Those of you who follow my "Jurassic Park: The Unseen Element" story, don't worry: the latest chapter is planned for the next post. Actually, it was supposed to come out today, but I hit a bit of a hiccup and haven't pushed past it yet. Sorry 'bout that. The reason why my fanfiction flow broke in the first place was due to a hard drive issue that made me lose access to a LOT of content, both in progress and written in advance. Anyway, given that this story will be much shorter than Unseen Element, it'd be nice to get it out of the way as fast as possible so that my focus can increase for the other stories (not that I don't enjoy this one).

Anyway, there are a few goofs I made in previous chapters, like mistakenly indicating that Paris was a coastal city, and perhaps suggesting that there is a reasonable abundance of surface power lines in the city (it would seem that most of them are underground in real-Paris, based on what I could find online). Anyway, I've fixed the goofs, according to my knowledge, and the only other change I made that I can think of is that at one point Remy asks if the other rat is an alchemist. She tells him that she is not, but that her unearthly application of chemistry can make it appear to be the case. There's a reason for that, of course, but for now let's just say that she's so good at chemistry that her abilities border on the unrealistic. Of course, suspension of belief due to the fictional context helps a bit :).

Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter 10

Hot Potato

"I gotta hand it to you, Mom: you're stuck pretty good. We'll come back once we've got the rats, K?"

"Sorry, Honey. Our son has a point."

"Let me make this very clear: hubby, son or daughter, I don't care, GET ME OUT IF HERE and I'll GROUND YOU FOR LIFE or DIVORCE YOU!"

"Uh, Mom? Don't you mean 'or'? There should be two 'ors' in that sentence, right?"

"Yeah, Sis. That seemed like a pretty crucial conjunction."

"I am WAY past 'OR'! ... Wait! Kids! COME BACK! ... Uh oh ... Nevermind! I'm sorry! BACK UP! BACK UP!"

Elastigirl's chemical confines were shattered as Dash and Violet hammered through them. Their 'hammer' of choice? Well, in fact it was more like a vehicle - a ball of force field that enveloped the two kids. By her power, Violet levitated above Dash as she sustained the bubble, while he served as its living engine. This was the IncrediBall, and when the kids combined their powers like this, it seemed nothing could stop them short of an Omnidroid.

~((You're welcome, Mom,))~ Dash declared, his voice distorted by the force field around him. ~((Anyway, no time to lose! The rats are heading towards the Eiffel Tower, and they've recruited Bolt the Superdog!))~

"Bolt the super-who-now?" Elastigirl queried.

"You know he's not real, right?" questioned Mr. Incredible.

Apparently deciding that he'd wasted enough time, Dash zipped away and of course, being part of the IncrediBall, Violet was dragged along with him.

"Is it me, or is that thing faster than it was on Nomanisan Island?" asked Mr. Incredible.

"Maybe the kids found a way to improve it," Elastigirl suggested. "Which means they've been practicing," her shoulders drooped in annoyance, "which means they've been disobeying us."

"'Us' being used liberally ..." Mr. Incredible mumbled.

"Wasab- I mean 'Chop Chop' would give both his kidneys to examine your daughter's force field!" Honey Lemon commented without really thinking.

The Incredibles had almost forgotten that Elastigirl's liberation had also freed the Big Hero. Now that they had turned their attention to her, Honey Lemon gave a sheepish smile and took a step back. In response, the supers stepped towards her.

"Um, truce?" squeaked Honey Lemon.

Baymax conveniently dove in and snatched her up, with Hiro, Wasabi and Fred already on board.

Mrs. Incredible rolled her eyes and shrugged before turning to her husband.

"Sling Leap?" she asked.

"I'd be much obliged," Mr. Incredible agreed.

Elastigirl vaulted onto her husband's shoulders in a piggyback position and wrapped her legs around his arms. He leapt clear out of the wrecking yard, landing on a nearby street, but even his incredible leaps would pale in comparison to what he and his wife could do in conjunction. Elastigirl stretched and latched onto the edge of a building. Mr. Incredible made quick steps backwards and his wife to elongated to the point of tautness, forcing him to dig his heels into the ground to keep from letting her retract prematurely.

