The screeching was deafening. Mostly from Agent Oswald, but the mutated pterosaurs were loud too.
After the flying transparent pirate ship on which they were riding vanished and the superhero team accompanying them disappeared as well, the OSMU agents, the Little O, Olive and Otto found themselves in free fall over the ocean near the volcanic island where the villain base was located.
"What're we gonna do?" Oswald half-shouted, half-sobbed. "What're we gonna do, what're we gonna do, what're we gonna DO?"
"You, of course, are going to scream," Orla responded tersely. "but then eventually we will find a way to save ourselves."
"What about the van?" Omar asked. "It has rockets! It can catch us and take us the rest of the way to the island!"
The van fired up its rockets and raced up toward them. "I WILL BE GLAD TO ASSIST! BUT THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR MOMENTUM!"
"We're falling too fast!" Osmerelda explained. "Even if the van catches us, we'd still splatter all over it! We've built up too much speed!"
"And those pterodactyl-thingies are still coming for us!" Little O observed.
Otto's eyes widened. "Weird! It's like they keep mutating..."
#
They were. In another reality, a coalition of comic book people were gathered in one of the Odd Squad interrogation rooms, Otis, Olympia, Oona and Oscar trying to supervise them while they observed the agents plummeting and commented, their comments immediately becoming reality in the comic book universe.
"And they should have really big, sharp teeth, like dinosaur teeth, cause they're like dinosaurs..."
"Pterosaurs aren't dinosaurs. They're related to dinosaurs and they lived in the same time as dinosaurs but they're not really dinosaurs..."
"Who cares? Razor-sharp teeth are really cool!"
"And laser eyes! They need laser eyes!"
Inside the comic and in the alternate reality, the agents found themselves dodging laser beams from the monsters' eyes.
Olympia tried to take charge of the situation. "GUYS! GUYS! YOU NEED TO SAVE OUR FRIENDS!"
The comics writers looked at her. Then they went back to their kibitzing.
"And maybe they can glow, like they're radioactive like Godzilla or..."
"GUYS!" Olympia tried again. "Our friends are going to DIE unless you save them!"
"Well, that's not our fault," one writer sniffed.
"Yeah! If they were cooler, we'd be more interested in them."
"You know what they need?" Another writer suggested. "They need an adult mentor to take charge of them..."
Olympia stared in dismay. "WHAT?"
#
"AGENTS!" A deep, resonant voice echoed in the team's heads. "You need to slow your fall!"
"We noticed!" Olive shouted. "Who are you?"
"I am Commander O, your teacher and mentor!"
The kids all looked at one another and shrugged. "We've never..."
"I am your trusted mentor!" the disembodied voice insisted. "Quickly! You must slow your fall so the van can save you!"
"Yes! Yes! We noticed that too!" Oswald screamed. "Any suggestions?"
The voice was suddenly silent.
"That's what I thought..." muttered Olive.
"Hey!" Omar exclaimed. "Our parachutinators!" He reached behind his back and produced his, firing it up in the air. A parachute appeared, only to be blasted by the creatures' laser beams.
#
"CAN YOU GET RID OF THE EYE-BEAMS, PLEASE?" Oona shouted at the writers in a panic. "Our guys are in enough trouble!"
"But they're..."
"So cool!" Otis finished the sentence for them. "We know! Just get rid of them!"
"But we..."
"GET RID OF THEM!"
"Fine, fine..." The writers grumbled. "They're gone." Then, muttering under his breath. "Completely ruins the characters, but fine..."
The laser blasts stopped shooting from the pterosaurs' eyes. Now they were just gigantic, voracious prehistoric monsters circling the kids.
"Okay..." Olympia took deep breaths. "Now to save the team..."
"You know what'd be interesting?" Another one of the writers mused. "Their parents! We should focus on their parents and how they handle their kids being Odd Squad agents and how they cope with it..."
#
The scene suddenly shifted to a group of adults relaxing in a den.
"More hazel-nuts, Gloria?"
#
"WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!" Olympia shouted. "OUR FRIENDS ARE FALLING TO THEIR DEATHS! YOU NEED TO SAVE THEM!"
#
Once the lasers were gone, the agents were able to slow themselves with their parachutinators, the kids who didn't have the gadget clinging to the kids who did. The Mobile Unit van jetted up toward them, its doors opening automatically.
"BRACE YOURSELVES,!" The van called to them. "I SHALL ATTEMPT TO CATCH YOU!"
"Yeah!" Oswald gasped, holding for dear life onto Osmerelda, who held onto her parachute. The pterosaurs snapped at them. "Problem is, so will they!"
