On Today's Episode: The spies head into the "inner sanctum", where the villains lie in wait with their core virus, ready to unleash it on the real world. Naturally, the spies aren't going to let that fly, but what other tricks do Lumiere and Lady Dragon have up their sleeves? Will the spies be able to stop the core virus before it's unleashed on the unsuspecting real world?
Episode 3: De-rez-olution
6:15 P.M. - W.O.O.H.P. Datascape, Somewhere Between Sectors D and F
"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that this is the gateway to the evil lair?" Alex teased as the spies stopped somewhere in the space between sectors. Standing just in front of them was a large doorway completely made of the static material that marked viral infection.
And it was slowly opening up, as if it had sensed their presence.
"I know I'm not the only one concerned that this could be an obvious trap," Nozomi proclaimed. "But like Sam said when we went into Helga's airship, sometimes you have to walk into the obvious trap if you wanna beat the baddies."
"I second that," Clover proclaimed.
Without any more beating around the bush, the spies entered the doorway and crossed into a tunnel area where the infection seemed to be covering the walls, the ceiling, almost everywhere in here.
"Yikes, this place is nightmarish," Melissa stated.
"It's a villain's lair, what did you expect?" May quipped.
"Even creepier is the infection that seems to be covering everything around here," Nick proclaimed. "It's making me quiver just looking at how utterly not right this all is."
"It feels like they're trying to accumulate a bunch of viral activity in order to release it once they're finished tinkering with the core virus," RiCO replied, testing out a theory and blasting a part of the wall with her anti-viral beam, only for the spot she'd blasted to be re-covered by more static.
"But wouldn't it be harder for them to re-infect the system now that most of the signal towers have been re-activated?" Sam wondered.
"I'd rather not take any chances with these weirdos. Both of them already seem to have more than a few screws loose..." RiCO answered.
"Isn't that the truth," Britney teased.
"Regardless, let's get moving, everyone," Nick stated. "I have a feeling we'll find our supervillain lair and the core virus at the end of this tunnel."
"Then let's go take 'em down," Haruka proclaimed.
"Well said, Haruka," Britney quipped.
The twelve spies meandered onward.
"I wonder where Lady Dragon and Marco Lumiere could be hiding," Mat stated.
"Good point," Sam replied.
Nick did a psychic scan with his radar. "I'm surprised it works in here," he told the others.
"What's the word, Nick?" May asked.
"Apparently they're in Sector B," Nick answered. "We haven't been to B yet."
"I guess we'll have to see for ourselves, then," RiCO replied.
"You took the words right out of my mouth," Sam quipped.
"Then I guess our only option is to split up and make due haste with whom we take," Haruka deduced.
"Except one of us will have to take RiCO," Bridget responded.
"Good point," Melissa stated. "Maybe splitting up isn't the best idea after all..."
"We just came from Sector D, so B would be next," Dawn deduced.
"No question about it," Bridget proclaimed.
"I wonder who's the villain in Sector B," Alex stated.
"Either way, stay on it," Sam proclaimed.
"Will do, Sammy," Clover remarked.
6:32 P.M. – W.O.O.H.P. Datascape, Sector B
Sector B brought another Super Mario Bros. 3 flashback to both Nick and Mat. Everything was jumbo sized.
"Oh, boy," Mat quipped. "The Big Island flashback, except we're not in Hawaii, and in our own version of Mario 3 World 4."
"Your favorite, bro?" Nick asked.
"I'd be lying if I said 'no,' dude," Mat answered.
Nozomi looked and saw another perplexed look on RiCO's face. "I know that look," she stated. "It's not supposed to look like this."
"Exactly," RiCO answered.
"Well, we should fix these anomalies pretty soon," Sam quipped.
"Nothing another flashback world can't fix," Nick added.
A bunch of jumbo-sized creatures made from the blobs didn't faze the spies one bit.
"We may be having a Mario 3 flashback, but nothing like a little 'Super C' to mix things up," Mat quipped.
