Chapter 07: Facing the Crisis

Abby and Ty had taken some pretty bad injuries from their fall out of the GRS1, but it wasn't anything they needed a hospital for. Maria was a good enough doctor to nurse them mostly back to health over the course of the next two days, though they didn't like wasting the time. Through the news they kept up on Insectiva's activities, unable to do anything but watch as she took two more small towns. It wasn't a huge number of people, but Abby knew the numbers wouldn't stay small much longer. As her army grew Insectiva would get more ambitious, it was only a matter of time before she started hitting big cities, and then it would be too late. The military wouldn't stand by and watch forever, they would eventually find Insectiva, war would begin… and hundreds would die.

However, Maria's search for the other human insect hybrid had thus far turned up no results, and since Abby's communicator had been thrashed in the fall from the GRS1, they had no way to contact the Director, and they had no idea where Lab Rat was. They couldn't even contact their family, Abby now realized with a sudden dull throb in her heart. Her parents were part of that army Insectiva was building, along with everyone they knew. It was like they were completely alone in this…

Well, if there was a bright side, it was that Middlington wasn't a bad place to visit. Chris-Alice was extremely nice, if a bit hyper, and came over every day to make sure they were okay. Skipper likewise spent most of his time at Maria's house as well, though he seemed less interested in the Archer siblings than he did in seeing if Maria had found a way to help Creepie yet. The boy was obsessed, but once Maria told her that Creepie was his girlfriend his obsession actually seemed kind of sweet, in a spooky way.

It wasn't a bad place, but Abby had had enough of waiting for Maria to get results. If they couldn't find this second hybrid, she would find a way to reverse this herself, even if it meant sneaking back into her hometown and using the Gag Lab herself to get it. Sadly, her Slime Suit had been shredded by the glass in her fall, so she was stuck wearing a normal pair of jeans and a tank top, which she packed more of into the backpack in one of the guest rooms of Maria's house.

She thought about bringing Ty with her, he was better with the Gag Lab's equipment, but after watching him be taken by Creepie the other night, she didn't want him anywhere near these things. So she zipped up her backpack after filling it with all of the essentials she would need like food and water, flung it over her shoulder, stuck a note on the fridge door and turned to leave, heading out the front door while the others were in the back.

"Ack!" Chris-Alice yelped in surprise when Abby slammed right into her in her haste, knocking her back out onto the front porch away from the front door. "Hey! What's the big hurry?"

"Oh, man, sorry!" Abby apologized quickly as she slammed the door shut behind her. "I was just uh… just…"

Chris-Alice looked at the strap of the backpack on her back with a suspicious gaze. "Are you going somewhere?"

Abby glanced back at the door, hiking the backpack more securely onto her shoulder. "Okay, I'm going back home. I think there's something there that can help, but I don't want anyone to know about it, so please don't tell."

"And you're going alone? That's just stupid." Chris-Alice told her.

"Maybe it is, but I don't want Ty getting involved in this. He's a scientist, not a fighter, and this is going to be very very dangerous."

"That just makes it even dumber to go alone." Chris-Alice huffed, though she still had a strange look on her face. "Do you think Creepie's still there?"

"I don't know." Abby replied honestly. "I guess if Insectiva made that town her hive, she probably is. Not really practical to move that many bugs around the country and not get noticed by someone."

Chris-Alice nodded firmly and crossed her arms over her chest. "Then I'm coming." Abby's eyes widened, then she started snickering behind one hand. "Hey, I can take care of myself! I've been taking cheerleading AND Karate classes since I was six! I can hold my own!"

"'Sat so?" Abby looked her up and down curiously, then gestured down the sidewalk. "Is there a park around here we can use?"

The two girls made their way to the park in the center of Middlington, which was deserted this early in the morning. Abby dropped her backpack to the ground and turned back to Chris-Alice, putting her hands up in front of her in a loose fighting stance. "You think you can help me? Prove it."

