On Today's Episode: The spies' journey through Forgo Dreams continues as they enter the "blue area" and continue to relive memories of the past, alongside finding more information about the fabled Master Crown that Fecto Forgo apparently covets so much. What is the legend behind this mysterious artifact, and what is the great power hidden inside it that Fecto Forgo wants so badly? And can the spies manage to hold onto enough of the crown's pieces to keep Fecto Forgo from fulfilling its twisted ambitions?
Act 3: Faded Dream of a Psychomeddler
6:34 P.M. – Forgo Dreams
The "Blue Area"
When the spies entered the "blue area", they noticed that, as its name suggested, the entire landscape around them was tinted a slightly-dark navy blue, and the sky above them had a watery texture, almost as if they were underwater even if they actually weren't.
"Is it me, or are these places getting trippier and trippier the further we go?" Dawn wondered.
"That can only mean we're getting somewhere, whatever somewhere is in this place," Bridget quipped.
"Hey, what's that?" Anya asked, pointing to just ahead of them, where what appeared to be a surfboard shack had faded into existence.
"Oh, lordy, I think I remember where that one came from," Clover groaned. "This was that one resort in Australia that Frankie Dude trashed with his insane glacier plan."
Right on cue, the landscape around the spies distorted until it settled on a recreation of that very beachside resort in perfect shape, before Frankie Dude had destroyed it.
"Any sign of a Fruit Fragment around here, RiCO?" Sam asked.
"Nothing's popping up, but if I find anything, you'll be the first to know," RiCO responded.
"It would be nice to go surfing right now, but I guess that'll have to wait until we get back home," Alex sighed as she lightly tapped one of the surfboards. "I really want Nick with me when we do that."
"Then let's keep searching for the way forward so we can actually do that with Nick when he gets back," May quipped.
Alex nodded, determination highlighting her face as the spies and Anya began to explore the surf shack in hopes of finding something that could help them proceed.
"Hopefully there's the next Fruit Fragment here," Anya stated.
Considering this was a surf shack, the spies kept things civil and did not ransack the place.
"One thing's for sure, these boards don't come cheap," Mat commented. "Just like back home in Hawaii."
"You got that right," Blaine remarked.
The spies kept up the searching; Haruka and Clover saw plenty of bikinis they wanted, but they knew now was not the time for a shopping spree.
"I'm not... finding anything," Bridget groaned, even after using the Scanner Watch under the material of the surfboards.
"Let's just hope we don't find out the Fruit Fragment isn't in one of these boards," May replied.
"Tell me about it," Clover quipped.
After what seemed like an hour (but turned out to be only ten minutes), nobody detected that next Fruit Fragment in any of the boards.
"Lucky us... maybe," Britney replied when they reconvened.
"Now what do we do?" Dawn wondered.
Mat looked up at a small screen behind the checkout counter. "One of us is going to do something..." he told the others.
It turned out to be a surf competition, and photos were flashing on the screen. The spies were surprised to see Sam's photo come up, and extra surprised Haruka's photo popped up as well.
"Two of us are!" Alex exclaimed.
Sam and Haruka looked shocked that they got entered in that surf competition without their knowledge.
"That has to be Fecto Forgo's handiwork..." Blaine groaned.
"And why choose us?" Sam chastised.
"My surfing experience is rusty at best," Haruka added.
"And to make matters worse, your heat runs are in under an hour," May told them when she looked at the screen a little longer.
"Take a look at the grand prize, too," Britney added.
It turned out that the grand prize was the next Fruit Fragment.
"Great..." Haruka groaned.
"Well, Chad Reed is leading the Motocross series and he did no testing prior to the start of the series," Mat pointed out.
"No testing at all?" May wondered.
"Yes," Mat insisted. "So, there's still the possibility..."
"Well, Sam, let's do it, then," Haruka remarked.
"I'm starting to wonder something, actually," May quipped as Sam and Haruka prepared for the surfing competition.
"What's up, May?" Alex wondered.
"Well, first off, I'm honestly shocked that Fecto Forgo hasn't shown up to try and annihilate us personally," May responded. "I mean, it's probably got all the power it needs thanks to combining Nick's psychic powers with his own, right?"
"I'm willing to bet that it's got something to do with the Master Crown," Melissa answered. "After all, we've pretty much figured out that Fecto Forgo is searching for its pieces."
"And then there's whatever the heck we're trying to put together with the Fruit Fragments," Dawn quipped. "I'm starting to wonder if that's related..."
As Anya watched Sam and Haruka take on the surfing challenge, she started to think back on the Fruit Fragments, and why they seemed so familiar to her, despite never having seen anything like it before.
Did it have something to do with how she'd found herself alive and well again?
Deciding to think more on that later when they had more to go on, Anya turned back to the 'competition'. Despite Sam and Haruka's relative inexperience with surfing, they were managing to hold their own rather well.
