Hi everyone! Now we come to what is probably one of the most iconic episodes in the show. I hope I've done it justice.
Read and review!
Chapter Thirty-Five
Passion Patties
San Francisco Suburbs-11:43 AM
A single shopping wagon was pushed along the well maintained sidewalks as the three girls pushing it approached the first house on the list where they were expected to stop. The wagon contained box upon box of seemingly ordinary cookies. Though, as it was about to be discovered, these cookies were anything but ordinary.
The trio's leader rang the doorbell. A thin, middle aged woman with blonde hair answered the door.
The girls held out a box of cookies in offering.
"It's Happy Girl Cookie Time!" one said. "Would you like to buy some cookies ma'am?"
"Oh, sorry, girls," the woman said apologetically, turning them down. "I'm on a diet."
"Okay," another of the girls said. Then she pulled one cookie out of its box. "But at least take a sample. They're really good this year."
Reluctantly, the woman took the cookie in question. It didn't seem like much. The cookie was chocolate with tiny mint candies baked into it.
Even for someone on a diet, she reasoned, one cookie couldn't possibly amount to much.
But she was about to be proven wrong.
She took a small bite, but that one bite triggered a sense of euphoria like she had never felt before. The cookie was so sweet and perfectly balanced by the sharp flavor of the mints that she quickly popped the rest of it into her mouth and would have swallowed it whole if not for its size.
Then she squealed in both shock and delight and scooped up more boxes from the wagon, her diet completely forgotten.
"Give me every box you have!" she shouted demandingly.
As she carried the boxes into the house, the three girls who sold her the cookies clapped their palms against each other's in celebration, not realizing just how habit forming these cookies really were.
Beverly Hills Mall-2:15 PM
Sean stood from Sam's right as his friends gazed into the window of a shop that Clover frequented often. Normally, the girls were enthusiastic to a point of obsession when it came to fashion. But today they seemed bored.
"Seen it," Sam sounded off casually.
"Own it," Alex said, just as nonchalantly.
"Returned it," Clover interjected, sounding like the outfit in the window was somehow offensive to her when it looked perfectly normal to Sean.
The girls sighed in boredom as Sean cleared his throat.
"Well, I don't know how," he broke in. "But I think we've seen everything at the mall."
Clover gasped as she looked further ahead at the window of another store.
"I don't believe it!" she shouted in exhilaration.
"I know," Alex said, apparently agreeing. "I didn't think seeing the whole mall was even possible."
"No, look!"
Sean, Sam, and Alex followed Clover's gaze to see a hat that was just put on display in the window next door. The hat was magenta with a pink ribbon tied around the band and two flower pins holding the ribbon in place. And if Sean remembered correctly, this was a hat that Clover was looking forward to trying on for weeks.
"It's that hat from the cover of Impressionable Teen magazine! It's finally here!"
Clover zipped into the store and picked it up immediately.
However, when she tried it on, she found to her dismay that it barely covered her head.
The store's clerk walked over to the mirror where she found Clover struggling to get the hat on.
"That medium looks a little snug on you," she said kindly. "Would you like to try a large?"
"Large?!" Clover scoffed indignantly. "I don't think so!"
"Just try the large, Clover," Sean said, not really seeing what Clover was making a big fuss over.
"Yeah," Alex agreed. "Who cares?"
Begrudgingly, Clover accepted the large sized hat from the clerk. To no one's surprise at all, it fit perfectly.
"See? It's perfect," Sam said.
"Yeah," Alex said. "You look just like the girl on the cover of Impressionable Teen!"
"Sure," Clover said dryly. "Except she doesn't have a big, giant, large-sized head!"
She took of the hat.
"I'm getting the medium. Where's that sales girl?"
She found the clerk in the other corner of the store, helping another girl try on a copy of the exact same hat. She walked over to her.
"I'll take the medium," she informed.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," the clerk said, gesturing to the other costumer. "I just sold it to this young lady. And it was the last one."
Clover gasped in shock upon hearing this... and then screamed when the other girl turned to show her face.
"Lucky me," Mandy said, smirking under the hat. "It's just my size."
Mandy triumphantly walked out of the store, leaving a fuming Clover behind.
"That Mandy!" Clover growled. "If she can wear a medium, then so can I!"
"Um, Clover?" Sam said, hoping to calm her down. "Don't you think you're being a little silly about this whole hat thing?"
"Yeah!" Sean agreed. "Why don't you just go ahead and buy the large?"
"I'm not buying the large!" Clover said, determined. "I'm ordering a medium and that's that!"
True to her word, Clover placed an order for the hat in a medium size. But to her disappointment, it wouldn't arrive until Wednesday and it was already Friday.
"Cheer up, Clover," Sam tried to console her as they walked out. "They'll have your medium in a few days."
"Yeah, but that's like a year in hat time!" Clover lamented.
"I don't really see why you're making a big deal out of this," Sean said. "I mean, I wear a large hat size."
Clover glared at him.
"If you're trying to make me feel better, Sean," she said. "Mandy could do a better job."
"Sorry," Sean said, but he could sense there was more to Clover's problem than just not getting the hat she wanted.
He stopped dwelling on it when Alex pointed to something ahead of them, though.
"Hey, look!" she exclaimed. "A new photo sticker booth! Come on, let's go try it out!"
"Sure," Clover agreed sadly. "If I can fit my big head inside!"
Sean walked into the booth, followed by Alex, then Clover, and finally Sam.
"Okay everybody," Sean said as he stuck a quarter into the slot below the camera lens. "Get ready!"
"Say 'Shoe sale!'" Alex exclaimed.
"Shoe sale!" the girls exclaimed while Sean just smiled. But as the flash went off, a trap door opened up beneath them, sending all of them plummeting down the familiar metal chute. Meanwhile, the photo booth had printed the picture of their surprise.
After another ride to W.O.O.H.P headquarters, the spies once again found themselves landing on the fuchsia cushion of Jerry's office.
Well, almost all of them.
Sean, Sam and Alex looked up to see Clover still dangling from the opening legs-first.
"Maybe her giant head is stuck," Alex dryly commented.
"I heard that!" Clover shrieked angrily. And then she let go, falling onto to cushion, accidentally landing on Sean's back.
"Uh, Clover?" Sean asked, straining under her weight. "I know you're having a rough day, but would you mind getting off of me?!"
Realizing her mistake, Clover inched her way off of Sean as Jerry turned to address them.
