4:31 P.M. – Dearly Beloved Memorial Hospital
Four Months Ago
"Anybody home?" Nick teased as he poked his head into Sarina's room, just to make sure.
"Nope, nobody here," Sarina chuckled as she always did.
Nick took that as his cue to enter the room. They hadn't even known each other a week, but Nick and Sarina were already becoming fast friends.
"How'd your treatment go?" Nick asked.
"About as well as it usually does," Sarina answered. "Things don't seem to be changing too much..."
"This kind of thing takes time to show noticeable results," Nick quipped. "I would know, considering my parents are doctors, too."
"I'm just glad that the people who work here are so nice," Sarina admitted. "Kinda wish my family could see that, too..."
Nick couldn't help but be curious as to why Sarina's family never visited her here. After all, she was going through a lot of crap that nobody her age should have to suffer through. In Nick's eyes, the least they could do was be there for their daughter and offer emotional support if nothing else.
"Um, Nick, you're zoning out again," Sarina stated. "You still wondering about my family?"
"I didn't want to feel like I was prying into stuff I probably shouldn't be," Nick responded.
"Well, if you want my opinion, Nick, I trust you enough to let you know about that," Sarina replied.
"R-Really?" Nick gasped, pretty surprised by that.
"Just one thing, though?" Sarina asked. "...promise me you won't break anything when I tell you."
That statement, more than anything, made Nick wonder what exactly he was about to hear...
...but he had a feeling he wouldn't like it.
(The pages constantly turn, no matter how long the reader takes. When one story ends, another story will inevitably start. In the end, there is only a new beginning.)
Mat49324 and The Blue Time Ranger are proud to present:
Totally Spies: The New Adventures
Episode 128: The Crazy Digital Call
Story Rated: T for Teen
Story Created: March 4th, 2025
Story Summary: The one-hundred and seventieth co-op project between Mat49324 and The Blue Time Ranger, and episode one hundred twenty-eight of our mission-based series Totally Spies: The New Adventures. People around the world are getting strange phone calls that are unknowingly transmitting viruses, allowing the infected devices to take control of other technology worldwide. And wouldn't you know it, the crazy game-maker Lady Dragon is back, and she's transmitting these viruses to cell phone towers across the world through the Datascape. As always, the spies will have to head into the Datascape to delete Lady Dragon's viruses before it causes a worldwide technologic shutdown. Can the spies deal with this latest virus before the world suffers for it?
Author's Notes from Mat49324: We're going back to the Datascape for this project this time! We hope you enjoyed the last one, The Madly Inane Musician, and you'll enjoy this next one. Also, let's just say that as far as 2010 Motocross goes, that's also another no-fun season that Mat's going to be seeing as a Chad Reed fan, but the 250cc class title chase will be an exciting one in the second half of the season. For now, as far as missions go, that's up in the air with whatever we think of. For now, here's The Blue Time Ranger for anything he'd like to say.
Author's Notes from The Blue Time Ranger: Season eleven is going digital, because we're heading back into the Datascape! I gave the digital world a break in season ten, and Lady Dragon hasn't been seen since season eight, so I figured that was enough of a break for her, so she's back for more virus shenanigans. Make sure there's no viruses on your phone, because we're off on another madcap adventure in cyberspace! ROLL IT!
And Now, the Obligatory Disclaimer: Mat49324 and The Blue Time Ranger do not own anything related to Totally Spies or any of its affiliations. It belongs solely to Marathon Media Group, Image Entertainment Corporation, Vincent Chalvon-Demersay, and David Michel. The only things of this story we DO own are any characters or locations created by us truly for the story. Any characters or things we don't own, we are just borrowing with no intent of copyright infringement, only for the entertainment of our readers. Besides, if we did own Totally Spies, which we don't, why would we be writing fiction on a fan site?
Act 1: Networking Systems
12:11 P.M. – The Spies' Beach House
"Sounds like you're hungry, huh?" Alex chuckled when she walked into the kitchen and saw Nick preparing a bunch of sandwiches for lunch.
"Well, there's a lot of people here with a lot of different tastes in sandwiches," Nick quipped. "That, and the last time we didn't have all the necessary ingredients because somebody I know decided to eat the rest of the salami in the middle of the freakin' night. You'd think May would know not to do that so late..."
