Somewhere in the vastness of another galaxy, the Odd Squad Space Station was facing dire peril. A corona of strange, unknown energies pulsed around the station, slowly eating away at its hull, threatening everyone on board.

In an effort to save her crew, The Big O had surrendered herself to the villain who had created and cast the deadly field: The insidious Vortrax, an evil scientist who had somehow escaped from the SHMUMBERMAN comic books.

She materialized in her spacesuit within the villain's spaceship. A battalion of robot guards encircled her, blast weapons at the ready.

Vortrax's grotesquely elongated, completely hairless head bobbed in appreciation. "You came. Excellent."

"I'm here," The Big O replied. "Now shut off the termite field like you promised!"

Vortrax made no reaction. "You should know that isn't possible. I cannot risk your people organizing a counter-attack."

"But... You said..."

"That was to get you to surrender. Now we can eliminate you."

The Big O growled under her breath.

Vortrax gestured to his robots. "Eliminate her."

The robots didn't move. Vortrax tried again. "Eliminate her."

Still nothing. Again, with an edge in his voice. "Eliminate her!"

The robots' arms dropped to their sides, their guns falling and clattering on the floor. Vortrax saw the termite ray field around the Odd Squad Space Station dissipate before his monitor went dead.

Vortrax bounded to his controls. "What's going on?"

The Big O smiled grimly. "A device in my suit has been draining the energy from your equipment ever since I arrived. Your weapons won't work now."

"What?" Vortrax checked his control panel. It was nonresponsive.

A computerized voice echoed through the ship. 'WARNING! SHIP DANGEROUSLY LOW ON POWER. LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS SHUTTING DOWN IN FIFTY-TWO SECONDS... FIFTY-ONE SECONDS... FIFTY SECONDS..."

Big O looked at him from inside her spacesuit. "I'd suggest you surrender."

Vortrax's face twisted in fury. "Never. NEVER!" He bolted forward, pressing buttons on his control panel, trying to find something that still worked.

Big O shrugged. "Suit yourself." She pressed her badge inside her spacesuit, signaling her ship. The energy from the space station teleporter shimmered around her. "You should pass out from lack of oxygen in a few seconds. But don't worry. My second in command just informed me via radio a beam will transfer you to the nearest planetary prison colony before you suffer any permanent damage."

Vortrax hissing in rage was the last thing she heard before she vanished and reappeared on her own ship.

Agent Orthon hurried over. "Are you all right, Big O?"

"I... Hold on..." She switched off the energy draining device before removing her helmet. "I'm fine. But something tells me I need to get in touch with our agents back on Earth..."

#

And in an entirely different reality closely linked to our own, Otto, Olive, and the Little O were sipping tomato bisque through straws in an effort to keep the torrents pouring from the rigged sprinklers over their heads from flooding the room they were sealed in.

"Oh wow," Otto moaned. "I never thought I'd say this but I'm getting full!" He made a face. "It's so rich! Why couldn't he have used chicken noodle soup instead?"

"That was undoubtedly Doctor Soup's plan!" Olive moaned. "He specifically chose tomato bisque knowing its very richness would hamper our attempts to consume it all before we drown!"

"I... I wish I could help!" Hugo, the guardian of Doctor Soup's former headquarters, perched on a countertop. "This cursed tomato allergy! It renders my special skill useless!"

"Don't worry, guys!" Little O shouted. "We'll find a way out of this! We gotta! I refuse to go to my grave with soup-stained socks!"

Meanwhile, Doctor Soup and a red-robed figure watched their struggles from afar via a special monitor.

"See, Evil O?" Doctor Soup posed proudly. "I told you I'd be able to stop those two!"

The crimson-garbed figure pondered, black-gloved hands stroking her chin. "I must admit, you're doing better than I expected," she conceded. "I never thought a bad guy with soup cans stuck on his hands was much of a threat..."

"Yes," Doctor Soup hissed, lost in angry reverie. "These cans. These accursed cans! Ever since my Cajun Gumbo trap backfired, resulting in these cans being permanently affixed to my hands, I've longed for vengeance against Shmumberman! And now... Now I have it! Now I have my revenge!"

The masked figure looked at him. "No, you don't."

"What?"

"You're not getting revenge on Shmumberman right now. You're getting revenge on Odd Squad."

