Struggling to stay on her feet, Osmerelda made her way across the extremely slippery, ice-encrusted floor of the warehouse. The imprisoned Shmumbermaid saw her but looked away to avoid alerting the evil villain Blizzardess.

"Yes, Shmumbermaid," the sub-zero siren gloated. "I have you at last!" The heroine strained helplessly, encased up to her neck in a solid block of ice. "You may be Shmumber-Powered, but even you can't survive indefinitely within an iceberg!"

"Th-That's what you think, you c-c-cold-hearted crone!" Shmumbermaid shouted back. "Once I g-get out of this..."

"Ah, but that's the thing!" Blizzardess cackled, a corona of frigid energy forming around her. "One more blast and you'll be completely entombed! Even if you survive, you'll be out of the way for who knows how long!" She raised her hand, energy pulsing around her fingers. "Perhaps you'll escape eventually! Maybe someday in the far, far future, someone will discover you and you'll be chiseled free! And you'll awaken into a new world! A world dominated by evil!"

Osmerelda's sneaker slid out from under her. Pinwheeling frantically, she grabbed a frozen chair to steady herself. After a second or so, she tried taking another step forward.

And the ice cracked under her foot.

It wasn't very loud but it reverberated like a gunshot inside the otherwise silent warehouse. Blizzardess turned and saw her.

"Odd Squad!" She grinned, the only one of them whose breath wasn't visible as steam. "About time you showed up!"

She whirled about and fired her ice-blast at Osmerelda instead. Osmerelda ducked, falling to the floor and sliding across the room. Blizzardess continued to fire at her, missing and leaving icy stalagmites in Osmerelda's wake.

"Hold still, you little..."

Osmerelda slid over to Shmumbermaid, slamming into the block in which the heroine was imprisoned.

"Child! Get out of here! Save yourself!"

"It's okay, ma'am," Osmerelda assured her. "I made a couple phone calls before I came in here! Any second now..."

"You..." The villainess turned to face the Odd Squad agent. "I don't know what game you're trying to pull... But you'll rue the day you crossed Blizzardess!"

"Blizzardess?"

The unfamiliar yet strangely familiar voice came from a ripped-open door on the far side of the room. A pale blue woman wearing a white bikini and thigh-high stiletto-heeled boots strode in, silver lights pulsing around her hand.

"What nonsense are you babbling, you imposter? I'm Blizzardess!"

"No, I am!"

"I am!"

There was a fresh blast of frigid air and a woman with dead white skin and a matching frost-encrusted gown sailed in, riding a sheet of ice which swirled and coiled like a snake.

"Stand aside, both of you! How DARE you presume to take my name! I am the one and only Blizzardess!"

"No, I am!"

"I am!"

While the three ice-villains argued, Osmerelda scrambled to her feet and activated the heating device in her suit.

"What madness is this?" Shmumbermaid was almost as confused as the villains. "Somehow I remember all these women as Blizzardess! But how can that be?"

"Yeah," Osmerelda sighed. "I don't suppose you'd have any way of knowing this, but your continuity's a hot mess right now!" She smiled at the heroine. "But you're still my favorite superhero."

"That's very kind of you," Shmumbermaid smiled back.

"I am Blizzardess! I, Lauren Nichols, who was bathed in the uncanny rays of a thermal cooling unit from an alien spaceship..."

"No! I, Blizzardess, daughter and slayer of King Hoarfrost, ruler of the Lost City of Chillblaine..."

"No! I, Tina West, occasional figure model recruited by an evil scientist for a strange experiment..."

"Just sit tight," Osmerelda assured Shmumbermaid as the block of ice started to melt. "I'll have you out of here in no time!"

#

Across town, a green and silver blur sped through the streets until it came to the still-smouldering wreckage of a just-collapsed building. Police officers and firefighters were working, trying to get the situation under control.

The blur slowed as it approached the destroyed building, becoming a powerfully built white-haired man in a green leotard.

"At last! Though temporarily delayed by a sneak attack from my arch-enemies The Confederacy of Crime, I, The Bullet, have answered the emergency summons sent by Shmumberman on his Shmumber League Signal Device! But... Oscillating ocelots!" He stared at the ruins in dismay. "Am I too late?"

