Hi! I know many of you are probably expecting A Spy is Born to be next, but I decided to shift the order of the episodes to give this story a more linear timeline. So, this one is next.
Read and review!
Chapter Thirty-Four
Man or Machine
Niagara Falls-7:23 PM
Though the sound of rushing water was deafening, it was always a pleasant thing to hear at Niagara Falls. Receiving over 20 million tourists per year, the falls were always a picture of tranquility.
Until today.
In an instant, the walls of the cliffs were rocked with explosions, sending torrents of water cascading down the walkways below and sending thousands of frightened tourists running to escape the crushing deluge.
When the dust settled, many an onlooker could see a series of pink chutes like the kind found at a water park sticking out from the top of the falls. The chutes curved down the slope of the falls into the massive plunge pool below.
But what was even more confusing was the swarm of helicopters converging on the newly constructed water slide, carrying steel beams. And one didn't have to be an expert in engineering to know that they were used for construction.
Moments later, a reporter stood before a camera and gestured to the chaotic scene behind her.
"If you've just tuned in," she said into the microphone. "We're coming to you live from Niagara Falls."
She momentarily ducked in order to avoid being hit by an airborne girder.
"Where someone is turning this national landmark into some kind of dangerous water park," she continued. "What kind of sick mind would do this?"
Little did she know that the person who ordered the construction of the giant water slide was watching her report at that very moment with a blank expression on his face... and in a secure room in the White House.
Beverly Hills Mall-2:22 PM
Sam, in roller blades and corresponding gear sat on the edge of the fountain in the mall with her nose buried in an issue of her favorite science magazine. She often liked doing this when her friends were otherwise busy with something else. And that something else was typically something reckless like rollerblading in the mall.
She didn't even know why she was doing this in the first place. She wanted do it on the boardwalk, but Clover insisted on going shopping at the same time. And Alex was the one who offered a compromise of rollerblading in the mall. As for Sean, he decided to abstain on the vote so as not to offend either girl.
In any case, her friends weren't with her at the moment. Well, that wasn't completely true, for one of them bladed his way up to her.
"Order up," Sean said cheerfully, holding up a small paper cup with a red straw leaning out of the side. Sam looked at him in confusion as she took the cup.
"I thought you might be thirsty," he admitted truthfully.
"Thanks," Sam replied, taking a sip. Then her lips curled up in a surprised smile. "Strawberry pomegranate, my favorite. How'd you know?"
"Let's just say a little bird told me," Sean answered. Of course, he really meant Clover told him. Ever since she learned of his crush on Sam, she had been trying to no end to find ways to match them together, despite Sean's insistence that he handle things at his own pace.
But he didn't object to Clover giving him tips on how to subtly win Sam over, including giving him Sam's favorite smoothie flavor.
As much as she annoyed him, Sean had to admit there were times when he admired Clover.
Today, however, was not one of those times.
"Come on, Sammy!" Clover exclaimed as she sped up. "Why don't you blade with us?!"
She snatched Sam's science magazine out of her hand just as Alex came up from behind her, both girls earning a glare from Sam and Sean.
"Yeah!" Alex agreed. "It doesn't matter that you're a lame rollerblader. You can still at least try to have some fun."
Sam snatched her magazine back.
"Ladies," she said. "And I quote, 'Excess time spent on recreational activities could be better spent exercising the mind.'"
She was reading directly from her magazine as she said this, tapping her right temple for emphasis.
But Alex and Clover just looked bored, and even Sean seemed to be find himself disagreeing with her... if only a little.
"I got a quote for you," Clover said, taking the magazine again. "'Go fish!'"
And she threw the magazine into the fountain.
While Sam just stared forlornly at her ruined magazine, Alex and Clover laughed.
Sean, on the other hand, glared at them.
"Girls!" he exclaimed. "I expected better from you!"
Clover and Alex immediately ceased laughing.
"Lighten up, Sean!" Clover scoffed.
"Yeah!" Alex concurred. "It was just a joke!"
"Really? Because I'm not laughing and neither is Sam!"
He indicated Sam, whose face betrayed a mood of utmost devastation.
Clover and Alex lowered their heads, ashamed. Before either could issue an apology, however, or before Sean could demand one, a smug voice sounded from behind them.
"Well, well. Look what we have here."
The four teens snapped to attention. The voice turned out to belong to a mall security guard, a very stern one by the sound of it.
"Skaters and violators," he said, arms folded. "You know the rules: no rollerblading! And no littering!"
"Littering?!" Clover asked, nervous, prompting the guard to gesture to the magazine in the fountain.
Clover fumbled for an explanation.
"I was making a wish and ran out of pennies!"
"Save it for someone who cares!" the guard snapped. "Thankfully, a model citizen alerted me to this situation!"
Before anyone could ask just who this "model citizen" was, a nasal voice called out accusingly as its owner appeared behind the guard.
"It's them, Mr. Officer!" Mandy said, pointing an accusing finger at the four. "If you want, I can identify each criminal in a lineup!"
Sean and the girls just glared at her.
"The only thing criminal here," Clover said, annoyed. "Is your nasty haircut and faux nails!"
Sean looked up at the officer.
"You can't believe a word she says," he defended. "She's a notorious rumor spreader."
"Believe me, sir," Mandy went on, ignoring Sean. "I know them all to well. They're repeat offenders and shouldn't be free to roam the mall!"
That, evidently, was the last straw for Clover, who attempted to lunge at Mandy, who jumped back as Sean moved to restrain his friend.
"Clover!" Sean scolded. "We're already in trouble; don't make it worse for us!"
"I don't care if I get 50 to life!" Clover exclaimed. "Let me at her!"
"Now, now," the guard said calmly, trying to get Clover to do the same. "This poor young lady was merely doing a good deed."