"Oh. Well... Good!" He tapped his cans together. "I'm getting revenge on someone! That's a better than average day for me!"

She sighed. "Still... Others are getting dangerously close to discovering the truth behind our elaborate subterfuge."

She pressed a gemstone on the collar around her neck.

"Perhaps it is time I intervened," she said as she blurred and faded away. "Personally..."

#

Olympia and Otis sat on a park bench looking at their notes.

Olympia considered. "Let's go over what we know about the Shmumberman comics people so far."

"I know I want to kill them," Otis observed.

"Likewise," Olympia adjusted her glasses. "But we still need to determine if any of them have any sort of motive for teaming up with the Shmumberman villains to take over the universe."

"None of them do!" Otis exclaimed in exasperation. "Oh, they're all self-centered and egocentric enough to want to take over the universe but none of them would want to work with the villains! At least not these villains!"

"They all seem to hate the villains they didn't create," Olympia contemplated. "In fact, they all seem to actively detest any part of the Shmumberman mythos they didn't make up themselves!"

A light was dawning in Olympia's mind. "So maybe we need to..."

A man in a black and orange striped costume leapt out from behind a tree.

Olympia jumped to her feet, her theory forgotten. "Otis! That's The Detonator!"

They watched as he took a pair of tennis balls from his pocket and clutched them in his hands.

"He has the power to de-stabilize the atoms in anything he touches so that when he throws it at someone, it explodes!"

"Oh," Otis nodded. "Okay..."

The villain struck a pose. "Regards from The Evil O, Odd Squad!"

Otis was confused. "The Evil O? Who...?"

Before he could say anything else, the villain hurled the tennis balls at them.

Without missing a beat, the two agents produced rackets from behind their backs and returned the serve.

The balls hurtled back at the gaudily dressed villain, exploding on impact and knocking him unconscious.

"Well... That was simple." Otis returned the racket behind his back. Olympia did the same with her racket.

"A good thing too, because now we have another mystery to solve: Who is this Evil O?"

Owen came around the corner with several agents. "Yeah, and meanwhile I hafta take this guy off to a holding cell!"

Otis and Olympia walked away as Owen went on talking.

"You two go around getting all the applause, doing all the glamour stuff, while we hardworking maintenance guys hafta come in and mop up after you! Heaven forbid WE get any attention..."

Oxlyn nudged him. "So, we need to use the cuffs on this guy?"

She indicated the unconscious Detonator. Owen looked him over.

"Nah. You guys grab his arms, you other guys get his feet, we'll cart him back to the jump-tubes..."

#

Osmerelda and the heroine Shmumbermaid stood outside the rapidly defrosting and now flooded warehouse watching the three Blizzardesses, all frozen into a single block of ice, being carted away by uniformed guards.

"Yeah," Osmerelda nodded. "Ordinarily, I'd call Odd Squad to collect captured villains. But since I'm just a guest here..."

"Do not concern yourself, Friend Osmerelda!" Shmumbermaid assured her. "The Logistical Oversight Worldwide Fairness Assembled Tactical squad, the high-level government organization I work for in my secret identity as Wilhelmina White, is more than capable of handling the situation."

Osmerelda trembled with excitement. "She called me friend..." Then her badge phone rang and she snapped out of it.

She answered the phone. "Random greeting! And how may... Oh." She listened. "Okay. It's where? We'll be right there! Don't worry! I'm sure it'll be fine!"

She looked to Shmumbermaid. "Do you know where the corner of 44th and Sunset is?"

Shmumbermaid nodded. "I know where everything is. It's one of my super-powers."

"Oh yeah," Osmerelda sighed. "I forgot. But that's where my partners Omar and Orla have found Shmumberman! We gotta get there right away!"

"Then I must change into my optimal form!"

She gestured for Osmerelda to step back. Osmerelda did so.

Shmumbermaid stood, legs apart, arms akimbo. Slowly, she raised her arms over her head and clapped her hands together. A strange whirring sound roared around them as she tapped her forehead, spun in a circle, and shouted the magic word, "Potassium!"

There was a blinding flash of light. When Osmerelda's vision cleared, she saw Shmumbermaid more dazzlingly beautiful than ever wearing a white swimsuit criss-crossed with neon tubes, red opera gloves, matching high-heeled boots, a tiara, and a yellow capelet.

"Wow!"

