Chapter 59: Zs'Skayr Escapes, Ghost Versus Ghost
"Our Ectonurite consciousness exists within every single strand of our DNA," a raspy, echoing voice hissed through the room. "When that wretched Omnitrix sampled my genetic code, it trapped my very soul inside its data banks. But now... now, I am finally free!"
The entity known as Zs'Skayr—the rogue Ghostfreak who had just forcibly ripped himself out of Ben's watch—hovered in the air, his single eye twitching with manic energy. "And now, I can finally return to my true form!"
With a sickening, wet tearing sound, Zs'Skayr grabbed the protective white second skin covering his body and violently ripped it apart. The synthetic flesh gave way, revealing the nightmare beneath. Dull, bruised-purple skin stretched tightly over a skeletal frame. Razor-sharp claws extended from elongated fingers, and his skull sat inverted, a grotesque mockery of anatomy. A single, unblinking pink eye darted wildly along the tracks of his exposed flesh.
This was the true face of an Ectonurite.
Klein leaned back against a nearby desk, crossing his arms. He stared at the horrifying alien monstrosity for a long moment before letting out a slow, heavy sigh.
"Hmm... pretty ugly," Klein remarked, his voice completely flat. He waved a hand dismissively toward the door. "Would you mind stepping outside for a bit? Can't you see we're in the middle of something here?"
He wasn't joking. Klein was currently deeply invested in figuring out the best way to 'persuade' Tiffany into helping Gwen secure an enrollment spot at Bancroft Academy. A rogue alien ghost throwing a temper tantrum was severely interrupting his schedule.
Zs'Skayr froze. His single eye halted its erratic movement to stare blankly at the lazy teenager. The Ectonurite had anticipated screaming. He had expected the boy to flee in terror, or perhaps foolishly charge forward in a panic-driven attack. Being casually asked to leave the room like a bothersome door-to-door salesman was entirely outside his calculations.
A low, grating chuckle rattled from Zs'Skayr's inverted skull. "...Heh heh heh. It truly is you. Even when I was trapped inside that miserable device, watching through the dial, I never once saw you nervous. I admire that coldness, Klein."
The ghost floated closer, his sharp claws flexing. "How about you hand that body over to me? If we combine my power with your vessel, we will be absolutely invincible!"
Zs'Skayr completely ignored Klein's dismissal, laying out his grand, albeit incredibly naive, ambitions. His single eye locked onto the device on Klein's wrist. He didn't just want a body; he wanted the Another Omnitrix. He could sense the overwhelming, unrestricted power radiating from Klein's version of the watch.
Somewhere across the galaxy, floating in a healing tank, a certain squid-faced warlord named Vilgax might have shed a single tear of solidarity. He, too, had once entertained such foolish thoughts.
Klein's eyes narrowed a fraction. "...You're really asking for a beating."
Gently but firmly detaching himself from Gwen and Tiffany, who had instinctively grabbed onto his arms when the monster appeared, Klein stepped forward. His fingers brushed the dial of the Another Omnitrix.
A blinding, ghostly blue light erupted in the confined space. Zs'Skayr hissed, throwing his clawed hands up to shield his sensitive, sun-hating eye from the intense glare.
The moment the blue flash faded, Zs'Skayr lowered his arms. He didn't even have time to register the shift in the room's atmosphere before a massive, white-gloved palm eclipsed his entire field of vision.
Bang!
Klein, now transformed into his own version of Ghostfreak, clamped his hand over Zs'Skayr's inverted face. With a brutal downward thrust, he slammed the rogue Ectonurite straight into the floorboards. The wood splintered violently, kicking up a cloud of dust and debris as Zs'Skayr's skull cratered the ground.
A screech of pure agony tore from Zs'Skayr's throat. The sheer physical force behind the blow was staggering. How was this possible? This copy was physically overpowering him! Yet, beneath the pain, a twisted thrill surged through the rogue ghost. The power of that watch... he absolutely had to possess it!
"Heh heh..." Zs'Skayr forced a raspy laugh, struggling against the crushing grip on his face. "I was... curious when I observed you from inside that prison. Now that I am looking closely, your Ectonurite DNA... it is a direct replication of my own. How is this even possible?"
He strained his neck, trying to angle his single eye toward Klein's Ghostfreak form. Despite his skull being embedded in shattered hardwood, Zs'Skayr forced his tone to remain casual and arrogant. He had an image to maintain, after all.
"You're already dead," Klein's distorted, echoing voice replied coldly. "I don't make a habit of explaining myself to a dead... ghost."
Technically speaking, Ectonurites didn't possess conventional life energy—a fact that mana-vampires like Darkstar would find incredibly frustrating. But to Klein, the technicalities of Zs'Skayr's biology didn't matter. The ugly bastard had interrupted his very important slacking time. Alive, dead, or undead, Klein was fully prepared to kill him again.
While Klein was speaking, the jagged seams running down Zs'Skayr's exposed chest suddenly split wide open. A mass of writhing, grotesque black tentacles shot outward like striking vipers, aiming straight for Klein's face.
