Chapter 246: Clown Carnival! Crazy Aliens and Zombozo
Opu grabbed the thick iron bars of the cage, rattling them with all his might. The metallic clanging echoed through the dim warehouse as he tried desperately to get the attention of the small alien huddled inside. "It is me, Opu! I have come to take you home!"
Dika did not even twitch. The little alien sat with his back turned, quietly chewing on whatever scraps of food lay in the shadows, completely ignoring his friend's pleas.
Opu opened his mouth to shout again, but a heavy hand clamped onto his shoulder. Kevin effortlessly hoisted the frantic alien up and set him aside. "Get out of the way. Let me handle this."
Without waiting for a response, Kevin grabbed the iron bars. A dull gray sheen washed over his skin as he absorbed the metallic properties of the cage. With a low, straining groan of yielding steel, Kevin wrenched his arms apart, tearing the heavy door clean off its hinges.
"Hey there, little troublemaker. I am here to—" Kevin started, reaching a heavy, metal-plated hand in to scoop up Dika.
Before his fingers could even brush the small alien's back, the creature abruptly whipped its head around.
"Big surprise!!!"
It was not the familiar, innocent face Opu was expecting. Instead, a grotesque, grease-painted clown visage stared back at them, stretched into a manic, horrifying grin.
Kevin's metallic face visibly paled, his hand freezing in mid-air. Beside him, Opu let out a bloodcurdling shriek. "Ah! Dika!!!"
The clown's jaws were clamped around something grotesque. As the shadows shifted, the gruesome reality set in. It was a severed alien head, identical to Opu's species. Given Opu's hysterical sobbing, there was little doubt about whose head it was.
"You sick freak..." Kevin gritted his teeth, his metallic fists clenching so hard they sparked.
"Oh, do not be such a spoilsport..." Zombozo chuckled, casually unhinging his jaw to swallow the alien head whole. He patted his lips with exaggerated politeness. "I was just having a little fun."
"You did not eat Dika, did you? Tell me! Dika is still alive, right?!" Tears streamed down Opu's face. He lunged forward, desperate to wring the truth out of the twisted clown, but froze in his tracks at the nightmare unfolding before him.
Zombozo's bloated, oversized body began to writhe. With a sickening squelch, the massive clown physically squeezed himself out of Dika's tiny, meter-tall frame. It was like watching a grotesque balloon inflate from a pinhole.
Horrified by the impossible anatomy, Opu stumbled backward, scrambling out of the ruined cage and collapsing onto the dusty floor.
"Hehehe... Do not be afraid, little friend." Zombozo planted his pale, gloved hands on the torn iron bars and fully slithered out, his body compressing and stretching with sickening elasticity.
Looming over the trembling Opu, Zombozo's painted smile stretched literally from ear to ear. He patted his swollen stomach with a theatrical flourish. "Do not worry. He is very comfortable in there."
That was the breaking point. Opu buried his face in his hands, sobbing uncontrollably.
A few paces back, Klein watched the entire horrific display with deadpan boredom. He casually turned to Ben and Gwen. "Alright, mission failed. How about we just beat this guy into paste and go get some slushies?"
Zombozo's neck snapped toward Klein, his painted smile twitching. "You little brat. You really know how to ruin a punchline... Why are you not screaming like the rest of them?"
Klein completely ignored the clown. He raised his wrist, lazily dialing the faceplate of the Another Omnitrix, scrolling through his alien roster.
Feeling ignored, Zombozo's eye twitched. "Are you not even going to ask if the little alien is actually dead?"
"Does not matter." Klein did not even bother looking up from his watch. "Even if he is alive, I am still going to take you down."
Zombozo fell silent. The clown was not an idiot; he knew he could not take Klein in a straight fight. His entire plan had relied on theatrical terror and moral blackmail. He cleared his throat, trying a different angle. "Please! You are supposed to be a Plumber! Should you not focus on the hostage's safety first?!"
Klein finally looked up, his expression utterly blank. "Do not worry. I will just resign when I get back."
Somewhere in the dark abyss of an unknown dimension, Zs'Skayr shivered in phantom delight. "Yes! That is the feeling! The absolute, soul-crushing disregard! It is perfect!!!"
