Pinky, Freakazoid, and the Brain

by scanime

Summary:

It wasn't long ago that it was Pinky and the Brain versus Freakazoid. Brain tried to steal Freakazoid's powers, Pinky became a superhero, and the Lobe tried to destroy Washington, DC with a parade.

Now they're back. A mysterious villain—who seems suspiciously like a certain megalomaniacal mouse—is stealing computers and hardware all over the city, and has somehow convinced a growing number of Freakazoid's villains to work together.

Is Brain back to his old world-domination tricks? And is Freakazoid up to stopping him again?

Chapter 1: Net Loss

Summary:

Freakazoid is bored out of his mind on a stakeout—until a mysterious break-in finally gives him the dramatic confrontation he's been waiting for. But instead of one supervillain, he finds not one, not two, but three villains waiting inside... and they're not playing by the usual rules.

Freakazoid sits in a high-backed leather chair. He's wearing a navy-blue suit jacket over his usual costume, and a pair of reading glasses that serve absolutely no purpose. Behind him, a crackling fireplace casts flickering shadows along mahogany bookshelves. Old portraits line the walls, their painted eyes following whoever dares enter. A grandfather clock ticks ominously.

Freakazoid leans forward, resting his elbows on a heavy wooden desk. "Good evening," he says, his voice deep and serious. "I'm Freakazoid. Did you know that every day, the world is filled with strange, unexplained events? Stories so bizarre… so beyond belief… that one must ask—"

He leans forward even further, his arms almost slipping out from under him. "Did it happen? Or is it just a bunch of made-up baloney?"

A lightning flash illuminates the room for dramatic effect.

Freakazoid snaps his fingers. "Hey, neat! Who's in charge of that?"

Another flash of lightning.

Freakazoid nods approvingly. "Good work, Steve!"

Freakazoid turns back to you, his face returning to its previous somber expression. "The 90s were full of strange, unexplained happenings. Crystal Pepsi. Furbies. The fact that people voluntarily watched a show called Homeboys in Outer Space. I mean… who at UPN even greenlit that thing?"

Freakazoid opens a large, dust-covered book, as if preparing for a dramatic reading. "So, dear readers… what do you think? Is this adventure based on a real story?" He dramatically removes his reading glasses. "Is it fact? Or fiction?"

He pauses for a moment, then blinks. "Wait… this is a fanfic. It's all fiction. Huh. Welp! On with the story!"

---

Freakazoid sat on the edge of a warehouse rooftop, his feet dangling as they kicked back and forth. Across the way stood a gleaming industrial building, with a brightly lit sign proclaiming it to be "Data Hoarder Headquarters." But at the moment, Freakazoid's attention was focused on the inside of a nearly empty bag of potato chips. He shook the bag a few times.

"There's gotta be a few more whole chips in here." He squinted and peered into the bag with one eye. "I think the little crumbs are hiding them all."

Dexter's voice echoed from within his head. "Freakazoid, you need to focus. There could be trouble at any moment!"

Freakazoid sighed. "Yeah, yeah. But stakeouts make me hungry!"

"It shouldn't be too much longer," Dexter replied. "Assuming Cosgrove's intel was right, at least. Maybe we can find out who's been behind stealing all those computers."

Freakazoid perked up, and cupped his hands over his eyes like binoculars. "Hold the phone! I think we got something!" He stood up, placing his hands on hips and puffing his chest out. "This sounds like a job for Freakazoid!"

And with that, Freakaoid leapt off the top of the building. Dexter's voice telling him to wait was quickly drowned out by the sound of rushing wind. Freakazoid's body turned into a bolt of lightning as his speed increased, now zigging and zagging towards the ground. He took a quick ninety degree turn and zipped along the ground, speeding towards the Data Hoarder Headquarters. "Trouble, here I come!"

Within seconds, he was inside the building, screeching to a sudden stop in the middle of the main lobby. His momentum sent a few loose papers from the nearby security desk fluttering into the air.