#
"Well, you know..." One of the writers sighed. "We are doing our best."
"Yeah," another writer chimed in. "It's not our fault those guys just aren't cool enough for us to care about."
"I mean, kid-characters are just lame anyway..."
"WHAT?" Agent Olympia was trying not to lose her mind along with her temper. "They're human beings! And they're going to die unless you rescue them!"
"Just as well," a third writer sniffed. "That group would never sell anyway. I mean, look at them! The girls outnumber the boys and there's only two white kids!"
Olympia shook her head. "WHAT?"
"And only one of the white kids is a boy!"
"And he's such a little cuck the audience wouldn't like him anyway!"
"yeah, I'll bet he's Gay. He looks Gay..."
Olympia was massaging her temples.
"And those girls are way too young! And those outfits are awful! If they were only a few years older and wearing mini-dresses and heels and maybe fishnets..."
"WHUH... WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"
"You have to understand," one of the women explained. "It isn't that we're racist, homophobic misogynist dolts. Oh, heavens no."
"But our fans are," another writer added. "And it's just easier to go along with them. I mean, money is money..."
"WILL YOU KNOCK IT OFF AND DO SOMETHING?"
A writer sighed. "Fine... Fine..."
#
"NEVER FEAR, ODD SQUAD!" a stentorian female voice echoed through the air. "I SHALL RESCUE YOU!"
A woman in a modified Shmumbermaid costume swooped out of the sky, blasting the pterosaurs with concussion blasts from her palms.
"Wait..." Osmerelda stared. "That's... That's not Shmumbermaid..."
#
"It's the new, improved Shmumbermaid!" the writer proudly proclaimed. "She's SO much cooler than the old Shmumbermaid! I mean, honestly, there should only be ONE survivor of Fruitlantis or it takes away the whole 'sole survivor' concept. So she's a genetic experiment created by S.H.M.U.M.B.E.R. labs from Shmumberman's tissue samples..."
"Fine, fine," sighed Olympia. "As long as someone's there to save them..."
"Hey, I can do better'n that..." another writer announced.
Olympia shuddered and forced herself to look.
#
Another figure ascended from below, an armored woman with swords coming out of her arms and wings three times larger than her body.
"HEAR ME, ODD SQUAD!" the figure bellowed, the sun gleaming on, then being swallowed by, her breastplates. "I AM NO LONGER THE WOMAN YOU KNEW! I AM FIRE! I AM DEATH INCARNATE! NOW AND FOREVER... I AM HELL QUETZAL!"
She decapitated one of the pterosaurs with one swing of her sword, then emitted a hideous victory screech.
#
"Cool, huh?" the writer gloated. "WAY better than that dumb, wimpy old Quetzal!"
Olympia buried her head in her hands.
#
"Thanks!" Omar shouted to the warrior bird-woman. "You saved..."
Hell Quetzal shrieked again and dove toward the new Shmumbermaid, blades flailing.
The kids looked on in dismay. "What...?"
#
"She's in her berserker fury!" the writer crowed. "When that happens, she can't tell the diff between friend or foe! She just kills EVERYONE! It's AWESOME!"
Olympia stared at him, jaw dropped.
#
"Well..." Osmerelda sighed. "At least Shmumbermaid is invulnerable to..."
The blades slashed at Shmumbermaid's misection, ripping through her costume and into her flesh.
"Uh-oh..."
The two heroines fought while the pterosaurs regrouped.
#
"Yeah, that whole 'invulnerability' thing, it just made her too powerful. Now people can RELATE to her!"
Otis shook his head. "And we're back to where we started."
"Look!" Oona leaned forward. "How about bringing in Shmumberman? You like Shmumberman..."
"Shmumberman is so overused," another writer rolled their eyes.
Olympia almost sobbed. "WELL, THEN, SOMEONE! ANYONE! DO SOMETHING!"
The writers looked at her.
"I don't think I like your attitude."
"All she's done since we've gotten here is complain."
"Yeah! Honestly, kid, WE'RE the writers! You're just a fan!" They sniffed. "We outrank you!"
"We know what we're doing!"
"Honestly, the constant drama here is exhausting. She's lucky we put up with it."
Olympia trembled with rage.
#
Orla, fortunately, had reached the van. She tossed her parachutinator aside and grabbed Osmerelda's foot.
"To me, my compatriots!" She pulled Osmerelda and Oswald into the van.
Little O, meanwhile, activated her suit's glider wings and flew down to join them.
