Chapter 17: Chasing Zombozo and Overcoming Fear
The Rustbucket tore down the desolate highway, its headlights carving a solitary path through the pitch-black night.
"We have to track down that clown and get those people's happiness back!" Grandpa Max declared, his grip tightening on the steering wheel as his eyes remained locked on the asphalt ahead.
Thanks to Klein and Ben's earlier disruptive antics, Grandpa Max and Gwen had managed to escape the circus with their emotional states intact. The rest of the audience, however, hadn't been so lucky. They had been left as hollow, joyless husks.
While Grandpa Max, Ben, and Gwen were deeply invested in rescuing the stolen joy of strangers, Klein sat in the back, entirely unbothered. Those people meant absolutely nothing to him. Lifetimes of experience had drilled a simple truth into his head: sticking your nose where it didn't belong usually just earned you a headache. His philosophy regarding random bystanders was simple. If he saved them, fine. If he didn't, also fine.
The only thing currently occupying Klein's mind was the mild annoyance that his harsh approach hadn't cured Ben's phobia. He cast a flat, unimpressed glance at his younger cousin. Under that heavy, disappointed stare, Ben shrank into his seat, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.
"So, what exactly is going on with Ben?" Gwen asked, leaning forward. She had noticed Ben acting weird back in the stands, and Klein's silent judgment was only fueling her curiosity.
"Just... don't laugh when I tell you!" Unable to handle the combined weight of their stares any longer, Ben threw his hands up in defeat. "I'm actually super afraid of clowns, okay?!"
"Oh! I get it now!" Gwen's eyes lit up with sudden realization. "That's why you wouldn't even go near Zombozo on stage earlier!"
"Sorry, Cousin," Ben mumbled, deliberately staring at his own sneakers to avoid Klein's gaze. "I know you were trying to help me get over it."
"Forget it," Klein sighed, leaning back against the cushions. "Everyone is afraid of something." He wasn't the type to force an issue. He had tried the exposure therapy route once. It failed. Moving on.
"Sorry," Ben repeated, his voice barely a whisper. Klein's casual dismissal somehow made him feel even worse. The lack of a lecture just highlighted his own uselessness.
Klein waved a hand lazily, already dismissing the topic from his mind. That clown was a waste of oxygen anyway. Might as well just squash him and get it over with.
For once, Gwen kept her mouth shut. Even she knew better than to kick her cousin when he was already this down.
A short time later, the Rustbucket rolled to a quiet halt a safe distance from Zombozo's makeshift lair. The massive, garish circus tents loomed in the darkness ahead. Grandpa Max immediately shifted into tactical mode, outlining a plan to sneak in and locate the stolen happiness before engaging the enemy.
Klein stretched his neck, fully prepared to just kick the front door down. They were dealing with a handful of third-rate circus freaks, not an intergalactic armada. But watching his grandfather go full stealth mode was mildly entertaining, so he shrugged and played along.
Grandpa Max took point, moving with surprising quietness for a man his size. Ben and Gwen crept closely behind him, keeping low to the ground as they approached the main tent. Klein trailed at the back of the formation, hands stuffed in his pockets, walking with the casual posture of a tourist browsing a museum.
Clang!
Ben managed to avoid every dry twig on the ground, only to swing his foot directly into a discarded iron tent peg. The metallic ring echoed sharply through the quiet night.
"My bad..." Ben whispered, wincing apologetically at Grandpa Max. Then, he froze. Stepping out from the shadows of the adjacent tent were two very unhappy figures. Thumbskull cracked his massive knuckles, while Frightwig's prehensile hair writhed like a nest of angry vipers.
"Uh... hey there!" Ben stammered, backing up a step. "Have you guys eaten yet? We were looking for a burger joint and got super lost. This clearly isn't a restaurant, so we'll just be on our way!"
"Looks like a few little mice managed to sneak in," Thumbskull rumbled, his voice thick and gravelly. He lowered his heavy head, advancing slowly toward the group.
"Oh, look what I found," Frightwig purred, her eyes locking onto Klein. A predatory, hungry smirk spread across her face. "A little cutie. Don't worry, sweetheart. Just stay right there, and big sister will take very good care of you."