He heard Dexter's internal voice sputter, "Freakazoid, you know I have a hard time talking to you when you're using your powers."

"Dexter, Dexter, I got this," Freakazoid responded casually. He peered over the desk and spotted a pair of security guards tied up and gagged. "Excuse me, have you seen a supervillain recently? Probably tall and dark, but definitely ugly?"

The security guards blinked in confusion, trying to make themselves understood through the gags over their mouths. One of their walkie-talkies crackled to life. "Hey, we got a situation here in the server room! There's—" The voice was cut off with the sound of a thud, and then static.

"Great! Thanks!" Freakazoid with a salute. "I'm off to the server room!" He lifted one foot in the air and prepared himself to zip away, holding himself in position for a few seconds before placing his foot back on the floor. "Say, can you guys give me directions? Or maybe a map?"

One of the security guards let out a muffled groan, jerking his head toward the hallway.

Freakazoid nodded. "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That way, huh?"

The guard frantically shook his head.

Freakazoid frowned. "Wait, not that way?"

The guard nodded furiously.

Freakazoid rubbed his chin. "So the server room is in the other direction?"

Another nod.

Freakazoid gave them a thumbs-up. "See? Teamwork! This is why communication is so important in the workplace."

Dexter, still inside his head, groaned. "Just go!"

"Alright, alright!" Freakazoid took a deep breath—then zipped away at full speed.

A beat of silence passed.

Then Freakazoid suddenly zoomed back to the tied-up guards.

"One more thing—" He leaned in. "Do you guys validate parking?"

The guards glared at him.

"Alright, fine, be that way," Freakazoid huffed, before disappearing again. He took off at full speed through the halls of Data Hoarder Headquarters.

Dexter, still inside his head, groaned. "Come on, come on—just let me—ugh, why is it always like this?!" The world around Dexter was a dull, gray void—a space he had long since decided was Freakazoid's mental waiting room. Freakazoid dubbed it the Freak-a-zone. Every now and again, some random thought or abstract concept drifted by like a floating screensaver. Nowadays, Dexter could glimpse the outside world through Freakazoid's eyes when things were calm. But the moment Freakazoid activated his speed or other powers, Dexter's connection to the outside world became glitchy and distant. It had always been that way—at least, ever since he got his powers back.

Before, being stuck inside Freakazoid's head was like being blindfolded inside a rollercoaster. No sight, no sound, just a weird sensation of chaos and movement around him until he transformed back.

He hated it.

Hated not knowing what was happening. Hated that Freakazoid could always see what he was doing when he was inside Dexter's head.

"Well, hopefully not always see," Dexter thought, a little horrified at the possibility.

But what really bothered Dexter was that it didn't work both ways. When he'd first complained about it, Freakazoid had shrugged it off. "It's a force of personality thing, Dex! You just gotta be stronger." As if that helped explain anything.

It had gotten better over time—especially after Brain had stolen Freakazoid's Internet superpowers and Dexter had been forced to get them back. Not that he liked thinking about that. One minute he was trying to warn Freakazoid about a trap, and next thing he knew, Freakazoid was gone and Dexter was standing alone in what would shortly become the scene of a battle between superheroes and supervillains.

Still, ever since then, the connection was different.

He could see through Freakazoid's eyes now, sort of. Hear what he heard. Even talk to him in real time.

…Until Freakazoid used his powers.

Then everything went to static. Which was happening right now. Before, when he wasn't aware of whatever Freakazoid was up to, he had been able to push through the static and reach out to Freakazoid for short periods of time. But although it's easier to do that now—most of the time—it somehow became impossible when Freakazoid used his powers.

Dexter sighed. If he could concentrate, he'd be able to know what was happening again once Freakazoid came to a stop, which would probably be just in time for him to encounter whatever villain is behind the heist and then deliver a humorous quip.

