It was an incredibly long ride in the Lightspeed Lasagna for Garzooka, Odious and especially Starlena. Calvin and Hobbes, however, were still amazed that all this had happened to them. Unlike when Jon Arbuckle came to this universe, they fully understood what had happened. Spacemen Spiff and Mort and traveled through things like this before. The only difference was that a comic book had brought them here rather than spending twenty years in space.
Calvin looked out into deep vast space. "We have parallel beings out here?" he asked Garzooka.
"You bet," said Garzooka, who was bored from the long night search.
Calvin pondered for a moment. "What if our parallel beings are Spacemen Spiff and Mort?" he said excitedly.
Hobbes thought for a moment. "It's possible," he said. "Or maybe Stupendous Man and Tiger Lad are out there somewhere!"
"And what about Mom and Dad? They must have parallel beings out there too! I wonder if they're both just as boring."
"Well, Emperor Jon and Jon Arbuckle act the same. The only difference is one is an emperor and the other can't send the bowling ball down the right lane."
"And imagine there being more than one Susie or Moe or even Miss Wormwood! That'd be the ultimate evilness if I'd ever seen it."
Hobbes decided he'd search the ship some more. He'd seen the fridges (approximately fifty-two, to be exact), the huge amounts of windows, the sink, and the place that held the rations that only Emperor Jon liked. He then looked in the restroom. Not much different from a regular one. He looked in master computer room.
"Hey, Calvin! Check this out!" he called.
Calvin looked around the giant, lit-up room. There were a lot of cool computers.
"This must be the Pet Force Super-Computer," he said.
He sat down at the spinning chair.
"Spin me!" he ordered.
Hobbes pushed on the chair, sending Calvin spinning like all get out.
"WHEEEEEEE!" he cried.
"You know, it's weird," Hobbes said. "When we met Garfield and Odie, we never thought of them as superheroes from another universe."
"Emperor Jon and Sorcerer Binky said that Garfield and the others came here to replace the original Pet Force. Maybe they retired, and that's why they're coming here."
"And you know what else is weird? Pet Force is a comic book series in our universe, yet I've never seen a single issue lying around your room!"
"That's because I don't subscribe to it," Calvin replied. "I didn't think the concept was very good. But having been brought here for real kind of makes wish I could subscribe."
As he thought about the concept, he elbowed a button on the computer.
Suddenly, the screen changed.
"What'd you do?" Hobbes asked nervously.
"If it's bad, we'll just blame it on Odious," Calvin replied.
The words came up on the screen: PET FORCE ADVENTURES
"Hey, this is cool!" Calvin said. "We can read all about their adventures right here!"
He moved the mouse to click OPEN FILES.
The screen showed lists of files. They were all categorized under Pet Force Generations. There were only two lists. Under Generation 2, there were five adventures. They read about Garfield and the others coming to the universe, how Space Pie-Rat turned Garzooka evil, how Compooky saved the day during the K-Niner event, how Jon Arbuckle helped Garzooka free his teammates from Vetvix, and how they all fought against the Lethal Lizards.
"They've only had five adventures before this?" Calvin asked. "Man, how could they know how to use their powers so well after all that time?"
"Must be pretty stressful missions," Hobbes commented.
Then Calvin looked at the last adventure of the original Pet Force. It told them about how Pet Force was captured by Vetvix at last. They were trapped in a new type of metal that she'd invented. Then she removed all the powers from Pet Force with a weird gun, making them weaker until they were finally transported to a ghostly dimension, where they weren't dead, but they were unable to return to their own universe.
Calvin and Hobbes stared at that last bit of information wide-eyed.
"Man, I had a feeling Vetvix would be bad," Calvin said, "but that there is pure evil!"
"I had no idea she could do magic!" Hobbes added.
"Man, it makes me wish that we could have our powers now, so that we could practice for a fight."
Just then, there was an announcement over an intercom. It was Garzooka.
"We need you two up front here for instructions," he said. "We're approaching Vetvix's his Floating Fortress of Fear."
Calvin and Hobbes ran to the front of the ship. They peered out at the Fortress.
"Wow!" said Hobbes.
And Calvin said (all together now), "Cool!"
Starlena rolled his eyes.
"Starlena, Odious and I are going into the Fortress," Garzooka said. "You two need to stay here."
"HEY!" Calvin said. "That's not fair!"
"No, it's smart," said Starlena. "Without powers, you'd be killed."
"Oh, yeah?" Calvin snapped. "How would you know? You're—"
He was cut off when Starlena sang her siren song. Calvin and Hobbes were taken off-guard, and they both went under a trance.
"Come on, gang," Garzooka said. He led Odious and Starlena away.
Calvin and Hobbes stood for a moment, swirls going around their eyes, before they finally closed their eyes and tipped over into a deep sleep.
Once inside the Floating Fortress, Vetvix was preparing for her plan. She had Abnermal and Compooky trapped in a giant machine. It was similar as to what had divided them up with Odious and Starlena to make the Mutanator, but it had been changed. There was a vent on the side.
The two of them stood there, worrying about what would happen.
"What does this thing do exactly?" Abnermal asked.