"Okay, that's enough," Elastigirl declared. "Three ... two ... ONE!"

Mr. Incredible made a small hop and she slung him towards the building with staggering speed. Just as he passed the rooftop, he pounded his legs into the structure and they shot into the heavens with compounded force. Just as it seemed they would skim the clouds, Elastigirl expanded into a hang glider of sorts and they soared above the city. However, it seemed they were a little too high to spot the finer details of the world below, far less see their targets. Perhaps Elastigirl would have to swoop a little lower, she thought.

"Wait a minute ... what's that?" asked Mr. Incredible.

Even before he clarified his question by pointing, Elastigirl had spotted a spark of amber lightning streaking from street to street.

"If I had to guess, I'd say that's 'Bolt'," stated an incredulous Elastigirl.

"Well if that's the case, what's that?" he went on with another point.

A good distance across the city, another stream of electricity shot along a train track, darting in and out of view as the path alternated between the surface and underground. Though unable to stray from the rails for some reason, there was no doubt that it was zeroing in on the yellow flash.

Bolt remembered the first time he had stuck his head out of a moving car's window and opened his mouth, after a little persuasion from Mittens. He would never forget the invigoration of wind racing across his tongue and up his nostrils, bearing its bounty of colourful scents. It was impossible to get tired of such a simple pleasure. However, it was nothing compared the rush of blazing through Paris at over three hundred of miles per hour. Savoury scents and wondrous sights blasted by in a feast of the senses nigh-unimaginable to most except him ... and the rats on his back. Somehow, the lightning dancing off his fur was transferring a fraction of his Speed Force to them, so that they could comprehend and cope with his savage swiftness without ... well, dying. However, they didn't know that, so every time his lightning struck them, they thought they were in mortal peril, and that said nothing about the other, manifold dangers of moving this quickly. All but petrified by his speed, they scarcely managed to cling onto his collar. When he came to an abrupt stop, they did not. It was all they needed to loose their grip and fly away with the momentum.

"PENNY!" Bolt shouted as the rats disappeared into the crowd.

Crowd? Yes, crowd. Apparently thinking that they were at a safe distance from the action, a plethora of people had gathered to watch the news coverage of the unfolding events on a big, building-mounted LED screen. Much to everyone's disappointment, the heroes were on the move, making it very hard for helicopters to keep them on camera. However, their interest was piqued when the cameras captured something new.

"Maybe it's The Flash!" someone suggested.

"The Flash isn't real," another reminded.

"Wait a minute ... it was last spotted coming this way!" an excited teen exclaimed. "How cool is that?"

Bolt cocked his head. 'Cool'? Not the word he would use. He was no expert on city-wide emergency procedures, but he imagined that the humans should at least evacuate to a much farther region of the city. Then again, no one was really in their right mind under the influence of the Omega Aroma.

Unfortunately for him, this heedless gathering blocking the entirety of the road was the reason why Bolt had to stop. Perhaps he could have woven a path through them, but his speed was like a match at the moment of ignition - a blazing flash that was all or nothing. Well, maybe he could learn to simmer down his power given a little time, but he didn't trust himself enough to speed through the crowd without injuring someone. It appeared he would have to find the rats the old-fashioned way.

"Penny! Penny!" Bolt called.

The dog darted among the forest of legs, hoping to catch a familiar scent. No dice. There were simply too many unique human smells, exacerbated by colognes and perfumes. The red rat's fragrance loomed in the midst of it all, but he couldn't quite pinpoint it. He closed his eyes as he focused on the scent, before bumping into a furry chest. Even before catching sight of the obstacle, he could tell by smell that he had encountered another dog. When he opened his eyes, he was forced to look up in order to return the gaze of the German Shepherd towering above him.

A flash of recognition peppered the bigger dog's features before he squinted down at Bolt in scrutinising examination.

"Oh, hi," Bolt began. "My apologies for impeding your path. Would you happen to have seen two rats around here? A red and a blue o-"

"What's your name?" interrupted the German Shepherd.

The smaller canine was momentarily derailed. "Bolt."

"I knew it!" proclaimed the other dog.

Bolt gave the big canine a quizzical stare.