Yeah, Sean thought. And Jerry's puns are actually funny.
The guard handed Mandy a yellow slip of paper.
"Here," he said as she took it. "Worth 20% off anything in the mall!"
Mandy snatched it up eagerly as Sean and the girls found themselves cuffed and forced to sit back down on the edge of the fountain.
"I'll be back," the guard warned. "With reinforcements."
He walked off as Sam rolled her eyes.
"Great," she complained. "I didn't even do anything wrong!"
"Oh, that's right," Clover taunted, her remorse from earlier gone. "You didn't do anything, Miss... Sam No-Fun!"
"Sam No-Fun! Sam-No Fun!" Alex and Clover chanted mockingly.
"Cut it out you two!" Sean exclaimed sharply, before groaning at the sensation of handcuffs on his wrists. He'd never even had a juvie record, but that itself changed thanks to this mishap.
"This is all your fault, you know!"
He glared at Clover and Alex, who stopped teasing Sam altogether.
"Our fault?!" Alex asked, appalled.
"Uh, Earth to Sean," Clover said. "You were rollerblading too!"
"I was going to stop after one run!" Sean said defensively. "You two were the ones who decided to turn this place into your own personal roller rink! Besides, that guy probably would have gone easy on us if you hadn't tried to strangle Mandy!"
"I didn't see you try to stop me!"
"I did!" he reminded. "But thanks to you, Sam and I have our first arrests ever!"
Alex and Clover blinked as Sean groaned.
"I knew this was a bad idea! Why do I let you drag me into these messes?!"
"Wow!" Alex said. "You're almost as bad as Sam!"
Clover laughed as she and Alex made a modification to their chant.
"Sam and Sean No-Fun! Sam and Sean No-Fun!"
"Knock it off!" Sam said sternly. "Stop it!"
But it didn't last long before the edge of the fountain tipped over, sending them into the water... and into an opening that lead into a metallic chute.
The spies, along with a small torrent of water landed in a shallow pool in front of Jerry's desk before being lifted out of the water by four mechanical arms, which also melted off their handcuffs with a welding torch.
They were dropped onto the fuchsia cushion just as Jerry spoke up.
"Afternoon, agents."
"You wouldn't have a blow-dryer in your back pocket, would you, Jer?" Clover asked, removing her helmet from her soaking wet hair.
"Sorry," Jerry consoled as a small table with white towels came up from out of the floor. "Only W.O.O.H.P Terry cloth beach towels. You can take one home as a souvenir after your mission."
They each took one, Sean patting his face and hair dry with his while the girls wrapped theirs around their heads.
"You'll have to teach me that sometime," Jerry joked, referring to the girls' towel wrapping skills.
"Sure thing," Alex said. "Right after you get something to wrap." She tapped her head for emphasis as her three teammates laughed.
Jerry was unfazed, fortunately, as he directed their attention to the screen behind him.
"Now," he began. "We've uncovered something quite bizarre and troubling. It seems various world leaders have been creating dangerous thrill rides in their respective countries."
"Thrill rides?!" Alex and Clover asked, shocked.
"Like what?" Sean asked.
In response, Jerry displayed footage of a highway that was now the picture of absolute pandemonium thanks to the presence of ramps and several cars laying in smoking wrecks on either side.
"In Germany," Jerry explained. "The chancellor instructed the removal of lines on the Autobahn. He also added ramps. Driving has become a reckless, road raging, bumper car speedway."
Next he showed an image of Malaysia.
"In Malaysia, the prime minister has programmed the elevators of the Petronas Towers to drop 88 floors."
His point was proven in video footage of the elevators doing that exact thing and going up 88 floors shortly after dropping at a very rapid pace.
"Lastly, the Brazilian president ordered cables cut on a suspended bridge. Busloads of tourists were left dangling over crocodile infested waters."
"Why would world leaders convert safe national landmarks into major danger zones?" Sam asked, voicing what the other three were thinking.
"Frankly," Jerry answered. "That's what we need you to find out."
"Alright," Sean said, nodding in confirmation. "Where do we start?"
Jerry pulled up an image of Japan on the screen; more specifically, the image of a young woman in a W.O.O.H.P spy uniform next to it.
"The Emperor of Japan's wife is a former W.O.O.H.P agent. Through her, you can get direct access to her husband."
"Japan?" Clover asked excitedly. "That's like, sushi central! Let's go!"
"Uh, wait for the gadgets!" Jerry reminded as another W.O.O.H.P agent wheeled in an assortment of them on a cart. When he was gone, Jerry held them up for the spies to see.
"One Digit Decoder Card, two cans of Insta-Freeze Back Off Breath Spray, a pocket sized protracting Lip-Spear, the Just Sticky Enough Glue Gloves, the Mini-Lint Vac Battery Decharger, and C.A.T.S."
"Cats?" Alex asked, remembering her allergy to them. "I'm more of a dog person."
"It stands," Jerry clarified. "For Crystalline Airtight Tri-Sect Shield."
"As long as it's litter box trained."
"Yes," Jerry said dryly, snapping his fingers. "Very amusing."
The girls' heart shaped backpacks as well as Sean's circular one dropped down from the ceiling.
"Uh, Jerry," Sean spoke up. "Before we go, we kind of got in trouble with Mall Security. So, if you don't mind..."
"Already being taken care of," Jerry said. "Goodbye and good luck!"
The cushion flipped backward, dropping them through another chute that would lead to a helicopter that would take them to Japan.
Japan-5:13 PM
With Mount Fuji in the background, a single bullet train sped by on the rails over a seemingly endless rice field. Sean and Sam each looked out the window, both a little apprehensive.
Even W.O.O.H.P's vehicles didn't go this fast, Sean admitted. And this was a little too fast for his taste. Sam, apparently, thought the same way.