Eventually, Sam and Haruka managed to finish their heat, just barely edging out the other 'competitors', who quickly vanished once the competition was over.
"Guess they were just phantoms, too," Alex quipped.
"You two rocked out there!" Mat exclaimed once Sam and Haruka returned to the 'shore'.
"To be honest, yeah, I think we did all right," Sam admitted.
"And hopefully that'll add to our surfing experience for next time," Haruka quipped. "Now let's go get that Fruit Fragment before..."
Before Haruka could finish her sentence, though, a star-shaped portal opened up near the bubble that was holding the Fruit Fragment.
"Ugh, I should have kept my mouth shut," Haruka groaned.
"I figured it wasn't going to be that easy," Blaine quipped.
After a few seconds, a phantom of Frankie Dude emerged from the portal, only he was carrying some kind of tricked out surfboard and his eyes were purple with blue irises like all of the other phantoms the spies had encountered so far.
"Yup, should have guessed," Haruka sighed.
Phantom Frankie Dude jumped onto his surfboard and started surfing around in midair, actually flying on it before aiming for the spies and rocketing towards them, forcing them to scatter in different directions.
Sam aimed a Cyclone Blast Hairdryer for Phantom Frankie Dude, but he was moving around too fast for her to get a lock on. Anya solved that problem by raising her hands and snatching Phantom Frankie Dude in her psychic grip.
"Much appreciated, Anya!" Alex proclaimed as she leapfrogged off of Clover's shoulders and lashed out to sock Phantom Frankie Dude in the face with a right hook, sending the phantom reeling.
"My turn!" Bridget shouted. "Sonic Mode, online!"
Before Phantom Frankie Dude could even hit the ground, Bridget was already running circles around him, generating kinetic energy with each rotation.
Phantom Frankie Dude attempted to surf his way upwards out of the whirlwind created by Bridget's running, but May had figured he would try that, and flew upwards to bash him in the head with her anchor and send him flying back down. Since she knew that this wasn't the actual Frankie Dude, just a phantom created by Fecto Forgo, she knew she didn't have to hold anything back.
Eventually, Bridget stopped running and snapped her fingers, expelling her gathered energy in the form of a shockwave of emerald electricity that sent Phantom Frankie Dude flying into the nearby surf shack, causing it to collapse on top of him and destroy the phantom, which dissolved into little wisps of violet light soon after.
"And that's how the surfer dude wipes out," Bridget taunted as she reverted to normal.
"Okay, then, let's actually collect that Fruit Fragment before..." Haruka quipped, though she would once again have to eat her own words when a flock of Doomers flew out of another star-shaped portal to snatch the bubble holding the Fruit Fragment and carry it with them into the portal, said portal closing up before the spies could give chase. "...Haruka? Next time, study advice for heroes number two."
"I should have known that was too quick," May sighed. "After all, we just got a Fruit Fragment recently, so why would we just claim another one not even a few minutes later?"
"I'm willing to bet that we're gonna have to beat another one of those phantoms again to get it," Nozomi stated. "The past two times, we've only gotten a Fruit Fragment by defeating a phantom of one of those mutant generals from the Forgotten Land. I'm willing to bet it's the same with the last two fragments."
With that, the spies continued to explore the "blue area" in order to find the way onwards.
Much like how the "red area" seemed to evoke a desert and changed landscapes accordingly, the "blue area" seemed to evoke a water-like aesthetic. This was proven when the area around the spies reshaped itself to resemble Hawaii, more specifically an area around a volcano.
"Oh, wow, isn't that when we had to deal with 'Hephaestus'?" Alex gasped. "Even if he actually turned out to be Jerry in disguise?"
"Yeah, that was the first time that Jerry pulled that 'oh hey this is actually a surprise field test' nonsense on us," Clover quipped. "And it certainly wouldn't be the last, either..."
"I'm just glad that Jerry's finally put that crap behind him," Sam admitted.
"Yeah, this control room is exactly like I remember it," Alex stated as she looked around the volcano's control center, only to then notice something odd in place of the computer monitors. "...or not."
"Hey, that looks like more of those ancient runes we found in the red area," Mat quipped. "Maybe we might learn more about the Master Crown if we check it out."
The spies all climbed the stairways and ladders that led to the main control console so they could check out the runes and get more information.
"Well, spies, I've actually been taking notes on this dimension's writing system since before, so I think I can help you translate this one," RiCO proclaimed from May's X-Powder.
"All right-y, then, do your thing, RiCO," May quipped, holding her X-Powder close to the runes so that RiCO could analyze it.
"Hmmm..." RiCO hummed. "Yes, this appears to be another piece of history related to the Master Crown. It looks like the entire tablet that told the story was broken and split into different pieces."
"What does this one say, RiCO?" Sam asked.
