Jack looks over and sees the Black Shadow henchmen with his little spiked helmet on, and thinks it was just a funny little guy wearing a weird helmet or something. It isn't until everyone else starts running by him, with Jody shouting "LET'S GO!" at him that he remembers who captured Kate, and that that goon is a follower of his. The goon stays behind to rally the rest of the troops as the racers make their way up the street. They get inside the terminal, and head down the main corridor.
"Clash, what terminal are we looking for?", James shouts to the doctor.
"Terminal A432, leaving in eleven minutes. We can still make it on time."
"I'm not worried about making it. If we get there, we'll be sitting ducks on the bus waiting for it to take off. We need to cut it as close as humanly possible, preferably getting on as it's starting to take off", he says as they start passing the A100 platforms. This is a massive spaceport, and even if they don't have to worry about certain security measures, they still need to hurry.
Suddenly, there's a loud thump from behind, and everyone turns around to see Dr. Clash face-planted on the ground, with Gazelle beside him, turning back into his human-shaped form and clutching his shoulder. Turns out he's only rated to carry that much weight at that high of a speed for so long. One of the wheels has given out on him, and he's a bit disoriented about what just happened. Jack's the first one to turn around and help the doctor and the cyborg up, when suddenly the doors to the terminal slam open and a huge wave of horn-headed hooligans swarm in and beeline straight for the racers.
Jack helps everyone up, but now the goons are closing in on them, especially Dr. Clash. He's running for his life now, faster than he's ever ran before, but it might not be enough. The first few goons are right on his tail, forcing his robotic limbs to swat at the henchmen to try and get him away, but to no avail. These goons have the mind-controlling orbs in their grasp, and they could pretty much just throw it from this range. Monique turns around to see how close they are to capturing the racers they've been trying so hard to protect and has to do something. She slows down a little, until she's side-by-side with Clash. The lackie is too fixated on Clash to notice the giant woman falling back toward him. She jumps in the air, spins, and throws a big spin kick at the goon. It connects squarely to the face, not only making him fall over, but making the orb fall onto his own head, forcing a few of the cronies to fall back to try and get this thing off his head before he gets brainwashed into his own faction.
"Oh thank you, Monique. A thousand times, thank you!", he exclaims while breathing like his heart is about to pound out of his chest.
"Don't thank me yet, we've still gotta get out of this terminal, and away from those freaks", she says as she looks back to see a few of the baddies leaping over their fallen comrades to chase down the racers.
"We're still a long way out from A432", Jody says as they pass A210.
"We gotta find a way to slow them down." James surveys the area, and sees what he has around him. He falls back to behind Monique and Clash, so that whatever happens next will be behind all of the other racers. From there, James starts throwing everything that isn't bolted down at the goons, trying to slow down each and every one individually if he has to. He grabs a bag of luggage from a random passerby and hucks it at the closest chaser that he can, putting him on the ground. He picks up a wet floor hologram pad and cracks another one in the face with it as hard as he can, sending a tooth flying. "This isn't working, just fighting one at a time. I wish I had my gear on me", James says, struggling to figure out how to handle them.
"Maybe we can make something", Jody says as she's trying to think of anything that can help them. "Clash, do you know how to make something smoky that can obscure us?"
Upon being asked this, Clash's brain perks up, and even while he's running for his life, he springs to life to give out instructions. "We'll need some aluminum, a powder that can ignite, a heating source, and something to hold it all in."
Everyone looks around for something to build Clash's setup. Zoda grabs the aluminum foil from a random person's sandwich. Mrs. Arrow grabs some makeup from her pocket and dumps it onto the aluminum. James looks over to Jack, and sees him signing a fan's autograph again, mid-run. Once he finishes, James grabs the pen out of his hand ("Hey…"), unscrews it, takes out the ink chamber, and stuffs the aluminum and makeup inside. Then he hands it to Gazelle, who shoots a laser into the tip of the pen, super-heating up the aluminum until it ignites the makeup, and makes thick smoke billow out from the tip. Gazelle holds it behind him, hiding the racers from the goons' sight. Then, Jody takes a janitor's cleaning spray and squirts it all over the tile floor behind her, emptying the slippery fluid on the ground, leaving them all to have to slow down, with some having their feet fly out from underneath them, and hitting the ground with a thud. By the time they're able to regroup, Gazelle throws the smoke device down a hallway leading to a different terminal, giving the goons the slip. "That was my lucky pen…", Jack mutters as the henchmen run off.
