Hey. It took me a while to get to this one, but hopefully it will have paid off.]
Chapter Fifteen
The Getaway
Hawaiian Island-7:59 AM
All was peaceful on this tropical island as a mustached, bespectacled man turn on a camcorder.
He stood in the middle of a volcanic crater.
Looking at his watch, he turned to the camcorder and began to speak.
"This is Professor John Paley," he began. "Diary entry: Thursday, 0800 hours. I'm baffled. Every volcanologist considers this a dormant volcano. But if that's true, then why-"
But he was cut off by an unexpected rumbling. As his camcorder fell to the ground, he looked behind him to see a few of his instruments going off.
"What on Earth?" he asked. Then he looked down.
"What on Earth?!" he repeated a little louder.
That was when the whole area went up in flames.
When they cleared up, all that was left of Professor Paley was his equipment and his glasses.
Beverly Hills High-9:00 AM
As the school bell rang, breaking the morning silence, it was further disrupted by the sound of four certain teen spies screaming as their pink glider drifted closer and closer to the ground.
The glider crashed very lightly, allowing Clover, who was flying, to open the cockpit, allowing her to jump out, followed by Sam, Alex, and finally, Sean.
They landed in the bushes surrounding the school, feeling relieved it was over.
Clover sighed.
"That was, like a perfect ending to our harshest mission yet," she said.
"For sure," Sam agreed. "After what we've been through, school will be a breeze."
"Good thing tomorrow night is the big dance," Alex said. "I so need to unwind."
"Tell me about it," Sean replied. "After what happened in Luxembourg, I'd say we earned it."
"Um, don't kick back yet," an irritatingly familiar voice said.
All four peeked out of the bushes to see Mandy hovering over them.
"This afternoon is the track meet," she reminded. "And having you four on our team makes me glad I'm not."
Mandy walked off, leaving the four fuming.
Sam gasped. "The track meet! We forgot!"
Sean gulped. They'd been so busy with trying to stop a smuggling ring in Central Europe that everything school-related had slipped their minds.
On the track field, the spies didn't think they were doing so bad at first.
Emphasis on "at first."
Sam continually jumped over hurdles until her foot got caught in one, causing her to trip.
Clover attempted to javelin over a high jump pit, but she connected with the bar on the way up, knocking it loose and sending her plummeting onto the mat below.
And finally, Sean tried to pass a baton to Alex, but both their hands were so sweaty that it slipped.
As Alex bent down to pick it up, Sean stood still to make sure she got it. That was when they found themselves trampled by three other runners.
They both lifted themselves off the ground, feeling dazed and very, very sore.
"Okay," Sean said, rubbing his lower back. "I think Sam was wrong about school being a breeze."
Sam's House-6:00 PM
"I hope I can move by tomorrow," Alex groaned. "And I hope the dance will help us forget the way we blew the track meet."
She and the other three spies were sitting around Sam's hot tub in her backyard, hoping to relax a little after a very exhausting day.
Even Sean, who'd been a spy longer than they had, thought that was a good idea. After the kind of day he'd had, he was so sore he could barely change into his dark blue swim trunks.
"Don't say 'dance', Alex," Sam said, sharply. "Makes my feet hurt more."
"Yeah," Sean agreed, slipping up to his chest in the hot tub. "I for one, could go the rest of the day without moving. Let's just relax."
"Yeah," Clover concurred, sinking lower into the water until it was up to her neck. "Relax."
That was when the water began to swirl around them.
Sean, having never seen a pool or hot tub do that, looked to Sam who was just as confused as he was.
That was when all four were pulled underwater, where a circular hole opened up, sucking them into it.
They slid down the same chute that would inevitably lead to W.O.O.H.P headquarters, only now with the water from Sam's hot tub travelling down it as well, it felt more like a water slide, a very long one.
The spies emerged from the chute and landed into a shallow pool in Jerry's office.
They emerged from the water to see Jerry standing over them.
"Well," he said. "So glad you could drop in, agents."
"Like we had a choice," Clover said.
Sean, who was between Sam and Clover, folded his arms across his bare torso.
"Jerry," he said. "Tell me you're kidding. I mean, we just got back from the most intense mission of our lives."
Clover climbed out of the pool.
"We are wiped," she complained. "Trashed, tweaked."
Jerry raised his hands. "Relax."
"How can we?" Alex said. "When you're about to send us on another mission?"
"A mission to relax," Jerry clarified. He snapped his fingers at two agents at either side of him.
