Gabriel knew that it was going to be a long day as soon as he saw the cartoony explosion followed by evil laughter. "I just wanted a simple day of relaxing in Hollywood Studios alongside my friends. Is that too much to ask?" the raven shook his head.
"Don't worry, Gabriel-san, we can take care of whatever comes our way!" Lop affirmed.
Running over to the backlots where the explosion was set off, Gabriel dramatically pushed open the doors of a soundstage to assess the damage. Inside he and Lop found what looked to be a mad scientist lab, currently in a state of looking like it had just exploded, because it had. Brian of all people stepped out of the smoke, coughing a bit before looking to Gabriel.
"Dream Keeper, I'll let you handle this one," Brian said, shifting into his shadow wolf form. "If you need me, I'll just be sunbathing in Toy Story Land."
Gabriel watched Brian run off before turning his attention back to the lab. "Beth, are you in here?" the raven called. "I know wherever Brian is you can't be far!"
"Gabriel, how nice to see you!" Beth greet, fanning her hands to get rid of the smoke. The girl was currently wearing a mad scientist getup, though she had clearly been in the middle of the explosion due to the comical amount of soot covering her body.
"Beth, where are you dressed like a pharmacist?" Lop asked.
"It's a lab coat, not a pharmacist outfit!" replied a familiar voice. Another figure stepped out of the smoke, this one being Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz.
"Oh, hey Dr. D," Gabriel greeted with a casual wave. "Why are you guys doing science stuff in a warehouse instead of at Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated!"
"Why'd you sing that last part?" Lop asked.
Gabriel grinned. "Because it's fun!"
"Well, we were going to use his lab, but then the whole building had to get fumigated because of a cockroach infestation," Beth explained. "Weirdly enough there was this one cockroach in a wizard's cape ordering them around. That was… strange… either way, want to come see what we're working on?"
Going inside the lab, Gabriel and Lop looked around to see that, in the middle of the explosion was Stitch, the little blue alien giggling as Dr. Jumba, his creator, sprayed Stitch down with a fire extinguisher. "Oh, so you were doing science stuff with Stitch," Gabriel said.
"Yep! Welcome to the Evil Science Club!" Beth presented.
"Former Evil Science Club," Herbert said, walking in from the back room with a cup of coffee. "I thought we put this whole club together so that I could learn to be good or whatever."
"Well yeah, but Evil Science Club has a better ring to it," Beth shrugged. "Anywho, this time our experiment has been to test out a brand-new idea I've had: summonable experiments!" She quickly ran over to a whiteboard and rolled it in front of Gabriel. "You see, I know that Keyblade Wielders- congratulations on getting one, by the way- can summon other Disney characters to help them in battle. So I thought, "What if I could make a way to summon Stitch's cousins so they could help out whenever we need them?" Thus, this test was born! Jumba, you can explain the rest."
"Indeed, we are working on a new form of teleportation," Jumba explained, pointing to notes on the board. "First, we put tracker on experiment, then hook up tracker to summon unit. After that, we teleport experiment to location of summon unit by turning experiment into teeny-tiny particles, and relocating them to new location."
"And what's the point of all of this?" Lop asked. "I thought that Stitch and his cousins already had their own places in Hawaii?"
"Well, they do, but what if one of their powers were useful somewhere else?" Herbert said. "What if, say, you were stuck in the middle of the forest with a dead car battery? With this device, you could summon Sparky or Zap and have them jumpstart the car for you." He pointed to another note on the board. "And we've made sure that once the experiment's job is done, they can be sent right back home with no issue."
"At least, that's the plan," Doofenshmirtz sighed. "The teleportation keeps causing explosions, though. And I didn't even put a self-destruct button on this one!"
Gabriel looked over the whiteboard and hummed. "Well, I'm not as big of a science guy as I was when I was a little kid, but if I could make a suggestion: what about making a teleportation pad first? If you can make a stable teleporting loop with Stitch first, then you can alter that loop to not use the pad afterwards."
"Hey, that's not a bad idea!" Beth said. "Okay team, let's do that! I'm sure we can grab some old props from the backlot to build this thing!"
And so the Evil Science Club got to work, with Gabriel providing some background Fantasia so they could get their work done faster. In no time at all, the team had their teleportation pad set up, with Stitch eagerly stepping inside to start the test.
"Okay Lop, you take the transmitter and go down to the Chinese Theater," Lop instructed, handing the portable device to the Lepi Jedi. "When I give you the signal, press the button and we'll start up the machine. Then once Stitch is teleported over to you, just press the button on the device and he'll be sent right back here?"
