Disclaimer: I, still, do not own Jimmy Neutron and anything associated with Jimmy Neutron. Of course, you all know about what I do own and so on.

Chapter 8: The Clock Starts Ticking

"Ah man, that was an awesome duel. I couldn't eat another bite." Sheen said as he slumped down into his seat at one of the tables at the Candy Bar.

Sheen and Carl had had their challenge of seeing who could eat the most before being sick and Sheen had won, much to Jimmy's surprise who had the unfortunate task of being the referee for the duel.

"You've gotta lot to pay for. Here's your bill, yeah." Sam said as he handed Jimmy the bill.

Jimmy read the bill and sighed. $73 worth of food and drinks they had consumed this afternoon, with over $55 of it being from Sheen and Carl's duel.

"I hope you guys are gonna pay me back for this." Jimmy said to his friends as he got out of his seat and went up to the counter to pay Sam.

"Don't worry Jim, we'll pay eventually. Don't forget, we've got our jobs at McSpankys starting next week." Carl replied to Jimmy.

"Man, working at McSpankys again, one of the best things ever." Sheen commented to Carl as he began to day dream of manning the drive thru again.

"Yeah, I loved cooking all of the food, it was an awesome job. Hope it will be the same again." Carl replied as he began to day dream too.

Their day dreams were short lived, however, as Jimmy came back to the table and lightly slammed his hands on it.

"Okay guys, I'm off. I've got to get back to the lab and see how my duplicating machine is working with that mineral we found." Jimmy said to them.

"Huh?" Sheen said.

Jimmy rolled his eyes and left, leaving Carl and Sheen alone. Carl looked at Sheen.

"Hey Sheen, what do you think Jimmy will call that thing?" Carl asked.

"What thing?"

"That mineral thingy."

"I dunno, something to do with him probably." Sheen replied, shrugging his shoulders.

Carl was about to speak again when Cindy and Libby entered the Candy Bar and came over to sit with the two young men.

"Hey girls, what's up?" Carl asked.

"Nothin' much really." Libby replied as she sat next to Sheen and kissed him on the cheek.

"You guys know why Jimmy ain't with you?" Cindy queried, having seen Jimmy in his hovercar heading home presumably.

"Said something about his lab and a mineral." Sheen said to Cindy.

"It's been ten days now since we got home, you'd have thought we would have made some progress on it by now. I'm starting to worry about him as he's spending a hell of a lot of time down there." Cindy told her friends.

"Ah don't worry about a thing Cindy, he's fine." Libby said trying to dispel Cindy's concerns.

"I'm not convinced; Jimmy has been acting a little odd in my opinion for the last week. Maybe I should see if I can drag it out of him." Cindy thought.

"Anyway, what do you two think Jimmy will name that mineral if it's good enough for him to use?" Carl asked Cindy and Libby.

"Probably something like 'Neutrainium' or something close to that." Cindy replied allowing a slight smile to appear on her face.

"I think we can all agree that his surname will be in it, but I think he'll put something else in there too." Libby said.

"Like what?" Cindy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, I was thinking of maybe part of someone else's surname too." Libby told the group and grinning about it.

All three of them knew that Libby was on about Jimmy adding part of Cindy's surname but Cindy still didn't realise that Carl and Sheen knew all to well about her secret.

"Not sure what I should say to that so perhaps I won't say a thing until later." Cindy thought to herself.


Jimmy was working diligently in his lab. The results of VOX's scan had been encouraging to him, but time was short. Jimmy had been working extremely hard over the past week, rather too hard really as he hadn't allowed himself much time to sleep. With his ship in no shape to fly back to Io and mine more of the mineral, he'd had to use one of his more unpredictable inventions; The Duplicator Mark V.

The Duplicator allowed him to replicate anything that was placed within it, in theory, but it was unstable and some things would not replicate fully and other things just didn't simply appear. One time he tried to replicate a fusion cell and the cell cracked apart during the replication process. Jimmy was lucky that the cell hadn't exploded or he wouldn't be alive today.

