A/N Lovely to see you all again, loyal readers! First off, I want to apologize for that last, temporary chapter post. It's true that some reviewers were getting impatient, but I shouldn't have gone off on all of you like that, let alone them. Furthermore, it was unfair of me to mislead you all into thinking I'd posted the real chapter. So, I'm really sorry for all that.
Thankfully,
this, I promise you, is the real deal! Like I said before, this is a series of short flashbacks, except they actually turned out to be pretty long. This is definitely the longest chapter up to date, but the final two will be pretty long, as well. (That's right, people, only two more to go!) Also, after writing this, I had to go back to Chapter 3 and fix several errors, just so the continuity will make sense. Then there's that thing where in Flashback #2, I said that I had something important to tell you. Well, unfortunately, I forgot what it was. Oops. I've probably already told you or will tell you soon, I just won't remember it to be that super-important-thing.
Not much else to say. Keep the reviews coming, I still appreciate them no matter what! Next chapter may also be a long time in coming, but I'll work as fast as I can. I promise you'll get a kick out of how it ends!

Flashback: Various/"How to Interrogate a Unicorn"

"Sounds like we've got ourselves a number hog!" Ms. O declares, leading her agents down the stairs.

"A what?" Olive and Otto ask together, confused. Neither has ever heard of a number hog before.

Ms. O pauses to sign another agent's clipboard. "A number hog. Oscar can explain."

Oh, no! Olive thinks with dread. Not him!

"Where is he?" Noticing that Oscar is nowhere in sight, Ms. O bellows out, "OSCAR!"

Olive's mind is racing. Otto hasn't met Oscar yet, has he? I think Oscar was sick the day Otto took the tour. And I haven't seen him since… Oh, what am I going to do? I can't let Otto find out about—

At that moment, Oscar makes his grand entrance through the tube slide. "Hey, guys!" he says lightly. But what he's thinking is, Oh, no! Not her!

Rattled, he offers a rushed explanation. "So, a number hog is basically a person who uses up a number so much that they start sucking up all that number!" Oscar notices that Olive is keeping a straight face and nodding, and he begins to relax. Good, she's not going to bring anything up. Not yet. "So," he goes on, "say you liked the number four, you'd be like, four, four, four, four, four, four, four—" Oops, Ms. O is yawning. Better wrap this up. "—and then—" and he tops it off with a huge, drawn-out, sickening slurping noise.

As Otto mimes puking, Olive somehow manages to keep a straight face. But she wants nothing more than to scream at him. Besides, there's that matter of him knowing about number hogs and not her…

"So," Olive cuts in to stop Oscar from slurping, "if we don't find our number hog, he's going to suck up all the zeroes in the world?"

Just before Otto can freak out about turning ten, Olive glimpses Oscar give a quick, uncomfortable nod. So he didn't even learn about them on a case, she thinks in disgust. Of course. He could never manage a case anyway!

She gets an idea. Just to spite Oscar, she promises Otto that she won't let him down. "Somehow, some way, we will find that number hog. If we have to climb the highest mountains, or swim the deepest oceans, we will—"

"Or you could just use my number hog finder."

Oscar could be so infuriating. Her moment ruined, Olive shoves the invitation back at Otto, grabs the gadget, and curtly answers, "That'll work. Come on, partner!"

As they head out, Otto remarks, "That guy's weird. Helpful, but weird. Not sure if I like him or not." He glances at Olive. "You know him, right? What do you think?"

Uh-oh. Just to be safe, Olive decides to be vague. "Can't say I disagree."


"WILL SOMEONE SHUT THAT OFF?!"

The Code Ruby sirens immediately switch off as the alert lights fade out. Olive, Otto, Oren, and Olaf stand around Ms. O expectantly. "Ms. O, what's going on?" Olive asks worriedly.

"The Blob has escaped!" she immediately answers.

Ms. O is met with four blank stares. "What Blob?" Otto wonders, voicing their puzzlement.

