6:13 A.M. – Location Unknown

They shuffled through the hallways, in a rank-and-file line.

They did so because that's all they knew how to do here.

Simply follow orders and no one will get in any trouble. That was the golden rule here at this facility.

But one such subject had different ideas.

While everyone continued to march in lockstep towards today's "research tests", she had already slipped out of the line, thankfully without being seen.

Despite her appearance, she liked to believe that she was fairly stealthy at times. After all, how else could she have won so many games of hide-and-seek?

Making sure to stay out of sight of any of the guards, she made her way through the tunnels towards the secret passage she'd made sure to keep safe for this very day.

When she reached the inconspicuous wall, she raised her cube, its lines glowing a bright blue and causing it to open for her. She slipped inside the passage as the wall closed up behind her.

As she ran down the tunnel, she stopped in front of a nearby mirror to check her appearance.

She had amber eyes and long, wavy white hair with multiple hair pins, and she was wearing a purple jacket with black and gold accents.

Good.

She hated that stupid bowl cut they'd tried to force on her.

She continued to run through the tunnels towards her freedom. Hopefully that's what awaited her out there.

She had to escape and find someone to help her. If she didn't...

...this world, and possibly all others, would be doomed.

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(The pages constantly turn, no matter how long the reader takes. When one story ends, another story will inevitably start. In the end, there is only a new beginning.)

Mat49324 and The Blue Time Ranger are proud to present:

Totally Spies: The New Adventures

Episode 89: Captain's Lament

Story Rated: T for Teen

Story Created: September 15th, 2023

Story Summary: The one-hundred and twenty-second co-op project between Mat49324 and The Blue Time Ranger, and episode eighty-nine of our mission-based series Totally Spies: The New Adventures. The Jellyfish Pirates have invited the spies back to Japan to celebrate the Gion Matsuri, a popular Japanese summer festival, but one of the spies' rogues' gallery has plans to ruin it, possibly with cheap perfume. Natalie Valentine has a new scheme to crush the festival with her new mind-altering perfume, so it's naturally up to the spies to take care of business. But at the same time, Mira seems to want May to return to being the leader of the Jellyfish Pirates, as she feels she can't measure up to someone like May. Can the spies defeat Natalie's latest scheme, and is May's time as a spy possibly over?

Author's Notes from Mat49324: Our sixth movie is officially complete, and we're now beginning our EIGHTH season of Totally Spies: The New Adventures! This is our 89th episode to be exact. I have to tell you that Nick was very surprised upon hearing the synopsis for this project coming from me since this will involve the Jellyfish Pirates. If you noticed carefully, we did not have them appear in season 7 because neither one of us could think of a synopsis involving them until I did. Anyway, for our S8 premiere, the Jellyfish Pirates are coming back! I'll also go ahead and say that although the spy team here had ballooned to 13 people (partly because of The Blue Time Ranger adding more and more and more of his own OCs as WOOHP spies), there COULD be a chance one of them might have unknowingly walked into her last mission as a W.O.O.H.P. agent. I'm leaving it at that, but some of you might have figured it out if you recall our past projects involving the Jellyfish Pirates. For now, we hope you enjoy our S8 premiere, and here's The Blue Time Ranger for anything he'd like to say.

Author's Notes from The Blue Time Ranger: With Forgo Dreams complete, we're off and running with season eight! And, believe it or not, this season's finale will be EPISODE ONE-HUNDRED of Totally Spies: The New Adventures! Holy crapbaskets, I can't believe that goal is so close now! Now, as for today's caper, I was surprised to see Mat offer up a Jellyfish Pirates adventure, since I'm usually the one who does that. But it was a very interesting idea, so here we go. I'm not gonna waste any more of your time, so without further ado, let's begin season eight and the countdown to one hundred! ROLL IT!

And Now, the Obligatory Disclaimer: Mat49324 and The Blue Time Ranger do not own anything related to Totally Spies or any of its affiliations. It belongs solely to Marathon Media Group, Image Entertainment Corporation, Vincent Chalvon-Demersay, and David Michel. The only things of this story we DO own are any characters or locations created by us truly for the story. Any characters or things we don't own, we are just borrowing with no intent of copyright infringement, only for the entertainment of our readers. Besides, if we did own Totally Spies, which we don't, why would we be writing fiction on a fan site?