Suddenly, a brick tumbled from the debris. Then another. And another. A collapsed section of wall shifted and slowly rose, lifted on the muscular back of the Fruitlantian Fighter of Evil, the incredible Shmumberman!

He stood, the scorched brick wall sliding off and crashing to the ground.

"BY THE POWER OF SHMUMBER!"

Gasping and coughing, a disheveled Omar climbed out from beneath Shmumberman, the water force-field completely evaporated.

"Oh, man..." He stumbled to safety. "I don't EVER wanna do that again..."

"NO! NO!" An irate man with a cigar and a funny mustache came storming over. "How DARE you survive!" He shouted at Shmumberman. "You weren't supposed to do that!"

Shmumberman exhaled some ash, then turned to look down at the screaming man. "Hello, Mister Crank."

The Bullet's head snapped around. "K. Carlton Crank? The famous yet absurdly corrupt tabloid publisher with a deranged vendetta against Shmumberman?"

"The same! I... Hey, wait a minute..." Crank pondered a second, then shook his head. "Never mind! You have no business still being alive! I spent a fortune having that new Shmumbernaught built! I lured you to this building and set it on fire to create an inescapable deathtrap! And you're not even scratched!" He fumed, puffing on his cigar. "You're deliberately doing all this just to annoy me!"

"Wait a minute..." Shmumberman glared at him. "You arranged all this?"

"Of course!" He sneered. "But you'll never prove it!"

Shmumberman blinked laconically. "Um... You literally just admitted it in public."

Several police officers grabbed K. Carlton Crank. "You need to come with us, sir..."

The media mogul shrieked and bellowed as he was led off to a waiting squad car. "NO! YOU CAN'T ARREST ME! I'M RICH! I'M POWERFUL! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! YOU CAN'T ARREST ME! ARREST HIM INSTEAD! I DEMAND THAT YOU STOP ARRESTING ME! ARREST HIM! ARREST HIM!"

Omar watched quietly. "If only real life were like this."

The Bullet looked around. "He mentioned a Shmumbernaught..."

Shmumberman climbed out of the wreckage. "Yes. We were separated in the blaze. I'd imagine the collapsing building destroyed it..."

Omar nodded. "Yeah, we saw it before. It... Oh no..." His eyes widened and he turned toward the burning wreckage. "ORLA!"

#

Oswald made little whimpering noises as he fled through the van halls, the wails of angry ghosts screaming after him.

A woman's voice echoed through the halls, seeming to come from everywhere at once. "A disobedient child must be chastised! And you shall be chastised severely!"

The evil spirit queen Doctor Persephone wafted through the walls after him, followed by her army of loyal phantasms.

"I tried to be kind with you, child..." Her once honey-sweet voice now dripped with venom. "But I am accustomed to being obeyed!"

She gestured, ectoplasmic tendrils coiling from her fingertips.

"I will wring your neck like a chicken! And once your mortal life is extinguished, your spirit will serve me as one of my minions!"

Oswald ducked, eluding the tendrils and yanking open another door.

A flurry of French toast erupted from inside the room, breaking the malevolent medium's concentration. The tendrils dissolved. The toast passed through Doctor Persephone's ghostly body but she was distracted long enough for Oswald to shinny up another rope ladder.

"Where...? THERE!"

She saw his foot disappear up the rope ladder to the next floor.

"Foolish lad!"

Raising her arms, she ascended straight up through the ceiling to the next floor where she saw a door down the hall close. She flew toward it as her spectral army popped up after her.

She tried the door. It was unlocked. She smiled grimly.

"Terribly foolish lad!" She gestured to her army. "Follow!"

Gathering her shawl around her, she pulled open the door, her spirit servants right behind her. "And now, brat, you are MIIIIIIIIIIIIINE..."

A blinding light shone out from the room, swallowing them before they could react. The only thing capable of destroying ghosts is bright light.

There was a shrill cry and a chorus of howls and shrieks. Then nothing. All the ghosts were gone, including Doctor Persephone.

Oswald emerged from the room he'd ducked into after he'd pulled open the door to the first room and then gently pushed it so it would swing shut.