"My thoughts exactly," Haruka added.
Both Mat and Haruka had their Boomerang Buzzsaw Barrettes and used them. Simultaneously, both got their Wind Tunnel 9000s out to add some oomph to their attacks.
"Come on, guys!" Sam exclaimed, getting out her Sapphire Hologram Pendant, and everyone else followed suit.
"Not so fast!" Lady Dragon remarked, teleporting into view.
She used a gun-like device to keep this said creature from disintegrating, courtesy of RiCO's ammo.
"Didn't see that coming," Clover remarked.
"Allow me," Alex added, using her Laser Lipstick to knock the device out of Lady Dragon's hand.
"Not so fast, spy girl!" Lady Dragon exclaimed.
Without warning, Lady Dragon fired at Haruka and Mat, hitting them both. It didn't stop there because Lady Dragon even fired at Nick and May after the spies were shocked at Mat and Haruka falling to the floor. Both of them hit the floor because of the impact.
"Okay, THAT'S IT!" Sam and Britney exclaimed; Alex was no different.
"You're gonna seriously pay for that!" Alex shouted as she rushed to attack Lumiere. "Not to mention I still owe you some lumps for making me part of your dumb movie prop!"
Lumiere simply laughed and fired a blast at Alex, only for her to slide under it and then leap back up to kick Lumiere in the face, sending him sprawling.
"How's that on you?!" Alex exclaimed.
"Now you answer to US!" Bridget exclaimed at Lady Dragon.
"You'll have to come deeper into Sector B," Lady Dragon sneered, not looking fazed. "If you can get there, that is..."
Another army of blobs came after the twelve spies.
"Did you honestly forget I was here?" RiCO giggled, slamming her hands to the ground and unleashing a shockwave of blue light that eliminated the blobs that were approaching the spies. "Talk about bad memory..."
"You guys okay?" Britney asked as she ran over to help Haruka and Mat to their feet.
"Nothing really bruised but my pride," Haruka admitted.
"Same here," Mat quipped. "Those two are gonna pay for hitting us with a cheap shot..."
"Leave the revengeance to us," May proclaimed as she and Nick rushed in to attack the two villains, forcing them both on the defensive.
Lady Dragon tried to feint around Nick and attack May, but he caught the villainess in his psychic hold and tossed her back into Lumiere.
"Just give it up and spare yourself any more embarrassing beatdowns!" Nick growled.
"And what makes you think we're just going to leave you behind when we've clearly got you cornered?" Lumiere laughed.
Before Nick could berate Lumiere for his cockiness, the answer to his question came in the form of a bright wave of blue light that spread out across the sector, completely eliminating any remaining viruses in the area and changing the sector back to its normal self.
"That's what, you dastardly villains," RiCO proclaimed, having just returned from the signal tower. "Why don't you just skedaddle now?"
"And just know that we're coming for your core virus next!" Nick challenged.
"Ugh, very well," Lady Dragon growled. "But once it's ready, you're going to wish you'd never challenged us."
"They say that every time, too," Sam shot back as the two villains teleported away.
"Sector B is virus-free!" RiCO proclaimed. "But right now, I think we need to get back to that virus tunnel thing and take out the core virus before it can re-infect anything else here. Otherwise, we're just gonna be going in circles!"
Almost on time, Sam's X-Powder beeped, and she flipped it open to receive Jerry's call. "What's the sit-rep, Jer?" Sam asked.
"The new super antivirus has just been completed," Jerry explained. "I just need to install it into RiCO."
"All right, Jerry, lay it on me!" RiCO proclaimed.
Sam raised her X-Powder as a bright golden sphere of light came from its screen, absorbing itself into RiCO's body. The only outward change that the spies could see was a small, star-shaped wristband around her right hand.
"Install complete!" RiCO exclaimed. "Now let's go take down this virus once and for all!"
"Best idea I've heard all day!" Haruka stated.