"In just a few short moments," Vetvix replied, still blowing her nose and sneezing from her cold, "this machine shall drain you of your powers. They shall go out that vent right there and become common particles in the air, unable to be saved."
"You twisted fiend," Compooky said, trying to sound like Garzooka.
"Work on that impression," said Vetvix. "Don't worry, you won't feel a thing. And when it is complete, Pet Force will be a thing of the past."
"But Garzooka, Odious and Starlena will come to save us!" Abnermal shouted.
"I'm sure they will, which is why I'm prepared to land them in the same place you are now. Don't worry, though. I'll send you home tomorrow."
Only halfway away from where all this was happening, Garzooka was punching, hacking and scratching. Odious was kicking, biting and slurping. Starlena floated above them, searching for the right room. Vetvix's minions were doing their best, but they proved no match for Pet Force.
"We're almost there!" Starlena shouted. "Just a bit further."
Vetvix was just about to throw the switch when the door burst down. Everyone (well, the three of them) looked up and saw Garzooka and Odious were ready for a fight.
"Okay, Vetvix," Garzooka said. "We can either do this the easy way or the hard way. Hand over Compooky."
There was a pause.
"GARZOOKA!" everyone shouted.
"Oh, fine, and give us back Abnermal, too."
"You're a bit late," Vetvix said. "Once I've pulled this lever, Abnermal and Compooky will be completely drained of their powers, and they'll be nothing but the air you're breathing right now."
Garzooka and Starlena looked at her with sheer terror. Odious would have too if he knew what was going on.
Vetvix rolled her eyes. "I meant their powers. They're going straight back to your universe, where they can't cause anymore trouble."
"Well, what makes you think we're going to let you get away with this?" Garzooka snarled.
"We'll soon find out. I already flipped the switch."
They all looked down and saw that the switch had been switched during the talking.
The machine started to hum. It was filled with a sickly green gas. Garzooka couldn't see into it. He heard Abnermal and Compooky coughing and choking furiously through it. Then he saw that another gas that was a different color than the first was coming out of the vents.
"It's working!" Vetvix cried. "Those are their powers you see coming out."
Garzooka turned to Odious and winked.
It was fortunate for them that Odious knew what that wink meant. The stun tongue sprang from his mouth and struck Vetvix, once again putting her out of commission. Boy, that dark magic of her's was pretty much failing, wasn't it?
When the gases finally dissolved, Garzooka, Odious and Starlena saw pretty much what they thought they'd see: Nermal and Pooky.
Fortunately for Garzooka, Abnermal's pester-power went into the mix, so his annoyance level went back to normal.
"Get us out of here!" Nermal shouted, banging on the glass.
Pooky did nothing. He was just an ordinary teddy bear now.
Garzooka ran up to the glass and scraped it with his claw. Then Odious gave it a good punch on the scratch, shattering it.
"There we go," Nermal said.
"Come on," said Starlena. "We need to get out of here."
Garzooka grabbed Pooky, and Odious grabbed Nermal. They ran out just as Vetvix was regaining herself. She reached for her communication device.
"Get them," she said, and then she fell asleep.
However, Pet Force (or what was left of them) was running down the corridor back to the Lightspeed Lasagna.
"We need to get back to the ship and get you back to Polyester," Garzooka decided.
Suddenly, something somewhat crimson colored soaring past them. It shined, and it chilled them a bit.
"Those are Abnermal and Compooky's powers!" cried Starlena. "We need to catch up with them. If we can get them in front of that stuff, maybe the powers will reenter their bodies!"
"It's just stupid enough to work," Garzooka said.
They ran as fast as they could, trying to catch up with the particles, but they weren't fast enough.
On board the Lightspeed Lasagna, Calvin and Hobbes were just waking up from their trance. They had no idea about what had just happened in the Fortress.
Calvin tried to pick up where he'd left off, still a bit groggy. "Because you're an idiot!" he shouted. "A dumb idiot!"
Hobbes thought he was talking to him, so he hit him.
"OW!" Calvin shouted. "What'd you do that for?"
"You just called me an idiot!"
"I didn't call you an idiot, you idiot! I called Starlena an idiot!"
It was then that they noticed Starlena wasn't there. Neither were Garzooka or Odious.
"Great!" Calvin shouted. "They bring us all the way here to help, and then they tell us to stay in the ship. You know what they are? They're action teases! They get us all fired up for a fight, and they just leave us here."
Hobbes simply nodded. He looked through the windshield. "Hey, check that out," he said.
Calvin looked out and saw a crimson-looking coming straight towards the ship.
"It looks like a comet!" he said.
"Should we move the ship?" Hobbes asked.
Calvin looked at the complicated controls before them.
"Maybe we should just run and scream."
"Agreed."
They hopped up and ran for the lives.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" they screamed.
They looked back and saw the crimson shoot straight through the windshield. The odd part? The fact that the windshield didn't shatter.
They stopped to think, but they didn't get any time. When they stopped, the crimson slammed into them, sending them hurtling into the wall, knocking them out.
"Man, rendered unconscious twice in the same day," Calvin moaned. "This has gotta be some kind of record."
The last thing either Calvin or Hobbes heard before they blacked out, they heard Garzooka shout, "Oh my gosh!"