"Yea, you're right, it was lucky. Good pen", Jody replies.
Now that the goons are off their tail, they're able to make it to the station with time to spare. Clash looks like he's about to pass out from having to run faster than he ever had in his entire life, with his robotic appendages fanning him furiously. They get in line to get on the bus, but as Zoda tries to get on, a laser barrier kicks on and prevents him from getting onboard. Everyone's confused for a second until the bus pilot points out that that barrier keeps known criminals off the spacebus.
"Oh come on, you guys are still upset over that little incident?", Zoda asks while rolling his eyes.
The bus driver adjusts his glasses to get a good look at him. "Weren't you one of the guys who firebombed Zelnus 4?"
"THAT WAS YEARS AGO! Besides, it was mostly…"
"BLACK SHADOW!", shouts someone on the spacebus. The racers look behind them and see Shadow's goons turning a corner and spotting them. The people on the bus are spectators from the race who saw what Black Shadow did, and they want none of him. Everyone on the bus runs out the emergency exit in the back, including the pilot, leaving them with no one to fly it.
"Everyone, get on quick", James barks out to the racers. Everyone hurries through the airlock, except Zoda, who keeps looking for a way around. Gazelle sees this and bends part of the roof of the airlock upwards. Then, Jack helps lift Jody onto Gazelle's shoulders, while Mrs. Arrow grabs Zoda, and lifts him up so that he can squeeze between the airlock and the laser barrier. The others get back onto the bus just in time as the legion of baddies get to the laser barrier, and are just as stumped on how to get through it as Zoda was. Gazelle bends the airlock back into shape, and locks the door behind them.
Once inside, everyone is finally able to relax in the seats of the bus. James is trying to start the bus up as quickly as he can, but a big transport craft like this takes a little time to start up. Zoda is clutching his chest, unable to process what just happened. He just got saved by the people he wanted to destroy just a few hours earlier. Part of him wants to call them suckers and plot his next plan to ditch these cub scouts in his downtime, but… maybe not. "I really thought we managed to give those clowns the slip in the terminal back there", Gazelle says, wondering how they were tracked down.
Suddenly, Jody comes to a realization. "Oh man, I think I accidentally said which terminal we were going to out loud. That's… that's my fault."
Suddenly, there's a loud banging on the door, and everyone perks up to see the henchmen at their gates. They've torn down the criminal barriers around the multiple airlocks of the bus, and are now pounding on them from all sides, trying to force their way in. "Everyone, guard the doors! I've almost got this thing operational", James yells out. Jody and Monique hold the left side door shut, Jack and Zoda get on the right side together, and Clash and Gazelle (but mostly Gazelle) are at the emergency back door. They're all scratching and clawing at the airlock doors, trying to pry them open, while a few of them are actually beating on the front engine, trying to break the ship, so it can't take off.
"Come on, hurry up you old hunk of junk…" James mutters out as the engines feel like they take an eternity to start up. Finally, just as a couple of fingers are managing to squeeze in between the doors, the engine fires, and the ship lifts off the ground. The airlocks are like little hallways attached to the outside of the ship, so once the ship begins to move away from the platform, the baddies have two options, keep trying to claw into the ship until they get into the vacuum of space, or jump. A couple of the crazy ones stay latched onto the door for as long as they can until finally, they have to jump out and glide back down to the surface in shame.
The black void of space is like a welcome reprieve to them. For the first time in hours, they aren't under threat of being brainwashed and kidnapped. They don't have to stay disguised or out of sight. They can simply fly to their destination without any worries whatsoever.
"Guys, we have to go back", Jack says. "I never bought a ticket."