Thankfully, it didn't take long to get back to the space between Sectors D and F and enter the viral tunnel again, this time hoping that nothing else would distract them from their goal.
"Oh, lord, is the infection getting worse the more we walk through this tunnel?" Alex groaned.
"That can only mean we're getting close," Sam responded.
"Speaking of close, I think I see something over there!" Nick proclaimed, pointing towards another static-covered door just up ahead that slowly opened itself as the spies got closer. "And, like good little megalomaniacs, they're inviting us in."
"Well, time to stomp a virus!" May exclaimed. "Let's end this!"
And so, the spies crossed over into the inner sanctum, a large, circular room covered in monitors and screens with a small pool of static in the very center of the room.
Lady Dragon and Lumiere were standing at the control panel in the southeast of the room, and floating just above the center of the sanctum, connected to the walls by wires and tubes that seemed to be feeding viral material into it, was an imposing robotic creature that perfectly matched the image of the core virus that RiCO had shown them.
"Isn't it magnificent?" Lady Dragon laughed. "The core virus that made all of this possible."
"Naturally, we had to give it a fitting name for its grandeur," Lumiere proclaimed. "With that in mind, we decided to call it... 'Rez'."
"...that's all you could think of?" Mat taunted. "Seriously, get some flash in there for once!"
"And considering you're all here for the big climax, we won't waste anymore time keeping you in suspense," Lumiere cackled. "After all, this is the final act, isn't it? So let's make it a good one!"
"Awaken, Rez!" Lady Dragon proclaimed, slamming a button on the control panel. "Destroy these meddlesome spies!"
The wires and tubes holding Rez in the air all retracted into the walls, and Rez's thrusters began to fire, keeping it aloft (as it didn't have legs, after all). Its beady yellow eyes opened, locking on to the group of thirteen interlopers that it had been tasked with eliminating.
"Get ready, everyone," RiCO proclaimed as Rez slowly floated towards them, staring them down as if contemplating whether or not they were worth it.
After a few seconds, Rez raised its right arm to attack.
"HIT THE DECK!" May screamed, and the spies all dove to the ground to avoid Rez's claw strike.
"Okay, now I'm mad," Nick proclaimed, his psychic aura flaring to life.
"Same here," RiCO replied, an aura of blue light flaring to life around her own body, showing that she was ready to put her new antivirus powers to the ultimate test. "Let's delete this creep!"
Nick and RiCO high-fived each other before facing down Rez as it slowly advanced towards them.
"You sure that's gonna be enough, RiCO?" Mat asked.
"Absolutely," RiCO answered. "I may be an AI hologram to you at W.O.O.H.P., but here, I'm a lot more than that... as you saw earlier."
"Good point," Sam quipped.
"And not as endlessly irritating as GLADIS was," Clover added, remembering back to when Jerry had GLADIS watch over them at their beach house, much to the spies' dismay.
Sam and Alex nodded, knowing what Clover was specifically referring to.
"Makes you wonder if Jerry's really qualified to do things like that around us..." Alex chastised.
"My thoughts exactly," Nick commented.
"I know," Nozomi stated. "As if treating you three like single-digit aged kids was bad enough, that just crossed a bunch of lines, I'd think..."
"There's a fine line with just about everything," Bridget added. "Just like here..."
"Especially with that lunatic joke of a director," Mat added.
As if on cue, a blob creature came into view and transformed itself into a giant Hammer Bros. and fired a hammer directly at the unsuspecting Mat; Marco Lumiere was getting everything on film.
"WATCH OUT!" Sam screamed as she caught the attack out of the corner of her eye.
She dove forward to push Mat out of the way and was successful. Mat didn't even know it until he saw the hammer on the ground and noticed that Sam was breathing in relief.
"Oh, now I see..." Mat grimaced when he saw the hammer. "Thanks, babe."
Mat and Sam exchanged a quick kiss before they got back to action.