"GUYS!" she shouted up at Olive and Otto. "You're Mister and Ms. Os! Your suits should have wings too!"
Olive and Otto exchanged looks. "Of COURSE! We've never used them so we forgot we had them!"
Otto shouted back. "But how do we activate them?"
Olive sighed. "Still haven't read your manual, have you?"
"I've been kinda busy!"
Rolling her eyes, Olive activated her glider wings, then helped Otto with his. They soared down into the van.
"Okay... Okay..." Oswald fought to catch his breath. "Is that everyone? There's me, Orla, Osmerelda..."
"OMAR!" Osmerelda pointed.
Omar fell past them, his parachute fluttering as he plummeted toward the sea.
"We need to save him!" Oswald shouted. "How're we gonna save him?"
Just then, a column of water rose straight up, swirling about like a tornado and knocking away the mutant pterosaurs. Confused and frightened, they fled.
#
"I just had the COOLEST idea," the artist enthused.
"Does it involve saving Omar?" Oona asked pointedly.
#
Fortunately, it did. Omar fell into the center of the water-whirlwind and found himself floating in mid-air. He was buoyed up, bobbing like a cork.
A figure took form in the center of the whirlwind, a beautiful woman with long, shimmering blond hair, completely naked except for three strategically placed seashells.
"Yeah, like, hi!" she twittered up to the bewildered Omar. "I'm, y'know, Shmumbra! Just, like, hold on and I'll getcha up to your van and stuff!"
#
Olympia stared at the artist in disbelief.
"She's SO MUCH COOLER NOW!" he insisted. "That old Shmumbra was just horrible. Her powers were so lame, you couldn't do ANYTHING with her..."
"SHE HAD ALL KINDS OF POWERS!" an outraged Oona shouted. "DID YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE CHARACTER AT ALL BEFORE YOU DECIDED TO 'FIX' HER?"
The artist sniffed. "I'm far too cool to know or care about a lame-oid character like Shmumbra..."
#
The agents, on the other hand, were more fixated on the new Shmumbra's near nudity. Olive covered Otto's eyes while Oswald kept trying and failing to not stare.
"Is this even permissible?"
#
"BUT IT'S EMPOWERING!" the artist shouted. "It's just so EMPOWERING to have female characters in skimpy, sexy costumes!"
Otis side-eyed him. "If it's so 'empowering,' why is it mostly the female characters?"
The artist stared at him. "What are you, Gay?"
#
"It's all right, guys!" the new Shmumbra shouted up at the kids. "I'm wearing heels!"
She lowered the water-whirlwind to show the high heels she was incongruously wearing with her sea shells in the ocean.
#
"BUT HIGH HEELS ARE EMPOWERING!"
Otis stared back at him. "It seems like everything that turns you on is 'empowering.'"
"It is! It gives them power over me!"
All the comics people nodded sagely as the agents winced.
#
The new Shmumbra raised her water whirlwind up until Omar could be pulled by the others into the van.
"Okay..." Omar gasped. "Okay, that was an experience..." He looked down at his sopping wet uniform.
"Dryinator!" Oswald produced a gadget and zapped Omar. His clothes were now dry.
"Thanks, man!" Omar smiled.
"Now," Orla struck a pose. "ONWARD TO VANQUISH THE VILLAINS IN THEIR ISLAND LAIR!"
"Oh, is that what you're doing out here?" The new Shmumbra chirped. "That sounds cool! I wish I could help but I'm busy defending my homeland of Yashirin Shahar from attack by the United States."
"What?" Osmerelda shook her head. "Yashirin Sha... What happened to Shmumber-La?"
#
"Oh, come on!" one of the writers exclaimed. "SHMUMBER-LA? That is just so Martin Denny..."
"But Yashirin Shahar?" Oswald exclaimed. "That's Uzbek! Why would they speak Uzbek?"
"BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT LOOKED COOLEST ON GOOGLE TRANSLATE!"
Oswald sighed. "It means 'hidden city'..."
#
"And why is the United States attacking you?"
"It's a long story..."
#
"It is!" the writer insisted. "That will be told in SHMUMBRA: BATTLE FOR YASHIRIN SHAHAR, a new six-issue Limited Series coming in April..."
#
The agents watched the Shmumbra variant vanish beneath the waves.
"So... She's gone..." Olive sighed and looked up into the sky where the two other transformed heroines were still fighting. "And those two aren't going to be any help..."
Little O nodded solemnly.
"Then it looks like we'll have to stop the villains on our own."
#
TO BE CONTINUED...