"Okay..." he gasped. "Okay... That's done..."

He pulled a pair of sunglasses from his jacket pocket and slid them on.

"Spotlight room."

The light from inside the room was blinding, even through the sunglasses. Oswald quickly shut the door again.

"That oughta take care of her for now..."

"True," a friendly voice said. Oswald turned to see Shmumbra the mermaid in her land form smiling at him. "Doctor Persephone will be able to re-construct herself eventually. But it should take many months. Perhaps even years."

"And by that time, we should be safely back on our own world where she's just a comic-book super-villain. Speaking of which," Oswald reached behind his back, produced his box of Shmumber Villain index cards, and handed them to Shmumbra. "I hope they'll do. I was gonna work on them a little more but I got distracted..."

Shmumbra checked the cards. "These are excellent, Oswald. The Queen should be delighted."

"Thanks! But after all," he struck a pose. "I am a former Library-Museum Person..."

"Yes. And perhaps you could show me around this fascinating headquarters while we await the return of your friends..."

#

And on another world, Olympia and Otis were talking with a scraggly-bearded man sitting in a black leather recliner in a dark, depressing wood-paneled den.

"Yeah, I wrote Shmumberman," he said firmly. "Completely reinvented the character." He took a long gulp of beer from a can he had sitting on a pockmarked table next to him. "Got ridda all that fruity, juicy stuff. Made a man of 'im."

"Yeah, we..." Olympia paused suddenly and made a face. "What's that smell?"

The man shrugged. "I dunno. Y'get used to it after awhile."

Otis nudged her. "Am I allowed to ask why he looks like R. Crumb and dresses like a lumberjack on Prom Night?"

"No," Olympia whispered back. Then brightly to the man. "Do you remember anything that might help us with our case?"

"Yeah," the man started sorting through a desk drawer. "I remember a lotta things. Why do you ask?

"Because we..."

The man held up a duck call. "Yeah, this is what I was lookin' for. Ain't seen this since my last trip up to Stuttgart."

He blew the call, which emitted a quacking noise. Otis screamed and covered his ears in panic.

"GAAAAAAAH!"

The man stared. "What the &%$&! is his problem?"

"He... has a thing about ducks..." Olympia tried to calm her partner down.

"Really?" He blew the duck call again. Otis freaked out again.

"AAAAAIIIIGH! URGH!"

"A 'thing' about ducks, eh?"

Smirking, the man blew the duck call again.

"Stop that!" Olympia demanded. "Can't you see you're scaring him?"

"Oh, come on!" The man laughed, blowing the call again. "Who the $%^%! has a 'thing' about ducks? He's obviously faking!"

He blew the call several more times, cackling at Otis' increasing panic.

"Lookit him! He's ridiculous!"

He played a song on his duck call as Olympia steered her partner out the door.

"Well, you know," the man shouted after them, "if your boyfriend can't learn to control himself, he should..."

Olympia whirled around, firing a gadget at the man. He blinked, then shrieked, falling to the ground and covering his head.

"WHAT'S THAT NOISE? WHAT'S THAT NOISE?"

"Your own heartbeat," Olympia whispered.

The man recoiled as if she'd shouted in his ear.

"STOP IT! STOP IT!"

Olympia smirked. "You'll get used to it. And maybe you'll learn something about having sympathy for other people's problems."

She stormed out, slamming the door behind her. The man howled as if a bomb had exploded.

Outside, Otis was pulling himself together. "Olympia, I..."

"Forget it. Let's go." A pause. "Are you all right?"

He looked at her. "You probably shouldn't have done that."

Olympia sighed. "Maybe not. But he deserved it."

They left the building and headed for the nearest tube entrance.

"And I'm pretty sure it'll wear off eventually."

#

"Huh. Interesting..."

Oona perused her copy of THE OFFICIAL SHMUMBERMAN COMPANION while her Oonabots tidied up the lab. She looked up at Owen.

"It says here that Helmut von Glocke built his time-travel machine using data he stole from scientists imprisoned in the Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp. Then he had them killed so they couldn't ever duplicate the work!"

Pivoting her desk-chair, she then did some research on her computer.