"Hey," Clover said. "You guys think this bullet train has a sushi bar?"
She looked over her seat, sniffing eagerly.
"Here, fishy, fishy!"
"Let's just hope it takes us to the Emperor's palace soon," Sam said miserably. "I'd like to breathe again."
"So would I," Sean agreed.
"Can't you guys at least try to have fun?" Alex suggested.
"Yeah!" Clover added. "Where else can you experience a nice, smooth ride like... this!"
She shouted the last word as the train ride became bumpier than a ride on a high speed train should be.
"During an earthquake?!" Sean answered fearfully.
That was when the train went down a sloped section of the track; a section that was so deep that the spies fell out of their seats for a moment.
And just as they got back in, they were thrown out again as the train climbed an even steeper incline before flipping upside down like a rollercoaster.
"Since when do public trains do loop-de-loops?!" Sam asked as Clover collided with a wall.
"Can we just get out of here before I lose my sashimi?" Clover asked, looking nauseous.
Sean, pulling out the credit card Jerry had given them, inched his way over to the door.
"This Digit Decoder Card should do the trick!" he said, swiping it into the electronic lock of the door. But the expected result, namely the door sliding open, didn't happen, and instead a red light indicating an error flashed on the top of the lock.
"I think we need a little more purchasing power!" Alex exclaimed.
Clover, moving fast, took the card from Sean and slipped it into the gap between the door and the latch. The door came loose as she pushed it open, letting a gust of wind burst into the compartment.
"Credit cards," she said in celebration. "Is there anything they can't do?"
"Well," Sean said. "I can think of one thing they can't do: stop this train!"
"We're gonna have to jump!" Sam shouted as she and the others crowded around the doorway.
"I was afraid you'd say that!" Alex added and they all leapt out of the moving train.
Thankfully, the fall wasn't very far and they landed in a relatively soft rice paddy. The one downside was that they were soaking wet (again) and covered in mud.
"Did we make it?" Alex asked, sitting up.
"I think so," Sean said, wiping mud off the front of his shirt.
"Hey!" Sam exclaimed happily, pointing off to a massive building in the distance. "There's the Emperor's palace."
The spies stood up, but were suddenly aware of a threatening presence behind them.
They turned around to see five grey suited guards standing in a perfect row. And they all had headbands adorned with an image of the red circle Japan was most commonly associated with. And all had stern expressions plastered to their faces.
"Who are the suits?!" Clover asked.
"I don't know," Sean answered. "But something tells me they're not the welcoming committee."
Alex, however, seemed to be braver than her teammates.
"You're making one supersized mistake, Mr. Scary Japanese Guard!" she boasted. "I just learned a mean martial arts move in gym class!"
After she flashed several martial arts poses, one guard lowered himself to her face before swiping his hand across the blades of grass that were stuck to the mud in her hair. The blades were sliced clean through.
Alex smiled sheepishly, realizing just how in over her head she really was.
"Hold it!" a woman's voice called out.
The spies looked above the guards up to a ledge, where the same woman from the image Jerry showed them stood. She was wearing a kimono.
"I'm Keiko," she introduced herself. "The Emperor's wife. These are my guards."
The spies were aghast.
"Oopsie," Clover said in shock.
"What do you know?" Alex said. "This is the welcoming committee, after all!"
"Jerry told me you'd be coming," Keiko said as she led the four into the palace's entrance hall, where a gray suited butler stood at attention.
"Come with me," she continued before gesturing to the butler. "If you need anything, Mr. Katsu will be happy to assist you."
The spies removed their shoes, as was customary when entering a stranger's home in Japan. Sean, Sam, and Alex gave them to Katsu for safekeeping, but Clover insisted on carrying hers around the palace.
"Sorry, Katsu," she apologized. "I never valet park the designer originals."
With how well polished the floor was, Sean found it difficult to walk in socks in the palace. But he quickly found his footing and was able to keep up with Keiko and the girls.
As their hostess led them further into the palace, a gasp from Keiko prompted all to stand perfectly still.
"Hello," a man in a formal kimono and eyeglasses said as he walked by. The Emperor, no doubt.
Very quickly, Keiko bowed along with Sean, Sam, and Clover. Alex was a little slower on the uptake.
"Hello," she said awkwardly. "Mr. Emperor, sir. Master of masters. Ruler of the unruly."
Hoping to make the situation less awkward, Sean pulled Alex down by the back of her shirt and forced her into the same bowing position he and the others were in.
"Goodbye," the Emperor said, completely monotone as he walked off.
"Okay," Clover said as soon as he was gone. "Man of few words?"
"Too few," Sam commented. "I've got a feeling there's something he's not telling us."
"Well then," Sean added. "What are we waiting for? Let's get to the bottom of this."
Later that night, Sean and the girls, relying on instructions from Keiko, made their way to the Emperor's personal study.
Clover slid open the door, allowing access to the room.
Sean thought about turning on a light to make searching a little easier, but he decided it wouldn't be a good idea since a light on in a room only used by the Emperor would attract unnecessary attention.
As Sean and Sam searched the drawers on the desk below the computer, Clover groaned in boredom.
"An entire palace filled with neat stuff and we're stuck in this bore-a-torium!" she complained as she searched a cabinet with a sword displayed on top.
They were forced to pause their search when they heard movement outside, however.
"Uh-oh!" Sam announced. "Could be the Emperor! Get out your Just Sticky Enough Gloves!"
The spies did as instructed, putting on the gloves, which were light blue in color and climbed to the top of the ceiling where they hung upside down by their hands.
The door slid open again, letting the Emperor in.
"You're sure these gloves are sticky enough?" Alex asked nervously.
