On Today's Episode: The spies face off with Lady Dragon's newest supervirus in a rather bizarre final showdown. Even if Nick and Melissa can clear this final challenge, they'll still have to deal with the supervirus itself and whatever tricks it has up its non-existent sleeves. Is lady luck still on the spies' side, or is this where the road comes to an end?

Act 3: A Personal Lucky Charm

Nick and Melissa stepped up to face down Geraldine Husk and Lady Dragon once and for all.

Mat and the others watched from the sidelines.

"I never thought Nick would say he avoids Mario Party while I'm the expert," Mat commented.

"I'm almost afraid to ask how good you really are," May told him.

"But extra props to Blaine for nailing the mini games he was dealt with," Dawn spoke up.

"Totally," Clover added, very proud of her boyfriend.

"Honestly, I did better than I was expecting to," Blaine admitted.

"I hope those two are going to be okay up there," Sam told the others as she watched Nick and Melissa take the final challenge.

"Hey, if anyone could help Nick clear this thing, it's Melissa, for sure," Nozomi quipped.

"No doubt," Dawn replied. "Lucky we have a Mario Party expert in Melissa AND Mat supposedly, except Mat's not up there. She's got this..."

"I hope so," Bridget commented. "That thing looks nasty."

"I'm with ya," May told Bridget.

Meanwhile, Nick and Melissa had successfully made it through the opening segments.

"Thank GOD we're out of that hellhole!" Nick chastised.

"Come on, Lady Loser, is that really all you've got?!" Melissa boasted.

Geraldine Husk and Lady Dragon came out of hiding with sinister looks on their faces.

"Oh, I wouldn't get too full of yourself," Lady Dragon sneered.

"This is seriously getting exhausting. Let's just keep moving so we can end this!" Nick exclaimed, obviously fed up with Mario Party madness.

"Nick, give yourself some credit," Melissa reminded. "You're actually doing better than I'm sure you think you would've."

"Tim Ferry knows that feeling about the Glen Helen track," Mat pointed out from the sidelines. "He's said he doesn't like the Glen Helen track and he won the race in 2001 with a 2-2."

"Sometimes you just get lucky," Melissa quipped. "That does seem to be the theme of this mission, after all."

"Yeah, don't ever give up just because you don't like the course," Nick proclaimed. "Especially since I never said I didn't like Mario Party, I just suck at it..."

Meanwhile, Sam, Clover, Alex and the others looked around to prevent any possible sneak attacks on the sidelines.

Melissa and Nick looked on.

"All right, let's rumble!" Nick proclaimed as he and Melissa moved on to the next segment of the cube, eventually running into another panel-shifting puzzle.

Not wasting any time, Nick and Melissa began moving the panels around while avoiding laser shots from small drones created from offshoots of the supervirus until the picture was fully restored, opening the gateway ahead so that Nick and Melissa could cross to the last segment of the cube and face off with the supervirus itself.

"Yeah, I'm lookin' ay you, ugly," Nick taunted. "You wanna dance?"

The supervirus roared loudly before shifting into a form that slightly resembled Bowser. Five large buttons appeared at different corners of the arena.

Nick and Melissa quickly started moving, as the supervirus began marching towards them, clearly not interested in waiting for them to figure out what they needed to do.

Melissa jumped on one of the buttons, causing it to start glowing. Nick did the same while avoiding a claw strike from the supervirus, and a bright line formed between the two buttons.

Naturally, Nick and Melissa grinned at each other, now knowing what had to be done. After baiting the supervirus to move a little closer, Melissa hit another button and created another line to an already-hit button.

This formed a large triangle of energy that boxed in the supervirus and zapped it with a bolt of lightning. A quick glance at a data screen near the top of the area indicated that they had to do that at least two more times.

Melissa backflipped into the air as the supervirus charged them down while Nick moved to hit two different buttons. The supervirus seemed to avoid the energy triangle when Melissa hit a third button, only to get zapped anyway when it tried to charge Nick and wound up running right into the trap.