"You're no asset to W.O.O.H.P when you're stressed, so I'm sending you on vacation."
An agent handed him four beach bags, one green, one white, one red, and the one Sean caught was black.
Sam pulled out a blue beach towel out of hers, scowling.
"Let me guess," she said. "This is a bullet-proof covering we use for escaping from a jungle prison!"
"No," Jerry corrected. "This is a towel used for drying off after a swim."
Clover pulled a beach umbrella out of hers.
"Aha!" she exclaimed. "I bet this is a high-speed drill."
Then she pulled out a tube of sunscreen. "And a tube of blasting gel to blow out a wall."
"No, a beach umbrella and sunscreen to stop a sunburn."
Sean pulled out a pair of black sunglasses and Alex a nose clip.
"And before you ask, that's a nose clip for swimming and a pair of sunglasses for seeing in bright sunlight."
As Alex twirled the nose clip around, Sean pulled out a light magenta case.
"What's this?" he asked Jerry.
"Oh, that's the gadget emergency kit. A precaution. You won't need it."
Just in case, Sean put it back in the bag.
"Let me guess this straight," Sam said. "You're sending us somewhere to have fun?"
"How does Hawaii sound?" Jerry asked.
All four spies widened their eyes. Sean had never been to Hawaii, but it sounded exciting.
"Too good to be true," Clover said.
Jerry smiled.
"Alright," Sam said, apparently convinced. "I just have one question. When does our flight leave?"
"In one minute," Jerry replied, opening a door behind him, revealing an elevator-like space.
He gestured to the inside. "Just step in here."
The spies stepped in, feeling very cramped. And Sean felt his face heating up after noticing he was pressed closely to Sam.
"This elevator's kind of small," Alex commented.
"Does it take us right to our plane?" Sean asked.
"Oh, there's no plane," Jerry answered. "A cruise missile is much faster. Bon voyage, agents!"
"Wait, cruise missile?" Sean said, worriedly. But it was too late as the door already closed.
The missile the spies were locked in began to shake as the doorway Jerry stood in retracted.
"Jerry!" Sam and Sean yelled.
"I never fly by missile!" Clover shouted at the top of her lungs.
"I'm totally claustrophobic!" Alex complained.
But Jerry didn't hear her as the missile was already in the air, soaring out of a hole in Sam's neighborhood,
After a short while. the light changed from early evening to brilliant afternoon, as the missile veered direction, hovering over a picturesque tropical beach.
The door they had entered through, which was more of a hatch now, opened beneath them, letting them fall out onto the white sand, beach bags included.
"I'm glad that's over," Sean sighed, brushing sand off his arms.
The missile took off again, leaving the spies on the beach.
"Hi!" a woman in a white suit came up. "I'm Julie, your W.O.O.H.P travel agent! You must be Sam, Sean, Clover, and Alex! I have your vacation all set!"
The four teens blinked in surprise. Their travel agent was certainly... enthusiastic.
"Uh," Sam said, breaking the silence. "Julie, could you be not quite so perky?"
Julie's bright smile faded almost instantly, while Alex just beamed.
"I can't believe it!" she said, stars in her eyes. "We're really in Hawaii! This is, like, my ultimate fantasy trip!"
Sean nodded. "I'm just glad we're here to relax."
"Up the beach, we have hula dancing!" Julie informed them happily.
"If it'll get you to dial down the perkiness," Sam deadpanned. "I'm there."
And she began to sway her hips along with the dancers further away from her.
Sean watched her go, paying close attention to her legs, face heating up again.
He pinched his arm to make himself stop looking.
No, he told himself. Bad Sean! She's just a friend! Is she?
"My kind of dance is the towel-lunge!" Alex said.
"The what?" Sean asked, forgetting whether or not Sam noticed him looking at her.
But Alex ignored him and danced off like Sam, only it looked a little more like a one-person version of the conga.
Before Julie could suggest anything to him, Sean just decided he would try out surfing, running off to the board display and picking out a red and blue board.
Sean paddled further out on his board, glad to have W.O.O.H.P out of his hair for a while. While he did know how to swim, having been taught by his mother and later perfected it in his W.O.O.H.P training, surfing was something he'd only ever done in a W.O.O.H.P simulation.
How different could it be? he thought.
Very different, as it turned out.
Oh, sure, it started out similar. He even managed to make it to the crest of a wave taller than he had seen in the simulation. He handled himself on that wave well for someone who'd never gotten on a board before.
