On Today's Episode: Mira seems to have gotten her confidence back just in time, as Natalie has unleashed her secret weapon on the festival-goers in hopes of ruining the Gion Matsuri, but with both the spies and the Jellyfish Pirates on the attack in different ways, there's still hope for the festival. Can our heroes trash this whacked-out parade prop like all the rest, and will May stay with the spies of return to the Jellyfish Pirates?
Act 3: A Captain's Duty
7:00 P.M. – Kyoto, Japan
"Where is that crazy lady?" Britney wondered once the spies had returned to Kyoto. "It can't be that hard to find something that's gigantic, like..."
"Oh, you mean like that?" Yuki stated, pointing directly.
"Holy crapbaskets, what is that thing she's riding?!" Melissa gasped.
"I don't know," Sam chastised.
"I don't care what it is, we'll trash it like all the rest!" Nick proclaimed.
Just ahead, stomping down the road of the parade route, was a large robotic mech resembling a parade float with strangely-shaped arms and a teal-colored ogre mask on its front.
To say the spies were surprised was an understatement.
"Wait, wait, did she build the ogre from the folktale?!" Souji shouted.
"That would explain why she had the folktale on her computers," Alex quipped.
"You can say goodbye to your precious festival, you phony pirates!" Natalie sneered from the cockpit.
"You're going to pay dearly for all of that nonsense you tried to put into my head, you know!" Mira called out.
"I wasn't the one who put it into your head," Natalie scoffed. "I just made it worse!"
"Doesn't matter, you psycho!" Mira shot back. "Remember what April said? You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!"
"And in reality, you did nothing... just cheap small talk," Haruka remarked.
"I hope you're ready for a Jellyfish Pirates combo platter of pain, Nat, because that's exactly what we're serving up for you!" May proclaimed.
"Oh, I think it should be the other way around, you wretches!" Natalie shouted as the Masked Ogre began marching towards them, each step the massive machine made shaking the ground.
"Okay, we're gonna need a plan here," Melissa quipped.
"I think I might have one," Mira responded. "Can you find a way to get us up to the cockpit? The Jellyfish Pirates and I can take it from there. Natalie made this personal, after all."
"Looks like we'll have to knock that big mask off first, since it's shielding the cockpit," Nozomi stated.
"Then let me be the one to get things started," May taunted, winding up before taking a few steps forward to toss her anchor like a javelin towards the Masked Ogre's mask, Nick using his psychic powers to guide it back into the mask for a few extra hits.
The spies all spread out to surround the Masked Ogre and figure out its defensive options so they could disable them.
"I'll give you points for taste, Nat, but you don't get any for thinking you can beat us!" Clover exclaimed.
"We'll see, won't we?" Natalie laughed as the Masked Ogre stomped the ground again, this time causing ports on its leg to open and spray out a cloud of Natalie's hypnosis perfume.
Clover quickly countered by using her Insanely Powerful Portable Vacuum to suck up the perfume cloud so it didn't affect anyone, followed by running forward and slashing a Platinum Credit Card across the side of the leg.
"You really think some purchasing power is going to stop me?!" Natalie taunted.
"Then how about some velocity?!" Bridget exclaimed, reaching for her brooch. "Sonic Mode, online!"
As soon as Bridget transformed, she started running around the Masked Ogre, striking at its legs with a Metal Masher Boxing Glove. Though in the middle of her run, the Masked Ogre brought out a large spiked cudgel with its strange arms and smashed it into the ground in front of Bridget's path, forcing her to juke around it to keep her run going.
The Masked Ogre continued to smash the ground with its cudgel in hopes of interrupting Bridget's run, but Clover once again used her Insanely Powerful Portable Vacuum from the air to keep the cudgel off of the ground.
While all of this was happening, the other spies continued to attack the Masked Ogre's large teal ogre mask in order to expose the cockpit.
