The grotesque, giant disembodied head floated in mid-air, pock-marked skin hanging limply from its jowls. Long, dirty hair covered one eye. The other glowed and protruded from its socket.

"That's... That's Melchizedek..." Olympia explained to her partner. "The renegade mutation who wants to take over The Forbidden City..."

"Oh," Otis nodded, swallowing. "That's nice..."

They backed away until Olympia felt the door behind her. She produced a gadget... "Unlockinator!" ...And fired it at the knob, unlocking the door. She tried to pull it open but Professor Mossler on the other side quickly slammed it shut and locked it again. Then he braced himself against the door to keep it shut, babbling incoherent prayers and cuss words.

The monster head hissed and roared.

"FAR HAS MELCHIZEDEK!"

"TRAVELED TO HERE!"

"THIS WORLD IS MINE!"

"YOU WILL FALL!"

Another energy bolt shot from his eye. Otis dodged just in time.

Olympia tried the door a couple more times. Each time, the terrified Professor slammed and locked it again.

"NONONONONONONONONONONONO!" Then choked sobs from the professed Professor.

"Well, great..."

Melchizedek's eye pulsed.

#

Olive stood rooted to the spot, her face pale, her eyes wide, staring at the pie Vendetto The Clown held in his right hand.

"Yeah, well, y'know, I'm kinda sorry I gotta do this, you both seem like nice kids..."

Otto slipped around behind him, looking for an opening and trying to come up with a plan.

"But, y'know, it's all part of this really keen diabolical scheme we got, so I gotta... Well, you know..."

He threw the pie. Unable to suppress a scream, Olive dodged. The pie missed her and splattered on the floor where it bubbled and smoked, burning a hole in the floorboards.

Olive stared at this, then at the clown in shock. Across the room, Professor Straw cringed in terror.

"Ah man..." Olive sighed to herself. "I hate pies... And clowns..."

Vendetto the Clown grimaced at the wasted pie that had reduced a section of the floor to ashes and now dripped viscous goo into the room below them.

"Yeah, that's... that's my own special recipe, that is." He produced another pie from nowhere. "I got lotsa 'em! So, y'know, you're not gonna be goin' anywhere after I get through with you..."

He held up the pie and made ready to hurl it at Olive. Olive searched for something to duck behind.

"Okay now, this's probably gonna hurt ya a lot..."

Suddenly, Otto jumped at the clown from behind. With one hand, he pulled the villain's fright wig down over his eyes.

"Hey! Darn it, don't do that! You aren't s'posed to do that! I can't see nothing's when you do that!"

With his other hand, he tipped the pie out of Vendetto's hands. It splattered and burnt a hole in the floorboards, inches from the clown's foot.

"HEY! That almost hit me! Doggone it, that was my pie! I was gonna use that pie!"

"Oh, cram it, clown!" Otto gave the evil harlequin a hard shove. Vendetto stumbled backwards, his foot sliding on toxic whipped cream, his other foot falling through the hole in the floor.

"YOW!"

The clown's foot was now caught, wedged in the hole. He struggled, unable to free himself.

"Well, I got that to worry about now..."

"That's not all you've got to worry about!" Otto produced a gadget. "Ropeinator!"

A rope appeared, binding Vendetto's arms to his sides.

"Hey!" The now helpless clown struggled. "Darn it! You guys ain't supposed to do this stuff! I'm supposed to catch you!"

Olive glared at him. "Some other time, maybe."

She seized Professor Straw's hand and led her around the edges of the lab out of the reach of the trapped clown.

"Hard to believe he was able to get his foot caught with those big shoes..."

"YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT MY BIG SHOES, DARN IT!"

"Come on!" Otto stood by the door, motioning to them. "Let's get out of here before anything else happens!"

He yanked open the door to reveal Little O who was standing there, just about to knock.

"Yeah!" She smiled up at them. "That'd be my plan too! But... Let's not go to the roof, okay?"

#

"Now dudes and damsels, here we have Shmumberman's personal time travel chamber, created for him by The Future Force themselves when he hooked up with that august crew back in SHMUMBERMAN SHMUMBER-SPECIAL #3..."

Shmumber-Lad was showing the amazed and astonished OSMU agents around the Shmumber Sanctum, the secret headquarters of Shmumberman. The four agents stared in awe at the glowing metal box only a little larger than an old-fashioned telephone booth which Shmumberman used to travel through time for special missions.

