A.N.— Here is the next chapter! Enjoy! :D

Trixy: I'm not happy with this...

Me: *shrugs* You have little say in the matter. My story. My plot.

Trixy: Yes, but I don't like how the plot is now.

Me: Tough. Anyway, once again, please enjoy!

Chapter 12: Pole Reversal

Blowhole turns and looks at the penguins. "What the—Red One! What are the pen-gu-ins doing out!?" He shouts.

The lobster looks over at them and shrugs. "I don't know, doc. They were in the right place the last time they were checked." He says.

Dr. Blowhole growls a bit in frustration and then looks at Skipper. "Well, Skipper, you are just in time for the unveiling of my newest creation." He evilly chuckles and presses a button on the Segway.

"CHROME CLA—"

"No, no! That's not it." He mutters and presses another one.

"ELECTROMAGNETIC POLE REVERSER."

The dolphin grins viciously with a nod. "There we go; that's the one." He says with glee. "You see, pen-gu-ins, the earth has two poles; north and south. Pole reversal commonly happens over time with very little damage to everyday life besides potentially confused compasses." He rolls his Segway over to a globe and taps it, almost in a loving fashion with his flipper. "But, if it was to be sped up and initiated immediately, the effects could be catastrophic." He chuckles and spins the globe. "I plan to throw the poles into a complete discombobulated mess. First I'll reverse the poles one way, and then the other, and again until I have achieved what I desire!" Komodo clears his throat and Blowhole glances at him. "Well, what we desire." He says.

"This of course would render humans into chaos. It would screw up their technology. They would have no internet, no TVs, no cellular devices working." He grins and looks at the penguins as he pauses the globe. "There will be tidal waves and earthquakes." He chuckles. "Nelson and I will have the entire world begging for our mercy."

The penguins all look at him virtually speechless for a moment, before Marissa breaks the silence. "And you called the invention of yours what again?" She asks.

Blowhole looks weirdly at her. "My Electromagnetic Pole Reverser, why?"

Marissa nods and looks at Trixy. "See? Not everyone names their inventions cool, long names. Some, as exampled here, name things short and blatantly obvious things with maybe a hint of stupid." She says, pinching her flipper in a way to demonstrate a pinch.

Kowalski holds back a snicker. "Maybe a little more than a hint...I mean Reverser? You couldn't come up with a more scientific term than that? Francis, you're losing your touch." He says, after noticing how Marissa is playing for time and distraction. Skipper and Cecelia take this moment of distraction to sneak away from the others and towards the sheeted invention.

"Well, to be honest, I was looking for another word that was on the tip of my tongue…" Blowhole clears his throat. He then glances over and spots Skipper. "Lobsters! Attack!" He commands. The lobsters, looking a little bored by this command, scuttle from their workspaces and start their attack upon the penguins. "I wasn't even finished with my speech yet…" The dolphin mumbles with a frown and then with an annoyed sigh, rolls over to and stops in front of Skipper. "And just what do you think you are doing, Skipper?"

"Distracting you." Skipper shrugs with a grin and leaps at him.

Cecelia glances at them as she crawls under the sheet and takes out a screwdriver and a flashlight from behind her that she had gotten moments ago from Rico before they had jumped down. She shines the light around until she finds the control panel, shimmies up the device to it, unscrews it carefully, and opens it. "My word…" She gasps as she sees not one, but six of Kowalski's power cells. She also sees a manual power switch alongside of the batteries. She reaches for the first cell, and that is when Skipper and Rico manage to ram Blowhole into the side of the invention. It shakes and Cecelia misses the cell and pulls the switch instead as she falls. The switch breaks off in her flipper. "Oh rubidium percarbonate, that's not good…" She gasps as she slides back down the invention. She feels the machine start to vibrate and whirl with life. The sheet falls off the machine on its own accord and lands softly on the floor, revealing Cecelia and her screwdriver. She looks sheepishly there as everyone looks up at her. "Oops…"

Blowhole grins some at her. "No need to feel embarrassed. I should thank you for starting her up for me." He then pushes Skipper aside into the clutches of some lobsters and pulls himself back up onto his Segway. "If you had just let me finish, I could have told you that I replicated Kowalski's power cell for my dear invention. It costs way too much to buy as many car batteries as it would have taken to run it, and even more to have it plugged into an outlet. Six power cells to power my beautiful machine that, as we speak, is churning up the liquid metals of the outer core, which then will forces the inner core to change its direction, causing the poles to reverse." He chuckles. "In other words, game over, pen-gu-ins. There is no way that you can win now."

