The Warehouse Agents spread throughout the Warehouse, containing artifacts right and left. Their skill had never been so evident. Without time to think about it and too anxious to realize it, they were having the time of their life.
Until they followed the trail of chaos to the Bronze Sector.
Claudia got there first, and they were all transfixed by her scream. "Artie!"
They found her scrambling wildly in the ruins of the debronzer controls. "It's smashed! It's completely smashed!" she cried. "We can't get him out!"
And there was Artie, a protesting bronze statue.
"Who did this?" Pete shouted.
As if in answer, wild barking sounded across the Warehouse.
"Trailer!" Steve shouted.
"Claudia, stay and try to fix this," Myka commanded. "We'll find the beast who did this."
She nodded and went to work, and they ran.
Steve seemed to have an instinct for which direction in the echoing place Trailer's barking was coming from. As they came closer they heard more artifacts being flung around and wreaking uncountable havoc.
"Pete! Go for the goo guns!" Myka called, and Pete rushed off in a different direction.
There was a scream, a woman's voice.
"Was that Abigail?" Myka wondered.
"No," Steve said. "I don't know who it is."
"You can tell truth by screams now?"
"Funny. That way!"
Accustomed as they were to strange sights, this was a very strange one. A blond woman they had never seen before was bound by Will Rogers' Lasso and was being dragged by…nothing. Trailer was hopping around, snarling and making rushes at nothing and dodging out of the way of nothing. Out of nowhere, something came flying at them; Myka instinctively caught it with her gloved hand.
"W.C. Fields' Juggling Balls!" She threw it away, thankful for the neutralizer-imbued gloves.
Something else came flying. Steve caught it as it narrowly missed Myka's head. "Brigadier General Laverlong's Walking Stick! Myka, whatever this is, he—or it—doesn't know how to use the artifacts!"
"Use it!" she cried and threw her arms around him as he pounded it to the floor so she could share the user's immunity to the earthquake.
The tremors made the struggling blond woman and Trailer fall down. Maybe it did the invisible enemy, too, because the woman fell away, still bound but no longer dragged. Myka darted forward and pulled her away. Trailer was up again and snarling at nothing on the floor.
"He's invisible," the woman gasped. "He's invisible—and very strong—Don't hurt him! He has more artifacts!" she cried, just as something like a snake came flying at Trailer.
"Mykes!" Pete tossed a goo gun to Myka, and they both took aim at snake and Trailer alike. Steve darted forward and tossed the neutralized snake—now a metal statuette—out of the way.
Trailer, with something like a reproachful look, shook the purple goo off, splattering it everywhere, and bolted. Pete took aim after him and shot wildly, hitting shelves of artifacts and then illuminating a fleeing figure with purple.
"Darien!" the woman screamed after him.
Myka threw her goo gun to Steve. "Go!"
He and Pete ran. Myka dragged the Lasso off the woman and pushed it into a puddle of goo.
"Are you alright? Who are you?"
"He bronzed Artie!" she cried, half-hysterical. "And he broke the debronzer!"
"I know. Claudia's looking at fixing it. Who are you? Who's he? Does he have the Honjo Masamune?"
"The what?"
"A sword! A big Japanese sword!"
"I didn't see a sword. He—um—he took a little mirror, and a—"
"No! It's a sword that makes you invisible!"
"Oh! No—he makes himself invisible. A—a sort of artifact in his brain. It's driven him mad—I thought I had neutralized it—" She was weeping.
Myka shook her. "There's no time for that right now! We've got to head him off at the exit!"
"You'll never catch him," the woman said sadly. "He's too good."
"So are we."
