On Today's Episode: The final battle with Boy Candy's Rage Stage marches on, with the spies keeping to the beat as best they can in order to find a weak point to exploit. All the while, the Rage Stage gets more dangerous as the battle and the song drags on. Can the spies rescue Mallory and shut this show down before it gets out of hand?
EDIT 12/20/23: Changed the ending theme.
Act 3: One Last Curtain Call
6:46 P.M. – Boy Candy's Secret Lair
"How's it coming down there?" Nick asked as he continued to fly around the Rage Stage, dodging its now much faster hand strikes and now even occasionally the head of the machine charging at him.
"It seems like the 'weak spot' keeps changing depending on what part of the song they're on, according to what I can read," RiCO answered from Nick's X-Powder.
"So, basically, every time Boy Candy changes up the song, the weak point moves," Sam stated. "Good to know."
"Like it's really gonna help you little clucks!" T-Bone laughed from his position on the main stage.
"Well, you know what they say," May chuckled. "You just have to adapt to the beat!"
As the Rage Stage dipped back downwards to start attacking the spies again, it swung one of its hands at May, who deflected it back with an anchor swing. When the Rage Stage decided to spin its hands around like a whirling dervish, May noticed a bright pink spot on the head's backside.
"Hey, I think that's what we've gotta hit!" Mat shouted.
"Allow me, then," Melissa replied, whipping out an Electromagnetic Curling Iron and waiting for the Rage Stage to stop spinning. When it did, she slipped behind it and fired, hitting the pink sphere just in time and driving the Rage Stage back.
"Someone's gotta get up there and help Mallory out!" Britney exclaimed.
"I can take care of that," Bridget quipped as she reached for her brooch. "Sonic Mode, online!"
Once she'd transformed, Bridget started running around the outer edges of the room, which was easy since the stage was circular, before running up the walls to get to the hand high above the stage holding Mallory.
"One express rescue, comin' up!" Bridget proclaimed before hopping off of the nearest wall, jumping towards Mallory, and slashing at the hand with a Platinum Credit Card, forcing it to drop Mallory back to the ground.
Henya aimed her Wondercube and projected a large cube for Mallory to land softly on, only for the Rage Stage to lunge its way towards her instead.
"No loony fans on my watch!" Henya shouted as she ducked and rolled under the Rage Stage to fire a glowing cube projectile into the weak point on its back, sending the Rage Stage careening into the nearby wall.
"We're not finished with the likes of you just yet!" T-Bone laughed. "Let's see if you can keep up!"
Boy Candy's song began playing even further up-tempo, now accompanied with ominous chanting from the loudspeakers as the Rage Stage began attacking much more frequently.
"Okay, this looks like it's about to start getting really dangerous," Clover noted.
"Then we'd better step it up, too!" May exclaimed, running around the stage to draw the Rage Stage's attention before noticing that a pink sphere on its underside was now lit up.
After dodging underneath a hand's attempt to squash her, May tossed her anchor upwards to hit the weak point, sending the Rage Stage skyward so Henya could batter it with a barrage of glowing cubes to keep it at bay momentarily.
Bridget continued to run around the stage to gather kinetic energy until she saw the Rage Stage float towards Sam and Mat, who had been separated from the others by one of the Rage Stage's hands.
"Ah-ah, no touchy feely on my watch!" Bridget exclaimed as she rushed towards the Rage Stage, ducking to slide underneath it before hopping back to her feet and equipping a Metal Masher Boxing Glove to punch the Rage Stage's weak point. A shockwave of emerald electricity exploded outwards from the point of impact with enough force to send the Rage Stage careening into the ceiling, struggling to reorient itself.
Boy Candy's song suddenly turned very ominous as the Rage Stage recovered and started violently attacking everything around it, clearly not intending to let the spies get anywhere near it.
"Well, crapbaskets, this could be trouble," Haruka noted.
