Hi! This is another chapter I've been looking forward to writing as it introduces a character that was woefully underutilized in the original show. Later down the line, I plan to do him justice.
Read and review!
Chapter Forty-Seven
It's How You Play the Game
Switzerland-2:00 AM
In a quiet hotel room in a popular ski resort town, a young, dark-skinned woman slept the night away peacefully after spending the entire day mentally preparing herself for her upcoming routine. Being from a tropical country, there wasn't much call for figure skating there. But her coach had insisted that she and the rest of her team come out to Switzerland for the Winter Olympics.
As she slept, however, she was unaware of a tall, dark figure sneaking into her room and walking up to her bed.
Having come in through a closet, the figure took out a glass jar filled with tiny robotic bugs in the shape of silverfish. He took one out of the jar and placed it on the skater's pillow. The bug crawled onto the skater's face before burrowing itself into her brain through her ear. The skater slept on, peacefully oblivious to just how well her routine had been enhanced.
Beverly Hills High School-9:55 AM
Far away, on the other side of the Atlantic, Sean stood in chemistry class, jealousy building up in him at the scene. A new student, David Carter was currently helping Sam with her current assignment. David was the same age as Sean, tan-skinned with brown hair, rich chocolate brown eyes and a smile that could charm a cobra faster than a flute could. In short, someone that Sean had no hope of competing against.
"So the nitrogen compound," David said to a lovestruck Sam. "Generates the friction, causing the disposal of unwanted organisms."
"Wow," Sam said in awe, though at David for she already knew all this.
"Exactly," David went on, oblivious. "Water Oscillating Waste. It's really great to be paired with someone so smart, Sam."
Sam blushed and sighed dreamily.
At the workbench behind them, Sean grit his teeth, unaware of the solution he was supposed to keep an eye on boiling over on the Bunsen burner, like small geyser.
"Uh, Sean?" Arnold, who was assigned to be his lab partner spoke up. But Sean was too overcome with jealousy to pay attention to his words.
Later, at track practice, Sean sat in the bleachers to give Alex emotional support, but he did not expect to see David again. Alex was to participate in an upcoming relay race held by the track team. To Sean's surprise, David was a participant in it as well.
"Huh?!" he asked himself as Alex sprinted forward and passed the baton to David, who carried it toward the finish line.
"Way to go, David!" Alex cheered, with a bright blush on her face that only Sean noticed.
"Excellent hand-off, Alex!" David returned, leaving Alex to swoon and Sean to breathe a slight sigh of relief.
If Alex likes this guy too, he thought. I might still have a chance with Sam.
However, it turned out that it wasn't going to be as easy as he assumed. Sean had volunteered to be a stagehand for the drama club's upcoming production of Romeo and Juliet. During the rehearsal, he watched behind a curtain as he learned very quickly who was playing Romeo and who was cast in the role of Juliet.
"Oh, speak again, bright angel," David recited onstage up to the balcony, where Clover stood in position. "For thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head as is a winged messenger of Heaven!"
Clover, it seemed, got caught up in the moment and forgot she was rehearsing for a play.
"Oh, David!" she sighed longingly. "David! Wherefore art thou David?!"
David sweat nervously while Sean facepalmed behind the curtain.
"Deny thy father and refuse thy name! Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love!"
"Okay, that's it," Sean said, coming onto the stage. "This is the fifth time we've had to rehearse the scene because you keep getting the character's name wrong!"
"Hey!" Clover said defensively. "I thought that was pretty good."
"It was, Clover," David said, coming to her aid. "So full of emotion! But Sean's right. The character's name is Romeo, not David. Shall we go through it again?"
Nodding, Clover giggled.
"Why not?" Sean asked. But in spite of his frustration with their rehearsal being delayed, he noted that if both Alex and Clover were interested in David, his chances with Sam were even better than before.
Sean's suspicions about all three girls being attracted to David were confirmed just toward the end of the day when they gathered around his locker just as he was putting his books back.
"Guess what?!" all three shouted. "I'm in love!"
The girls looked confused for a minute before going on.
"He's new!" they said, once again in unison.
They stopped again, this time each going one at a time in describing David.
"He's gorgeous!" Clover squealed.
"He's a genius," Sam said.
"He's an awesome athlete!" Alex added.
The girls each laughed before calming down.
"For a second, I thought we were talking about the same guy," Sam sighed in relief.
"Uh, actually..." Sean said, closing his locker.
"What?" the girls asked all at once.
"Hi, Alex," David's voice said from ahead of them. "Clover, Sam."
He waved quickly before walking off.
"Hi, David!" they all said, waving back at him.
"Three, two, one," Sean counted down to himself.
"Wait!" Clover exclaimed angrily. "Why are you two looking at my true love that way?!"
"Your true love?!" Alex asked, appalled. "David's the guy I was talking about!"
"Well, I inspire him intellectually," Sam said proudly.
"Whatever!" Alex scoffed. "We practically held hands in track and field!"