Unaware of the four teens observing his every move, the Emperor opened a drawer just below the left side of his desk, taking out a small, square device with a cable attached to it.
Placing the device itself on the desk, the Emperor attached the cable to his chest and began to shudder violently.
"What's he doing with that battery?" Clover asked.
"It looks like..." Sean said, not believing what he was seeing for a minute. "...he's charging himself!"
Sam furrowed her brow, catching on the Sean's words.
"The repeated words," she said. "Stiff hand gestures, the battery charger. It's like he's some kind of animatron or something!"
"Anima-what?" Alex asked, confused.
"It's like a robot," Sean explained. "But you really only see them in theme parks."
"You're saying someone replaced world leaders with robots?" Clover asked. "I mean, hello? Lame sci-fi movie much?"
"We can't rule anything out, Clover."
Sean eyed the Emperor with suspicion.
"But if someone did, the question is who? And more importantly, why? And why are they building these crazy thrill rides?"
Before any of them could explore the topic further, however, the gloves began to come loose from the grip on the ceiling, sending all four teens tumbling down to the floor, crashing on the desk.
The stunned Emperor regarded them with shock as Alex sat up.
"Uh-huh!" she said with confirmation. "Just as I suspected: the gloves weren't sticky enough!"
The Emperor got over the momentary surprise of four teenagers spying on him very quickly.
"Guards!" he shouted.
"I think that's our cue to leave," Sean said and he and the girls jumped through the screen door.
As soon as they landed in the hallway, they could see a pair of guards rounding the corner. They tried to run, but another pair surprised them from the other corner of the hall.
"Quick!" a voice whispered urgently. "In here!"
The voice belonged to Keiko, who slid open another door a little further away from the study.
Left with little other choice, the spies jumped in the room.
"What was that all about?" she asked as the sounds of footsteps faded from the hall outside.
The spies stood there, trying to catch their breath.
"I don't know how to say this," Sean began for the group. "But we think the Emperor's been replaced by an animatron."
"Oh, my!" Keiko exclaimed in dismay. "That would explain the Emperor's bizarre behavior."
"Someone must have abducted the real Emperor!" Clover exclaimed.
"You four must find my husband! He may be in great danger!"
"We'll do everything we can, Your Highness," Alex reassured.
"Whoever abducted the real Emperor must be using a signal to control the animatronic Emperor," Sam said. "We just need a way to track the signal."
Keiko turned to a painting of a wave on the opposite side of the room.
"Wait, I've got it!" she said, sliding the panel open to reveal an assortment of spy gadgets Sean had never seen before during his time at W.O.O.H.P.
She singled out a small, square, red compact and handed it to Sam.
"A compact?" Sean asked, confused.
"It's a gadget from my spy days," Keiko explained as Sam fell down from the sheer weight of it.
"That thing is anything but light," Clover remarked.
"A compact with a satellite dish," Keiko continued, and in that moment, a large satellite dish popped out of the top of the compact, further illustrating her point.
"A Compact-tellite. Regardless, it should track the signal."
"We still need a way to follow it," Sean said.
"I can help with that too."
Keiko pressed a button on the left side of the hole where the painting had been, and the room began to lower itself deeper into the confines of the palace.
The room, which the spies now realized was a hidden elevator, slowed to a stop as it reached an aircraft hangar.
"You can borrow the family jet," Keiko said, pointing out a small white jet not too far from the hangar doors. "It's very fast."
The elevator came to a stop as the doors opened, and after a short "thank you" to Keiko, the spies took off toward the jet in a flash.
But they weren't quick enough, as another pair of doors opened, letting in six of the Emperor's guards, accompanied by one very large sumo wrestler, which Sean found odd considering they weren't traditionally used as bodyguards.
Still, he didn't have time to question it as he and the girls quickly boarded the jet, pulling the switch to raise the boarding ramp and close the door.
However, the sumo wrestler was able to climb the boarding ramp as it was raised and growled furiously at the four spies.
Thinking fast, Sam yanked Clover's shoes out of her hands, much to the blonde's distaste, and hurled them at their much larger opponent, knocking him out of the plane.
With that last obstacle taken care of, the spies were free to take off.
Minus Clover mourning the loss of her shoes, the escape from Japan left none of them worse for the wear.
In the cockpit, Alex held the enormous satellite transmitter Keiko had given them, which emitted a flashing red light at its base that indicated the signal's strength.
Mere hours after escaping the Emperor's palace, the spies were now maintaining a steady altitude over Austria. It was here that the signal turned out to be strongest.
"We've got to be getting close!" Alex strained while struggling to lift the transmitter with her hands.
"Because the beeping's getting faster?" Sam asked hopefully.
Alex shook her head. "Because I can't hold this anymore!"
Sean, walked over, taking it from her.
"It's okay, Alex," he said. "I can take over if you need me to."
She was happy to agree, but Sean learned the hard way that it was just as heavy being held by him as it was her.
In any case, Sam shifted the jet's controls to bring them in for a landing.
Abandoned Amusement Park-9:37 PM
The jet touched down in an abandoned amusement park, much to the spies confusion.
"At least there aren't any long lines," Alex said, nonchalantly.
Sean looked down at the beacon, which was now flashing faster than ever before.
"Looks like the signal's coming from somewhere in there," he announced, pointing the best he could while carrying the heavy gadget.
Following his lead, the spies crept slowly into the silent and seemingly empty park. And Sam was the first one to point out a sign that it may not be so empty after all.
"Check out these footprints," she said, kneeling to inspect them.
Sean looked down, and he knew what she meant. Those footprints hadn't completely faded from the ground. Someone had been to that park... recently.
What's more, they led to a dilapidated merry-go-round.
They followed the footprints to it as the beacon's flashing sped up even further.