Eventually, Bridget felt like she'd gathered enough energy and skidded to a stop near the backside of the Masked Ogre and snapped her fingers, expelling her gathered kinetic energy as a shockwave of emerald lightning that blasted the Masked Ogre and temporarily stalled it out.
This gave Nick the perfect vantage point to fire a Final Shine Attack into the mask after May had already battered it with her anchor, finally snapping it off of the machine itself. Nick used his psychic powers to make the mask fall to the ground at an angle, creating a "bridge" from the ground to the cockpit area of the machine.
"Well, Mira, there's your bridge," Nick quipped. "Go and mess her up."
"Music to my ears," Mira proclaimed as she led the rest of the Jellyfish Pirates up the makeshift bridge to the midsection of the robot, where Natalie was controlling it from the cockpit.
"Open up, Nat," April taunted.
"Um, how about no?" Natalie retorted.
Jam took the honors by taking a step forward and hitting the cockpit's glass canopy with a lunging forward punch, then a leaping windmill kick, and finally a downward snap kick that shattered the glass canopy, leaving Natalie exposed.
"You really think you've won?" Natalie laughed. "Just because you busted up my cockpit..."
"Yeah, I'm not listening to your crazy today, Nat," Mira interrupted, moving forward to yank Natalie out of the cockpit by her shirt collar. "I have had a roller-coaster of a day, and you are not going to ruin it again!"
"I'm surprised you're only acting like this now," Natalie taunted, still trying to unnerve Mira again.
"That's because I simply remembered something," Mira answered, clearly not buying Natalie's trash talk any longer. "Something I still can't believe I forgot, but my friends were there to remind me. A leader doesn't have to be perfect to be effective at what they do. As long as the leader knows what they're doing and can be effective, everything will fall into place."
"Yeah, what she said!" Yuki exclaimed.
"Mira's an amazing leader, and we couldn't be prouder to have her as our captain," April proclaimed.
"And the few times we did disagree with her were really nothing more than dumb things that didn't matter in the overall picture," Dizzy quipped.
"We just wanted Mira to see that one tiny slip-up isn't going to diminish our opinion of her," Fena stated.
"But come on, you know she's going to screw something big up eventually!" Natalie exclaimed. "Your track record can't last forever!"
"Oh, would you just shut your yap already?" Mira groaned, having finally had enough of Natalie's nonsense. As Natalie tried to pull herself out of Mira's grasp, Mira spun Natalie around and, in a move she'd actually learned from Nick, whacked Natalie in the back of the neck with a cross chop, instantly knocking Natalie unconscious.
"Nighty-night, you nutface," Souji and Akira taunted together.
"Um, if you all can hear us, you might wanna get off of the robot in about fifteen seconds!" May shouted from afar. "Because we just put together the Vortex Blaster, and we'd rather you guys not get scrapped along with it!"
"That's our cue, then," April quipped. "Someone grab Natalie and let's bail."
"All over that," Jam replied, bending down to pick up the out-of-commission Natalie so all of the Jellyfish Pirates could dash off of the robot, down the mask bridge, and back to the city streets just in time to watch the spies fire the Vortex Blaster and decimate the Masked Ogre robot, its mask splitting in two and the machine itself now no more than mangled debris.
Almost on cue, the spies heard the whirling of helicopter blades and turned around to see Jerry's chopper approaching their location.
"Hopefully anyone who saw that madness will think it was just part of the festival," Sam quipped.
"Hey, we're the masters of special effects, right?" Alex giggled.
"Marvelous work as always, everyone," Jerry proclaimed as Nick put Natalie in a bubble and levitated her into the chopper. "We can handle taking Natalie to containment from here."
"So why don't you all hop on board and we'll get you back to your Skyskimmer?" RiCO offered.
"Actually, give us a couple minutes first, 'kay?" May asked. "We've kinda got one last thing to put to rest here."
May turned towards Mira, unsure of how to start this discussion. "So, Mira, um... about that whole offer you made..." May started, only to be surprised when Mira walked forward and hugged her tightly.