"Well Goddard, I've managed to get the mineral into a sheet of metal. Just need to take it outside and test it's resilience to see if the duplication was successful." Jimmy said to his pet.

'What about a name for it?' Goddard typed.

"I've already thought of one." Jimmy stated proudly.

'What is it?'

"Neutexium…and before you say anything it's nothing to do with Cindy. It just sounds cooler than Neutronium." Jimmy explained.

'Sure it is, and I have the intelligence of Sheen.' Goddard whined and turned his head to one side as Jimmy read what he typed.

"Just take the metal to the hangar bay beneath the garage so I can take it outside." Jimmy ordered.

'As you wish, my Lord.' Jimmy knew that Goddard was being sarcastic even though Goddard couldn't put a sarcastic tone on writing.

Jimmy sighed as Goddard walked away and dragged the sheet of metal behind him. Once Goddard was gone, Jimmy accessed his files on his main computer and opened one particular document he had received originally as a letter but he had scanned it onto his computer and began to read it out loud to himself. It was from Professor Calamitous.

"'Dear Jimmy, so nice of you to have survived our last encounter. You are smarter than I gave you credit for and your friends aren't nearly as incompetent as they seem as well. You'll be delighted to know that I am going to tell you our next plan of action. I'm in a good mood you see so I decided to let you have a chance of saving the world.'" Jimmy read out. He slammed his hand on the desk at the thought of what Calamitous was going to do.

"'You see, I've created a special type of EMP device, one that when activated, will plunge this world into darkness! Think of it; no electricity or power of any kind will work. Transport will be permanently disrupted, planes will never fly and lights will never work! Unless, that is, nations give in to my demands. You see, thanks to completing that last self-help class, I've created some devices that are immune to the EMP effect and thus anything that has one of them attached will be immune from the EMP device. My device will be ready to activate in two weeks from the day you get this letter so you had better hurry if you want to save the world, James. Ta ta.'" Rage was coursing through Jimmy's veins.

"I haven't been this angry since I was mutated by the Van Patten Radiation Belt years ago. I've got to make a walker and cover it with Neutexium if I am to stop Calamitous and his ridiculous scheme." Jimmy gritted his teeth as he spoke to himself. "But I need to test the Neutexium before I can get too far ahead of myself. It's the key to stopping Calamitous and Strych."

Jimmy sank into the chair and sighed deeply, there was so much to do and time was running out. There was a lot of pressure on him although no-one knew what was coming except for Goddard and himself. He was so very tired too, not more than twelve hours sleep collectively in the past week.

"Maybe I could catch a few minutes worth of rest." Jimmy thought as he closed his eyes.

No sooner than had he gone to sleep, he was woken up by a knocking on his clubhouse door and someone yelling at him. He opened his eyes and activated the camera at the clubhouse entrance and saw Cindy pounding on the door.

"Jimmy! Let me in!" She yelled, looking directly at the camera.

Jimmy yawned and pressed the flashing blue button on his keyboard which caused the 'Welcome' mat to slide away and allow Cindy to fall down the access tube and into the lab.

"Ouch! Why can't you put a mat or something down for us to land on?" Cindy groaned as she fell on the cold floor.

"What's up?" Jimmy asked.

"Apart from a painful spine you mean?" She asked sarcastically.

Jimmy rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Seriously, you are 'What's up' Jimmy. You've been acting really off for a week now and we barely see you." Cindy explained with a note of concern in her voice.

"Nothing is wrong." Jimmy lied. "Just about to test the metal I've managed to duplicate. Come on, you can help me test its resilience."

"Well…" Cindy started but was cut off by a tube coming down above her and sucking her up and out of the lab.

Jimmy chuckled as Cindy yelled something at him and proceeded to make his way out of the lab.


About thirty minutes had passed and Jimmy was ready to test the thin sheet of metal he had been able to create. It was held upright and a good fifteen yards from where Jimmy was standing, waiting for a purpose.

