A/N Over a month since I last updated this story, according to my stats. Hmm. So sorry about that, school and writer's block and college applications and extracurriculars have been getting in the way, though not necessarily in that order.

Um, news... well, I saw the "Against the Odds" special last night, and all I can say is that I am officially Odd Squaded out. I don't think my mind absorbed anything at school today because I'm still trying to process five episodes worth of information. Including the fact that Oscar's trademark haircut was copied... #mylifeisalie But yeah so I am not totally functioning right now, but as soon as I can process all this info I have a gigantic load of story canons that need to be looked over and updated...blech :P

Okay sorry I'm rambling. In other news, Flying Saucers has a new OS fanfic published, and it's a CROSSOVER with BATMAN. Something about Odd Todd teaming up with the Joker, and Odd Squad has to join forces with Batman and Robin to stop them and save the day. It looks awesome, funny, and very promising so far, and I highly recommend it to all you lovely readers. Plus he's only had like 6 views so far, and he kinda sorta hinted that I give him a shoutout, so...yeah. Well, what are you waiting for? Go read it, NOW!

But first, enjoy Chapter 3. :)

Chapter 3

"Hmm," Oprah muses. "I remember the real Patternista. But I thought she'd been in custody at the time?"

Olesya shakes her head. "She was, but she'd escaped. All part of her grand evil scheme, we figured out later."

"To steal the four-foot-long Charleston Chew?"

"Ah, but that was only the first part," Olesya explains. "As Ogden and I were about to find out..."

"G'day, agents!" came a cheerful voice.

Shaking off the dizziness, Ogden and I stepped up to the railing of the visitor's platform. "How do you do, Mathroom?" Ogden greeted with a stiff nod.

"Oh, simply ducky," Mathroom replied, and I could almost see a grin on her multicolored origami face. I had to smile. Out of all the squads I had worked at, this one had the best Mathroom by far. Other squads just had a back closet in their headquarters that agents would visit for quiet time to mull over a case, and some squads didn't even have anything of the sort, let alone anything conscious or interactive. So I was elated when Agent Oprah brought this Mathroom to life decades ago, and I've been happy with her ever since.

As per the usual, she got right down to business. "What copacetic caper am I assisting you with solving today?"

"It's the Patternista," I explained, holding up the record. "She's back in town, and left us a clue to where the missing four-foot-long Charleston Chew is."

"Could you play back the noises we heard on the record?" Ogden asked.

"Sure thing!" Mathroom proceeded to play back the same three sounds we'd heard on the record, but it still sounded like a complete jumble.

I could tell Ogden was about to make some snarky comment about how the Patternista was futzing with us, so I quickly stopped him. "Ogden, she's called the Patternista for a reason, remember? So I'll bet my berries that all that baloney of noises is really just one of her patterns."

A light shone in his eyes, and I could tell he'd caught on. "So whatever the next noise in the sequence is, that'll tell us where she left the candy bar!" He turned back to Mathroom. "Play it again, only this time number the sounds as we hear them, so we can keep track."

In reply, Mathroom replayed the noises, but unlike before she also spat out a series of 1s, 2s, and 3s along with each noise. With the numbers, I could now clearly tell that the first noise was the bird chirp, the second noise was the foghorn, and the third noise was the squealing tires. But for some reason the foghorn noise and number 2 occurred more often than the others.

Examining the list in front of us, Ogden said, "So is the pattern just 1, 2, 3?"

I shook my head and pointed. "Take a look, old boy. If that were the pattern, there'd be another 1 after the 3 because it would start over. But there's another 2 instead. I think the real pattern is 1, 2, 3, 2, and then it repeats."

Ogden squinted at it. "Huh. Sure enough. Villain or not, the Patternista sure knows her onions about confusing us."

"Confusing you, you mean," I corrected with a wink.

"Oh, dry up," Ogden grunted. "Anyhow, look at the sequence. There's two sets of 1-2-3-2, and then just one set of 1-2-3. So that means the number 2 noise is next."

Mathroom added a 2 to complete the pattern, making the foghorn noise as she did so.

"Now where are we supposed to find a foghorn?" Ogden wondered.

I thought for a moment. "Best place I can think of is the town docks. Where all those ships are, like ones with foghorns."

"Sounds keen to me." Suddenly Ogden's eyes widened in worry. "But that's outside, right in the middle of the sun! And it's ninety degrees out today!"

"We better get a wiggle on!" I said. Together, we quickly twisted our badges and spun out of sight of the Mathroom.

The tubes spat us out onto the boat-ridden pier and Ogden and I tumbled to the wooden decking. Standing up and brushing ourselves off, our gazes snapped to the giant candy bar lying on a coil of rope in the shade of a tethered sailboat not fifty feet away. "There it is!" we pointed and yelled in unison—one of the many habits of Odd Squad agents which I will never understand and annoys me to this day, even though I'm guilty of it myself—and took off running. As soon as we reached the candy bar, I skidded to a halt so fast that Ogden nearly crashed into me.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" he protested. "The Chew is fine, see?" Reaching down and rubbing a finger along the side, he pulled it away clean and chocolate-free. "Still solid. We made it in time."