The static finally cleared, and Freakazoid's vision snapped into focus for Dexter. Freakazoid was definitely inside some sort of server room. Massive metal racks lined the walls, stacked high with hulking beige servers, the kind that needed a forklift to move and ran on enough power to brown out a good chunk of Washington. Blinking indicator lights covered every surface, flashing in seemingly random patterns. They weren't all random, of course—Dexter recognized basic read/write indicators, but he knew that a lot of the lights were there to merely look impressive. Against the far wall, reel-to-reel data tape drives spun dramatically. The cold, sterile air was filled with the whir of cooling fans and occasional clunking of a hard drive writing data.

But what caught Dexter's eye was the massive CRT monitor in the center of the room, sitting on a lone desk, glowing with bright green monochrome text. And in the middle of that screen was a progress bar slowly reaching 100% under the text which read, "Stealing Important Secret Files."

Dexter blinked. "Oh, come on."

Freakazoid looked around. "So where's our villain?" 

As if on cue, Cave Guy stepped out from behind a tall rack of servers. Both Dexter and Freakazoid immediately noted his missing traditional neolithic clothing. Where normally Cave Guy would be wearing a loin cloth and necklace lined with teeth, he was instead decked out all in black. He was wearing a sleek, all-black turtleneck with matching black gloves and tactical cargo pants. And then, on top of his large head was a comically small black beanie that was at least one size too small.

Freakazoid stared. Then, with all the restraint of a child at a candy store, he burst out laughing. "Pfffft—oh my gosh!" He doubled over in laughter. "What—you look like—like a—" He wheezed in between laughs, trying to catch his breath. "Like a rejected extra from Mission: Impossible!"

Cave Guy didn't even flinch. He merely adjusted his sleeves with dignity and replied, in his usual eloquent baritone, "I believe in wearing the appropriate attire for any occasion."

Freakazoid squinted at him. "Even hacking?"

Cave Guy folded his large, muscular arms. "If one intends to engage in a technological heist, one must dress the part."

"Freakazoid!" Dexter exclaimed, making sure he got the superhero's attention. "There's some sort of external drive plugged into the system on the desk. You'e got to get it before it downloads whatever Cave Guy is trying to get!"

Freakazoid bounced on the balls of his feet. "Alrightie! Fight scene!"

Cave Guy barely had time to raise an eyebrow before Freakazoid launched himself forward. Freakazoid dutifully yelled out his plan of attack, "Hiyah! Beanie stretch!" before jumping up to Cave Guy's shoulders. He reached for Cave Guy's hat, grabbing it from the edges and trying to pull it down over Cave Guy's eyes—but the tiny beanie wouldn't budge. 

He yanked again, groaning with the effort. Nothing.

Freakazoid landed back on the ground, frowning. "Huh. Didn't think that through."

Cave Guy smirked. "I told you—one must dress the part. This hat is quite snug."

Freakazoid tapped his chin. "Okay, new plan." With zero warning, he grabbed the neck of Cave Guy's turtleneck, and yanked it straight up over his head. With a satisfying fwomp, Cave Guy's entire head was covered by his shirt. 

Cave Guy staggered backward, arms flailing, his entire face now trapped in the stretched-out turtleneck. "Gah! You ruffian! This is cashmere!" He flailed blindly, nearly knocking over the CRT monitor.

Freakazoid darted toward the desk, stretching one arm around Cave Guy to reach for the external drive. His fingers brushed it just as he felt something soft wrap around his midsection and yank him backwards. He bounced twice across the cold server room floor before coming to stop at Cobra Queen's feet.

Freakazoid blinked up at her from his awkward position. She was wearing a fluffy sweater. He blinked again. Was he seeing things? His lungs strained under the tightening grip of whatever was wrapped around him. His vision swam. But no, Cobra Queen was standing in front of him, a villainous smirk on her face—while wearing a thick, light blue fluffy sweater.

