Dr. Dred is a Shrinker III
Dr. Dred swatted Toad over the head. 'Don't make so much noise, Toad! We're almost there.'
Toad stopped blowing the whistle. The train passed by the guards with them none the wiser. They easily passed through the chained-up gates.
This was it.
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'Let's go, Frankie!' Drak called from where he and Howler sat in the car. 'You're mad enough to do it!'
'You bet I am!' Frankie reached down and, grunting in effort, tore the tracks away, allowing them to get the car off the table. He threw the bit of track away.
Frankie ran to join his friends as they started the car.
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The train pulled up beside the mountains of gold.
'Success!' Dr. Dred declared. 'Gold! Look at the gooollld!'
'And it's all ours,' Toad said.
Dr. Dred glared at him.
Toad drew his head in. 'C-correction. It's all yours, boss.'
OGRE climbed out of the train cars. Mummy-Man grumbled out a question as he pointed up at the gold.
'How are we going to steal those huge gold ingots, Mummy-Man?' Dr. Dred flicked a switch. 'I'll reverse my microminituriser and show you.' He activated it and Mummy-Man grew to over ten times his natural size. Dr. Dred called up to him. 'Start handing down the gold, Mummy-Man!'
Mummy-Man turned and took an armful of gold ingots. He dropped them in front of Dr. Dred. The evil genius flicked the switch again and the gold shrunk down to a manageable size.
Fly flew over to him. 'You just reduced a fortune to peanuts, Dr. Dred.'
Dred spun around. 'Fool! When we get it back to Dredquarters, I'll return it to full size again.' He turned to the rest of OGRE. 'Don't just stand there! Get the train loaded!'
OGRE worked, loading all the gold they could into the train cars.
Happily, Dr. Dred sat atop a pile of gold. 'I'll the famous the world over for this! I can hardly wait to see tomorrow's headlines!'
Unfortunately, that was the moment another car drove in. Dred winced and made a note to study the powers those three had. He'd thought that dome would keep them in. Evidently, they were a bit more resourceful than he'd thought. Their car stopped and Drak quickly jumped out. Obviously, he was the leader.
'You won't like tomorrow's headlines, Dr. Dred,' he said. 'Because we're putting an end to your contemptuous crime career.' He folded his arms across his chest and looked around. 'Now…you're all here except Mummy-Man. Where's Mummy-Man?'
Mummy-Man was right behind him and, delightfully, announced it by stomping on him.
Is he dead? Tell me he's dead.
But he emerged from under Mummy-Man's foot in his smoke form. 'Ah! There you are, Mummy-Man. It's a good thing I'm a vampire, or you could've broken my back, Jack.'
Vampire? Odd. He seemed quite different from Vampira. Then again, it meant that the Drak Pack had probably been sent by Dracula after he'd gotten the Vampire Overlord out of the way. Dr. Dred waved his microminituriser. 'Enough of this foolishness! Grab them!'
The smoke suddenly flew at him. 'Speaking of grabbing!' Drak turned into a bat and snatched the microminituriser. He flew away even as Dred reached out for his invention.
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Frankie chased after Vampira. 'I hate to apprehend a woman, Vampira, but you asked for it!'
Suddenly she was gone and Frankie found himself tripping over the spider she'd just turned herself into. Before he could recover himself, she began lassoing him up with her webs.
'Stop it, Vampira!' Frankie protested. 'Now, cut that out!'
But she tied him up, weaving her webs like a cocoon from his neck to his feet. 'Of course.' She transformed back into her vampiric form.
'Now you've got me mad!' Frankie ribbed the webbing over his head and dropped it over her, trapping her inside. 'Got you!'
'Oh, yeah?' With a puff of smoke, Vampira transformed into a snake and slithered away.
With a frustrated growl, Frankie chased after her again.
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'Never mind the Drak Pack, you nincompoops!' Dr. Dred yelled. 'Get my microminituriser back!'