It was a bizarre, mirrored spectacle. A ghost attacking a ghost using the exact same biological weapons.
Unfortunately for the rogue Ectonurite, Klein was intimately familiar with his own alien biology.
The protective white skin on Klein's chest peeled back instantly. His own cluster of thick, shadowy tentacles erupted forward, meeting Zs'Skayr's mid-air. The two masses of appendages violently intertwined, grappling like a nest of furious snakes.
Then, Klein flexed. His tentacles clamped down like steel vices and yanked backward with devastating force.
"No, no, no, no!" Zs'Skayr shrieked, his arrogant facade crumbling instantly. "It hurts! It hurts! Let go!"
The rogue ghost frantically scrambled to retract his appendages, tearing them free from Klein's crushing grip. But the moment Zs'Skayr dropped his guard to retreat, Klein capitalized. He raised a heavy, spectral fist and began ruthlessly pummeling Zs'Skayr's already hideous, inverted face, turning the interrogation into a one-sided street brawl.
Standing safely near the doorway, Ben winced at the sickening sounds of spectral fists meeting alien bone. He leaned over and nudged Grandpa Max in the ribs.
"Uh, Grandpa?" Ben whispered, keeping his eyes glued to the brutal beatdown. "Is Klein in a bad mood today? Why do I feel like he's getting way more violent lately?"
Back in the center of the room, Zs'Skayr was desperately trying to block the relentless barrage of punches. Through the haze of pain, a sudden realization struck his alien brain.
'Wait a minute. I can phase through solid matter!'
Without wasting another second, Zs'Skayr shifted his molecular density. His bruised purple form turned translucent, and he immediately sank through the shattered floorboards, fleeing into the earth below the building.
Klein didn't even pause. His own white-skinned form flickered into a state of intangibility, and he dove straight into the floor right after his prey.
The battlefield instantly shifted from the physical plane to the dense, lightless earth beneath the foundation. It was a bizarre, subterranean war where neither combatant could rely on normal vision. It was a high-stakes game of blind man's bluff, fought entirely through tactile sensation and spectral instincts.
Up in the room, silence fell. The gaping hole in the floor was the only evidence that a fight had just occurred.
"What exactly is the situation now?" Grandpa Max asked, blinking in utter bewilderment at the empty space.
He turned sharply toward his grandson. "Ben, quickly, think of something! We need to help him!"
Ben threw his hands up in exasperation. "Grandpa, my Ghostfreak literally just ripped himself out of my watch and ran away! What do you expect me to do? Dig a hole?!"
He shrugged helplessly. But as the silence stretched on, Ben noticed something. He looked around and saw Grandpa Max, Gwen, and even Tiffany staring at him. Their expressions were completely deadpan, their eyes locked onto the Omnitrix on his wrist.
Ben took a slow step back, suddenly feeling very defensive. "Uh... what are you all looking at me like that for? What do you want me to do?!"
Deep underground, Zs'Skayr briefly solidified his form to orient himself, only to nearly suffer a heart attack.
"Are you insane?! You are still chasing me?!"
He looked back through the dense soil to see Klein's Ghostfreak materializing just a few yards away. The moment Zs'Skayr became tangible, Klein mirrored the action, closing the distance in a flash to deliver another crushing right hook.
Because an Ectonurite's intangibility relied on altering molecular density, two intangible beings couldn't physically strike one another. To land a blow, one had to solidify. And the second Zs'Skayr solidified to catch his bearings, Klein was right there, fists ready to deliver a spectral beatdown.
Taking another heavy punch to the jaw, Zs'Skayr hurriedly shifted back to his transparent state, phasing frantically through the bedrock to put distance between them.
Panic began to set in. This couldn't go on. As a true Ectonurite stripped of his protective skin, direct sunlight would incinerate him. He was strictly confined to the shadows of buildings or the depths of the earth. But Klein's Ghostfreak form still possessed that protective outer layer. Klein could fight in the sun without issue.
Zs'Skayr wasn't even worried about winning the fight anymore; he was terrified that he was at a severe disadvantage in simply running away!
'Wait... underground!' Zs'Skayr's single eye widened.
Without another word, he adjusted his trajectory, diving deeper and deeper into the earth's crust. Klein, relentless as a bloodhound, phased right after him.
During his time trapped in Ben's watch, Zs'Skayr had watched the original Omnitrix time out constantly. He had never seen Klein's blue watch time out, but he was willing to bet his undead life that it had a limit too. All he had to do was outlast the timer!
Two and a half hours later.
Buried hundreds of feet beneath the surface, surrounded by suffocating darkness and solid rock, Zs'Skayr was officially losing his mind.
"This is impossible!" the rogue ghost shrieked, his voice echoing through the dense earth. "There is no way! Your energy reserves cannot actually be infinite!"
Hovering just a few feet away, effectively blocking Zs'Skayr's path, Klein remained completely silent. Honestly, Klein himself didn't know if the Another Omnitrix had infinite power. He just knew he had never once hit a time limit, and he wasn't about to complain about it now.