"I dunno, this coming from the guy who ate a whole package of Oreo cookies at one in the morning and had a freaky dream about Independence Day, of all things?" Alex laughed.
"I still stand by the fact that I was ten years old at the time and it was quite clearly not my smartest idea," Nick responded.
"Well, let me help ya," Alex stated. "That way we can get more of them done faster."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Nick proclaimed.
Thankfully, with Alex's help, it didn't take much longer at all to finish the sandwiches.
"All right, everybody, lunch is ready, so come on and feast!" Nick called out.
"You remembered the salami, right?" May shouted from afar.
"With how much you drilled it into my head the last time we went shopping at the Groove, how could I forget?" Nick teased.
Once lunch had been had, the spies were off for a shopping trip to the Groove.
"I gotta say, you definitely know how to make a mean sandwich, huh, Nick?" Britney chuckled.
"With how picky Melissa was as a kid, I kinda had to learn real fast," Nick quipped. "Mom was a great teacher in the art of sandwich-making."
"Well, I hope everybody's ready for a big ol' day of shopping!" Clover laughed, unaware of the ground near one of the outdoor shopping cart storage places sliding over.
Quick as a flash, a large metal pipe protruded from the ground and sucked all thirteen spies into it before retracting into the ground. Nobody saw a thing.
1:36 P.M. – W.O.O.H.P. Headquarters
Jerry's Office
"Can't believe he even thought to put them there!" Mat groaned once everybody had picked themselves up inside Jerry's office.
"Have to keep you on your toes, right?" Jerry chuckled.
"Well, that's actually a good point," Sam admitted.
Nick glanced towards the office viewscreen to see that it was already active, showing a video feed of RiCO and iCO searching through what appeared to be Sector E of the W.O.O.H.P. Datascape.
"Is there virus activity in the Datascape?" Haruka wondered.
"Yup, you guessed right," RiCO answered. "And we'll give you three guesses as to who's behind it, and the first two don't count."
"I should have figured Lady Dragon would be back on her BS at some point, huh?" Mat quipped. "It's been a while since the last time we had to deal with her."
"What's Lady Flop up to this time?" Alex wondered.
"Apparently, she's sending viruses through the networks to cell phone towers across the world," RiCO explained. "And they're sending phony phone calls to people, and everyone who answers has their technology infected, allowing it to spread to other tech."
"Oof, now she's really crossed a line," Clover proclaimed. "How dare she mess with technology!"
"I sincerely hope she had learned her lesson after what she tried to do with iCO," May quipped.
"Well, I'm ready for her this time," iCO reassured. "And I'm pretty sure she wouldn't try the exact same thing twice, since she knows how that ended for her last time."
"I guess we'll meet you inside the Datascape, everyone," RiCO quipped. "Prepare to network!"
The Virtualizer appeared from the wall just above the viewscreen and hit the spies with a bright burst of blue light, digitizing them so they could enter the Datascape.
1:42 P.M. – W.O.O.H.P. Datascape
Sector E
"Man, it feels like it's been a while since we've been in the Datascape, hasn't it?" Blaine wondered.
"It hasn't really been too long," Sam quipped. "Maybe it just feels like a long time."
"We'd better start looking for Lady Dragon and her viruses before this becomes a real problem," Nick stated.
"And I know just where to start," RiCO announced as she and iCO ran up to them, having been tracking Lady Dragon's movements. "It seems like the Sector E signal tower's been infected with some of those crazy viruses."
"So we're headed there first?" May asked.
"It shouldn't be too far away from here," iCO responded. "Let's go find that tower, shall we?"
With RiCO and iCO by their side, the spies headed off in the direction of the Sector E signal tower.
Upon seeing this part of Sector E, the spies were surprised to see the scenery pretty peaceful in the forms of a jungle.
"What's with this?" Mat wondered.
RiCO and iCO were taken aback by this in a bad way.
"This is clearly a virus in its own right," RiCO stated to the spies as if to beat them to asking about the wide-eyed distressed look on her and iCO's faces.
"Seems pretty obvious," Nick commented.
"I think this is more of a rainforest, to be frank," Nozomi observed.
"And an ideal place for certain privacy," Clover added.
Sam and Alex sighed over Clover going that particular route.