"It mentions a great war that broke out thousands of years ago," RiCO explained. "Something about warring nations all desiring the seemingly limitless power that the Master Crown contains."
"Because of course," Haruka sighed. "People always tend to destroy each other when fighting over artifacts of immense power."
"It goes on to mention that, eventually, one nation actually succeeded in claiming the Master Crown, but after some kind of terrible accident, its ruler shattered the crown and scattered its pieces," RiCO stated.
While RiCO was explaining herself, Anya walked over to the tablet and curiously placed her hand on the runes.
Suddenly, Anya's mind was assaulted by a series of psychic visions. As she tried to make sense of everything streaming into her mind, she could pick out two sentences that stood out...
"No, you mustn't! Do you know what it will do to you?!"
"If this is what I must do to achieve my ambitions, then so be it!"
Anya quickly collapsed to her knees when the visions finally stopped, and Alex was the first to run over and make sure she was okay.
"You all right, Anya?" Alex asked.
"I... I think so," Anya answered. "I just saw something strange..."
Before anyone could ask Anya what she'd seen in her vision, the area suddenly began to rumble and shake.
"Oh, please don't tell me that the volcano's erupting," Nozomi groaned.
"I think the volcano's erupting," Blaine quipped.
"Dang it, Blaine, I said don't tell me that!" Nozomi shouted.
For extra icing on this trouble cake, multiple star-shaped portals opened up around the room, allowing another swarm of Doomers to start circling the spies.
"Oh, great, this just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?!" Bridget exclaimed.
"Apparently whoever it is wasn't happy about Sam and Haruka winning that surf competition," Britney commented.
"At least the heat, anyway," May replied in correction.
"But why choose us without our knowledge?" Clover wondered.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Sam answered.
The spies took on the Doomers since there weren't many other options.
"We better make this quick before this volcano erupts!" Melissa exclaimed.
"Good point," Alex remarked.
"I can shave a lot of time for us," Bridget told everyone. "Sonic Mode, online!"
She kicked up the speed around the big army of Doomers, knocking them around with each move she made.
A large cluster of Doomers attempted to block the only escape route out of the volcano, but Bridget simply used her speed to crash through the cluster, sending Doomers flying every which way.
"Yeah, run those bastards over!" Haruka shouted.
"That DID take a lot less time after all," Mat remarked.
Sam, Clover, and Alex finished the job for Bridget by hurling the big army of Doomers down into the lava.
"That's all she wrote for them," May quipped.
"We all better hurry before we become well-done strips of steak!" Blaine exclaimed.
Clover was already on the stick equipping her jet-pack backpack, and she grabbed Blaine herself.
"Wait up, Clover!" Haruka shouted as everybody else equipped jet-pack backpacks, too.
Everybody managed to make it out of the volcano safely and saw its eruption.
"Nobody detected any sign of the next shard of the crown, did they?" Dawn asked.
"My sensors showed no signs of the sort," RiCO stated from May's X-Powder.
"Phew... good thing," Alex sighed.
"I'll bet though that Sam and Haruka have another surf heat, though..." Mat deduced.
"I don't remember seeing anything other than earlier," May remarked.
"I hope that's the only one we do," Haruka commented.
The spies got back to the shoreline to look for more clues.
7:31 P.M. – Forgo Dreams
The "Blue Area" - Shoreline
"Hold on, guys!" Nozomi told everyone. "Why do the settings look so different?"
It was certainly not the beach area with the surf competition that Sam and Haruka got entered in. Instead, it turned out to be the forest in Saskatchewan, Canada that Sam and Clover remembered saving Alex from with the scary trees. (A/N: Think S2's Nature Nightmare.)
"Oh, great..." Sam groaned. "How're we going to win that next Fruit Fragment now?"
"I'm picking up the next shard of the crown nearby," RiCO told everyone from May's X-Powder. "Be careful, everyone..."
The roots of the trees began to come to life.
"We better think fast, guys!" Sam exclaimed to all the spies.
"Looks like it's time for some pruning," May chuckled as she lunged forward to start attacking the killer trees with her anchor, hoping to keep them away from everyone.
Two large tree branches surrounded Anya, but she projected a bubble around herself to stop the branches before they could grab her.
Bridget, still in Sonic Mode, started speeding around the area to build up kinetic energy while Sam and Clover cut off a pair of intruding branches by throwing a pair of Boomerang Buzzsaw Barrettes.
Alex sprayed a cloud of Ice Queen Perfume around herself as tree branches tried to snatch her up, freezing the branches so that May could shatter them with her anchor.
After enough running, Bridget skidded to a stop in the center of the living trees and snapped her fingers, expelling her gathered kinetic energy as a shockwave of emerald lightning that blasted outwards and reduced the trees to piles of kindling.
"And that's how we de-garden around here," Bridget chuckled.