"Alex, Sam!" Clover scolded, stepping between them. "Look at you two, competing over a guy... when he obviously likes me!"
Sam and Alex fell over in exasperation.
"We'll see about that!" Sam exclaimed as she and Alex got back up.
"Yeah!" Alex agreed. "All's fair in love and-"
"Girls!" Sean said, interrupting the fight. "Don't you think you're being a little silly?"
Clover scoffed in offense. "This is my future husband we're talking about! Nothing silly about it!"
"More like mine!" Sam butted in.
"No, mine!" Alex argued.
"You know, it's not a one way street here," Sean pointed out. "David gets a choice too."
"Alright," Clover said, gesturing to herself and the girls. "Say you were David. Which one would you pick?"
Sean swallowed, but only air went down his throat due to his dry mouth.
He wanted to say "Sam", but that would expose his crush to Alex. And knowing her, it would be in the school paper by next week. He couldn't say Clover due to the fact that they were practically stepsiblings now. And Alex? She was just a friend and nothing more to him.
"Well, with the way you're acting," he said at last. "I wouldn't pick any of you. Honestly, I knew this would happen when I saw David with all three of you."
The girls' jaws went agape.
"You knew we were in love with the same guy?!" they asked in fury.
Sean's face went pale.
"Uh..."
"You know," Alex said. "You could have told us that earlier!"
"What would it have changed?!" Sean asked rhetorically. "You'd still be fighting over him."
Just then, Clover's locker opened up and sucked the spies down a familiar dark chute. The ride went quickly and ended on the same fuchsia cushion in Jerry's office. Jerry himself stood over the four teens.
"Spies," he said. "We have a rather peculiar situation on our hands. A single country is dominating the Winter Olympics."
"Let me get this straight," Clover said, annoyed. "You pulled us away from David because of some silly games?!"
"The Olympics aren't silly, Clover," Sean said.
"That's right," Alex agreed. "They're a wonderful international sporting event that celebrates the spirit of competition! Something David and I can appreciate."
"Alex," Clover said. "When will you realize there is no competition?"
Alex growled as Jerry pulled up an image of the team in question on the screen behind him.
"Spies, focus," he reminded. "Here's the team dominating speed skating and ice hockey. And again in the biathlon. In fact, they've swept all the events thus far."
"And the weird part is?" Sam asked as she and the others came over to a couch in front of the desk, sitting down.
"The odds of a single team winning every medal in every event are quite miniscule. Not to mention the fact that the team excelling in winter sports is from tropical Zanzibar."
"Okay," Sean said. "That definitely qualifies as weird. But maybe they're just on steroids?"
Jerry shook his head. "The athletes have already been subjected to various extensive medical tests. If steroids were being used, they would have been disqualified by now."
"So someone's doing something," Alex said. "We just don't know who or what."
"Exactly," Jerry confirmed, opening his desk to reveal the assortment of gadgets that he intended to give to the spies. "Now, please help yourselves to the Digit Decoder Credit Card, enhanced with a razor-sharp swiping edge, Bracelet Handcuffs, Heat Sensor 6000 Infrared Motion Detector Sunglasses, Just Sticky Enough Gloves, and A.W.F.U.L Boots, All-Weather Fleece Ultra-Light."
Clover came up to the desk and picked up the boots, regarding them with disgust.
"Completely hideous!" she exclaimed before handing them to Sam. "Totally your style, Sam. Hope David likes them."
"This mission is too perfect!" Alex said excitedly. "I'll go undercover as one of the athletes!"
"So you can tell David you were in the Olympics?" Sam said. "Forget it!"
"Yeah, forget it!" Clover agreed. "Besides, I'm the only one here who has any business wearing a form-fitting microfiber."
Sam and Alex glared at Clover in anger while Sean stepped between them to break up another feud.
"Girls," he said. "Why don't you let Jerry decide what our covers should be?"
"Quite right," Jerry added. "Alex..."
Alex beamed in delight. "Thanks, Jer. I knew you'd see it my way."
But her elation dropped when Jerry continued.
"You will go undercover as a reporter. Sean, you will pose as a cameraman. Sam, you'll go undercover as a trainer. And Clover, you will be a bobsledder."
Clover gasped in horror.
"But that's a burly person sport!" she complained, outraged. "I'm... I'm dainty!"
"Don't be so modest, Clover!" Alex reassured mockingly, poking Clover's legs. "Your thighs are stronger than anyone's I know!"
Needless to say, this only intensified Clover's current feelings of anger toward Sam and Alex.
Jerry threw the spies the backpacks containing their gear as they sat back down.
"Cheerio, spies," he said, pressing a button that flipped the couch downward and sending the teens tumbling through a trap door.
Switzerland-9:00 AM
It just had to be the Winter Olympics, Sean thought miserably while shivering on the rooftop of the building that overlooked the hotel that the Zanzibar team was currently staying in and that he and the girls were observing through the sunglasses Jerry gave them.
The team arrived in a small van and walked casually into the hotel lobby. So far, they seemed normal enough.