"Sorry, May, but that offer's expired," Mira teased. "You should go home with your friends."
"R-Really?" May gasped.
"You have a lot to go back to, May, and I wouldn't want to take you away from everything you've found in the states," Mira proclaimed. "I wasn't even sure if I wanted to say what I did knowing all of that, but... I guess I just lost some of my confidence."
Mira looked back at the rest of the Jellyfish Pirates, who were all giving her their best smiles. "But I think I've got what it takes, after all," Mira stated proudly. "My friends were there when I needed them most, and I'm ready to keep doing my duty as their captain. After all, the captain's gotta look out for their crew, right?"
"Damn straight, Mira," May giggled as she hugged Mira back. "Take care of yourself, okay? And if you ever feel down on yourself again, just remember, your friends always have your back."
"I'll definitely never make that mistake again, trust me," Mira responded as she and the Jellyfish Pirates waved goodbye to the spies, said spies all filing into the chopper to head back to Beverly Hills.
9:59 A.M. – The Spies' Beach House
The Next Day
After dinner and a night's sleep, the spies had finished breakfast when Bridget and Clover had an urge to hit the pool, and Mat was using the TV with his "Supercross studying."
"Tanning? Swimming? Who's doing what?" Blaine wondered.
"We'll just mix things around a bit, Blaine," Clover chuckled. "Nobody's gotta pick what..."
"Just teasing," Blaine laughed.
Some of the spies then changed via their X-Powders and headed to the pool... Bridget and Clover leading the way.
"May, can you come see this?" Mat requested.
May, who was already in her bathing suit, came forward to Mat.
"Another of your races?" May asked.
"Yeah, I just remembered someone else who Mira could semi-relate to until she got her confidence back," Mat replied as Nick happened to overhear things.
"Bro, I thought you made your point with Windham," Nick told Mat.
"I did, but I just wanted to bring someone else into the fold with similar talent," Mat stated. "Robbie Reynard to be exact; this race is Pontiac 1999."
Points leader Jeremy McGrath on his #1 Chaparral Yamaha had gotten the early lead until Robbie Reynard #17 had gone from about 5th or 6th to 2nd place in a matter of 10-20 yards.
After the completion of the first lap, McGrath uncorked a triple in the first rhythm section with a look back at Reynard.
"So, Mat, your point is...?" May wondered as the 250cc main went on.
"Well, Reynard was a guy who could battle with the front runners like McGrath and Carmichael, but because he suffered from frequent arm pump, rides like this were almost never guaranteed," Mat told her. "Reynard always seemed to finish around 7th-20th each race."
"I think I get the gist," Nick replied.
It wasn't until lap 7 when McGrath messed up his timing in the opening rhythm section and Reynard got very close to him.
"Oof, that definitely has to suck," May quipped.
"Yeah, it's like one mistake and the other guy can just nyoom ahead of you if he wants," Nick stated.
"The point is... Reynard's culprit was a bad case of carpal tunnel," Mat told them.
"Ouch," May stated.
"So, ya comin' to the pool with us or what?" Nick quipped.
"Yeah, I'm coming," Mat replied. "I just wanted to show another example of a different rider since Mira was going through those troubles."
The race ended with Yamaha's McGrath winning his 5th straight race of 1999, 7 overall.
In the meantime, the pool was lively, as Nick, Melissa, and Dawn were busy doing cannonballs.
"Biggest splash wins!" Melissa called out as she splashed in.
Sam, Haruka, and Bridget were being the judges when Mat came out in his board shorts, and Nick was ready for his turn.
"What's going on?" Mat wondered.
"Cannonballs," Melissa giggled as she came out of the pool, only to be suddenly drenched from the residual splash when Nick did a cannonball himself. "Really, Nick?!"
"Hey, I'm not like May in that I don't announce my cannonballs," Nick chuckled.
"Okay, who's next?" Mat asked as Dawn took her turn.
"Me, Clover, and Blaine," Britney answered.