"That's weird," Sean commented as they stepped up to the merry-go-round. "The signal seems to be coming from beneath us."
That was when the wood of the ride gave way due to a combination of rot and the added weight of four teenagers and a very heavy satellite dish. In just five seconds, the spies fell in the hole created as a result of their presence on the worn out attraction.
"I never did like merry-go-rounds!" Clover complained.
"Okay," Alex said, regaining her footing. "So, which way is out."
But a loud, metallic clanging sound kept them from searching for it.
They turned their heads in the direction the sound was coming from and saw four enormous reddish-brown robots with green lenses for eyes marching toward them.
"Not that way," Sam said.
"Uh... hi!" Clover said nervously. "We were just leaving!"
But the robots just shook their heads, as if to say, "We don't think so."
"Sure you wouldn't rather just talk this out instead?" Sean asked, attempting to negotiate.
In response, the lead robot swung it's massive arm at him, with the boy barely dodging.
"So much for diplomacy," Sean muttered. "Run!"
The spies took off down the long, dank tunnel they had landed in, which Sean began to suspect was once used for park maintenance.
But their escape was brought to a pause when they came to a grate somewhere down the path. And with the robots closing in on them, the spies scarcely had time to think of an exit strategy.
Thankfully, Clover proved to be their salvation when she pulled out the breath spray bottle she had received from Jerry.
"Back off, robot breath!" she exclaimed, pressing down on the spray nozzle. The ensuing spray covered the robots in seconds and they were frozen in half that time.
"One, two, three!" Sam counted aloud. And on "three," the spies kicked the robots, shattering them down to atoms.
"Cool!" the spies said in unison.
After hours of wandering the tunnels and encountering nothing but dripping pipes, machinery that they didn't recognize, and they occasional rat, Clover spoke up irritably.
"I've had it!" she said loudly, not caring who heard. "There aren't any emperors down here; just dirt and rats and..."
But she was cut off by a chorus of voices chattering from somewhere ahead. Voices with accents from all over the planet.
"...irritable foreign men?" she finished, intrigued.
Sean smiled, feeling that at last, they were getting somewhere.
They followed the voices to reach a big wooden door. But when Sean tried to pull it open, it wouldn't budge.
"Locked," he announced. "There's gotta be another way in there."
"Hmm," Alex hummed, taking a martial arts stance. "Let me try something."
Then she leapt into the air and performed a powerful kick to the door, knocking it over into the room.
"Now I get it!" she exclaimed happily as she landed. "That martial arts move was for taking out doors, not Japanese guards!"
Sam stepped into the room, and what she saw amazed her. Down a small flight of stairs, chained to the wall was not only the Emperor of Japan, but the chancellor of Germany, the prime minister of Malaysia, and nearly every world leader she had heard of.
"Whoa!" she exclaimed. "There's gotta be every world leader in the world here!"
The real Emperor of Japan looked up and groaned in exasperation as the spies ran down the steps.
"Oh, no!" he said. "More bad guys!"
"Relax!" Clover reassured. "We're the good spies! I've always wanted to say that."
"Then you'd better untie us quickly," the Emperor urged. "Before that doctor finishes his plan and makes us all mysteriously disappear!"
"Doctor?" Sean asked. "What doctor?"
He was answered by a voice echoing throughout the room, a deep voice spoken with a thick Austrian accent.
"Sorry, but the park is closed."
Four openings retracted in the walls of the room, letting in four more of the same robots they had fought earlier.
Despite their best efforts, Sean and the girls were overpowered the robots, who placed them in handcuffs and marched them toward an elevator, which took them to a level even lower than the cell of the dungeon.
When it finally stopped, the elevator doors opened up as the spies were pushed into the room, which contained a long assembly line filled with spare parts used for building animatrons. Apparently, this particular assembly line was putting together robotic torsos.
A man in a dark suit with long white hair stood in front of the machinery. He turned around, revealing his orange sunglasses and short white beard.
"Hello, intruders," he said, and Sean recognized his voice as the same one over the intercom. "Welcome to my once secret laboratory. I am Dr. Eisenstein."
"Dr. Eisenstein?" Sam asked, hardly believing what she had heard.
"Ja, I know," Eisenstein agreed. "With a name like 'Eisenstein', I knew I'd either have to be a genius or create a monster. I decided to do both!"
"So, Doc," Sam continued. "Why replace all the world's leaders with your robots? To show off your hidden talent?"
"Hardly," Eisenstein denied, turning around to face a half-finished animatron, then gripped a series of wires sticking out of the bottom. "I've been making animatrons since you were a little girl going to amusement parks just to have fun."
"You mean Sam used to have fun?" Clover asked in mock disbelief.
Then she and Alex continued her chant of "Sam No-Fun! Sam No-Fun!"
"Will you cut it out?!" Sean exclaimed. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we're kind of in a crisis here!"
"My animatrons were the best!" Eisenstein ranted angrily. "Then came this new invention: video games! Now, children would rather move around a plastic joystick than than see a lifelike, swashbuckling pirate!"
He growled in fury.
"So," Sean said. "You thought you thought you'd get back in business by kidnapping world leaders and replacing them with your machine men?"
"No," Eisenstein countered, scowling. "I decided to get revenge by making my version of the greatest rulers and programming them to build hazardous thrill rides!"
He walked over to the conveyor belt, picking an unfinished robotic torso and began to twirl it around as if he were dancing with it.
"The world will be my personal amusement park... until it inevitably destroys itself!"
"Okay," Clover said. "This guy puts the 'reek' in 'freak!'"
"Yeah," Alex concurred. "That plan stinks even more than your average 'Evil doctor takes over the world' plan."
Sean nodded in agreement.
"You're kidding, right?" he asked. "I mean, couldn't you just work at a different amusement park? Or go work for the military? Or... do literally anything else?"