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Act 1: Distractions at a Festival

1:14 P.M. – The Spies' Beach House

It was another seemingly normal summer day for the spies after their last caper took them through many different dimensions. Currently, Melissa had just come out the front door in a multi-colored bikini ready for the next car wash battle; Mat agreed to battle with her.

"Hope you're ready for some fun, Mat," Melissa stated when she saw Mat come out in his board shorts.

"Yeah, no doubt I am," Mat replied as Melissa turned on the water.

"Let's get this, then," Melissa giggled as she started spraying the spies' car down, then got Mat.

"HEY, QUIT IT!" Mat shouted, shielding his eyes as he grabbed another hose.

"No chance!" Melissa exclaimed.

However, she got sprayed herself after Mat was able to get the extra hose.

"EEP" was all Melissa could get out before Mat continued to spray her.

"...did Melissa just 'eep'?" May wondered from inside.

Before long, Mat and Melissa appeared to be only interested in getting each other wet from this car wash battle.

"You're mine now, Melissa," Mat proclaimed.

One of his sprays was right between Melissa's eyes, completely unintended, of course.

"Now you did it..." Melissa growled playfully after wiping her face.

"Oh, I think not!" Mat retorted. "You okay, by the way? Considering I got you in the face..."

"Yeah, just fine," Melissa answered.

They then resumed spraying each other back and forth.

"We'll see how your amateur tactics compare to someone who was trained by a master!" Melissa laughed as she sprayed the hose vertically, expecting Mat to go that way.

Of course, Mat took the bait and got pushed back for his troubles.

"Hey, I learned some moves, too!" Mat proclaimed as he went back on the attack.

Meanwhile, indoors, Sam was at the window checking out that car wash battle between Mat and Melissa. She wasn't the least bit jealous since she and Mat had one already.

"Hey, Sammy, you want the next one with me?" Alex asked.

"Sure," Sam answered. "I just hope there's time left before we have to go back to Mali-U this fall."

"Plus, it'd be nice to have our fiancées go gaga over us," Alex giggled.

"Totally," Sam replied, seeing where Alex was going with that as they shared a high five.

That was when Haruka came downstairs.

"Hey, girls, did Nick start on the pool yet?" Haruka asked them.

"Oh, I think I saw him head there about four or five minutes ago," Blaine told her.

"Yeah, remember you subbed for May during our Smash game?" Bridget reminded Haruka.

"Plus, May said she was going to help him after our last match," Nozomi added.

Simultaneously, Mat and Melissa entered the house completely soaked. Sam and Clover saw them and went for towels.

"Had fun?" Clover asked.

"Fun is an understatement, Clover," Mat laughed as he took his towel from Sam.

"No doubt," Melissa added as she took the towel from Clover.

Dawn came down as well. "I'm guessing this Smash game is abandoned?" she asked the others.

"Uh..." Haruka stuttered.

In the meanwhile, Nick and May were getting to the pool cleaning.

"It's a good thing our pool isn't very dirty," May told Nick.

"No doubt," Nick stated. "By the way, thanks for volunteering to help, May."

"You bet," May replied. "Thank you for waiting on me. I think I'm getting too good at Smash because that was four wins in a row for me."

"To be fair, May, you've probably had the most Smash experience out of all of us," Nick admitted. "You've actually played the other games, whereas Brawl is the only one I've played."

"Yeah, you were never much of a fighting game kid growing up," May quipped. "You know, I hear they're actually going to have Melee stations set up for free play at the next tournament. Maybe then you can finally get a taste of that one."

Nick looked up at the blue sky... then at May in her swimsuit. He was glad he chose to wear board shorts considering the Fall semester at Mali-U was at least a month away.

"No way am I passing this up," Nick told himself quietly enough so May wouldn't hear.

Melissa did this before, which turned into a pool-wrestling match between her and Nick.

In addition, May's back was turned... until...

"Hey, Nick, are we..." May started to ask when she turned around to see Nick already airborne. "NICK!"

It went on deaf ears as Nick splashed in the pool.

"Nick... really?!" May chastised after Nick had resurfaced.

"What?" Nick laughed.

"We're not done yet!" May complained.

In the end, though, May quickly realized that the pool wasn't that dirty at all. It could handle a few more splash-downs before they finished.

With that in mind, May decided to jump into the pool herself, making sure to shout "PIRATE DIVE!" as she did so.

"Ah, it's been a while since I did one of those," May giggled.