"Just one more and we've hopefully got this in the bag," Nick quipped.

The supervirus retaliated by creating large boomerangs in its hands and tossing them towards Nick and Melissa, who both had to jump over them to land on the nearby buttons.

Thankfully, it didn't take too much longer to create one more energy triangle to trap the supervirus in, and the instant it got zapped for the final time, the entire cube structure dissolved, allowing Nick and Melissa to land on solid ground and rejoin the spies. The supervirus itself crashed head-first into the ground, completely still.

Sophia took this opportunity to wail on the supervirus with her yo-yos, attacking relentlessly until she'd exposed the viral core, allowing RiCO to fire a blast of blue light into the core, deleting it and causing the supervirus to explode into a cloud of glowing polygons.

"Virus... eliminated," RiCO proclaimed.

Needless to say, Lady Dragon and Geraldine were both utterly shocked.

"Yeah, how about you go and suck on that?!" Nick taunted. "I suck at Mario Party, but we still beat all of your challenges!"

"You damned spies just don't know when to give up, do you?" Geraldine growled.

"I'd suggest you learn to give up while you still have some of your dignity left," Sortiliena proclaimed, shifting into a fighting stance. "Because you know how this is going to end for you two."

"Oh, really?" Lady Dragon cackled as she and Geraldine began to glow brightly. "I wouldn't be too sure of that just yet."

"You've interfered with our plans for the last time, you meddlers!" Geraldine exclaimed. "So I hope you're all ready to call this digital world your tombstone!"

All of a sudden, Geraldine tossed off her coat to reveal a cybernetic suit and launched herself straight for Nick at speeds that surprised even him, and though he was able to protect himself with a psychic barrier, that attack had actually caught him off guard.

"Wait, what the heck just happened?" May gasped.

"Simple," Lady Dragon quipped, revealing that she was wearing a similar cybernetic suit underneath her clothes. "Remember how I was able to copy the track star's powers earlier? Well, that's all because of the special suits we're wearing here in the datascape, which allow us to channel the data around us and use it to create whatever we wish!"

"Even if it's for something as simple as enhancing our physical abilities," Geraldine cackled, pressing a button on her suit and materializing a large laser cannon in her hands. "So sorry, spies, but your luck has expired!"

The spies all dove to the side to avoid the large laser blast before readying whatever gadgets they could grab.

"I wondered when they'd try to beat us at our own game," Nozomi laughed.

"Yeah, but we've obviously got the advantage here," Bridget quipped as she transformed into Sonic Mode. "There's sixteen of us and only two of you!"

"Yeah, we'll see how long that ingenuity of yours last when we start dogpiling on you!" Alex exclaimed.

"Your funeral, then," Geraldine proclaimed. "This is where we wash our hands of you once and for all!"

Geraldine rushed forward and began to lash out at Sortiliena, expecting an easy victory. However, Geraldine was rather surprised when Sortiliena began to fight back, matching Geraldine blow for blow and move for move.

"Um, hello?" Sortiliena taunted. "Combat instructor here, of course I know how to fight!"

Sortiliena flipped over Geraldine and kicked her in the back, causing her to stumble towards the spies and allow Bridget to start striking at her with lightning-fast attacks.

Meanwhile, Lady Dragon faced down RiCO and Sophia.

"You've got some nerve waltzing into my datascape like you own it or something," RiCO proclaimed.

"I will once we're done with all of you," Lady Dragon laughed before creating two katanas in her hands and tossing them both for RiCO, only for Sophia to plant herself in front of RiCO and swing her yo-yos to destroy the digital swords.

"You were saying?" Sophia retorted.

"The good part of Virtual Reality is you can recreate your ammo," Lady Dragon sneered and created two maces. "Or two new ones..."

"Going old school with that stuff?!" Sophia taunted.