"Wow!" Osmerelda gasped. "I remember this from the comics but seeing it in real life..."

"Hey Oswald!" Omar nudged his friend. "It looks kinda like that weird widjit that took you back in time!"

That got a reaction from Osmerelda. "You WENT BACK IN TIME?"

"Aye," Orla nodded. "Some time ago, an accident involving a relic he was examining transported him back to Ancient Judea in the year 1000 BC." She waited out Osmerelda's gasp of amazement, then continued. "He was stranded in the past for nearly three months before we were able to find and rescue him."

"Gosh!" Osmerelda exclaimed. "That must have been scary!"

"Ah, it wasn't so bad!" Oswald assured her. "I was able to get a job in the town square selling Beatles wigs and that gave me enough money to rent a room and buy food..."

Shmumber-Lad and Osmerelda both looked at him in confusion. "Beatles wigs?"

Oswald shrugged. "Yeah. I was surprised too. Apparently, there was a market for them."

Fortunately, just then the sub-aquatic super-heroine Shmumbra returned. "She is ready."

The OSMU agents exchanged looks. "Who is?"

Shmumbra turned and gestured. "This way."

She turned and ascended a staircase half-hidden behind some draperies. The agents shrugged and followed. Shmumber-Lad activated his rocket belt and flew over their heads.

"Whoah!" Oswald exclaimed. "These stairs are slippery!"

"Take care to grasp the handrails firmly," advised Orla, indicating the shiny metallic guardrails on either side of them.

"Huh," pondered Osmerelda. "These look way more modern than the rest of this place. Why is that?"

"Shmumberman installed them himself," Shmumbra explained. "He does not often entertain guests but when he does, he tries to extend every courtesy."

There was a loud gasp from Oswald. "Maybe that's why he put that in too!"

He pointed to a large plexiglas window alongside the stairs that offered a magnificent panoramic view of the sea outside. The agents all paused to gape.

"Wow."

Schools of fish swam by, heading right toward the window and turning en masse at the last second. A squid was visible in the distance, and dolphins played overhead.

"This is like the coolest aquarium ever!" Omar snapped a photo.

The camera flash bounced off the plexiglas window, momentarily blinding the agents. When their vision cleared, a very old woman with a henna rinse, a glittering tiara, a matching scepter, and an elaborate princess gown was smiling at them from the other side of the glass.

"WHOAH!"

"Vasteria!" Osmerelda breathed in awe. "The Prophetress, high priestess and Queen of Shmumber-La!" She bowed and curtsied simultaneously.

"Greetings and felicitations, Odd Squad Mobile Unit," Vasteria's voice intoned softly inside their minds as she tilted her head this way and that, smiling broadly. Her frills from her elaborate gown fluttered in the water. "I apologize for bringing you here so abruptly but it was quite necessary. I must request each of you to perform a task. And each of you must successfully complete your assigned mission if we are to save our beloved multiverse."

#

Another energy blast scorched the wall. Olympia and Otis could still hear Professor Mossler screeching on the other side of the door.

"NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO!"

Olympia looked to her partner. "He's not gonna let us out. What're we gonna do?"

Otis looked back to her. "Let's take care of Melchizedek first," he responded. "Then we'll figure something out."

Olympia nodded. The two turned to face the giant, monstrous floating head.

"YOU WILL FALL!"

"I WILL DESTROY YOU!"

"SURRENDER NOW!"

Instead, the two agents leapt at him, Olympia going low while Otis went high.

"YOU PROLONG YOUR PAIN!"

Olympia slid underneath the head, bounding to her feet behind him.

"YOU ARE DOOMED!"

Otis, meanwhile, grabbed hold of the dangling hair that covered one half of the creature's face.

"YOU... WHAT ARE YOU..."

Simultaneously, Otis yanked the monster head down by the hair while Olympia shoved up at the base of its nonexistent neck. Melchizedek was wrenched off balance. Olympia gave him a hard push, Otis did the same, and he began to spin in place, whirling helplessly like a beach ball in water.

"WHAT... NO!"

Both Otis and Olympia continued to spin the enormous head, tumbling it faster and faster, turning it over and over in mid-air.