"I know that, Ogden. That's not what stopped me." Bending down, I slid out a film reel from the rope coils and held it up to examine. There was a magenta label on the front signed by the Patternista with the title SOCKDOLLAGER FOR THE SAPS on it.

Ogden and I exchanged looks. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"Only one way to find out," he said as he whipped out his Film-Reelinator and set it on the ground. I undid the latches to open it up, placed the reel on the projector, and turned it on.

An image of the Patternista, dressed to excess as usual, appeared on the miniature fold-out screen. She spoke silently for awhile, then a title card popped up with her words: "Good job, Odd Squad."

My eyebrows shot up. Was she congratulating us?

"Banana oil," Ogden murmured.

Sure enough, there was more. She spoke again, and another title card popped up. "Oh, applesauce, who am I kidding? Bad job, because this was all part of a trip for biscuits I set up to get you out of your headquarters."

A trip for biscuits? I thought with a sinking feeling. Oh, no. Of course it was too easy. What did we miss?

The next title card read, "By now, I've fed all available agents one of my lines, leaving your precious Ms. O sitting pretty all alone in her office for me to, oh, take for a ride."

My mouth fell open in horror. "No!" I shouted.

The next shot of the Patternista showed her snickering, as if she'd heard me. "That's right," the title card read. "I'll have you know she put up a good fight, but sadly not good enough. I'm holding your feisty little boss hostage in my warehouse, where she will stay until Odd Squad can scrape up some heavy sugar for her. Unless, of course, you actually manage to find my lair and rescue her." Another shot showed her snickering again. Then her eyes narrowed sinisterly. "But I wouldn't take any wooden nickels if I were you," read the next title card. "Remember, I can always choose to bump her off if you don't play by my rules..."

Ogden's face blanched. I could only imagine what mine looked like.

There was one final title card. "Anyhow, I'm almost out of celluloid. Hope to hear from all you adorable little bunnies soon. Toodle-oo-ski!" The last thing we saw before the reel stopped was the Patternista waving at the camera and cackling wickedly. Then the projector went dark.

My knees had turned to jelly, and my vision wobbled. Suddenly the boats lined up along the docks were too big, too threatening, too close. I felt trapped...helpless…

...calm?

For some reason I could never explain, I suddenly knew what to do. Grabbing Ogden by the shoulder, I shook him out of his shock and said, "Come on, partner. First let's get the Charleston Chew back to the museum. Then we need to get back to HQ."

"Hang on a minute," Oprah interrupts. "I think I'd've remembered if O'Donahue and I had been sent on a false case from the Patternista, and came back to find Old Missie kidnapped. She really was kidnapped, right?"

Olesya nods. "Yep, she was definitely kidnapped. Ogden and I got back to headquarters to find Old Missie's office a wreck. Her desk was overturned, unpacked boxes were ripped open and scattered everywhere, and she was nowhere in sight. It looked worse than the construction zone."

"But how come the rest of us didn't hear about it?" Oprah presses.

"Well...if I remember correctly, not every agent was sent on one of the Patternista's false cases," Olesya muses. "Only about six of us were, plus four others who'd been witnesses. I think most of the agents were in other parts of HQ, helping with construction. And don't forget there were other normal odd cases going on that day, as usual. That's probably where you and O'Donahue were. In any case, the ten of us that knew all decided to keep Old Missie's disappearance under the radar until we could figure out what to do next..."

The only other agents who knew were Obed and Osage, Ocelot and Oxley, Orscheln, O'Sullivan, Olmstead, and Obfusco. After cleaning up the office as best we could, we sat on the new couches and held an emergency meeting.

"First things first," I began. Somehow I'd become the facilitator of the meeting, probably because with exception to Obfusco, I was more collected than any of the other agents. (Although it was only because I'd grabbed a jar of jellybeans to snack on.) "How did the Patternista get inside headquarters in the first place?"

Agent O'Sullivan, one of the more prominent maintenance agents, cleared his throat nervously. "Fairly easily, actually. Construction is still underway and not all the entrances have been sealed." He pulled a small blueprint map out of the front pocket of his navy-trimmed yellow overalls and pointed out several marked spots. "We still have breaches here, here, here, and here, if I remember right."

"Fine, so nothing we could control there. However, if there are still breached entrances, then why isn't security covering them?"

All eyes fell on Agent Olmstead. Her face flushed red right up to the tip of her tanned pointy nose, and she blew her short caramel hair out of her eyes. "Don't look at me! Just because I'm head of the Security Department doesn't mean I should be left holding the bag! I blame the construction. How can my staff keep their jobs percolated when all this clutter makes it difficult to maneuver around? Not to mention easy for any intruder to hide behind?"

Obfusco held his hands up for silence. "Enough of your excuses, my fiery gingerbread platypus," he spoke in his confusingly lyrical—and irritatingly slow—voice. "Now is not the time to cast blame on anyone."