Henya looked down at her Wondercube and grinned widely. "I've got enough energy for a boost," Henya quipped.
"Say no more, Henya," Nick responded as he walked over to Henya. "Power me up and let's trash this thing once and for all, shall we?"
Henya nodded, tapping Nick's chest twice with her Wondercube and sending a bright blue burst of light into his body.
Suddenly, Nick found himself floating in the air, dark blue light surrounding his body. A bright flash of neon-blue light erupted from his body, catching Boy Candy's attention and stopping their song so they could look up.
When the flash cleared, Nick's body had turned mostly bluish-black with a glowing cyan glitching effect affecting his body, his psychic aura turning glowing white with cyan electric sparks.
"Time to show you how we make music," Nick taunted, his voice echoing slightly as the Rage Stage flew towards him, aiming both of its hands to knock him out of the sky.
What actually happened was Nick clapping his hands together, telekinetically smashing both hands together and destroying them handily before psychically yanking the head of the Rage Stage upside-down to reveal the final weak point on the top of its head.
"Now you sing for me!" Nick exclaimed as he waved his hands to project a massive cluster of glowing cubes that all struck the Rage Stage at once, causing immense damage and tearing the machine apart rather handily.
Boy Candy could only look up in shock as the super-powered Nick destroyed the Rage Stage, so stunned by its defeat that they didn't notice Mallory sneaking up behind them until it was too late.
Mallory reached out to grab the drummer and bassist by their collars and slam them both into T-Bone from either side before kicking them clean off of the stage just as Nick landed on the ground, his Wondercube power boost fading away.
"Anything to say for yourselves?" Nick taunted. No response from Boy Candy. "Thought so."
Nick raised his hand to encase the members of Boy Candy in a psychic bubble.
"Welp, that was a pretty intense final fight, huh?" Clover quipped. "I'm just glad it's over."
"Then how about we get out of here so we can officially wrap this one up?" May stated.
"Good riddance to this nuthouse, says this observer," Melissa replied, which got everyone laughing as they retraced their steps.
7:41 P.M. – W.O.O.H.P. Headquarters
Jerry's Office
"Marvelous performance, everyone," Jerry proclaimed once the spies had reconvened at headquarters. Mallory had split to continue working on the effects for her own comeback, which she let slip would be happening sometime in November.
"Almost literally at the end," RiCO chuckled.
"On that note, RiCO, is iCO doing all right?" Britney wondered. "We haven't heard from her in a while."
"Don't worry, everything's all right," iCO responded as the office viewscreen flickered to life, showing iCO patrolling Sector F of the W.O.O.H.P. Datascape. "I'm usually just out patrolling the Datascape while RiCO helps you guys out on your missions."
"The benefits of having a sister who can do practically everything you can," RiCO chuckled.
"That's good to hear," Sam quipped as RiCO waved her hand to send the spies and Henya back to Mali-U.
7:59 P.M. – Malibu University
The Spies' Penthouse
"Well, another mission in the books," Alex quipped after everyone had sat down with some dinner.
"Personally, Alex, I hope that more black marks from T-Bone didn't..." Nozomi replied before she couldn't figure out how to finish her question.
"No, that was shot down after the first time," Alex stated.
"Well, sometimes you just never know about some people," Nick quipped.
Mat nodded in agreement, immediately thinking about 2008 Lites West champ Jason Lawrence specifically.
"Well, at least we get a bit of time before classes officially begin," Haruka stated.
"About that, spies..." Jerry replied as his visage appeared on their TV screen. "RiCO and I have taken care of that for you."
"I was about to say that we might not get the classes we need at this point in summer," Mat chuckled.
"The almighty A.I. comes to the rescue again," RiCO giggled. "We took care of things while you were on the mission."
"Thanks, guys," Clover quipped as their visages went away.
"So, I guess after this weekend, classes begin," May sighed.
"I'd say we made the most of summertime at our beach house though," Melissa commented.