Suddenly Oscar dashes over from out of nowhere. "You know, the Blob that we have?" he breaks in. "I-I wrote about it in the newsletter..."

And then it hits him. "Are you guys not reading my newsletter?" he guesses, hurt.

All except Ms. O shake their heads. Olive adds a look that seems to say: Why on earth would I read your newsletter?

Oscar's heart sinks. So it's that bad, huh. She used to read my newsletter all the time. Now only Ms. O ever pays attention to anything I do.

Poor Oscar doesn't see the connection.


"Noisemaker chocolates?" Dr. O says in disbelief.

Oscar feels all eyes of the Doctor, Odell, and Olive staring at him accusingly. Squirming, he tries to defend himself. "Well, I-I didn't read it like that, I thought they were French, you know, 'nwahz-makhairrh'!" he finishes with a flourish in a mock French accent.

Apparently the explanation isn't good enough for Olive. "Oscar," she sighs, "the Noisemaker is a villain who wants to fill the world with odd noises!" She points at the image of the Noisemaker on the chocolate box in Dr. O's arms. "Seriously," Olive continues admonishingly, "this didn't even make you a tiny bit suspicious?"

Oscar cringes. When she puts it that way, it really does make him look foolish. "Well, when you hold it underneath the light like that...I can see where I might've made a mistake."

Olive rolls her eyes. His apology sounds hollow and unconvincing, even to Oscar's own ears.

It doesn't help that the Noisemaker chooses that precise moment to reveal himself. "And I almost got away with it!" he chimes in, shaking his jingly fist.

Immediately Olive marches over and grabs the villain by the wrist. "Noisemaker, you're coming with me," she announces, but he groans and drags his feet. "Come on, let's go!" she prods, and with a thumbs-up, escorts him out of the room amidst a cacophony of sounds.

The other three watch them go. Belatedly, a thought occurs to Oscar. "How did nobody hear him come in here?" He looks back at Dr. O and Odell, who both shrug.

Dr. O decides to change the subject back to the matter at hand. "Well, the good news is, we know the chocolate caused the problem, which means I know how to cure it."

As he follows her out to the infirmary, Oscar breathes a sigh of relief. Good. At least I didn't cause any permanent harm. But then he recalls Olive's grimace and disappointed voice. She used to have the same reaction every time he bungled a case. He feels rotten just thinking about it.

Oscar looks back longingly at his lab. And I thought I would be safe from her there...


"When I was five years old, I realized the Hydraclops was coming. So I created a powerful weapon in the lab and buried it."

Five? In the lab? Olive can't believe her ears. There must be some mistake… But there isn't. Olive joined the Odd Squad as a full agent when she was seven. Oscar started leaving her the summer after she turned eight. He was formally transferred to the Department of Science when she was eleven, and Otto became her partner a few days before she turned twelve. What she knew about Oscar was that he was the same age as her, became a full agent when he was six, and lost his previous partner the week before Olive herself arrived. But this new bit of information means that Oscar was an agent-in-training for as much as a whole year before he got his badge, and spent time in the lab even then!

Olive feels a pang of betrayal. She can picture his little five-year-old self now, donning a lab coat and building gadgets. Even after she thought all the drama was over, he still unknowingly manages to hurt his former partner.

Nevertheless, Olive agrees to go with Otto and Oscar to find the treasure chest. Of course, neither she nor Otto expect to have to dig up three of them.

"Another map?!" Otto whines in exasperation.

"Of course!" Oscar replies defensively. "What did you think, I was gonna hand over the world to the Hydraclops?"

Olive rolls her eyes. If he says that one more time, I may just slap him.

Luckily, Oscar remembers that he measured to the next spot using a Schmumbercrunch bar. "There should be some more back at headquarters," he muses.

Otto nods. "Okay, you two go. I'll stay here and keep guard."

Olive tenses. She has to go with Oscar alone? "Really? But you love food," she casually points out, hoping Otto will take the hint.

