Hi again! I know, last chapter took a while but this is harder than it looks. Here's the next one. Hope you enjoy!
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Chapter Twenty-Six
Shrinking
Mount Rushmore-11:37 AM
Mount Rushmore, finished in 1941, had remained unchanged since its last face was carved into the cliffside. Since then, every year, the site was visited by over two million people, who never once thought anything could happen to the four familiar faces.
On this day, they were about to be proven wrong.
"Dad," a twelve year old boy complained, standing in front of the observation deck's railing.
"This is so boring! It's just a rock with a bunch of dead guys on it!"
His father, on the other hand, seemed more enthusiastic.
"Oh, come on, son," he said, holding up a camera. "One more picture! Now smile!"
The boy's lips remained in a constant scowl.
No sooner than the picture was taken, a bright flash of pink light materialized behind them.
And whatever it was, it most certainly not from a camera.
Everyone on the deck looked back at Mount Rushmore, now engulfed by the light.
The observation deck was filled with panicked screams as the monument was now, to their astonishment, shrinking in size.
Every tourist ran, and when the last one left the deck, where Mount Rushmore once was, there was now an empty spot on the cliffside.
Venice Beach-2:23 PM
Through the crowds of beachgoers, skateboarders, tourists and the occasional living statue performer, four teens rollerbladed across the boardwalk.
"Yes!" Clover shouted in excitement as they passed a volleyball game on the beach, eyeing one player in particular.
She deliberately stopped, allowing herself to nearly fall down, and letting her friends catch her.
"What's wrong, Clover?" Alex asked. "Did you, like, hurt yourself or something?"
"No," she denied. "I'm fine."
"Then what's with the lame rollerblading?" Sam asked, as Sean followed Clover's gaze.
"Uh, Sam?" he said. "I think we know what she was trying to do."
Clover was staring adoringly at Jason Roberts, captain of the Beverly Hills High volleyball team.
She just smiled. "Watch and learn, ladies. Sean, in your case, just watch."
She continued her clumsy rollerblading, knocking herself into Jason.
Both fell down into the sand, causing the three onlookers to cringe.
"Oh, no!" Clover said, pretending to be distressed. "I'm so sorry! Are you okay?!"
"Yeah!" Jason insisted. "Yeah. I'm fine. Don't worry about it."
"Wow, she's good," Alex said, impressed.
"Very good," Sam agreed.
"Fifteen," Sean added.
"What?" both girls asked him.
Sean nodded, holding up a notepad, with a list of names scrolled all over it.
"Fifteen. That's how many crushes she's had in the last three months."
"You were keeping count?" Sam asked.
Sean nodded. "I'm just trying to make sure she doesn't try to hit on me again. Plus, it's kind of fun."
Back over on the beach, Jason was helping Clover up.
"Sure!" she agreed, apparently to a date. "Saturday night would be perfect, Jason!"
"Cool," Jason said. "I'll pick you up at 8:00!"
Clover rollerbladed back to her friends, unable to keep the grin off her face.
"Did you see that?!" she asked excitedly. "I just got a date with Jason Roberts! Mandy's going to so hate me!"
"And that's different from any other day because?" Sean asked, as they began to skate away.
Clover turned back to answer him.
"She's been wanting to go out with him for like-"
But she never said the next word as she and the others rollerbladed into a hole in the pavement that opened up.
After falling through the chute, they landed on the pink cushion in front of Jerry's desk.
Well, Sam, Sean, and Alex did. Clover, on the other hand, continued to skate across the room, before stopping and crashing into the desk, absolutely destroying a model of a satellite Jerry had been constructing.
"Oh," Clover said, recovering from her fall. "Sorry, Jer."
Jerry facepalmed, but looked down at Clover with patience.
"No problem," he said. "That was just the million dollar prototype for our new billion dollar surveillance satellite.
As Clover tried to put the model back together, Jerry turned to the other three.
"Spies, I've called you here because I've got an important assignment for you."
"Fire away," Sean said.
Jerry nodded.
"Famous landmarks from around the world are being stolen."
"How does someone steal a landmark?" Alex asked. "Aren't they big and kind of connected to the ground?"
"Well," Jerry explained. "Our perpetrator has found a way to shrink them, then suck them up into the sky."
"Okay, that sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie," Sean commented.
Jerry turned on the screen behind his desk.
"We've acquired some video taken by tourists who have witnessed these events."
The footage showed that Jerry wasn't exaggerating. Mount Rushmore, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty. All were engulfed by a beam of pink light before shrinking and disappearing into thin air.
After a brief interruption of a video of Jerry water-skiing, the last video showed the Pyramids of Giza shrinking and vanishing in broad daylight.
Jerry cut the footage off before turning to the four spies.
"Now, it seems that this thief is moving from West to East, so according to W.O.O.H.P calculations, the Taj Mahal is the next target."
"Cool!" Alex said excitedly. "We get to go to Mexico!
"Uh," Sam said, correcting her. "India."
"Yes," Jerry stated. "And you will be posing as diplomats."
He reached behind his desk, holding up four shopping bags.
"Here are your papers, credentials, and native costumes. Now, for your gadgets."
He walked over to the opposite wall where a large cabinet opened up, a screen taking up the center of it.
"Today's specials include the All-In One Lipstick and Titanium Extender Rod."
"Ugh!" Clover exclaimed. "I look horrible in pinks!"
"Uh, you're already wearing pink," Sean said, deadpan.
Clover just glared at him as Jerry continued.