"No time for fooling spies," he said, getting right to the point. "We've got a serious situation developing."
The screen behind Jerry lit up, showing footage an elderly woman stealing a box of cookies from a younger girl, then a mob practically tearing each other apart as boxes of the same cookies were thrown at them, and even a larger group tipping over a truck that was shipping them.
"As you can see," Jerry explained. "Happy Girl Cookie Time is turning people into criminals. They're willing to do anything to get more cookies."
"Yikes," Sean said after the footage ended. "I like cookies as much as the next person, but that's taking things a little too far."
"So, what do you want us to do?" Sam asked.
"So far, these cookies are only available on the North American continent," Jerry answered. "Your mission is to infiltrate the happy girls and get to the bottom of this cookie craze before they go worldwide."
"Uh, Jerry?" Sean asked. "There's one little problem with that."
Jerry raise an eyebrow inquisitively.
"The organization is called 'The Happy Girls'. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a girl. Won't that look a little suspicious?"
"I was getting to that, Sean," Jerry replied, before pulling out the assortment of gadgets they would be using.
"This week, you'll be given a Perfume Atomizer Stun Spray, a Multipurpose Charm Bracelet, a Holo Camera, a Stickpin Homing Device, and as an added bonus, a free sample that came in the mail."
Jerry held out his hand, prompting Clover to rush over to the desk.
"Ooh!" she exclaimed. "I love free samples!"
She held up the sample in question, which turned out to be one of four small tubes filled with ointment.
"'Nordic Moisturizing Cream'," she read.
"Well, don't want you four getting chapped," Jerry explained.
Sean cleared his throat and gestured to himself.
"Aren't you forgetting something?"
Jerry looked to Sean and then reached back into the desk drawer.
"Oh, yes," he said, pulling something out. "Thank you for reminding me, Sean."
He threw the small object at Sean who managed to catch it. He opened his palm to see a silver ring with an Alexandrite stone embedded into it.
"What's this?" he asked.
"A Holographic Disguise Ring," Jerry answered. "A little something that will help you maintain your cover on this mission."
Sean put it on, admiring it.
"Well," he admitted. "It looks cool. But how is it supposed to help?"
"Press the jewel in the center and you'll find out," Jerry instructed.
Sean did as instructed, and a flash of white light engulfed him.
When the light faded, Jerry held up a mirror as the girls looked in awe.
"Uh, Sean?" Sam said. "Don't take this wrong way, but you make a really convincing girl."
Shocked, Sean took the mirror and saw his face... only it wasn't really his face. The person in the mirror wasn't his reflection at all. If anything, it almost looked like a younger version of his mother.
"Whoa!" he said, his own voice contrasting with his now feminine appearance.
Jerry smiled in pride, but also as if he were nostalgic about something.
"The ring alters your appearance by manipulating the light waves in the vicinity of the wearer using a preprogrammed image as a reference," Jerry said.
"And in English that means?" Alex asked.
"It makes Sean look like a girl by copying a picture of someone else," Sam translated.
"Correct," Jerry confirmed. "In this case, it copies a picture of Sean's mother as a teenager."
Sean's eyes widened in astonishment.
"How did you get that?" he asked, curious.
"Sean," Clover broke in. "We're talking about a guy who once butted in on me in the bathroom. Do you really want to know the answer to that?"
"Good point," Sean conceded.
"The one drawback of this ring," Jerry went on. "Is that it doesn't disguise your voice. So, say as little as possible while you're wearing it."
Sean nodded in understanding.
"Otherwise, you should be set, which reminds me."
He snapped his fingers, and four pink platforms rose up from beneath the spies, elevating them into four cylindrical capsules that were lowered from the ceiling. Like the platforms, the capsules were pink. And when they lowered themselves over the spies, they began to spin rapidly.
"Try not to move too much," Jerry cautioned. "We're still working out some of the kinks on the W.O.O.H.P Turbo Changer Pod."
And before he could even wish them luck, the capsules shot upward through four holes in the ceiling and out of W.O.O.H.P headquarters into the sky above.
Bittersweet Cookie Factory-3:22 PM
The capsules parachuted in a forest outside the factory where the Happy Girls in the area were receiving the cookies they were supposed to be selling.
According to the G.P.S onboard the capsules, the factory was located on the outskirts of San Francisco, but the spies barely had time to register the location before the pods ejected them onto the grass, now dressed in the orange uniforms of the Happy Girls. Only, in this case, none of them were particularly happy.
Clover stood up and looked at her new outfit, which in haste had been put on backwards.
"Is it me?" she asked. "Or does today keep getting worse?"
"At least yours fits!" Sean called out as she ducked behind her pod to switch her shirt around. Indeed, even with the ring disguising his appearance, the clothes still felt a little too tight on him. And to make matters worse, his shorts were riding up making it painful for him to even walk.
"Okay," Sam said, similarly not enjoying the experience. "The sooner we do this, the sooner we get out of these ridiculous outfits!"
Sean nodded, glad the ring was still working. At least it mitigated the experience, somewhat.
It only took them about a minute to recognize the truck where they were supposed to receive their cookies, and they joined a line of similarly dressed girls receiving shipments from a heavyset woman in a similar outfit.
Sean, however, was the first one to notice a problem with their disguises.
Crap, he thought to himself. Jerry forgot to mention that the girls selling these cookies are younger than we are!
But Alex was at the front of the line, and as a result, didn't notice the flaw in their cover until she spoke.
"Um, hi!" Alex said cheerfully. "We're here to pick up our cookies!"
The woman looked the four over suspiciously.
"Aren't you ladies a little old to be Happy Girls?" she asked in a deep voice.
"Uh, no!" Sam denied quickly. "We're just big for our age. Healthy, active, peppy..."
"...proud young girls!" the girls finished, each striking an energetic pose. Clover elbowed Sean in the ribs, prompting him to strike a similar pose.
"Very nice, girls," the woman said, though she didn't sound completely convinced. "Who's your troop leader?"
Well, Sean thought. That's it. We're screwed.
He would have made up a name on the fly, but he couldn't communicate directly.
"Um," Alex mumbled. "Jerry something.
"That's Geraldine," Sam added. "Geraldine Something."
"Oh, right!"
"Huh," the woman said, giving up. "Must be a new troop."
"Yeah," Clover lied. "Brand new."