"Any sign of that crown shard?" Melissa wondered.
"I think I saw something where all those trees used to be," Anya stated, pointing to a light she'd seen over that way.
But just as Clover was about to make a beeline for the shard, she was stopped by May.
"I don't think it's gonna be that easy, Clover," May quipped. "When is it ever that easy on these wacky adventures of ours?"
"...okay, point," Clover conceded as she waited for whatever was about to come out and face them.
And sure enough, a star-shaped portal opened up near where RiCO had detected the shard.
Given the circumstances and the memory they were reliving, the spies expected a phantom version of Lasputin Zero to show up from the portal.
So, providence being what it was, the challenger was someone else entirely.
It was a young woman who appeared to be about their age, with long, light-green hair decorated with flowers, two small tree branches sticking out from her head, light yellow eyes, a very fashionable dark blue and white dress, and carrying a golden apple with vines wrapped around it in her hand.
"...wait, wait, is that..." Dawn gasped.
Indeed, it appeared to be Ceres Fauna, the Guardian of Nature, one of five such Guardians who watched over the major aspects of their multiverse (Civilization, Nature, Time, Space, and Chaos).
Before the spies could react any further, Phantom Fauna's hair shifted to a shade of purplish-black, her dress became shades of black and red, her eyes became the familiar purple with blue irises, and her golden apple turned into a dark purple poison apple with thorny vines around it.
"I'm shocked it wasn't that Zero guy," Clover admitted.
"Maybe because the last time we revisited this place, we had to deal with a brainwashed Fauna, remember?" Britney quipped, recalling when Boogie Gus had used the Genesis Wave to rewrite reality.
Phantom Fauna didn't give the spies any further time to reminisce, though, raising her apple and causing razor-sharp, thorny vines to sprout all around the spies.
Clover used her Platinum Credit Card to slice the ones near her apart while Alex sprayed more Ice Queen Perfume to freeze the vines near her.
While the others were dodging more vines, Phantom Fauna stomped her foot down, causing the ground underneath everyone to start cracking along the line where her foot hit the ground. The spies all took to the air for safety, and were glad they did when more thorns erupted briefly from the cracks before retreating as the ground reformed itself.
"You doing okay over there, Anya?" May asked. "I know you just learned how to fly, so..."
"I'm okay," Anya answered.
Almost instantly after she'd said that, a vine burst from the ground and wrapped itself around Anya's waist, pulling her down to the ground.
"Oh, don't even think about it!" Alex exclaimed, darting back down to the ground and using her own Boomerang Buzzsaw Barrette to sever the vine holding Anya before throwing another one towards Phantom Fauna to distract her.
This allowed May to send Phantom Fauna sprawling with an anchor strike to her back, though Phantom Fauna quickly jumped back to her feet and raised her apple, causing a large tree to sprout almost instantly in the middle of the battlefield.
Before the spies could question what that was all about, the tree suddenly started growing gigantic apples on its branches, apples that just as quickly fell off the tree only to explode violently when they hit the ground.
These apple bombs kept the spies on the move so they wouldn't get caught up in the explosions, and during a lull in the dropping apples, Britney fired an Electromagnetic Curling Iron while May threw a pair of Incendiary Earrings, both gadgets flooring Phantom Fauna.
"We need to land a knockout quickly before this gets out of hand!" Sam exclaimed.
"I think I have just the idea," Alex giggled.
"Ooh, I like the way you think, Alex," Clover laughed. "Let's put 'em together!"
Bridget began speeding around Phantom Fauna to distract her while the others did their thing.
Sam started first, producing an Electromagnetic Curling Iron and tossing it to Britney. Alex followed up with a Laser Lipstick and a Cyclone Blast Hairdryer. Britney connected the Laser Lipstick right above the barrel of the Electromagnetic Curling Iron, and the Cyclone Blast Hairdryer on top of the ECM, just behind the control panel. Clover finished by throwing Britney a Helicopter Hand Fan and a pair of wings from a spare Jetpack Backpack. Britney attached the Helicopter Hand Fan to the underside of the ECM's barrel, then placed the wings on either side of the ECM.
The combination weapon now complete, Sam, Alex, and Clover joined Britney to hold the weapon, Sam and Alex holding the jetpack wings, Clover grasping the side handle and Britney holding the main handle, her finger on the firing trigger.
"Woooooow," Anya gasped.
"I don't think Anya's ever seen us use the Vortex Blaster, has she?" Alex wondered.
"Guess she's gonna see it now," Clover quipped. "Let's blast this illusion clean off the map, ladies!"
"FIRE!" the four spies shouted together as Britney pulled the firing trigger, Bridget dashing away so she didn't get caught in the blast.