"Do you seriously have no idea who I am?" asked the flabbergasted German Shepherd.

"Uh, should I?" Bolt ventured.

The large dog placed a self-important paw on his chest with a theatrical air.

"I'm the face of Kanine Krunchies!

Star of a classic T.V. series loved by millions!

Saviour of a hundred dalmatians from that dastardly Cruella Deville woman!

Thunderbolt, the One of a Kind Canine Hero!"

Finally, it rang a bell.

"Oh, right. I've heard of you," Bolt stated. "Maybe we can talk later?"

Without waiting for an answer, Bolt trotted away, shouting "PENNY!" Thunderbolt rapidly intercepted him.

"Maybe we can talk now!" the German Shepherd forcefully declared. "I've been around since you were chewin' puppy chow, and you have the audacity to call yourself 'Bolt'!"

"Oh, I see where you're going with this," Bolt began, attempting to remain civil. "Look, it was never my intention to rip you off. I didn't name myself 'Bolt', but in a way we're like brothers. Rhino- I mean, a friend of mine says that my T.V. series is considered a spiritual successor to yours, so-"

"A cheap derivative, that's what it is!" declared Thunderbolt. "Read my lips: I'm. 'One. Of. A. Kind.' You sullied my legacy with your cheesy, super hero theatrics! I didn't need super powers to save one hundred dalmatian puppies!"

Bolt was losing his patience: "Please. I really gotta go. Let's finish this debate on the Twilight Bark, okay? PENNY!"

Surprise, surprise, Thunderbolt continued his tirade nonetheless, but Bolt tried to blank it out with a good measure of success. It was a mental technique he had learned in his television training, allowing him to focus his senses on a specific task - in this case, picking up any clue as to where the rats were. Though sight was of some value here, touch and taste were obviously useless. Smell and hearing would probably be most effective, but nonetheless he focused all six senses. Wait a minute ... sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing: there were five senses, not six. Why on Earth had the number 'six' popped into his head? Perhaps if the world would stop shifting around him, he would be able to think a little more clearly. It seemed that's what he got for harnessing his newfound speed without acclimatising to it first. Strange … if this was motion sickness, then why didn't he feel 'sick'? Bolt closed his eyes and focused on the sensation, and in his mind's eye the shifting feelings began to take unique forms. They were the idle gestures of humans all around; the ripples racing through the air with every sound; the atoms and molecules juddering on the spot within the ground; the winds and the invisible paths that they wound. Everything was moving! Even what stood still was vibrating at its own frequency! This wasn't motion sickness, it was some kind of motion sixth sense!

It occurred to him that if he focused this 'Motion Sixth Sense' on finding the rats, he would be able to pin down their position. He quickly discovered that he could feel the general ambience of everything around him, but it was hard to pick up the location of specific objects unless they moved in some notable way. The faster they moved, the easier it was to track them. Maybe the rats weren't moving, or maybe he simply hadn't locked onto them yet. Wait ... he could feel their little heads turning, bodies slightly swaying! They were standing on a streetlight, looking for him!

"I'm coming, Penny!" Bolt declared, attempting to take off and yet again colliding with Thunderbolt's chest.

"Are you even listening to me?" demanded the German Shepherd. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Bolt sighed, and it was all he could do to keep from exploding. "Okay, you win. I'm a jerk and I've ruined your legacy. Now, if it's all the same to you, please excuse me."

Thunderbolt was temporarily taken aback by Bolt's sudden surrender. However, his surprise quickly turned to disdain.

"Just as I thought," concluded the German Shepherd. "You'll unblinkingly derail a locomotive when you have a screen to hide behind, but in the end you're all bark but no bite. You-"

*( ( (( BARK! )) ) )*

That booming sound surprised even Bolt, and he might have wondered where it came from if he didn't feel it blasting from his own maw. The crowd parted in awe and Thunderbolt's eyes popped as he froze in stunned silence. It seemed Bolt had reached his boiling point and vented it before he had a chance to think. Luckily, he'd instinctively angled his head into the air so as to avoid collateral damage. It seemed he'd even had the presence of mind to narrow his bark so that it didn't fan out and obliterate anyone's head or torso. Still, he would have to work on self control now that he had a thunderstorm in his mouth.