"A Locator Deactivator Rhinestone Headband, Turbo fueled Jetpack Backpacks, Telescopic Optic 2000 Sunglasses with built-in cam, a Laser Cutter Eyelash Curler, and a C.A.D.T.O.P."
Alex rushed over.
"Is that one of those fruit-flavored snacks?" she asked.
"No," Jerry responded. "It's a Climb Anything Dirtbike That's Octane Powered."
Four dirt bikes came up from a hatch in the floor, illustrating his point.
"One more thing, Jer," Clover said, skating hazardously down the steps from his desk. "How long do you think this mission will take?"
"I can't be sure, actually," Jerry answered as she fell forward. "As long as it takes for you to find and stop whoever's behind this."
She skidded to a stop beside the others.
"Well, you see," she tried to explain. "I've got this date Saturday night. So, it would be better for me if we could just..."
But Jerry already pressed the button to open the trap door beneath them.
"...be back by then!" Clover finished explaining with a yell as the spies fell into what looked like a high powered, purple rollercoaster car.
It took off, the G-force making Clover forget about her date. At least for only a short while.
Taj Mahal-10:33 AM
As they stood before the glistening, white mausoleum, the spies couldn't help but feel a little awed.
"Wow!" Sam said, adjusting the sari in front of her dress, which had come in one of the bags Jerry had given them.
The girls wore similar outfits while Sean wore a white Nehru jacket complete with a gold sash around his chest.
"That is amazing!" Sam finished as Clover slumped to the ground on her knees.
"It's even bigger than some of the houses in Beverly Hills!" Alex added.
"I know what you mean," Sean said. "Looking at it from out here, you almost forget it's a tomb."
As Sean, Sam and Alex took their first steps toward the white monolith, Clover struggled to catch up while dragging two incredibly heavy suitcases.
"Remind me why you have to lug all your clothes with you, again?" Sean asked her, looking back. As soon as they had arrived in India, Clover had called W.O.O.H.P and instructed them to have all of her clothes shipped there as soon as possible.
She was pleased when they arrived, but her teammates didn't seem nearly as excited.
"Fashion crisis!" Clover said like it was obvious. "I need to pick out what to wear on my date! Number one rule in dating: the outfit is everything! Wait, isn't that the number one rule in life?"
Sean, Sam and Alex facepalmed.
"Okay," he said. "I get that. But why bring them on our mission? I mean, couldn't you just pick an outfit when we get back?"
"I could," Clover responded. "But I like to plan ahead. I mean, FYI, on a date, the wrong outfit can either make him want to take things to fast or not want to even look at you again!"
"Clover, they're just clothes," Sean argued as he continued his trek toward the Taj Mahal.
Clover knelt down beside her suitcases, rubbing them gently.
"He didn't mean that, babies," she said consolingly. "He didn't mean that."
At the door, the spies encountered their first obstacle in the form of a guard. His presence, combined with the obvious fact that there were no tourists there that day could only mean one thing; the Taj Mahal was currently closed to the public.
The good news was that made it easier to investigate it without drawing suspicion. The bad news? Getting in would be harder.
Stopping before the entrance, Alex pointed out the guard and the sign that clearly announced that no visitors were allowed.
"Uh-oh," she said. "Seems like Jerry overlooked one little detail."
"Well," Sean added. "He's done it before."
"How are we going to get in?" Clover asked, putting her suitcases down.
"We're diplomats, remember?" Sam said. "We have papers in credentials."
But before she could even say the words to him, the guard came over.
"We're closed for renovations," he said gruffly. "No one gets in."
Nodding and smiling nervously, they left his sight as quickly as they could with Clover's suitcases weighing them down.
"What do we do now?" Sean asked.
Sam looked at the building intently.
"I'm thinking," she announced.
"Four days till Jason!" Clover yelled. "Can you think a little faster?!"
Sam looked around, her face brightening when she saw some scaffolding being used in the renovations.
"Yeah!"
She walked under it, examining it closely.
"Who's up for climbing?" she asked, gripping the ladder.
While Sean made it up with no real difficulty, other than his sash getting caught on a hook and tearing off, the girls' efforts in climbing were more of a chore, their feet getting caught under the hem of their dresses.
Clover had tripped upon reaching the top of the scaffolding and Alex was still trying to climb.
"How do girls move in these things?!" Alex complained.
"Don't worry," Clover reassured, reaching into her backpack, taking out a pair of scissors. "I can fix this."
Seconds later, the girls' skirts were now a much shorter length, and their Saris were gone, their midriffs now exposed.
"You know, since short is last year's long," Clover said. "I'm thinking we market these things and make a killing."
With that out of the way, the four teens shimmied across the scaffolding over to the ledge beneath one of the windows.
Jumping through, they landed inside the building.
Sean looked around, looking for any sign of... whoever it was that had been stealing monuments.
"Alright, girls," he said to them. "Let's do what we do best."
He and Sam looked through a doorway.
"Cool!" Clover commented gleefully. "Point me toward the gift shop!"
Sean sighed. "I'm gonna forget I heard you say that."
They rounded a corner, coming to another door.
"Place looks clean," Clover said.
"Yeah," Sean agreed. "Weird.
"I'm contacting Jerry and telling him that W.O.O.H.P's calculations are wrong," Sam said.
But before she could open her bag, Alex spoke.
"Wait," she said, picking up the large circular device she found on the floor. "What's this?"
Sean looked at it. It was a bluish-gray ring that looked like it could fit over someone's head.
"Whatever it is, it looks electronic," he said.
"It's either a tracking device," Clover added. "Or a way cool mood ring!"