"Obfusco's right," Agent Osage agreed, restlessly fiddling with the red ribbons on her long black braids. (She was the only agent I knew of besides Old Missie who hadn't cut her hair—something about proud Midwestern Indian heritage.) "It doesn't matter now how the Patternista pulled the whole sockdollager on us. What's important is we get Old Missie back."

"Not only that," I added, "but we can't let the rest of the squad know she's been abducted. We don't want everyone to throw a panic. Best just to say she's taken a leave of absence to visit the squad in the next town over, or something of that nature."

There were murmurs of agreement.

"In the meantime," I went on, "Osage is right. We have to figure out how to get her back from the Patternista. Any ideas?"

No one spoke for a bit. Then little five-year-old Oxley piped up, "Well golly, we're not gonna pay her the ransom, are we?"

Before I could say a word, there were shouts of protest and dissent from all the other agents. "Like heck we will!" "What a load of bushwa!" "We can't give in to that old flour-flusher!" "That oughta show her our defiance!"

"Okay, okay, pipe down!" I yelled to shut everyone up. "Don't get into a lather, everyone. There's no need to give the Patternista what she wants. Surely there has to be a weakness we can exploit somewhere."

"But what?" Oxley wondered, looking to me with expectant puppy eyes and a quaver in his chin.

I was still coming up with a reply when I caught the faint sound of a grunt. My eyes fell on Ogden, and for the first time I saw his stony face. He'd been silent this entire time. "Yes, partner, what is it?"

Everyone looked at him. For a moment, it looked like he wasn't going to say anything. Then suddenly he snapped. "Oh, for cryin' out loud! When is it going to sink in? We just lost our own boss. Now that the Patternista's gotten away with it, other villains all over the world will attack other squads and do the same thing. Odd Squad is most definitely going to be over!" With that, Ogden stood up and pulled off his badge.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Now what do you think you're doing?" I demanded.

He shrugged. "Quitting. While I still can, before this turns into a real sockdollager." And before I could even react, Ogden was out the glass doors.

We all stared after him in shocked silence. Stunned, I muttered, "Why that lazy old lollygagger!" Suddenly I found myself poking my head out the doors and shouting, "YOU HEAR THAT?! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT AN UPSTAGED PIKER, YOU SCREWY HARD-BOILED—"

"Whoa, there!" Oxley's older partner Ocelot stopped me with a kind hand on my shoulder. She gave me a wry smile, her albino red eyes twinkling. "So the goods finally come out, eh?"

I sighed. "It's true he frustrated me as a partner a lot of the time. But it still doesn't make any sense. I mean, I always thought he was loyal to the Odd Squad..." I trailed off.

"Ogden," Obfusco cut in, "is like a theater mask in the talons of a peregrine falcon diving off the roof of a skyscraper to catch a single unprotected Easter bunny. He has his own personal agenda that does not concern us."

"He's got a point," said Osage's partner Obed, brushing the blonde curls out of his eyes and pushing his spectacles into place. "From what I know of Ogden, he's off his nuts and prone to snap decisions. Something like this was bound to happen, and if he wants to be a dewdropper, then let him. You can try to straighten it out with him later, Olesya, but we've got more important problems to solve right now."

"Alright," I sighed reluctantly, sitting back down on the couch. "Again, we won't pay the ransom, but the Patternista did say she'd be sending another message. The question is how—"

"One step ahead of you!" came the interruption from the back of the office. We all wheeled around to see Agent Orscheln, the scientist in our small group, pop up triumphantly from behind Old Missie's desk. A fingerprint sheet was in one hand and a second vinyl record was in the other. "At least, I think so," she amended, setting her things on the desk. "While you were all beating your gums, I did a bit of detective work and found this record pasted under the chair. I've got my mazuma on it being from the Patternista herself!"

"Are you sure?" Olmstead asked skeptically, fingering the buttons on her periwinkle-blue pea jacket.

"Pos-i-lute-ly!" Orscheln said with an affirmative nod, brown curls bouncing. "But there's only one way to find out for certain…"

Moments later we were all gathered around the Odd Squad phonograph as Orscheln set the needle on the record. Once again the Patternista's trademark squeaky voice filled the tiny room. "If you are hearing this message," she began, "that means my evil plan has succeeded and your precious Ms. O is in my care." She snickered. "But I've decided to be lenient today. I will let you have her back...for a price."

We all looked at one another in worry. There was no way we were going to give in to her demands...right? What would they be?

We never found out. Because at that moment the Patternista was interrupted by a crash and a burst of static-like noise, and suddenly we heard a new, very familiar voice.

A/N Forgot to say this earlier, but a huge thank-you to all the people who've read, reviewed, favorited, and followed this story. I really appreciate all the support. As for "WHAT'S next", look out for Chapter 4 of "Viva La Vida" coming soon, plus the long awaited Contest #2 oneshot later on down the road. Hope to see you all then! :D