"Sure there is!" Marissa then exclaims as she recklessly swings from a metal chain and knocks Blowhole off the Segway. "And the word was inverter, wasn't it?!"

Blowhole hits the ground with a growl. "Lobsters!" He calls.

Marissa looks at him and then she looks at the panel and pushes her glasses up. "Ehm, ehm…Which button...Which button..." She presses the orange button.

"MIND JACK-"

"Nope, wrong one…" She mutters and quickly presses the green button.

"SELF-DESTRUCT IN 3 MINUTES."

Marissa gives this some thought. "Well...I guess that would stop it. If Blowhole's calculations are correct, from what I read trying to find that map, it will take at least twenty for the outer core to get stirred up, anyhow. "She shrugs as she jumps down into the lobsters. She ends up taking out one of the lobsters that is holding Skipper and lands on it. Hard. "Owh…"

Skipper manages to use the other lobster's surprise in his advantage and delivers a lovely roundhouse kick to his head. The lobster loses his grip and Skipper is free. "Fall out men!" He orders and waves towards the exit. He then notices that he is missing two of his men. Or rather, one of his men and one of Skippsy's. "Where are the privates?!" They are nowhere in sight, neither are Komodo and his gang. "Hoover Dam." He swears. He then makes a critical decision that they will have to rescue them in a minute. He has to get the rest of the team out of there first. "Kowalski, Marissa, Cecelia, Rico! Let's go!"

"But—!" Cecelia says.

"No buts. My team, out now!" Skipper barks and slides out.

The others slide out also and look at him. "Where are Private and Trixy?"

Skipper takes a breath as he pushes them out to the car. "Kidnapped...On a rescue mission." He sighs. "Should have kept a better eye on them with Komodo around." He takes a deep breath. "Rico, get us some distance while I try to think of where they could have been taken…"

"O'ay." Rico nods and presses the accelerator all the way to the floor.

Marissa silently sits in the back beside Kowalski with little choice. "That was an impressive leap you took in there…" Kowalski says, looking at her. "It seemed a little out of character for you, though…"

Marissa glances at him sideways. "When your life is already on the line, you don't have much to lose. You feel led to throw yourself into risky things…" She says.

Kowalski nods some. "It was a nice jump, nonetheless."

"Thanks…" She then sighs with a small smile and then looks at her phone. "Twenty hours and counting…" She murmurs silently.

Cecelia looks over at them. "I'm sure that we will have plenty of time aftah we rescue my brothah and Trixy." She says with a smile.

"Mmhm…" She mumbles with a small nod. "Sure…" She continues looking silently out the side of the car at the trees.

"We will! I mean, it is only figuring out what snake the shark diabologized and then creating a cure is simple." Cecelia smiles. Marissa doesn't reply and just silently watches the trees. Cecelia can sense some tension from her. She then decides to push her luck and ask something. "Did you two once have a thing going on?" She asks.

"No." Marissa replies shortly. "We have never had a 'thing.' We were friends once. That is it. End of story." She says with some bitterness that Cecelia raises her nonexistent eyebrows at.

Kowalski also looks at her. "And here I thought we had made up in a way earlier…" He mutters.

Cecelia looks at them and clears her throat and looks away from them. She thinks that she knows what the tension is from and smiles a little. 'So, that's what the problem is...' She thinks. 'Interesting…'

Marissa then gets an idea and leans forward towards Skipper. "We need to go to West Park Zoo!" She says.

Skipper glances at her. "What for? Won't that be out of the way and cause delay to rescuing them?"

"Maybe a little, but I know that Trixy keeps tabs on Komodo's whereabouts on a map on her level." The scientist says. "Most likely she will have his closest lairs marked and it will give us a starting place to search for them." She says.

Skipper thinks this over for a moment before nodding at Rico. "Skippsy's HQ, Rico." He then orders.

Somewhat pleased, Marissa leans back into her seat and glances at Cecelia. "And, just to be technical, even if you ARE able to discover what snake breed he diabologized, you'll have to build a diabologizer and diabologize that snake in order to get the venom to make an antivenin." She says with a look. "That alone could take days. So, you both can continue being happy-go-lucky optimists all you want. I am as good as dead, whether you accept it or not." She says and then goes back to silently watching other cars on the road go by.