Everyone agreed there.
10:01 A.M. – Malibu University
The Spies' Penthouse
The Next Day
When the next day came around, most of the spies joined Mat in watching the next round of the 2009 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship. Nick came out in his board shorts because the rest of the spies wanted to get one more pool day in before classes started, and after Mat's race was over.
This time, the race was from Budds Creek in Maryland, and the 450cc class was currently on – specifically highlights of the first moto. Calling the race were the usual team of Racer X Writer Jason Weigandt, 4-time Motocross champ David Bailey, the GOAT Ricky Carmichael, and Jamie Bestwick and Tiffany Simons as the pit reporters.
"You guys coming?" Nick asked them.
"I'm not missing this race if this means Chad Reed's going to wrap up the 450cc Motocross title!" Mat emphasized.
The first moto highlights showed Joe Gibbs Yamaha's Josh Grant #33 returning to action after missing the last race at Unadilla with a broken ankle at the X Games. Unfortunately, he didn't play a factor in the outcome.
"The track doesn't look very muddy to me," Melissa commented until points leader Chad Reed on his #22 Rockstar Makita Suzuki nearly crashed.
"And the sun's out, too..." Haruka added.
"I agree," Mat stated. "However, they were calling for thunderstorms later in the day, but I hope it holds off until all the racing's done."
"Here's hoping," Nick chuckled. "If there's anything I've learned, it's that mother nature can be very unpredictable."
After the bad start, Yamaha's Grant moved up to 5th before sliding out in a turn. Fortunately, he was able to remount.
"Well, I commend Grant for giving it a go," Mat sighed, thinking Grant's day was just about over.
In the meantime, Suzuki's Reed had made it past Jeff Alessi on his #801 privateer Honda into 2nd place; all that was left was Team Honda's Davi Millsaps on his #18, who led the moto.
"I think you've got nothing to worry about now, Mat," Melissa giggled.
Simultaneously, Jake Moss on his #42, who got picked up by Team Kawasaki to replace the injured Ryan Villopoto, was running well until his Kawasaki began blowing white smoke, and he later looped out and crashed.
"Oof," Henya quipped.
"You were so close, my dude," May stated.
With two laps to go, Reed had erased as much as a 15-second gap on Millsaps, but Millsaps was able to hold off that #22 Suzuki and take the first 450cc moto. Finishing 3rd was new Yamaha signee Matt Goerke #34.
"I think Melissa's right, bro," Nick told Mat since Josh Grant's name was not seen in the top 10.
"Hard to not think that Reed's not getting the job done today," Dawn chuckled.
The second 450cc moto got under way shortly afterwards; the Budds Creek track was getting more and more muddy, and the skies were getting more gray.
Honda's Ivan Tedesco got the early lead, but Chad Reed was running 2nd place, much to Mat's delight.
"Yeah, it's raining," Haruka remarked.
Sam gave Mat a pat on the back as the moto went on.
Later, a graphic came up on the screen regarding Chad Reed clinching the title. It said Reed had to lead 2nd place by 100 points or more, and he was up by 90 over 2nd in the series, Andrew Short on the Factory Honda #29.
Jason: Now he added 11 points to his gap over Short in moto 1, so he needs to add 10 more in this one. He has a 90-point lead – he needs to have a hundred by the time this race is over. What that basically means, folks... if Reed wins the moto, Short needs to finish 6th or worse, and Reed will win the championship. Right now, Short is way back in 15th at the end of lap 1. He is REALLY going to have to work.
"I think that should be easily attainable if Reed keeps it upright," Mat deduced.
"For your sake, I hope so," Sam chuckled.
"You deserve that happiness after earlier this year, Mat," Bridget added.
"Eventually, the bad luck goes away and you're stuck with good luck for a while," Haruka quipped. "That's my philosophy, at any rate."
"You just gotta turn that corner," Nozomi replied.
Moto 1 winner Davi Millsaps was currently running 4th.