"Not wrong in that sense... I'll give Clover that," Mat stated.
Nick nodded in agreement; he knew exactly what Clover was getting at.
"I guess we only have one position to go... forward," Bridget sighed.
Everyone nodded.
"I think we're going to have our work cut out for us to get this jungle setting out of here..." RiCO chastised.
The spies moved forward, even seeing a spring that looked peaceful and an ideal place to have a break.
"Lady Dragon's trying to make us falter with this, I bet..." Haruka groaned.
Nick tried to use a psychic scan of the area, but he wasn't getting a reading. Blaine then went up to the water to see if it was legit or a trap.
"Looks pretty safe," Blaine replied after seeing the waterfall and no signs of life in the water.
That was when something appeared out of the water that everybody saw. Much to their surprise, it was a large, polygonal T-rex that looked like it was from an old school computer game.
"What in the hell?!" Haruka shouted.
"Blaine, watch out!" Dawn exclaimed.
Blaine looked to see it just in time, but Nick reacted quickly and pulled Blaine out of harm's way with a psychic hold.
"Phew!" Blaine sighed.
"So, that must be Lady Dragon's M.O., or at least part of it, anyway..." Dawn deduced while Blaine caught his breath.
"Things like this can be tempting, but that'll be her downfall," Nozomi emphasized.
That was when that creature wanted more from the spies.
"What in the world?" Alex chastised.
"No, bad dinosaur!" May exclaimed as she waited for the T-rex to try and take a bite out of her before dodging to the right and whacking it in the face with her anchor. "We're not your snack!"
The T-rex recoiled momentarily before Clover and Blaine both threw Platinum Credit Cards towards it, slashing across its side and exposing its viral core.
This allowed RiCO to fire an anti-virus beam from her palms directly into the T-rex's viral core to destroy it, after which the T-rex flopped onto its face before exploding into a shower of glowing polygons.
"Virus eliminated," RiCO proclaimed.
After that was over, the spies could hear a telephone ringing from who-knew-where.
"Where's that coming from?" Britney wondered. "It's a jungle! There shouldn't be a phone ringing?"
"There's probably some kind of virus doing it, if this is Lady Dragon's handiwork," iCO answered as she waved her hand, opening a trio of data screens to pinpoint where the ringing was coming from.
"Which means we just need to find the source and it should be easy pickings," RiCO stated. "Where are you, ya little dinky virus?"
"Having a fun time yet, spies?!" Lady Dragon's voice boomed from who-knew-where.
"We were kinda hoping to not hear from you again for a while after what you did last time," Melissa retorted.
"Details, details," Lady Dragon laughed. "I'm sure you'll find my newest plot to be much more interesting than before."
"Oh, get over yourself already," Nozomi taunted. "How many times have you tried to take over the Datascape already, and how many times have you failed?! Seriously, your arrogance is getting really freakin' old by this point!"
"I will eventually find the winning strategy," Lady Dragon responded. "After all, I haven't even gotten started yet, and..."
"Just give it a rest already, will you?" iCO retorted after locating the virus that was causing the phone ringing and deleting it, the ringing stopping soon after.
"H-Hold on, how in the hell are you back?!" Lady Dragon gasped. "I thought you'd been destroyed when ViA merged with you!"
"We made sure to back up our source codes," iCO answered. "It's actually pretty handy."
"And you won't be getting the drop on us again, believe that," RiCO responded. "We're more than ready for whatever fiendish nonsense you've got up your sleeves."
It seemed like Lady Dragon had taken offense to that last statement, as she appeared in a flash of digital effects surrounded by a small crowd of her viruses.
"Is that really what you think?" Lady Dragon taunted. "We'll see, won't we? I've had time to perfect my viruses since the last time we clashed, so you won't be deleting these ones that easily, and..."
Lady Dragon's gloating was interrupted when a large anti-viral shockwave passed by, easily deleting the viruses surrounding her.
"I'm sorry, what exactly were you on about?" RiCO chuckled.
This time, though, Lady Dragon wasn't fazed, pressing a button on her gauntlets and extending laser blades from her wrists before rushing forward to meet the spies.
To everyone's surprise, iCO raised her hand and materialized a familiar-looking golden beam saber with a blade shaped like a crescent before slashing it forward to deflect Lady Dragon's attack.