"They look like normal athletes to me," Alex said.
"Well then, case closed," Sam said sarcastically. "Let's tell Jerry and go home."
"Girls, knock it off," Sean said. "We're gonna have to get a closer look than that."
"And besides," Clover added. "The sooner that we solve this case, the sooner I can return to my true love."
"Shopping?" Alex teased.
Clover growled in fury startling Alex.
"That's it!" Clover exclaimed as she and the others exited the building that was their vantage point. "I'm officially in need of some alone time!"
"Fine by me!" Sam agreed, walking off to the right.
"I second the motion," Alex added, heading left.
"Alex, wait!" Sean called out, running after her. "I'm supposed to be your cameraman, remember?"
"Hmm?" Alex hummed before remembering. "Oh, right."
Sean turned to the slope in the distance, which was being used for the ski jump event. It seemed to him like a good place to start the investigation. As the two took their places in the stands, Sean held up a video camera that he used to get a closer look at what was happening. But after a while, they noticed that nothing looked too suspicious. Indeed, this had all the hallmarks of a normal sporting event.
"Maybe Jerry was wrong," Sean guessed, as he scanned the athletes with his crowd. "Everything looks normal."
"You're right," Alex agreed. "We need to look for something unusual, out of the ordinary, bizarre."
The athlete representing Zanzibar was up next. As he propelled himself down the slope, he made a jump into the air, higher than any Sean had seen in athlete or otherwise. Even stranger, the sleeves and right leg of his uniform ripped from the force.
"Does that qualify?" Sean asked Alex, turning her head to look at what he had seen.
"That'll do," she said and the two ran off in the direction where the athlete would land. He slid to a stop in front of the hotel just as Sean and Alex ran up, with Sean holding the camera, pretending to film him and Alex held up a microphone to his face.
"That was some jump!" she exclaimed. "Mind if we get an interview?"
"Not at all," the man said happily, looking at his damaged uniform. "Man, I must've been going faster than I thought."
"Either that or you've been pumping a little too much iron lately," Sean said.
"Actually," the athlete admitted. "I don't work out."
"Don't work out?" Alex asked in confusion as Sean raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "But how can that be?! You're an Olympic athlete!"
"I just have really good coaching," he replied.
"But that doesn't make any-" Sean tried to say before the man interrupted him.
"I'd better get fitted for another uniform before my next jump."
And he ran off, leaving behind a bewildered Sean and Alex.
"This is getting too weird," Sean whispered to Alex. "Good coaching isn't enough to make an athlete do what he just did."
At the skating rink, Sam watched a young woman named Mira and her partner glide gracefully across the ice. She had witnessed plenty of ice skating before she moved to Beverly Hills, but none of the people who skated across a frozen lake outside St. Cloud were as good as Olympic skaters, whom Sam had only seen on TV. To witness Olympic skating was truly an honor she had never expected.
However, this was like nothing she had ever seen. Olympic skaters had to be good, but the way Mira and her partner did their axel spins seemed so perfect it was almost inhuman.
"Okay," she said to herself. "Nothing unusual here."
That was when Mira cringed in pain and gripped her neck, falling down onto the ice.
"Except maybe that," Sam added, before rushing over with a first aid kit.
Mira lay face down on the ice, complaining of a cramp in her neck.
Kneeling down beside her, Sam squirted some anti-inflammatory ointment onto her palm and began to rub it into the skin on the back of Mira's neck.
"Wow!" she said in admiration. "You're incredible! You must practice a lot."
"Not really," Mira admitted, leaving Sam confused and stunned by the revelation.
"Then how'd you get so good?"
Mira smiled. "I have a great coach. In fact, he taught us this routine just yesterday and I was scared I wouldn't have it memorized. But he promised everything would be fine. And it is!"
Sam continued to rub the skater's skin, feeling something elevated at a joint in her neck.
"Ooh," she winced. "You're all knotted up."
And she was. There was a massive lump under the skin of Mira's neck. But that wasn't what made Sam gasp. No, it was the fact that the lump began to move around as if it were alive.
"What's wrong?" Mira asked.
Sam wanted to tell her the truth, but didn't think she could handle it. And the lump shrank back into her body anyway.
"Nothing. How do you feel now?"
"Much better," Mira answered, getting back on her feet. "The kink's gone."
And she continued to practice, skating off as Sam watched her with narrowed eyes.
To say that Clover was displeased would be an understatement as she took her place on the starting position at the bobsledding track. She took a close look and saw that she was the only female participant in this sport, just as she had anticipated. What Jerry was thinking when he assigned this as her cover, she would likely never know.
"Right," she said dryly. "Like I belong in this husky crowd."
Just then, one of the bobsledders sneezed and she jumped back, exclaiming in disgust.
"Oh, that's attractive! Mental note: send Olympic team hankies."
