Chapter 243: Sewer God of War, Zombozo the Clown
The dark-green sports car cut through the heavy downpour. Wipers thrashed back and forth, struggling to clear the relentless sheets of rain hammering against the windshield. Kevin leaned forward, his nose practically touching the glass as he squinted at the slick road ahead.
"Aliens?" Kevin scoffed, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. "Where does this place look like it has aliens? It's just a soggy, miserable ghost town."
But as the old saying goes, speak of the devil and he shall appear.
"Wait, what's that?" Ben suddenly sat up straight in his seat. He pointed a finger at a cluster of eerie, glowing green specks materializing in the gloom ahead.
"Eyes? And they glow?" Gwen leaned between the front seats, her brow furrowing. She noticed that the glowing green dots weren't just blocking the road; they were spilling out from the dark, narrow alleyways flanking the street.
A chorus of strange, somewhat crazed laughter echoed over the sound of the rain. A massive horde of the same extraterrestrials they had seen in Grandpa Max's files emerged from the shadows, completely surrounding the dark-green sports car.
"Assaulting an officer, are we? Then don't blame me..." Klein muttered dryly. He raised his left wrist, his fingers hovering over the dial of the Another Omnitrix, fully prepared to smash it down and introduce these creatures to a world of pain.
"Cousin, wait!" Ben's voice cut through the tension.
Klein paused, his finger resting a millimeter above the faceplate. He shot Ben a questioning side-glance.
"There's something wrong with them," Ben observed, his eyes tracking the horde outside.
Looking through the rain-streaked windows, they watched the bizarre spectacle unfold. The aliens, who had just aggressively swarmed the vehicle, suddenly broke formation. They scattered in every direction, fleeing into the night without so much as scratching the paint.
"Yeah, Ben, any clear-eyed person can see there's something wrong with them," Kevin grumbled, his heart still hammering against his ribs. "But they almost smashed my ride just now. If they had touched the paint job, I would have ended them."
"Kevin, pull over. Let's get out and see where they went," Klein instructed, reaching down to grab a spare umbrella from the floorboards.
The sports car's tires hissed against the wet asphalt as Kevin steered it to the shoulder.
The doors popped open, and everyone stepped out into the deluge. The sound of hurried footsteps splashing through the puddles approached from a short distance away.
Turning their heads, they spotted a middle-aged man hurrying toward them. He wore a sodden white suit that clung to his bloated, balding figure. Based on the intelligence Grandpa Max had provided, this man matched the profile of Mr. Wayne, the mayor of Walton Town.
"Uh, hehehe... you must be visiting travelers... hehehe..." The mayor panted as he approached. "Please follow me... hahahaha... I'll take you to a place to rest first..."
The man appeared entirely disoriented. The corners of his mouth were stretched upward in a rigid, unnatural smile that refused to drop. Yet, his eyes told a completely different story—his face was hollow, etched with a bone-deep exhaustion, as if the sheer act of laughing was draining his life force.
"What was that just now?" Klein asked casually, his gaze locked onto the mayor's twitching face, testing him with a question they already knew the answer to.
"What... what do you mean?" Mayor Wayne blinked, his rigid smile faltering for a fraction of a second. He looked genuinely bewildered, as if Klein were speaking a foreign language.
Ben and Gwen studied the man intently. There were no micro-expressions of deceit, no shifting eyes to indicate he was lying.
But that made zero sense. As the mayor of Walton Town, how could he possibly be ignorant of the alien visitors that plagued his jurisdiction every seventeen years?, claiming he hadn't seen them was physically impossible. The horde had just scattered seconds before the mayor arrived on the scene.
"Nothing. We'll just look around ourselves for now," Klein said, waving a dismissive hand. He had no patience for interrogating a broken man.
The mayor didn't press the issue. He simply turned on his heel and wandered off into the rain, his hollow laughter trailing behind him.
Watching the man's retreating back, Kevin shot Klein a confused look. "Boss, why didn't you tell him we're Plumbers? He's the mayor. Having local authority on our side would make things a lot easier, wouldn't it?"
