Chapter 8: Great-Aunt Vera
The midday sun beat down mercilessly, baking the quiet town until the air itself seemed to warp and shimmer above the asphalt. A thick, suffocating heat hung over everything, carrying the faint, metallic scent of hot dust and sun-baked rust. It was the kind of oppressive summer day that drained the life out of anyone caught in it. The elderly residents lining the sidewalks seemed to prove this, sitting motionless in their lawn chairs, too lethargic to even swat at the buzzing flies.
Through this hazy, sluggish atmosphere, the Rustbucket trundled along at a leisurely pace.
"This one is... Heatblast. Then Diamondhead... I'll just call this little guy Grey Matter... Ten alien heroes in total! Awesome!" Ben bounced on the sofa, aggressively twisting the dial on his Omnitrix. "I can't wait to transform into an alien hero and beat up some bad guys!"
Across the table, Gwen rolled her eyes. A faint, magenta glow of Mana flared around her fingertips as she casually levitated a pitcher of ice water from the kitchenette counter. She poured a glass for herself, then floated another over to Klein, taking a slow, refreshing sip. "You big Dweeb, I think your little head is overheating. You think you're as good as our cousin? Don't wet your pants and forget how to use that watch when the time actually comes."
"Hey, I want some too!" Ben yelled, momentarily distracted from his heroic fantasies. The sweltering heat was making his throat scratchy, and arguing with the Dork wasn't worth dying of thirst.
"Pour it yourself." Gwen let the pitcher drop onto the table with a dull thud, completely unfazed by his complaining.
"Hehe, they really get along so well," Grandpa Max chuckled, catching their reflection in the rearview mirror. "We're almost there, kids. Get ready. Aunt Vera has a mean cheek-pinch."
The Rustbucket hissed to a halt in front of a quaint, pastel-colored house. A stout, cheerful-looking elderly woman was already waiting on the porch, wiping her hands on an apron.
"Aunt Vera! It's been far too long," Grandpa Max called out warmly as he stepped out of the RV.
"Max! Oh, it really has been," Aunt Vera beamed, stepping forward to wrap him in a hug before turning her bright eyes toward the kids. "Oh ho ho, look at you two! It feels like forever. Ben, Gwen..."
She reached out, her fingers locking onto their faces with terrifying precision, pinching their cheeks until they squeaked. Then, her gaze shifted to the unfamiliar teenager standing quietly behind them. She paused, her hands hovering mid-air. "And who might this handsome young man be?"
"Ah, this is Klein. I adopted him a few months ago," Grandpa Max explained with a proud smile.
Before Klein could even offer a polite nod, Aunt Vera's hands darted forward. There was no escape. Klein endured the aggressive cheek-pinching with a perfectly blank expression, resigning himself to his fate.
Aunt Vera ushered them all inside with overwhelming hospitality. "Come in, come in! I've already made lunch."
The air-conditioned interior was a welcome relief. While Ben immediately started groaning about being bored and Gwen happily chatted away with their aunt, Klein took the opportunity to silently observe his surroundings, his eyes scanning the overly pristine living room.
The dining table soon became a battleground of wills. Sitting dead center was a massive glass bowl filled with a quivering, translucent brown jelly. Suspended within the gelatinous mass were suspicious brown chunks and limp white strips.
Klein stared at the dish. He had a strong stomach, but he wasn't a garbage disposal. Beside him, Ben and Gwen looked equally horrified, their forks hovering nervously.
"Vera, this is absolutely delicious!" Grandpa Max, however, was happily shoveling the strange concoction into his mouth. "What exactly are these brown chunks?"
"Oh, that's pig liver! And the white strips are boiled lettuce," Aunt Vera replied, her smile radiant.
Ben's face turned a distinct shade of green. "Ugh... I'm full. I need to use the restroom." He scrambled out of his chair, bolting down the hallway. As he passed Klein, a frantic whisper escaped his lips. "I gotta get out of this place."
Klein heard him perfectly. His enhanced physique granted him senses far sharper than any ordinary human's. He took a slow sip of his water, deciding to let the kid have his fun.
A few moments after the bathroom door clicked shut, a faint, eerie green light bled through the crack at the bottom. Ben had gone Ghostfreak. Klein didn't even need to guess; just before Ben phased through the exterior wall, he made sure to float up behind Gwen's chair and let out a chilling hiss, making her jump in her seat.
'Hehe, where should I go mess around?' Ghostfreak drifted through the suburban neighborhood, invisible and weightless. The elderly residents he passed didn't even blink at the sudden drops in temperature. He floated aimlessly until the sweet, buttery scent of a freshly baked pie caught his nonexistent nose. It was cooling on a windowsill.
Ghostfreak drifted closer, peering through the glass. Inside, an old woman was aggressively swatting at a fly. The insect buzzed erratically, dodging the swatter before landing high up on the ceiling. Without missing a beat, the old woman leaped into the air. Her limbs snapped outward, sticking to the ceiling with spider-like unnaturalness. Her jaw unhinged, and a long, grotesque tongue lashed out, swallowing the fly whole.
"Ninja Granny?!" Ghostfreak recoiled, his single eye widening in horror. "Okay, that is way too bizarre." He quickly phased away from the house, thoroughly creeped out.
But the weirdness didn't stop. As he explored the retirement community, he witnessed an old woman casually executing a flawless backflip over a garden hose. He saw an old man nearly cause a traffic accident just because someone turned on a lawn sprinkler, shrieking as if the water were acid.