The woman handed them a sheet of paper, then gestured to the truck behind her.
"Here's the delivery list. Go get your cookies from the trucks."
"Yes ma'am!" they all said, but this time Sean accidentally spoke himself.
Just as they turned to leave, the woman's voice stopped them.
"Wait! What's wrong with her voice?"
The spies stopped in their tracks as Sean mentally facepalmed.
Sean, you idiot! he thought to himself.
"Uh," Sam said, turning around. "She has laryngitis! She's just getting over it!"
The woman furrowed her brow in suspicion.
To add to the story, Sean let out the most convincing fake cough he'd ever done in his life.
"Well," she said. "Just make sure she doesn't cough on any of the buyers!"
The spies nodded in confirmation and walked off as quick as they could.
But they were unaware of the woman glaring at them, doubting their story somewhat.
In a neighborhood not too far away from the factory, the spies pushed a shopping cart filled with dozens of cookie boxes while Sean wiped his forehead clear of sweat.
"That was close," he said. "I can't believe I forgot the ring didn't do anything about my voice!"
"Well, let's just hope we've seen the last of that woman," Alex said, tightening her grip on the cart.
"And try not talk while we're doing this," Sam added. "It'll look a little weird if a girl with a boy's voice shows up selling... what kind of cookies are these again?"
Sean picked up a box out of the cart, looking at the logo.
"'Passion Patties,'" he read. "'A minty chocolate miracle in your mouth.'"
"Ugh!" Sam groaned in disgust. "I hate mint!"
"Me too," Alex agreed. "Minty things always taste like toothpaste."
"Hey," Sean defended. "I like mint!"
The two girls glared at him in shock.
"But not with chocolate," he added quickly. And that was true. He remembered the time when he was five and upon walking into an ice cream store with his mother, asked for a flavor he hadn't tried before. He wound up with mint chocolate chip. To his surprise, he hated it.
So, he could imagine he probably would not like these either.
Clover, on the other hand, was more adventurous.
"I'll try them!" she volunteered, grabbing a box. "You know, for the sake of the investigation."
She opened the box and took a cookie out.
"Uh, Clover?" Sean said nervously. "Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, Jerry told us people are willing to kill for these cookies."
"Come on, Sean," Clover said flippantly. "It's a cookie. How dangerous could it be?"
Ignoring her friend's concerns, Clover popped the cookie into her mouth, which curled up into a grin and her eyes widened with delight.
"Wow!" she exclaimed excitedly. "These really are a miracle in your mouth! So minty! So chocolatey!"
She took another out of the box, which was snatched out of her hands by Sam.
"Okay," the redhead said, handing the box to Sean. "That's enough investigating!"
Alex took out the Holo Camera, aiming it at the stacks of boxes in the cart.
"I'll take a picture of the evidence," she said, snapping the camera.
"And I'll send some to Jerry," Sean said, walking over to a mailbox, which contained a chute that would send the box of cookies to W.O.O.H.P. "Maybe we can learn what gets people so addicted to these things. And I'd better do it now before Clover eats it all."
He dropped it down the chute.
"Hey!" the blonde defended. "I'm only doing my job!"
"Okay," Sam said as they continued to rush down the sidewalk. "Let's get to work!"
According to the list, the first person they were delivering to was a woman named Shirley Rodgers. Sean looked at the picture in his hands, which depicted a small, thin blonde woman in an orange dress and floral apron.
However, the woman who answered the door was significantly different from the woman in the photo... if only because she looked like she gained at least seventy pounds from the last time the picture was taken, which according to the imprinted date was a week ago.
"Happy Girls!" she said gleefully. "Hooray!"
Sam and Sean looked from the photo to the woman it depicted, their mouths agape in astonishment.
"Shirley?" Sam asked, as if wondering if they had the right house. "Shirley Rodgers?"
"Yeah," Shirley confirmed. "That's me."
While Alex, Sean, and Sam just stared in shock, Shirley just gazed longingly at the boxes of cookies, one of which was now being eaten by Clover, who didn't seem to be fazed by the woman's sudden rapid weight gain.
"Oh, I've been waiting all morning for you girls! Quit my job yesterday so I wouldn't miss any deliveries! I just love Happy Girl Cookie Time! See?'
She gestured to the inside of her house, which had been littered with what Sean had to guess were hundreds of empty cookie boxes.
This time, even Clover was getting a little disturbed.
"Oh, sure," Shirley admitted. "I've put on a little weight this week, but you know? It's been worth it. I even wrote Dr. Bittersweet and told her that."
"Dr. Bittersweet?" Sam asked over the sound of Clover nonchalantly munching more cookies.
"Dr. Inga Bittersweet," Shirley clarified. "The genius who invented Passion Patties! She's my hero!"
The sound of cheering told them that they wouldn't get any more information out of her.
"Oh, my," Shirley said. "What's all that noise?"
The spies looked further up the street to see a mob of people stampeding toward the house, and more specifically at them.
And judging by the rabid, almost feral way they looked at the cart, Sean knew instantly what they wanted.
"Sorry ma'am," Sam said. "Gotta go!"
"Hey!" Shirley complained. "What about my cookies?!"
In response, Sean took a box out and threw it backwards, hoping that would keep her from joining in the mob that was currently chasing them down.
That still left the rest of them, and they could see another problem: by their estimates, they didn't have enough to pacify the whole group.
"What are we gonna do?!" Alex asked fearfully.
"We ditch the cart and run!" Sean said, not caring who heard him at this point.
Alex let go of the cart, letting her catch up to her friends. But Clover stayed behind, grabbing another box out of the cart as the mob rapidly caught up to her.
"Clover!" her friends shouted in unison.
"She'll never get out of there on her own!" Sean exclaimed.
"Let's go!" Sam said, agreeing.
They ran toward her, the crowd obscuring her by this point.
The spies had to dodge arms, legs, and even torsos just to reach her, and a man colliding with them knocked them out of the giant huddle.
"Okay," Sean said. "That's not gonna work."
"Wait," Alex gasped. "I have an idea!"
She took out the Holo Camera, and pressed a button on the side. A holographic image of a mountain of cookie boxes appeared in the street. Taking the bait, the mob clamored away from Clover and toward the boxes, boxes that they found out the hard way weren't even real.
"Let's get out of here!" Clover said fearfully.
Seeing no reason to disguise himself, Sean took off the ring, reverting to his normal self as he and the girls sat down on a bench near the end of the neighborhood.