"Heh. I guess I'm all bark," Bolt stated with a sheepish chuckle.

"Point taken," Thunderbolt whimpered, slinking away with his tail between his legs.

"Bolt! Over here!" called Remy as he and his companion climbed down from the streetlight.

The crowd made way as the superdog ran towards them, still abstaining from using his speed for fear of endangering civilians. The moment he had a clear path, he would zip to them and leave the scene with equal rapidity. However, Bolt's Motion Sixth Sense was picking up a figure rushing in with superhuman swiftness.

A disc alight with electric fervour shot between Bolt and the rats, causing the dog to stop short as it split the Earth before him.

"It's GoGo!" shouted an excited member of the crowd.

The canine and rodents looked to see the aforementioned Big Hero skid to a stop atop a train track elevated a short distance above ground. Brimming with electrical power channelled from the track's third rail beneath her, she was every bit as dangerous as she appeared to be.

"Heel, boy!" GoGo commanded as her disc returned to her arm.

Bolt raised an eyebrow and smirked. "What say you, Penny?"

The red rat picked up her cue. "How 'bout zoom z-?"

Again, Bolt's ravenously rapid response cut off her command. With a trail of yellow lightning flying off his tail, he leapt above the crowd and landed on clear road. However, scarcely had he hit the ground before another supercharged disc gouged the street just behind him. Before the Big Hero could launch a fresh attack, Bolt was off like a shot.

GoGo frowned. She'd been fortunate to encounter surface power lines to travel in the past, but they were quite hard to come by in a city where most of the electricity was hidden underground. For the moment, she would have to stick to the train tracks, drawing energy from the third rail. Her regular speed (if you could call it 'regular') simply wasn't enough to contend with the likes of Bolt. However, she'd downloaded a map of the city's train system into her H.U.D. Now that Bolt trailed lightning as he ran, she could use her suit's new, unique sensors to trace his electromagnetic pulses.

"Thank you, MagnetEyes," GoGo muttered.

So long as Bolt was using his speed, she would easily be able to follow his movements. It would only be a matter of time before she traced the dog to a place where the train tracks overlapped with his path.

With burst of lightning, she set off with such swiftness that she almost seemed to vanish.

Bolt gave a growl of frustration quickly absorbed by the whipping wind. He'd lost a lot of time, as well as his bearings. If he didn't get back on track fast, the heroes might converge on him, and he didn't want to discover what it was like when eleven berserk heroes ganged up on one superdog.

The canine rounded a corner and his eyes bulged at what he saw. Wrong turn! Wrong turn!

He attempted to change direction, but mid-turn the object of his concern slammed into his side - the IncrediBall. The impact sent him flying, but he regained his senses enough to hit the side of a building running. The IncrediBall stayed in step with him as he raged from wall to wall, somehow remaining fixed to the faces of the buildings despite the law of gravity. His tactical mind quickly surmised that the IncrediBall wasn't agile enough to follow him if he stayed above ground, so moving across the tops of the buildings was a good way to shake it off his tail.

The dog turned up the wall, reached the roof and leapt to the next, and the next, so on and so forth. Sure, Dash had managed to follow GoGo when she moved in such a way, but Bolt's considerably superior speed made him very difficult to tail. Bolt's lips lifted in a grin as he sighted the Eiffel Tower, but they fell in a frown as he also sighted the Monster Baymax jetting in, carrying most of the Big Hero 6.

Hold on ... what was that underground? According to his his Motion Sixth Sense, it was long ... rolling along a steady path. It took him a fraction of a second to identify it as a subway train.

Okay. Time to try something new.

Bolt streaked down the side of a building just as Fred's flames enveloped the roof, lapping at his tail in brief wave of fire. It occurred to the canine that smashing through the road above the subway would litter the tracks with rubble - which was ideal, if his goal was to cause a catastrophic crash. So, what was the best way to reach the subway?

Vibrate.

That thought popped into his mind with little explanation, like an instinct. The dog was uncertain of the rationale behind the idea. Nonetheless, he reached the stretch of road atop the subway, halted and began to vibrate. Nope, nothing was happening, until his subconscious suggested a specific frequency and he adjusted his vibration to suit.