Which was why it was so surprising when he wiped out after only about two minutes, his board coming loose from his grip, and sending him plunging into the ocean.
As he surfaced, spitting out saltwater that had accidentally gotten his mouth, he located his board and began to paddle back to shore.
"Okay," he said to himself. "I think I'll just stick to regular swimming from now on."
He'd just returned his board when he heard Alex shouting.
"Sam! Clover! Sean! Help!"
He turned back toward the water where off in the distance he saw the small silhouette of Alex on top of a wave even taller than he had tried to surf.
And she seemed to be struggling worse than he was, by the look of it.
On instinct, he took off running back toward the water.
And to his relief, he wasn't the only running.
"What's going on?!" Clover demanded from his right.
"Alex is in trouble!" he explained. "Just what happens when you try surfing in Hawaii without taking a lesson!"
"Hey!" Clover defended. "I tried telling her how!"
"Clover, the waves here are taller than the ones in L.A! It wasn't going to work!"
"Never mind that!" Sam interjected. "Clover, Sean, give me a hand!"
They ran up to a large, wooden outrigger and pushed it out into the water.
As Sean jumped over the side of the boat, he could hear Alex's distress becoming more audible.
"Get me out of here!" she shouted, as a huge swell erupted from behind her.
"We're coming, Alex!" Clover called back.
"Just try not to wipe out!" Sean added, remembering his own experience in the waves.
Alex narrowed her eyes. "I'll keep that in mind!"
Before too long, Sam and Sean paddled on top of the wave, finally reaching Alex's position.
"Get in!" Sam urged her.
But it was too late. The wave crashed down behind them, leaving all in a case of shock and in Sean's case, deja vu.
"Not again," he muttered, before his screaming joined the girls'.
The wave collided with Alex's board and the outrigger, sending the former washing up on shore and breaking the latter into pieces.
As the four teens climbed out of the water back on to the beach, Sean felt himself over.
No broken bones, he thought. That's good enough.
"Anyone injured?" he asked the girls.
As Sam shook out her soaked hair, Clover grabbed one of the strands of hers.
"I have critical split end damage!" she complained.
"I'll take that as a no," Sean said.
Then he looked at Alex.
"What were you doing out there, anyway?" he asked.
"Well," she answered. "I was out there with this totally hot guy named-"
But she covered her mouth, cutting herself off.
"Corey!" she gasped. "He's gone!"
She gestured to an area of sand that was blackened, like a scorch mark.
"He stood right there and vanished in a burst of fire!"
Clover knelt down along with Sean, inspecting the scorch mark.
"It was like a volcano erupting!"
Clover picked up a hardened piece of black material from out of the ring of ash.
"This doesn't look like sand to me," she commented.
"It's obsidian," Sam explained. "Volcanic glass."
"Is there anything you don't know?" Clover asked as she and Sean stood upright again.
"Obsidian usually forms when volcanic lava cools really fast," Sean said.
Then he looked around the beach.
"But the problem is, I don't see any lava here. Alex, you said Corey disappeared in a burst of fire, right?"
Alex nodded, then opened her mouth in realization.
"Corey said his professor flaked out and never showed for his field trip to study that volcano!"
She gestured with her thumb to the volcano behind her.
"You're saying there's a connection between the missing volcano prof. and Corey going up in smoke?" Clover asked.
"Maybe that professor just went home," Sean suggested, as they all began to walk off.
But Sam didn't seem convinced.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," she said. Then she took out her Compowder.
"I'm calling Jerry."
She opened it.
"Jerry, this is Sam. Hello? Hello?"
Jerry's face appeared on the top half of the screen after a short moment, but static frequently appeared throughout as well.
"Hello, Sam?" Jerry said, confused. "Are you there?"
But the screen continuously bugged out.
"I don't read you, sorry."
Then the screen went dark.
"Forget it," Alex said. "You're Compowder got wet. Clover and I will try ours."
"And I'll try wallet phone," Sean said, taking it out.
But both the girls' Compowders and his wallet phone were just as soaked.
"Great," he complained. "I need to talk to Jerry about waterproofing these."
That was went Sam reached into the emergency gadget kit Jerry had provided them with before launching them to Hawaii.
"Maybe there's something in the kit we can use," she said, taking out a small, pink handheld computer, handing it to Alex.
"Computer spy manual," Sean said.
"Type in 'volcano', see what comes up."
