INTERLUDE

Spaceman Spiff perilously pilots his swift but small spacecraft through tiers of tyrannical towers! The hideous Graknils of Planet Grawaka are hot on his heels!

Desperate, Spiff dives his spacecraft into the dank depths of the Ozank 17 Ocean! He's going down with such velocity he can feel his skin struggling to separate itself from his skeleton!

Spiff hits the sea with a sickening splash! He can't control the craft anymore! The water overwhelms his abilities! He's going under!

He's going under!

"HE'S GOING UNDER!" Calvin screamed, and came back to consciousness.

A solitary light winked above him, barely lessening the darkness of the Interrogation Chamber. Fang towered over Calvin, yanking a needle from his arm.

"Who's going under?" Fang asked distractedly. He added in a mumble, "I can think of quite a few people who 'went under' recently."

Calvin answered the question with one of his own. "What are you doing here, skulking fiend? Have you come to dispatch me?" His voice was hoarse from days of shouting. Now he could barely raise it above a whisper.

"No," Fang hissed. "I have not in fact come to dispatch you. Don't tempt me."

"Then why are you here?"

"I'm setting you free. We're all breaking out of here tonight. We're gonna help Percy Jackson."

He flicked open a pocketknife; Calvin shrunk back instinctively. Fang cut his bonds, and Calvin stumbled to the floor, wrists and ankles numb. The older boy had to half-carry him out of the room and down the hallway.

I hope he doesn't know I'm the guy behind the noodles. He might leave me for the talking cat.

Fang stopped at a glass door. Whatever lay behind it was too dark for Calvin to distinguish anything but stacks of square shapes.

The bird kid punched a sequence of letters into the keypad and the door retracted into the ceiling.

"Wake up, everybody," he whispered, switching on a flashlight. Calvin could see now that the squares were cages stacked one atop another, cages filled with mutants and accidental monsters. He shuddered, feeling a strange sudden sympathy for Fang. This is how he grew up? That explains everything. Not sure how the occupants of the room would react to his presence, he stood in the doorway, observing.

"You're back?" panted a hairy kid with big brown eyes whose tongue lolled like a dog's. "You're back? You're back? Yay! I thought that witch Keira had put you to sleep."

Fang dared a chuckle. "You know something funny about Keira, Sparky? She may be the daughter of an evil overlord, but she's not terribly bright. She trusted me. I learned the password from her. Then…let's just say, when she wakes up she probably won't remember any of this." He strode down the aisle, slicing at the cage bars with his pocketknife. The bars evaporated upon impact.

"How are you doing that?" asked someone Calvin couldn't see.

Fang twirled the blade in his flashlight beam. "This baby is solid imperial gold. Got it from a certain Jason Grace, resident of Camp Jupiter, New Rome, California."

I want a knife like that.

Fang paused before one cage, his perfect face contorted. "Hobbes, that's disgusting."

HOBBES?!

Thoughtlessly Calvin tore into the room. His sneakers skidded on the slick floor and he careened into Sparky, but he barely noticed.

Fang was looking at a teenaged boy whose red hair was streaked with black. The guy had strange eyes—yellow green with no whites. As Calvin got closer he saw that the kid's skin had a faint striped pattern. He had sharp teeth like a vampire…and a skinny stripey tail sticking out of his pants.

Fang looked grossed out because the guy was licking his own palm and rubbing it on his hair.

Then the tiger kid looked up. "Oh gods, it can't be…Calvin? Calvin McNamara?"

"Hobbes!"

Hobbes hopped primly out of his cage, landing on all fours. He came over and wrapped Calvin in a bear hug. Calvin felt his own tears soak into Hobbes' shirt, and Hobbes' dripping onto his hair.

"I thought you were dead!"

"I was kidnapped by whichever one of these horrible white-coats started the fire. How did you survive? I gave you up for lost."

"I hopped on my killer bicycle and took off. Who'd have thought that malevolent piece of metal would save my life, huh?" He pulled back to study his best friend's face. It was not quite the same face he remembered. "But Hobbes, what did they do to you? Last time we met, you weren't…um, humanoid."

"One does not simply walk into Itex and come out the same." The tiger boy managed a smile. "This form has its advantages, though. I can still morph into a tiger—a big menacing jungle tiger. And if I look human, at least I have a chance with babes like Susie Derkins."

"Ewwwww!" Calvin exclaimed, out of habit at this point. He hugged Hobbes again. "I don't care what form you're in, old buddy. Just as long as you're alive. I missed you."

Fang cleared his throat. "Do you guys know each other?"

"Obviously," Hobbes replied. "Calvin here is my adoptive brother. He knew I was alive even when I was still a wimpy stuffed animal."

By this time all the mutants—the living ones, at least—had left their cages and crowded the aisle.

"I ask because if my plan succeeds, you will have plenty of time to catch up later, and if not—" Fang slung a dying fish kid over his shoulder and ran towards the door. "Just come with me, ok?"

…..