Freakazoid's gaze lowered slightly. The massive snake coiled around him was wearing a snake-sized sweater. A matching custom-knit snake-sized sweater—also light blue—with no sleeves. Freakazoid pondered this as the snake squeezed tighter. 

Dexter, meanwhile, had already put the pieces together. "Freakazoid, why are the villains—"

"—wearing such ridiculous outfits?" Freakazoid finished. At least, that's what Freakazoid tried to say. It came out more like an "Erk!"

Freakazoid tried again. "Erk…"

Dexter was frantically trying to think of a plan. Something—anything—he could think of to help Freakazoid while he was stuck inside of his head. Which unfortunately meant Dexter had zero control over anything except his own internal screaming.

"Okay, okay… uh…" Dexter stammered, struggling to focus.

Cobra Queen, on the other hand, was enjoying herself. She smirked, her arms crossed triumphantly, watching her giant snake do all of the work. "Aww, what'sss wrong Freakazoid? Can't think of a joke when you can't breathe?"

Behind her, Cave Guy was still flailing around, bumping into servers. "Where is that insufferable blue nuisance?!" he bellowed. "I swear, when I fix this—"

The snake's constrictive grip tightened, and Freakazoid's vision blurred. Cobra Queen's grin widened. "Come now, Freakazoid. Ssssay ssssomething funny."

Then, to her surprise, Freakazoid stopped struggling. He tilted his head slightly, blinking at her like he had just made an important discovery. "Erk!"

Cobra Queen frowned in confusion. She leaned a little closer to Freakazoid, who was starting to turn an even deeper shade of blue. "What?"

"Eeerrk!"

Cobra Queen sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Loossssen up for a ssssecond," she muttered, and her snake immediately obeyed. She watched Freakazoid with a sharp stare. "You were ssssaying?"

Freakazoid took a deep breath. "...Is your snake wearing a turtleneck?"

Cobra Queen's smile faltered. "What?"

"I mean, technically, aren't snakes all neck? So wouldn't that mean he's wearing a turtleneck?"

Cobra Queen blinked. Her oversized snake also blinked.

Freakazoid nodded sagely. "I just think it's weird," he continued. "I mean, I know server rooms are supposed to be cold, but did you even consider other options? You could've given him a hoodie or a cardigan or—"

"Oh, for the love of—" Cobra Queen groaned.

Freakazoid tapped a finger against his chin. "Hmm. You know…" He reached down and pinched the fabric of the snake's sweater. "I don't think this was made very well."

Cobra Queen snapped out of her confusion. "What are you—"

"Like, don't get me wrong!" Freakazoid continued, inspecting the stitching. "It's very cute. Nice stockinette stitching. But see this? Loose threading. Rushed finishing work. No structure in the seams."

He gave the sweater a light tug, and the snake twitched slightly. 

Freakazoid grinned. "Ooooooh, this is homemade, isn't it?" He grabbed the fabric in a tight grip, and gave it one mighty yank. In one quick motion, the sweater completely unraveled and the giant snake spun like a long sinuous tornado, twisting into a blur as the fabric rapidly unwound.

Cobra Queen staggered back, eyes wide. "No—wait—"

The snake pinwheeled through the air, wrapping around Cobra Queen and then flinging itself straight into Cave Guy, who had just managed to fix his turtleneck. Both villains toppled over in a heap.

Freakazoid landed smoothly on his feet, and dusted off his shoulder.

Dexter was speechless, or nearly so.  "...That didn't just work."

Freakazoid beamed. "Sure did!"

Freakazoid turned towards the computer in the center of the room as the progress bar moved up to an ominous 75% complete. He heroically sauntered over to remove the external drive. He reached out, fingers brushing against it, when a whip cracked against his knuckles. 

Startled, Freakazoid yelped and leapt back. "Oh, come on! This is getting ridiculous!" he exclaimed.