When she stepped closer to where the man sneezed, she saw something that looked like it had no place being inside a human body. She knelt down and pulled out a pair of tweezers from her back pocket. Reaching toward the metallic object, she used the tweezers to pick it up. At last, she saw that it was a small robotic bug.
"What is that?" she asked herself, putting it in a small plastic bag. "Gross! That is not your everyday sneeze!"
"There you are!" a man's voice said to her. She turned and saw the captain of the bobsledding team approach her. "We've been waiting for his replacement. Let's go, we're up."
He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her over to the bobsled, as Clover began to protest.
"Oh, no," she denied. "There must be some misunderstanding. I'm just here to observe!"
She was overruled, however. And minutes later, she was standing on the edge of the sled, gripping the railing.
"Really, I've never done this before and I'm just an intern!"
"Coach wouldn't steer us wrong," the captain said reassuringly. "If you're here, it's because he knows you're ready."
"No! I swear!" Clover squealed in fear. But any further protests were sharply interrupted when the team received the signal to go.
They began to run, pushing the sled down the slope along the way. As they began to pick up speed, the athletes jumped in except for Clover, who clung to the rail and was now screaming wildly as the sled began to descend and she was trying her best not to let go. An athlete pulled her in before her grip could loosen.
"Okay, thanks for the ride!" Clover said fearfully as the sled began to take a sharp turn downward. "Now let me off!"
In less than forty-five seconds, the sled sped over the finish line as the horn went off, signaling the end of the event.
The crowd went wild as the athletes high fived each other.
"Hey, we beat the record by seven seconds!" the captain said, looking down at Clover. "I told you Coach knows what he's doing! With his guidance, we're unstoppable."
Clover, however, was dazed from the unexpected ride she just took.
"Yay, Coach!" she cheered weakly, waving a Zanzibar flag.
Swiss Hotel-8:10 PM
That evening, Clover returned to the hotel room she and her fellow spies were staying at. She was just beginning to unlock the door to get in when she heard the window from the other end of the hall open. She turned and saw Sean and Alex climbing in. From behind her, Sam came out of hiding from beneath a room service cart.
"Alex, Sam," she said coldly.
"Clover, Alex," Sam returned in a similar tone.
"Sam, Clover," Alex finished, just as icily.
"Sean," Sean said his name, mimicking them. "Now that we've been reintroduced, let's get on with reviewing the mission."
In the room, the spies sat around a table, deep in thought.
"Well, something weird is definitely going on," Sam began. "But I don't think the athletes are cheating."
"I don't know," Clover disagreed, pulling out the plastic bag with the bug she found earlier. "Take a look at this."
"What is it?" Sean asked.
"Something from a bobsledder's nose."
Sam and Alex shrieked while taking a step back while Sean just dry heaved.
"Gross!" Alex exclaimed. "You must have been really undercover for him not to notice!"
"I didn't take it from his nose, he sneezed it out," Clover corrected.
"Ew!" Sam exclaimed.
"That's even worse!" Sean added.
"I'll send it to Jerry for analysis," Clover said. "Other than this, all was that the bobsled team really likes their coach."
"Yeah," Alex said, agreeing. "The ski jumper said the same thing."
"So did Mira the figure skater," Sam revealed.
"You talked to a figure skater?!" Sean asked, disappointed. "I should've gone with you! Figure skating's my favorite Olympic sport!"
The girls stared at him in shock as he blushed.
"I... kind of had a crush on one in middle school," he admitted sheepishly.
"And you're always going on about my celeb crushes?" Clover asked, laughing.
"I was thirteen!" Sean defended.
"Anyway," Clover continued. "This is one coach I'd sure like to meet."
"Good idea," Sam agreed. "Let's see what we can find out about him first."
Sean pulled out his wallet phone and began typing.
"According to the hotel guest list," he said to the girls. "This coach of theirs is staying on the fifth floor."
Judging from the raucous laughter coming from the room behind them, Sean could guess that the bobsledding team was having a victory party over their latest accomplishment. The coach's room was just across the hall from their hiding place under a serving cart. The sounds of the party would provide a perfect opportunity to sneak into the room undetected. Well, it would have been perfect if not for Clover's sneeze.
"Way to ruin our stealthy approach, Clover," Alex said as she and the others came out from beneath the cart.
"It's not my fault I'm allergic to daffodils!" Clover exclaimed defensively, pointing to the potted yellow flower on the cart before sneezing again, this time the moment being captured on a photograph Sam took with her Compowder.
"Memento," she explained. "For David."
The mention of David's name made Sean unconsciously clench his fest but he quickly let it go, remembering the mission.
He took out the credit card that was among the gadgets Jerry gave them and slid it into the slot on the door where one would normally put a key card. The door opened to reveal a room covered with cow wallpaper.
"Well," Sean said to the girls. "Other than some questionable design choices, I'd say everything looks normal."
"So far," Sam said in response. "Let's fan out and search around the room."
The spies looked around the room, using their sunglasses to get a better scope of the room's layout. Alex peeked inside a drawer, while Sam and Sean examined the fireplace.