"Tell me about it," Nick quipped. "Kinda wish you had someone to dive on top of..."

"Nah, I think the others have had their fill of that for the time being," May replied as she swam over to Nick and hugged him. "...I love you, ya know."

Nick couldn't help but smile. "I love you, too, May."

But just before they could lean in to kiss each other, they both heard surprised gasps coming from inside the house.

Nick had already raised his hand to surround both himself and May with a psychic bubble just as one of the pool vents opened up to allow a large metal tube to slide out and aim for them.

"It's always when we're having a moment, isn't it?" May sighed.

"Bad guys don't give a crap about romantic moments, honestly," Nick quipped, leaning in to kiss May before they both jumped into the vent.

1:58 P.M. – W.O.O.H.P. Headquarters

Jerry's Office

All thirteen spies were decked out in their spy suits when they landed in Jerry's office.

"We're getting better at that, thankfully," Sam quipped.

"I kinda hoped we'd get some time to rest after everything that just happened, but I guess bad guys don't care about that, either," Alex stated.

"Hey, I'm ready to kick some bad guy butt again," Nick proclaimed. "So, who's our latest ne'er-do-well, Jerry?"

"Actually, some friends of yours were the ones who called us about that," RiCO answered as she materialized in the office and waved her hands to change the office viewscreen to a video feed of somewhere in Japan.

"Hello, is this thing working?" Souji wondered.

"Hey, it's not my fault you're the one who dropped it in the lake, Souji!" April shot back.

"W-wait, what are you guys doing on the call?" May wondered when she recognized the voices of her friend circle in Japan, the Jellyfish Pirates.

"Well, this is actually a double-sided coin of a call," Mira admitted as she snatched their X-Powder away from Souji. "First off, we actually wanted to know if you all wanted to come to the Gion Matsuri with us."

"What's a gion?" Alex asked.

"The Gion Matsuri is one of the largest and most famous festivals in Japan," Haruka explained. "It usually takes place in Kyoto every July."

"Which would explain what you guys are doing in Kyoto," May quipped. "It was formally a Shinto festival about purifying and pacifying disease-causing entities."

"And what's the second side of the coin?" Bridget wondered. "Does it have something to do with our rogues' gallery?"

"You'd be right on the money," April quipped. "We noticed a strange lady strutting her way through the proceedings, carrying what I think is some kind of weird perfume bottle."

"Welp, I think I know who that is," Clover sighed, knowing that it was most likely Natalie Valentine.

"Don't worry, everyone, we'll be there as soon as we can," May responded as the call cut out. "Jerry, RiCO, gadget us up."

With that, the spies all collected their gadgets and set out for the Skyskimmer that would take them to Japan.

3:17 P.M. – Kyoto, Japan

"Wow, this place is pretty lively," Alex admitted as the spies took in the festival atmosphere while looking for the Jellyfish Pirates. "I've never seen a festival like this before, and I've been all over the world as a W.O.O.H.P. agent."

"Trust me, Alex, festivals here can get pretty inventive and wacky," May quipped.

"HEY THERE!" a voice called from afar.

May turned around and smiled as the remaining eight members of the Jellyfish Pirates came running towards them, all of them dressed appropriately for the festival.

"Nice to see you're all doing okay," Mira stated.

"I almost wasn't, honestly," Nick chuckled. "Long, long story that we'll save for later."

"It feels like it's been too long since the last time you were here, May," April laughed as she jumped over to hug May.

"You know, one of these days, I'd really like to have a trip here to visit you guys that doesn't involve our rogues' gallery," May admitted.

"To be fair, your baddies don't really care about stuff like that," Fena chuckled.

May glanced over at the newest member of the group. Jam had been Johnny's girlfriend before his death, and over the spring, she had returned to Tachikawa to pay her respects, only to be brainwashed by the Great Kandinsky and turned against the spies. Thankfully, they had been able to free Jam from Kandinsky's control, and at the end of it all, Jam had decided to honor Johnny's memory by joining the Jellyfish Pirates.

"It's good to see you're still kicking, Jam," May stated.

"Yeah, I've been 'kicking' a lot of things lately," Jam chuckled. "We gotta tell you guys about the bullies we sent running for their lives, but later."

"How about you all tell us where you last saw miss Valentine and we'll see if we can teach her a lesson?" Sam asked.