"Okay," Sam said. "That was beyond weird."
"That's the understatement of the century," Sean said. "I'm surprised we didn't get torn to pieces!"
"Can you believe how out of control those people were?" Alex asked.
"I know!" Clover agreed mournfully, still binging on Passion Patties. "They ate all my cookies!"
"Speaking of which," Sean interjected. "Clover, maybe you should stop eating those cookies. At least, until we know what's in them."
"I already know what's in them," she argued. "A little bit of heaven in every bite!"
Paying no mind to the scene behind her, Sam called Jerry on her Compowder.
"Hey, Jerry," she said. "What can you tell us about a Dr. Inga Bittersweet?"
Jerry was seated in front of a laptop, with an opened box of Passion Patties on his left hand side.
"It looks as though she oversees Passion Patty production from her factory in Switzerland," Jerry informed, taking out a cookie and eating it, making Sean regret ever sending those to him.
"Okay," he said, peering over Sam's shoulder. "Looks like we need a plane. By the way, do you have an analysis on the cookies we sent you?"
"No," Jerry said ruefully. "Not yet. But I must say, these things are quite tasty."
He quickly ate another one, the last one, judging by the way he shook the box.
"I'm going to look into this personally," he said. "Send me as many cookies as you can straight away! That's an order!"
Sam hung up.
"Great," Sean complained. "Now Jerry's hooked, too!"
Even in his cookie addicted state, Jerry was able to procure a jet for the spies to take to Switzerland. Inside the cabin, the girls sat at either chairs or cushions while Sean stood, concerned about Clover.
In just a short amount of time, Clover had gained what he could only guess were 30 additional pounds. He furrowed his brow in confusion. Anything sweet was known to lead to weight gain, he knew. But not in so quick a period of time. What was even more worrying was that Clover didn't seem particularly bothered by it. And she freaked over being sized for a large hat.
"Hi," Clover said into her cell phone. "I'm on the waiting list for a medium hat."
She said nothing for a few seconds, munching on her eighth box of cookies that day.
"Uh-huh," she continued, before disappointment tinged her voice. "Really? But you said-"
Her teammates looked at her, curious before she sighed in surrender.
"Okay, thank you," she finished as she hung up.
"No mediums yet, huh?" Sean asked, folding his arms.
"No," Clover answered bitterly, popping another cookie into her mouth.
"You know, you should have just bought the large," Sam suggested.
"Yeah," Alex said, trying to stifle laughter. "Because if you keep eating those cookies, you won't be a medium much longer, anyway!"
"Oh, ha ha," Clover fired back as she took another cookie. "This is only my second box."
"Yeah," Sean countered. "Since we boarded the plane."
Clover just scoffed.
"Whatever!"
A sign above the doorway to the cockpit lit up, announcing that the plane had reached its destination.
"Well," Sean announced to the girls as he went to a seat in the far corner of the cabin. "We should buckle up. We're landing in Switzerland."
He, Sam, and Alex buckled in with no problem. Clover, on the other hand, struggled to even get her seatbelt around her waist.
Swiss Alps-10:47 AM
Bittersweet's main factory turned out to be high up in the Alps, according a to travel guide Sean read in their hotel.
This turned out to be an unpleasant experience for all involved, particularly Sean, who having grown up in warm and sunny L.A, was not used to such a frigid climate. But for Clover, it turned out to be especially difficult. Since leaving the plane, she'd managed to get a hold of enough boxes of Passion Patties to gain another 20 pounds.
Now that she was out, she wasn't gorging herself anymore, but her new figure made climbing a chore.
"Boy it's freezing out here!" Alex complained.
"I know what you mean," Sean agreed, crossing his arms over his chest in discomfort. "I hope this factory is heated inside."
"Yeah! My fingers are frozen!" Clover added. "How're we going to break in?!"
"For once, I don't think that's gonna be a problem," Sam informed as they reached the top of the next hill.
In front of them was the factory, and judging by the massive amounts of people crowded outside in a line, it was open to the public.
That made getting in easier, but Sean realized there was another problem.
"We still need disguises," he said, gesturing to his dark blue spy uniform. "I mean, we do look a little conspicuous."
Sam looked around. Then, spotting a clothing store to the factory's right, her face lit up.
"I'm not sure this is any better," Sean said grumpily. Sam had found them disguises, alright. But given how humiliating they were, it almost made Sean wish he was still in the Happy Girl disguise back in San Francisco.
The girls' outfits consisted primarily of a traditional Easter European dress called a dirndl, including a plus sized one for Clover And for added measures, each of them had styled their hair into two separate braids.
Sean's disguise, however, was more demeaning... at least in his opinion.
It consisted of a white shirt with black lederhosen with brown shoes and white knee high socks.
The disguise originally included a Tyrolean hat, but he adamantly refused, thinking it made him look even more ridiculous than he felt.
In any case, the disguises had gotten them into the factory relatively unnoticed and they now sat in the back of a tour tram that guided visitors around the factory.
"After the cooking process," the driver announced through the speakers in the cars. "Happy Girl Cookies are individually hand-packed for your personal enjoyment!"
"Personally," Sam complained. "I'm not enjoying this."
"Tell me about it!" Alex agreed, pretending to take a picture of what had to be the twentieth cookie animatronic on that tour. "This is the worst!"
"Yeah! Where are the free cookies?!" Clover said, frustrated. "There should be free cookies on a tour of a cookie factory!"
Sean looked over the side, bored.
"Okay, this is getting us nowhere!" he said after a while. "Looks like we're gonna have to sneak away from the tour group."
"And go where?" Clover asked.
"Hold on to your hats, cookie lovers," the driver called out again. "Next stop, shipping!"
The answer to Clover's earlier question was provided when Sean noticed two heavily overweight figures in Happy Girl uniforms climbing a ladder built into the wall of the factory floor. The ladder led to a doorway.
"Maybe we could follow them," Sean suggested.
The girls followed his gaze upward.
"Where do you think they're going?" Alex asked.
"I don't know," Sam replied as she stood. "But we'd better find out."
She hopped off the tram, followed by Alex and then Sean.
But Clover, predictably, ran into a complication related to her new figure.
"Hey, I'm stuck!" she called out after them.
The others turned around in concern.
"We can't just leave her there," Sean said.
"I know," Alex said, beaming. "The moisturizer!"