As the others awaited the result, Alex pointed the computer to the spies.
Sam's face brightened up.
"W.O.O.H.P has a volcano research lab in Iceland," she said.
"Maybe they can answer our questions," Sean suggested.
"Iceland?" Clover asked, appalled. "Where it's like, all icy?"
"So?" Alex fired back. "Corey needs our help."
"Alex is right, Clover," Sam said, with Sean nodding. "We have a duty to check this out."
"Hi!' a perky voice said, popping up from out of nowhere.
The spies were slightly startled by the appearance of Julie.
"Julie!" Alex said, getting over the shock. "We have to get to Iceland!"
"And fast!" Sean added.
"Oh, no problem!" Julie assured, her smile never leaving her face. "I'll arrange it!"
She turned away from them, pressing a button on a remote.
"I swear," Sam muttered. "If she doesn't stop grinning..."
But Sean never heard the rest of that sentence before a missile, much like the one he and the girls flew to Hawaii, rose up out of a square hole in the ground.
"No!" Sean said, facepalming.
"Not again!" Clover agreed
The missile soared over the Earth's surface; no noises being made except for those of 4 cramped, irritated spies.
"Can somebody please scratch my neck?" Alex asked.
"Ow!" Clover complained. "Alex, get your toe out of my eye!"
"Something just poked me!" Sam exclaimed. "Sean, could you move your elbow?!"
"I'm trying!" he said, just as frustrated as they were. "But I can't even turn my head!"
And truth to be told, it wasn't his elbow poking her, but didn't want to say it.
W.O.O.H.P Laboratory-Iceland-02:15 PM
At long last, the missile paused over a bank of snow as it did over the beach back in Hawaii, dropping the four into the soft, white powder.
The spies slid down the snow before soaring off of a small ramp and landing into another snowbank.
All four stuck their heads out of the bank, tired, cold, and very much underdressed.
"Oh!' Alex cried out. "This is so cold!"
"What are you doing in Iceland dressed like this?" a man asked.
Compared to them, he looked less out of place and definitely warmer.
And Sean had to agree with the sentiment.
Sitting up, his arms barely covering his exposed chest, he looked at the man, who wore a cream-colored winter coat, red hat and glasses.
"I-i-it's a l-l-long s-s-story," he said, shivering.
"C-c-could we d-d-discuss this over a h-h-hot g-g-grande decaf s-soy latte?" Sam asked, just as cold as he was.
Dr. Sorenson, as the man had introduced himself, took the spies inside the lab, which was infinitely warmer than the outside.
Despite this, he had provided them with warm coats and hot drinks upon entering.
All around, there were people sitting at computer consoles, keeping track of volcanic activity on Earth.
Taking a sip of hot chocolate, Sean turned to the larger monitor that took up most of the wall behind Dr. Sorenson.
"Dr. Sorenson," he said, feeling warmer already. "We need to know if you've had any reports of volcanic eruptions in Hawaii."
"Yeah," the scientist answered. "We had one yesterday and one earlier today. Both were near a dormant volcano, so I assumed they were false alarms."
He turned away from the monitor, which showed a map of every volcanic hotspot on the planet and made his way closer to the four spies.
"If there were eruptions, we'd have heard from our volcanologist there, Professor Paley."
"Professor Paley?!" they all exclaimed in shock.
"He's been missing since yesterday!" Alex said. "And his mega cute student, Corey vanished earlier today!"
That was when an alarm went off.
"Huh?" Alex and the others droned.
"What the?" Dr. Sorenson questioned, rushing over to a console.
"Now I know we have a bug in the system."
On a map on the screen in front of him, multiple dots were blinking red at a point where a volcano was supposed to be.
"You're sure the eruptions aren't real?" Sam asked.
"My dear," he explained. "If all of these volcanoes were to erupt at once, it would mean massive global destruction!"
"So, it's safe to go back to Hawaii?" Alex asked, hopefully.
And Sean hoped she was right. It was getting a little too cold for his taste.
Though, he supposed it served him right for going to Iceland without putting on a shirt first.
"Well," Dr. Sorenson answered. "If people are disappearing there, I wouldn't call it safe. You're not thinking of going back?"
Sean looked at the girls, and to his relief, they all nodded.
Jumping from the plane Dr. Sorenson had provided for them, which also gave them a chance to change into their spy uniforms, the teens pulled the ripcords to their parachutes, opening them.