"Uh, Bolt?" warned the red rat.

He could feel it as much as she saw it: a blast of kinetically charged particles roaring towards him, A.K.A. Fred's fire breath.

The flames swallowed up the spot where Bolt stood and once they cleared, there was nothing in his place. It appeared that the blast had completely incinerated him and the rats, prompting an unbridled scream of horror from Hiro. It took Honey Lemon a few precious moments to calm down the boy enough to point out an underground blip on their H.U.D.s, representing the canine and rats.

"Good thing GoGo linked our heads-ups to her MagnetEyes," Honey Lemon stated. "I don't think my ChemiCal would get a good reading through the ground."

{The canine and rodents' health remains unchanged,} Monster Baymax stated.

"How is that possible?" asked Wasabi. "It's not like they can walk through walls!"

It turned out that's exactly what Bolt could do. Once his vibration frequency reached the sweet spot, he had slipped right through the ground.

"That felt ... really weird ..." the red rat announced.

"Eh, it wasn't that bad, was it?" asked Bolt.

"Uuugh ... *hick*," Remy groaned in queasy discomfort.

"Okay, I stand corrected," Bolt stated. "Hey, if you're gonna hurl, do me a solid, head to the back of the ride, lean out, and go for distance."

Shooting through the subway, Bolt hoped to throw off the heroes by surfacing a good distance off. It seemed like a solid plan, but his hope quickly dulled as he sensed a familiar figure inflamed in electrons and closing in from ahead of him. Half a second later, he could see her coming - GoGo. Just when it seemed the two speedsters would collide, Bolt surged up the wall and onto the ceiling. She leapt, but her hands fell just short as he passed overhead. Having returned to the track, the dog sped away from her, but ... something didn't feel right.

It was then when he realised that he could no longer detect the rats clinging to his back, and focused his sixth sense on GoGo to find her holding them as she raced in the opposite direction. With an irritated shake of the head, he turned on a dime and shot after the Big Hero.

GoGo looked over-shoulder to find the dog closing in. Hmm ... narrow space, electrical power source - perfect. She couldn't have asked for better conditions.

The tunnel was alive with dancing lights as GoGo sent ricocheting, electrified discs back at the dog, who left a trail of zigzagging lightning as he dodged too many close calls for comfort. He was gaining on her, but they were also catching up with something big, long and familiar to his sixth sense. It didn't take a genius to figure out the collateral damage that might occur if they reached it in the heat of battle.

Distracted by the thought of upcoming obstacle, Bolt was a split-second too slow to dodge GoGo's latest attack. The disc collided with his face and he yelped, falling behind and disappearing into the distance.

GoGo smiled in satisfaction before hearing a massive object moving ahead of her. She looked to see a train, but luckily it was heading in the opposite direction. Then her scanners picked up something of greater interest speeding from behind her.

She looked back to see Bolt zooming in with a vengeance, her disc in his mouth. However, as opposed to her white electricity, it was blazing with his amber lightning.

"Fetch!" he commanded.

With that, he hurled the disc with blinding speed and it struck GoGo's arm, causing her to drop the rightly screaming rats. He zipped beneath the rodents and they landed on his back, clinging on. Then he raged ahead of the Big Hero as she struggled to avoid spinning out of control.

GoGo managed to steady herself just in time to see Bolt reach the train, but instead of going around it, he leapt and vibrated right through the ceiling, drawing a confused look from the Big Hero.

"Okay, so he can phase through walls," she commented with an air of sarcasm. "That makes perfect sense. Yup."

The dog popped out of the surface and cut through a few, convoluted little cobblestone roads. Surely that gave him a little breathing space, right? A pair of elastic arms debated his assumption by stretching in and yet again the rats were snatched off his back.

*( ( BOOOM! ) )*

Mr. Incredible landed right in front of him, cracking road. If that wasn't bad enough, Baymax had arrived and apparently decided that ousting Mr. Incredible as his rival was the smartest move at the time. However, Mr. Incredible was ready, thanks to his rapid reaction time. The super man and the mega bot's fists collided with catastrophic results.