"I bet Reed's gonna get Tedesco," Nick told the others.
"I'm taking that bet," Mat quipped.
"Yeah, same here," Melissa stated.
"Let's go, Reed!" May proclaimed.
Mat still calmly watched Chad Reed work his magic as he inched closer to Ivan Tedesco. With over 17 minutes remaining, Reed finally made his move on Tedesco for the lead, much to Mat's delight.
"Got him!" Mat exclaimed.
A while later, Andrew Short – 2nd in the series – had just moved up to 6th, but a later report was that Kyle Regal, aboard a #475 Valli Yamaha 450, had passed Short for 6th place, and put Short down to 7th.
One of the next shots showed Matt Goerke – 3rd in moto 1 – down and trying to restart his YZ450F. His goggles were off, too. A replay showed he lost his front end and slid out.
David: That's the same place that Josh Grant went down in the first moto...
Jason: Goerke bites it there, too.
Mat sighed at the misfortune for Goerke, as that was two rounds in a row he had bad luck.
David: I don't think he's hurt, he's going... "Dang it!"
A later pit report showed Tiffany Simons interviewing Josh Grant, who did not make the start for the second moto.
Josh Grant: My goal was to get 3rd overall, and it was just hard to do, but... I don't know... bummed.
Tiffany: As you can see, guys, he's very bummed. Thank you, Josh for your time. Back to you, guys.
Jason: Yeah, that was the goal. Josh Grant with a broken ankle on one foot, and a bruised heel on the other, was going to try to race today and score some points. He is in a battle with Short and Tedesco for 2nd, 3rd, 4th in this series...
"That's not happening," May sighed.
"Yeah, kinda looks that way," Alex stated.
"Well, he might as well give it a try," Henya answered. "Couldn't hurt, right?"
Reed had clear sailing since getting around Tedesco in the meantime.
After hearing Andrew Short had worked back up to 6th place (and Regal had made it past Millsaps into 4th place), the title chase seemed to be a done deal.
"I think this title chase is over," Mat sighed with a big grin on his face. "But Regal's 4-4 might be the next biggest story since that guy's a rookie!"
"I'm pretty surprised hearing he's a rookie," Blaine commented.
A while later, there was another report from Jason Weigandt about how Reed's last-minute decision to race the Motocross series was very unexpected to Suzuki since he had a Supercross-only deal.
Jason: Now, Chad Reed, we were alluding this earlier. He had a contract to race the Supercross series only, but he decided he wanted to race the Motocross tour this year. They got some money together with sponsors, but their budget had pretty much been tapped because they didn't expect him to be here, so he said, "You know what? Put that money together, I'm going to bet on myself!" He opened up an insurance policy where if he wins the title, it pays several million dollars; if he doesn't win the title, well, all his sponsor money went into buying that insurance policy. Basically, if Reed doesn't win the championship this year, he makes absolutely no money whatsoever! He took ALL his sponsorship money, and bought an insurance policy with it, which is basically win the title, you get a couple million bucks... finish 2nd or worse, you get zilch! In this day and age, for a guy to bet on himself is pretty impressive, AND he bought that insurance policy before Ryan Villopoto was injured, before Mike Alessi was injured, and before James Stewart, last year's champ, had decided for sure that he wasn't going to race this series. That's confidence for Chad Reed to bet on himself!
Ricky: That's pretty confident – I didn't know all the facts there. That's laying it out there being confident. You can never bet against this guy! That was so tough about racing him...
Mat was pretty speechless at that report.
"Sounds like he's got a lot of confidence in himself to do something like that," Nick quipped. "Not entirely unwarranted, mind you..."
"And you wonder why this guy's my hero..." Mat added.
"That's a pretty good aspect in my book," Alex commented.
With over 3 minutes remaining, Andrew Short had reportedly dropped to 9th place, ultimately ending his chances at the title. Mat was still enjoying the moment as the second moto came to a close.