"Okay, if these giant douches want a fight, they'll get one!" Sam exclaimed.
"Best words I've heard all day, Sammy," Clover remarked.
"Allow me," RiCO proclaimed and fired her shot at the Hammer Bros. blob and got a direct hit.
The blob immediately shattered into a million pieces.
"Nice shot!" Nick exclaimed.
"I'm getting a 'Super C' feeling here," Mat quipped with a smirk. "You with me, guys?"
"You bet we are, bro," Nick stated first.
Everyone got their Laser Lipsticks and Chapsticks out and made like "Super C" players and fired numerous times. RiCO finished the job off of each and every one until the army had thinned out to just a few left.
"Do you have to worry about being low on ammo, RiCO?" Nozomi asked.
"For my normal antivirus, not really," RiCO responded. "The only one that's limited is my super antivirus, and I'm saving that for the big guy over here."
"Well, in that case, we better not waste too much if that's the case," Melissa quipped.
"My thoughts exactly," Haruka agreed.
"Okay, that's done," Mat stated. "Now we gotta get the bigger problem here."
"That's the one," RiCO stated when the spies got there. "It's Rez!"
The spy team got a look and Rez was a BIG creature!
"Godzilla's got nothing on this guy," Clover commented.
"Tell that to a T-Rex," Bridget quipped. "But that's nothing we can't handle... Sonic Mode, online!"
Bridget lunged forward to attack, forcing Rez to turn around and follow her as best it could.
Nick attempted to follow Rez and make sure it didn't try anything sneaky, only for a field of electricity to blast down from the ceiling as he tried to cross the center of the room.
"I wouldn't be sneaky if I were you," Lady Dragon laughed.
But as Nick looked back to the battle and saw Rez trying to divebomb Bridget, a clever idea formed in his head.
Raising his hand, Nick fired a psychic bolt that ricocheted off of the walls of the arena to strike Rez in the back and turn his attention to him.
Nick simply waved his hand in the universal sign of "bring it", and Rez took the bait and charged towards Nick to attack...
...and ran right into the electric field, shocking it and sending it flying into a nearby wall where it floated there for a while, obviously stunned.
"I knew that would work," Nick laughed as RiCO moved in to attack, using her super antivirus and blasting Rez in the back with a burst of golden light.
"Boom!" RiCO shouted.
Rez spun around after recovering from the blast and spun through the air like a corkscrew to attack RiCO, only for Nick to place himself in front of her and raise a psychic barrier to bounce Rez backwards.
Before RiCO could strike again, Rez unleashed a pair of eye lasers that swept the floor, forcing the spies to move.
Then, Rez opened its shoulder pads to unleash a barrage of missiles towards the spies.
"Oh, that's just bunk!" Haruka shouted.
Nick quickly moved to snatch the missiles in his psychic hold before any of them could explode.
"Here, take 'em back!" Nick shouted, flinging the missiles back into Rez and forcing it into the electric field, thereby stunning it and allowing RiCO to blast it in the back once again.
"All right, we're getting somewhere!" Alex exclaimed.
Suddenly, the electric field shut itself off and Rez flew towards the center platform.
"Did you really think that was all Rez was capable of?" Lumiere laughed. "Because now, it's time for the grand finale!"
Rez began laughing robotically as it channeled its viral energy.
And if the spies thought Rez was huge before, it was now growing in size until it was about as large as the room itself, absolutely towering over everything in the arena.
"I had to open my mouth, didn't I?" Clover groaned.
"Can I count this as rule sixty-one?" May wondered as he readied her anchor.
"Hey, May," Sam wondered. "Any chance you could use the EGT for something besides your anchor here?"
"I think I could do that," May answered. "Anything in mind?" she asked.
"Anything that might topple him in mind," Sam replied. "Our Laser Lipsticks probably don't stand a chance."
"Good point, Sammy," Alex quipped after dodging an attack from Rez.
"We can get hits few and far between," RiCO stated.