From all across the building they heard the screaming of alarms as they slunk along the hallways and down the stairs, as quietly as they possibly could.

Fang drew in a deep breath, scanning their barely-moonlit surroundings with his raptor eyes. "Prepare for battle," he muttered.

Everyone had their own way to do that.

Calvin watched as Hobbes morphed from a human shape to a true tiger, like he said he would. It was awful—the way his jawbone expanded and bent, how massive his torso become, how the space between his eyes widened and his teeth elongated. Mercifully, it was over quick.

Sure enough, white-coats and some of their trained mutant goons appeared out of every corridor. At least the humans had to run. Certain types of goon—like the winged werewolves called Erasers—flew towards them.

"Every freak for themselves," Fang hissed.

And then the bullets started flying.

…

Calvin could barely make sense of what happened next.

He saw a crocodile kid take a chunk out of an Eraser's wing.

Sparky leapt at a white-coat, jaws snapping, and then an Eraser knocked him to the ground in a flurry of teeth and canine yowls.

Hobbes had Jeb Batchelder in his jaws and was shaking him like a dog shakes a bone. A little blood trickled onto the man's lab coat. Calvin had often dreamt of Hobbes attacking people, but not that he saw it, he hoped he would never have to again.

A girl with feathery skin and an eagle's head scooped up Silverstein with her taloned hands, flew her over the railing, and dropped her. The floor was a good three stories below at least.

This moved the fight out towards the railings and the great central stairs.

A female white-coat grabbed Calvin and started running back towards the cage room with him.

I can't be captured again. Think! Become someone else!

He'd discovered turning into a space explorer or a superhero at will made him feel brave in the face of school bullies. Could it help him escape death?

"You're no match for me, foul fiend!" he snarled in the woman's ear.

"Really? You're just a little boy from the Midwest who has no idea what he's up against."

"That's where you're wrong. I am no little boy. I. AM. STUPENDOUS MAN!"

He shouted this last part in her ear so loud that she dropped him involuntarily. He kicked her hard in the ankle and she stumbled. While she was distracted, Calvin ran back towards his allies to find them still in the thick of battle.

One pair of combatants were fighting all the way down the stairs—Merlynthwarte and Fang. The Doctor yielded a long broadsword, which Fang parried with an equally long golden blade that glowed in the shadows. The boy was much nimbler and had the advantage of wings, but the old man was by far the better swordsman. Either of them could win.

Hobbes dropped Batchelder. The man lay limp and bloodied on the floor. Dead or unconscious? Calvin was afraid to ask.

"Calvin!" the tiger growled. The voice was much deeper and rougher than Hobbes'—at least, Hobbes before he was experimented on. "They're calling reinforcements. Jump on my back! We have to get out of here!"

Pretend this is old times. Pretend there's no battle. Pretend he's just putting you on his shoulders so you can reach the cookies on the top shelf.

Calvin grabbed the scruff of Hobbes' neck and pulled himself haphazardly up by it.

On the steps, Fang flew out of the reach of Merlynthwarte's sword, dealing a kick to his head.

A normal-looking girl leaned over the railing and shouted to him, "Just knock him out and be done with it! More are coming! We have to leave!"

"Thank you, Kate. Duly noted." Fang smashed his sword over the Chairman's head, sending him to the floor unconscious.

Kate and a few others climbed onto Hobbes' massive back behind Calvin. The tiger took a huge leap and practically flew down the steps.

…

Hobbes threw all his mass against the glass doors, and they surged out onto the sidewalk.

The red sun was slowly climbing the heavens. Already the morning was warm. A breeze ruffled Calvin's hair. He smelled death not far away—the direction of the Williamsburg Bridge.

That was the direction they were charging in now. A few mutants were missing from their party; whatever befell them could not have been pleasant.

Others kept up but were severely injured. The eagle girl's wings were bloodied and dragged along the ground.

"Will they follow us, Ratchet?" Fang asked a normal-looking boy who had just caught up.

Ratchet shook his head. "I doubt it. They know we won't get far."

Fang snickered. "They can think that." Then his smirk disappeared.

They had reached the Williamsburg Bridge—or what was left of it.

"Did you know the bridge was out?" Calvin demanded.

The bird kid shook his head. "I knew there was a skirmish here, but I didn't know how bad the damage was." He knelt by a nearby manhole. "But that is not a problem."

"Um, it's not?" asked the hammerhead guy.

"No." Fang's smile returned. He pried the manhole cover off. "Fear not; the demigods have showers. We're taking this operation underground."

...

Special Edition Author's Note

Ron: I think that was your best chapter yet, GwF!

Jace: Nah. I wasn't in it.

Fang: Ron, you just think it was the best because GwF played "Requiem for a Tower" 15 times in a row while she was writing it.

GwF: Well, I tried. The part where Calvin and Hobbes meet again is my first attempt at warm and fuzzy stuff; I know it was atrocious. However, I do think this action sequence was better than the one in chapter 32. Please review!