"Let me see," Sam told Alex.
But her fingers barely touched the surface of the device before the room began to flood with pink light.
Judging by the way the room seemed to be getting smaller, Sean could tell the place was starting to shrink.
To any onlooker outside, that was obvious enough.
"Look out!" Sam shouted. "The walls are closing in!"
"So's the ceiling!" Sean exclaimed.
"We're gonna get squashed!" Alex said fearfully.
"Quick! The door!" Clover gestured.
All ran to the door as quickly as they could, but for Sean, opening it wasn't going to be easy.
"It's locked!" he said to the others.
He pulled the door as hard as he could but it wouldn't budge.
"We're not gonna make it through!" Alex said, panicking.
"Hold on!" Clover said, digging through her backpack. She pulled out the tube of lipstick she'd received back at W.O.O.H.P.
"The All-In One Lipstick and Titanium Extender Rod should do the trick!"
Leaning forward, she pressed the lipstick in between the door gap. The two sides of the tube split apart and began shoving the doors open.
At last, it was wide enough for them to slip through.
But because the now smaller Taj Mahal was being lifted into the air, the spies now found themselves plummeting at least 10 feet.
Safely outside on the ground below, they could only watch as the miniscule monument vanished into thin air.
"I think it's time we call Jerry," Alex said, getting over the shock.
Clover took out her Compowder, calling him.
"Hello, agents," he greeted.
"Jer," Clover began. "The Taj Mahal kind of got away from us if you know what we mean."
"But we recovered this tracking device," Sean said, holding it up.
"And to catch whoever's behind this," Sam added. "We need you to see if its frequency matches any other frequencies of tracking devices elsewhere in the world."
On the other side of the screen, Jerry began typing in his query.
"Let's see," he said. "Uh-huh, yes. Yes, I'm picking up a faint signal... near the Great Wall."
"Looks like we're Peru-bound," Alex said.
"Uh, try China," Sean corrected.
Alex turned away, grunting in frustration.
"Remind me to tutor her in geography when we get back," he whispered to Clover and Sam.
Great Wall of China-3:57 PM
The longest man-made structure in the world, the Great Wall was originally built to protect the country from invaders.
Sean doubted, however, that it could withstand a shrink ray.
While he, Sam and Alex looked for the other tracking device, Clover rummaged through another one of her suitcases.
"I wish you could help me find an outfit for my date!" Clover said.
The others ignored her, opting to focus on the mission, since Clover clearly wasn't going to do it.
"This locator should find the tracking device, no problem," Sam said, gesturing to the headband on top of her head, which came equipped with goggles.
Lowering them over her eyes, she looked down at the base of the wall.
It wasn't long before she found what she was looking for.
In the grass, just below the wall was a device exactly like the one found at the Taj Mahal.
"A-ha!" she announced. "Here it is! Now, let's deactivate it."
Pressing a button on the side of the headband, she released two yellow beams from the goggles.
Through the screens of the goggles, the word "Proceeding" showed up below the tracking device and above a red loading bar.
But the next moment, both disappeared and were replaced the word "Failure" flashing across her eyes in bright, red letters.
"Like I said," she commented before trying again. "Let's deactivate it."
Again, no success.
This time, Clover stepped down from the wall.
"Let me try," she volunteered.
Raising a foot, she stomped on the device hard enough that electric sparks leaked out.
"Huh," Sean said, impressed. "I guess that works too."
"There you go!" Clover said. "And you thought I wear these just because they look good!"
She tapped her orange platform shoes.
She was caught of guard by the device's remains meeting their end in a small explosion.
Sean turned to face the other two girls.
"See anything, Alex?" he asked as she looked around with the Telescopic Sunglasses.
"Not yet," she replied. "Woah, headache!"
She looked at Sam, who through the lenses, must have looked much different.
Then she looked up at the sky.
"Hey, what is that?!"
"What's what?" Sean asked following her gaze.
"I think I see a black speck. Or is it a black dot? No, it's kind of like a black piece of rice."
"Why don't you zoom in and find out?" Clover asked.
"Oh, yeah," Alex chuckled sheepishly.
Manipulating the lenses carefully, she zoomed in on the black shape above her.
Upon further examination, she could see that it was...
"Hey! That's a black blimp!"
"Are you sure?" Sean asked.
Alex nodded. "With two people on board!"
"Alright spies!" Sam said as she zipped on her spy uniform over her disguise, Sean and Clover doing the same.
"Time to fly!"
Once Alex was suited up, all four teens activated their jetpacks and took off into the sky, ascending toward the blimp.
Alex struggled with the door, trying to no avail to slide it open.
"How're we gonna get in?!" she asked.
"This thing's got turbo, right?" Sam replied.
Getting the message, Alex aimed the exhaust of her jetpack at the door, causing it to blow backwards and leaving the spies covered in soot.
"You could have warned me you were going to do that!" Clover exclaimed, her hair a mess.
After getting over yet another "Bad Hair Minute," as she liked to call it, Clover hovered into the blimp right behind Sean.
Alex gestured with her head over to a gun-like device mounted on a circular platform that was connected to the ceiling by a long metal pole
"Check that out!"
Sam and Sean looked the device over.
"I have a sneaky suspicion this is the shrinking machine where all the action is coming from," Sam analyzed.
Clover looked into the cockpit.
"And there are the people responsible!" she announced.
"But why are they doing it at all?" Sean asked.
Alex peered over Sean and Clover's shoulders to gaze into it.
"I don't know," she said. "But look at them! They're like ten feet tall!"
