Upon being so violently sucked into the time portal, Sam, Clover and Alex had found themselves tumbling down a dazzling vortex of swirling colours, screaming all the way down. How long they fell, they had no way of telling, but eventually an opening appeared before them and they tumbled right through it, landing up in an undignified heap on the floor. Feeling considerably groggy and panting in shock, the three spies eventually slowed their breathing to help calm their nerves, and gingerly untangled themselves, as behind them, the shimmering energy of the portal they came through fluctuated, then vanished.
As the girls shakily got back on their feet, they noticed that they seemed to be in the same building they had just left, but now with a futuristic makeover of nicer walls, floor and ceiling, which looked to them more like WOOHP's headquarters' interior, as opposed to a more average building.
"We're alive, guys!" cried a relieved Alex as she pulled her two best friends into a big hug. "Oh man, that was a real rollercoaster ride."
Sam and Clover squeaked in surprise, then managed smiles and hugged back.
"You said it, girl," Clover replied, still reeling from the rough trip. "Urgh, I feel like I left my stomach behind us."
"Yeah," Sam said, as they broke the hug and took in their surroundings. "Well, it sure looks like the same place, but judging by the décor, I think we may be in the future."
Clover glanced around, suddenly realising that the newest member of their spy team was missing. "Hey guys, Daphne's not here! She must still be in the present, or the past, if you get what I mean."
"Lucky her," sighed Alex, before suddenly realising, "Say, maybe she can call Jerry and they'll rescue us!"
"Let's hope so," said Sam. "In the meantime, let's take a look outside and try to work out what year we're in."
Still feeling off balance, the girls held onto each other for support, then walked to the exit to get out to the sidewalk. As they stepped out, the familiar cylindrical building style of narrow bases and wider tops, as well as high-tech monitor billboards, greeted their eyes.
"Wow, this place looks like the last time we visited the future, except no Mandy craziness," said Alex.
Stepping out into the crowded streets, the spies saw a large billboard across the wide street shift from an image of a futuristic car to that of Mandy modelling a purple coat. All three cringed in alarm, then realized it was just a regular advertisement after it changed to a restaurant promotion.
"Phew! False alarm. She looks the same, but isn't doing world domination," Clover said, fanning herself with a hand, noting none of the people around looked similar to Mandy in fashion.
"Yeah, and check out the date on that screen," said Alex, pointing to a large holographic display screen on the side of a nearby building, showing all the latest news and gossip. "We're definitely twenty years in the future again!"
"Yeah, guess we really were successful in changing that part of the future, so that Mandy's rise to power never happened," Sam nodded. "Speaking of which, you guys remember what we did last time to help get back?"
"Go to WOOHP!" Alex cheered enthusiastically. "They'll be able to send us back, no problemo."
"I'll just call..." began Clover as she pulled out her compowder, her finger poised over the call button. But before she could finish her sentence, there came a loud crash down the street, followed by screams that made the girls pause.
"Ah, lousy timing, much!" Alex complained in a high-pitched voice.
Clover closed the device with a frown, and the three of them tore off down the street with a clatter of heels. A few people came running towards, then past them, away from whatever was causing all the panic. As the terrified bystanders shot past, they gave the spies surprised looks, possibly due to their colourful outfits, their going towards the source of danger, or most likely, both.
The spies rounded the corner, their gazes snapping to witness the former glass wall of a large building now reduced to a pile of sharp, glistening shards on the sidewalk. Thankfully, no one appeared to have been injured or worse by the falling glass, though a large hole had been left in the side of the building where the glass had fallen from.
As the girls took the scene in, people on the sidewalk across the street pointed and talked to each other as a giant and ferocious-looking robot emerged from the hole in the structure, crunching glass underfoot. Roughly 25 feet tall and coloured light greyish-white, it had a humanoid body topped by a domed head, and its forearms and lower legs were bulkier than its thin upper arms and legs. Overall, it looked sleeker and perhaps more dangerous than any of the previous giant robots and mech suits that the spies previously had to face in their careers.
Police sirens with a unique electronic tone came to a stop, and two cars arrived and pulled over, as the robot took another step forward. Officers exited their cars, looking woefully outmatched, despite their high-tech handguns. A white news chopper appeared in the distance, far enough away not to need a potential rescue.
"Yikes! Looks like we've got a major fight on our hands," gulped Alex. "I sure hope WOOHP is still around to take down that thing."
Sam sighed. "We don't have time to wait and find out. For all we know, WOOHP may not even exist anymore, so we may have to fight that thing on our own."
"Yeah, well, first I'm callin' to find out," Clover said. She hit the emergency button on her compowder, then dialled for Jerry. But before she could see if her call would be answered, the robot smashed its foot hard into the road, sending bits of pavement flying right towards the spies!
Alarmed, the trio hit the launch buttons on their Jetpack Backpacks, causing a light noise of flames to ignite and send them shooting into the air, narrowly avoiding getting smashed by the flying debris. They then hovered in front of the massive threat, distracting it before it could stomp right through the wary policemen and their vehicles. The robot halted abruptly, then raised its hands to strike.