Clover brought their search to an end by pulling out a black suitcase from under the bed. She opened it and gasped. The coach had a variety of scientific equipment, unknown solutions in test tubes and some kind of scanner inside the tiny case. Not to mention there were dozens of readouts displayed on a screen on the inside.
"Look at this!" she exclaimed to the others. "It's amazing! I mean, I brought six bags for the weekend and this guy fits an entire lab in one bag?!"
"Why such complex charts on the athletes?" Alex asked as Sean and Sam leaned in to get a closer look.
"It's all about their biology, chemistry and DNA," Sean reported as he read the charts.
Just then, Clover's Compowder rang. She answered it and Jerry's face popped up on the screen.
"Hey, Jer," she greeted. "What do you have?"
"Interesting development, spies," he reported. "The bug you sent is a synthetic microorganism that's undetectable by testing. Once inside the body, it releases not only performance enhancing hormones, but it downloads knowledge as well."
"So no one need ever train again," Sean realized.
"Precisely," Jerry confirmed.
"I guess that's how Mira knew her routine," Sam deduced.
"Ha!" Clover exclaimed. "I knew they were cheating!"
Alex squealed in horror at something her teammates didn't notice right away.
"What's the matter?" Jerry asked, echoing the others' thoughts.
In response, Alex just pointed at the nightstand by the bed. The spies couldn't figure out what was so scary until they saw what was on it. On the table stood a giant glass jar filled with dozens of the same type of bug Clover had found. And all of them were scrambling over each other the way real bugs would in their situation.
Clover joined Alex in her screaming while Sean and Sam took a step back.
"Jerry," Sean said. "There's a whole colony of those bugs; enough to engineer an entire Olympic team of super athletes!"
While Jerry widened his eyes, the four teens heard footsteps outside in the hall.
"Gotta go!" Clover said, quickly hanging up before closing the suitcase and shoving it under the bed. "Quick, hide in the closet!"
She gestured to a closet not too far away from the bed, and one by one, they shuffled into it.
The closet turned out to be more spacious than Sean expected. Mere seconds after he got in, he discovered that the reason was that it wasn't a closet. A passageway had somehow been built into the coach's hotel room and the passage adjoined his room to one of his athlete's. When the spies saw the bed on the other side of the new room, they learned whose it was.
Sam rushed over to the bed and placed a hand on the shoulder of its sleeping and shuddering occupant.
"Mira," she said in concern.
"The figure skater?" Sean asked.
"Yeah. Only, something's majorly wrong with her."
Sean could tell what she meant. Though Mira was sleeping, it was anything but peaceful as she began to shiver as one would with a fever. And the sheets around her were soaked with perspiration.
"We gotta do something."
"And soon," Clover added, as the spies heard a door open from behind the closet.
As the closet door began to open, the spies jumped up and used the Just Sticky Enough Gloves to cling to the ceiling and observe the events below unnoticed.
The coach for the Zanzibar team, a middle-aged man in a red microfiber snowsuit, came into the room beside Mira's bed, accompanied by three men in the Zanzibar uniform.
"Looks like she's shutting down," one of the men said.
Sean grit his teeth, both out of anger at the coach's actions and from the sensation of his hands going numb from gripping to the ceiling.
"Yeah, I guess I haven't worked all the bugs out of my bugs yet," the coach laughed.
Clover let out a scoff in disgust, prompting her teammates to to whisper, "Shh."
"Too much exposure eventually causes the opposite effect," the coach continued. "Aw, it's almost sad to see my first guinea pig go."
"She's a human being, you cheater!" Alex shouted suddenly, causing the coach and his thugs to look up and discover the spies. Alex's face flushed crimson as her teammates looked at her, annoyed.
"Guys!" she exclaimed. "You were supposed to 'shush' me!"
"Hard to do when your hands are stuck to the ceiling!" Sean reminded.
"So much for hanging around here!" Clover said as she, Sean and Sam dropped from the ceiling and tackled the three men to the ground before running out the room's door. Alex, however, was still stuck on the ceiling. After a little effort, she dropped down and landed on the coach before running out to join her friends.
"'Just Sticky Enough?!'" she complained as she caught up to the others. "More like too sticky!"
"Get them!" they heard the coach bark to his henchmen from inside the room. "Find out who they are!"
"Uh oh," Sean said, urging the girls to follow him. They ran down the staircase of the hotel. The coach and his thugs were about to follow them when he saw the elevator.
After a while, the spies came back to the lobby after descending many flights of stairs.
"First floor, lingerie!" Clover announced as they entered the spacious room just as the elevator doors opened to reveal their pursuers.
"That could've gone better," Sam said, before they all took off running again.
The chase took them outside, where they observed the slopes of the mountain the hotel was built on.
"What are we gonna do now?!" Alex asked as they stopped. In response, Clover took out her pair of A.W.F.U.L. Boots. Taking the hint, Sean, Sam and Alex did the same.
Putting them on, they each pressed a button on the sole of the boots, transforming the be bottom into a snowboard and they began to zoom down the slopes.