She took out the tube of lotion Jerry gave her.
"Good idea!" Sean agreed, taking out his.
He and Alex quickly hopped back onto the tram car, rubbing Clover's sides with moisturizing cream.
In no time, she slid out with ease.
After freeing Clover from her predicament, Sean and the girls climbed up the ladder and into a dark, sloped hallway with the two figures from before marching away from it.
Up close, they looked even bigger.
"Man," Sam said in amazement. "We'd have to be twice our size to take them down!"
Immediately, all eyes fell on Clover, who blinked nervously.
In seconds, her nervousness was justified as her teammates rolled her down the ramp like a bowling ball at the two guards.
She collided with them, screaming, knocking them out.
"Strike!" the other three exclaimed in celebration.
Coming to the end of the hall, Alex pulled at the door. The results were expected.
"They're locked!" she exclaimed with frustration.
"Not a problem!" Sam reassured, pressing the side of her Multipurpose Charm Bracelet, assorting through different functions from a drill to a buzzsaw to a lockpick.
Finally, she found what she was looking for.
"Bingo!' she announced. "The mini dynamite stick!"
Sticking the miniature explosive onto the lock, she and the others stepped back as the lock was damaged by the explosion.
"We're in," Sean said, pulling the door open.
The room behind turned out to contain the room where Passion Patties were made and packaged.
Below the walkway the stood on, which was accessed by a small flight of stairs, dozens of overweight workers dressed in bright orange overalls picked up the cookies off a conveyor belt in front of them, placing them in boxes.
At first glance, it seemed normal. But then they saw that in front of the faces of each worker was a silver metal tube suspended from the ceiling.
Sean couldn't figure out its purpose... until he saw one shoot out a cookie, a Passion Patty, he had to guess, into a worker's mouth.
And then another.
And another.
And the process repeated itself every three seconds for him and every other worker.
"Okay," he said after a short stunned silence. "That is definitely the strangest worker's compensation I've ever seen."
"I agree," Alex said, turning to her right. "What do you think, Clover?"
But Clover was nowhere in sight.
"Clover?" Sam asked, worried.
They expected her to come out from behind the door, but no such luck.
"This is bad," Sean groaned. "We've gotta find her! And fast!"
The girls silently agreed with him, realizing that in her current state of mind, she was very likely to get caught.
However, they were barely into the doorway before the two guards they knocked out earlier stepped in, back on their feet and looking very angry.
Typically, three against two would have worked in the spies' favor, but these guards were so enormous that they might as well be fighting four people.
Left with little other choice, they ran in the other direction.
Elsewhere, Clover moved quickly through the hallway, opening every door she came across. She was blissfully unaware of the peril her friends were in, and her mind focused only on one thing.
"Must find cookies!" she repeated to herself. "Must find cookies! Must find cookies!"
She opened the last door at the end, and her eyes beamed with delight as her search finally came to an end.
Sean, Sam, and Alex had managed to run out of walkway, but were able to dodge a blow from the first guard to catch up with them.
As the guards' targets split up, she focused her attention on trying to land a hit on Sam, who walked backwards evading punch after punch.
Reaching the end of the walkway, Sam realized she had run out of room just as the guard brought her enormous arms down.
The redhead quickly ducked as the enormous arms were brought down against the railing, bending it.
Popping out from behind the guard, she moved backwards into her gently, knocking her over the railing and causing her to land on a piece of machinery, sending cookie crumbs flying everywhere.
"That's one down!" she said with satisfaction
But Sean and Alex were having a little more difficulty. Sean landed a kick into the bigger woman's torso, but the sheer amount of fat in it inexplicably caused him to ricochet backwards, flying into Sam face first.
He lifted himself up off of her, and upon seeing the position they were in, both turned away, their faces redder than tomatoes.
Alex, in the meantime, found herself being picked up by the guard and thrown into her teammates on the other end of the room.
"Correction," Alex said as she groaned in pain, along with Sean and Sam beneath her. "Make that four down."
As they regained more comfortable positions on the floor, the guard climbed up to the railing, her intent obvious.
Perhaps it was too obvious, because the spies rolled out of the way just before she could dive on them, landing through an enormous hole in the floor.
"Ouch," Sean said, wincing.
The three redirected their attention to the doorway, resolved to find Clover before someone else did.
During their search for their missing teammate, Sean, Sam, and Alex must have looked through at least a dozen doors, most of which didn't seem to have any purpose at all, other than storage.
But the room on the left side of the next hall, however, caught their attention very quickly. Even if Clover wasn't inside it, the assortment of test tubes, beakers, and more importantly, a giant bronze tank in the shape of a boiler taking up the middle of the room announced that this was probably the heart of the whole operation.
Through the few glass windows on the tank, Sean could tell it contained a light-blue fluid.
"What is this place?" Alex asked, speaking everyone's minds.
"Looks like some kind of lab," Sean observed.
Sam nodded in agreement as they walked up to the tank, which had a small faucet at it's base.
Alex turned the faucet, letting a small drop of blue liquid drip on to her finger. Even though it was small, it smelled sweet to Sean from where he was standing.
He had a good idea what it was, and apparently so did Sam, because she stopped her friend from licking the strange substance of her fingers.
"Alex, no!" she said, wiping Alex's finger with a handkerchief. "That could be Bittersweet's secret ingredient! The stuff that gets everybody hooked on Passion Patties!"
As Sam finished, Alex crossed her arms, shivering.
"Maybe if I was hooked," she said, teeth chattering. "I wouldn't notice how totally freezing it is in here!"
"You're right," Sean agreed, feeling very cold himself. "Let's get a sample and blow this popsicle stand."
He took out a test tube and held it under the faucet, letting it fill with the blue liquid.
As soon as he corked the tube, the space in front of them lit up.
The opposite wall was occupied by an enormous screen displaying a map of the world. And at least one spot in every continent had a blinking red dot.
"Guys, look!" Alex announced. "Bittersweet's shipping plans!"
Pocketing the sample, Sean studied the screen. Instantly, he knew what it meant, recalling the mission briefing at W.O.O.H.P.
"Looks like Bittersweet's going global!" he deduced. "Just like Jerry warned us she would!"
"We've gotta stop her!" Sam added.
"You can't," an older voice from somewhere behind them announced. "So don't even try!"
The spies turned around.