*( ( ( KA-BOOOOOM! ) ) )*

At first, the sheer kinetic chaos of the impact overloaded Bolt's Motion Sixth Sense. It took him a brief moment to comprehend what had happened, but when he did, it seemed as though the world had fallen apart. Shattered fragments of road rose skyward like tiny landmasses set to drift in a world without gravity. As absurd as it was, Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl and the Big Heroes, with the exception of GoGo, were clashing upon the flying pieces as if each fragment were their own miniature arena. Clinging to the nearest fragment of street, Bolt accelerated his brain to the point where the world seemed to creep. A quick glance told him that Elastigirl had her hands free. She'd probably dropped the rats in the chaos, and now she was facing off with Honey Lemon. The canine closed his eyes and focused his Motion Sixth sense. Given their small sizes and the many bits of debris, his eyes couldn't weed them out, even if they were in sight. That put the weight of the entire task on his sixth sense, but again so much was going on that it was hard to zero in on a single thing. His mind waded through the confusion, examining every small object that could possibly be a rat. Then, Bolt's eyes shot open.

He had found them.

An explosion of motion and Bolt was on a piece of road beneath the rats who flailed through the air. Remy clutched his collar with one paw and grabbed the other rodent's arm with the other. Scarcely had the rats secured their grips before Bolt blazed his way down the little landmasses and hit the road running.

"Home free, woohoo!" the red rat cheered. "Ain't no way they're gonna follow us soon after that!"

"I sure hope so," Bolt replied. "Um ... by the way, is someone pulling my ear?"

"Yeah, that was me," Remy admitted. "I thought a victory 'toot toot' would be in order, but that makes absolutely no sense in this situation so I'll settle for a triumphant 'HUZZAH!' Wait a minute ... Are those snow flakes? Is it snowing?"

The girl's response was quick and dismissive. "Nope. Nuh uh. No, it's not. Don't tell me."

"Yes it is!" Remy argued. "That suggests pizzazz, and pizzazz suggests Frozone!"

"I said 'don't tell me'!" she snapped.

A sheet of ice spread across the road. Bolt attempted to skid into a turn, but he couldn't get past the skidding part. So, what next? The freezing tsunami heading his way quickly answered that. Good thing Bolt had an answer of his own.

*( ( (( ARF! )) ) )*

The icy wave was blown apart in a blast of mist that filled the streets.

Frozone waited on his building perch, arm outstretched and poised to freeze whatever emerged from the chilly clouds. He knew that the icy sheen glazing the road would make it difficult for Bolt to turn, speedster or no speedster. That left only one direction for the dog to slide in - right into his trap. The moment he caught the Bolt's amber flash emerging from the mist, he would stop this little chase cold. Before long, he saw the lightning, but he didn't expect it to pierce the clouds in twin bolts coming straight at him.

"Whoa!" Frozone yelped.

He dove clear of the lightning and came to rest in a crouch just in time to see Bolt exit the mist, melting a path across the frozen road with the lightning that snaked from his eyes.

Frozone gave a low whistle. He was impressed: this mutt had the tactical skill of a trained super. However, despite his plethora of powers, he was only one dog. It was just a matter of time before that fact came to fore.

Bolt slowed to a halt beside a fountain, under the shelter of trees in a quaint, little park.

"Why are we stopping?" asked the red rat.

Then she noticed Bolt's subtly strained breathing and the way he looked about with uncertainty. Body language alone made it evident that he was tired and confused.

"I'm reviewing our options," he explained. "My head's turned and I have no idea where we are. If we continue, I could well be running in the wrong direction. Reaching high ground would make it easier to spot the Eiffel Tower, but that would give the airborne robot an equally easier job finding us. We could go underground, but you know how well that went the last time. If I run willy nilly, the telltale lightning I give off will help the Big Heroes spot us from the sky."

"So, you're saying we're stuck?" asked Remy.

Bolt hesitated. "I just need a moment to think, that's all."

The dog noticed Frozone's icy column rise into the sky, leaving a path of white hanging in the air that spelled: "TEAM UP?"

Spotting Baymax jetting in the distance, Bolt hid behind a tree and watched as the robot replied with a trail of exhaust in skywriting: "YES".