"Any weak points, RiCO?" Nick asked.
"There should be one on his chest, but it's being covered by a strong shield program," RiCO quipped. "We'd need to find some way to bring that shield down before I can blast it properly."
"Over there? Okay then," Sam quipped.
"Nick, you heard that?" RiCO called out.
"Loud and clear," Nick replied.
The spies scattered when Rez's now gigantic claw came down, smashing into the floor and causing the arena to rumble.
"Hmmm... I wonder," Nick quipped.
"Got a plan here, Nick?" RiCO asked.
"I'm cookin' something up," Nick replied as he stepped closer to Rez, attempting to bait it into attacking.
Thankfully, Rez took the bait, smashing its claw into the ground again (though Nick dodged away from the strike). This time, a piece of the ceiling dislodged due to the shaking and came down on Rez's head, stunning it and dissolving the center chest plate to reveal its weak spot.
"All over it!" RiCO shouted, firing a sphere of golden light into the weak spot and causing Rez to dip back in subtle pain before recovering and resuming its attack.
This time, Rez opted to sweep his arm across the floor before pounding the ground twice to create shockwaves that the spies had to leap over.
Sam and Mat both fired their lasers at Rez, even if just to grab its attention. Thankfully, it worked, and Rez turned towards them, raising its claw to smash them.
After dodging in two different directions, Rez's claw smashed into the ground, dislodging another piece of the ceiling to crash into its head and reveal its weak spot so that RiCO could blast it.
"How much longer do we have to keep this up?!" Melissa shouted.
"I just need one more good shot to end it," RiCO proclaimed.
Rez opened its eyes to fire much larger lasers that came out a lot faster, striking RiCO in the shoulder and sending her sprawling.
"Okay, now I'm mad," Nick growled, flying up into the air and blasting Rez in the head with a Final Shine Attack while the others helped RiCO to her feet.
"You all right there, RiCO?" Haruka asked.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," RiCO responded. "Nothing really bruised but my pride, right?"
"All right, Rez, let's see how you like this!" May proclaimed, using her Emergency Gadget Transporter to summon an Electromagnetic Curling Iron to her hands. "Open wide, metal mouth!"
Rez attempted another claw strike, only for May to fire the Electromagnetic Curling Iron at Rez, paralyzing it in its spot so that Nick could fire a Final Shine Attack into the ceiling, causing a larger piece of debris to crash down on Rez's head, thus exposing the weak point.
"Looks like that's your shot!" Sam exclaimed. "Finish this thing off, RiCO!"
"With pleasure," RiCO proclaimed, aiming her right hand for Rez and concentrating. Golden light began to flow into her palm as she prepared to strike.
"Rez, what are you doing?!" Lumiere shouted. "Stop lazing about and destroy them!"
But Rez didn't respond, still in its paralyzed state.
Rings of golden data began to spiral around RiCO's hand, and eventually a series of golden data screens opened up around her before absorbing themselves into her.
"Command Line: Full Delete!" RiCO shouted, a massive beam of golden light erupting from her palm and screaming through the air to pierce through Rez's chest cavity and out the other side, blowing a huge hole in the robotic viral creature.
Finally, Rez could take no more, clutching its head in agony before throwing its arms up and spinning around, little green balls of light flooding outwards from its body until it exploded violently, the pieces of its body crashing into the walls of the arena before dissolving into glowing polygons.
All that remained of Rez was its viral core, which RiCO quickly blasted with her normal antivirus program, deleting the viral core and ending Rez once and for all.
"Virus... eliminated," RiCO proclaimed, pausing for dramatic effect.
The spy team looked to see a horrified Lady Dragon and Marco Lumiere at the spies defeating Rez and foiling their plans once again.
"NOOO!" Lady Dragon chastised.
"You practically GUARANTEED that Rez was invincible!" Lumiere chastised back at her.
"That's all you bozos can do now," Haruka smirked.
"No question about it," Clover laughed.