"Ah-ah!" a posh voice tutted. "Not so fast, old bean!" The voice came from a broad-shouldered man in a neatly pressed khaki explorer's outfit, complete with a pith helmet, polished boots, and a monocle that somehow managed to glisten indoors.

His mustache twitched as he adjusted his monocle. "Good show, what?" he declared. "I say, jolly good attempt at heroism, old chap, but I'm afraid I can't let you take that drive!"

Freakazoid stared. From within his head, Dexter watched through his eyes, also staring.

"What is with these outfits?!" Freakazoid finally blurted, gesturing in confusion at the newcomer.

"Who is that?" Dexter asked.

Freakazoid perked up. "Oh, yeah, that's a good idea!" He turned and smiled politely. "So… who are you?"

The man blinked. "Egad, man! Have you never heard of Major Danger?!"

Silence.

Freakazoid scratched his chin. "Not ringing any bells."

Major Danger huffed, looking truly offended. "Preposterous! Why, back in London, I am feared across the Empire! The scourge of Piccadilly! The terror of Trafalgar! A real villain, I tell you!"

Freakazoid tilted his head. "So, what, you're like, a British bad guy?"

"Precisely!" Major Danger declared proudly. "I am the United Kingdom's greatest menace!"

Freakazoid crossed his arms. "Mmm… I feel like that title goes to, like, tea taxes or something."

"Or aggressive roundabouts," Dexter added.

Major Danger gritted his teeth. "Oh, I see what this is. Typical American ignorance! You think villainy is all about over-the-top costumes and maniacal laughter!"

Freakazoid gestured at Cobra Queen and Cave Guy. "I mean… yeah? Kind of?"

"Bah!" Major Danger snorted. "You Americans wouldn't know a sophisticated villain if he whacked you across the jaw with a dueling cane!"

Freakazoid brightened. "Oh! You have a dueling cane?"

"Of course I have a dueling cane!" Major Danger snapped. "I am a gentleman!"

Freakazoid held out a hand. "Lemme see it."

Major Danger paused and his eyes narrowed. "…No."

Freakazoid planted his hands on his hips, chest puffed out. "Have it your way then!" 

He stood tall, looking heroic. Determined. Unshakable. Then, he took a step backwards, stroked his chin thoughtfully, and began muttering to himself. "Alright, we've had a beanie, a turtleneck, a snake sweater… which was technically also a turtleneck…"

He squinted at Major Danger's khaki ensemble. His eyes darted over the monocle, the boots, and the pith helmet. "Hmmmm."

Dexter groaned. "Freakazoid, just get the drive!"

"Hang on, Dex!" Freakazoid waved a hand. "I've got a streak going! I've used every villain's outfit against them! It's like a thing now!"

"It is not a thing," Dexter deadpanned.

"It is absolutely a thing," Freakazoid countered. "I mean, look at him! There's gotta be something I can work with!"

He tapped his temple. "C'mon, brain… think…" He snapped his fingers. "How hard do you think it would be to get one of his boots off?"

Dexter buried his face in his hands. "Oh my gosh, why?!"

"Because, Dex!" Freakazoid grinned. "If I can get that thing off, this whole tower of British villainy topples over like the London bridge falling down! It's science!"

"That is not science!"

Major Danger cleared his throat loudly. "I do beg your pardon, but are you quite finished talking to yourself?"

Freakazoid ignored him completely. "Or maybe the monocle? If I knock it off, does that disorient him? Maybe he gets blurry vision?"

Dexter watched in horror as the progress bar ticked towards 90%. "Oh, for the love of—" he snapped. "JUST GET THE DRIVE!"

Freakazoid sighed dramatically. "Ugh. Fiiiiiine."

He suddenly lunged for the external drive. At that same moment, Major Danger's whip snapped around it. Both of them grabbed hold at the same time, but while Major Danger had his whip around the drive itself, Freakazoid clutched the massive, clunky cable still connected to the computer. The cable was a thick, gray monstrosity, the kind that looked like it was designed to power a space shuttle instead of a hard drive, and it was secured to both the computer and the external drive with screws.