As they landed on the crater at the top of the volcano, Sean struggled to get his chute back in the pack as the wind pulled against it.
His teammates, particularly Clover, seemed to be having a difficult time with it as well.
"How do they get these things in the kit?" Alex asked, kicking the chute back in.
"Pass me the binocular shades," Sam said to Sean, who had the emergency gadget kit.
Pulling out a purple pair of sunglasses, Sean handed them to her.
Putting them on, Sam peered around the crater, hoping to find anything that looked out of place.
"I don't see any sign of Paley," Clover said, shrugging off her parachute. "Can we just go home now?"
"As much as I agree with you, Clover," Sean said, having had enough vacation for a while. "We can't give up that easily."
"Wait a sec!" Sam announced. "I see something down there!"
She indicated further down into the crater.
"What is it?" Sean asked.
"It looks like glass, regular glass, not obsidian."
They slid down the rim, hitting a ledge.
"Watch your step!" Clover warned as she and Sean landed as carefully as they could.
It didn't do any good, as Sam landed on a piece of ledge that was unstable.
Before she could fall though, Sean grabbed her leg.
"Sean," she said breathing a sigh of relief. "I owe you big time!"
Sean wanted to speak but his grip was loosening. He had to pull her up, fast.
"You guys okay down there?" Alex called out, putting her hand against a boulder.
A boulder that came loose and crashing down toward the other three spies.
Sam barely managed to push Sean and Clover out of the way before the boulder tumbled down into the crater below.
"Whoa!" Sean said, impressed. "Didn't think you'd pay me back so soon!"
Soon enough, they managed to get down to the center of the crater.
Sean found exactly what Sam had indicated, a single pair of glasses.
"Well," he announced, picking them up "Forget my 'he went home' theory. He wouldn't leave these. They're prescription grade."
"Look!" Clover called out, pulling something else out of the rocks. "A camcorder!"
Alex joined her. "Hey, let's make a video of us!"
"No, don't!" Sam urged. "It may have recorded a clue!"
She and Sean rushed over.
"Let's rewind it and see what he was doing."
On the camcorder's screen, Sean could see a bright looking man, presumably Professor Paley, making observations about the volcano.
And one apparently, was not a good one.
"What on Earth?!" he exclaimed, before the screen was consumed with flames.
"There was an eruption," Alex deduced. "And Professor Paley vanished just like Corey!"
"One problem, Alex," Clover pointed out as she knelt down over some rocks. "If this was all molten lava yesterday, how come the rocks look totally the same today?"
Sean knelt down beside her, picking up a rock. Through the thin fabric of his spy suit, he could tell the rock was cool enough to touch.
"This makes no sense," he said. "Lava doesn't cool that fast."
Sam furrowed her brow in contemplation.
"Let me see. Alex, walk out there."
Alex walked further away, standing in the center of the crater.
"Is this where he was standing?" she asked.
"Exactly!" Sean confirmed. As he and the other two stepped closer, he could see gaps in the ground around where Alex stood.
"See this crack?" he asked.
"Duh!" Clover said. "It's so obvious. This is a trap... dooooor!"
That was when it flipped over, sending the spies into a hard, rocky tunnel.
Shorter than the chute Jerry used when calling them on missions, the sensation still felt similar.
Unfortunately, where they landed was a lot less welcoming.
Picking himself up, Sean looked around.
He was on a metallic floor and surround them were walls with numerous indents in them.
It didn't take a spy to tell you they were prison cells.
Seeing Professor Paley and a young man in red swim trunks trapped on the other side of the bars confirmed it further.
"Corey!" Alex beamed. "You're alright!"
She rushed over to the cell.
"Alex!" Corey said in warning. "Get out of here before they catch you like they did us!"
"Huh?" Alex questioned.
"Intruders!" a voice announced gruffly.
They all turned to see two cloaked figures holding two... well, Sean could only describe them as laser beams.
He took that as their cue to run.
"I'll be back for you, Corey!" Alex announced as she followed her friends.
They dashed into a cave, which led to another hallway, which in turn led to a long bridge... which spanned an obscenely hot room overlooking a lake of molten lava!
They all stopped.
"Whoa!" they all said, in awe.
"We just hit volcano central," Clover said.
In the center of the room was a giant cylindrical device hanging from the ceiling. From the tip, a bright orange laser was focusing all its attention on the molten rock below them.
"It looks like that humongous laser keeps the lava cooking!" Alex observed.
"I bet this place is wired into every other volcano on Earth!" Sam deduced.