Bolt's ears and tail fell, weighed down by the hopelessness of the situation.

"I'm sorry, Penny," he apologised, and his body language said the rest. Even in despondency, his posture hardened with resolve. He would run. He would fight. He would push himself to the brink of the impossible, but at the end of the day, he wasn't sure if he was strong enough.

A long, downcast moment passed. Then she removed a pair of virtually identical, colourful chemical berries from her bag and pressed them into Remy's paws with a meaningful look in her eyes. Remy recognised them as resembling the one that would reverse the Omega Aroma, but ... why were there two of them?

"Can you tell the difference between these?" she asked. "It can only be discerned by an exceptional sense of smell, like ours."

He lifted the berries to his snout and sniffed them one at a time. Their scents were weak at best. However, he could not differentiate between them.

"No, they smell exactly the same to me," he stated.

She anxiously bounced on the spot. "The difference is subtle, but you can do it! Try again. Try harder."

He did as she asked, and though he focused every iota of his brain on the task, his second attempt was no more successful than the first.

"I'm sorry," he apologised. "I can't smell the difference. Bolt, what about you?"

He held the berries before the dog's face and the canine took a few sniffs.

"I can't even smell them at all," Bolt stated.

The hope in her eyes died and Remy wished he'd made a better effort.

"It's- it's okay," Remy quickly assured. "Just give me another chance!"

She slowly took back the berries, placing them in the bag once again. "You've done more than I could ever ask of you. Both of you. The heroes want me, not you, and I was hoping you could finish this without me, but the cancelling formula comes in two chemical berries. You would have had to administer them in a very specific order, but since you can't tell the difference between them ... well ... I guess this starts with me and it ends with me."

Bolt felt a tiny weight disappear from his back as the red rat hopped to the ground and away she walked.

"You intend to finish this on your own?" asked the dog. "Penny, we've been over this-"

"I'm not Penny!" she exploded, whirling around at the dog. "Seriously, I cringe every time you call me that!"

Bolt stared, stock-still. It was the closest he came to wincing. On the other hand, Remy was visibly taken aback by her outburst. Then his eyes flitted about as he scoured his mind for her name. It occurred to him that she'd somehow dodged the subject since they met.

"Then what are we supposed to call you?" asked Remy.

Her anger evaporated as her gaze glazed over and she froze. Remy caught the slightest glint in her eyes before she blinked it away.

"You don't have to call me anything," she declared. "If I can help it, you'll never see me again. I'm sorry, I'm not angry at you so much as frustrated with myself. From my earliest memory to the present, every life I touch, I damage or destroy. At first, I thought it was a fluke. Now, it's evidently a constant; like a law of nature. Is it my fault? Yes, yes it must be, but the thing is I have no idea how to break the cycle. Stick by me and I promise you'll regret it. For what it's worth, sorry for all the trouble I caused. So ... anyway, bye. Please don't follow me."

She turned to leave, but Remy darted in front of her.

"If Bolt couldn't evade the heroes, how will you?" he asked.

"We managed to stay ahead of them before," she argued. "I can do it again."

"Barely," countered Remy, "and now that they're working together, what chance do you have?"

She ignored him and continued on, before Remy blocked her once again.

"We're wasting time," she stated, beginning to heat up again. "There's nothing left to say, so please-"

"No," he interrupted. "You're the most incredible rodent I've ever met, but this is bigger than you. None of us is strong enough to do this alone, but if we work together, we won't have to be."

Faster than thought, a blur snatched up the rats and a force field lifted Bolt off the ground.

"Got 'em!" Dash declared.

"Good," responded Violet. "I'll detain Bolt. You take the rats back to Mom and Dad!"

Dash gave a quick salute and was off.

*( ( (( BARK! )) ) )*

Violet grunted as her force field containing Bolt swelled. However, it didn't break, and Bolt took the full force of his own sonic attack as it backfired, leaving him momentarily unconscious.

Suddenly, Violet's brother zipped back onto the scene and tackled Violet to the ground.

"DASH!" she growled in confusion and outrage, wrestling him. "What are you DOING?"

"The blue rat on my head!" Dash exclaimed. "He's controlling me again! Get him off!"