Then came the junkyard. Ghostfreak watched from the shadows as an elderly man effortlessly shoved a massive, rusted dumpster aside, revealing a hidden steel hatch buried in the dirt. Just as the man reached for the handle, Ghostfreak accidentally kicked a loose can.
The old man froze. Slowly, impossibly, his head rotated a full one hundred and eighty degrees, his neck snapping with sickening crunches until he was staring dead at Ben.
"Creepy! What is wrong with this place?!" Ben yelled, dropping his invisibility to fly away. Suddenly, the Omnitrix symbol on his chest began flashing red. "Oh, come on! What kind of cheap junk are you, you broken watch!"
A burst of red light blinded him, and Ben hit the dirt, back in his human body. The old man lunged, his jaw stretching wide. Ben scrambled backward, kicking up dust, and managed to dive behind a thick cluster of water pipes just as the old man bounded past, his movements jerky and alien.
Bursting through Aunt Vera's front door, Ben was hyperventilating. "Oh man! Everyone in this town is some kind of alien weirdo! They're—"
"Shh!" Grandpa Max and Gwen hissed in unison.
"Aunt Vera just laid down for a nap, Ben. Keep your voice down," Grandpa Max scolded gently.
"Seriously? It's only six-thirty!" Ben threw his hands up, utterly exasperated by the retirement lifestyle.
"Alright, Dweeb, what were you just screaming about?" Klein asked, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, steering the conversation back to the actual problem.
Catching his breath, Ben quickly recounted everything he had witnessed—the fly-eating, the unnatural acrobatics, the water phobia, and the rotating head.
"You mentioned a secret door under a dumpster, right?" Klein pushed off the wall, his lazy demeanor vanishing. "Take me to it." He had zero intention of lying awake tonight wondering if a shape-shifting senior citizen was going to crawl through his window.
Ten minutes later, the trio was crouched behind a low brick wall next to a dark, Western-style house near the junkyard. Ben was leading the way, dramatically pressing his back against the bricks and peeking around the corner. Several elderly people were shuffling around the alleyway, their heads swiveling in unnatural, jerky motions as they searched the area.
"Alright, great detective, what exactly is your plan here?" Gwen whispered, clearly unimpressed by Ben's exaggerated spy routine.
Klein sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Ben, you said one of them freaked out over a lawn sprinkler, right?" He was already tired of this. Sneaking around was for people who lacked the power to walk through the front door. With the watch on his wrist, hiding from a bunch of geriatric slime monsters felt insulting.
Klein was annoyed. And when Klein was annoyed, he preferred overwhelming force. He stepped out from behind the wall, completely abandoning their cover.
He raised his left arm and slammed his right hand down on the dial. "Water Hazard!"
A brilliant, quiet blue light illuminated the dark alley. Where the teenager just stood, a towering alien clad in heavy, crustacean-like red armor now stood, steam hissing from the vents on his chest.
"Alright! If we're going loud, then make way for the hero!" Ben grinned, slapping his own Omnitrix. "Four Arms!"
A flash of emerald green erupted, leaving behind a massive, red-skinned behemoth with four muscular arms and four glowing yellow eyes. "Listen up, weirdos! Prepare to get flattened!" Four Arms roared, leaping directly into the middle of the alley.
Not wanting to be left out, Gwen tapped into her Anodite heritage. Her eyes glowed a vibrant magenta as she floated off the ground. Raw Mana coalesced around her hands as she unleashed a barrage of energy blasts, slamming into the group of elderly people.
The impact tore their human disguises away, revealing their true forms—grotesque, amorphous blobs of green-brown slime. Limax. Gwen's Mana constructs crushed several of them into puddles, but the slime simply bubbled and reformed, rising back up without a scratch. Four Arms quickly ran into the same issue; his massive fists punched clean through their gelatinous bodies, splashing mud everywhere, only for the holes to instantly close up. They were entirely immune to blunt force.
Watching from a safe distance, Grandpa Max observed his three grandchildren coordinating their unique abilities. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. 'It seems I really need to dig out some of my old Plumber gear. I can't let the kids have all the fun.'
Realizing the kids' physical attacks were useless, the Limax grew bolder. They slithered forward, their voices echoing in a wet, gurgling chorus. "Struggle all you want, food. It changes nothing. Grab them. We will pickle the old meat, and let the young ones fatten up a bit longer."
Water Hazard let out a metallic scoff, unimpressed by the arrogant slime. He raised his armored right arm, aiming his palm directly at the encroaching horde. The visors on his helmet glowed. A high-pressure torrent of water blasted from his hand with the force of a fire hose. The sheer kinetic impact, combined with the Limax's extreme vulnerability to water, caused the monsters in the front row to shriek as their bodies dissolved and washed away into the storm drains. The blast was so powerful it even stripped the siding off the nearby houses.
Four Arms and Gwen blinked, staring at the melting slime monsters. It was their first real team battle, so a slight delay in tactical reasoning was forgivable. But they caught on fast.
Four Arms grinned, his massive hands grabbing the heavy steel water mains running along the exterior of the houses. With a flex of his four biceps, he ripped the pipes straight out of the walls, sending geysers of water spraying into the alley. Gwen simultaneously condensed her Mana into a razor-sharp, spinning disk. She hurled it down the street, slicing a bright red fire hydrant clean in half.
A massive pillar of water erupted into the night sky, raining down heavily on the neighborhood. Within seconds, the entire street was flooded, turning the alley into a watery grave for the melting, shrieking Limax.
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