"Allow me this time," Sortiliena quipped, rushing forward to attack Lady Dragon, easily weaving through the mace attacks and jumping over Lady Dragon to kick her in the back of the head. This allowed Nick the time to fire a few psychic bolts to shatter Lady Dragon's maces.

Lady Dragon could only look on as her maces were destroyed.

"We still got your number after all," Sophia taunted.

"You wanna talk numbers?" Geraldine sneered.

She and Lady Dragon snapped their fingers and other digital warriors started forming.

"You apparently have an army of your own," Geraldine sneered. "So, it's time we fought fire with fire..."

In total, the warriors doubled the team of sixteen spies.

"We can still take you!" Mat proclaimed.

"Smack talk is all it is, kid," Lady Dragon scoffed.

"Don't tell that to James Stewart when he won 11 of 12 Motocross races in 2004," Mat pointed out. "And if he can do that, we can beat you!"

"I'm behind my Mat-honey here," Sam quipped. "We didn't think we'd win that photo contest with Mandy sabotaging our photos in high school after all!" (A/N: Remember S1's Do You Believe in Magic?)

"Right on the money, Sammy," Alex added. "Since we ended up winning!"

"Hold on, spies," RiCO told the others.

She was about to scan for a weakness when the army of warriors went after the spies.

Sam thought quickly and used the Hairpin High Jumper Extender Pole as a weapon. Alex and Clover caught on and used their own poles; Britney was no different since there was a blue one in her pack.

"Good thinking, Sammy," Clover quipped.

Mat joined in, but with his own male-appropriate gadget.

"Sonic Mode, online!" Bridget proclaimed as she turned on the juice in an attempt to confuse the digital warriors.

While this was happening, Melissa and Dawn were yet again using their favorite combination attack, where Melissa flew them around in the air with a Helicopter Hand Fan while Dawn blasted the digital warriors from above with a Cyclone Blast Hairdryer.

"Nice one!" Melissa exclaimed as she and Dawn high-fived.

"Damn!" Geraldine swore.

She and Lady Dragon continued to create more digital warriors in an attempt to wear the spies out. For a while, it worked.

"This isn't getting us anywhere!" Nick chastised.

"I can help us out," RiCO remarked and searched for a weakness. "It seems like their suits are allowing them to do all of this digital recreation."

"So, the suits have to go, basically?" Nozomi stated.

"So, I guess that's what we gotta do," Blaine quipped.

"But now the question becomes, how do we do that?" Alex asked. "I don't think they're made of virus material, which means RiCO and Sophia can't just McAfee them out of existence."

"Then I guess we do it the old-fashioned way," May proclaimed, twirling her anchor in her hands. "With a beatdown."

"I'd like to see you try!" Geraldine laughed, snapping her fingers to create, of all things, a digital clone of Natalie Valentine by her side.

"Wait, what?!" Mat gasped.

"Yeah, doesn't this bring back memories?!" Geraldine proclaimed as she and the Natalie clone charged forward to attack Mat from different sides.

Just then, Sam and Britney jumped in, spin-kicking the attackers away.

"No double-teaming on our watch!" Britney shouted as she blasted the Natalie clone with an Electromagnetic Curling Iron, causing it to dissolve quickly.

"Hmmm... that gives me an idea," Sam giggled.

"It matters not," Geraldine cackled. "I can just make another clone with my suit, so don't think you're going to..."

Geraldine's monologue was interrupted when Sam took the Electromagnetic Curling Iron and blasted Geraldine with it, causing her to stumble.

"Admirable, but utterly pointless," Geraldine replied, snapping her fingers...

...only for nothing to happen.

"W-wait, what happened? Why can't I create anything?!" Geraldine exclaimed, snapping her fingers multiple times to no avail.

Sam simply blasted Geraldine again, and this caused Geraldine's suit to spark with electricity, forcing her to ditch the suit before it exploded violently.

Bridget, having seen the scuffle, darted over to snatch up the Electromagnetic Curling Iron and dash back towards Lady Dragon, who was still attempting to fend off Sortiliena (and failing rather miserably at it).