The blades of the Helicopter Hand Fan extended outward and started spinning rapidly. Britney pulled the trigger again, and the Electromagnetic Curling Iron, the Laser Lipstick, and the Cyclone Blast Hairdryer all fired their payload into the spinning blades. Two seconds later, the Vortex Blaster unleashed a massive four-way blast consisting of a large electromagnetic beam surrounded by a spiraling wind blast and a barrage of laser bolts.
The blast screamed through the air and collided with Phantom Fauna before exploding in spectacular fashion, sending her flying backwards into a regular tree before collapsing to her knees and exploding into wisps of violet light.
When Phantom Fauna had disappeared, a glow caught the spies' eye, and right where Phantom Fauna had initially appeared was another shard of the Master Crown. Haruka walked over to pocket the piece and slip it into her Jetpack Backpack with the other two pieces they'd already collected so far.
"All right, that should hopefully be that," Haruka quipped. "How about we keep on moving, then?"
"Sounds like a plan to me," Nozomi chuckled as the spies left the 'forest' and continued to make their way through the "blue area".
At one point, the path ahead was blocked by a carnival-esque target game, but Anya was able to knock all of the targets down, opening the way onward.
"Does anyone else hope we're that much closer to finding Nick?" Alex wondered.
"It seems like all we can do is hope right now," Melissa admitted.
"Hey, we'll find him," May quipped. "We've always come through when it counts, right?"
"Well said, May," Nozomi replied.
As the spies continued searching the shoreline-like area, they eventually came across another piece of the tablet that depicted the history of the Master Crown.
"What's this one say, RiCO?" May asked as she held up her X-Powder so that RiCO could analyze the runes.
It took about twenty seconds for RiCO to finish decoding and analyzing the translation of the runes, but when she was finished, she gasped in shock.
"...oh, who thought that sounded any sort of good?" Mat stated.
"That's exactly what I thought, Mat," RiCO admitted. "This part of the tablet... it tells the reason why the kingdom's rulers shattered the crown."
"Well, don't keep us in suspense, RiCO, what's the deal with the crown?" Melissa proclaimed.
"I'm sure you all know that the crown grants its wearer immense power, right?" RiCO responded. "Well, there's apparently a price for that power. According to the runes, the Master Crown grants great power to whoever wears it... but it also grants power to the darkness in their heart."
The spies all gasped in shock at this bombshell of a revelation.
"The tablet goes on to say that the Master Crown's great power twisted the mind and soul of the kingdom's ruler, and caused him to perform some... let's just call 'em 'morally questionable' actions," RiCO explained. "It was only after the ruler's younger sister managed to take the crown off of him that he was snapped back to his senses. He said that it felt like the crown was trying to swallow his soul whole."
"...that must be why Fecto Forgo wants the Master Crown, then," Alex stated. "And why it's trying to take over Nick's body! That thing wants to use the crown to destroy Nick's soul and leave him as just an empty husk so it can take over!"
"Wait, wait, so, if the crown's a problem, what should we do with the shards we have?" Haruka wondered.
"Thankfully, that won't be a problem, Haruka," RiCO answered. "The runes go on to say that the crown's power is useless if it's in pieces, which is why he shattered it and scattered the pieces across this dimension. Apparently, the crown can only do its thing if someone actually wears it."
"So as long as we have even a few pieces, we still have a chance to get Nick back," Melissa stated.
"Well, then, what are we waiting for? We have to hurry!" Anya exclaimed as she started running down the nearby pathway, the spies following close behind.
"No doubt we do," Bridget emphasized.
"Guess we can't count on this mission wrapping up in the next few minutes," Clover groaned.
"Hopefully that next piece is here soon," Mat remarked.
"I know," Melissa added, fearing for Nick's safety and well-being.
"Somehow, I feel another mission callback is on the horizon, too," Sam told the others.
"I don't doubt that," Britney commented.
Sam then got out her X-Powder to call RiCO. "RiCO, is the next piece close by?"
"I'm sensing something up ahead," RiCO replied. "No turns, and you're all good."
The spies moved forward while RiCO used her pinging method for the Fruit Fragments.
8:11 P.M. – Forgo Dreams
The "Blue Area" – Somewhere Above the Skies
"WHAT THE HECK?!" Clover exclaimed when they started dropping like rocks.
Everybody thought quickly and equipped their Jet Pack Backpacks, but Mat happened to catch Britney briefly.
"How many of us saw THAT coming?" Haruka sighed in relief.
Nobody dared raise their hands.
"No doubt this is another callback," Sam quipped. "The only question is... which one is this?"
After looking at the surroundings and a jet nearby, Sam was immediately able to determine that callback.
"Kandinsky!" Sam exclaimed, recognizing the green-colored jet.
"Crapbaskets... it had to be that one!" Clover groaned.
"That one where he stole all those paintings!" Alex proclaimed.
"And we dealt with all the illusions," Sam added.
