisoners to socialize with each other under heavy supervision, whilst the former finishes up their teams.

Upon entering the confinement, filled with enemies that Clock has fought himself as well as those he's never met, the team is immediately greeted by a conversation at a table between Jonah Melville from Friends of Fish, and the former Mayor Coleman, where Coleman describes his business tactics to Jonah, who criticizes Coleman for selling alien feces that looked like gold due to almost destroying a city by feeding meat to the alien in question. Additionally, Simian is seen playing cards with Charles Zennith, Captain Kork, and Fistrick. LaGrange, Vin Ethanol, and Baron Highway watch NASCAR racing together on a small TV. Nanny Nightmare reads a book to a child who catches Hope's eye.

Hope flips, as the child in question turns out to be her young sister, Heather. Heather reveals that she was put into the prison for the time being because she accidentally made an ice cream monster that destroyed Biggie Box. Upon Hope saying she'll get Heather out by talking to Molly, and Clock giving Heather some heroic advice, the team is called to Molly's office to go over their teams.

Each of the teams are set to flank the Highbreed area from a different direction:

* Terry's team will head in from the east, and is comprised of Dr. Animo, Kangaroo Kommando, the Kitty Litterer, Kraab, Kundo, Lord Decibel, Mino-Toga, Punchinello, S.A.M., Sunny Tennyson, and Solar and Polar Twain.
* Rook's team will come in from the north, and is comprised of Baz-El, the Bowling Ball Bandit, Maurice and Sydney Bugg, Clancy, King Koil, Lieutenant Steel, OTTO, Queen Bee, Sublimino, V.V. Argost, and Yetta.
* Hope's team will come from the south, comprised of the Circus Freaks, Emperor Milleous, Gumdrop Wizard, Iron Kyle, Suemungousaur, Sunder, Sweet-Eels Sparklefunk, Thunderpig, Trombipulor, and Tummyhead.
* Finally, Clock's team will come in from the west, comprised of Breaker One-Nine, Conduit Edwards, Dr. Pang, Driscoll, Lillimusha DiForestini, Nyancy Chan, Pax, Rojo, Steam Smythe and Aristicrow, Tim Buktu, and Xingo.

Before the team heads out, Molly mentions she'll see about getting Heather out of the prison.

Upon reaching the west side of the forest, Breaker One-Nine suggests using LIZA to break through the forest, though Pax and Tim Buktu both protest (Tim however is solely protesting to do it without a camera.) To appease the group but get the mission going faster, Clock uses a portal spell, which everyone but Pang goes through, who is hesitant at first until Clock talks him into going through with him. Once further into the woods, Clock becomes Wildmutt to sniff around for nearby enemies, who end up revealing themselves anyway. The green spit of DNAliens comes flying into the scene. Some of the slime lands on Breaker's visor, impairing his vision. Breaker trips over, and the miniaturized LIZA in his pocket falls out and returns to normal size, flinging Breaker into the air. Breaker comes back down and crashes through the excavator's cab, landing in a way that breaks his neck, as well as activates one of the levers. The lever causes the back scoop of the excavator to hit Xingo, flinging him through the air and into the river, where he short circuits and dies.

Caught off guard by the sudden deaths, Wildmutt becomes human again and orders the team to attack. Most of the team does except for Pax and Pang who remain by LIZA, Pax due to his pacifist nature and Pang out of fear. Clock decides to coax Pang into becoming Toothache by becoming Cocoat, whose candy physiology immediately sends Pang into a raging Toothache. Toothache thrashes about numerous DNAliens, almost hitting Pax with one that he throws. Upon Pax shouting about that, Toothache turns his attention and anger towards him, and rushes to him. Toothache hits LIZA, causing fuel to leak out onto Pax. The vibration of Toothache's movement causes Rojo to falter while launching an attack, and the energy blast hits the gasoline-covered Pax, setting him ablaze before he falls into an ashen heap. For the sake of safety, Driscoll knocks out Toothache, causing him to become Pang.

Meanwhile, Terry's group heads in from the east side, with Animo failing to convince Kangaroo Kommando to let him mix his DNA with that of an actual kangaroo, all the while Kundo criticizes the excessive amount of high tech his teammates use. Soon after Terry gets the group to shut up, they realize the area is a bit too quite for comfort, and Sunny attempts to search for nearby mana, though is interrupted when the DNAliens reveal themselves by dropping a tree onto the Kitty Litterer, starting a fight between the two groups.