Eisenstein didn't seem to be listening as he dropped the robot torso he was dancing with and redirected his attention to the spies.
"Oh, look at me!" he said. "I've been having all the fun so far! Don't worry, I promise to make it up to you by letting you try my favorite ride in the park!"
The spies gulped nervously.
Several minutes later, Eisenstein had his robots escort the spies to a Gravitron that was better maintained than some of the other rides in the park. Though, as they found out, it was for a reason.
"Now," Eisenstein began as the spies were thrown in. "Allow me to explain how the ride works: when the car you're in gets up to fifteen rotations, the ride will blow up. In other words, after the explosion, my cotton candy will have more of a form than you four!"
The spies glared at him in hate.
"Oh, and remember to keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times. You wouldn't want to get hurt!"
He laughed maniacally as Sean grimaced at the irony of those words.
"Sarcastic much?" Clover asked as the doors to the ride closed.
Outside, the Gravitron rose up off the ground slightly and began to spin rapidly, and inside, the G-force of the ride plastered the spies to the wall, preventing them from moving, while a countdown timer above the ride's mechanism showed just how many rotations had passed.
'We're at the fifth rotation already!" Alex shouted over the others' screams.
"Don't worry!" Sean tried to reassure them. "I'm sure we'll figure a way out of this soon! Any second now!"
But he wasn't so sure himself, as the black screen above him indicated they had reached the tenth rotation. Five more, and they would be fricassee.
That was when Sam gasped in realization as something came loose from her front pocket.
"The Lip-Spear!" she exclaimed with relief. "If only I could reach it."
And she was able to... right before the sheer speed of the ride forced it out of her hand.
"Thirteen, thirteen!" Alex shouted with fear.
"Got it!" Clover exclaimed as she caught the Lip-Spear and expanded it just as the ride reached another rotation.
"Fourteen!" Alex cried.
Clover jammed the spear into the gears, stopping the ride at its fourteenth rotation and sending the spies crashing into each other.
They didn't know how long it would hold and they didn't want to stick around to find out.
Not even bothering to get free of their handcuffs, the spies pried open the door and jumped out of the ride just as the ensuing explosion knocked them forward.
"Oops," Alex said as they looked back at the flaming wreckage. "Guess we forgot to keep our hands in feet inside the vehicle at all times."
After escaping, the spies retraced their steps to find the room where the world leaders were being held, only to find an empty room.
"Where did all the world leaders go?" Alex asked, stating the obvious.
Sean rubbed his fingers under his chin before snapping them in realization.
"The Emperor said Eisenstein was going to make them 'mysteriously disappear'," he said.
The girls nodded and followed Sean as they rushed back to the surface.
The question of what happened to the world leaders was answered at the entrance to the park, where the spies, from their vantage point from behind a cluster of old oil barrels, saw Eisenstein's robots load them into a trailer attached to a truck.
"Load them up boys!" he said. "This trailer's already late for a date... off a bridge, that is!"
Then his expression turned thoughtful.
"Now, which robot did I program to drive?"
"Driving them into the river?" Clover asked in disbelief. "How mysterious is that?"
Sean had to agree. It was too noticeable a way to get rid of a large group of people, especially when they were in a trailer.
That didn't necessarily mean they were going to let him do it.
"We've got to catch that trailer!" Sam exclaimed.
"But how?" Sean asked.
The answer came in the form a truck horn honking. The looked over the wall behind them to see a large red truck pulled up to it. And behind the wheel was Alex.
"Shotgun!" Clover called.
The spies' truck sped along the highway, soon tailgating the truck Eisenstein had the world leaders trapped in.
Inside the cab, the spies were cramped from having four people jammed into the same small space at one time, but it was the best they could do under the circumstances. Of course, with Alex behind the wheel, they didn't exactly feel confident about their ability to remain on the road, let alone catch up to the other truck.
"They're getting away!" Clover cried out. "Don't we have a gadget we can use to catch up to them?!"
"Gadget?" Alex asked. "We don't need no stinking gadget!"
And she floored the gas as Sean climbed out onto the roof, followed by Sam and then Clover.
"Are you sure this is such a good idea?!" Clover asked nervously.
"No!" Sean answered back. "But it's the only one I have!"
And with that, he jumped on to the roof of the trailer in front of them.
Sam followed, then Clover, who had more trouble gripping on than her friends and almost slipped if not for Sam pulling her back up.
They reached the trailer's hitch lock with little difficulty. That just left getting it loose.
"How does this thing work?" Clover asked. And in response, Sean and Sam took out their bottles of Insta-Freeze Breath Spray.
"Like this!" Sam said as the two sprayed the hitch lock. After it was frozen, a good kick from Sean shattered it to pieces.
The trailer was loose and the truck kept speeding on, its driver completely oblivious.
"We did it!" Clover celebrated.
When it finally slowed to a stop, the spies opened the trailer, freeing the world leaders, who thanked the four in their respective languages.
"Okay," Clover whispered. "What's with world leaders and their drab, gray suits? Would it kill them to throw a little white into their wardrobes?"
Sean stepped forward.
"Don't worry," he said to them. "We're going to return you all to your countries."
Then he turned back to the girls.
"Now, all we have to do is return the leaders and deactivate the animatrons before Eisenstein realizes he's lost his trailer."
In the plane Keiko loaned to the spies, they carefully piloted the plane into Malaysian airspace while the world leaders made themselves comfortable in the passenger cabin.
"First stop, Malaysia," Sam announced to her teammates in the cockpit.
"But how are we gonna find the Malaysian animatron?" Alex asked.
"He turned the Petronas Towers' elevators into a deadly ride on the W.O.O.H.P tape Jerry showed us," Clover pointed out.