"W-Wait, isn't that ViA's saber?" Haruka gasped.
"I kept at least something of his when he merged our programs together," iCO giggled.
Not waiting for a retort from Lady Dragon, iCO slashed her beam saber downwards to force Lady Dragon to jump back.
Another gaggle of viruses appeared and flung themselves towards the spies, only for iCO to swing her saber and cut them all down easily, before lunging towards Lady Dragon and slashing again, carving a gash in her suit.
"You think you've won, but this is far from over," Lady Dragon taunted before teleporting away again.
"...yeah, like we haven't heard that more times than humanly countable," Mat sighed.
"Nice to see you've picked up some new tricks, eh, iCO?" Blaine chuckled.
"Very useful," iCO quipped.
"And on that note, I think we'd better find the signal tower for this sector," Nick stated. "That's usually how this works, right?"
"Nice to know you've got the routine down pat," RiCO giggled as the spies all headed back into the rainforest to find whatever the Sector E signal tower had been changed into.
On their way there, however, another low-res T-rex came charging out of the fronds to roar and charge towards them.
"Oh, not this again!" Britney exclaimed as she tried to dodge away from the T-rex.
"Not this time, dino boy," Mat proclaimed as he jumped onto the T-rex and used his Expandable Cable Bungee Belt to wrangle the T-rex and keep it away from the spies.
"Ride 'em, cowboy!" May laughed.
While Mat was keeping the T-rex busy, RiCO and iCO jogged their way over to a much larger palm tree that was slightly bent over. RiCO nodded to iCO as she swiped her hand to open a trio of data screens in front of her and start typing on them.
The T-rex suddenly changed course and started marching towards RiCO and iCO despite Mat's efforts to wrangle it up, but thankfully the signal tower took that moment to reactivate, shedding its palm tree "disguise" to reveal the tower itself.
The tower's beacon shined with a bright blue light before firing a beam into the air, and when it had ascended high enough, it erupted into a bright blue shockwave that rapidly spread out around the area and deleted all of the viruses around them, while changing the look of Sector E back to normal.
The T-rex also dissolved in the wave of light that cleaned up the sector, allowing Mat to land back on his feet.
"Okay, that was way too close," Mat admitted.
"Good to see you've still got those cowboy skills, honey," Sam giggled.
"Never know when they might come in handy, right?" Mat chuckled.
"And voila, Sector E is officially virus-free," RiCO proclaimed. "And it looks like all the ringing phone nonsense in this sector has stopped as well."
iCO opened another data screen to search for more virus activity. "I'm detecting more viral activity in Sector H," iCO stated. "Looks like this run is just getting started."
"Ah, just like old times," RiCO teased as she checked her own data screens to see what was happening. "According to my readings, though, it looks like only a few sectors are currently infected and not the entirety of the Datascape."
"Then we should probably get our butts moving before more sectors get infected," Sam responded. "We don't wanna be doing the ol' runaround all day, right?"
"Tell me about it," Haruka chuckled as RiCO waved her hand to reactivate the sector teleporters.
"All aboard who's going aboard, then," RiCO proclaimed.
The spies all followed RiCO and iCO onto the transport pad, and once everybody was on, RiCO hit the button and teleported them all of to Sector H.
3:00 P.M. – W.O.O.H.P. Datascape
Sector H
Some of the spies observed Sector H once they'd reached it.
"What is this, a boxing ring?" Bridget asked.
"Seems like it..." RiCO stated. "But this is another sector that's been infected with Lady Dragon's hooey..."
"I guess we have to get to work again..." iCO remarked.
"After we find out what this place got turned into..." Blaine groaned.
"This better not be the Sisterhood again," Sam sighed.
Nick tried to use his psychic mind-reading powers to answer that, but there was no sign of Ariel's thoughts or anything of the sort.
"I don't think so, Sam," Nick replied.
"So... if this isn't boxing, is it wrestling?" Mat asked.
"I don't think so," Bridget observed. "The ring is a little too small."
Something then came over Sam, Haruka, and Nick when they heard some barks.
"Oh... she didn't..." Nick groaned.
"I think she did, Nick," May added to try and restrain him.
The last thing Nick hoped it wasn't was indeed a reality... actual dogfights.