They leaned in, listening.
"I don't care if you can't locate the tracking device!" a harsh male voice said. "Use manual controls, but get me my Great Wall! Then return immediately to the island!"
Sean looked closer. To his shock, Alex was telling the truth. The people at the controls looked small enough to fit inside a dollhouse. They were watching a screen, receiving instructions from a figure that no one outside the room could see.
"So we can find out what's broken and get ready to carry out the rest of my plan!"
"Yes, sir," one of them said.
Sean turned to the girls.
"We've gotta deactivate that machine!" he said.
Sam snuck over to it, reaching down to grab a cable.
"This should do the trick," she said.
But the sound of an alarm stopped her from disconnecting it.
Inside the cockpit, one of the two pilots noticed the alarm.
"What was that?" the co-pilot, an older woman with glasses, asked.
"I'll check it out," her partner, a man with dark brown hair and goatee, said.
Pressing a button in front of him, his chair slid down a ramp. Then, exiting the chair, he made his way to the door.
Back outside, Clover grabbed the cable.
"Time for Plan B!" she said, pulling at it both ways.
The cable broke, letting out a torrent of unknown fluid.
That was when the door to the cockpit open, the pilot expressing shock at Clover's presence in the blimp... and Clover expressing shock at his appearance, both in the room and his physical appearance.
"Sally!" he shouted into the cockpit. "We have invaders!"
"Invader this!" Alex shouted, swinging a stool at him.
Dodging, the man flipped into the air, and landed with a force too powerful for someone his size.
The woman, Sally, as she was apparently called, ran in.
Sam and Alex aimed their Laser Cutter Eyelash Curlers at her as she ripped mirrored tile off of the floor.
They realized what was happening too late to stop the lasers from firing, and they bounced off the tile, hitting different sections of the blimp.
"Remind me not to arm wrestle these guys!" Sam said, shocked.
"This makes no sense!" Sean said. "How can anyone that small be so strong?!"
"Sinclair!" Sally shouted to her partner. "Get the two by the machine!"
Sinclair ran in the direction of Sean and Clover.
"I'll take the other two!"
Sean and Clover backed up against the wall.
"Ha!" Sinclair said triumphantly. "I've got you now!"
"I wouldn't be so sure!" Sean retorted, kicking him backwards.
Before Sean could celebrate, however, Sinclair recovered, doing another backflip before landing on his feet, and running back to them.
Neither he nor Clover had the chance to register what was happening before he grabbed them both by the ankles.
Struggling to regain their balance, they both failed, falling out of the blimp door.
"Zap 'em with the Alpha X-9 Ray Gun," Sally shouted to her partner.
Both Sean and Clover clung to the blimp doorway with only one hand. While Sean was gazing upward, trying find a way back in, Clover was too stunned to think, looking down at the countryside becoming a blur below them.
"Oh, here comes my lunch!" she said, nauseous.
"Throw up on me," Sean warned. "And you're flying back to L.A alone!"
Back in the blimp, Sinclair had manned the machine, lowering it out of a hatch, causing it to protrude from the bottom of the blimp.
And Sean gaped in horror as it was aimed at him and Clover.
In less than a nanosecond, the pink ray hit them both.
Sean could feel himself getting smaller as his grip on the doorway loosened.
Once the effects had fully taken hold, he and Clover involuntarily let go, screaming on the way down.
"I think it's time we stepped outside," Sam suggested.
Alex nodded in agreement, following her in diving out of the blimp.
Activating their jetpacks, it was sheer luck that Sam and Alex had managed to catch Clover and Sean, respectively.
"Gotcha!" they both exclaimed.
"Stay put!" Sam instructed them.
"Where are we going to go?" Clover asked, sarcastically.
Climbing onto their respective rescuers shoulders, Sean and Sam crossed their arms, hoping the effects of that ray were reversible.
"Quick!" Sally shouted from the blimp. "Zap the other two!"
Sinclair fired multiple more beams, but all in vain, as the spies flew further and further away.
"This is just great!" Clover complained. "How am I going to try on clothes for my date!"
Finally, they managed to get away.
Landing right at the same spot they left Clover's suitcase, Sam looked to Sean, looking furious on Alex's shoulder.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"Uh," Sean started. "I just got zapped by a weird ray that made me as big as one of my socks. Do I look alright?!"
"Okay, okay," Sam said, waving her hands up in defense. "Calm down."
She pulled out her Compowder.
"We'd better call Jerry. Maybe he has a way to fix this."
A moment later, Jerry showed up on the screen.
"Hello spies," he answered cordially. "How's the Great Wall?"
"Not great at all," Sam countered. "Jerry, we have a problem."
She aimed the camera on her Compowder to show Clover on her shoulder and Sean on Alex's.
"Oh my!" Jerry exclaimed, astonished.
"We found the freaks who shrank all those landmarks!" Clover said.
"Yeah!" Sean added. "They use these tracking devices to pick out their targets and shrink them with this ray!"
He made a gesture to his body and Clover's.
"And that's not the only thing it shrinks!" he finished.
"That is unfortunate," Jerry said in a consoling tone.
"UNFORTUNATE?!" Sean and Clover screamed.
"No," Sean denied. "'Unfortunate' is when you forget to set an alarm and wind up being an hour late to school. 'Unfortunate' is when you're in such a rush you realize you're wearing two different socks. Getting shrunk to the size of action figures isn't unfortunate, it's a disaster!"
He pointed at his now miniscule torso.
"I can't go home looking like this!"
He panted, exhausted from his raving.