Klein didn't even blink. He was entirely too familiar with that specific, overly-eager look. He had seen it on plenty of girls before, though Gwen usually chased them off before they could get this close.
"See? This is exactly why kicking the door down is always the better option," Klein muttered. A faint, razor-thin smile touched his lips. It was a perfectly pleasant expression, yet the sheer, unnatural calm radiating from him caused both Thumbskull and Frightwig to involuntarily shudder.
"To quote the Dweeb," Klein said, raising his left wrist. "It's hero time."
He slammed his palm down onto the dial of the Another Omnitrix.
A blinding flash of phosphorescent blue light erupted in the dark clearing.
"Humungousaur!"
The light faded, revealing a towering, bipedal dinosaur clad in segmented, armor-like plating.
"It's just a big lizard," Thumbskull sneered, completely unfazed by the three-meter-tall beast. He pounded his heavy fists together and charged forward. "I'm gonna turn you into lizard jerky!"
"What an interesting trick, little brother!" Frightwig laughed, watching the transformation with amusement. She mentally calculated exactly when to step in and save the handsome boy from Thumbskull to earn his gratitude.
"Why are you yelling?" Humungousaur sighed, his deep, resonant voice vibrating through the ground.
His armored plates shifted. Muscle and bone expanded with a sickening crunch. In the span of a single breath, Humungousaur surged upward, his shadow swallowing the entire clearing as he grew to a staggering height of over twenty meters.
Thumbskull skidded to a dead halt. He slowly tilted his head back, staring up at a fist that was currently larger than a minivan.
"Uh... lizard... dinosaur bro," Thumbskull stammered, the blood draining from his face. "I just... I just wanted to help you trim your nails! But looking at them now, your nails are simply perfect! I don't think I'm needed here, so I'll just be going!" He swallowed hard, spun on his heel, and sprinted in the opposite direction.
Humungousaur didn't even bother winding up. He simply dropped his massive fist downward.
Boom!
The earth cratered. Thumbskull was driven straight into the dirt like a human nail, leaving only a cloud of dust in his wake.
Slowly, the giant dinosaur turned his heavy gaze toward Frightwig.
Frightwig stared at the crater, then back up at the towering Vaxasaurian. The cold, indifferent look in his reptilian eyes made it abundantly clear that he did not care about chivalry.
"Uh... I'll do it myself!" she yelped.
Throwing herself backward, Frightwig executed a rapid series of gymnastic flips. Instead of lashing out, her prehensile hair whipped inward, wrapping tightly around her own torso, arms, and legs. Within seconds, she dropped to the ground, completely immobilized and bound up like a bright red silkworm cocoon.
"Now to deal with that painfully unfunny clown," Humungousaur rumbled, pivoting toward the main tent. Truthfully, he didn't care if Zombozo lived or died. But the clown's earlier performance had been incredibly boring, and thanks to this little detour, Klein was currently missing out on valuable sleep. Combining those two offenses was more than enough reason to squash the guy.
Humungousaur stomped forward, reaching down with both massive hands to grip the base of the circus tent. With a single, effortless heave, he ripped the entire canvas structure clean off its moorings.
The sudden exposure revealed the chaotic interior. Zombozo stood frozen beside his massive, whirring happiness-draining machine. Dozens of shattered funhouse mirrors floated suspended in the air around him, the remnants of a maze he had set up to trap intruders.
Zombozo stared up at the twenty-meter-tall dinosaur blocking out the moonlight. The sinister grin melted off his painted face.
"I'm completely done for," Zombozo whimpered, dropping to his knees and clutching his head in utter despair. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a living in this economy?!" His voice cracked, bordering on a genuine sob.
Down below, Ben, Gwen, and Grandpa Max finally snapped out of their stunned silence. The fight against Thumbskull and Frightwig had ended so fast they hadn't even had time to process it.
Shaking off his shock, Ben locked eyes with the pathetic, groveling clown. A sudden surge of confidence washed over him.
"I... I'm not afraid of you!" Ben shouted, stepping forward. "You're just a sad guy in makeup getting scared witless by my cousin!"