"I knew Mira would never cheat on purpose!" Sam said as they glided through the snow.
"We've gotta fill Jerry in," Sean said from behind her. "And get back to the hotel so we can figure out how to help her!"
That was when a red-uniformed figure jumped over them on a pair of skis and landed in front of them.
"Not so fast!" the Zanzibar coach said. The spies stopped their snowboard ride down the mountain right away, sliding to a halt in front of him.
"You think my interest in winter sports is just a passing fancy? I was a trained skier for the 68 Olympics! You can't outrun me on the slopes!"
"Bring it on, gramps!" Clover taunted and began to shred down the slopes again. Alex, Sam and Sean were about to follow her, but the whips being wrapped around their ankles caused them to trip and land face first in the snow.
"Okay," Sam said as they lifted their heads up. "That's embarrassing."
Clover, in the meantime, was continuing her trek down the mountain, confident that she'd be able to give the coach the slip. However, she didn't count for the sheer amount of bumps she saw lower on the slopes, nor did she expect one to throw her so high in the air that she couldn't control her movements. She landed headfirst in a snowbank as a result of her oversight. The coach, however, was a more experienced skier and landed gracefully beside her.
"Two out of three?" she asked weakly.
After capturing the four spies, the coach had them brought back to his hotel room, where they were currently tied together on the floor as he began to rant about his motivations.
"Yeah," he began. "Everyone laughed in 68 when I said I was gonna take home the gold for Zanzibar in the Winter Games. Okay, so I was a little optimistic back then. But now, thanks to the microchip bug, my super athletes are dominating."
"At what cost?!" Sean asked angrily. "You're putting innocent lives at stake!"
The coach rolled his eyes. "Everyone's a critic."
Then he pointed at Clover. "If you want to see your friends again, you'll take Mira's place and win the gold."
"Me?!" Clover asked, shocked. "But I can't even skate. I mean, I know I have the grace of a figure skater, but-"
"Haven't you been listening to my athletes?" the coach asked, holding up another bug. "All you need is good coaching. I'll feed you all the information you need."
He dropped it and it landed on Clover's nose.
"No thanks," she said. "I'm really not very hungry."
The coach grinned maniacally. "Not a problem."
The other spies cringed in disgust as the bug crawled its way across Clover's face before burrowing into her ear.
"You'll need strength and agility as well," the coach added, taking two bugs out of the jar and dropping them onto the girl's face.
Swiss Mountaintop-6:30 AM
A few hours later, the coach's thugs had dragged the still bound Sean, Sam and Alex outside and placed them on a sled attached by ropes to four dogs, much to Sean's discomfort as he sneezed seven times in a row just from being near them.
"It had to be dogs?" he complained, sounding congested. "Seriously?! I'm allergic to dogs!"
"Well, get used to it," the coach told him dismissively. "My dogs are trained to continue until they get the command from me to stop."
"And your point is?" Clover asked, being restrained by two of the coach's henchmen.
The coach turned to her. "If you don't win the competition, this is gonna be a one way trip. You'll never see your little friends again."
Alex and Sam looked concerned, while Sean, who was in between them, sneezed again.
"Say it, don't spray it, Sean," Alex said, trying to tilt her head away from him.
Ignoring the three, the coach cracked a whip and shouted, "Mush!" sending the dogs speeding down the mountain, taking the sled with them.
As the sled got further and further away from the coach and Clover, Sam tried in a panic to make them stop or at least slow down long enough for her and her friends to jump off safely.
"Whoa!" she cried. "Stop! Halt!"
"Look, a fire hydrant!" Alex tried.
Sean tried to shout a command of his own, but another sneeze stopped him.
I hope we're not in an avalanche zone, he thought to himself, realizing how loud his sneeze was.
"They really are well-trained," he admitted, his voice sounding very nasally.
"Now, why can't the coach use that talent with the athletes instead of those creepy bug thingies?" Alex asked.
Just then, Sean thought back to the room where they saw the jar full of bugs, or rather how they entered the room. And then he realized that the gadget used to access it had another purpose as well.
"Alex," he instructed, trying not to sneeze again. "Try to get the Digit Decoder Credit Card! It's in my pocket!"
"Okay," Alex complied, reaching into his right pocket. "But I don't see how you can be thinking about shopping at a time like this!"
"I'm not!" he corrected. "I'm trying to cut the ropes!"
"Oh," Sam and Alex said in unison as Alex pulled the card out of his pocket and he activated the razor-sharp edges, beginning to slice through the ropes that were binding his wrists.
However, the sled hid a rock and the resulting bump caused the card to fly out of his hand. Not only that, but the sled catapulted into the air for a brief moment as the card flew through the rope that attached the dogs' harness to it. The dogs ran off, abandoning the sled as it continued to slide down the mountain like a taboggan.
Sean was relieved that the dogs were gone, as it cleared his sinuses instantly. However, he, Sam and Alex fell out of the sled and rolled down a sloped area toward a frozen pond.