During the battle, S.A.M. generates a small thunder storm, which the Twain brothers spin around to make into a small tornado to ravage the DNAliens. However, the two start arguing in the midst of doing so, and their metallic suits make them into floating lightning rods, causing them both to be struck by lightning and fall to the ground dead. Punchinello charges up his laser nose, only for it to be clogged by DNAlien slime, causing the energy to build up and blow up his head. Sunny uses a magic blast to hit all the surrounding DNAlien, causing the Xenocytes to separate from their hosts, who are revealed to be the Plumbers who were originally sent into the area.

Rook's group has a small amount of in-discourse as Clancy is rejected by the other bug-themed villains in regards to letting him attempt to control them. Steel steps to a cliffside overlooking the area the Highbreed are supposedly at, becoming skeptical upon not seeing anything. Baz-El elaborates that the Highbreed use a cloaking field generated by their weather towers, and that they'd have to get through the cloaking field to dismantle it. The team climbs down the cliff and gets close enough to the cloaking field that the electromagnetism in the air has increased, as detected by Yetta's pigtails and Baz-El's distorted body, which is immediately frozen upon the DNAliens appearing.

Queen Bee flies up and charges, only to be frozen mid-air and fall to the ground, shattering. Amidst the chaos, OTTO says his tech savvy nature could help the group take down one of the weather towers if they get through the cloaking field, leading to the Bowling Ball Bandit clearing a way. The group takes the opportunity and runs through the cloaking field, though the electromagnetism of the field short circuits OTTO, shutting off his system. The weather towers have also caused the area within the cloaking field to turn into a winter wonderland, the cold temperature sending King Koil into hibernation. Rook orders Yetta to carry him and keep him warm with her fur, but before she can do so, Koil is shot dead by Steel, who considered the sleeping Koil to be a liability.

The team eventually comes upon what looks like a large blob of amber, with the silhouettes of people inside them. A Highbreed arrives, and Sublimino uses his pocket watch to hypnotize the Highbreed into explaining the situation. The Highbreed elaborates that he is a part of a squadron left on Earth, only to be awoken if the Highbreed lost their war on Earth. A failsafe would be activated in such a scenario to destroy the planet. The amber blob then plunges into the ground, only for roots to shoot up in its place. One root impales Yetta, another beheads Sydney, and the final flings Sublimino through the air.

Sublimino goes through the cloaking field, becoming visible to anyone within viewing distance, only for him to crash onto some rocks and die in an explosion of blood and guts just below the cliff that Hope's team is on. Hope uses a spell to see Rook's team as a projection, only for something to block the view. That "something" reveals itself in the form of a gigantic Highbreed tree monster which knocks out a weather tower, thus removing the cloaking field. Hope attempts to stop it in its tracks, though her spell to do so shatters. Thunderpig tries to swipe his mace at the creature, though the creature responds by firing a large root which crushes Thunderpig, Sweet-Eels Sparklefunk, and Tummyhead.

Gumdrop Wizard uses his own gummy magic to try to stick its feet to the ground, but the creature lifts its foot without a problem, taking a chunk of the ground with it, sending a rock flying at the group which smashes Gumdrop Wizard and sends Iron Kyle tumbling down the mountain. Sunder then attacks the creature with his axe, though the layers of sediment atop its shoulders fall when it turns, avalanching atop Sunder. Iron Kyle finds himself alive at the bottom of the mountain, but raising his fist with glee results in him hitting the front scoop of LIZA, which then falls and crushes him. Hope commands her team to retreat, with Trombipulor requesting peanuts. Hope summons some for him, and the consumption of it allows him to achieve full size, which Suemungousaur mimics, both of them attempting to fight the Highbreed tree monster, along with Hope creating a dragon illusion to help.

From Clock's perspective, the Highbreed tree monster had knocked over a weather tower, thus removing the cloaking field, and Driscoll sacrificed himself to hold up the tower long enough for the others to get away, Clock keeping his helmet in remembrance. As Trombipulor and Suemungousaur weren't able to properly rival the monster's height, it threw its fists down and crushed their heads, the debris of the attack clearing the dragon illusion, and causing a flood of blood through the forest. Clock becomes Astrodactyl and saves Steam Smythe, with Aristocrow and Lillimusha flying up away from the blood. Rojo uses a jetpack to get Nyancy out of the way and onto a tree, but the blood topples the tree over, causing her to fall into the blood and drown. Tim almost dies to the blood as well, but activates his Tim Machine armor in time to escape. Upon hearing Rook's calls from the next cliff over, the two teams meet up.

