Three of my favorite cartoon cats, and my own baby, threatening me with guns.

"Jessica," Misty said. "You've got to distract them."

"Um..." I said. "Blasty? Can I ask you a question?"

The fat guy nodded. "To be fair, I'm not holding any grudges. In fact, I rather like you. I just want the Spikes!"

"Okayy..." I said.

"So what's your question?"

"Well, there used to be this show called The Bug-A-Loos. If featured a crazy witch who lived in a giant jukebox, who kept trying to capture a group of humanoid bugs as her musical slaves. The whole thing seems oddly similar."

Master Blaster paused for a moment, then pushed a button on his chair.

An entire section of a wall slid open, revealing a giant sized picture of the witch I'd mentioned, Benita Bizarre.

"My mother," he said with a proud smile. "I inherited the jukebox from her, adding some machinery to make the place float."

"She was an interesting lady."

He sighed. "Yes she was."

"So who's the father?"

He opened another wall panel, showing me another big portrait.

...Of Mr. Spacely, CEO of Spacely Sprockets.

"Wow. So...this sleeping with cartoon characters...it's older than Jack Deebes, I take it."

Master Blaster only shrugged.

"How come you don't flicker? I slept with Chad, and I flickered."

"I've been alive a long time. And mother was not one hundred percent human. It seems the change projected outward, in the form of my control over mirrors."

"What about the Nazi mouse? Benita had a gay Nazi mouse. He wore a sparkly hat with the Bebe logo on it."

"I don't like to talk about him. Or about him and my mother." He paused. "He's actually bi."

"Well," I said. "You have nice parents."

I walked up to my cat baby. "You wouldn't shoot at your mommy, would you?"

The kid looked like she actually might.

"Look, Master Blaster. Three spikes are great and all, but wouldn't you like an additional two?"

"What are you doing!" Misty cried. "Don't tell him that!"

Master Blaster's face lit up with a rosy glow. "There are more?"

I sighed and nodded. "And we kind of need the spikes to get to them. Could you please tell your goons to put down their guns?"

And so he did.

The moment Cat Baby put away her gun, I quickly snatched her up.

"Hey, cutie! How has old Blasty been treating you?"

"Hel-lo?" the baby meowed. "Hello?"

Not "Mommy" or "Dah dah." "Hello."

I rubbed her head sadly. "Mommy's going to do something a little awkward to you, but just go with it okay? It'll make sense in a minute."

And then Misty took over, forcing her egg through my baby's mouth.

All right, so I'm not a stellar parent. Misty wanted a second born, and Master Blaster has clearly been brainwashing my kid, so I thought hey, why not brainwash her the way I want her brainwashed instead?

Come to think of it, all parents kinda do similar things.

The moment the egg was transferred to the baby, I felt my body begin to weaken, my arms and legs becoming realistically shaded and sensitive to the cool air.

My baby, in the meantime, was aging rapidly, developing from a toddler to a twelve year old in the space of a minute.

The odd thing was, as she aged, she suddenly had on Misty's costume, the cape and bikini stretching to match her body to an exact fit.

Master Blaster shouted, "Stop! What are you doing to my baby!"

"Just a little improvement. It's kinda my baby anyway. To be fair, you did make her try to shoot me. Plus I have other babies. You can take one of those."

You know how my baby had a gun? Well, now twelve year old Misty had it, pointing the muzzle at She Lion's head.

I still had some of Misty's speed, so I rushed to her side, grabbing the gun.

"Misty. Don't. These cats are my favorite doodles in the entire world. I'm not saying they're friends, but I really like them a lot. If you kill them, I'll never forgive you, or myself for letting you do it. Please. Use the icer or something else. Anything else."

"But what are we supposed to do?" Misty said. "Icers don't work on doodles!"

Suddenly the eighties style visor wearing Cool Kitty turned into a gray statue.

Fat Cat froze into gray concrete a second later.

She Lion stared at the two statues, glanced at something behind me, and dropped her gun.

I glanced back and saw Chad, bearing one of those freeze rays from the cartoon movie Light Years.

Master Blaster's hover chair retreated from us.

"Please!" the fat guy begged. "Don't hurt my cats! I admit I haven't been the most loving master, but they're the only real friends I have left!"

"Master Blaster!" She Lion cried in surprise. "You really do care! I knew it!"

"Look, uh, Blasty," I said. "No hard feelings, I hope."

"Hand us the Spike, and we won't kill your pets," Misty said.

Master Blaster's face flushed red. He clenched his fists angrily.

"This is extortion!"

I twisted my lip. "I...yeah. I think this is pretty much the dictionary definition of extortion."

The man sighed, pulling the Spike out of his chair. "I haven't figured out how to use it yet anyway," he muttered. "I only managed to open up a small portal. The Jukebox wouldn't fit."

He handed it over to Misty.

"Blasty," I said. "Misty and I still want to help you achieve your goals, don't we, Misty?"

The villainess stared at me like she didn't.

"Look," I said. "He doesn't want much. He just wants his floating house to go into the real world so he can abduct the talent he wants. That's not so much to ask in exchange for the most powerful energy source in the universe."