There in the doorway was a thin, fair skinned middle-aged woman with gray hair so big, for a minute or two Sean thought a balloon was on her head. She wore a yellow dress with a green brooch at the collar and tied together with a white apron. And under her left eye was a mole.
Inga Bittersweet, Sean guessed.
As if reading his thoughts, she smiled before turning to the doorway.
"Toll!" she called out, and Sean noticed for the first time she spoke with a Swiss accent, albeit a slight one. "Get in here! We have spies!"
Out from behind Bittersweet stepped the same woman the spies had met when receiving the cookies they were supposed to deliver. She was carrying a device that looked very much like a t-shirt cannon.
"Spies?!" she asked, her voice dripping with gleeful sadism. "Hah! I knew they were too big to be happy girls!"
The two advance on the three teenagers, accompanied by two more guards, each just as big as Toll. And they both carried batons.
Toll began firing her weapon, which turned out to be armed with cookies.
At first, Sean was tempted to laugh it off until one actually hit his hand.
"Careful!" he warned, clutching a mildly bruised wrist. "Those things are harder than bricks!"
Taking him at his word, the girls followed him in evading the shots.
Luckily for Alex and Sean, Toll focused most of her fire on Sam. But that left them with the two guards, who swung their batons at them.
Alex picked one up by the collar of her shirt and threw her to the floor, while Sean grabbed another and slammed her down beside the other one.
But Sam, however, was still struggling to avoid shots from Toll, who didn't look like she was out of ammo just yet.
Picking up the two batons from the fallen guards, Sean looked to Alex.
"Give me your handkerchief," he told her. "I have an idea."
Alex did as instructed, placing her floral handkerchief in Sean's hands.
In only a few seconds, Sean tied the two batons together using the handkerchief as a rope. The end result looked like a pair of nunchuks.
"Sam!" he shouted to her. "Catch!"
Throwing the makeshift weapon to her, he sighed with relief as she caught it and began to twirl it at the onslaught being launched at her.
Sam was able to crumble each of those brick-hard cookies until at last, Toll ran out of ammo.
Sensing that they were outnumbered and outmatched, Bittersweet and Toll fled the room.
All at once, Sam stopped twirling.
"Never underestimate the power of a good accessory," she said.
Running from the lab, the spies now had a good idea where to find Clover. Even when her mind was mostly on cookies, Clover was irresistibly drawn to shopping.
True to form, they found her in the gift shop at the factory's exit. Even more predictable, she was binging on Passion Patties.
And it looked like she'd gained even more weight from the last time they saw her.
"Clover!" Sean whispered loud enough for her to hear.
"Hey, guys!" she greeted happily, gesturing to the empty boxes on the table in front of her. "See? I told you there'd be free samples!"
She held out a cookie to Sam.
"Here, try one!"
"No!" Sam declined firmly, knocking the cookie out of her hand. "We've gotta get out of here!"
"Not so fast!"
Sean knew who that voice belonged to.
He looked around, and sure enough, they were surrounded by Toll and nine other guards wielding the same weapons as her.
And he knew they couldn't fight them all, not without accidentally getting some of the confused and terrified people in the gift shop hurt by accident.
"Well," he sighed in resignation. "We're screwed."
After being captured, the spies were brought to another room in the factory. The room was dimly lit, save for a few lights surrounding four chairs and a control console manned by Dr. Bittersweet, who regarded the four with a false sense of affability.
"Welcome, children," she greeted. "Please have a seat."
The guards escorted the spies to the chairs, where they were strapped down with leather restraints.
"You know," Sam said as hers were finished being tied. "I think there's been some sort of mistake made here."
"Yeah!" Alex agreed. "We're just Happy Girls..."
Sean cleared his throat, trying to tell her to be quiet.
She didn't get the hint, apparently.
"...and one boy," she added awkwardly. "Here on a field trip!"
"Well, you won't be very happy after the doctor gets through with you!" Toll said menacingly.
Bittersweet stood in the middle of the circle the chairs were stationed around, gesturing to the ceiling above her. More specifically, she was pointing at a device that extended itself from the ceiling.
The device mainly consisted of a tank that was filled with the same blue fluid found in her lab. Below that was a long, red cylinder with a metal robotic arm stationed under it.
"This is the Feeder," she explained. "A little creation of mine that will force feed you until you explode!"
Sean gulped as she pressed a button on a remote in her hand.
"Prepare yourself... for Death by Cookie!"
The machine turned on, taking a cookie out from the red stack on its middle. Then the arm extended itself toward Clover, stuffing the small, round treat into her mouth.
Clover, it seemed, wasn't too bothered by it.
"Yummy!" she exclaimed, happily.
"No, it's not 'yummy!'" Bittersweet growled angrily as she came over. "It's Death by Cookie!"
"Sorry," Clover quickly apologized as she searched through her dress pockets.
"I know I'm probably going to regret asking," Sean said as the Feeder turned to him next. "But why are you doing this?"
The machine stuffed a cookie into his mouth, but he spat it out before he could fully register it's flavor.
Bittersweet turned to Sean, oblivious to what Clover had stuck on her apron.
"You see," she explained. "I too was once a Happy Girl. And I liked the cookies... a little too much, I'm afraid."
"So, what happened?" Alex asked as a cookie was forced into her mouth next.
"I ate the cookies instead of selling them!" Bittersweet ranted. "And my troop kicked me out! It ruined my life! So, now I'm going to ruin everyone else's!"
She raised her hands up dramatically.
"I've spent twenty years planning my revenge!"
"With the Feeder?" Sam asked, unimpressed. By that point though, it had reached her.
"No," Bittersweet denied as a cookie was shoved into her mouth. "The Feeder's just a little something I whipped up in my spare time. The cookies are my revenge!"
She looked up at the ceiling, gesticulating wildly.
"Soon, people in every country will be hooked on my Passion Patties!"
"Dr. Bittersweet," Toll interrupted, clearing her throat. "We've gotta leave for the warehouse."
Snapping out of her rant, Bittersweet turned to Toll.
"Right."
She stepped away from the circle of chairs. But not before taking one last look at the captive spies.
"Enjoy the sweets, you four," she said. "Trust me, they'll be your last!"
Bittersweet and the others were gone and the spies were left in what was probably going to be the messiest way of dying imaginable.
"Great!" Alex complained as she spat out another cookie. "What are we gonna do now?!"
"I don't know," Sean replied. "But if I have to eat another one of those things, I'm gonna be sick!"