Chris-Alice's eyes widened for a moment, then she grinned and dropped into her own fighting stance, turned to the side with one arm in front of her and the other in front of her stomach. "I'm not going easy on ya."

"Good." Abby smiled back. The girl's stance looked professional, but that part was easily learned from movies. It was what they did from it that mattered.

Abby made the first move, throwing herself forward with a wide punch, but Chris-Alice deftly ducked under the blow, then hooked one arm around Abby's as it passed, using her momentum to flip her straight over her back. Abby flipped head over heels, slamming into the grass on her back, but she didn't waist a moment's time in scrambling back to her feet.

She threw a tremendous back-kick at Chris-Alice without turning around. The move must have caught her off-guard, because the foot caught her clean in the ribcage, doubling her over in pain and surprise. Abby brought her foot forward, then threw it back again in another kick toward her face, but Chris-Alice moved just enough to dodge this one, slipping beside the leg and catching it in both arms so she could shove it upward.

Abby flailed in surprise, suddenly finding herself balancing on one foot while Chris-Alice yanked her forward with the other. She bounced forward so that she wouldn't fall, and her opponent brought her arm around in a powerful wide punch of her own, but Abby leaned back to let it sail by right in front of her face before bouncing back upright at Chris-Alice's side and slipping both arms around her neck and torso, squeezing tight enough to yank Chris-Alice up against her chest and trap her arms above her head.

Abby squeezed with a grin on her face while Chris-Alice struggled to get loose. "Looks like… you're not quite… up to par." Abby quipped. "You gonna give up?"

"H-hah!" Abby was surprised to see that Chris-Alice was also smiling, even though she was sweating and panting heavily from the continuing battle. "I never give up… because I'm a Hollyruller… and Hollyrullers… always… WIN!" Chris-Alice suddenly bent down slightly, then heaved herself off of the grass, using Abby as a platform as she slipped out of her arms and did a clean summersault right over her back using her shoulders as a bar.

Chris-Alice landed heavily behind her, then whirled in a high-kick right as Abby whirled around. The kick would have ended the fight right there, but Abby managed to duck back and avoid it, putting a little distance between them. Once again the two girls faced each other, both panting heavily while sweat beaded on their forehead. Abby had to admit, this was fun, and the grin on Chris-Alice's face told her she was thinking the same thing.

Chris-Alice made the first move this time, her arm lashing out with lightning speed in a vicious palm-strike, but Abby deflected it easily with one hand, moving to launch a palm of her own into Chris-Alice's face, but her head moved out of the way just in time, leaving Abby stumbling into her, her side lurching into her opponent's chest. Chris-Alice's arms closed toward her throat, but she brought her arms up to knocks her arms away then grab Chris-Alice's head and yank her around, dragging her toward her front.

Without warning Chris-Alice threw herself straight forward, instead of back like Abby expected, slamming her head into Abby's stomach and tackling her cleanly to the ground. Abby gasped when Chris-Alice's hands grabbed her wrists and thrust them against the grass as she moved to straddle her waist, panting and sweating from her exertions with a broad grin on her face. "H-hah, I gotcha." She grinned in victory.

"Wow…" Abby panted in astonishment. "You're really good."

Chris-Alice grinned and climbed off of her, reaching down to take her hand and help her off the grass. "Can I come help you now? Pleeeaaase? Creepie's my best friend, and I've been waiting a whole month to find a way to help her… I can't just sit around here now that we finally know where she is."

Abby sighed. "All right, you can come… but I've got to warn you, Creepie's not exactly herself right now. She's being controlled by Insectiva."

"I don't care. I just want to make sure she's really okay, with my own eyes." Chris-Alice replied.

"Okay, then." Abby hefted her backpack off the grass again and slung it over her shoulder. "Let's get out of here, time isn't on our side, and we still need to find a way to get there quickly."