Freakazoid braced a foot against the desk and pulled harder. Major Danger did the same, grunting in effort. "I say, this is most undignified!"

"You started it, Mr. Safari Pants!" Freakazoid shot back, pulling the cable again.

The desk wobbled dangerously.

Cave Guy and Cobra Queen got unsteadily to their feet. Their eyes tracked back and forth, watching the tug of war play out.

Meanwhile, Dexter was staring at the progress bar, watching it tick dangerously close to 100%. "Freakazoid, get that drive NOW!"

"I'm trying!" Freakazoid gave one last mighty tug.

And then, with a thunderous pop and an explosion of plastic shards, the cable disconnected from the external drive. Freakazoid stumbled backwards, the cable still in his hands. He smacked into the heavy CRT monitor, inadvertently spinning it around to face him.

Major Danger, victorious, hoisted the external drive into the air. "Ha-HA!" he declared, "Victory is mine! British villainy reigns supreme!"

Freakazoid looked at the monitor screen and tilted his head. "Oh, buddy, you might wanna—"

"Come, comrades!" Major Danger ignored him completely, already turning to the other villains. "Let us make our glorious escape!"

Cobra Queen looked skeptical. "Are we sure we—"

"To the getaway vehicle!" Major Danger insisted, already marching away.

Cave Guy sighed. "Oh, why not. I could use a strong cosmo."

Freakazoid watched them go, hand raised. "But—" He glanced over at the error message flashing on the screen: "Transfer incomplete. Error: missing file data."

Cobra Queen slithered past, casting one last smirk over her shoulder. "I bet the little guy will be thrilled at our ssssuccessss…"

Cave Guy nodded. "Oh, yes, his big head will be nodding with appreciation, I'm sure."

Freakazoid froze. "…Little guy? Big head?" he repeated, eyes narrowing. Before he could question them further, the villains disappeared through the exit.

"Sooooo..." Freakazoid crossed his arms. "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

"You think they meant Brain?" Dexter said.

"No, I was wondering if I should've tried to get Major Danger's hat off instead of his boots," Freakazoid admitted. "But yeah, also the Brain thing."

Dexter sighed. The last time Brain entered the world of supervillainy, it had been… bad. A dangerous combination of the Lobe's intellect and Guitierrez's cold calculations. Dexter did not care for that. 

"Didn't you say that Brain swore off supervillainy forever?" he asked.

"No, but Cosgrove did give him a stern talking to," Freakaoid responded. "That's kind of the same thing."

Dexter rolled his eyes. He wasn't sure if Freakazoid could tell if he was rolling his eyes or not, but it made Dexter feel better to do it anyway. "No," Dexter said firmly, "it isn't. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to deal with Brain as a supervillain again."

Freakazoid grinned. "Yeah, but Pinky is pretty cool!"

Dexter chuckled despite himself. "Yes, Pinky is pretty cool." He sighed. "As much as I'd rather talk about Pinky, we have superhero business to handle."

Freakazoid huffed. "Fine, but just so you know, I would have so many good things to say about him."

"Later," Dexter said firmly. "First, we need to figure out what data the villains stole and how much they actually got."

Freakazoid shrugged. "Pffft, they probably didn't get anything! Error message, remember? Case closed!"

"Or," Dexter countered, "the error means they only got part of what they needed. Or worse, just enough to be dangerous."

Freakazoid pouted. "You always have to be all 'realistic' and 'logical' about things, don't you?"

"Yes," Dexter said flatly. "Because one of us needs to be."

Freakazoid sighed dramatically, then grabbed the monitor and slapped it back into place. "Fine! You want investigation? You got investigation!"

He cracked his knuckles, leaned forward, and began typing furiously. The keyboard clicked and clacked as his fingers became a blur, his face lined with intense concentration. His eyes narrowed. His brow furrowed. His whole body tensed. For a full thirty seconds, he hammered the keyboard like a man possessed.