"That'll work," Alex said as they slid to a stop on the ice. But their relief was short-lived as the ice beneath them began to crack. When it finally became weak enough, the three found themselves plunging into the pond's frigid depths.
Though Sean did know how to swim, it was very difficult with his hands bound. But the water had made his wrists slick enough for him to slip out of the ropes. It was the same with Alex, apparently as she got her hands free. With an unspoken agreement accented by a nod, the two dove down further and scooped up Sam, bringing her with them to the surface.
As they surfaced, Sean dragged Sam out of the water while Alex untied her hands.
"Th-thanks, guys," she said, shivering from the cold water. "You're really good athletes."
Alex stood, much to Sam and Sean's horror.
"D-don't!" the both shouted, shivering.
"You'll crack the ice!" Sean added.
"Are you saying I'm fat?" Alex asked, glaring at Sean.
"No," Sam corrected. "Simple math. We need to disperse our weight so the ice doesn't crack again."
"Oh," Alex said, and she and her friends got down on all fours and crawled across the smooth, slippery, cold surface of the ice.
"Good thinking, guys."
She then looked at the edge of the pond, which was getting closer by the second.
"We have to hurry!" she exclaimed. "Clover's life depends on us! And Mira's!"
"I just hope we find an antidote in time," Sam said, agreeing.
"Wait a minute," Sean said, thinking back to his experience with the dogs and Clover's testimony from the bobsled track. "Clover said a bobsledder sneezed his out. We just have to make them sneeze."
Sam nodded as they got back on solid ground.
"Sean and I'll get Mira," she said to Alex. "You go to Clover!"
As her two friends ran off, Alex activated the snowboard function of her boots and began to shred her way to the skating rink.
"You know," she said to herself. "These boots aren't so awful after all."
Olympic Skating Ring-10:04 AM
"Zanzibar is up next in the paired figure skating competition," the announcer's voice traveled through the arena over the chorus of applause and cheering from fans. The Zanzibar coach looked out at the rink as the last skating pair from Canada, eagerly anticipating his team to come back with a gold medal. He heard the sound of metal scraping behind him and turned around to see Clover, regarding her in shock.
"Maybe I shouldn't have given you three bugs," he said, resisting the urge to vomit.
Clover, who was placed in a pink skating dress and rendered more muscular than she would have liked, agreed.
"You think?!" she asked sarcastically. "Shouldn't I know the routine by now?"
Mira's partner skated up to her, either not noticing or not caring about Clover's state and began to guide her out onto the ice.
"No, seriously," Clover tried to protest as their skating picked up. "I don't know what to do. Just give me a hint. I mean, do you turn? Skate forward? Backward? Flip? Slapshot? What?!"
Her partner, however, just smiled at her.
"Coach wouldn't put you out here if you didn't know what to do!" he said.
"Ow!" Clover exclaimed, rubbing her neck in discomfort. "Cramp!"
He ignored her and began to spin her around the ice, her right leg raised in the air.
"Whoa!" she cried. "Hello! My arms are connected! I don't know how to-"
But all of a sudden, the two jumped in the air, swirling around with grace as they landed back on the ice, with Clover continuing her spiral.
"Hey, wow! I do know how to do that!"
The other skater moved quickly beside her and joined her in her unwilling routine.
He lifted her in the air, where she quickly performed various poses before landing back on her skates.
"We've gotta hurry!" Sean called out to Sam as they rushed inside Mira's hotel room. "If we don't get that bug out of Mira soon, she could die!"
Sam nodded in agreement as they knelt down beside the figure skater's bed.
"Mira?" Sam asked in concern, touching the skater, who was now shivering even more strongly than before.
She and Sean turned her over on her back, with Sean taking out a pepper shaker he swiped from a room service cart on his way up.
He shook the spicy black flakes onto Mira's face, but it only served to make him and Sam sneeze instead.
"Well, that didn't work," he said. "We have to try something else."
"Good thing I brought this," Sam said, whipping out a bottle of the strongest perfume she possessed. She sprayed it onto Mira, but it too had no effect.
Sean and Sam looked at each other in concern. With both out of options, they each took a feather from Mira's pillow and tickled the underside of her nose with it.
Mira began to inhale sharply before she finally sneezed, ejecting the bug out through her nose and causing it to land on the sheets in front of her.
As she came around, she sat up and immediately noticed the bug.
"What is that?!" she asked, a little freaked out.
"Long story," Sam answered. "Are you feeling okay?"
Mira sighed as she leaned back in her bed. "Much better. Who are you, really?"
"Longer story," Sean replied. "We'll tell you on the way to the competition."
As Clover and Mira's partner continued their elaborate routine, Alex arrived at the ring just in time to activate her boots and skate out onto the ice herself.
She tried her best to keep up with Clover, but the bugs inside her made her skating skills on par with those of an Olympic gold medalist. The judges, in the meantime, were beginning to express confusion as to why there was a third skater on the ice. When Alex got close enough, she took out a pepper shaker that she grabbed on her way from a nearby restaurant and prepared to shake it at Clover. But her friend wouldn't hold still long enough.