After Dawn took her turn was when some of the spies applauded.
"I'd say Dawn did the best splash," Bridget quipped.
"Heck yes, I did!" Dawn proclaimed.
"Hey, Sammy, when should we do the next car wash battle?" Alex quietly asked as Britney, Clover, and Blaine lined up. "Definitely before summer's over?"
"Oh, you know it," Sam replied. "Gotta squeeze every last drop out of summer while we can, right?"
"True," Alex giggled.
Fortunately, neither Nick nor Mat overheard their discussion.
"I'm going after them," Sam called out.
"Same," Mat remarked.
"Add me to your fold," May chimed in.
"I'll take your place as judge, Sammy," Alex giggled.
Alex, Haruka, Bridget, and Nozomi made the last four.
"Nick wanted it as a 'bracket format' between all thirteen of us," Melissa told the others. "Only the winners advance."
"Sounds fair," Mat quipped.
After Britney, Clover, and Blaine had their turns, the judges determined that Clover's cannonball was the biggest splash.
When it came time for the last group, once everyone had done their splash, Alex swiftly (how appropriate) determined that Bridget had made the best splash of her group.
"Looks like our final four are Clover, Dawn, Bridget, and... hey, where'd May go?" Haruka wondered when she noticed their other best splasher wasn't present.
Nick was the first to hear the rapid footsteps coming from the stairs and motioned for everybody to brace themselves.
May quickly dashed into the pool area and shouted "PIRATE DIVE" before cannonballing as hard as she could, and this splash ended up drenching everyone in the area.
After resurfacing, May couldn't help but flash a cheeky grin. "I take it you liked that?" May chuckled.
"...yeah, I think May got the best of all of us," Haruka admitted.
"I'm just too good at cannonballs," May laughed.
"Sorry, are we interrupting something?"
May glanced over to the table by the door back into the beach house, where her X-Powder was resting. Nick psychically levitated it closer so May could open it and see who was calling her.
It turned out to be Mira, with the rest of the Jellyfish Pirates in the background all attempting to squeeze into the video call.
"What's up, Mira?" May asked.
"I just wanted to thank you and your friends again for helping me get my confidence as a leader back," Mira answered.
"Hey, we've been besties for a long time, Mira, so you know I'll always have your back," May responded. "Now how about you guys all go and enjoy the rest of the festival, 'kay?"
"Funny story about that, actually," Yuki giggled. "Some people saw us fighting that big ogre 'bot thing, but thankfully they thought it was all part of the show."
"I'm just hoping no one actually wants to learn how we pulled off those 'special effects'," Souji sighed.
"Admit it, Souji, you've always wanted to be in pictures," Fena laughed.
"Yeah, but not like this!" Souji retorted.
"We'll make sure to send you all our photos once the festival's over, promise!" April proclaimed. "Now, then... Akira, what are you wearing?!"
"It's just a mask from the stall over on the parade route," Akira stated.
"Well, maybe don't wear it upside-down? You're scaring poor Dizzy!" Mira shouted in a 'leader' tone.
May and the spies couldn't help but laugh at the Jellyfish Pirates' antics, glad that Mira had gotten her spark back.
7:43 A.M. – Location Unknown
She still couldn't believe that nobody had come after her yet.
Either they hadn't yet noticed she was gone (which was some kind of miracle, given how much surveillance they had there) or they didn't deem her worthy enough to search for.
Which she knew was complete bunk, given their "high praise" for her and her skills.
As she continued to make her way through the barren fields outside of "that place", she could now hear faint, but unmistakable sirens blaring from far off.
Crapbaskets. Guess it was the first option.
Knowing she needed to keep running, she started picking up the pace, trying to put as much distance as she could between her and her eventual pursuers so she could safely utilize her secret weapon.
When she felt like she'd gotten enough distance, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her cube, gently running her fingers over the lines on the cube to make it start glowing a bright iridescent blue.