Zombozo could not maintain his grin anymore. The manic smile that had stretched to his ears instantly drooped into a sullen, frustrated scowl. He had no idea that Klein had used this exact brand of ruthless apathy to permanently traumatize an Ectonurite.
Having finally locked in his selection, Klein rested his hand over the Omnitrix dial. "Got anything else to say? If not, I am making my move."
'You are surprisingly polite for a psychopath,' Zombozo thought, suppressing a shudder. His pale face flushed red with sudden, violent anger. "You bastard brat! You want a fight?! Then I will send you straight to the grave!"
As the clown shrieked his threat, the wooden floorboards of the warehouse violently exploded upward.
A colossal, hulking monstrosity erupted from the foundations, shattering the building's support beams. It resembled Opu's species, but twisted into a nightmare. Its fur was pitch-black, its muscles bulging grotesquely, and its once-yellow eyes now burned with a feral, blood-red fury.
"Roar!!!"
The mutated Dika bellowed, shaking the very earth. Zombozo had force-fed the creature raw meat and pumped it full of negative energy, stripping away its mind until nothing remained but an endless, ravenous urge to destroy.
Caught in the upheaval, Kevin was thrown from the beast's rising back, crashing heavily into a pile of crates.
Gwen's eyes flared with pinkish-purple mana. She instantly summoned a levitation platform, soaring into the air to avoid the collapsing roof.
Down below, two blinding flashes of light, one a spectral, chilling blue, the other a vibrant emerald green, illuminated the dust cloud.
"AmpFibian!"
"Humungousaur!"
Ben's massive Vaxasaurian form hit the ground, instantly triggering his growth ability. His armored plates shifted and expanded until he towered at a staggering twenty meters, stepping up to wrestle the monstrous Dika.
Zombozo stared up at the giant Humungousaur, his face draining of whatever color was left beneath the greasepaint. An incredibly unpleasant memory surfaced, a memory of being mercilessly pounded into the pavement by that exact alien.
"Hey, clown. Forget your way back to the circus?"
Zombozo snapped his head toward the voice. Floating a few feet off the ground was a bright blue, ethereal alien that resembled a humanoid jellyfish. It had a domed head and six flowing, electrified tentacles, two forming its legs, and two on each arm. The sleek symbol of the Another Omnitrix rested securely on its chest.
It was AmpFibian, an Amperi from the planet Tesloss in the Andromeda Galaxy. A being of pure electrical energy, capable of both devastating electrokinesis and complete intangibility. In many ways, it was the electric counterpart to Big Chill, phasing through enemies to destroy them from the inside out.
"You annoying little pest!" Zombozo gritted his teeth. "Do you really think changing your Halloween costume is going to save you?!"
The clown's legs suddenly compressed with a metallic creak. Like coiled springs, they launched him forward at terrifying speed. He soared through the air, pulling back a massive, oversized fist aimed directly at AmpFibian's face.
But Klein did not even flinch.
Zombozo's ferocious punch sailed straight through AmpFibian's glowing blue head. His momentum carried his entire body right through the alien's intangible form.
Before the clown could even register the miss, AmpFibian's tentacles flared white-hot. A violent, crackling surge of high-voltage electricity instantly swept through Zombozo's nervous system.
"GAAAHHH!"
Zombozo crashed face-first into the dirt, his body convulsing as thick plumes of black smoke wafted off his scorched clown suit.
"Hmm. Medium-well," AmpFibian noted dryly, floating effortlessly above the twitching villain. "Too bad I forgot the seasoning."
Zombozo groaned, unable to muster a witty comeback through the agonizing, tingling pain frying every nerve in his body. He quickly did the math. Even without turning into a giant dinosaur, this kid was way out of his league.
With a desperate, pathetic squeak, Zombozo forced himself up. His legs compressed with a loud thud, coiling tightly before releasing with explosive force.
"Goodbye, you stinky brat! The clown's performance ends here today!"
AmpFibian watched silently as Zombozo vaulted several hundred meters into the distance, desperately fleeing the warehouse district.
Klein did not say a word. His gelatinous blue body simply dissolved into a streak of pure, crackling current. He dove smoothly into a nearby overhead power line, surging through the copper wiring at an unimaginable speed to hunt the clown down.
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