Rook mentions that his latest casualty was Maurice, who refused to leave Sydney's decapitated body, and was caught up in the flood. Steel observes that fighting the monster from the outside has thus far done no good, but that the inside may be vulnerable. Clock uses quite a bit of power to summon a magic portal to get the group through, though the amount tires him out, and the portal closes prematurely, decapitating Lillimusha. The team is then attacked by what look to be headless Highbreed, who Argost soon comes to realize are effectively antibodies for the tree monster.

Rook and Clock eventually meet up with Terry and Hope, whose teams had gotten into the monster in a similar manner. Alongside the other deaths, Terry says S.A.M. and Kraab were caught up in the flood, the blood messing up their robotic bodies. To continue the mission, Lord Decibel reveals he can hear the creature's pulse, and can lead them to its "heart".

With Decibel's lead, the group finds a chamber with amber pods, and incredibly hostile antibodies. Clock becomes Wildvine and the group begins fighting. Kangaroo Kommando throws his kangarangs to slice through some antibodies, but one comes back around and slices off Dr. Animo's head. Surprised by the unintentional killing, Kommando is too distracted to stop his own demise as an antibody lifts him up and throws him onto the floor, snapping his neck. Decibel's head is then smashed by a falling antibody.

Clancy takes on his bug form to fight. Thumbskull bashes into one of the amber orbs, finding that a person was inside. The group realizes the people here are the same ones in the original amber construct seen by Rook's group before the monster emerged, and that they're how the beast is operating. Kundo finds the creature beautiful, and a chance for the humans to start again more in tune with nature. Steel and Milleous pull their weapons on Kundo, albeit with different motives. While Steel wants to keep the world from being destroyed, Milleous wants to commandeer the beast to ravage Earth and get revenge on Attea for her betrayal.

As the three argue, Kundo is cut off, as Rook used the Proto-Tool to stab him to prevent him from sabotaging the mission, albeit remorsefully. Steel then turns his weapon to Rook, convinced that because he turned on Kundo, the same species as Rook, there's a possibility that he would turn on the rest as well. Before Steel can attack, he is brought down by a barrage of darts being shot into his back by a Highbreed, causing him to faint.

Having reached his limit, Clock loses his cool, and opts for Plantapocalypse after instructing the teammates to get out of the way. Plantapocalypse initially eats approaching antibodies, increasing his size in the small inner-workings of the tree monster. Though the teams try to get away, Plantapocalypse devours Milleous, Bowling Ball Bandit, Dr. Pang, and Clancy. Hope's magic gets the remaining lot out of the monster and onto a nearby cliff as Plantapocalypse's growing size bursts out of the monster from the inside, causing it to topple over dead. Plantapocalypse goes to attack his teammates, but stops upon seeing Hope, and transforms back in pain. The Highbreed is revealed to have survived the crash, and rushes towards Clock, only to be attacked by Edwards. The Highbreed snaps Edwards' neck, and then slices off his own hand upon getting Edwards' blood on him after thrashing him into the ground, then collapses from exhaustion. Clock cries out in agony and frustration.

At Plumber HQ, Molly questions the group about the location of V.V. Argost, who was not reincarcerated like his fellow inmates, to no avail. She also says that, due to the number of casualties on the mission, the task force program will be phased out. Prisoners can choose to remain prisoners in the base, or become Plumbers to earn their freedom. Although Clock is happy to hear this, out of a combination of the grief of seeing death and causing death, he opts to leave the Plumbers. Molly warns that Clock likely won't have the same protection he had before if he leaves, though this doesn't alter his decision.

The chapter has three credit scenes:

* The first reveals that Xingo survived the crash into the water, having simply faked it for the hell of it.
* V.V. Argost is seen in a lab in Undertown's depths, with many animals and animal body parts in stasis decorating the room. He places down another stasis jar, which has Animo's severed head within it.
* At the Highbreed monster crash site, Lieutenant Steel is revealed to have survived. Brushing himself off, he is encountered by Liam, who is joined by a female Petrosapien and female Pyronite, the latter of which mentions them having "big plans" for Steel.