"Who's the genius that came up with this?!" Sean asked, using the term "genius" sarcastically.
"That would be me," the raspiest voice Sean had ever heard answered.
They turned the other way to see a figure wearing the same type of cloak as the men pursuing them.
The man underneath was... Sean couldn't describe it any other way, hideous. His face covered in burn scars and his nose appeared to have been completely seared off.
"Dr. Hephaestus is the name," he introduced. "Global devastation is my game. Forgive me if I startled you."
Clover got over the shock very quickly, apparently.
"Meeting people is so awkward," she said dismissively. "Let's try this again... from the top!"
They all charged at Hephaestus and his henchmen, knocking their weapons over the edge, and finally running past.
"Stop them!" Hephaestus growled.
Rushing down a flight of stairs, the spies found themselves face to face with one of the cloaked figures.
Alex kicked him in the chest but didn't appear to do any damage. Well, not to the man at least.
"Ow!" she exclaimed, clutching her foot. "My foot!"
But she was able to catch him off guard anyway, knocking him to the ground with her beach bag.
"Don't mess with our vacation!" Sam shouted, punctuating each blow with her bag at another guard.
Sean, in the meantime, was struggling against another one, barely dodging every blow the guy threw at him.
He was relieved when he was able to get a headlock on him and throw him over his back into a wall.
"I'm so over Hawaii," Sean said, dusting himself off.
"Put that down," Clover warned a particularly big one, who was holding a wrench. "Before someone gets hurt."
The guy had already charged at her, swinging the wrench with utter abandon.
She picked him up over her shoulder, similar to what Sean had done and threw him over her back into another unconscious guard."
By the time her fellow spies regrouped with her, they were all surrounded by flames, causing them to jump back in alarm.
"Uh,uh,uh," Hephaestus admonished. "Careful, kids. Volcanic fire ruined my face."
He lowered his hood, revealing more scars than Sean could see before.
"As it will yours."
He put the hood back on then turned to a console above the lava pit.
"My machine can erupt every volcano on Earth. And when the world is covered in lava, you all will look... like me!"
He pulled a lever, obviously intensifying the heat of the laser and that of the lava below it. On a map above him, red lights began blinking to represent volcanic eruptions.
He laughed dryly, but the spies refused to be intimidated.
"You have serious issues, Doc," Clover said dismissively. "Though, I'm sure it's nothing a little facial wouldn't cure."
"Facial?" Sean said. "Try plastic surgery!"
"You know," Alex said. "I can relate. That week I had a pimple, I was a major witch."
Sean cringed, remembering her throwing her backpack at him for even mentioning it.
"True," Clover agreed. "But we still loved you anyway."
"Your evil plan won't succeed, Hephaestus!" Sam said defiantly. "Not if we have anything to say about it!"
But Hephaestus just laughed again.
Very Bad Situation-05:00 PM
"Well apparently, we don't have anything to say about it!" Sean said, feeling the blood rushing to his head.
After being freed from that fire cage, Hephaestus had his men tie the spies by their ankles from a beam over the pit of lava, deciding to lower them in and let it cook them.
In other words, out of the fire and into the lava.
"We're almost in the lava!" Clover complained. "And this heat is trashing my hair!"
"Heat," Sam said slowly, realizing. "Maybe my Compowder's dry!"
She opened it, calling Jerry.
"Jerry!" she cried out. "Jerry!"
But there was no answer.
"Ugh!" she groaned. "Forget it! Sam calling Dr. Sorenson!"
"Sam," Dr. Sorenson's voice echoed through the Compowder.
"Are you alright?"
"Well," she answered. "We're kind of hung up, Dr. S. Can you reach Jerry?"
"I'm a little busy myself," he replied. "Every volcano on Earth is starting to blow!"
Sean felt his mouth drop despite his shift in gravity.
"We have to do something!" Alex cried. "Molten lava's about to cover the world!"
"Not to mention our hair!" Clover added.
"One problem at a time, Clover!" Sean scolded at her usual skewed priorities.
"Alex!" Sam said. "Give me your nose clip!"
Reaching over, she did so.
Sam twirled the nose clip around as Alex had done back in W.O.O.H.P headquarters.
Very carefully, she hooked it on to the switch on the beam they were suspended from.
Pulling the switch the other way, she allowed herself a moment of pride as they all began to ascend upward and away from the lava.
"You go, cowgirl!" Clover celebrated.