"Excuse me, I'm trying to make a call here," Clover admonished the frightful foe with a raised palm.
Not seeming to have heard Clover, the robot lashed out, but the three superspies were ready to move, flying clear of the deadly double fisted swing. The attack was so powerful that an unoccupied police car was flattened in its middle by the machine's huge fists, crushing the vehicle's roof into the seats. Officers fired a few shots at it, but quickly ceased when the shots ricocheted harmlessly off the huge automaton, thankfully not hitting anyone nearby.
"Nice jetpacks, but it's too dangerous here, girls!" said an athletic, experienced-looking policeman with a streamlined blue armoured bodysuit. "You need to clear out now!"
He waved them back, but the spies simply smiled apologetically, before turning their focus back on the robot. As the girls prepared for battle, Clover put away her compowder and replaced it with a Laser Lipstick.
"Let's try to lead him out of the city," Sam said tersely, met with sounds of agreement.
They streaked towards its face and Clover aimed the Laser Lipstick up a shot for one of the creature's eyes, hoping it would cut through. The next moment, however, it too rose into the air, propelled by thrusters on the bottoms of its massive feet!
"Waagh!" Clover yelped, as she, Sam, and Alex flew clear of the behemoth's arial charge.
"Hey, no fair!" complained Alex. "No one said that ugly thing could fly, too!"
As the girls moved to dodge the robot, they were unaware that inside their metal foe's domed head, a shadowy figure was at the control panel, directing the machine's every move.
"Pitiful fools! You pretty little pests really think you can stop me?" he rasped, though of course, the girls had no way of hearing him. The figure slammed a metal finger into one of the control buttons, and a second later outside, the robot swung an arm out towards the flying spies with shocking speed, revealing a glowing hole set in its open palm faced towards them.
"Incoming!" Clover wailed in fright. Reacting like lightning, the girls flew skyward, spreading out on ascent as the high-pitched sound of a plasma blast rang out. A large bluish-white beam shot by, dangerously close to hitting Sam and Alex, who just a few seconds ago had been right in the beam's path. Both girls screamed in fright, eyes wide and hair whipping wildly from their flying.
"So it can fly, and shoot," Alex squeaked in a mild panic, earning distressed looks from the others.
"We've gotta get outta here before anyone gets hurt, including us!" added Clover.
Each of the spies fired Laser Lipsticks at the mech suit's eyes, and they were pleased to see that instead of bouncing off, the laser shots cut right through the metal shell. Inside, the irate pilot narrowly avoided getting cut by the laser, which missed his head! Now growing increasingly angry at the spies, he hit the booster controls, enough to enable the robot to give chase at high speed, as the girls increased their own speed, leading the machine out of the downtown area.
"Almost clear!" Alex hollered, as the number of buildings below thinned considerably.
An ominous hum caused them to glance back, followed by simultaneous shouts of warning, and they all dodged another huge laser blast that was sent perilously close to them.
"Get on its back! It can't get us there," Sam called out, working her best to stay calm.
But as they changed course to do so, the mech suit rotated its body, spread its arms wide, then brought its hands together in a blur to try to crush them with a clap.
"Look out!" Alex warned, tugging on Sam and Clover's wrists, urging them all to rocket above the impact of the colossal hands. The volume of the clang made them grit their teeth, as their ears rang briefly.
"Thanks Alex," Clover said hurriedly, as she and her allies juked and weaved through the air away from the menace trying to swat them.
"Let's split up, then meet on its head," suggested Sam.
With fierce expressions of determination, they did so, arcing up in different directions. The three separate targets caused the 'man' inside the machine to pause for just a moment. The spies plunged back down and readied their Bungee Belts to attach magnetically to the Goliath's head, which would enable them to anchor themselves to the robot.
But as Sam's fingers hovered over her heart-shaped buckle, she saw a shimmer of blue energy surrounding the robot's metallic body. She furrowed her brows for a moment, then gasped in horrified realisation.
"Don't fire!" she hollered, flying over to block Alex and Clover's path. "It's got an electrical field, or something!"
Having just been a fraction of a second away from firing their belt buckles, Clover and Alex hastily pulled their hands away from the firing buttons and exhaled in relief. But then the giant turned with alarming speed to face them, heaving a forearm their way. On instinct, the spies dove under it towards the earth, with only an occasional vehicle on a slightly winding road below in danger. They retreated, making the huge enemy need to adjust its direction.
Starting to feel somewhat unnerved by the way things were going, Alex looked at Clover for a moment, then her face lit up as she remembered something.
"Hey, I just realised! I've still got the 'Tornado in a Can of Hairspray' in my Backpack! You think that might be enough to put this bully down?" asked Alex.
"It's worth a shot," said Clover as she hovered closer to Alex's backpack, pressed a button to open the pack, then quickly withdrew a red and pink cylindrical object, which she hurriedly handed to Alex in just a few seconds.
"Thanks!" grinned Alex, as they quickly got back to evasive manoeuvrers with the enemy's renewed approach.
"Perfect!" said Sam as the three of them streaked toward a tall hill covered with trees. "I'll go left. Clover, go right..."