"Looks like we've got our work cut out for us," Nozomi stated upon realizing the circumstances now.
"No doubt," Clover stated.
"But we took him on and won," Alex pointed out.
"This'll be much different though," Melissa quipped.
The spies got on board and looked for Kandinsky, or whoever was piloting the jet.
"What the heck?!" May exclaimed.
"What's up, May?" Sam wondered. "Who's piloting this thing?"
"That's... that's exactly the problem," May quipped, pointing to the vacant pilot's chair. "There is nobody piloting it!"
"Wait, there's nobody piloting this thing?!" Dawn gasped. "Then how are we flying on it? Is it on auto-pilot or something?"
"To be fair, not everything in this twisted place is supposed to make total sense," Bridget quipped. "Remember, this realm is being shaped by Fecto Forgo's psychic powers, drawing on Nick's memories. Not every little thing is going to conform to logic, especially given what we're dealing with."
"Yeah, that's fair," Britney replied.
"I'm not detecting anyone else on the plane, so maybe we should grab the crown shard and bail before something else decides to make it presence known?" Alex stated.
Thankfully, the crown shard was floating just above the plane's control panel, allowing Haruka to grab it and stuff it in her Jetpack Backpack so the spies could bail out of the plane, equipping Padded Shoulder Parasails so they could glide safely down to the "shoreline" and conserve their Jetpack Backpack Fuel. Even though they had refills, they wanted to make sure they could actually use them to fly when it was clearly needed.
When the spies landed, almost as if reacting to what they had just been through, a star-shaped portal opened on the other end of the shoreline, and out stepped the Great Kandinsky himself, though much like the other phantoms, his eyes were purple with blue irises.
"Oh, boy, this doesn't seem like it's going to be fun at all," Haruka groaned.
Phantom Kandinsky simply grinned wickedly and raised his wand to start firing blasts of magic towards the spies, forcing them to scatter across the beach in order to not get hit by one of the blasts.
While dodging through the barrage of magic blasts, Mat fired an Electromagnetic Curling Iron to knock Phantom Kandinsky down, but he quickly vanished before reappearing behind Mat, sending him flying into the sand with a burst of red light.
"Ooh, you're gonna pay for that one, real or not!" Sam shouted as she charged in to attack Phantom Kandinsky, but he simply disappeared before surrounding Sam with ten different copies of himself.
"Okay, this is definitely a pickle," Alex quipped. "Nick can usually always tell which one's real when magic man does this..."
At that, Anya decided to give it a try herself, using her own telepathy to search for Phantom Kandinsky's thoughts.
After a couple seconds, she found the real one and pointed at the one to Sam's southwest. Sam juked away from another magic blast and kicked that Phantom Kandinsky in the face, causing him to stumble and the other copies to vanish.
"An illusion of a master of illusion creating illusions," May quipped. "If that isn't the strangest thing we've seen yet..."
"Trust me, May, the more you think about it, the more it hurts the head," Nozomi admitted.
Phantom Kandinsky waved his wand and actually tried something the real Kandinsky hadn't thought of yet, specifically casting a spell on himself to make him grow much bigger so he could start stomping all over the battlefield.
"Okay, since when could he turn himself into a kaiju?!" Britney exclaimed as she jumped away to avoid getting squashed by Phantom Kandinsky's feet.
May, however, wasn't deterred, running right towards Phantom Kandinsky and swinging her anchor out to bash him directly in the knees, forcing him to stumble to the ground and leaving him vulnerable to the rest of the spies.
Anya helped out by firing a Final Shine Attack into Phantom Kandinsky's head, sending him reeling as it forced him to revert to his normal size.
Both Mat and Blaine moved in to attack, flying forward on Head For Cover Hoverboards to collide with Phantom Kandinsky and send him flying again, knowing they had to keep up the pressure to beat this particular phantom.
May assisted by tossing her anchor like a javelin, only for Phantom Kandinsky to wave his wand, causing May's anchor to stop just in front of him, float there for a few seconds, and suddenly start flying right back towards May.
"EEP!" May squeaked.
Anya acted quickly, raising her hand to surround May with a psychic bubble. Though the bubble shattered when the anchor hit the bubble, as Anya was still learning how to maintain barriers, it accomplished its intent of protecting May and allowed her to reclaim her anchor.
After giving Anya a thankful smile, May rushed forward, wound up, and with one massive home-run swing, clocked Phantom Kandinsky in the chest with her anchor and sent him flying into a trio of palm trees, bouncing off of each one before he collapsed head-first into a sand dune and exploded into violet wisps of light.
"That's the end of that show!" Clover laughed.
The palm trees on the other end of the beach that seemed to be blocking something all moved out of the way, allowing the spies to cross through the gap, following the narrow path to an oasis...
...with a circus-esque big top at the center of it.
"Okay, if that isn't out of place, I don't know what is," Mat admitted.