As they swung back up, untying themselves, they climbed onto the beam itself before landing near the console.
They spotted their target.
Unfortunately, Hephaestus spotted them.
"Seize them!" he ordered.
"I knew he'd say that," Sam said casually. "Split up!"
The spies did as they were told.
Sam ran over a barrel as it was hit by a laser, narrowly missing the resulting explosion.
She came to another lab as the guard chasing caught up.
Taking out the blue beach towel Jerry had given her, she held it up in front of her before shoving it in the guard's face, obscuring his vision and knocking him against a computer screen.
Clover, in the meantime ran through another cave with Sean at her side.
That was when another hooded thug began firing lasers at them.
Taking out his sunglasses, Sean carefully held the mirrored surface of the lenses up to his face as the thug fired.
The lasers hit lenses bouncing them off the cave wall, before they finally disappeared.
Clover used the opportunity to open her beach umbrella and using it as a javelin, knocked the guard off his feet before opening the umbrella and using it to twirl away, Sean following close behind her.
Alex was able to reach the cell where Professor Paley and Corey were being kept, only to find a dilemma. It was locked.
The sound of laser fire announced her friends were close.
Through the doorway ran Sean and Clover.
As they ran past Alex, Clover handed her a tube of sunscreen from her beach bag.
Squirting the whole contents out of the tube, it landed on the floor, tripping the guard who had been chasing them.
He slid into a cell, allowing Sean to press the button that closed it, trapping him.
Alex and Clover joined him.
"Now tell me where the keys are so I can let my friends out!" Alex demanded.
"I got your keys right here!" the man said, holding up a key.
In response, Alex just used the nose clip as a grappling hook again and yanked it away from him.
After using the key to free Professor Paley and Corey, she turned to them.
"Help us trash that volcano machine!" she urged them.
They all ran to the same control console from earlier.
Sam joined them and they all knew the only thing left to do was turn it off... somehow.
"We have to turn this off now!" Sam said, severely.
"Yeah!" Clover agreed, taking out the beach umbrella.
She smashed the monitor with it, letting out a cascade of sparks that almost made Sean forget about the lava.
Almost.
Unfortunately, it was already past the walkway and practically at their feet.
"The lava's almost to our level!" Alex panicked.
All four climbed up in various positions around the console.
"Hot foot alert!" Clover cried out.
But just as Sean closed his eyes, waiting for death by molten lava, he heard Alex sniffing.
"Hey!" she announced to the others. "I smell garlic!"
"Huh?" Sean uttered in confusion.
He waved the air in front of him. Upon further investigation, he noticed that the air, while still very warm was still not as hot as air could have been when molten lava fills a room.
"Weird," he muttered. Then there was the garlic smell, which he immediately detected after Alex pointed it out.
And it was coming from...
He dipped a finger in the "lava" cautiously, but what he expected, namely his finger being burnt off didn't happen.
Scooping up the "lava" in his hand, he placed some on the tip of his finger and brought it to his tongue.
From the countless times his mother had made pasta, he could tell what it was right away.
"This is hot, as in spicy," he announced to the girls in realization. "It's definitely not lava, it's marinara sauce!"
"That's correct, agents," a familiar voice said as the lights brightened.
Across the walkway they could see Hephaestus and his henchmen walking through the fake lava unharmed.
"Hephaestus?!" Clover exclaimed.
But that was when he pulled off his face to reveal...
"There is no Hephaestus," Jerry declared.
"Jerry?!" all four teens shouted in bewilderment.
His henchmen began pulling off similar masks.
"And your henchmen are really W.O.O.H.P agents?" Sam asked.
"And Corey is really..." Alex trailed off as Corey ripped off a mask of his own, revealing a redheaded boy covered with freckles, and put on a pair of glasses.
"...goofy?" she finished.
Alex moaned in despair.
"You're not trying to destroy the world?" Sean asked, confusion growing stronger. "What's going on?"
One of the screens on the console lit up, revealing the face of Dr. Sorenson.
"It was all part of the test," the volcanologist explained.
Sean's jaw was on the floor, along with the girls.
"Everything was fake?" Sam asked.
"Yes," Jerry answered. "This phony volcano was once an arch villain's hideout. Now, I use it for our annual field test."
"You were testing us?!" Clover shrieked.
"Did we pass?" Sam asked.
"Uh," Jerry said, awkwardly. "No. The lava got you before you could 'save the world.' So, you'll all have to undergo retraining."