Sam nervously pointed the Compowder away from him
"Is there any way we can fix this?" she asked.
"Well," Jerry responded. "There's only one way to know for sure. Point your Compowder at either Sean or Clover."
Sam opted for Clover. A wave of blue light emitted from the camera lens and scanned her from head to toe, paying particular attention to a small purple stain on her left leg.
A few minutes later, Jerry read the scan results.
"An analysis of the strange purple substance on Clover's pants reveals this could only be the work of one man: Diminutive Smalls."
"Diminutive who?" Alex asked.
"Smalls. Years ago, he was a W.O.O.H.P scientist."
An image of three people, two of them were the blimp pilots, showed up on screen. The other was a thin man with pointed brown hair and a small mustache wearing a green suit under a white lab coat.
"He was working on a formula to increase strength by reducing mass. There was a freak accident. He and his two siblings got shrunk by his own machine but gained incredible strength. It seems Diminutive has now perfected the shrinking process and wants revenge."
"Revenge on who?" Sean asked.
"He blamed us for what happened to him and his siblings. We tried to compensate him, but he wouldn't hear of it."
"If only he'd gotten a little therapy," Clover said. "Then the whole world wouldn't be in this mess."
"We've been picking up an unusual level of radiation from a small island in the South China Sea called Jarnesia. Our experts believe he may have set up camp there."
An image of the island in question popped up behind Jerry. At first glance, one would almost mistake it for a mountain floating by itself in the middle of the ocean.
"That's probably the island they were talking about!" Sean exclaimed.
"We'll check it out right away!" Sam added.
"He's dangerous," Jerry warned. "So be careful, Spies."
"Hey!" Clover exclaimed. "What about us?!"
She pointed to Sean and then herself.
"Yes," Jerry said. "We're already working on an antidote for you and Sean, Clover."
"Good, because you see, in two days, I've got this date with this guy named Jason who-"
"I know, I know."
"But did I tell you about the dimple he's got right in the middle of-"
"Oh, so sorry," Jerry interrupted. "I think we're breaking up. Goodbye!"
And Sam's Compowder went dark again.
Alex laughed as Clover and Sean fumed over their new size.
Over Jarnesia Island-7:04 PM
A W.O.O.H.P plane soared over the island, preparing to drop its four passengers, who now stood at the back, waiting for the cargo hatch to open.
After putting on the necessary gear for riding them, Alex and Sam climbed onto the bikes Jerry had provided them, while Clover and Sean opted to ride on Sam's shoulders (with the way Alex was known to handle a vehicle, Sean didn't want to take any risks. One wrong move from her and he could go flying off).
"One," Alex counted. "Two, Three."
"Hit it!" Sam and Alex shouted, pedaling off the ramp.
The girls screamed briefly before their parachutes opened, letting them safely float down to the island's surface.
Once they were firmly on the ground, they pressed buttons below the handlebars, igniting turbo engines behind them.
"These C.A.D.T. rock!" Alex exclaimed.
"And roll!" Sam added, with Sean and Clover clinging to her shoulders.
After about 20 minutes of riding around the island, the spies came to the face of a cliff. On the top was a huge, elaborate castle.
"Woah!" they all exclaimed.
"Check out that creepy castle!" Clover said, awed.
"That's exactly what we're gonna do," Alex said.
"I just hope there's a way to change us back in there," Sean said.
The two bikes rode up the cliff's face, with Sean and Clover doing there best not to fall off.
Even if it was essential, Sean admitted to himself he liked clinging to Sam like this.
A blush overtook his face, and for the first time today, he was glad to be small because Sam could not see it.
"This C.A.D.T.O.P rules!" Alex said excitedly.
At long last, they reached the top of the cliff.
"Hey!" Alex shouted, pointing. "There's the-"
But she didn't finish her sentence as a tank, armed with the same shrink ray Sean and Clover fell victim to, crawled their way towards them.
The tank itself was only the size of a toy but the real danger was in the double barreled cannon on top.
"-welcoming committee," Alex finished weakly. "Uh-oh!"
"Ready," a voice inside the tank said. "And... fire!"
The tanks occupants did as instructed.
The tank fired the shrink ray, with Sam and Alex barely dodging.
It fired again, this time hitting a rock instead of its intended targets, who were now speeding away.
"We're in a real life video game!" Alex shouted.
"Yeah!" Sean agreed. "But this isn't nearly as fun!"
Try as they might to get away, the tank caught up with them.
"Oh no!" Clover despaired. "We're trapped!"
"Not so fast!" Alex declared, running her bike up a tree. Sam followed.
In the treetops, they looked down on their pursuers, who were apparently having trouble getting a good shot at them.
"Ha!" Sam said. "Let's see you try to get us now!"
But the tank fired two beams at the tree instead, shrinking it and allowing the spies to fall out, screaming.
"You and your big mouth!" Clover said to Sam.
Before Sean could say anything in Sam's defense, he, along with Clover, lost their grip on the redhead's shoulder, falling to the ground below.
Landing in a pile of leaves, Sean sat up, then pulled up Clover to help her do the same.
"Uh-oh!" Sean said, as the tank rolled up to them.
Clover screamed as a door in the front opened up, trapping her and Sean inside.
While Sean and Clover's abductors fled, Alex and Sam rode up under the ledge that the tank was now driving up.
"Hang on, guys!" Alex shouted. "We're coming!"
"Follow that tank!" Sam exclaimed.
As they continued their pursuit, they noticed it was speeding toward the castle.
A wall opened up forming an opening for the tank to slip through.