"Klein, listen to me. Let us negotiate," Zs'Skayr pleaded, his arrogant tone completely shattered. "I do not want your watch anymore. I renounce my claim! How about you just let me go?!"
The rogue ghost was entirely out of options. His physical attacks were useless, his tentacles were outmatched, and he couldn't even outrun the lazy teenager. The sheer desperation in his raspy voice was pathetic.
"No deal," Klein replied smoothly. "I am a man of principles. If I say I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill you."
Hearing this blatant hypocrisy, Zs'Skayr nearly suffered an aneurysm. "Damn you! I watched you for weeks! I never saw you display a single principle!"
"Fine!" Zs'Skayr roared, his single eye bulging with fury. "You want to play a game of endurance?! Let us see who outlasts whom!"
And so, the two spectral entities remained buried in the deep earth, locked in a ridiculous, stubborn stalemate.
Sometime later, a strange vibration broke the subterranean silence.
"Hmm?"
Both ghosts looked up simultaneously. The densely packed dirt above them was shifting. Loose soil began to cascade down upon them, followed by the frantic, rhythmic sound of furious digging.
"Rargh! Arf! Arf arf!"
A massive, orange, fur-covered beast suddenly burst through the ceiling of their makeshift cavern, snapping its powerful jaws wildly.
Zs'Skayr flinched back in shock. 'There are wild dogs buried this deep?!'
Klein blinked his single eye, peering through the gloom. It took him a second to recognize the eyeless, muscular form of a Vulpimancer. Oh. It was just Ben.
While the sudden appearance of the giant orange beast had startled Zs'Skayr, the rogue Ectonurite's survival instincts were razor-sharp. He kept his primary focus on Klein. The very millisecond he saw Klein's attention shift toward the digging alien, Zs'Skayr seized the opportunity. He turned completely intangible and bolted through the bedrock at maximum speed.
By the time Klein looked back, the space was empty.
"He ran away?" Klein muttered, shaking his head. The cunning old ghost had slipped the net.
Sighing helplessly, Klein floated upward through the newly dug tunnel, approaching Ben's Wildmutt form.
Inside the cramped, dirt-walled tunnel Wildmutt had excavated, a brilliant flash of ghostly blue light illuminated the darkness. The Ectonurite form vanished, leaving Klein standing there in his usual clothes, brushing dust off his sleeves.
"Dweeb! Klein! Are you okay?!"
Gwen and Tiffany were waiting at the top of the tunnel. The moment Klein climbed out, both girls immediately rushed forward, grabbing his arms and checking him over for any signs of injury.
Grandpa Max stood nearby, letting out a heavy breath of relief. He had been genuinely worried. The rogue Ectonurite had exuded a deeply sinister aura when he first escaped, putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the veteran Plumber. Seeing Klein emerge completely unharmed eased the tension in his shoulders.
Down in the dirt, Wildmutt sat on his haunches. He let out a low, neglected whine.
Nobody was checking on him.
Beneath the thick orange fur, Ben was internally screaming. 'You bastards! You all stared at me until I transformed and dug a massive tunnel straight down into the earth with my bare claws! Is that something a normal human would even suggest?!'
He had done the grueling manual labor. He had tracked the ghosts through solid rock. And what was his reward? Absolutely zero credit and zero sympathy!
Wildmutt might look like a giant, eyeless dog, but as far as Ben was concerned, the rest of his family were the real dogs here!
Night eventually fell, casting long, dark shadows over the dense forest located just a few miles from Bancroft Academy.
"I am finally free!"
Zs'Skayr drifted through the trees, his raspy voice echoing in the quiet woods. Despite the humiliating beating he had endured, the sheer euphoria of his escape still intoxicated him.
As the adrenaline faded, the rogue ghost floated down to the forest floor, his single eye narrowing as he began to plot his next move. Klein was too strong, and his watch was seemingly limitless. Taking the blue Omnitrix by force was currently impossible.
But... if he couldn't claim Klein's watch, wasn't Ben's original Omnitrix still ripe for the taking? The boy was weak, easily frightened, and heavily reliant on a device that constantly timed out.
(Somewhere deep in space, a heavily bandaged Vilgax nodded sagely. See? What did I tell you? Go for the easy target.)
A frustrating realization quickly dampened Zs'Skayr's mood. As long as Klein was standing right next to Ben, approaching the younger cousin was suicide. He needed a distraction. He needed a way to separate the lazy powerhouse from the vulnerable child.
As Zs'Skayr hovered in the shadows, struggling to formulate a plan, the sound of snapping twigs caught his attention. He peered through the brush and spotted a young teenage couple taking a romantic, moonlit stroll through the secluded woods.
The Ectonurite's inverted skull tilted. His single eye locked onto the unsuspecting humans, tracking their movements with predatory focus.
"Hmm?!" A sinister, grating chuckle began to rattle from deep within his chest, slowly building into a full-blown, maniacal cackle. "Heh heh heh... Hahahahaha!"
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