"What?!" Sean demanded. "We went through all this trouble just to stop a fake volcano?! And this whole trip was part of some test?!"
Jerry nodded.
"Don't take it personally, Sean. I never would have selected you four if I though you couldn't handle it."
Sean crossed his arms.
"That came out wrong, did it?" Jerry asked no one particular.
"Corey," Alex began. "You were in on this?"
Corey just stuttered. "My-my name is Morey, not-not-not Corey."
"So, your favorite dance isn't the towel-lunge?"
"Sorry," Morey consoled. "Your beach bag was bugged. I don't even dance."
That was when a low rumbling cut them off.
"What is this, Jerry?" Sam asked, her voice wavering. "Extra credit?"
"No," Jerry said, fear tinging his voice. "This is real!"
"Great," Alex complained. "We blow the track meet, I fall for a dork, and now this."
"There is an actual volcano under your fake one!" Dr. Sorenson warned. "And it's erupting!"
"Well," Sean said. "Let's not stick around here, then!"
All ran to the nearest exit as the fake villain lair began to collapse around them.
Through the cave leading out of the volcano, Sean could hear Clover screaming behind him, though she was soon in front of everyone else. And he couldn't blame her, there was no other appropriate reaction to being chased by real lava.
Jerry's W.O.O.H.P agents managed to get out of the cave... just before a pile of rocks blocked the exit.
"Damn it," Sean muttered, as Clover screamed again.
"We'll never be able to move all that stone in time," Professor Paley informed them ruefully. "We're trapped!"
The cave floor gave way beneath them, letting loose a strong smell that definitely wasn't garlic. And what it came from definitely wasn't marinara sauce.
"Get back!" Jerry warned. "That's real lava!"
"This is too ironic!" Sam said.
"Look out!" Clover called to Morey in warning as he ducked out of the way of falling rocks.
They all looked up to the cracks in the cave ceiling. That could be a way out, if only they could reach it.
"If only we could fly through there," Alex said hopefully.
"That's it!" Sam said, realizing. "Alex, you're parachute's back in the emergency kit, right?"
"Yeah, but what can we do with it?"
"Make a hot air balloon!" Sean said, catching on.
Sam nodded in confirmation. "If we could stretch the chute across the crack!"
"Leave it to me!" Clover reassured, taking the chute.
Jumping over the lava, she opened the chute.
Thanks to the heat rising in the chute, she began to float upward.
"Everybody hold on tight!" Sam called out as she floated near them
And all jumped up onto her, with Sean holding on to her back as the others awkwardly dangled from her sides and her legs.
They were out of the cave no sooner than did the volcano finally blow its top.
Sean sighed, relieved at not being burned to a crisp.
"Well," Jerry said, more impressed than earlier. "We made it, thanks to the four of you. You showed real resourcefulness."
"You still gonna flunk us?" Sam asked.
"No, you pass... with flying colors."
"Cool," Clover said.
"Good," Sean added. "Because I don't think I could take basic training again."
"I'll say," Alex agreed. "It'd be twice as hard, since you're the one who trained us."
"Now," Clover went on. "How about a real vacation?"
Sean rolled his eyes. "I think we've had enough vacation for a while, Clover."
That night, after returning to Beverly Hills, Sean and the girls walked down the school hallway, reminiscing about their... vacation in Hawaii.
If one could call it that.
For now, though, they were determined that the dance would help them forget the whole thing.
"I've heard of guys being two-faced," Alex said. "But Morey was ridiculous."
Sam sighed. "Let's just forget Hawaii, and just enjoy the dance."
"You read my mind," Sean said, as he opened the gym door. "I wonder what theme they picked?"
Unfortunately, he was answered by the abundance of tikis, torches and a fake volcano in the center of the gym. And students dressed in typical Hawaiian garb.
The volcano opened up, revealing Mandy in a traditional Hawaiian getup, complete with lei.
The four spies opened their mouths in shock, as Mandy and two male students began performing a hula dance.
"No!" they all protested. "Not that!"
"Anything but this!" Alex cringed as they ran out the door.
Mandy stared out the door where they had bolted.
"They seriously need to get a life," she commented before continuing her dancing.
The spies in the meantime, were out of breath by the time they reached the door.
Sean lifted his head up, trying to forget what he had just seen.
"Okay," he said. "I vote we just forget the dance and go out for smoothies."
"Agreed," the girls chorused.
And they resumed running, As far from the school as they knew how.