David: There's been also people saying "Well, you're retired," and "James Stewart's not here," and all that kind of stuff, but as he pointed out, you have to be there!
Ricky: Absolutely! Hey, it doesn't matter whether I'm retired or James ain't racing, the difference is we ain't out there, and it's our job to be out there – we're not – so, he's going to win and he deserves it!
"No doubt about that," Mat grinned.
Sam chuckled and hugged her fiancée.
Although the weather was getting worse, Reed remained unchallenged – even ditching his goggles – and he took the second moto win and the overall! For Chad Reed, it was moto win #9, and overall win #5 of the season with 2 rounds remaining. Tommy Hahn on his #48 Canidae Kawasaki took 2nd place, and Ivan Tedesco on his Honda finished 3rd in the moto. As for Andrew Short, he crossed the line in 10th, which was more than enough for Chad Reed to clinch the championship with two rounds remaining!
In the overall, it was Reed's 2-1 (47 pts.) being enough to take 1st place, while Davi Millsaps came 2nd with a 1-6 (40 pts.), and Ivan Tedesco 3rd with a 5-3 (36 pts.).
To say that Mat was stoked was an understatement!
"There's that happiness, Mat," Bridget laughed, obviously thrilled for Mat.
"Hey, I think we all knew he was gonna take it!" Melissa laughed.
"I never doubted him for a second," Haruka quipped.
The spies used that as a green light to start that pool day with a bang – especially Mat.
("Tokyo Wabi-Sabi Lullaby" by Gawr Gura plays)
As the spies all headed for the pool, Henya couldn't help but smile at their antics. They reminded her a lot of some of her own friends back at the Society. After all, they had made life there at least tolerable, and they were the main reason she'd escaped, in hopes of finding someone to help her bust them out.
"H-Hey, wait for me!" Henya exclaimed, pressing a button on her Wondercube to instantly change into her own swimsuit and follow the spies to the pool. "You're not leaving me out of the fun!"
"Definitely wasn't planning to, Henya," Nick chuckled.
"PIRATE DIVE!" May exclaimed as she came barreling in from the other room to do her patented cannonball trick right into the pool.
"And there's the first one of year four," Britney quipped.
"Hey, it was bound to happen at some point," May laughed, only to squeak in surprise when she fonud herself getting yanked underwater by the legs courtesy of Henya.
As May began chasing Henya around the pool, Henya's thoughts once again drifted to her friends back at the Society.
Don't worry, everyone, Henya thought. I'll be back for you soon enough.
4:31 P.M. – The Society
Location Unknown
Froot stared in complete shock at the footage that Melody had shown her. And she knew that Melody was telling the truth because, in her own words, she was really bad at lying.
Melody sighed and closed her laptop. "Sorry I had to show you the awful truth, Froot," Melody admitted. "But, like I said, you had to see it to believe it."
"Okay, so, here's the big question," Froot responded. "Does anybody else here know about that?"
"From what I can tell, right now, it's only you, me and Henya that know the truth," Melody answered. "And I'm pretty dang sure that's why Henya escaped."
"Then how are we going to convince everyone here that we're just being used?" Froot wondered.
"Oh, you just leave that to little ol' me," Melody chuckled as she reopened her laptop and started typing away at it. "Just give me a bit and I'll have this bad boy cracked in no time."
"Just try not to get caught, okay?" Froot replied. "I don't want to think about what they'd do to you."
"Hey, when it comes to keeping my tracks clean, I am the master around here," Melody proclaimed. That seemed to be enough for Froot as she returned to her room, making sure not to arouse any suspicion from the patrolling guards as she did so.
But the instant she returned to her own room, she collapsed to her bed in a bit of a panic, still rattled by what Melody had shown her.
Henya was right. There was no way they could let that... that thing escape from its confinement.
If that happened, there was no hope for this world.
Or possibly all others.
That thought alone scared Froot the most.