He doesn't. "Yeah, I'm cool," he insists, clutching Norman the teddy bear.

Suppressing a sigh, Olive shrugs. "Okay." She turns to Oscar, careful to remain businesslike. "Let's go."

Of course, after finding the next treasure chest, it turns out to be yet another map. Worse, when Oscar finally measures out one hundred footsteps, the Undiginator reveals nothing!

"What do we do now?" Otto groans.

"I don't know!"

Olive stares at Oscar. "But you're supposed to know!"

"I know!" he growls, frustrated.

It doesn't help that Oscar gets a phone call from Ms. O demanding the secret weapon—and that Olive has to hear that stupid ringtone again. What does help is when Otto speculates that Oscar's handwriting may have changed after seven years.

"That's it!" Olive realizes. "You buried the chest when you were five. When you were that little, your feet were little! And because your feet are bigger now, it won't take as many footsteps to get to the treasure!"

Oscar looks confused. "So, we..."

"We have to measure with the length of your five-year-old foot," Olive finishes.

"Olive's right!" Otto agrees. Then his brow furrows. "How do we figure out the length of your five-year-old foot?"

"Easy!" Oscar assures them. Pulling his lab coat aside, he reveals bronze casts of every single shoe size he's ever worn and triumphantly pulls off his five-year-old shoe.

Olive is close to speechless. "I'd love to talk about how weird that is—" not to mention about a certain person crazy enough to do that, among other things, she thinks, feeling weirded out— "but we don't have time." Holding out her hand expectantly, she watches as Oscar drops the bronze shoe into her hand. Olive tells herself that it's because she doesn't trust Oscar to measure again. But the truth is, she secretly wants to keep the bronze cast for herself.

Measuring device in hand, the trio dashes back to the tree to start over.


"Olive, I need your help!"

"I know, Otto, I'm doing the best I can!" Olive yanks her partner's legs once more, to no avail. How he got stuck under Ms. O's juice bar is anybody's guess, but he's not coming out anytime soon.

Otto's brow furrows. "I didn't say anything."

"That's because it's me."

Olive whirls around. Oscar is standing behind her, holding a working gadget in one hand and a broken gadget in the other, chewing on his lip distractedly. With a groan, Olive snaps, "Can't you see we're busy?"

"No, you don't understand. It's the villain that Ms. O and Agent O'Donahue are after. He's attacked me!"

Otto stops struggling, and his eyes widen. Olive stands up slowly. "Keep talking, I'm listening," she murmurs.

"You see," Oscar begins, "I had one hundred fixed gadgets in one pile, and one broken gadget in another pile. The villain swept into my lab and knocked me over. Before I could do anything, he stole ninety-nine of the fixed gadgets, leaving me with just these—" he holds up the two remaining gadgets "—and his weird mark in the middle of the floor!"

Olive thinks back to earlier in the day, when she and Otto stopped by the lab to get Otto's gadgets repaired. Aside from his makeshift and stupid-looking sign (Honestly, a gadget and a smiley-face? And how could he really be that excited?), Olive most certainly noticed the gigantic pile of gadgets on the floor. Looking at his crestfallen face, she knows that Oscar isn't lying, either. To lose a whole day's work…

"We'd better call Ms. O," Otto suggests. "Any new information might help her a lot."

"Good thinking, partner," Olive agrees. Quickly she hops onto the desk and picks up the phone. "Ms. O?"

"Go for Oprah," comes the reply.

"We've got another problem."

"Let me guess. Otto got himself stuck under the juice bar?"

Surprised, Olive shoots a look over at Otto, who's still struggling. "Seriously?" Otto pants, tired. "How does she do that?"

Olive shakes her head. "It's not that," she tells Ms. O. "The villain struck again—in Oscar's lab."

Without warning Oscar pops up behind her and yells, "It's true!" into the receiver. Olive jumps with a gasp, then rolls her eyes and gives Oscar a dirty look.