"Right." Chris-Alice nodded and turned to walk with Abby down the sidewalk, the first steps on their journey back to the Gag Lab to find a way to put an end to this, and save the human race.

***

Maria sighed and leaned back in her chair, pulling her glasses off of her nose to rub her eyes warily. "None of my old contacts know anything about Project Overseer, it's like the girl just dropped off the face of the planet. I've tried everything I can…"

"Maybe the Bureau of Grossology Database has something on it. Can I try?" Ty asked, wearing the blue jeans and T-shirt he'd borrowed from Skipper since he'd been brought here in his pajamas. Maria gestured to the computer and moved out of the chair, letting him take the seat and start tapping his way through files and onto the global network called the World Wide Web.

He moved through the network, trying to remember how to get into the Bureau files. He'd always just used the communicators before, or Lab Rat had done most of the work, but he was a sharp kid when it came to computers and science. Soon he found the Grossology servers, but a screen came up on the monitor demanding a password. Ty leaned back in his seat for a moment, then smirked. "Come on Lab Rat, you can't be that predictable…" He reached forward and typed in 'Hermes'. Instantly the screen vanished, and they were welcomed into the datafiles.

"Tell your friend he needs better security procedures." Maria smirked. "Can you find anything in there relating to Project Overseer?"

"I'm looking, but I don't see anything. It looks like most of these files are just old Grossology case records." Ty roamed through the server, looking for anything that might relate. It brought back a lot of old memories of cases he and his sister had dealt with, and he was surprised to see that some of the files even went back as far as the days that Lance Boil had been with the Bureau. Now that he thought about it, Project Overseer had ended fourteen years ago. It should be around this time frame…

"I'm getting boooooored!" Paulie shouted from the bed. "Are we gonna go help Creepie yet!?"

"Hold on, I think I might have found something…" Ty clicked on one of the files, which was marked 'Strange Town'. "According to this, a Grossology team was once dispatched to a small town to investigate the strange behavior of its people. They were sent to investigate when police weren't able to find anything wrong… but the Grossology team did find one thing strange about it…"

"What did they find?" Maria asked curiously.

"The whole place was laced with pheromones… but that in itself isn't a crime, and the people there still seemed happy even if they were acting weird, so no follow-up investigations were ever launched." Ty finished.

"That's got to be where she ended up." Maria stood up straight.

"Then we're going." Maria and Ty looked back to see Skipper appear in the bedroom doorway, holding a piece of paper in one hand. "And I'm coming with you guys."

"Great, I'll just go tell Abby." Ty stood up.

"I don't think she's going with us…" Skipper held up the note.

Curiously, Maria took it and read it. "Oh that stupid girl has gone back to your lab…"

"What!? Alone!?" Ty raised his hands in front of him, clutching at the air. "But, but she couldn't just leave me here! What was she thinking!? Maybe we can still catch up with her!"

"Time is of the essence Ty… besides, we don't know for sure that we're going to find the subject of Project Overseer. It could be a dead-end, and if that happens, we'll need another plan… it'll increase our chances of success if we split up and all look for solutions."

"But… we always work together…" Ty's arms drooped at his sides. "Why would she just leave me here…?"

"I'm sure she had a reason." Skipper told him with a slight smile. "For now though, we have to worry about putting an end to this. Are you with us?"

"Uh… I think I should stay here, actually." Paulie nervously tugged on one of his arms. "I'm kind of allergic to dangerous things…"

"I think I should stay here as well, and monitor the situation… you have my number if things get out of hand, Skipper. I'll try to get in touch with Abby too. We need to coordinate all of this." She turned to Ty. "You don't have to go…"

Ty looked up at them for a moment, then stood and puffed his chest out confidently. "Of course I'm coming, I don't NEED Abby to help save the world… I can do it. The only question is… how do we get there?"

Skipper smirked. "Actually, I think I can cover that one. I'll let you in on a trick we used the last time we had to find someone…"