"Just when you think they can't get any lower..." Clover chastised.
Before long, two bloodthirsty dogs came out and took the ring.
"They aren't your dogs, Nick... just saying..." Haruka reminded.
"I know," Nick remarked and took a breath.
Before long, another dog came into view, one that was not as vicious as the other two. That's when another phone rang from who-knew-where, and RiCO managed to answer it.
"I hope your blood's boiling now, saps!" Lady Dragon taunted from who-knew-where.
"Really? Dogfights?!" Nick chastised.
"Why not?" Lady Dragon taunted again. "But this isn't the best part..."
"What the heck are you talking about?!" Melissa wondered, not liking where this was going.
That was when Haruka and Dawn fell through invisible trap doors and reappeared in the middle of the ring where the vicious dogs were surrounding them.
"What the heck?!" Alex chastised.
Nick tried to get them out, but his psychic powers were deflected due to an invisible force field.
"Enjoy seeing your spy girls become their dinner..." Lady Dragon taunted once again.
"Oh, we'll see..." May shot back.
But the spies had to think of something super fast before Haruka and Dawn were lunch meat.
"Hey, bad doggies! We're not your five-course meal!" Dawn exclaimed as she fired a Cyclone Blast Hairdryer to blow the dogs back, knowing that they weren't real dogs, just viruses shaped like them.
Haruka jumped onto one of the ropes around the ring to avoid a bite from one of the dogs before using it to propel herself forward and charge through a bunch of dogs, sending them flying.
However, more seemed to appear as the seconds ticked by.
"We need to think of something fast, or we're gonna be overwhelmed!" Haruka shouted.
"Never fear, your friendly neighborhood artificial intelligence is on the case!" RiCO proclaimed as she slammed her palm into the data screen in front of her. This caused the ring to glitch slightly and the invisible force field around it to vanish completely.
iCO swiftly jumped in and slashed her beam saber at the dog viruses one by one, sending them flying into the air and exposing their viral cores so that RiCO could leapfrog off of her shoulders and unleash an anti-virus shockwave all around her. This deleted all of the dog viruses and collapsed the ring around them, allowing the spies to regroup.
"Virus eliminated," iCO quipped.
"Man, I didn't think that even freakin' Lady Dragon would resort to dogfighting, of all things," Alex sighed.
"Guess there's really no low that our rogues' gallery won't sink to, huh?" Melissa chuckled.
"Now that that's been taken care of, which way is the signal tower for this sector?" Nick wondered.
"According to my sector map, it should be to the southwest," iCO stated.
"I sincerely hope that Lady Dragon didn't change the location of that, too," Mat sighed.
"Oh, don't worry, that's one thing she absolutely can't do, no matter what she tries," RiCO quipped. "When Jerry and the tech department were designing the Datascape, they made it so that the signal towers, the support pillars of this world, were essentially 'welded' to the programs inside of the drive core. If Lady Flop wants to actually move the signal towers to another location, she'd have to mess around with the drive core, and as that incident with Sayu and that other version of Nick was any indication, that's not something someone like her would really want to do."
"All Lady Dragon can really do is use her viruses to disguise the signal towers as something else," iCO explained. "Even so, it's easy for us to find it, since the signal towers give off a unique digital imprint that's still easy for us to find."
"As talented as Lady Dragon is in making games and creating viruses, she simply has no freakin' hope of understanding how complicated the Datascape and everything running it truly is," RiCO proclaimed quite proudly. "She can try and make all the changes she wants, but she's really only doing it on a superficial cosmetic scale at best."
"Oh, is that really what you think, you little data girl?" Lady Dragon's voice rang out from somewhere nearby.
"You're oozing way too much confidence, you know," RiCO taunted back. "After all, look at how easily we dismantled your little cabal of viruses."
"I'm sure you won't be singing your little tune once my master plan is complete," Lady Dragon laughed.
Another phone started to ring from far away, so RiCO and iCO led the spies through another strange rainforest and into yet another boxing ring-like area.
RiCO surveyed the area in search of the signal tower, and she eventually found it by a large telephone pole that held said ringing phone. RiCO typed a few numbers in on the phone, and it stopped ringing before dissolving its disguise and revealing the Sector H signal tower. iCO opened a data screen to type in the re-initialization command, and the signal tower shined with a bright light before unleashing a wave of blue light that spread out over everything nearby and restored Sector H to normal.