Sam noticed out of the corner of her eye that Lumiere and Lady Dragon tried to teleport away. "Oh, no you don't!" she proclaimed and used her Laser Lipstick.
Sam's shot hit Lady Dragon's teleportation device, which destroyed it.
"Not today, Lumiere!" Alex exclaimed and executed the same action as Sam.
"Let's get outta here anyway!" Lumiere exclaimed.
"Not happening today!" Clover shouted and whipped out her Expandable Cable Bungee Belt. "You can't escape... the cowgirl!"
And with that, Clover's belt lassoed around the both of them. As she reeled them in, Marco Lumiere lost his grip on the film can in his hand.
"NOOO! MY MASTERPIECE!" Lumiere whined.
"I think we can consider this one 'canned' as they call it in show biz!" Dawn laughed, picking up the film can.
"Oh, forget that stupid film of yours!" Lady Dragon chastised.
"For once, she's right, buddy boy!" Mat proclaimed at Lumiere.
"I agree there," Alex added. "You're lucky you don't deal with lawsuits, you two!" she continued to Lumiere AND Lady Dragon.
"No disagreements there," May added.
"Well, we have our villains rounded up," Sam stated. "How do we get home?"
"I can take care of that, agents," Jerry proclaimed from Sam's X-Powder. "Just leave the arena and I can bring you all home."
"Sounds like a plan," Nick replied after encasing Lumiere and Lady Dragon in a psychic bubble. "Let's head home, everyone."
"Gotta say, RiCO, that was one heck of a finishing move!" May giggled.
"True, I didn't have to make it as flashy as it was, but sometimes you want your finishers to have a little 'oomph', RiCO replied. "Plus... I kinda just felt like showing off."
"We've all been there," Bridget laughed.
9:42 P.M. – W.O.O.H.P. Headquarters, Jerry's Office
"Another job well done, spies," Jerry stated.
"Thanks, Jer," Sam replied.
"Lady Dragon and Marco Lumiere have both been thrown in their cells," Jerry continued. "And Marco Lumiere's film has also been disposed of."
"You know, you made a valid point about lawsuits, Alex," Mat commented.
Sam and May nodded in agreement.
"Well, I owe you my thanks, spies," RiCO's voice stated as she came into view as a hologram again. "W.O.O.H.P.'s databases are safe and protected, thanks to you..."
"And you spies definitely deserve a vacation following this mission," Jerry graciously told them.
"No disagreements there," Clover remarked. "I am TOTALLY glad we're back to the real world."
"Well, I know the perfect place for us to go and use this vacay," Sam happily quipped and looped an arm around Mat's shoulders. She even included a kiss on the cheek.
10:15 P.M. – Malibu University, Nick and May's Dormitory
"Oh-ho, you're really going on about that again, huh?" May challenged. Nick and May were back in their dorm room practicing for the tournament, though this time, Alex was with them, as she had also signed up for the tournament.
"Yeah, you know my Sonic is the fastest thing alive!" Nick proclaimed.
"Wow, you two are really getting into this, aren't you?" Alex giggled.
"Yeah, we tend to get pretty hammy when it comes to a Smash Bros. battle, especially since we're going to a tournament," May laughed. "Did I ever tell you that I was the best Smash player in my whole town back in Japan?"
"You also told me that Souji was a bit of a sore loser, too," Nick replied.
"Probably due to the advantage of having actually been to a tournament," Alex responded as Nick and May continued their heated battle.
"Poor Souji had no clue what hit him," May proclaimed.
"Am I interrupting something?" RiCO's voice resounded.
Nick reached out to scoop up his X-Powder and open it up, displaying RiCO's avatar on the screen. "Nothing that can't be paused, thankfully," Nick replied. "What's up, RiCO?"
"I just wanted to thank you guys again for helping me take care of our little virus problem," RiCO proclaimed. "And, honestly... I'm glad you all like me so much more than GLADIS."