Drak almost laughed as he flew away from Fly who, for some reason, had elected to run across the ceiling after him. Why, Drak had no idea. It was a fact that flying, in any form, was a lot faster than running. Drak was actually pulling ahead of him. What concerned him was what was directly in front of him.
'Uh oh.' He took in the giant living mummy coming at him. 'I think I'd better cut Mummy-Man down to size.' He stopped and fired the device.
Mummy-Man shot up, growing further and being shoved right through the ceiling. The force of the bandaged head and shoulders going through the plaster and brick knocked Fly right down to the ground. Drak winced, but he couldn't help but be amused. Still, he had been raised properly – and that included battlefield courtesy.
'Oop. Sorry about that Mummy-Man. I'll switch the switch.' Drak flicked it from grow to shrink. At least now he knew what button to use to return his uncle back to normal. He aimed and Mummy-Man shrunk down again.
Drak flicked the switch back to grow and went looking for his friends. He found Howler first.
Fly had redirection his attention and he and Toad had cornered the werewolf.
'You are outnumbered two-to-one, Howler,' Toad gloated.
'Yes,' Fly hissed.
Howler looked scared. That wasn't surprising. Howler had always been like that. Before those OGRE creeps could jump at him, Drak aimed at Howler and fired. Howler quickly grew back to his normal size. Toad and Fly dived in and landed at his feet. It took the werewolf a moment to realise what'd happened. Then he grinned.
'Oh! Thanks, Drak! I needed that!'
Then he leaned down and scooped Fly and Toad up.
Drak went looking and soon found Frankie, tied up in a web made by Vampira.
'It's a good thing for you that you're a lady, Vampira,' he was saying, 'or I'd—' Drak fired the microminituriser at him and returned him to normal size. Vampira transformed out of spider form and tried to make a run for it, only for Frankie to catch her with a, 'Gotcha!' He then reached over and grabbed Dr. Dred.
Howler had already collected Mummy-Man too.
'Bad things come in little packages, fellows,' Drak said. 'Lock them in the cattle car!'
Frankie and Howler dropped all five members in the cattle car and then Frankie closed the door.
Drak flew off and quickly found what he'd been looking for. 'Us vampires don't reflect in mirrors,' and he certainly didn't in this form, 'but I think I know how Dr. Dred uses this ingenious invention on himself.' He fired at the mirror. The beam bounced off the reflective surface and hit him. He turned back into her normal human-looking form as he returned to full size again. 'There! It worked!'
And he had a great idea for getting Dr. Dred out of their hair.
Drak rushed back and the three of them started about returning to gold to normal size and putting it back.
'Let me out of this cattle car!' Dred bellowed. 'This is an insult to the greatest criminal mind in the world!'
Drak smirked. He couldn't have walked into that any better. He turned to him. 'You do have a great criminal mind, Dr. Dred. This caper was sheer genius. And you should be rewarded for such creativity. Have some gold ingots.' He fed just enough through for them to load onto their person, and they didn't disappoint.
'Thanks, Drak!' Toad said. 'You're all heart!'
Howler and Frankie, apparently, hadn't caught on.
'Hey,' Howler said. 'Has Drak flipped his cape?'
'Maybe that ray re-enlarged everything but his brain,' Frankie suggested.
This was not the time to explain it, so Drak just said to them, 'Relax, fellows. I know what I'm doing.'
'Well, I'm glad one of us knows,' Howler remarked.
Drak flung the last of the gold up and fired the microminituriser at it. That was it. The last of the gold was returned.
'Fools!' Dr. Dred yelled, shaking his fist. 'You'll be leaving a fortune here!'
'We're not leaving, Dr. Dred.' Frankie went over to the phone. 'We're just gonna call the police.' He grabbed the phone and started to dial.
Drak moved over and took the phone from him. 'And explain what we're doing here?' He hung it back up again. 'I've got a better plan.'
Under Drak's instruction, they hooked every car up to each other, excepting the cattle car they'd locked OGRE in.