"There's gotta be some way to get out of here," Sam said, struggling against her restraints.
In her struggle to get free, she must have accidentally squeezed the tube of moisturizing lotion. Because, the leather strap soon became slippery enough for her to slide out underneath it.
"Boy," Alex said, impressed. "That's the best free sample ever!"
She cut Sean loose with her Multipurpose Charm Bracelet, then Alex, and saving Clover for last.
But as three of the spies turned to leave, one spy still remained firmly in her chair.
"Wait!" Clover objected as the Feeder came around back to her. "It's almost my turn!"
She opened her mouth in anticipation, only for Sean to drag her out of the chair.
"Clover, enough with the cookies!" he scolded.
"Yes!" Alex agreed. "We've gotta find Bittersweet and figure out how to stop her!"
"I know that!" Clover argued. "That's why I stuck the Homing Stickpin on her."
"Oh," her teammates chorused, impressed that she was able to think about the mission even for a moment while addicted to the cookies.
After bolting out of the cookie factory, the spies hightailed it back to their jet as quick as they could.
As they took to the sky, Sam looked at the screen on her Compowder, following the signal from the Stickpin Homing Device.
"And we're off to the beautiful country of..."
But her voice trailed off and her smile dropped when she saw where the signal was leading them.
"Iceland?" she asked in confusion.
Sean widened his eyes in shock.
Please let it be the warm part of Iceland this time, he prayed, remembering the last time he went there.
Somewhere in Iceland-3:20 PM
Sean's hopes were dashed when it turned out that Bittersweet's main warehouse was in northern Iceland. More specifically, it was in the coldest part of the country.
The four now huddled together on top of a small hill overlooking a large building that had to be the warehouse.
"Boy," Alex shivered. "Bittersweet seems to have a thing for freezing cold weather!"
"Y-yeah," Clover agreed, teeth chattering. "I could really use that medium hat right now."
Though truthfully, she wasn't so sure even a large would fit her by now.
Sam looked up from her Compowder, pointing to the building in the distance.
"The signal's coming from that warehouse," she said. "Bittersweet's inside."
"Good," Sean said. "Maybe it'll be warmer in there."
But after Sam picked the lock, letting them inside, Sean could see he was mistaken.
"Wow," he said in both amazement and disappointment. "It's actually colder in here!"
The girls shivered in agreement as they all climbed up behind a large stack of boxes.
"The trucks are on their way, Doctor," Toll's voice said, prompting the spies to hide behind the stack.
"Ah, Toll," Bittersweet's voice said with glee. "I can hardly wait! After this shipment, I will be unstoppable!"
The spies looked further up to see that Bittersweet, Toll, and a guard walk to the center of the warehouse.
"Bittersweet sure has a high opinion of herself," Sean noted.
"Most evil geniuses do," Sam said, agreeing with him.
Alex stood behind Sam, unable to warm herself.
"I still wanna know what's up with Bittersweet and the cold!" Alex complained.
"Now that you mention it," Sean said, realizing. "It looks like it's a theme with her. I mean, remember how cold her factory was? I mean, why would she want to operate like this?"
"It's probably because of the cookies," Clover offered, holding one up, this one looked partway melted. "See, heat makes them all melty."
She put it down mournfully.
"So sad, isn't it?"
"So, we need to warm it up in here," Sam realized, looking around. At the far end of the warehouse was a large piece of machinery with a gauge that monitored internal temperature.
That had to be it, she reasoned.
"Cover me!" she shouted to the other three and jumped down.
Not sure what to do at first, Sean saw two guards headed in her direction.
Thinking quickly, he pushed the boxes in front of him down onto the guards.
The plan worked, for the noise had attracted Bittersweet's attention.
"It's those spies!" she growled. "Toll, get them!"
Sean, Alex, and Clover hopped down as Toll drew closer to them.
Clover was face to face with Toll, who stood before her menacingly.
"I don't know what kind of half-baked idea your cooking," Clover taunted. "But you're about to be toast!"
The two charged at each other, soon locked into a wrestling position.
Toll managed to throw Clover to the floor, only for the younger girl to grab the woman's ankle and and slam her down right next to her.
Diving on top of her opponent, Clover had managed to pin her down.
"Try this on for size!" Clover exclaimed.
Sean, in the meantime, was struggling against a larger guard, who had slammed his arms down repeatedly at him, only for them to collide with the wall, leaving noticeable holes in their place.
Sean knew he couldn't use his signature flying kick, not after being bounced backward last time. Or could he?
Last time, he aimed for the midsection, which proved to be fatal. But what if he went for the head?
Dodging another blow, he flipped backward before jumping back up and extending his left foot forward, connecting it with his opponent's face.
This time, he actually went down.
Further away, Alex was surrounded by guards, who all advanced on her.
"Back off!" she warned. "Before I get all Tae Bo on you!"
For emphasis, she struck various poses, attempting to intimidate them, but to no avail.
That was when Sean entered the picture.
"Need a hand?" he asked.
Alex looked around at the guards.
"Actually, I need four," she said.
At the temperature controls, Sam quickly found the dial that could shift the room's climate to the point the cookies would melt.
"This should slow them down!" she said to herself, beginning to adjust the temperature as high as she could.
Meanwhile, Clover's fight had clearly shifted in her opponent's favor. Toll had her in a headlock with her legs.
"Okay," Clover growled in frustration. "Enough's enough!"
She took out the purple atomizer Jerry had given her, and aimed it at Toll's Face.
Spraying the perfume, Clover fought her way out of the woman's grip as it stiffened her.
Then, making her way over to Sean and Alex, who were busy with their own fight- and one that was going badly- she repeated the process, stunning the guards and allowing her to yank her friends out of the fight.
"Thanks!" Sean said, gratefully.
Alex nodded in agreement.
"For a second, we thought we were toast!" she added. "With jelly or maybe cinnamon sugar!"
"Come on!" Sean exclaimed, taking lead. "We've got to help Sam!"
At the temperature controls, Sam was so preoccupied that she didn't see the massive guard jump behind her until he grabbed her.
As the guard began to squeeze her petite frame so close to him, he didn't know that he accidentally squeezed her tube of moisturizing lotion as well.
The lotion spilled to the floor, and the guard slipped on it, releasing Sam in the process.
"Lying down on the job?" she quipped. "I'm gonna have to report you!"
