Chapter 12: Sparksville's Menace and a New Hero
Klein and the other two murmured among themselves as they trudged back to their designated accommodation for the night. The gravel crunched under their shoes, echoing in the unnaturally quiet tourist trap.
"So, what's the play here?" Ben whispered, glancing over his shoulder. "It seems like our only option is to play dumb. We just act like we don't know a thing about the giant rubber band ball exploding."
"That's easy for you to say," Gwen muttered, crossing her arms. As the resident good girl, the guilt was already eating at her. "You're already a terrible liar, and I actually have a conscience. I can't just pretend nothing happened."
"Alright, relax. Since we can't exactly run away, let's just go find Grandpa first and see how bad the damage is," Klein said, waving a hand dismissively as he took the lead. He was mostly joking. At worst, they would just get a stern lecture. The ancient art of letting scoldings go in one ear and out the other was a skill he had maxed out years ago.
Arriving at their assigned cabin, Klein pushed open the front door and stepped inside. The architectural gimmick of this particular house was immediately disorienting. The entire interior decoration, along with the door frame, was rotated exactly ninety degrees. The walls functioned as the floor, and the actual floor stretched upward to become a wall, complete with sideways furniture bolted in place.
"What do you all think?" Grandpa Max stood with his hands planted firmly on his hips, admiring the bizarre layout. He looked thoroughly satisfied with the quirky rental. "This place is really something else!"
Gwen flinched. "What do you mean, 'what do we think'?! We really don't know anything about what happened outside!"
The sheer guilt radiating from the girl forced her to instantly self-incriminate. Max's innocent question had acted like a critical hit against her fragile conscience.
"Hehe..." Ben quickly stepped in, elbowing his cousin. "Grandpa, what she means is that this place is super fun. Right, Gwen? Super fun."
Klein leaned against the sideways doorframe, his eyes tracking Max's face. The older man simply smiled, showing no unusual micro-expressions or signs of suspicion. Klein decided to keep his mouth shut.
...
The next morning arrived with a rude awakening.
"Ben Tennyson! Gwen Tennyson! Klein!"
Max's booming voice echoed from outside the sideways house. He had completely abandoned their nicknames, a clear indicator that his patience had evaporated.
"Ah!"
"Ow!"
Hearing the sheer authority in that shout, the three kids jolted awake in a panic. Because the room only had two beds, Klein had ended up sharing one with Gwen. Given that their mattress was situated on the 'floor'—which was actually the vertical wall of the house—their sudden movement caused them to tumble right off the edge.
They hit the actual floor with a series of groans. Gwen ended up sprawled directly across Klein's chest, having been the one sleeping on the outer edge.
"Gwen Tennyson?!" Gwen scrambled off him, her eyes wide with sheer panic. She was far too terrified of her grandfather's tone to even register the awkwardness of her sleeping arrangement. "He used our full names! We are so dead!"
"Oh, shut up! You're so annoying!" Ben groaned, rubbing his bruised elbow as he sat up. "I really can't believe you sometimes. Listen to me, do not admit to anything unless he catches us red-handed, got it?!"
Ben was clearly the veteran delinquent of the group.
...
The three of them shuffled out of the sideways house, only to freeze in their tracks. The exterior of Sparksville was in an even more dilapidated state than it had been after the giant rubber band ball incident yesterday. Power lines hung loose, streetlamps were bent, and debris littered the asphalt.
"What happened out here?" Gwen asked, her voice small.
"Looks like a typhoon visited us yesterday," Max replied, his tone unreadable.
"A typhoon? Right! Exactly!" Ben jumped on the excuse immediately. "I mean, with all these weird natural phenomena and stuff going around, a typhoon makes perfect sense!"
Ben hadn't expected his grandfather to be so considerate as to hand them a ready-made alibi.
Klein, however, raised an eyebrow. He hadn't heard a single drop of rain or gust of wind last night. A typhoon was a terrible excuse.
"Looks more like some old-fashioned brat tricks to me," a dry voice interrupted.
The town's Warden strolled onto the scene, casually tossing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. He looked completely unbothered by the destruction of his tourist trap.
"Brat tricks?!" Max repeated, his eyes slowly sliding over to lock onto Klein, Ben, and Gwen.
"No, not them," the Warden said, chewing loudly. "It's that light."
"That light?" the three kids and Max echoed in unison.
"Some folks say it's caused by static electricity. Others say it's a localized anomaly. There are many different opinions." The Warden shrugged, continuing to calmly eat his popcorn from a striped paper bag.
"You locked it inside the giant rubber band ball?" Max asked, piecing the puzzle together. "How did it get out?"
"Normally, it wouldn't come out at all," the Warden said, his eyes shifting to stare directly at the three kids. "It seems someone didn't follow the rules and broke the ball."
Ben's shoulders slumped. The jig was up. "Alright, fine. It was all us."
Max's expression darkened slightly, the disappointment heavy in his posture. "I will have a very long talk with you three later."
"Hahahaha... Haha... Hahahaha!"
A manic, metallic laugh echoed down the street. Golden-yellow lightning arced across the sky, striking the surrounding wires. The nearby appliances sparked violently, overloading with raw electricity. A fire hydrant down the block suddenly burst, spraying a massive column of pressurized water into the air.
"Is that the light?" Max asked, shielding his eyes from the sparks. "How do we catch him?"
"We?" The Warden snorted. "No, there is no 'we'. It's you. You let the little menace out, so you are responsible for catching it and putting it back."
With that, the Warden slumped down onto a nearby park bench, propped his feet up, and continued eating his popcorn. He had completely washed his hands of the situation.
...