"Follow the leader, then," Mira proclaimed as she led the Jellyfish Pirates into Kyoto, the spies following closely behind.

May looked on at Mira, and she could see some particular body language on Mira, but May chose not to say anything.

"So, who's this spode on a rampage?" Akira asked.

"Her name's Natalie Valentine," Sam answered. "And let's just say she has a grudge against certain girls with boyfriends, husbands, etc."

"Talk about petty," April commented.

"What's her beef with here?" Yuki wondered.

"Your guess is as good as ours," Haruka answered.

Sam, Clover, and Alex then ran through the first caper with Natalie Valentine in New York.

"She sounds like a total loser," Jam remarked.

"What she and Geraldine did to Mat was just as bad," Sam told them.

"That was your Supercross thing, if I recall correctly, right?" April asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," Mat replied. "Chad Reed losing the 2006 title; unfortunately, I had another one this past May for the same reason, but this one hurt because of one lousy 7th place..."

"Now that just doesn't sound fair that you got double-whammied that way," Souji sighed.

"And we had to go inside of Mat's body to save him," Nick added.

"That's a pleasant thought," Mira cringed.

"No, we really had to," Melissa insisted.

"I can attest to that," May remarked in case the Jellyfish Pirates still weren't convinced.

"The villain, one Dr. Vomesa, was inside Mat's body," Alex added.

Before long, Mira led the spies to where they had seen Natalie Valentine attempt her devilish plan.

"This is where we saw that lady," Jam told the spies.

They were approximately forty-five yards from the heart of the festivities.

The spies all looked around.

"Do you guys remember what exactly happened?" Blaine asked the Jellyfish Pirates.

"We'd just arrived in Kyoto for the celebrations and were looking around," Yuki explained. "You know, to see where we wanted to go first."

"Then I heard this strange lady talking about a 'scheme' of sorts," Akira stated. "Thanks to being our 'lookout', I have a pretty good sense of hearing, so I listened in to what she was saying. I didn't hear much, but I definitely caught something about a plan to ruin the Gion Matsuri."

"That's when we decided to call you guys, since we were pretty sure you've dealt with someone like her before," Mira replied.

"Hey, I found something," Britney told the others.

It was another perfume bottle, but there were no labels on it or anything.

"Hopefully Jerry has something on that perfume bottle," Alex replied.

"So, guys, is there anything else regarding Natalie Valentine you want to tell us?" May wondered.

"Probably nothing else that you don't already know, honestly," Dizzy responded. "Now we just have to find her before she starts screwing things up around here."

"On that note, any sign of her, Nick?" Melissa asked.

Nick closed his eyes and used his psychic radar to scan the area for any sign of Natalie. With so many people around for the festival, it was tricky at first.

But eventually, Nick did pick up on a set of slightly troubling thoughts and started walking in that direction, the rest of the group following lightly to avoid drawing suspicion from their target.

After pushing through the crowd, the group quickly found themselves on the opposite side of the parade route, where Nick could sense the thoughts he'd picked up on.

The spies' attention was drawn to a curious bush near the bench on this side of the street.

"Well, that's not inconspicuous at all," May sarcastically quipped. "Shall we make an entrance, Nick?"

"Oh, hell yes," Nick responded, raising his hand towards the bush and psychically yanking it away to reveal Natalie Valentine. "Your disguises need work, lady."

"Or maybe I just wanted you to find me," Natalie chuckled. "I knew you'd all find your way here at some point, but I didn't think it'd be so soon. Either way, this is good news for me, because I have so many new test subjects to try my new perfumes out on."

"Fat chance of that, you cluck!" Alex shot back. "Your products are disgusting, anyways."

"Oh, we shall see about that," Natalie laughed before jumping to her feet, just then noticing the Jellyfish Pirates staring her down. "And just who are all of you?"

"Oh, you don't know us?" May chuckled. "All right, everyone, let's do the thing and tell this shoddy saleswoman just who the hell we are!"

With that, the Jellyfish Pirates all got into position for their big speech.

"We are the guardians of Tachikawa!" May proclaimed.

"The worst nightmare of bullies everywhere," Mira proclaimed.

"Determined to protect the innocent!" Yuki exclaimed.

"Defending the dreams of the students!" April exclaimed.

"Putting troublemakers in their place," Souji continued.

"Making school life a fun place to be," Akira stated.

"Sticking it to anyone who would try to knock us down!" Dizzy shouted.