Sam and Alex got to the castle to late to stop the entrance from closing.
"Now what are we gonna do?!" Alex asked.
Sam looked up.
"Maybe there's a way in from the roof," she said.
Alex followed Sam's gaze, observing the various towers and turrets on the castle's roof.
Riding the bikes up the wall, they were suddenly stopped as they refused to go any further.
Alex and Sam kept pedaling, but it was all in vain.
"We can't get any traction!" Alex exclaimed before they fell back to the ground.
The two girls sat back up.
"I guess these are Climb Almost Anything Dirt Bikes," Alex said, adjusting her helmet.
"I have an idea," Sam said, sitting up.
She took off her belt.
"This should do the trick," she continued, attaching it to her bike.
Alex, getting the message, mimicked Sam's action, attaching her belt to her own bike.
Firing the grappling hooks from the buckles, the bikes were propelled upward, with the girls smiling all the while.
"That wasn't the belt I lent you, was it?" Alex asked.
Later, the two crawled through an air vent until Alex came to a grate in the middle.
Sam joined her, looking down at the room below.
Everywhere were tiny glass cases that contained what could be easily recognized as the shrunken and stolen landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower, the Jefferson Memorial, Mount Rushmore, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and so much more.
A man, who the girls now realized was Diminutive Smalls based on the very miniature stature, stepped down from a large computer console to leer at two figures restrained on a circular device.
Upon further investigation, Sam realized that they were Sean and Clover.
"We're ready to go," Smalls said. "Clover, Sean, I want to thank you for being our guinea pigs."
"You're not welcome," Sean said, struggling to break out of his restraints. Unfortunately, as Smalls had explained to him, they were made of steel-titanium alloy, making them virtually indestructible.
"Now that I see how well my device works on humans," Smalls continued.
"The world's greatest monuments all in one place!" Alex exclaimed under her breath as Smalls continued rambling.
"I've decided to dream a little bigger. Instead of shrinking and stealing the monuments of the world so I could decorate my island, I'm going to shrink and steal the cities of the world, people and all, so I can have subjects to rule over!"
"Listen, pal!" Clover shouted. "You're never gonna get away with this!"
"Oh, like you're going to stop me," Smalls said mockingly.
"For your information," Sean said, glaring. "We've dealt with worse than you!"
"We have?" Clover asked.
Sean nodded. "Fabu, Scam, that knight who tried to make you his queen."
"Don't remind me of that last guy!" Clover cringed.
"Anyway," Sean continued to Smalls. "Change us back before I really get mad!"
"Uh..." Smalls droned. "No. I actually have a better idea. I'm gonna turn the two of you into ants."
His two siblings, Sally and Sinclair, stepped down from two staircases behind him, getting ready to fire the ray again.
Back in the vent, Sam whispered to Alex.
"Here's our chance. I'll tackle the annoying one, you grab the other two."
"Gotcha!" Alex agreed.
Alex kicked the grate open as she and Sam leapt into the room.
But apparently, something didn't go according to plan, and Alex instead wound up tackling Sam.
The two tumbled over each other, breaking the railing of the balcony, landing on the floor below them and catching the attention of Smalls and his siblings.
"I said I'll tackle the annoying one!" Sam shouted at Alex.
"I know!" Alex countered. "So why are you going after that one?!"
She pointed at Smalls and then Sally.
"She's the annoying one!"
"Not half as annoying as that one!"
"Uh," Sean broke in. "When you're finished, would you mind, I don't know, maybe HELPING US OUT?!"
But Smalls chuckled evilly as he and his siblings advanced toward the two girls.
It happened so fast that Sam and Alex barely had any time to fight back. The next thing any of them knew, they were strapped on the outer edges of the metal circle with Sean and Clover between them, metal restraints across their chests.
"Now," Smalls explained. "When this machine gets nice and toasty, you four will be shrunk to the size of dust particles. Too bad we won't be able to watch, but we've got a little city to shrink and steal... called Tokyo. Maybe you've heard of it."
He walked off, laughing evilly.
"Now what?!" Sean asked as soon as he left the room.
"I can't reach my gadgets!" Sam struggled.
Sally and Sinclair turned the machine on, before leaving the room.
As soon as they were about to give up, Clover spoke.
"Look. My Laser Cutter Eyelash Curler shrunk along with me. This whole time, I could've had great lashes and didn't know it."
Luckily, she also remembered the other thing she could do with it.
Turning on the laser, she melted through her restraints.
Then, jumping off the metal circle, she aimed it at her three teammates. First, Alex, then, Sam, and finally, Sean.
They dodged the laser as it shrunk the circle instead of the spies.
"That was close," Alex sighed in relief.
"I'll say so," Sean agreed, before turning to Clover. "Now, Clover, I realize we're friends and all, but... WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE?!"
Clover blushed, feeling sheepish.
"Okay, that's enough," Sam said. "Now we have a city to save. Strap on your Jetpack Backpacks and let's blow this joint!"
Sam and Alex took off, leaving Sean and Clover behind.
"Wait up!" Clover shouted after them.
"Your legs are longer than ours now, remember?!" Sean added.
Tokyo-9:06 PM
Luckily, Sean and Clover's jetpacks shrank along with them and enabled them to keep up with Sam and Alex.
Flying over the Tokyo skyline, it wasn't long before Clover spotted what they were looking for.
"There they are!" she exclaimed, pointing upward. "And they're almost ready to go!"
The blimp was hovering directly above them.
"Maybe we can destroy the blimp's steering systems so Smalls can't hold it in position," Alex suggested.