"YOU WILL DIE!"

Faster.

"YOU WILL BOTH DIE!"

Blasts shot out in all directions. The agents dodged them and kept spinning.

"YOU WILL DIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE..."

Melchizedek finally dropped to the ground like an overripe apple, too dizzy to even focus.

"I... I WILL CONQUER... I WILL CONQUER..."

Then they turned their attention to the door. Professor Mossler was still bracing himself against it, sobbing and panic-stricken.

"NONONONONONONONONO!"

Olympia zapped the door with the unlockinator again. Then, before the Professor could lock it again, both agents kicked the door open.

"There!" Otis and Olympia emerged into the basement landing by the stairs leading back up to the main floor. "Now we just need to..."

"YOU PUSHED ME!"

Professor Mossler lay on the floor where he'd fallen when Olympia and Otis kicked open the door. He was trembling with outrage.

"YOU PUSHED ME AND KNOCKED ME DOWN! THIS IS A CONCRETE FLOOR! I COULD HAVE DIED!"

The two agents hurried over to help him up. He brushed them away, still raging.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU PUSHED ME LIKE THAT! HOW COULD YOU HAVE DONE THAT? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

"Sir, we..."

"WHAT KIND OF... OF... SCALAWAGS JUST GO AROUND PUSHING PEOPLE DOWN LIKE THAT! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME! YOU IRRESPONSIBLE LITTLE HOOLIGANS, YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME!"

"Sir, we..."

"I WAS ALMOST KILLED! I COULD HAVE HIT MY HEAD AND DIED! AND YOU DON'T EVEN CARE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

Olympia leaned to whisper to her partner, "Does he even realize he locked us in a room with a giant homicidal monster head and refused to let us out?"

Otis shook his head. "I don't think it's that important to him."

"I MIGHT HAVE DIED! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? HOW COULD YOU HAVE BEEN SO INCONSIDERATE?"

"We'd better call headquarters and have them send someone to pick Melchizedek up," Otis observed. "Then..." he sighed wearily, "we gotta go talk to the next one..."

"THAT WAS... THAT WAS JUST RUDE! I MIGHT HAVE BEEN SERIOUSLY INJURED! YOU'RE JUST LUCKY I WASN'T!"

The two agents ducked under the steps and disappeared.

#

A team of security agents arrived several moments later to take Melchizedek into custody.

By that time, he had vanished.

#

"How could you have let them defeat you?"

Still woozy, Melchizedek hung lopsided in mid-air in an elaborate star chamber at the center of a secret headquarters shaped like a tremendous black skull which floated within a force field bubble within an ocean of molten lava inside a volcano on a tropical island somewhere on Shmumber Earth.

"They're just children! Ordinary children! And they defeated you! They defeated all of you!"

Assembled on a horseshoe-shaped dais sat many of the villains Odd Squad had recently encountered. The Hoodoo Hypnotist, Miss Mist, Catfish, Mister Brian and Brice, Barrabas, The Archaeopteryx, Seductra, Vitriol, The Somnambulist, and Vendetto The Clown sat nursing their wounds.

Melchizedek ground his yellow teeth.

"CHILDREN THEY ARE!"

"BUT FAR FROM ORDINARY!"

"BRAVE AND CUNNING AND CLEVER!"

"Ayuh," Vendetto's head bobbed back and forth. "They sure are! Rotten little stinkers too! Why, you know, they made me get my foot stuck in a hole so I..."

"SILENCE!" The hooded figure in the crimson robes standing at the podium in the center of the horseshoe commanded. "I brought you all together to destroy The Odd Squad! And if you're not up to the job, I'll just have to find someone who is!"

The figure gestured, black gloved hands scrolling down a Wikipedia page dedicated to 'Shmumberman Villains.'

"Perhaps The Terror Of The Air... No... Or maybe Gillara The Gila Girl... No..."

She continued scrolling.

"The Tornado Thief? No. Doctor Panzer? No. The Jungle Cobra Queen? Um... Maybe... Or perhaps..."

A thin, vicious smile spread across the villain's masked face.

"Of course... The perfect choice... They will never be able to outwit this one!"

A finger touched a name. The cloaked figure concentrated.

And a bizarre and menacing figure appeared in Odd Squad Headquarters.

#

TO BE CONTINUED...