"Never forgetting our own dreams!" Fena finished.

"And staying cool in the face of adversity!" Jam proclaimed.

"Smiling in the face of danger, we are the Jellyfish Pirates!" all nine members exclaimed as they performed their group pose together.

"And as the official guardians of such, we've ruled that it's high time we kicked you out of this country for whatever you're planning to do to the Gion Matsuri!" Mira shouted.

Natalie snapped her fingers to summon a gaggle of her mooks to her side.

"Oh, bring it," Natalie laughed as the mooks all jumped in to attack.

"Yeah, I don't think so, lady!" Yuki shouted, rolling under the legs of one mook before kicking him in the back and sending him tumbling into another mook.

While the Jellyfish Pirates were handling the mooks, this left the spies to deal with Natalie.

"So, have you picked up any new tricks since the last time?" Mat taunted.

"Oh, I'm very glad you asked that, you little brat," Natalie chuckled as she brought out a perfume bottle resembling the one that the spies had found earlier before spraying it, surrounding herself with a violet mist.

Though the spies were able to keep their distance from Natalie, the perfume cloud didn't dissipate and instead floated around Natalie while she moved.

"An effective shield, don't you think?" Natalie laughed. "You won't beat me that easily this time."

In response, Melissa just grinned in a cheeky way before bringing out her Helicopter Hand Fan and activating it to blow the perfume shield away from Natalie, allowing Nick to blast her down with a Final Shine Attack.

Suddenly, a loud shout of surprise caught everyone's attention as one of Natalie's mooks grabbed Mira and tried to book it.

"Mira!" April shouted.

"I'll get her!" May exclaimed, leapfrogging off of one mook's shoulders to pursue. "You all just focus on these chodes!"

It thankfully didn't take long for May to catch up to the mook that had snatched Mira up, and she planted herself in front of him, her anchor pointed threateningly at him.

"All right, buddy, you've only got two options," May proclaimed. "Either drop my captain right now, or prepare for a world of pain."

The mook simply scoffed and attempted to leap away with his captive, only for May to toss her anchor like a javelin and hit the mook in the back, forcing him to let go of Mira. May used an Anti-Gravity Propulsion Ring to make Mira float in mid-air so she could catch her safely. The mook decided it wasn't worth it and retreated.

"Yeah, and good riddance, you loony!" May taunted before setting Mira onto her feet. "Sorry about that, fearless leader."

"...about that, May," Mira sighed, and May could tell that Mira was about to reveal whatever had been troubling her earlier. "I was thinking it over for a while, and... well, there's no easy way to say this, but... I kind of want you to be our captain again."

Naturally, May didn't know how to process that bold statement.

"I just... I don't feel like I'm being a really effective leader," Mira admitted. "I could never live up to someone as experienced in these matters as you, May."

"Mira, I..." May started.

"You don't have to give me an answer right away," Mira responded. "I know we've still got that perfume lady to deal with. Just... think it over, okay?"

May's thoughts were interrupted by a call from her X-Powder, so she flipped it open to reveal Sam's concerned face.

"Is everything okay over there, you two?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, I kicked mook butt and got Mira back," May answered. "How about you?"

"Natalie predictably booked it before we could stomp on her too much," Nick responded. "Let's link back up by the parade route so we can chase her down."

"Roger that," May stated as she and Mira ran back to the rest of the group, Mira's words resounding in her mind.

"Everything okay, May?" Nick wondered when he noticed May's conflicted expression.

"I should have known nothing could get past you, Nick," May chuckled. "Well..."

Nick waited patiently for May to fill him in with the news, despite Mira repeatedly denying that May tell him the news.

"Mira, I'm sorry, but you know Nick..." May told Mira.

After Nick was finally told the news of Mira wanting May to return to the Jellyfish Pirates, he, too, felt like he was hit by a ton of bricks.

"I'm sorry, Nick," Mira regrettably admitted. "But I just... I don't know if I've been living up to May's leadership when she was here."

"What the heck's going on?" Mat asked, and that's when the three of them realized the rest of the spy group overheard part of what was being discussed.

"We have another matter on our hands?" Clover chastised.

"Not 'us,' Clover..." Nick stated. "May does."

The Jellyfish Pirates were not surprised at all while the rest of the WOOHP spies were.

"Mira wants me to return as the leader of the Jellyfish Pirates," May told the group.