Totally Spies: The Rage on the Stage
~The End~
Final Note from Mat49324: Well, that's all for The Rage on the Stage. We hope you enjoyed this one. Now, in terms of 2009 Motocross, the title chase is over for the 450 class, but there's still a 250 title chase I've yet to finish. There are still two rounds remaining (as you may have read just a few lines up), so the season is not done yet. While this project is done, season 8 is certainly NOT done! We have our next project coming up on my page titled Water Polo Washouts. Now, if you recall in a past project, May, Haruka, and Bridget all tried out for the Mali-U Water Polo team, and they all made it. We're also having a villain from S2 and a villain from S5 team up. I'll leave it at that, and here is The Blue Time Ranger for his final thoughts.
Final Note from The Blue Time Ranger: And that's a wrap for this performance! We're already halfway through season eight and things are going to get very interesting as the season rolls on. This story in particular was inspired, oddly enough, by the final boss fight of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which I was not expecting (I probably should have expected something wacky, given how trippy that game can get at times) because my brain is just like that.
Anyways, let's talk about what's coming up next on Totally Spies: The New Adventures! We've got some more water madness (that's the third time this season, sensing a pattern?) but this time around, it's courtesy of a certain coach who still doesn't have a name and a villain from the beginning of OG season five that I haven't written for yet, so this'll be a first. Check out how things are going to go down next time on Water Polo Washouts, which will be posted by Mat. So, until next time, have a fantastic day, don't listen to the screeching morons, enjoy this preview of Water Polo Washouts, and we'll see you next mission!
"Everything okay in here?" Henya asked as she walked into the penthouse. She'd been walking around Mali-U to get a good look at everything it had, knowing she'd probably be staying here with the spies for the foreseeable future. "It looks like the mood kinda did a bit of whiplash."
"Mat's Supercross race kinda didn't go how we expected," Sam answered. "We were gonna head down to the beach to try and cheer him up a bit. You in, Henya?"
"Oh, heck yes," Henya laughed.
Before any of the spies could prepare for the beach, however, the large sofa in the penthouse suddenly moved aside and allowed a large metal pipe to protrude from the floor.
Nick raised his hand and projected a psychic barrier to defend against the suction until it stopped, like clockwork.
"Guess the beach trip will have to wait," Britney sighed.
"Hey, the beach will still be here when we're done," Melissa replied as she hugged Mat to get him to smile again.
"Does Jerry have secret passages all over this place?" Henya gasped.
"Try all over Beverly Hills," Alex giggled as everyone suited up before jumping into the pipe.
Once everyone was in Jerry's office, the spies noticed that the viewscreen was already active and showing them the two villains they'd most likely be facing soon.
One of them was the Zanzibar Coach, but they didn't recognize the woman, who appeared shorter than the spies with thick, some somewhat wavy blonde hair with curled bangs split onto the left, and pale blue eyes.
"Um, who is this, Jerry?" Sam wondered. "Because I don't recognize her."
"According to our records, her name is Stacy, and she's apparently teamed up with the Coach for his next scheme," Jerry explained.
"She used to be just a struggling student at Malibu University a couple years ago, right around the time you all started there," RiCO explained after materializing in the office. "She was actually really smart, but she decided she'd rather take the 'have others do my own work for me' route, and she created a machine that can siphon different kinds of intelligence from people."
"Yeesh, imagine if we had to deal with her on our first days at Mali-U," Clover chuckled. "That would have been a really scummy way to start our college days, huh?"
"Any idea where they were spotted last, Jer?" Sam wondered.
"Coach's signal is somewhere near the Beverly Hills National Sports Center," Jerry answered.
"Oh, it had to be that place," Blaine quipped.
"We can worry about that later," Nick replied as the spies moved to retrieve their gadget loadout. "Let's just get on out there and take care of both of these wingnuts."
To be continued in Totally Spies: Water Polo Washouts...