But Oscar doesn't notice, as he's too busy relating the story to Ms. O. Bored, Olive drums her fingers on her lap in annoyance, uncomfortably aware of how close Oscar is leaning towards her right now.

"Hang tight, Oscar," Ms. O reassures him when he finishes his tale. "We're on it." And she hangs up.

Trust Ms. O to only pay attention to her favorite agent, Olive grumbles to herself. "You can leave now, Oscar. We can handle the rest of this." When Oscar doesn't move, Olive glares at him and orders, "I said you can leave!"

"Oh! Okay!" With a panicked look, Oscar darts out of the room.

Otto gapes at her. "Wasn't that a little mean, Olive?" he asks, a chiding tone to his voice.

Olive purses her lips. "Never mind about that. Now let's get you out of there."


There were numerous other cases that Olive remembered in those few moments after her confession. Cases assigned to her and Otto, but which Oscar played a major role, as well. Some she had ignored him, others she had nearly screamed at him. Still, however painful it was, throughout all of these cases she kept her bitter enmity strong.

All, that is, except for one…


"I call unicorn!"

"Mummy! Obviously."

The two agents grin at each other. That was easy. No fuss, no arguing. However…

"But what about robot?" Otto wonders.

"Hmm..." Olive's not sure what to say about that. They could each survey the other two characters and come back for the robot later, but that would be time-consuming. Besides, in Olive's opinion, the robot seems a little intimidating. Better to find another agent willing to help. Olive scans the room, and her eyes fall on Oscar, taking Planty for a ride on his incredibly squeaky metal walker. An idea occurs to her, and she quickly jumps up from her chair. "Oh! Oscar!" she calls, waving her arms to get his attention.

"Oh! Ah! Hey, guys!" he calls back eagerly. Slowly he wheels the unwieldy walker around and noisily makes his way over to their desks. "What's up?"

"Can we lock you in a tiny room with a robot?" Olive asks. A smug grin creeps up onto her face, and she tries to hide it.

But to her surprise, Oscar's face lights up incredulously. "I've been waiting my whole life for someone to ask me that question!"

Huh. Well, that didn't work as I intended. Olive thought for sure that Oscar wouldn't be nearly so eager. But fully aware of her current partner standing next to her, she plays it off and gives Otto a high five. "Then you're in," she tells Oscar, taking extra care to feign nonchalance.

About a half-hour later, Olive exits the interrogation room feeling thoroughly drained, her patience worn through. At the moment, she never wants to see another unicorn again. But now Oscar strides over jauntily, and it's clear that his experience was envyingly successful. "So, did you guys get your answers?" he casually inquires as Otto joins them.

"Yep." Holding up her clipboard, she lies, "Turns out it was way easier than I thought."

"Good! Let's go to the Math Room," Otto suggests, and they nod in agreement. A twist and a spin later, the trio arrives dizzily on the origami visitors' platform.

"Greetings, agents!" Math Room greets them cheerfully.

Olive wastes no time getting down to business. "Math Room, please make a chart with the characters along the top and the questions on the side."

"Generating chart." Math Room promptly sets to work unfolding and illustrating two of her figures. Meanwhile, Olive becomes aware that Oscar is standing between her and Otto. Especially close to her. Disturbed, Olive discreetly edges away.

As Math Room finishes illustrating the book characters, Oscar mutters to himself, "Man, I feel like I know these guys from somewhere."

Olive ignores him. Her first mistake.

By the time they complete the chart, it's clear that the characters' commonality is in the author, W.W. Williams. "Looks like we need to pay Ms. Williams a visit," Olive states as Math Room applauds.

Oscar turns to her with an expectant grin. "Hey, you guys need any backup?" he asks hopefully.