"Then that's where we're headed," Sean said with affirmation.
Malaysia-7:03 AM
Sneaking up to the base of the Petronas Towers, the spies ducked behind a wall when they finally found the animatron, and he was surround by a dozen or so guards.
"Okay," Clover said. "So, how does one go about deactivating an animatron?"
Sam took out a small handheld device that was among the gadgets Jerry had given them.
"This Mini-Lint Vac Battery Decharger should suck the life out of him," she suggested.
Sean nodded in agreement, but then looked at the fake prime minister with concern.
"The only problem is," he said. "How do we get close enough?"
Clover furrowed her brow, deep in thought, then rushed off into a door near their hiding place without the guards noticing.
Sean, Sam, and Alex watched the door in anticipation, and hoped that whatever Clover thought of would work.
A moment later, she came back, now dressed in the uniform of a Malaysian soldier.
"Now I can get as close as I want to that phony prime minister," she said.
"Uh-oh," Alex said, reading the battery gauge on the gadget. "Jerry forgot to charge the battery. How techno-lame!"
Clover's triumphant look faded.
"Doesn't he know it's like a cell phone?" she asked with frustration. "No juice, no use!"
Then Sean's eyes lit up in inspiration.
"That's it!" he exclaimed.
"What's it?!" Clover demanded.
"Your cell phone! We can use the power from that!"
He held out his hand.
"Give it to me!"
"What if I get a really important call?!" Clover complained.
But she was overruled. A minute later, Sam and Sean replaced the Mini-Lint Vac Battery Decharger's battery with that of Clover's phone.
"Here you go," Sam said, handing it to Clover. "Now, be careful. It might be slightly more powerful."
Holding the Decharger up, Clover walked as slowly as she could toward the Malaysian animatron.
"Excuse me, Mr. Prime Minister, sir," she said in her most authoritative voice when she reached him.
"Yes, soldier?" he asked, unaware of what Clover was hiding behind her back.
The blonde just struggled to find an excuse for walking up to him.
"Are my medals on correctly?" she said at last, prompting the fake prime minister to look at the medals in question.
Taking the opportunity, Clover stuck him with the Decharger, which let out a small shower of electric sparks, but didn't seem to do anything else.
The animatron, realizing Clover's deception, grabbed her hand, causing her to drop the Decharger.
He threw her to the ground, a dangerous look in his eye.
"Back off, you creep!" she warned.
Before he could do anything else to her, more sparks materialized behind him, coming from his neck. And this time, something certainly did happen.
First, the animatron screamed, seemingly in pain from Sam holding the Decharger up against his neck. Then his chest cavity exploded, revealing the circuits and rotors within.
Finally, judging by the smoke coming from all over him, the spies knew what was about to happen next.
"Get out of the way!" Sam warned the nearby soldiers. "He's gonna blow!"
Taking her word for it, the soldiers scrambled to avoid the inevitable explosion.
When the smoke cleared, Alex looked at the smoking wreckage of the animatron.
"That's one down," she said. "Now let's take care of the rest of the world."
Above the clouds-7:43 AM
As the jet left Malaysia, Clover turned off the news footage of the real prime minister returning to Malaysia and restoring the Petronas Towers to their original state.
"Where to next?" she asked. "The land down under?"
But she didn't notice the large helicopter hovering outside the plane to her right.
"I don't know about under," Sean said. "But we'll be going down if Eisenstein has anything to say about it!"
That was when a long, metallic chute emerged from the helicopter and attached itself to the fuselage.
In the passenger cabin, massive hole had opened up where the chute had made contact, letting Eisenstein and two of his robots.
"We've got to protect the world leaders!" Sam said with urgency from the controls. "I'll put us on autopilot!"
The world leaders began to panic as Eisenstein began to gesture for his robots to recapture them.
"Everyone stay calm!" Clover instructed. "We've got the situation under control!"
"Hello, children!" Eisenstein said to the spies in an insincere voice. "So nice to see you again!"
"Please!" Clover said dismissively. "We've taken down your little henchmen robots before!"
Eisenstein stood there thoughtfully.
"Ja, that's true," he admitted. "Perhaps this time, they should have some support!"
Outside, two more robots jumped from Eisenstein's helicopter onto the wing of the jet, causing it to shake and knocking the spies off balance.
"On second thought," Clover said. "Everybody panic!"
"Eliminate them all!" Eisenstein barked, and at his command, the robots began to fire laser beams from their hands, prompting the spies to duck for cover behind the cabin's chairs.
"Maybe if we just hide back here, they'll go away," Alex suggested hopefully.
But she was wrong. In less than a nanosecond after those words were spoken, the robots fired another round of lasers. And this time, one of them singed Clover's hair.
From his hiding place, Sean looked on in amazement.
Those robots have no idea what kind of mistake they just made, he thought to himself.
Sure enough, Clover stepped out of hiding and took out a compact mirror as the robots fired another volley of lasers. Only, this time, she reflected every single one of them, sending them right back at the robots and completely obliterating them.
"That'll teach you to mess with my hair!" she taunted.
Outside, more of Eisenstein's robots began to dismantle the plane bit by bit, and the spies weren't so sure if it would remain airborne for much longer the way things were going.
"We've got to get the leaders out of here!" Sean shouted.
By this point, more robots had entered the plane and were more than ready to kill every living soul onboard.
Alex jumped on the shoulders of one to try to restrain it, but another, hoping to take her out, fired on its companion, completely destroying it.
As Alex sat back up, she saw the other robot marching toward her, murderous intent clear in the green lenses that passed for its eyes.
It was stopped, however when Sean jumped in front of it, jabbing the Mini-Lint Vac Battery Decharger into its neck.
"Sucks, doesn't it?" he asked the robot, despite knowing it was inactive.