Klein gently shook his head, rain drumming against his umbrella. "He can't help us."
Klein had already pieced together the puzzle. He recognized this strange, manic state afflicting the townspeople. He had seen it before, and he wasn't the only one.
"Ben, Gwen..." Klein glanced at his cousins.
Both of them were frowning, lost in deep thought.
"Logically speaking... it's unlikely, isn't it?" Ben muttered, though his tone lacked conviction.
"Let's go chase those aliens first and see what we can find," Gwen suggested, focusing on the immediate threat over their growing suspicions.
The group moved in unison, splashing their way into the dark alley where the alien horde had retreated.
The search yielded disappointing results. The extraterrestrials had vanished without a trace. Instead, huddled against the brick wall, sat a man laughing hysterically. He didn't seem to care that the freezing rain was soaking him to the bone.
"He's..." Ben squinted through the gloom, recognizing the soaked figure. "That driver from earlier?"
Kevin scratched the back of his neck, thoroughly weirded out. "He's also caught the giggles... Is something really that funny?"
"He shouldn't have been from this town originally," Gwen pointed out, analyzing the man's attire. His clothes were rugged and practical, a stark contrast to the wealthy, tailored garments worn by the local residents.
"But now he's become exactly like the people here," Ben finished grimly.
A heavy silence fell over the alley, broken only by the rhythmic patter of raindrops and the driver's manic, wheezing laughter.
Without another word, the group turned and walked back out onto the main road.
The storm had intensified, the heavy rain turning the streets into shallow rivers. The main avenue was completely deserted, devoid of a single living soul.
"So what now? What do we do? Keep looking for those alien troublemakers?" Kevin asked, sticking a hand out from beneath the umbrella. The freezing water hitting his skin made him grimace.
"That would naturally be..." Ben started to reply, but his voice trailed off. His eyes locked onto something in the distance. "Cousin?"
Klein followed Ben's line of sight. His gaze settled on a storm drain set into the curb, just a few meters ahead and to their right.
Exchanging a silent, knowing look, the two cousins walked slowly toward the grate.
Ben dropped into a half-crouch, his brow furrowed in a mix of disgust and realization. "I kept saying the people here were acting strange, but I couldn't shake the feeling I'd seen this exact brand of crazy before. So it really is you..."
"Zombozo."
The moment the name left Ben's lips, a comical yet deeply grotesque clown face materialized in the darkness of the storm drain, peering up through the metal bars.
"Oh? So you still remember me, Ben Tennyson? But I, old Zombozo, have missed you greatly as well..." The clown's voice slithered out from the sewer, punctuated by a raspy, unsettling chuckle.
Staring down at the monster that had once been the source of his greatest childhood nightmares, Ben's left hand twitched, instinctively rising toward his wrist.
Klein, however, was focused on the sheer absurdity of the situation. He stared down at the clown in the gutter. "How did you pop out of here? Where did you learn that trick? Watching horror movies in your spare time?"
"I thought of it myself! Isn't it a brilliant idea?" Zombozo preened, his tone dripping with twisted pride.
"It's just a shame it didn't have the intended effect." The clown's painted mouth stretched impossibly wide, the corners nearly touching his earlobes. "I was really looking forward to tasting your fear, you little brat."
A flash of pure resentment burned in Zombozo's sunken eyes. He remembered their first encounter years ago. He had assumed the kid was just another weirdo, easy prey. Instead, he had been beaten so deep into the dirt they practically needed heavy machinery to dig him out.
"You... who gave you the confidence to show your face again?" Kevin stepped forward, his fists clenching. He was getting seriously annoyed by this circus freak.
Zombozo blinked at Kevin, momentarily surprised by the unfamiliar face, before dismissing him entirely. "Another kid I don't know... but you're not worthy of knowing that great one's name... Thanks to him, I'm back, and I'm stronger than ever!"
"Who? Zs'Skayr?" Gwen asked dryly. She had watched Zombozo's expression shift into a dazed, reverent memory, and the answer seemed painfully obvious.
Zombozo froze, his grotesque smile shattering. "How did you know?"
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