Violet didn't know if she subscribed to that seemingly ridiculous statement, but nonetheless she trapped the rats in a force bubble that scooped them off of Dash's head. It wasn't hard to simultaneously focus her force fields on the rodents and dog, until the canine awoke. When Dash had told her that 'Bolt' had joined the battle royale, she honestly wasn't sure what to believe. Sure, he looked like Bolt, and he was indubitably powerful, but 'Bolt the Superdog' was a fictional character. Perhaps some crazy scientist had created some kind of knockoff. Maybe one of the Big Hero 6 brainiacs was even responsible. After all, the Bolt from television never shed lightning when he ran. However, when she when caught sight of Bolt's intense gaze, she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that, somehow, this was the real deal.

The piercing effect of his eyes escalated as they began to glow amber.

Violet yelped as Bolt unleashed upon the force field a focused stream of narrow, jagged lightning. Needing to concentrate all her energy on containing him, she released the rats. Upon hitting the ground, the red one quickly prepared to throw chemical sphere, only for her and Remy to be interrupted by a charge from Dash. Once they rolled out of the way, the female tossed a Blueberry to Violet's feet and turned her attention to dodging and counterattacking the speedster.

Though Violet had no clue what the fumes from the Blueberry would do, she held her breath as they reached her face, arms outstretched as she fought to contain Bolt.

The dog could sense the energy that composed her force field: the way it raced to the spot where his lightning opposed it. So, she could concentrate her power in specific areas of the barrier? Good to know. He increased his effort and the narrow, electric blast spread into bolts that danced throughout the bubble. Growing in volts by the hundred thousand, the lightning filled the sphere and Violet gnashed her teeth as her arms began to quiver. Her power flickered before she bolstered it with a scream of exertion and it flickered no more. Despite the strain, her resolve was impressive. Whose exhaustion would get the better of them first? Neither she nor he intended to find out. She rapidly shrank the force field in a crushing attack, but his speedy brain processed the danger before it could reach him. It was time for the knockout blow.

*( ( (( ARF! )) ) )*

Bolt's bark shredded the force field and tore grass, soil and all from the ground to the sky in an epic cloud.

The dog slumped in a moment of fatigue before picking up himself and scanning for the rats. They weren't moving, otherwise his sixth sense would have picked them up. If not for the dust cloud, he might have been able to see them, unless his bark had inadvertently blasted them to oblivion. Not a pretty thought.

"Penny? Remy?" asked Bolt.

"We're okay," Remy stated.

The red rat tried to answer, but coughed instead, thanks to the dust. However, the sharp movement of her coughing body combined with the rodents' sounds was enough to help Bolt pinpoint their position. He took a step towards them.

Then he froze, ears up, head turned, eyes peeled.

...

In a flash, he was in front of the rats, planting his feet in the bare soil as the IncrediBall charged from the veil of cloud.

"Okay, let's end this," he muttered in a light growl.

Lowering his head, he was ready to absorb the full force of the IncrediBall with his skull. No matter how hard the hit, he refused to be moved.

It was an age old question: "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?" In the deceptive world of his television series, Bolt was truly indestructible. Sure, you could knock him around if you caught him off guard, but his one weakness, the only thing he had to lose, was his mortal owner, Penny. There was no conceivable way to move him if he refused to be moved, and it seemed many of his real-life powers were similar to their television counterparts (if not superior). He was amazingly tough, to be sure. He also knew that he could experience pain, but it took another lesson from the IncrediBall to drive home the point.

He was not invincible. Not by a long shot.

Thanks for reading!

Here's the list of references and Easter Eggs for this chapter. Can you figure out their sources? If so, review and reveal them!

1) Dash's statement: "That seemed like a pretty crucial conjunction."

2) Thunderbolt (easy one).

3) The Twilight Bark (also a giveaway).

4) Bolt's request: "Hey, if you're gonna hurl, do me a solid, head to the back of the ride, lean out, and go for distance."

5) Remy's explanation: "I thought a victory 'toot toot' would be in order, but that makes absolutely no sense in this situation ..."

6) Remy's encouragement: "... If we work together, we won't have to be."