## Major Events

* The failsafe group of Highbreed are stopped from causing another war.
* Emperor Milleous, Dr. Animo, Kraab, and Sunder, all recurring villains for the series, are killed. However, Dr. Animo is shown to be being revived in some way by V.V. Argost in the credit scene.
* Clock quits the Plumbers.

## Characters

* Clockwork Firefly
* Hope Spellbinder
* Rook Blonko
* Terry Firefly
* Molly Gunther
* Heather Spellbinder *(debut)*
* Fistina

### Clock's Team

* Breaker One-Nine *(debut; death)*
* Conduit Edwards *(debut; death)*
* Dr. Pang *(debut; death)*
* Driscoll *(debut; death)*
* Lillimusha DiForestini *(debut; death)*
* Nyancy Chan *(death)*
* Pax *(death)*
* Rojo *(debut)*
* Steam Smythe
* Aristocrow
* Tim Buktu *(debut)*
* Xingo *(debut)*

### Hope's Team

* Acid Breath
* Frightwig
* Thumbskull
* Emperor Milleous *(death)*
* Gumdrop Wizard *(debut; death)*
* Iron Kyle *(debut; death)*
* Suemungousaur *(debut; death)*
* Sunder *(death)*
* Sweet-Eels Sparklefunk *(debut; death)*
* Thunderpig *(debut; death)*
* Trombipulor *(debut; death)*
* Tummyhead/Dummyhead *(debut; death)*

### Rook's Team

* Baz-El *(death)*
* Bowling Ball Bandit *(debut; death)*
* Maurice Bugg *(debut; death)*
* Sydney Bugg *(debut; death)*
* Clancy *(debut; death)*
* King Koil *(debut; death)*
* Lieutenant Steel
* OTTO *(debut; death)*
* Queen Bee *(debut; death)*
* Sublimino *(debut; death)*
* V.V. Argost *(debut)*
* Yetta *(debut; death)*

### Terry's Team

* Dr. Animo
* Kangaroo Kommando *(debut; death)*
* Kitty Litterer *(debut; death)*
* Kraab *(death)*
* Kundo *(debut; death)*
* Lord Decibel *(debut; death)*
* Mino-Toga *(debut; death)*
* Punchinello *(debut; death)*
* S.A.M. *(debut; death)*
* Sunny Tennyson *(debut)*
* Solar Twain *(debut; death)*
* Polar Twain *(debut; death)*

### Villains

* Highbreed
* Highbreed Tree Monster
* DNAliens

### Prisoners

* Jonah Melville
* Mayor Coleman *(debut)*
* Simian
* Fistrick *(debut)*
* Charles Zennith *(debut)*
* Captain Kork *(debut)*
* LaGrange *(debut)*
* Vin Ethanol *(debut)*
* Baron Highway *(debut)*
* Nanny Nightmare *(debut)*

### Credit Scene Characters

* Ashvallen *(debut)*
* Crysta *(debut)*
* Liam

## Aliens Used

* Wildmutt
* Cocoat
* Astrodactyl
* Wildvine
* Plantapocalypse

## Allusions

* The prisoners who talk mention events from episodes they were involved in, whether done in CYOA or not:
	+ Jonah Melville's attempts to steal the Krakken's eggs in *The Krakken*
	+ Mayor Coleman's attempt at profits in *Fool's Gold*
	+ Heather making an ice cream monster that destroyed Biggie Box in *The Charm Offensive*
		- Heather's original reason for being in the prison was going to be that she accidentally used magic to possess Alan Albright, a nod to her doing so to Kevin Levin, particularly his Hot Shot form, in *Which Watch*.
* Tim Buktu mentions having searched for the Forgetti.
* When Animo and Kangaroo Kommando die, Lord Decibel makes a reference to the "This is so sad, Alexa play Despacito." meme. This serves to distract him and result in his death.
* Molly says the line "No more suicide squads." when denouncing he task force program, which is a direct quote from *The Annihilators Part 2*.

## Trivia

* This episode was inspired by *The Suicide Squad*, similarly to how the 2016 *Suicide Squad* inspired *The Annihilators* episodes of *The Alan 10 Adventures*. Certain characters take inspiration from those within the movie, such as Lieutenant Steel effectively being the Peacemaker of the group, while Xingo's fake out water-related death makes him the Weasel. Xingo being the Weasel was suggested by WTB.
* This episode has the highest number of introduced characters, at 59. It also has the highest number of deaths, at 36. This is only counting named characters who died, and not any DNAlien or Highbreed casualties.