"Oh, what, are you salty that you can't really fight?" Sortiliena laughed, raising her arms to block an overhead punch before ducking down and punching Lady Dragon in the stomach, dazing her for a few moments.

"Sortiliena, catch!" Bridget exclaimed, tossing the Electromagnetic Curling Iron to Sortiliena so she could blast Lady Dragon with it, destroying her cybernetic suit. Once the suit was destroyed, Sector E returned to normal as well.

"And consider yourselves owned," Sortiliena laughed as she spin-kicked Lady Dragon into Geraldine so that Nick could encase both villains in a psychic bubble.

"Couldn't have said it better myself, Sortiliena," Nick proclaimed.

"Well, that was pretty fun!" May stated. "Nice to have one last battle that revolved around pure skill after all those luck-based challenges."

"And I swear, if I never see another Mario Party board, it'll be too soon," Nick sighed.

RiCO typed in a few commands on her personal data screen to open a data doorway that led back to W.O.O.H.P. Headquarters. "Well, I guess we can consider this case closed, huh?" RiCO proclaimed.

"Are you and Sophia gonna be okay by yourselves?" Sam asked.

"We'll be just fine," Sophia answered. "RiCO's gonna show me something cool that I didn't get to see last time I was here."

"Well, if we've got everything, let's head back, shall we?" Melissa stated. "I think we've all had enough of dealing with lady luck today, haven't we?"

"Tell me about it!" was the unanimous response from all of the spies as they walked into the portal.

10:38 P.M. – W.O.O.H.P. Headquarters, Jerry's Office

"Marvelous job as always, spies," Jerry proclaimed as three agents moved to escort the bubbled Geraldine and Lady Dragon back to the containment facility.

"You'd think after two failed attempts to wrangle the datascape, she'd have learned by now that we'd be there to stop her every time," Melissa quipped.

"I guess villains will always be stubborn," RiCO admitted as she materialized in the office.

That was when Jerry noticed Sortiliena among the spies, and he was pretty surprised to see her.

"Yeah, hey, boss," Sortiliena laughed. "Sorry if I forgot to return your calls, I was kinda stuck in the digital world."

"Apparently, Geraldine ambushed her and threw her into the datascape for some odd reason," RiCO explained. "But she's been very helpful to us, especially considering she's a combat instructor!"

"Whatever the case, it is good to see you well and unharmed, Sortiliena," Jerry proclaimed.

"Good to be back, Jerry!" Sortiliena stated, saluting to Jerry before dashing back off to her post.

"She's very interesting," Alex admitted. "I hope we see her again sometime."

"Knowing us, I'm sure it's inevitable," Nick quipped.

"We can handle things from here, spies," Jerry stated. "So you can all head back now."

"See you later, everyone!" RiCO giggled as she waved her hand, causing a large metal pipe to suck up all the spies and return them to Malibu University.

4:49 P.M. – The Spies' Penthouse (One Week Later)

With Geraldine and Lady Dragon apprehended, the spies enjoyed themselves with just classes and fun.

"Glad that mission is over," May sighed.

Currently, she was preparing a snack for herself; Alex was in the den watching Mat playing a Supercross race of MX Vs. ATV Unleashed. Mat was waiting for Nick to page him for when Melissa was coming back to the penthouse from extra practice so he could surprise her; Mat already got his video taken with his phone – at the girls' volleyball coach's OK of course.

"How'd your assignment go, Mat?" May wondered as she came into the den to watch Mat as well.

In the meantime, Mat had won his Supercross race. He had raced at Tucson, AZ for 20 laps playing as Jeremy McGrath.

"It went well," Mat answered. "I got an 84 for my final score; I think I have a future in Journalism myself."

"Go get it," May cheered.

"The thing is... the girls' volleyball season is my final project, so I plan to be at some of the games getting some shots – or B-roll, as journalists call it."