He slammed his hand down on the Omnitrix dial.
A brilliant green light washed over the clearing.
"Diamondhead?" Ben grumbled, looking down at his crystalline hands. "Oh, man! This is so annoying! I wanted to go Ghostfreak!" He had fully intended to use the phantom alien to terrify Zombozo, just like Klein had done to his enemies in the past.
"It's you?!" Zombozo gasped, recognizing the Petrosapien. He stopped his pathetic sobbing and scrambled to his feet. His eyes darted from Diamondhead to the massive Humungousaur, finally locking onto the glowing blue hourglass symbol on the dinosaur's chest.
"That symbol!" Zombozo pointed a trembling, gloved finger. "I've seen it! So it was you!"
"How is Acid Breath?" Zombozo demanded. He hadn't suddenly developed a sense of loyalty to his henchman; he was just desperately trying to calculate his own odds of survival based on what had happened to the mutant.
"You'll be joining him very soon," Humungousaur rumbled, offering a generous, terrifyingly calm explanation.
"Bastards! I, Zombozo, am not to be trifled with!" the clown shrieked, his panic twisting into manic rage. A thick, corrugated hose extended from the draining machine, locking directly into the red clown nose painted on the back of Zombozo's suit.
"If I'm going down, I'm not going alone!" Zombozo roared, his eyes bulging as he absorbed the stolen joy. Realizing he stood zero chance against the two alien powerhouses, he suddenly pivoted and lunged straight toward Grandpa Max and Gwen. If he couldn't beat the freaks, he could at least snap an old man and a little girl in half!
Crack!
A crystalline fist slammed into the side of Zombozo's head before he could take three steps. Diamondhead followed through with a brutal right hook, sending the clown flying through the air. Zombozo hit the dirt hard, his oversized red nose and painted face completely caved in from the impact.
"You know, I just realized something," Diamondhead said, rolling his crystalline shoulders as he slowly advanced on the groaning clown. "Compared to a stupid clown... I'm way more afraid of my family getting hurt."
Watching from above, Humungousaur gave a low grunt of satisfaction. He turned his attention to the whirring machine beside him. Raising a massive foot, he brought it down hard, crushing the entire apparatus into a shower of sparks and twisted metal. He never liked leaving unfair advantages on the board.
With the machine destroyed, a wave of shimmering, golden energy erupted from the wreckage. The stolen happiness scattered into the night sky like a swarm of fireflies, rushing back to the hollowed-out citizens across the city.
Stripped of his artificial power boost, Zombozo was left entirely at the mercy of a very angry, completely fearless Diamondhead. Ben proceeded to beat the clown so thoroughly that Zombozo likely saw his great-grandmother waiting for him in the afterlife. Assuming a freak like him even had a great-grandmother.
The aftermath was entirely predictable. Zombozo was left a bruised, whimpering mess, easily scooped up by the local police when they finally arrived. Frightwig, still tightly bound in her own hair, was tossed into the back of a squad car right beside him.
As for Thumbskull, the police took one look at the massive crater Humungousaur had driven him into and assumed the man was dead. Even if he wasn't, no one was particularly eager to dig him out of the compacted dirt piece by piece.
Acid Breath, from their previous encounter, had managed to survive his own brutal beating—mostly because Grandpa Max had been there to ensure Klein didn't cross the line into outright murder. Still, the mutant's current condition in the hospital was hovering dangerously close to the edge.
Hours later, the Rustbucket was back on the road, its tires humming smoothly against the asphalt.
"Boo!"
Gwen suddenly popped up from behind the passenger seat, a terrifying, grinning clown mask strapped to her face.
"Ha! Very funny, Dork," Ben replied, not even flinching. He sat relaxed in the passenger seat, completely unbothered by the sudden jump scare.
"Ugh, Dweeb! Scaring you isn't even fun anymore!" Gwen complained, pulling the rubber mask off her head and tossing it aside.
In the back of the RV, Klein sat comfortably on the sofa, a glass of water in his hand. He took a slow sip, watching his cousins bicker with a faint, unseen smile.
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