She crawled back to the temperature controls, and pulled the lever that would deactivate the cooling in the warehouse.
"Come on," she pleaded. "Heat up!"
And it did.
All over the warehouse, the temperature went from frigid to cool, then cool to mild, and finally cool to sweltering.
Sean could tell that Sam had succeeded when the boxes of cookies began to spew out melted chocolate.
Bittersweet frozen in shock when she saw what was happening.
"My cookies!" she cried out.
Running over to Sam, she pushed the redhead out of the way, then pushed the lever back to its original position. But it didn't matter; by this point all of her cookies were nothing more than a mint smelling brown puddle on the floor.
Sam's teammates had finally reached her.
"Sam!" Sean exclaimed, kneeling down to her. "Are you okay?!"
He was relieved when Sam nodded slowly.
"Give it up, Bittersweet!" Alex exclaimed, taking a battle stance. "No one likes a sour cookie lady!"
Bittersweet took a stance of her own, then jumped into the air, aiming her foot at Alex. But the girl dodged her blow, causing her to land into the limp form of one of her guards, making her bounce backward and hit the floor.
"Quick!" Sam shouted, getting to her feet. "Grab Bittersweet!"
Then she looked at Sean.
"Still have that sample from the factory?" she asked him.
Sean smiled, realizing where she was going.
Clover picked up Bittersweet as Sean brought out the test tube he'd been carrying with him since Switzerland.
"Time for a taste of your own medicine," he said, uncorking the tube and holding it closer to the woman's face.
"No!" Bittersweet cried as Sean poured the blue liquid down her throat.
All at once, a drastic change in Bittersweet's body took place. Where she was once thin, at least 200 pounds of body fat expanded her entire form. Within seconds, her whole body swelled up like a balloon.
And when Clover let it go, it was clear that was not the only effect her serum had.
"Must have cookies!" she said eagerly, rushing over to the boxes of melted cookies. "Must have cookies!"
She quickly opened the box and began stuffing them one by one into her mouth, not caring that they were half melted.
The four spies smiled at each other in celebration.
Later, Bittersweet and Toll were led away by several W.O.O.H.P agents while Jerry looked at the two forlornly.
By this point, even though the spies hadn't sent him any more, he had gotten his hands on enough to gain just as much weight as Clover, if not more so.
"If only she'd used her baking skills to cook up good instead of evil," he said.
"You said it, Jer!" Clover agreed.
"So, did you figure out what Bittersweet put in the cookies?" Sean asked.
"Some kind of highly concentrated sugar extract," Jerry responded. "Anyone who tried Passion Patties was hooked right away."
"So, is W.O.O.H.P working on an antidote?" Alex inquired.
"As we speak," Jerry answered. "Hopefully, it will stop the cravings and get rid of all this fat."
"Hopefully!" Clover concurred.
Beverly Hills Mall-3:00 PM
The next day, at the mall, Clover, once again in her normal shape, walked on the upper level with her friends.
"So," Alex broke the silence. "What do you want to do now?"
"We could go to the food court," Sam suggested jokingly. "I hear they're giving away free cookie samples!"
At that, the others laughed.
"Go ahead," Clover said, annoyed. "Make all the jokes you want!"
She place her hands on her figure, which thanks to W.O.O.H.P's antidote, regained its previous petite form.
"I'm just happy to have my regular old body back!"
Then she looked at the window of the store they had been in before all this Passion Patty craziness had started.
"Come on!" she beckoned her friends inside. "There's something I have to do."
Inside, Clover placed the hat she'd tried on the other day on top of her head.
"Did your medium finally come in?" Sean asked, as he and the girls followed her inside.
"Nope!" Clover cheerfully denied. "I'm going to go ahead and get a large."
"A large?!" Sean, Sam, and Alex exclaimed in unison.
"But Clover!" Alex said. "You said you'd never wear a large anything!"
"Well, after being a large-sized everything," Clover countered. "I decided having a big hat size is no big deal."
She looked in the mirror briefly, before turning back to her friends.
"It's best being happy with whatever size you are."
"Wow," Sam said, feigning amazement. "Looks like you might actually have some brains inside that large sized head of yours!"
Clover turned back to the mirror, annoyed.
"Very funny!" she said.
Alex and Sam disappeared into another part of the store, but Sean stayed behind.
"By the way," he began. "Why did you make such a big deal out of a hat size, anyway?"
Clover took the hat off her head and turned to face him.
"Can you keep a secret?" she asked.
Sean folded his arms.
"Keeping secrets is kind of part of my job," he answered.
She sighed.
"Okay," she began. "The truth is when I was in middle school, I had this... problem."
Sean raised an eyebrow.
"I always looked at other girls, and I realized I was jealous. They were always so thin, so beautiful, so popular. And no boy in school noticed me that way. So, I thought..."
"I think I get it," Sean said, having heard similar cases from his mother, who frequently talked about people who either made themselves vomit after eating or not eat all. From her description, these people would become so thin that looked more like skeletons with skin.
"So which one did you do?" he asked.
Clover turned away, as if ashamed of something.
"Well, every time I ate," she explained. "I'd... make myself throw up. I thought it'd help me lose weight, but of course no matter what my mom said, I didn't feel like I was getting thin. I didn't see then, but I was actually getting too thin. Eventually, I wound up in the hospital."
Sean widened his eyes, shocked.
"I got better, obviously. But since then, I've been, well, weird about wearing anything bigger than a medium."
"Until today," Sean said.
Clover sighed.
"Yeah."
Sean looked at her with pity. For all Clover's bragging about her appearance, he never once imagined a point in her life where she was insecure about it.
"So," he said after a while. "You haven't..." but he trailed off. There was no easy way to bring this up to her.
"No," she said. "But since then, I've been a vegetarian. So, gaining weight is a little harder for me now."
"Well, hard, but not impossible," Sean countered. "I mean, look what happened to you on our mission."
Clover cringed, thinking back to it.
"Don't ever tell anyone what I just told you!" she insisted.
"Cross my heart and hope to die," Sean promised.
Clover took her hat on, walking over to the cashier to pay for it.
Sean watched as she walked away from him, pity still consuming him.
Who knew a girl so obsessed with appearances could have a good reason for being concerned with them?
Well, bet some of you weren't expecting that. Yeah, this fic got real for a second at the end. But this isn't even half of it. Anyway, I'm looking forward to adapting the next episode, so look out for it.