"Not a bad idea," Sean agreed. "Just hope Smalls doesn't see us. I don't want to spend the rest of my life the size of a raindrop."
But as they flew up to the blimp, Sean's hopes were dashed as Smalls had already spotted them.
"How did those annoying little pests get free?!" he growled. "That's it!"
He pressed a button, lowering a smaller version of the device he almost used on the spies.
"Watch out!" Alex said. "I think he sees us!"
"Exactly what I didn't want to happen!" Sean said as they began avoiding laser blasts.
One managed to hit a building belonging to a major Japanese soda brand, forcing its workers to flee for their very lives.
The device continued to fire at the spies and missing each time, instead hitting buildings, cars, and even other people trying to get away from the beams.
"Yep!" Clover agreed with Alex. "He definitely sees us!"
"We need to split up or we'll never get close enough!" Sam instructed. "Cover for me! I'm going in!"
She flew up, right in the path of Smalls' aim.
"Try this on for size!" he said, laughing.
He fired, with Sam carefully evading each blast.
"I can't watch!" Alex said as she and the others looked on in horror.
"Me neither!" Clover agreed.
"Tell me when it's over!" Sean said fearfully, covering his eyes.
But between the gap in his fingers, he saw one of the beams hit a building made completely out of reflective glass. The beam bounced off the surface, and instead of shrinking its intended target, hit a van instead.
Sam, looking at what had just occurred, smiled to herself.
"That gives me an idea," she murmured, beckoning the others up to her.
"Okay," Sean said. "We're here. What now?"
"Follow my lead," she said to them.
She flew back up to Smalls' view.
"Oh no!" she said dramatically. "My jetpack is running out of fuel!"
"So is mine!" Clover agreed.
"Mine too!" Sean exclaimed, catching on.
"Really?" Alex asked, confused. "Mine's fine."
"Alex!" Sean and Clover said to her, instructing her to play along.
"Oops! I mean, oh no! I'm out of fuel, too!"
They flew back down, landing on the edges of the same building.
"We're trapped!" Sam shouted.
Back in the blimp, Smalls grinned in celebration.
"I told you we'd outlast them!" he said smugly. "Now, this is where the fun really starts!"
He took careful aim at the spies.
"Ready!" he and his siblings said in unison. "Aim!"
"Fire!" Smalls finished on his own, letting the beam fly.
But outside, the spies flew in different directions, letting the beam ricochet off the reflective glass and hitting the blimp instead.
Smalls and his siblings could only recoil in horror as they, along with their blimp, began to shrink even smaller than they were previously.
As a group of W.O.O.H.P agents picked up the hamster cage containing the shrunken villains, Smalls looked at the spies in fury.
"You haven't seen the last of me!" he shouted.
Jerry looked at the four teens with pride.
"Spies," he said. "Once again, a job well done."
"Thanks, Jerry!" they said in unison.
He pulled them in, hugging them... and accidentally crushing the still miniature Sean and Clover, who were on Sam's shoulders.
"Hey guys!" Clover shouted. "Hello?! Can you ease up a bit?!"
"I can't breathe!" Sean exclaimed.
Beverly Hills-6:35 PM
After returning home, the spies sat inside Clover's house, waiting for Jerry to send the device that would turn her and Sean back to their normal size.
Jerry had informed them that it might take a day or so to get there. Luckily, Clover's mother was out of town for a few days and Sean told his mother that he was spending a night studying at a friend's place.
That just left the problem of what they were going to wear in the meantime.
"Good thing I kept my old dolls' outfits," Alex said, referring to Sean and Clover's new attire.
Clover was stuck in a short pink dress with ballet slippers and stockings, which she objected to wearing but had no other choice.
Sean also objected to his outfit which included a too small pair of sneakers, beige jeans, and his absolute least favorite, a plaid button up shirt.
"You call this a good thing?!" Sean gestured down his body. "I don't even like plaid!"
After waiting for what seemed like forever, the doorbell rang.
Eagerly, Clover ran to the door, but her jumping up proved she was too short the reach the handle.
"Hold on!" Sam told her. "I'll get it."
Sam opened the door, revealing the delivery man Jerry had hired.
"This is for-" he tried to say.
"Me!" Clover exclaimed.
She jumped up and down. Confused, the delivery man gently lowered a pink gun-like device to her. In addition to the device that would turn them back to normal, Jerry had also sent Clover's outfits which she had left behind in China.
Not even bothering to ask her to sign, he ran back to his van, startled at what he had seen.
"Okay, guys," she said to Sam and Alex. "Shoot me with the gun and I'll have just enough time before Jason shows up to change out of this awful doll outfit and into my special date outfit."
The girls looked at Sean, who was sitting on a coffee table, legs crossed.
"You can do me next," he said.
"Let me do it!" Alex insisted, reaching for the gun along with Sam.
"No," Sam argued. "Let me!"
Sean was just about to tell them it didn't matter who did it when they discovered the trigger was very sensitive, accidentally pulling it and enlarging Clover's suitcases along with their contents.
Still struggling with the gun, Alex and Sam pointed downward at Clover, firing it and as she was struck by the beam, she rapidly returned to her normal height.
The clothes she wore were now too small and she had to pull the skirt of her dress down to keep her underwear from being exposed.
Sean upon seeing this, ran behind the couch.
Clover, in the meantime, dragged her suitcases back inside, and lamented over her now enlarged clothes.
"Oh no!" she despaired, pulling out a pair of baggy jeans. "I can't wear these! I can't wear anything!"