In the meantime, Sam, Clover, and Britney were out poolside catching some sun.

"Brit, I hope you know that there really WAS nothing to worry about with Mat and Melissa," Clover stated as Bridget, Haruka, and Nozomi came back from getting food of their own.

"I was just worried, honestly," Britney admitted. "But it looks like I didn't have anything to worry about after all."

"I know I remembered Mat saying he wanted to go into anything related to being on TV," Sam quipped. "I guess Journalism is a sure way to get on there."

"I didn't go that route myself," Nozomi replied, overhearing Sam as she, Bridget, and Haruka came to join them.

"I'm honestly glad it's just for Mat's assignments and nothing more," Britney stated.

"Nick and Dawn are at Melissa's beach volleyball practice," Haruka told them as they all offered the three some of their food.

That was when Bridget told the others about Mat wanting to surprise Melissa with something – as Nick had quietly told her. This got Sam and Britney's attention.

"But according to Nick," Bridget added. "Mat made it very clear that everybody's welcome to have some, too, Melissa – and that Sam might know what his surprise is..."

It didn't take Sam very long to know that Mat was going to surprise Melissa with his spaghetti.

"Trust me, she'll love it," Sam giggled.

"I concur there," Britney quipped.

In the meantime, Mat was already starting to cook his dinner, even having flashbacks to what happened after the 2006 Vegas Supercross finale.

"Did Nick tell you Melissa's coming back?" May asked Mat as he prepared things.

"Uh-huh," Mat answered. "I won't say 'no' if you want to help, May."

"Oh, I'm all over that," May proclaimed.

"No worries, Mat," Alex giggled, remembering what happened before. "We'll keep Melissa out of the loop for you."

5:03 P.M. – Malibu University – Beach Area

Meanwhile, Dawn, Melissa, Nick, and Blaine were all on the beach; Melissa was wrapping up her beach volleyball practice while Dawn, Nick, and Blaine were on the sidelines watching and occasionally taking part in helping with the practice.

"Well, I say we get back," Melissa quipped as she wiped herself clean of perspiration.

"Hey, maybe we got time to take a quick run in the ocean?" Nick wondered, knowing to keep Mat's surprise to Melissa a surprise.

"No harm in that," Blaine replied.

"I'm in," Dawn laughed.

"Count me in, too!" Melissa giggled, only for Nick to run right past her. "H-Hey!"

"Ya snooze, ya lose, sis!" Nick laughed.

"Oh, it is on!" Melissa proclaimed.

All in all, it was a very fun ocean run, especially to watch Nick and Melissa try to tag each other and doing all sorts of crazy maneuvers to outsmart the other.

"That was cool," Dawn laughed after it was all done.

5:30 P.M. – The Spies' Penthouse

Back at the spies' penthouse, Mat and May were just about wrapping up the spaghetti; Haruka even pitched in as well.

"Hey, Mat, I think Nick and the others are close by," Haruka told Mat. "You should go tell Melissa the good news."

Mat listened in and could see Nick, Melissa, and Blaine coming through the automatic sliding doors.

"Melissa, I have to thank you," Mat told her. "I got a B on my assignment."

"Well, glad to assist you," Melissa smiled.

"So, I have something set as thanks for helping me out," Mat told her. "Plus, I learned as a journalist, what I've done is kind of a 'must' to thank your sources for helping you make your stories possible... even though a 'thank you' note will suffice..."

Sam and Britney looked on, knowing Mat was not cheating on his two girlfriends.

Mat gestured towards the kitchen, and as close as they were now, Melissa could easily catch the scent of spaghetti, and her eyes lit up when she made the connection.

"Yup, I made some more of my 'world-famous' spaghetti to thank you for helping me out," Mat answered.

"HOW IS HE A ROOKIE?!" Nick proclaimed.

"Seriously, Mat, you rock!" Melissa proclaimed, leaping over to give Mat a hug while winking to Sam and Britney at the same time to show that everything was all right.