'With two engines,' Drak explained, 'we can get out of here fast. Do you have your driver's licence, Frankie?'
'My-my-my driver's licence?' Frankie asked. 'Why?'
Drak aimed the microminituriser at him and shrank him down again. 'Because you're the engineer.' He then turned to Howler and shrank him down too.
'Is-is this shrink necessary?' Howler asked.
Drak quickly turned back into a bat and flew back to the mirror. 'Mirror, mirror, on the wall, come on, baby, make me small.' He shrank himself down again.
When he returned, he was glad to see that Frankie had climbed in the front and Howler had jumped in the front of the second train.
Drak flew over to the cattle car. 'Fair's fair, Dr. Dred. I'll give you a chance to catch us.'
'Let's go, Frankie!' Howler called, hopefully having caught on to what Drak was planning.
The train surged forwards. Drak pulled off the hook on the cattle car and flew after them. OGRE gave the chase. Drak landed on the back car of the getaway train and transformed back into his bipedal form, microminituriser firmly in his hand. OGRE ran after them like they could actually outrun a train.
'Catch them!' Dr. Dred hollered. 'Get my minituriser!'
Howler blew his whistle up ahead as they made their way out of the Fort.
'Faster!' Dr. Dred just about screamed. 'Faaaassster!'
'Open up, fellows!' Drak called as they passed the guards and Howler blew the whistle again. 'Make some noise!'
'Stop!' one of the guards called as they ran part.
'Whatever you are, stop!' the other guard called.
The two guards took off running after them.
Drak grinned. Perfect. He looked down at the machine and tinkered with it a bit. 'I wanna be sure I have the ionic polarity set right!' He got it and fired at OGRE.
They immediately grew back into full size.
The train drove under the gate, taking the Drak Pack out and to safety.
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'Drat!' Dr. Dred exclaimed as OGRE skidded to a stop at the gate. 'We're trapped!'
The guards rushed over, glaring.
Dred nervously giggled. 'I can explain everything.'
Suddenly, his pants dropped under the weight of the gold.
Too late, he recognised the trap Drak had set for him.
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'So…'
Violet McGowan watched her superior pace around the room.
'…this…OGRE tried to rob Fort Knox, but they were stopped. Do we have any idea who stopped them?'
'No,' Violet said. 'All I know is that I saw two shrunken trains heading in that general direction that night. And then a criminal organisation consisting of at least two monsters is arrested.'
'Are we sure they're monsters? After all, normal soldiers would hardly be able to handle real monsters.'
'We aren't.'
'Keep an eye on it. And we'll find out who, or what, stopped them.'
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Dracula looked at the headlines. '"Dr. Dred caught red-handed and red-faced in Fort Knox".' He laughed. 'I must congratulate you, Drak Pack. I love it! I love it!' He laughed again before he looked at the screen showing him the three teenage boys. 'And thanks for returning me to my normal size. I hope you have destroyed Dr. Dred's evil invention.'
'Oh, yes, sir,' Frank said. 'It'sa-it'sa-it'sa destroyed all right.'
Dracula nodded in approval. 'Good! Good!'
'Well, actually, not so "good", Big D,' Vince said and he finally noticed what the boys were doing. 'It fell off of the coffee table and shattered before we returned ourselves to full size.'
'Yeah,' Howard said. 'But don't worry, sir. We'll get it together.'
A little annoyed at their carelessness, Dracula decided to brush it off. After all, making mistakes was how people learned. 'Ah! Kids today! They're always trying to "get it together"!'
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In a government office, the ranking agent paced in front of his underlings. 'So, how long were they held in custody?'
'Only a few hours.'
He huffed. 'And how did they escape?'
'Evidently, Dr. Dred built a machine out of things he did have access to and they all left through a hole in the wall that he created.'
The man in charge gave a heavy sigh. 'Did you find out who got them caught?'
'No. But they were grumbling about a group called "the Drak Pack".'