Carl, Sheen and Libby had joined Jimmy, Cindy and Goddard at Jimmy's request.

"So, what's the name of this thing then?" Libby asked Jimmy, eager to know.

"Erm, I've called it Neutexium." Jimmy replied looking away from his friends.

"You owe me five bucks, Carl." Libby said to Carl.

Carl whined as he handed Libby five dollars.

Cindy looked over at Libby and Carl, rather confused as to why they had made a bet over what Jimmy would call it. At the same time she began to wonder Jimmy's motives for the "tex" part of the name.

"Could he really have named it after me too? Why would he though?" She asked herself in her mind.

"Okay, let's see what kind of strength this thing has. Goddard, fire an Ion blast at it!" Jimmy demanded, taking the attention back to where it should be.

Goddard opened his back and a large, two barrelled gun popped out and extended to its full length. Goddard aimed at the sheet of metal and began to fire at it. The Ion blasts hit the metal full on for a period of ten seconds before Jimmy told Goddard to stop. Jimmy walked up the sheet of metal and examined it.

"It's…it doesn't even have a scratch on it. It's as if nothing hit it at all! This is brilliant!" He cheered excitedly.

"Okay, try a Plasma cannon blast, one at full power." Jimmy told Goddard.

The Ion cannon folded away and the Plasma cannon came out and extended to its full length, much like the Ion cannon had. The energy began to charge and the end of the Plasma cannon began to glow a bright reddish-yellow colour as more and more energy built up. Jimmy moved back to where the others were standing and kept an eye on the Plasma Cannon's charge, once it was full he told Goddard to attack.

"Fire!"

The Plasma energy was released and the bright ball of hot Plasma energy cut through the air and impacted on the Neutexium, steam covering the sheet of metal. Again, Jimmy went over to inspect the Neutexium once the steam had cleared and the results were astonishing.

"Nothing…not a scratch and not even any sign of heat, this thing is amazing." Jimmy said to the others.

"What now?" Cindy asked.

Jimmy was about to answer when he noticed Carl and Sheen were gone. He looked around and saw them messing about in his hovercar.

"Sheen! Carl! What are you two doing?" He shouted to them.

Sheen turned around too fast and lost his balance. He reached out to grab something and ended up pressing the fire button on the hovercar's controls. The missile on board roared out of the hovercar and was aimed straight at the Neutexium.

"No! Sheen what have you done?!" Jimmy shouted angrily as he watched the missile head straight to the Neutexium.

The missile collided with the metal sheet and exploded, the surrounding area covered with the small fiery blaze and smoke rising into the air.

"Nnnnoooooooooooo!" Jimmy cried out as Sheen and Carl got out of Jimmy's hovercar.

"Er…oops." Sheen said quietly.

"Nice going Sheen, you've ruined Jimmy's metal thing!" Carl exclaimed.

"Me? You're the one who wanted to see if Jimmy had any food in his hovercar!" Sheen protested.

"Shut it, both of you!" Cindy yelled as she slapped both Sheen and Carl across the face. It felt good doing that, she had to admit to herself.

Sheen and Carl both yelped in pain and rubbed their cheeks.

"Hey, guys look! The metal…it's…" Libby began and stopped suddenly.

Cindy turned around and her jaw instantly dropped. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Jimmy looked up from the ground and his eyes widened.

"No…it's not possible is it? It's…it's…still in perfect condition!" Jimmy babbled as he ran over to the sheet of Neutexium.

It was true; the Neutexium was in perfect condition. Not a scratch to be seen on it and not a dent in sight, nor any damage of any kind from the direct hit of the missile.

"The Neutexium is the key to stopping Calamitous and Strych. The clock is ticking and Jimmy has his ultimate weapon to stop them." Jimmy whispered to himself.

To be continued…


Another chapter done and another week to go before you all find out what happens next (laughs evilly).

Thanks for reviews received and ones that are about to be.