"That should be that," RiCO quipped. "So much for Lady Dragon's boasts, eh?"
"Actually, I just caught wind of new viral activity somewhere in Sector A," iCO stated. "Looks like our work is far from done, huh?"
"It usually is," Sam chuckled. "Such is our jobs."
"Then let's head off to the teleporter so we can see what kind of madhouse Lady Dragon's got cooking for us this time," May answered.
As the spies headed off towards the teleporters, Nozomi's X-Powder suddenly began to beep. Wondering who was calling her, Nozomi decided to flip her X-Powder open and see for herself.
And she was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Hikari and Makoto, both of them appearing to be on a movie set.
"Hey there, Nozomi, I didn't call at a bad time, did I?" Hikari wondered. "You all look like you're in a really weird computer place."
"Kinda hit the nail there, Hikari," Nozomi giggled. "Long story short, we're in the Datascape, the cyberspace world inside of W.O.O.H.P.'s computer systems, and we're tracking down a crazy game maker who wants to infect this whole system."
"Man, no shortage of crazy adventures for you guys, huh?" Makoto chuckled.
"Tell me about it," May proclaimed.
"So, what's up, Hikari?" Nozomi asked.
"Oh, I just wanted to let you know that I'm gonna be in your neck of the woods in about a week and a half!" Hikari exclaimed. "I wanted to show you guys the new movie my friends and I have been working on, so I figured it'd also be a really good chance to catch up."
"Sounds like a plan to us," Alex laughed. "We'll see ya soon, then."
"Lookin' forward to it!" Hikari responded as the video feed cut out.
"Sounds like she's having a good time," Haruka chuckled.
"Well, then, shall we zap to Sector A and keep up this virus-washing?" Nick proclaimed.
"Yes, we shall," RiCO chuckled as she activated the teleporters to send everyone to Sector A.
4:28 P.M. – W.O.O.H.P. Datascape
Sector A
Despite not knowing what Lady Dragon had turned Sector A into, the spies finally got a look for themselves when they got there.
"This is Sector A?" Clover asked.
"Our sensors say yes it is," RiCO replied.
"No two ways about it," iCO added.
What the spies saw was yet another forest, but certainly no dinosaurs in sight.
"I think I'm getting a Mario vibe here," Nick commented.
"I might know what this sector got turned into..." Mat told the others.
Melissa and Haruka looked at Mat for that ultimate answer. Instead, Mat walked up to a small shrub nearby.
"I need to confirm it first," Mat told the others.
He got his answer when a mushroom on the ground had come to life. Mat was able to get out of the way just in time though.
"What'd you need to confirm, bro?" Nick asked.
"I've seen this before when some of the mushrooms came to life like just now," Mat replied. "It's the Forest Maze from Super Mario RPG."
"Oh, jeez, that oldie?" Nick chuckled. "Man, that one takes me back."
"I frankly never thought I'd see this," May stated.
Melissa seemed to remember how funky the music of the forest there was, just like Mat did. They started to go forward.
"I think I remember the bees there, too," Melissa remarked.
"So, we have to do...?" Alex wondered.
"Go through paths," Melissa answered.
"And avoid those pesky guys, too," Nick added, cringing on the bees part.
"If there are any, that is..." Britney stated.
"Totally," Sam remarked. "I wouldn't rule out Lady Dragon tweaking quite a bit of stuff in this place..."
"Good thing for us Lady Dragon's got an old-school side of her," Bridget commented.
"No doubt," Blaine quipped.
"Well, here goes nothing..." Alex stated.
"If I remember correctly, you'd start by following Geno," Mat stated, and sure enough, what appeared to be Geno from that game was waiting at one of the entrances.
"I'd still be careful," May quipped. "After all, if this is Lady Dragon's handiwork, she might have done something to the 'mechanics' that might trip us up."
"Would your psychic radar be effective here, Nick?" Sam asked.
"I'm not so sure," Nick admitted. "After all, if these things are viruses, then they might not have traditional minds for me to read, if you catch my drift."