"You can't be serious!" Bridget exclaimed.

"I know our spy team has ballooned to thirteen, but this is a real helluva bombshell!" Mat added.

"We tried to tell Mira she's doing just fine as leader..." Akira reasoned.

"I guess some of us have been reminiscing on when May was leader, though," Yuki stated.

"But, seriously, Mira," April added. "None of us said that May was better than you have been."

"Totally," Jam stated.

"It sounds like someone's having a case of 'Kevin Windham Syndrome', as I call it," Mat deduced.

"Say what?" Yuki wondered.

"Oh, I remember hearing this one," Nick chuckled.

"I say 'Kevin Windham Syndrome' because on any given night, he can beat Jeremy McGrath in Supercross, or Ricky Carmichael in Motocross," Mat told them. "But since Windham could barely make it past the mental aspect, he only beat them once in a great while; Windham even says himself that when he's on, McGrath doesn't know if he can beat him."

"I don't know if I see the connection, Mat," Mira stated.

"In simpler terms, Mira, I think you're putting a little too much pressure on yourself, like Windham did, and after Windham went on a hiatus, he was back and better than ever in 2003 Motocross," Mat continued.

"That's the gist of what we've been saying to Mira, too much pressure on herself," Akira remarked.

"We've been okay with Mira's leadership, save for a couple of decisions we didn't necessarily agree with..." April told the others.

"It doesn't seem like there's a problem... theoretically, anyway," Haruka stated.

"Unfortunately, Mira insisted she can't take being leader anymore for the last few days," Jam sighed.

"Well, I've gone through many changes, ya know," May told them. "And I'm not talking about me with Nick, nor my studies at Mali-U..."

The rest of the spies seemed to feel that May just up-and-leaving did not sound like a wise decision.

"I can't just abandon my studies for this..." May insisted. "I'd be leaving my studies at Mali-U, the water polo team, and most importantly... I can't leave Nick!"

"It is kind of a lot to have to deal with," Nick quipped, not really sure what else to say.

"I never would've picked you for water polo, May," Souji commented.

"She's not the only one," Bridget stated. "Haruka and I are on the team, too."

"Ooh, boy," Mira cringed.

As the discussion continued, Mira couldn't help but feel that she had just put herself in way over her head by revealing her troubles like this.

She knew she was at least a good enough leader in most cases, and even the few times when she hadn't, it had been over silly things, nothing too concerning.

But how could she measure up to someone like May, who'd had far more experience thanks to her tenure with W.O.O.H.P.?

That had been what was really troubling her.

If she couldn't lead the charge when it actually counted, then why was she even the captain?

May sensed Mira's distress and walked over to hug her.

"I... I'm sorry if I put you on the spot, May, but... I'm just not sure if I have what it takes," Mira stated, trying her hardest not to cry.

"Mira, you're being too hard on yourself," May responded. "It's like Mat said, I think you set your expectations way too high. I mean, look at me, I always used to fret over the silliest of things, thinking I'd made Johnny upset when he really wasn't even fazed by that. I got over that thanks to my friends, and I think you should be able to count on your own friends to do the same for you."

"Leadership isn't just a one-way street, Mira," Sam proclaimed. "Trust me, I know that feeling. There are gonna be times when even a leader can buckle under pressure. What helps is that you have friends who can help you, who can do the things you can't."

"Honestly, I think that's one advantage of our spy team being as large as it is now," Bridget cut in. "We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, and I'd like to think we all compliment our own pretty well together."

Mira couldn't help but stare at May. Had she just been overthinking things again?

Before the discussion could go any further, Nick looked back up when he noticed someone approaching rapidly, and raised his hand to surround both May and Mira with a psychic bubble, which protected them both from Natalie as she attempted to get the drop on them, only to bounce off the bubble.

"Don't you know it's rude to interrupt an important discussion, Nat?" Nick taunted, glad to see he had gotten a rise out of Natalie. "So how about you just buzz the hell off until we're finished?"

"Sorry, but you know that's not going to happen," Natalie chuckled. "I've got something I'd like to show you, if you don't mind."

"Actually, we do mind," Fena shot back. "We have a friend who needs some emotional support right now, so why don't you do what Nick said and buzz off?!"

"Well, too bad," Natalie cackled as she stepped to the side and let two festival-goers to start rushing forward to blindly attack the spies.

"You're not going to ruin our amazing festival!" the man growled.