After a couple seconds, she held up the glowing cube, and a circular portal opened in front of her. Taking one last look behind her, she sighed, hoping her friends wouldn't be too mad for escaping.
"I'll come back for you all soon, I promise," she stated to nobody in particular before jumping into the portal, said portal closing itself almost the instant after she'd jumped into it.
AS she moved through the portal tunnel, she once again hoped she could find some allies to help her.
The fate of all worlds depended on it, after all.
Totally Spies: Captain's Lament
~The End~
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Final Note from Mat49324: And that's all for Captain's Lament here. Hope you enjoyed our season 8 premiere overall. The dust has been settled since that did not turn out to be May's last mission as a WOOHP agent. Will similar things like that happen down the line? I wouldn't rule it out, but things like that will likely be rare, even if our spy team has ballooned to thirteen people. For now, we hope you enjoy our second project of S8, which will be on The Blue Time Ranger's page. He's titled it Nautical Nasties. For now, here IS The Blue Time Ranger for his final thoughts on this one and perhaps if there will be some similar circumstances to this one where one of the spies may walk into his or her final mission as a WOOHP agent.
Final Note from The Blue Time Ranger: And with that, our season eight premiere has come to a close! Like I mentioned at the beginning, I didn't expect Mat to offer up a Jellyfish Pirates adventure, since I'm usually the one who comes up with those. But the idea intrigued me enough that I figured it'd be worth a shot. Now, honestly, I actually never intended to have May leave the team, since I have so much fun writing for her. With that in mind, my intention was to have Mira slowly regain her confidence to the point where she was the one who got to land the knockout blow on good ol' Nat.
And now, it's on to the next episode of Totally Spies: The New Adventures! The countdown to one hundred continues with a pair of villains we haven't seen team up since season three, and they're back at their mutant shenanigans again. But this time, their new creation may actually prove to be troublesome for the spies. You'll have to see how it unfolds next time on Nautical Nasties, which will be posted by me. So, until next time, have a fantastic day, don't listen to the screeching morons, enjoy this preview of Nautical Nasties, and we'll see you next mission!
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Before Nick could call out to the other spies, though, those strange tendrils of water came back and yanked May underwater as well, forcing Nick to submerge and swim after her.
Eventually, Nick caught sight of legs skimming the surface of the water before rushing forward to blast the tendrils apart and free May from their clutches. The two of them swam back to the surface to behold an interesting sight.
Floating there in the water just ahead of them was a girl who appeared to be about their age, with long, flowing light blue hair, slightly darker blue eyes, a rather nice figure dressed in what appeared to be a combination of a dress and a hoodie with stingray designs printed on it, and a long, pointed tail.
"...well, if that don't beat all," Nick quipped.
"I'll only give you this one chance," the stingray girl proclaimed. "My name is Rei, and I'm asking you to leave these waters."
"Um, lady, we were surfing here before you did whatever you did to try and abduct me," May retorted. "So don't try that with us."
"Well, can't say I didn't try," Rei sighed before rising out of the water, surrounded by a small whirlwind of water.
"Wait, now what's happening?!" May gasped.
Nick snatched May in his psychic hold and levitated them both out of the water just in time, as large bubbles had manifested underneath where they'd just been before exploding violently.
"You've got some nerve, you know," Nick stated.
Rei chose not to answer, simply aiming her hand for Nick and firing blades of concentrated water from her palms. Nick quickly raised a psychic barrier to protect both himself and May before firing a Final Shine Attack from his free hand that broke through the whirlwind and hit Rei in the chest, causing her to fall back into the water before swimming away rapidly.
"So, I officially have several questions," May quipped once Rei had vanished.
"It sadly looks like the rest of our beach trip will have to wait," Nick admitted. "Let's get back to dry land so we can round up the others and head to W.O.O.H.P., because I've got a feeling our rogues' gallery is involved somehow."
May nodded as they flew back towards the beach.
To be continued in Totally Spies: Nautical Nasties...