Just as the world leaders began to come out of hiding, the roof above them split open, revealing another set of robots, who jumped in.
"Spread out!" Clover instructed the leaders, and they all scattered across the cabin. Clover took out her breath spray bottle and aimed it at the robot. Unfortunately, it didn't have the desired effect. Only a small burst of liquid came out instead of a strong and steady mist like usual.
Clover smiled sheepishly before dodging a blow from the robot, who got its clawed hand stuck in the upholstery of a chair.
"Hello!" Alex called out to another pair of them from by the door. "You heard your boss! Eliminate me!"
They began their march toward her, only for her to open the door and the resulting strong winds sucked them out and letting them fall thousands of feet to the ground below.
"I hope you're equipped with built-in parachutes," she sighed.
By this point, the plane had sustained enough damage for an explosion to rock it from its typical steady flight pattern.
And the spies took that to mean that it was time to leave.
"Quick!" Clover shouted to the world leaders. "Everyone into the tube!"
The spies and the leaders did as instructed, climbing the chute that led to Eisenstein's helicopter.
When everyone was inside the other aircraft, Eisenstein jumped from the plane to the chute's opening just as the plane exploded.
"Time to let the C.A.T.S out of the bag," Sam said, taking out their last gadget.
Pressing a button on the side of the handle, a pink spherical shield engulfed the spies, which would keep them safe until they could get onboard the helicopter fully.
Below the chute, Eisenstein was hanging on for dear life. And his grip was slipping, by the looks of things.
"Help!" he pleaded desperately. "Help me!"
Sean sighed.
"We really should help him out," he said. "I know he's crazy but it's the right thing to do."
"Alright," the girls said in unison as Sam looked down at the scientist.
"Ready to give up your practice, Doc?" she asked.
She reached through the shield to pull him in only for his glove to come loose... along with his arm.
Sam gasped as she saw the rotors in the hole were his arm was severed.
"You're an animatron!" she exclaimed in realization.
"But if he's an animatron," Alex said, confused. "Then someone had to build him! Unless he built himself, but I don't see how. My head hurts."
Sean turned to Eisenstein.
"Okay, I think you owe us an explanation," he said.
Eisenstein climbed up through the shield so that his head was now completely inside the chute.
"The real Dr. Eisenstein created me in his image before he passed on," he explained. "It was his way of being im-"
"Immature?" Clover interrupted.
"Immortal. But unfortunately, he programmed me to self-destruct if I ever gave out that information."
The spies regarded the animatron with shock and pity.
"Well, children," Eisenstein said, his voice winding down. "It was fun while it lasted."
His face twitched and his body began to give off electric sparks and smoke came from every visible orifice on his body.
"Okay," Clover said. "That was, like, totally unexpected!"
And Eisenstein let go, falling thousands of feet from the helicopter, never to be seen again.
When he was gone, Sean opened up the hand of Eisenstein's arm.
"Look," he said, taking a small remote from the palm. "This must control the animatrons."
He handed it to Clover, who broke it and threw it off the helicopter.
"Hopefully, that's the end of Dr. Eisenstein's robots forever," Alex said, catching her breath.
Sam nodded in agreement.
"Let's get inside and get these leaders home," she said.
After returning every world leader to their rightful country, the only one left was Japan.
"Hello?!" Clover called out as they entered the palace courtyard. "Anybody home?!"
In response, Keiko ran out of the building and threw her arms around her husband in relief. After she let go, she turned to the four spies.
"Thank you so much for saving my husband," she said gratefully.
"Yes," a voice said as its owner came out from behind a door. In a moment, Jerry was standing in the courtyard, smiling with admiration.
"Excellent work, spies."
"It was our pleasure," Sean said.
"Yeah," Alex concurred. "It was the least we could do for a fellow W.O.O.H.P spy."
"You four should take a vacation after that assignment," Jerry suggested.
"Why bother?" an exhausted Clover asked. "We've been everyplace in the world in the last 24 hours."
"Everyplace except home," Alex added.
Sam's House-11:17 AM
Later, the spies had gone to Sam's house to recuperate from a particularly intense mission.
By the time they had walked in the door, Sean, Clover and Alex had practically fallen asleep on Sam's couch.
Indeed, the only spy still filled with energy was Sam, who burst into the living room in her rollerblading gear and was surprised to find her friends passed out in her living room.
"What gives, you lameos?!" she asked, waking them up. "Let's go to the rollerblade park!"
"You want to go to the rollerblade park?" Alex asked sleepily.
"Yeah! All that talk about thrill rides got me psyched up to have fun!"
But the others didn't seem interested.
"Go away," Clover said. "I'm wiped."
"Drained," Alex added.
"Sam," Sean said stretching his arms. "I'm glad you feel like having fun now, but we're exhausted. Can't we take things easy for a little while?"
Sam sighed, relenting.
"You're right," she said, flipping herself over to join her friends on the couch.
Then she picked up the phone from its place on the table.
"We should stay home, blob out and order some yummy takeout!"
"Love it!" Alex and Clover said at the same time while Sean gave a thumbs up.
"Yeah," Sean agreed. "I could go for some sesame chicken right about now."
Without even dialing the phone, Sam spoke into it.
"Hello? Yes, I'd like to order egg rolls, shrimp fried rice, and some... Clover and Alex No-Fun!"
At this the girls, save Sam, groaned.
"Clover and Alex No-Fun! Clover and Alex No-Fun!" Sam sang tauntingly.
"You know what?" Sean said, gently picking up the phone. "Why don't I order?"
But Sam was having too much fun over her payback at Alex and Clover to even pay attention to him.
Well, this took longer than I expected, but there you go. For future reference, I may change the order of some episodes in order for this fic to make sense chronologically.