Then she looked panicked.
"Jason can't see me like this! What am I gonna do?!"
Then she gasped, struck by an idea.
"Cancel!" she declared. "That's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna have you go to the door," she pointed at Sam and Alex. "And cancel my date. Tell him I'm sick. That I have the flu. And we'll have to reschedule."
"Are you sure?" Sam asked. "I mean, you could borrow something of ours. Well, not Sean's, for obvious reasons."
"No way, guys," Clover denied. "I've been planning my perfect outfit all week."
"If none of them are perfect anyway," Sean called out from behind the couch. "Why not just borrow one of their outfits?"
But the doorbell rang before the subject could be debated further.
Alex answered it. Sure enough, it was Jason.
"Hi, Jason!' she greeted, as Sam joined her.
"Hi girls!" he returned, clutching a bouquet of flowers. "Is Clover ready?"
"She's..." Sam hesitated. "Very sick. Spots everywhere. She's sorry, but she cannot go out with you today."
Jason blinked, obviously disappointed. As he walked away from the house, Clover looked on, sighing in relief.
"That was close," she said to herself.
But outside, Mandy, who was rollerblading and saw Jason, deliberately crashed into him the same way Clover did the other day.
"Oops!" she said. "Sorry."
"Oh," Jason said, brightening. "Hey, Mandy! What's going on?"
Still watching, Clover gasped with sheer disbelief.
"How totally lame!" she exclaimed to her friends, furious. "He's actually falling for that?!"
Not caring how she looked for once, Clover ran outside.
"Jason, wait!" she called out. "I'm feeling much better! Those crazy ten minute flus!"
"I'm glad Clover's back to her normal self," Alex said to Sam.
"Not sure 'normal quite describes it," Sam said as they watched Clover chase after Jason's car, throwing one of her shoes in frustration.
"Speaking of 'normal'," Sean said coming out from behind the couch. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Hmm?" the girls asked, then remembered he less than two feet tall.
"Oh," Sam said. "Right."
She took the gun from Alex and aimed it at Sean.
"Not here!" he objected. "I don't have any clothes here! You're gonna have to take me back to my house first."
"Oh, sorry," she admitted before turning to Alex. "You try to calm Clover down, I'm gonna take Sean home."
Alex nodded as Sam scooped up Sean into her palm before putting him on her shoulder.
Sam had to sprint to get to back to Sean's house, which just happened to be two blocks away.
Coming to the front door, she was disappointed to find that it wouldn't open.
"It's locked!" she swore.
"There's a key in that planter right there," Sean informed her, pointing to a flower pot containing a fern.
Reaching through the leaves, Sam dug it out, using it to unlock the door.
Stepping through the front door, she could feel a sense of relief.
"Okay," Sean told her. "You might want to hurry. My mom usually gets home around this time. And I don't want her to see me like this!"
"Got it," Sam said, looking up the stairs. "Where was your room again?"
Sean groaned, frustrated at their lost time.
"Up the stairs, first door on the left," he explained.
Dashing up the stairs as quickly as she could, Sam opened the door to Sean's room, placing him on the center of the rug in front of his bed.
"Okay," he said. "Hit me."
Pointing the gun, she pulled the trigger, letting the beam engulf Sean, who could feel his body stretching out to its proper height.
However, it also stretched his clothes, ensuring the legs of his pants came up to his calves and his shirt unbuttoned itself from the top. partially exposing his chest.
Rushing over to a mirror, Sean felt a huge sigh leave his mouth.
"Oh, thank God. I thought something was gonna go wrong and I'd be stuck wearing Alex's doll clothes for the rest of my life!"
"It's a good thing Jerry's never let us down," Sam said. "But Alex's doll clothes don't look good on you either way, if you know what I mean."
"Huh?" Sean asked, before looking down at himself. "Oh, right. I guess I should change."
He began unbuttoning the shirt. Once it was fully open, he looked up at Sam, trying to fight a blush.
"Uh, do you mind?" he asked.
Getting the message, she turned around as Sean shrugged the shirt off his shoulders.
Undoing the zipper and pushing the pants off, he was thankful that his navy boxers didn't shrink with him.
As he fought to ignore the fact that Sam was in the room with him, he didn't notice she did glance over her shoulder for just a second before whipping her head back around.
Before he could reach into his dresser for a pair of jeans, the sound of his door opening stopped him.
"Sean," his mother's voice said. "I'm-"
As she trailed off, Sean ignored his better instincts and turned around.
His mother stood in his doorway at him, no doubt wondering why he was in his underwear... with Sam still in the room.
All three had bright red blushes on their faces.
"Uh, nice to see you again, Rachel," Sam said rapidly. "Well, I've gotta go!"
Faster than a bolt of lightning she ran out of the room, leaving an embarrassed Sean and his mother who now had a stern look on her face.
"Sean," she said, in a tone that Sean remembered preceded some form of discipline. "Is there something you need to tell me?"
"It's not what you think!" he defended, honestly. "I swear!"
She sighed. "Well, you'll have plenty of time to come up with an explanation... while you're grounded for the next week."
She closed the door behind her, leaving Sean alone.
Once he was fully dressed, he sat on his bed, in shock over what just happened.
"I'm never gonna live that one down!" he said, frustration replacing shock. Then he felt under his pillow, pulling out his wallet phone, which he had Jerry deliver discreetly back to his house.
"Then again, maybe I don't have to."
Using the audio only option, he called Jerry.
"Hi Jerry," he greeted. "I need a favor. Can you erase a part of my mom's memory?"