"Yeah, if you fiends think you're just going to destroy the Gion Matsuri, you've got another thing coming!" the woman exclaimed.

The woman lunged forward to attack Mira, only for Jam to leg sweep the woman and powerslam her back into the ground.

"Hands off our captain, lady," Jam retorted.

"Wait, why do they think we're the ones trying to ruin the festival?!" Yuki exclaimed.

"Probably Natalie's doing," Nick quipped as he backed up a bit so he could use his psychic radar to figure it out. "Yup, they're both being brainwashed. Lucky for us I have a pretty good insta-fix to this kinda thing."

As the man and woman tried to pounce on top of May, who swung her anchor to try and get them to back off, Nick snuck up behind both of them and threw his hands outwards, unleashing a psychic pulse around him that floored both the man and woman.

When they both got back to their feet, they looked around in confusion before returning to the parade route.

"H-How the hell did you...?!" Natalie gasped. "There's no way you could have broken my hypnosis so easily!"

"Oh, that's right, I didn't know that trick the last time we crossed paths with you," Nick chuckled. "That psychic pulse I just did tends to scramble most types of hypnosis that our baddies try. Benefits of being a psychic, methinks."

Natalie attempted to spray her perfume to try and hypnotize Nick, but having had enough of that after their previous adventure, he simply shot the perfume bottle out of her hands, destroyed it with a trio of psychic bolts, then blasted Natalie herself backwards with a Final Shine Attack.

"Now why don't you get back up so we can keep beating down on you?" Nick taunted. "As you can probably tell, we're really in no freakin' mood for your nonsense right now."

"Alas, that will have to wait for another time, I'm afraid," Natalie quipped as she picked herself back up. "I have much to do, after all. So, how about we pick this up later?"

Natalie threw down a smoke bomb to obscure her escape attempt.

"Do they always do that, too?" Souji quipped. "That seems very underhanded."

"It's rules for villains, number fourteen," Haruka responded.

"And now we know what she's planning on doing, too," Sam stated. "She's apparently trying to use her hypnotizing perfume to brainwash the festival-goers and goad them into fighting with each other and destroy the festival itself."

"Man, I knew that your rogues' gallery were a bunch of petty nuts, but this is a serious contender for the cake," Jam admitted.

"Trust me, Jam, when you've fought as many loopy baddies as we have, you kinda just get desensitized to it," Alex quipped.

"On that note, does anyone know where Natalie escaped to?" Melissa wondered. "I just realized that it might be trickier to find her in all of these festival-goers, especially with so many thoughts for Nick to sift through..."

"Fear not, everyone, my superdrone is on the scent!" RiCO proclaimed from Nick's X-Powder, the screen fading to a map of the Kyoto area. "It looks like she's heading somewhere downtown."

"Wait, then that means..." April gasped. "That little skank is going right to the heart of the parade route!"

"We can't let that happen!" Dizzy exclaimed. "Come on, everyone, let's head downtown quickly!"

As the two teams regrouped and made for downtown Kyoto, Mira occasionally glanced back at May, still wondering if she'd made the right choice in wanting May to return to being the Jellyfish Pirates' captain, especially now that she knew how much May would have to give up back home to do so.

Why am I like this? Mira thought. Damn it all, I probably shouldn't have said anything...

Of course, Nick could hear Mira's thoughts, but he kept his mouth shut. After all, this wasn't his problem to sort out.

That had to be between May and Mira.

To be continued...

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Next time...

April: That's one of the problems of searching big crowds like this for one specific person, it's hard to do that.

Clover: It's a good thing we've got RiCO's superdrone for that.

RiCO: I found her, spies! She's just a few yards ahead of you.

Natalie: I should have figured you'd follow me. You lot are too stubborn for your own good.

Dizzy: Well, I'd like to think that our stubbornness when it comes to defending our home can be a positive thing.

Jam: Yeah, so go and suck on those expired eggs!

Natalie: Hmmm... I think I have an idea on how I'd like to proceed.

May: Oh, don't you even think about it!

Nick: Ah, it's good to be able to do an act preview again. Well, readers, we've got some more crazy coming up as we always do, so make sure you don't miss the next act of Totally Spies: Captain's Lament, "Emotional Support"!

Alex: Am I glad that perfume stuff is actually just watery mist IRL.

Mira: Once again, the special effects department shows off in a big way, huh?