Anya suddenly got an ominous feeling, one that she realized was very familiar. And from the looks on the spies' faces, they probably realized why this big top was here, as they had been in the Forgotten Land for this particular scuffle.
Nodding to each other, the spies all walked into the big top, noting that the violet glow that saturated most of this realm gave the already dilapidated big top a much more eerie look to it.
At the very top of the big top's ceiling, a large bubble of light could be seen hanging from the rafters, no doubt another Fruit Fragment being guarded by another phantom.
And just like before, there was a figure in a heavy cloak standing on the main stage, illuminated by a spotlight.
The spies all decided to take the long way around the outer walls of the big top's seats, just to be safe, until they reached the main stage itself.
As if expecting them, the cloaked figure ripped its cloak off and tossed it aside to reveal an anthropomorphic leopard with gold fur and beige accents, brown leopard spots covering the majority of her body, narrow, almond-shaped, yellow eyes with violet irises, along with glittery, light purple eyeshadow and long, pointy eyelashes.
Like clockwork, the figure also transformed, her fur turning an eerie blue with pink and black spots, her ears turned back and pink, and her eyes became strobing purple with blue irises, much like Fecto Forgo.
"Ooh, boy, who remembers this one?" Alex quipped.
"Stay on your toes, everyone!" Mat shouted as the spies all prepared for battle.
Phantom Clawroline opened up by extending her Wolverine-esque claws and rushing forward to swipe at the spies multiple times. Unlike the original Clawroline, the phantom version's claw swipes were much faster.
The spies all spread out across the stage to draw Phantom Clawroline's attention between them while she leaped across the stage with all the grace of the original Clawroline.
Before any of the spies could land a decent hit on her, though, Phantom Clawroline simply leaped away.
"All right, someone's gotta get her to stop all of this leaping around!" Dawn exclaimed. "It's getting annoying already!"
"All over that," Britney quipped, waiting for Phantom Clawroline to land from another jump before hitting her with a blast of Immobilizing Stun-Tan Lotion, instantly freezing Phantom Clawroline in her tracks.
"RIOT!" Nozomi exclaimed, dashing forward and kicking Phantom Clawroline in the face a couple times before driving the illusory leopard backwards with a double scissor kick.
Phantom Clawroline quickly recovered before bending down on her knees, a psychotic expression suddenly highlighting her face as she charged forward at impressive speeds to swipe at Bridget with a double overhead claw strike.
"Oh-ho-ho, you wanna play the speed game?" Bridget taunted, reaching for her brooch. "We'll play that game! Sonic Mode, online!"
Phantom Clawroline attempted to attack Bridget while she was transforming, but she had already sped off, circling the outer stage before jumping back onstage to sock Phantom Clawroline with a Metal Masher Boxing Glove.
Phantom Clawroline jumped off of a nearby stage pillar before coming down claws-first, creating a shockwave from the point of impact. Though this time around, Phantom Clawroline quickly extricated her claws from the floor and repeated the maneuver two more times, creating larger shockwaves with each impact.
Blaine aimed a Boomerang Bazooka towards Phantom Clawroline and started firing rapidly, the boomerangs circling around while hitting the phantom and keeping her in her spot so that May could slip in and send Phantom Clawroline to the floor with an overhead anchor swing.
When Phantom Clawroline jumped back to her feet, she stood on all fours and growled, her fur standing up like any cat's would.
"Watch out, everyone!" Sam exclaimed as Phantom Clawroline started swinging her claws rapidly, each swing sending a dark violet blade of energy flying from her claws and forcing the spies to stay on the defensive.
Eventually, Phantom Clawroline jumped onto one of the steel pillars surrounding the stage, clinging onto it and throwing razor-sharp steel talons down at the spies, though these came out much faster, even forcing Alex to use an All-Weather Umbrella to deflect some of them.
The barrage of talons lasted longer than the original's had, and when they finally stopped, the main spotlight suddenly started shining on top of Anya.
"Wait, what's it doing now?" Nozomi wondered.
Anya just barely had time to surround herself with a psychic bubble just as Phantom Clawroline rocketed down from the pillar to slash at Anya with a lightning-fast overhead claw strike, shattering the bubble but thankfully not hurting Anya.
By this point, Phantom Clawroline had seemed to realize that Anya was probably the most vulnerable of its combatants, and started advancing menacingly towards her. Anya raised her hand and started firing psychic bolts from her hands to hopefully drive Phantom Clawroline away, but each one kept missing wildly.
"Oh, boy, this could be trouble," Sam stated. "Someone needs to get in there and help Anya!"
Alex was about to do just that until she stopped after a few steps due to noticing something peculiar.
Phantom Clawroline looked down at Anya and gave a sadistic little smirk at how scared Anya seemed to be...