"They joined at least forty thousand other people killed in Gross-Rosen!" She shuddered. "It was a forced labor camp. They starved people and literally forced them to work until they dropped dead! All those people..." She turned off the computer. "Now I feel better about him getting eaten by a t-rex!"

"Yeah?" Owen looked over. "You didn't see the security camera footage! I almost couldn't finish my pizza!" He shrugged. "It was Delivery Debbie's, though, so I forced myself. So good..." He smacked his lips at the memory. "And, well, he was a Nazi..."

Oona shook her head.

"So, Orchid," she shifted gears. "How"re Olive and Otto doing in Shmumberman's world?"

"Pretty slow, Sherman," Orchid flipped through the comic. "If we ever get past all the gratuitous cheesecake..."

#

"More cheesecake, Otto?"

"Mmph!" Otto made a thumbs-up gesture and held out his plate. "This is really good, Hugo! I had no idea you were a baker."

"Thanks," Hugo the factory worker turned guardian of the former evil lab of the villainous Doctor Soup which was now the Shmumbertonium storage base, gave Otto the last slice in the pan. "It was my mother's special recipe. When she was struck down by the wicked villain Kabastros, I vowed to devote my life to battling for truth and justice in her name. Then the factory worker job came along and I got sorta sidetracked..."

Sighing with exasperation, Olive turned to Professor Straw, who was busily at work constructing dimensional transport device.

"How's it coming, Professor?"

"Just fine, Olive! I should be finished in a few more minutes!"

"THOSE ARE MINUTES YOU SHALL NOT HAVE, STRAW!"

An image formed in the air, the floating countenance of a sallow skinned, snaggle-toothed little man with a deranged stare.

The Little O gasped. "Doctor Soup!"

"That's right!" The baleful baron of broth hissed. "I have returned! Did you really think you could get away with stealing my floating headquarters and turning it into a force for good?"

Hugo looked at him. "We have so far."

"I'VE BEEN BUSY!" The hologram of Doctor Soup's head snapped. "I had to renew my driver's license and my pet eel was sick and I had to go to my family reunion in Fairfax... But never mind all that! Now I am back! And now I will have my revenge on those who thought they had defeated me!" He looked around the room. "And you other two people. You haven't done anything against me yet but I'm pretty sure you would if you had the chance!"

Little O nodded. "We would."

"There, see? I knew it! I have very good instincts when it comes to these things!"

Professor Straw rolled her eyes. "Well, yes. We're neither evil nor crazy so of course we'd be opposed to your schemes!"

"That's how I knew!" Doctor Soup insisted. "That's how I always know! But now... Now I take my revenge!"

There was a series of bangs and thuds all through the floating headquarters.

"You hear that? That was the sound of every door and window in this place shutting and locking!" Doctor Soup gloated. "You're all trapped now! But that's just phase one of my plan!"

There was a click. Then a thick red liquid began raining down from the ceiling.

"Soup?" Olive exclaimed. "He's going to drown us in soup!"

Hugo caught some of the liquid on his tongue, then spit it out. "And my special skill is useless! It's tomato bisque! I'm allergic!"

"Exactly!" The villain cackled. "As you see, I've done my research! And now, farewell, Odd Squad and friends! Soon you will all drown in tomato bisque! A flavorful and ironic end!"

The hologram vanished.

Otto was looking around. "Well... It's not especially ironic. It's just goofy."

The hologram reappeared. "IT IS SO IRONIC! I SAID IT'S IRONIC SO IT'S IRONIC!"

Then it vanished.

#

And far from Earth in another universe, the Odd Squad space station was still enveloped in a cocoon of energy.

The Big O spoke into the intercom.

"Agent Obie, report! How are things going?"

"Not good, Big O!" A girl's voice answered. "We're only seconds away from hull breach!"

"I told you," the fiend with the elongated head who called himself Vortrax gloated coolly from the monitor screen. "There is no escape from my termite ray!"

Doctor O and the alien agent Orthon exchanged significant looks.

"You will either surrender yourself to me," Vortrax told her, "Or your space station and everyone inside will perish."

"I see." The Big O rose out of her chair and walked across the room. "Then you leave us with no other choice."

She stood and faced the monitor.

"I surrender."

#

TO BE CONTINUED...