"You ready, 626?" Jumba asked.
"Stitch ready!" Stitch cheered.
"I'm just going to stand back here in case anything goes wrong," Herbert said, the polar bear moving behind some reinforced glass panels.
As the machine powered up, someone suddenly burst in through a window, making everyone turn to see a platypus in fedora. "Well, Perry the Platypus, how unexpected," Doofenshmirtz said. "And by "unexpected," I mean… no really, I wasn't expecting you to be here at all." Perry made a chirping noise. "What, you know that I'm not evil any more… Yes, I know what the club's name is, but that Beth's idea, not mine!"
"Uh, guys, the machine's still on," Gabriel said, pointing to the teleporter as Stitch got transported away. It was then that a little bluebird flew in from the hole Agent P created, also wearing a fedora. "Kessie?"
Kessie put a feather to her beak. "No, I'm Agent K!"
"Ah, Kessie the Bluebird. I heard that the Organization Without a Cool Acronym was hiring more agents," Herbert said.
"I'm just interning with Agent P for today," Kessie replied.
"So that's what you get up to whenever you're not with me or in the Hundred Acre Wood," Gabriel mused.
"Bah, if you're all distracted by these do-gooders, I'll just continue the experiment myself," Jumba said, picking up the comlink connected to Lop's. "Bunny girl, you may send 626 back to us now."
"But he never arrived here," Lop responded.
"Huh, but we did send Stitch somewhere," Beth said, looking at the readings from the teleporter. "Maybe we just need to hard reset it? Press the return button on your end anyway, Lop!"
Lop shrugged and did as she was told, causing a flash of light to fill the teleportation pad. Instead of Stitch appearing, however, there was instead and giant centipede-like alien inside the tube, which growled as it started at everyone else.
Agent P gave a look to Doofenshmirtz. "What, it wasn't my fault this time, I swear!"
"Wait, I recognize that thing!" Gabriel gasped. He frowned and turned to Beth. "Beth, where did you get the parts to build the teleportation pad?"
"Oh, we found some unused boxes over there and used those parts," she explained.
Kessie flew over to the boxes. "Gabriel, what does "X-S Corporation" mean?"
"It means that the alien is what I feared it was," the raven sighed, summoning Cosmic White as the alien burst out of the teleportation pad. "My guess is that you didn't change the coordinates on the teleportation parts, thus it just ended up teleporting the last thing that was inside it. Get ready for a fight."
"I'm just going to… go grab one of my inventions," Herbert said nervously before running out of the sound stage in a hurry.
Suddenly the entire wall of the building burst open, revealing a familiar red-scaled Tyrannosaurus Rex. "A dinosaur?" Doofenshmirtz questioned.
"Devil Dinosaur?" Jumba questioned.
Devil rolled his eyes before tossing a tiny fedora onto his head. "Devil the Dinosaur!" Beth exclaimed.
"I shouldn't be surprised by this revelation, but I still am," Gabriel sighed. "Okay, Agents P, K, and D, let's deal with this alien while Beth and the others fix the teleporter!" He looked to the readers before sighing. "All I wanted to do today was ride Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, is that too much to ask?"
"Less fourth wall breaking, more fighting!" Beth shouted, ducking out of the way of the alien's acidic spit.
Gabriel rolled his eyes before jumping into fight. 'I could really go for some Dole Whip after this…' he thought.
Author's Note
A super short chapter this week, I know, but I hope you enjoyed it all the same. This idea was suggested by Spyrorocks389, Beth's creator! They wanted Beth to make a team of (former) evil scientists with Herbert, Jumba, and Doofenshmirtz and get up to some scientific mishaps together.
The teleporter experiment is based on the former "Alien Encounter!" attraction that used to be in Tomorrowland, before turning into "Stitch's Great Escape!", which is now currently closed to be replaced by… something in the future (Disney hasn't announced what at this moment). X-S Corporation is the company in Alien Encounter that created the teleportation tube, and puts guests in danger with their experiment by accidentally summoning and alien instead of their intended demonstration. Fun Fact: this ride in its original concept was going to be based on Ridley Scott's "Alien" franchise, which is ironic since Disney now owns that franchise!
I got the idea of Kessie being an OWCA agent in my head, and then that snowballed into Devil Dinosaur being an OWCA agent as well. I hope you liked that gag!
The next chapter is going to be delayed until March 24, in which something special will be going down. It's time for a big musical chapter as Gabriel celebrates a very special day with his friends! See you all then!