"That's what you've got me and iCO for," RiCO chuckled as she swiped her hand to open up a data screen, typing onto the keyboard to check everything around them.
RiCO gestured to the path that the Geno lookalike had walked down, and the spies followed her down that path. Occasionally, the Geno lookalike would go down a path, but RiCO would take the opposite path instead, confirming May's suspicions that it wouldn't always lead them down the right path.
Eventually, after a few more minutes of traversing the paths and occasionally stopping to battle some more viruses, the spies reached a larger area in the forest, where an incredibly gigantic tree could be seen in the center.
"That looks... very suspicious," Nozomi quipped. "I'm willing to hazard a guess that this big ol' tree is actually the signal tower for this sector, right?"
"Yup, it definitely is," RiCO chuckled. "So let me just implement the ol' re-initialization command and..."
"RiCO, watch out!" iCO shouted as she ran forward and waved her hands to create a digital barrier around RiCO. It turned out that she'd acted just in time, as a barrage of oversized arrows rained down from above.
"Who the heck's shooting at us now?!" Haruka exclaimed.
"If it's anything like the games, it's probably that Bowyer dude," Melissa answered.
"I'll fly up to the top and see if I can snipe that virus myself," Nick proclaimed, his aura flaring to life around him. "You all just keep RiCO safe so she can reactivate the signal tower!"
The spies all spread out and brought out whatever projectile gadgets they felt like they needed so they could shoot down more arrows while Nick took off into the air to find the Bowyer virus.
iCO decided to assist as well, wall-jumping off of the other trees in the area to make it to the top of the forest and assist Nick in finding the Bowyer virus.
"I think I see him, Nick," iCO stated, pointing towards another taller tree just to the southwest, where a virus shaped like Bowyer from Super Mario RPG could be seen firing arrow after arrow down onto the spies below.
"Fonud you, ya sick nut!" Nick exclaimed as he barged forward, dodging a few more arrow shots before kicking the Bowyer virus into the air, then blasting it even higher with a Final Shine Attack, doing enough damage to it to reveal its viral core.
"And that's my cue," iCO quipped as she aimed her hand upwards and fired an anti-virus blast into the Bowyer virus' viral core, deleting it swiftly and causing it to explode in a shower of glowing polygons. "Virus eliminated."
With the rain of arrows taken care of, RiCO was able to type in the re-initialization command and revert the giant tree back into Sector A's signal tower, which unleashed a shockwave of light from its beacon that spread out and cleansed the entire sector of any infection, the Forest Maze disappearing as well.
"Well, am I glad that's over," Sam sighed. "I'm just surprised that Lady Dragon picked that of all things for her scheme."
"Lady Dragon is a game designer, after all," May admitted. "Maybe she's just got some old school tastes."
"All right-y, then, where do we head off to next?" Nick wondered as the spies all regrouped.
Suddenly, a group of virus blobs lunged forward to capture both Nozomi and Britney before slinking off to parts unknown.
"Did... did those freakin' viruses just get the drop on us?!" May shouted.
"That's exactly why I hate that I can't mind-read a virus," Nick groaned.
"Hey, don't worry, viruses can't escape my trackers," RiCO quipped as she opened a data screen to track the virus' location. "According to my scanners, it appears that the viruses that took Britney and Nozomi are heading for Sector C."
"Then let's scoot our collective keesters over there real quick-like!" Haruka proclaimed.
Now that the teleporters were finally active in this sector, it was only a short jog to said teleporter so RiCO could send the group off to Sector C and find their kidnapped friends.
To be continued...
Coming up next...
Dawn: ...okay, I'm guessing that Sector C isn't supposed to look like this?
RiCO: That's the understatement of the century.
Mat: Are Britney and Nozomi anywhere close by?
iCO: Huh, that's odd. It looks like both of their signals are in separate spots.
Bridget: Damn it all, they're getting smarter.
Clover: Should we split up and deal with this quicker?
Nick: Sounds like a plan to me.
RiCO: I'll go with one group, and iCO will go with the other group. That way, we can still get rid of any viruses that might be hiding them from us.
Alex: Then let's go bust some viruses, next time on Totally Spies: The Crazy Digital Call, "Security Check"!
Nick: Hey, what's Sarina wearing on her head?
Sarina: It's cute, isn't it? I made it myself, actually.