"Let's go!" She gathered Osmerelda into her arms. "My Sixteenth Sense tells me we need to stop at my secret base and get something before we can meet your friends!"

They took flight, disappearing into the clouds.

#

And in the OSMU Van, Oswald had broken out the Power-Point Presentation material. It's always serious when he breaks out the Power-Point Presentation material.

He placed Diagram No. 37 on the easel. "Now here are the first six doors on the seventeenth floor. As you can see, we had to padlock the door to the Cottage Cheese Room after the incident..."

"Yes," Shmumbra the Mermaid sat in the booth by the microwave sipping a cup of hot water. "Yes. Quite interesting."

"And around this corridor..." He sorted through his pictures and produced the next one. "This is where the xylophones live, and the howler monkeys, and the xylophone-playing howler monkeys... I try to avoid going that way..."

"Yes," Shmumbra sipped her hot water. "Yes. Quite interesting."

"And those are the main doors on that floor. Any questions?"

"Yes," Shmumbra sipped her hot water. "Yes. Quite interesting."

"And over here..." Oswald's badge phone rang. He retracted his pointer and answered it. "Halloo..."

A moment later, he hung up. "That was my partner, Omar."

"Oh, thank Neptune... I mean, why did he call?"

Oswald chose to ignore the slight. "There's some sort of trouble with Orla! We need to get to them fast!"

"Not to worry, good Oswald!"

Oswald looked over and discovered Shmumbra was now a harpy, with enormous, brightly colored wings instead of arms and talons instead of feet. She flapped, flew over, and seized Oswald in her claws.

"I shall use my spell craft to fly through dimensions to take us there!"

Oswald saw them heading straight for the wall. He covered his eyes.

"WAITAMINUTE! Did you ever do this in the comic..."

Then they vanished. A handful of water dropped from where they'd been and splashed on the floor.

#

"...book?"

Oswald and the harpy Shumbra reappeared near the wreckage of the burned out building where Shmumberman and The Bullet were frantically searching for the buried Orla.

"She's gotta be alive!" Omar insisted from the sidelines. "She's gotta! She's survived worse than this!"

Shmumberman raised an eyebrow and a collapsed wall. "Worse than being trapped in a burning building and having it fall on you?"

That got Oswald's attention. "WHAT?"

"She jumped out of the water-field you put us in to fight the Shmumbernaught!" Omar explained to Shmumbra, who had quietly resumed her humanoid form. "Then the whole building collapsed on us!"

"I was able to shield Omar," Shmumberman added. "Perhaps Orla was able to protect herself using the Shmumbernaught robot..."

"Perhaps," The Bullet commented. "But a person can only survive up to two minutes inside a burning building before the heat damages their nasal membranes and lungs. Then there's the threat of smoke inhalation..."

Oswald stood on the edge of the wreckage that concealed his partner, growing paler and paler. Omar went over and put his arm around his distraught pal.

"Hey! Don't worry!" Omar did his best to reassure the trembling Library-Museum person. "Orla's bound to get out of this! You know how tough she is!"

Oswald nodded, trying hard to believe that.

Shmumbra stepped forward. "Perhaps my psychic abilities might be able to help."

She placed her hand to her forehead and concentrated. After a moment's pause, she pointed to a mound of still smouldering brick and masonry some distance from where they'd been digging.

"There!"

The Bullet raced over at super-speed, flinging away debris until he exposed the scorched, dented wreckage of the Shmumbernaught. It lifted its head, made a grinding, whirring sound, then died.

"She must be underneath that thing!" Omar cheered. He turned to Oswald. "Y'see? She's gonna be okay!"

Shmumberman drained a box of pineapple juice. "Time for me to lend a hand!"

Striding forward, he reached down and seized the metal robot, its surface still burning hot.

"BY THE POWER OF SHMUMBER!"

He flipped the inert robot over, revealing a pitifully ragged, burnt bundle almost embedded in the scorched rock underneath..

"Orla...?" Oswald strained to see.

The heroes deliberately did their best to shield the boys from the sight of their friend.

"Tha... Tha... That is Orla... right?" Oswald was crying quietly.

Shmumbra raced over and knelt beside the heroes over the figure.

Omar was in shock. "She's gonna be all right, isn't she?"

Shmumberman cradled the little body in his arms.

Shmumbra looked over at them sadly. "I'm so sorry..."

#

TO BE CONTINUED...