"Stop skating so fast!" she cried out, skating after her.
"I can't!" Clover panicked. "I'm too good!"
In the stands, the coach was now confronted by Sean, Sam and a very angry Mira. He growled at them before charging. He raised a fist before throwing it at Sean, who dodged it before it could connect and performed a roundhouse kick to the older man's torso before grabbing him in a headlock with his legs and throwing him onto the ice. The coach slid across the surface before coming to a stop a few feet in front of the spies.
"Where'd you learn to fight like that?" he asked Sean. "We could use you on our boxing team."
Sam came up beside Sean.
"If you like that one," she said. "You're gonna love this!"
She activated the skates on her own boots and propelled herself on the ice toward the coach, tackling him as he stood up and sending him colliding with a sign on the wall on the far end of the ring.
He grumbled as Sam restrained him with the Bracelet Handcuffs.
Meanwhile, Alex struggled to catch up to Clover, much less make her sneeze. Then she saw the bouquet of flowers someone had tossed. And she noticed in particular that the flowers were daffodils.
"Yeah!" she exclaimed as an idea flashed in her brain and she picked the bouquet up.
She skated as fast as she could until she clung to Clover's back.
"This way, Clover!' she said as she turned her friend to skate in the other direction and held up the bouquet to her face.
"Daffodils?!" Clover exclaimed. "I'm allergic to daffodils!"
All at once she sneezed violently, throwing the bugs out of her nose. Her figure reduced instantly back to its normal size and she dropped Alex and Mira's partner all at once.
Later, the spies and Mira stood around the apprehended coach as Jerry and a pair of W.O.O.H.P. agents arrived to take him into custody.
"Didn't your mum ever teach you that cheaters only cheat themselves?" Jerry asked the coach as he was ushered away.
"We should probably explain to the judges," Alex said.
"Yeah," Sean agreed. "I mean, I know that their coach cheated but it wasn't the athletes' fault."
"No need," Jerry reassured. "Already taken care of."
"Thank you so much for helping me," Mira said in gratitude to the spies.
"It's what we do," Sean replied.
Beverly Hills High School-11:50 AM
A day after getting back from Switzerland, the spies resumed their normal life at school. In addition, they had learned from Jerry that Mira had been allowed to continue competing in the games and won the gold medal without any interference.
"It's so great that Mira and her partner won the gold fair and square," Clover said as they walked through the hallways.
"Yeah," Sam agreed.
"No tricks, the way it should be," Sean added.
"Good sports all the way," Alex said just as a face Sean was hoping Sam would forget about came into view.
"Hi guys!" David greeted, smiling warmly.
"Hi, David!" the girls said adoringly, while Sean facepalmed.
"David," Clover said, coming up to him and gesturing to the two girls behind her. "You can't keep us waiting forever. We need to know which one of us you like."
"What do you mean?" David asked, seemingly confused. "I like all of you."
"No, no, no," Alex countered. "Which of us do you, do you know, like like?"
"Oh," David said nervously.
"We want you to pick one of us," Sam said.
"Girls, will you cut it out?" Sean said at last, stepping in between them and David. "You can't just ask him to pick a person like a product off a shelf."
"Sean's right," David agreed.
"We don't mind!" Clover argued. "Really! Go ahead! Tell them it's me!"
Yes, David, Sean thought. Tell them it's Clover so I'll have a chance with Sam.
"Clover, Alex, Sam," David said at last. "Please, you're all really great. I can't possibly choose between you. I'm sorry."
As David stuck his hands in his pockets and walked off, Sean could have sworn he heard what sounded like a sigh of relief coming from him.
Maybe this means they'll give it up, he thought hopefully.
His hopes, however, were dashed.
"Did you see that?!" the girls exclaimed in unison. "He was looking right at me!"
"Alright, that's enough!" Sean said, breaking up what was sure to be another fight between his three friends, one of whom he wanted to be more. "You three have been driving me crazy over this! David's a person, not the last cupcake at a bake sale! You can't just fight over him like this!"
The girls looked at the floor in shame.
Sam sighed. "I hate to admit it, but Sean's right. This is crazy. We said we weren't gonna do this!"
"Right," Alex concurred.
"Good sportsmanship and all that!" Clover added.
Sean smiled. "Well, at last we hear some sense."
"Besides," Alex interjected. "He was staring into my eyes."
Sam and Clover both scowled.
"Yeah, right!" Clover argued. "He was so checking me out!"
"You're both delusional!" Sam said. "It's me he wants!"
With this, Sean groaned in annoyance as he walked off to his next class alone.
"Why do I even bother to reason with these girls?" he asked no one in particular.
Well, there you have it. David has made his big debut. In the show proper, I felt he had wasted potential as a character, an error I hope to rectify with my story. Hope you enjoyed and I will see you next time with the next chapter.