"And I'll use this gadget from above!" Alex chimed in.
As they approached their destination, another plasma beam was fired, but the trio had already performed their three-way split. Again, the 'man' at the controls thought a moment, then prepared to fire another blast at both Sam and Clover. That was a serious mistake on his part, as he forgot about Alex, who was now preparing to launch her own attack.
"Hey metal dude, try this on for size!" called out Alex, the 'Tornado in a Can of Hairspray' ready in her hand. Angling the gadget down at the robot, she released a ridiculously large twister that swept down to envelop the machine, making its pilot lose control in the wild turbulence.
"Gah!" he uttered, held in the seat by a harness, but spun around as if in a washing machine's spin cycle. As he tried in vain to regain control of the robot, the machine crashed into a few trees covering the hillside, twisting and smashing until finally cratering into the ground, a layer of smoke and dust almost obscuring the machine. Inside, the pilot moaned, dizzy from the chaotic crash, while outside, the girls landed on the robot's head, noting no shimmer of energy around to potentially electrocute them this time.
"Yeah! We did it!" exclaimed Clover, as the girls did a high-five, before they sighed almost simultaneously with exhaustion and sat down, the adrenaline caused by the battle beginning to wear off.
"Okay, now that's all sorted, I'll try and call WOOHP again," said Clover, digging into her backpack for her compowder.
"So what was this thing trying to do anyway, besides kill us? Did it just malfunction or something?" asked Alex.
"I'm not sure," Sam replied with a puzzled frown. "Maybe there was someone controlling it and..."
Sam's musings were rudely cut off by a loud clanging sound, followed by the sight of a panel silently sliding down from the top of the robot's head. As the girls watched in amazement, a huge figure in the shape of a man with well-defined musculature clambered out of the opening, holding a complex firearm in a hand. However, it was no ordinary man of flesh and blood, for its body was almost entirely robotic, built from some silver metal like titanium, but apparently more robust, as it seemed unmarked by the violent crash. A pair of fierce red lights were set in the eye sockets of its metal skull, above which was a transparent covering for its frontal cranium, through which its pulsing organic brain could be seen clearly.
"Yikes! What is that thing?" gulped Clover, as she and the others regarded the cyborg creature with some revulsion.
Instead of answering, the grim-looking creature raised its firearm on the girls, opting to waste no time with frivolous chatter. Already exhausted from the time travelling and the subsequent battle, the three ladies were unable to get clear in time as the figure pulled the trigger, unleashing a blast of sonic waves on them. The girls yelled in pain and collapsed to their knees as their senses were violently assaulted by loud noise that emanated from the cyborg's weapon.
But just as it looked as though the girls were done for, there came a different whirring sound that quickly grew louder. This was then followed by a whooshing sound, and a second later, a weighted magnetic net flew atop the cyborg and ensnared him before he could react, forcing him to break off his attack. Electricity enveloped him, making him cry out, then go still, before he finally collapsed to the ground. More groggy than hurt, Sam, Clover and Alex let out the breaths they'd been holding in, then smiled in relief as they spotted the WOOHP spies that had just rescued them.
Three colourful hovercycles landed near the spies, and a young woman disembarked from each vehicle with a matching spy catsuit and face-covering helmet. One held a net shooting gadget and had an aquamarine suit and long brown hair. Another had long black hair and an apricot catsuit, while between them was an agent in an orange-coloured spy uniform, whose short hair was obscured by her helmet.
"You saved us! Thank you so much," said Sam in a shaky voice.
"Yeah, perfect timing! We're so exhausted, and that creepy guy was about to finish us off!" added Alex.
"Oh, thanks for saving our skins there. That was an awesome rescue! Glad to see that WOOHP does still exist!" said Clover elatedly, hands clasped.
A silent WOOHP chopper arrived, with agents in suits putting the netted villain into a see-through containment unit. Once the prisoner was secure onboard, the copter took off again, the turbulence from its blades causing Sam, Alex, and Clover's hair to blow about.
"Sorry we're late. We got here as soon as we could!" said the girl with black hair, taking off her helmet.
"That was too close. Thank goodness you guys are okay," said the brunette, as she removed her own.
The third doffed her helmet to reveal short, blonde hair. She put it down, and the three kneeled down to meet the eyes of Sam, Clover and Alex, who could only stare open-mouthed, as they saw that their rescuers' facial features greatly resembled their own.
"Glad to see you're okay, Mom," said the blonde with a concerned look, putting her hands on Clover's shoulders.
"D-did you just c-call me... 'Mom'?" Clover managed to say, before she passed out with a sigh.
The blonde newcomer quickly caught Clover and gently lowered her to the ground. Sam and Alex both gasped at the agents smiling fondly before them, then they too fainted, safely held as well.
"Well, that could have gone better," said the agent with the black hair as she and her two teammates gently picked the unconscious girls up between them and carried them to the hovercycles.
"Yeah, they've had a hectic enough day without a bombshell like that being dropped on them," agreed the brunette WOOHP agent. "We better get our moms back home to get some rest, cause when they wake up, they're going to have, like, a zillion questions."