Olive frowns and gives him a look. "I think we can handle it," she tells him with thinly-disguised contempt. You seriously expect to be allowed to help on one of my cases after everything that happened because of you when you were my partner? she wonders incredulously. What Olive doesn't realize is that Oscar has gotten better at not bungling a case, whenever he happens to be involved. After all, it will be Oscar that Ms. O will dispatch to deal with the vortex that Olive and Otto will unwittingly create from apples, oranges, cones, and trees.

Oscar sees her look and, unfortunately, interprets it spot-on. His grin tightens at the letdown, but he tries to hide it. "Okay, right, 'cause you know, I've got lots of exciting...lab stuff to do in the lab, like make a sandwich. Ham or salami? Doesn't really matter. I mean, I think I'm gonna have a ham sandwich, but, um..."

As he trails off, Olive subconsciously can't help pitying him. A fleeting thought crosses her mind, and she wonders if she should allow Oscar to tag along, after all. No, she resolves. I said we can handle it, and we will. I won't sacrifice my own morals for something like this.

Her second mistake.

For after she and Otto visit W.W. Williams, get a call from Mr. Fonts about the fourth book character, and head over to the library to check out his chart, Olive could kick herself.

"Agent OSCAR?!"

"He's the one with the overactive imagination?" Otto blurts out.

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no… It all makes sense. If there's one thing Olive has known about Oscar from the beginning, it's this: his brain is like a laser-shooting squirrel swimming in coffee inside a disco ball—quantity cubed. Give him a good book, and he'll become so involved in the story that he'll outshine the main character many times over. "We need to find him. NOW!" she exclaims urgently. But to her dismay, it's too late. Totally oblivious to his part in the matter, Oscar sits in an alcove reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, completely unaware of the tornado he's about to unleash upon the library.

"OSCAR! PUT THE BOOK DOWN!" Olive and Otto shout simultaneously, and tear across the room to stop him. Again, they're too late: with a loud whoosh! a horrifying cyclone whirls out from the book and begins to tear up the library.

Olive, Otto, and Oscar are knocked to the ground. "How do we stop it?" Otto hollers above the roar, terrified.

"I don't know!" Olive shrieks. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Oscar screaming in sheer panic. It's all my fault! she blames herself. If only I'd listened to him when he mentioned déjà vu. Better yet, if only I'd put aside our differences and brought him on the case. None of this would have happened!

Thankfully, in the end it is the sorcerer who pulls through and casts the spell to dissolve the tornado. Impressed and grateful, Otto promises to read the sorcerer's book, to which Olive breathlessly agrees. Even better, the sorcerer's spell answered the question of how to return each character back to their respective books.

Once the job is done, Olive and Otto hand all five books over to Ms. O for her to look over. One by one she scans through each, checking to make sure each book character made it back safely. "Good work, agents!" she congratulates them as she puts down the last book, The Second-to-Last Unicorn. "All the characters are back in their books."

The two partners high-five in satisfaction.

"And, Oscar," Ms. O adds, peering over her reading glasses with a sidelong look, "you only need to wear that thing when you're reading."

Oscar smiles sheepishly. His outrageous helmet emits a series of beeps and sends off a few electric sparks. "Oh, haha, I-I know," he half-giggles, "I just really like it. It's tingly," he explains, wiggling his fingers.

It isn't until Oscar steals a glance in her direction that Olive realizes she's been gazing at him for some time now. Her expression is unreadable, but fittingly reflects her mixed feelings. Everything today may have turned out alright in the end, but Olive came pretty close to screwing up the case by not paying more attention to Oscar. Sure, it was his fault that the characters escaped their books, but it's not like he could have known. She begins to realize that perhaps it was wrong of her to judge Oscar for who he is and where he belongs—a contented scientist working in the lab, not a struggling investigator out in the field. What's more, deep down Olive misses him. Misses his friendship, his knowledge, even his stupid jokes. And although all of these speculations will be tossed out the window and forgotten about the moment Ms. O sends the three back to work, the tiny seed of doubt in her once-steadfast morals has been planted:

Maybe I have been too hard on Oscar…