"What you've sent so far doesn't impress me," Master Blaster agreed. "I'd be happy if I could just get my Jukebox over there and kidnap a music school or two."

Misty sighed. "Oh all right. It's a deal."

But she took all the cats' weapons anyway.

"Could you change Fat Cat and Cool Kitty back from stone, please?"

Misty adjusted a setting on the freeze ray and did so.

"How is Sleez?" she asked.

"Busy," Master Blaster said. "Very busy. Your friend practically has him running a daycare center by himself." He paused. "Speaking of which, I'm not sure he will like your new look."

Misty shrugged. "It'll grow on him. Let's move your Jukebox. It'll probably make it easier for us to reach the next Spike anyway."

Misty dug a few devices out of her bug carryall, experimenting with the spikes and Master Blaster's navigational equipment. She opened golden wall panels and floor panels, dismantled computers and turned circuit boards inside out, but Blasty said nothing about it, watching with puzzlement and curiosity.

Okay, well, he did snap at her once, but that was only because she took all the buttons off one of his keyboards, turned it upside down and dumped all the dust out, which really didn't help anything but the cause of OCD.

The most successful result came when Misty fitted the three spikes into a giant gold pipe organ/computer in the back of the throne chamber. The large circular monitor attached to the pipes gave us a view of a massive tear in the fabric of reality.

Using an upper set of keys, and foot pedals, Misty attempted to steer the Jukebox through this hole, but the only result was a thunderous banging sound.

"Three isn't enough," she complained. "We'll still need the other two."

She climbed off the bench, removing the first of the three spikes.

"Misty, wait," I said. "Where are you taking those?"

"Along with us, of course."

I shook my head in frustration. "Don't you see? We did something like that last time. We had one spike, and Hitler took it and had two. Let's not make the same mistake twice."

"Then what do you suggest? Leave them here?"

I shrugged. "Blasty can't go anywhere. It's as safe as any place. I mean, he doesn't want to destroy a race of people, or your companies or pollute the planet. They're just submissive feline lackeys and a glorified record producer."

Misty frowned, but didn't disagree with my statement.

"I am not a lackey!" She Lion growled, turning red.

"You kind of are," Cool Kitty said. "We all are."

"Well." For a moment, She Lion seemed to be at a loss for words. "There are better ways to phrase it."

"Sorry," I said. "Anyway, Misty, how about we beam your big five spike weapon aboard this thing? It would make it really convenient."

"Jessica, you're fortunate that I trust him with the spikes at all. I'm not letting him have the Reformatter."

"The Reformatter?" I repeated. "As in erasing and rewriting data?"

"It's more like saving over. The population of earth will be reformatted with the beautiful bodies of the Zorbatron race."

"Will this effect humankind musically?" Master Blaster asked.

"No," Misty said. "The content of the songs may very slightly to reflect the reformat, but all genres will continue as they were. The change will only be physiological, so that the Zorbatron race can live again."

"When you say content..." Master Blaster said.

Misty sighed. "So maybe there will be more love songs about sexy thoraxes, feelers and spinnerets, but people will still have the blues, achy breaky hearts and a twenty one gun salute for those who are about to rock."

Master Blaster nodded, appearing to be satisfied with the arrangement. "Let's try to find these other spikes."

He nodded to Fat Cat. "Did you get the software patch installed?"

"Yes, your grooviness!"

"Wait," I said. "Fat Cat can program a computer?"

"He always liked technical manuals." Master Blaster pushed some buttons on his throne, and a large computer screen came out of the floor, showing a side by side map of the real world and Cool World.

I saw only a red blob in Cool World, obviously The Flipside, our location, and one solitary red blip on the other side. "Wait. Why is there only one? My research says there's supposed to be two. One at Jack Deebes' old rental property, the other at-"

"The Union Plaza hotel," Master Blaster finished.

"I thought you only knew about three of them," I said. "Not that I'm complaining, I'm just confused about why you can detect them."

"Fat Cat just tweaked the algorithm. He was searching for alternate sources of power."

"So he's not a stereotypical evil dimwit ruler after all!" I said, clapping my hands. "I had the guy all wrong!"

Fat Cat smiled, but Master Blaster looked furious. "What!"

"Sorry. I...I've seen camera recordings of some of your...failings. You're a lot more intelligent than I imagined."

He looked flustered. "I'll...try to think of that as a compliment."

Master Blaster clicked a button, and the image of a reptilian figure in a skirt and polo top appeared on the monitor. The creature stood atop the roof, directly below the scaffolding on the giant sign, holding aloft a glowing trident with a spike attached to it.

This magical artifact apparently had power over animated birds, for she had swarms of them flowing around her in waves, to the point where it blotted out the sky.

Master Blaster scowled. "She has one of the spikes."

I clenched my fists. "That's not good."

"Agreed," Misty said. "With that kind of power, she'll put me out of business! We've got to stop her before she gets the last Spike!"

As if hearing what we said, the reptile turned toward the screen, grinning at us.

She pointed the trident our way, and a million cartoon birds burst through the monitor, filling the room with an endless flood of flapping wings and pecking beaks.