"Well, how about we not waste time and dig in?" May stated. "I'm sure we're all starving for some spaghetti!"

"I'm all for that," Nick responded.

Totally Spies: Luck Be a Lady Tonight

~The End~

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Final Author's Notes from Mat49324: Well, that's all she wrote for our S4 premiere! We hope you liked it overall, and perhaps got a callback to our 4th project, Affairs of the Heart from S1 with that ending. I have to admit it was nice to get into Mario Party games because I definitely have that game down to a science. I even have playthroughs of the board maps from 1-3 – ALL of them successful – on my YouTube page! In this one anyway, I think you may have figured out my favorite mini game in Mario Party 1 is Cast Aways. What Mat said about him getting 6 treasure chests one time ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO ME IN REAL LIFE! I kid you not! Anyway, we hope you stay tuned for our second project of S4, Pretty Fly for a Fly Guy, which will be posted on The Blue Time Ranger's page. For now, here is The Blue Time Ranger if there's anything he'd like to say.

Final Author's Notes from The Blue Time Ranger: And that's a wrap for the premiere of season four of The New Adventures!

Yeah, there was a lot of Mario Party in this one, considering the whole core of our villains' scheme was testing the spies' luck, but I will still never touch Mario Party because I don't want to get swept up in that chaos. I'm perfectly fine with watching The Runaway Guys and such play it. (In fact, the closest I've ever come to playing Mario Party was Sonic Shuffle, which, IIRC, was made by the same people who made Mario Party. ...I miss my Dreamcast.)

And with that, we're moving right on along to the next episode! Next time, another one-off foe is returning for a shot at revengeance, and hoo boy, if you hate bugs, this one might be trippy for you. Catch all the juicy deets on Pretty Fly For a Fly Guy, which will be posted by me.

So, until next time, have a fantastic day, don't listen to the screeching morons, enjoy this preview of Pretty Fly For a Fly Guy, and we'll see you next mission!

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"All right, who's the wise guy who ruined our moment?!" May exclaimed.

The culprit turned out to be a large man who, for some inexplicable reason, had bee-like eyes, bee wings, and a large and pointy stinger.

"W-what in the hell?!" May gasped.

"Oh, screw all of this," Nick growled as the bee man attempted to run him through with his stinger. Nick dodged to the left and blasted the man away with a Final Shine Attack, which thankfully caused him to retreat, flying into the sky and away from Mali-U. "I don't need any more nightmare fuel after that kaiju movie marathon, thank you very much."

"Okay, I've gotta ask," Blaine stated. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?! That guy looked like he got turned into a mutant bee or something!"

At the words "mutant bee", something clicked in Nick's mind.

And it seemed that Jerry had figured it out as well, because his personal helicopter was landing near the penthouse, with the rest of the spies already inside.

"Let me guess, attack of the creepy crawlies for you guys, too?" May asked.

"You have no idea, May," Clover shuddered.

"Well, we'd better get some industrial-strength bug spray, because I have a pretty good idea who's behind this one," Nick quipped as he, May, and Blaine jumped into the chopper as it took off for downtown Beverly Hills.

Of course, RiCO waved her hands to change the viewscreen to a mugshot of Max Exterminus, an old villain of the spies who had mutated himself with insect DNA, and had even done the same to Alex in an attempt to make her his queen and rule over a world of insects and other creepy crawlies.

"Ugh, he looks like he smells like turbo-barf," Nozomi gagged.

"Just keep his cockroach hands away from me at all costs and we'll be good," Alex proclaimed.

"There have been more sightings of human-bug hybrids in the downtown area, so we figured that would be the best place for you to start investigating," Jerry stated.

"Your gadgets are on the table, spies," RiCO proclaimed. "Now go out there and make with the swatting!"

"Oh, we'll be doing more than swatting, RiCO," May laughed, preparing her anchor for a smackdown.

To be continued in Totally Spies: Pretty Fly For a Fly Guy...