...until she realized that Anya was actually smiling mischievously.
Anya simply pointed to behind her, and Phantom Clawroline glanced backwards, only to see that all of the psychic bolts that Anya had missed with were hanging there in the air.
"Nick said this, but you should keep your eye on the birdie," Anya quipped, clenching her right fist and causing all of the bolts she'd fired to reverse course and strike Phantom Clawroline in the back all at once, sending the illusory leopard reeling and allowing the spies to close in once again.
"Nice one, Anya!" Blaine exclaimed.
"I just remembered Nick doing that once," Anya admitted.
Phantom Clawroline jumped back to her feet and started dashing around the stage, swiping madly with her claws so the spies couldn't get close, but Anya started floating into the air, high enough that she was seemingly out of Phantom Clawroline's attack range.
That notion seemed to be dashed when Phantom Clawroline leaped onto a stage pillar and then jumped straight for Anya.
"Don't even think about it, kitty!" Clover exclaimed, firing her Expandable Cable Bungee Belt to snatch Phantom Clawroline out of her leap and drag her right back to the ground so the spies could surround her once again.
Bridget continued to run around the outer edges of the stage to build up enough kinetic energy while the rest of the spies kept Phantom Clawroline busy.
Phantom Clawroline jumped back to one of the pillars and started throwing more razor talons, obviously trying to interrupt Bridget's run, but she simply started running around the whole big top itself to avoid the talons.
Anya landed back on the ground, knowing she couldn't fly for too long yet, just as Phantom Clawroline jerked her gaze towards her.
"Strobe light eyes on me, Felicia!" Bridget exclaimed as she jumped off of the dilapidated rafters and fell back down to the stage, equipping a Metal Masher Boxing Glove and lashing out with it to punch Phantom Clawroline directly in the head.
The spies wisely decided to get the heck off of the stage.
All of the kinetic energy Bridget had built up through her run exploded outwards in a shockwave of emerald electricity that collapsed the stage entirely, piledriving Phantom Clawroline into the ground with the impact and causing her to bounce into the air, after which she fell onto her face with a tiny meow and exploded into wisps of violet light that quickly dissipated.
"Wow, I felt that one, Bridget," Nozomi chuckled.
"I've always wanted to try that," Bridget quipped. "But since I know that would probably splat a normal person, I figured it'd be okay to use on something that's not actually, you know, real."
The spies all glanced up to the big top rafters as the bubble hanging there shattered, releasing the fourth Fruit Fragment so it could float down into May's hands. Much like before May lifted it into the air and waved her hand to send the Fruit Fragment on its way back to the Ethereal Altar.
"It feels like we're getting closer, huh?" May stated.
"I hope so," Alex admitted.
A large star-shaped portal opened where the collapsed stage had been, leading back to the Ethereal Altar. The spies all jumped into the portal, coming back to the Ethereal Altar just as the fourth Fruit Fragment came down to rest on the fourth empty pedestal.
The fourth Fruit Fragment fired a beam of teal light into the purple-tinted locked door, shattering the lock and causing the door to open so they could enter.
"One more door to go, it looks like," Britney noted.
"And one more Fruit Fragment to go," Sam stated.
"I seriously wonder what these things are supposed to make," Blaine wondered.
"I guess we'll probably find out when we're done in the 'purple area', huh?" Alex quipped. "And hopefully, whatever these make will help us get Nick back."
As the spies double-checked their gadget loadout to make sure everything they had on hand (it was a lot) was in optimal condition, Anya glanced at the four Fruit Fragments on the pedestals, again wondering why they looked so familiar to her.
After all, she was pretty sure she'd never seen anything like them before.
Figuring she'd understand soon enough, Anya followed the spies into the purple door, knowing they were one step closer to getting Nick back.
To be continued...
Next time...
Haruka: Okay, is it me, or does this area feel very... ominous?
Melissa: Yeah, I'm feeling it, too. Almost like we need to get moving.
Alex: I just hope we can find that last Fruit Fragment quickly before... you know what, I'm not gonna say anything that could jinx us.
Mat: Good idea, Alex.
May: Not to mention that we still have to find the last few shards of the Master Crown, and I have a feeling they're not going to be easy to find.
Sam: Let's just keep our eyes and ears open, okay?
Bridget: Heads up, everyone, we've got company!
Sam: ...oh, wonderful, it just had to be him.
May: All right, readers, things are certainly heating up for what looks like the last leg of our journey (though it's probably not), so keep your eyes peeled for the next act of Totally Spies the Movie: Forgo Dreams, "Scattered Souls and Eternal Echoes"!
Alex: Hey, has anyone seen Nick? I know he's not in the movie just yet, but I figured he'd at least be watching us film the thing.
Haruka: I think he's in the break room. He's chatting with someone who's gonna be in season eight.
Dawn: Sounds like fun, huh?