Max led the three kids down the abandoned, sparking street, his eyes scanning the rooftops.
"So, how exactly do we catch it?" Ben asked, looking around the empty road. There was no sign of the glowing creature, and the immediate area didn't even have any active power lines left for it to feed on.
"I don't know yet. Let's just find it first," Max decided, taking cautious steps forward.
"Hahahaha!"
The electronic, grating laugh returned, sounding like it was right on top of them.
"Uh, ah!" Max suddenly let out a startled shout.
Before anyone could react, the glowing, yellow spark-creature materialized behind Max, grabbed the waistband of his underwear, and hoisted the heavy man straight into the air.
"It hurts!" Max groaned, dangling helplessly from an atomic wedgie.
Thud.
The creature released its grip, sending Max crashing face-first into the dirt.
"Don't worry, Grandpa! I know exactly who can teach this little spark punk a lesson. It's hero time!" Ben shouted, slamming his hand down on the Omnitrix dial.
A brilliant green flash illuminated the street. When the light faded, a tall, biomechanical creature made of black and green circuitry stood in Ben's place.
"Uh, Dweeb?" Gwen frowned, looking the alien up and down. "How exactly are you going to deal with a creature made of pure electricity like that?"
"Don't bother me! I have my own ideas!" Upgrade snapped back loudly, his single green eye narrowing. He sounded incredibly irritable.
"You didn't turn into what you originally wanted to, did you?" Gwen smirked, seeing right through his bravado.
Upgrade merely glared at her in silence.
"Don't run, you little spark punk!" Upgrade yelled, turning his attention back to the giggling Megawatt. He fired a thick optic laser from his eye, sweeping it across the street as he chased after the creature.
Facts quickly proved that Upgrade was a terrible matchup for this specific enemy. His energy attacks were completely ineffective against a being made of energy. When Upgrade finally managed to lunge forward and grab the Megawatt with his bare hands, a massive surge of golden electricity blasted through his body. Because Upgrade was an organic metal lifeform, the conductivity was absolute. He shrieked, instantly forced to let go as his circuitry fried.
"Take this!" Upgrade roared in frustration. He dug his fingers under a heavy iron manhole cover, ripped it from the street, and hurled it like a frisbee at the floating alien.
The heavy iron disc spun through the air and sliced cleanly through the Megawatt, splitting the creature directly in half.
But instead of dying, the two severed halves of the light body simply giggled. Each half rapidly regenerated, growing a new body in seconds. Now, there were two identical Megawatts floating in the air, laughing maniacally.
"No way!" Upgrade gasped, stumbling backward in shock.
Watching from the sidelines, Klein sighed. He knew this wasn't going to work. Ben was just making the situation exponentially worse.
Stepping forward, Klein tapped the faceplate of the Another Omnitrix. A deep, ghostly blue light engulfed the street.
When the light receded, a tall, slender alien stood in Klein's place. He wore a black and white suit, possessing a single green eye, golden antenna plugs on his head, and a tail ending in a two-pronged plug.
Feedback.
'Hahahaha... Ah!'
The two Megawatts, who had been busy mocking Upgrade, suddenly found themselves snatched out of the air. Feedback's hands clamped around them like iron vises before they could even register the movement.
At that exact moment, the Omnitrix timed out, and Upgrade reverted back into Ben in a flash of red light.
'Ah! Ah...' The two Megawatts shrieked, struggling fiercely in Feedback's grip. They unleashed torrents of golden electricity, trying to fry their captor.
Unfortunately for them, their raw power was vastly inferior to Feedback's absorption capabilities. The electricity they desperately discharged was instantly swallowed up by the plugs on Feedback's fingers, feeding his energy reserves. He didn't even flinch.
Feedback casually shifted the Megawatt from his right hand over to his left, pinning both struggling creatures in a single, inescapable grip. With his newly freed right hand, he extended a finger and lightly tapped the blue Another Omnitrix symbol resting on his chest.
A thin, scanning beam of blue light shot out from the dial, sweeping over the two captive aliens.
[Gene recorded.]
The cold, female AI voice echoed from the watch.
"Ben, come here. Pick one," Feedback said, his voice echoing with a slight static hum. He extended his left hand, offering the trapped Megawatts toward his cousin. "Touch your Omnitrix to the light."
Ben blinked, then quickly did as he was told. He stepped forward and pressed the faceplate of his watch against the struggling creature.
Instantly, the green hourglass symbol on Ben's wrist flashed a bright, scanning yellow. A few seconds later, the surface returned to its standard green hue. Ben eagerly twisted the watch face, scrolling through his available roster. A brand new silhouette—a small, battery-shaped alien—had been added to his active playlist.
"Cool!" Ben grinned, pumping his fist. This was the first time he had ever realized the Omnitrix possessed an active scanning function.
With the DNA secured, Feedback marched over to the ruins of the tourist trap and found a massive, novelty glass lightbulb. Sparksville had nothing but oversized items—giant playing cards, giant thermometers, and giant bulbs. He unceremoniously stuffed the two little spark punks inside the thick glass casing and sealed it shut, locking them away once more.
As for whether the Megawatts were innocent creatures just acting on their nature, Klein genuinely did not care. He wasn't a hero, and he certainly wasn't a saint. He barely cared about the lives of most humans, so why would he waste his energy worrying about the ethical treatment of an annoying alien battery?
...
A short while later, the Rustbucket's engine roared to life, and the old RV drove off down the highway, leaving the ruined town behind.
The Warden sat on his park bench, chewing his popcorn as he watched the Rustbucket gradually disappear into the distance.
He shook his head, a wry smile on his face. "Strange things happen every year in this town, but this year... especially so."
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