"It's safe to say that Jerry learned from that little mistake," Alex stated quite matter-of-factly.
"I think Jerry even told me how much you guys didn't really appreciate the things GLADIS tried to do," RiCO admitted.
"Even if Jerry wanted you to watch over us, we'd probably appreciate it more because you treat us like equals and not kids," May quipped.
"Well, I won't keep you guys from your practice session," RiCO stated. "Good luck out there!"
10:17 P.M. – W.O.O.H.P. Datascape, Sector F
As the video feed disconnected, RiCO couldn't help but smile at the spies' praise of her. She had honestly been worried when Jerry had first created her, knowing the problems that the spies had once had with GLADIS.
But considering how the spies had welcomed her with open arms ever since her first appearance, maybe she had been worried for nothing.
But sometimes she still did. She was a super-advanced artificial intelligence, after all.
"Thank you, everyone," RiCO whispered to herself before preparing to move out. "Well, let's get going, then. This sector isn't gonna police itself, after all."
With that, RiCO set out into the datascape, ready to continue her duty.
Totally Spies: Virus Busters
~The End~
Final Author's Notes from The Blue Time Ranger: And that's number nineteen in the books! Honestly, this one was a lot of fun to write.
For those who didn't get the memo yet (or maybe you just didn't play the game, I dunno), RiCO, W.O.O.H.P.'s new AI assistant as of the end of season one of The New Adventures, is based off of the similarly-named RiCO in the mobile game Mega Man X DiVE, and SHE IS A PRECIOUS BEAN AND I LOVE HER. Also, considering how divisive GLADIS was (they even wrote her out of the show in season five because fans didn't like her), I figured her replacement needed to be one that could work with the spies and not patronize them because she thought she was superior. And thus, RiCO came into being.
Also, see if you can guess what my favorite video game of all time is. A lot of concepts really influenced how this story went, after all.
But back to business. Next time on Totally Spies: The New Adventures, we're getting into some more Motocross madness with a side of alien-capturer and game show host nutball. I promise it'll be a ball, so be ready for our next story, The Anomaly in Anaheim, which will be posted by Mat. So, until next time, have a fantastic day, don't listen to the screeching morons, enjoy this preview of The Anomaly in Anaheim, and we'll see you next mission!
"Hey, this is the stadium where Sam and Mat went for the race, right?" Haruka asked. "Is there any particular reason we're starting our search here?"
"Well, RiCO did say that the kidnappings started in Anaheim," Nozomi responded. "It'd be the most logical first place to look, to see if they left a trail or anything that can discern a pattern to their targets."
"And Sam and Mat did call us when they left, so they must have been snatched on their way back," Dawn stated.
"Gotta admit, this place is pretty swag," May giggled. "They make really cool stadiums for events like these."
"Do you sense anything amiss, Nick?" Alex asked as Nick swept the immediate area with his psychic radar...
...only to swiftly spin around and fire off a Final Shine Attack towards someone in the distance. The figure just barely dodged the blast, revealing herself to be Sagan Hawking, wearing a futuristic battle suit.
"Of course you'd bust out more alien tech," Clover groaned.
"And I figured I'd be meeting you meddlers again somewhere down the road," Sagan laughed. "And look, you've invited a bunch of extra meddlers this time."
"All right, you," Britney growled. "I'm only going to ask you once before we commence with the beatdowns, so answer me now or else: what did you do with Sam and Mat?!"
"Like I'd be foolish enough to give my plans away right at the start," Sagan proclaimed. "Nor would I tell you where I'm keeping all my victims. Rule thirty-one, after all."
"Well, isn't that just too bad," Nick growled, his psychic aura flaring to life around him. "And you didn't answer our question, either. So I guess that means you want us to beat you down."
"Save the cliché villain speech," May proclaimed, summoning her anchor via the Emergency Gadget Transporter. "Let's do what Britney said and commence with the beatdowns!"
To be continued in Totally Spies: The Anomaly in Anaheim...