Finally, Dexter raised an eyebrow. "…Do you even know what you're doing?"

Freakazoid gasped, clutching his chest. "Dexter! How dare you!"

"Well?"

Freakazoid pointed at himself indignantly. "I am the physical embodiment of all knowledge on the World Wide Web!" He spun dramatically in the chair. "My brain is an interconnected web of cyber-data highways! I have access to gigabytes of encrypted files, neural metadata analysis, TCP/IP protocol routing, quantum packet streaming, and reverse polarity interface mainframes!"

Dexter blinked. "…You just said a bunch of technical words that mean nothing, didn't you?"

Freakazoid froze mid-spin. "Maybe?"

Finally, Dexter asked, "So how are you going to find out what data was stolen?"

"Easy!" Freakazoid said with a grin. "I'll just take the computer home with me!"

Before Dexter could even process this, Freakazoid leaned forward and scooped up the entire computer setup in one massive armful. His arms precariously balanced the monitor, keyboard, CPU, mouse, and even the stapler left on the desk. All of it.

Then, Freakazoid tried standing up. The equipment was ripped violently away from the desk, dragging a tangle of thick cables with it. Sparks erupted from multiple outlets and peripherals, and the lights in the server room flickered. Somewhere deep in the building, an electric transformer groaned ominously.

Dexter watched in mute horror. "...That can't be good."

Freakazoid beamed proudly, wobbling under the mess of computer parts in his arms like a victorious caveman. "Investigation complete!"

Then the lights went out. 

Freakazoid's voice rang out in the darkness. "If anybody was wondering, that definitely wasn't me!"

 

to be continued…

Freakazoid holds up his hands placatingly. "Okay, okay—look, I know what some of you are thinking. Where's Brain? More importantly, where's that amazing wonderful Pinky?" 

He points his finger sternly in your direction. "Well, listen here, buster! I was barely in the first chapter of the first story! The Huntsman got more scenes than I did! The Huntsman!" 

He lifts a stapled stack of fanfic pages and shakes it. "The mice are in the story, I promise. But between you and me…" He leans in, voice dropping conspiratorially. "I'm just glad the Huntsman is out of the picture."

Freakazoid flips through the pages absently, but freezes part way through. "Wait, what?!" He flips faster. "He's back?! Again?! Oh come on!" He groans and slaps the pages against his forehead. "If I had an agent, the author would be hearing from them right now!"

He storms off, muttering about second-tier superheroes, unfair scene time, and the deeply suspicious appeal of people who sound like Charlton Heston.

Notes:

About one year ago today (give or take a few days) I posted a fanfic for the first time. And now it's time for the inevitable sequel! More heroes! More villains! Same number of mice, though.

A quick note on Major Danger: he appeared in the background of a few Freakazoid episodes, but never had the chance to confront Freakazoid directly. To me, his character design practically shouts British supervillain, especially with that classic monocle. He's never officially been confirmed to be British, so I may have taken a few liberties in this story. But really, would a monocle lie?

Chapter 2: You've Got Mail

Summary:

Pinky is pretty sure Brain is up to his usual schemes of taking over the world... but without him. Brain is spending a lot of time on the computer talking to somebody else, and it all sounds just a little too nefarious.

Meanwhile, Freakazoid jumps on an email into the Internet looking for his friend Roddy MacStew—and maybe some answers about what the villains are working together to accomplish.

Dexter, of course, is not thrilled to be left behind.

Dexter paced back and forth in his bedroom. His state-of-the-art computer hummed away, diligently updating actuarial tables and plotting out his future retirement. It was how Dexter coped with stress. Like now.

"He'll be here!" Freakazoid calmly reminded him from within his head—for at least the third time in the last ten minutes. Dexter wasn't sure how he knew, but he had the distinct impression Freakazoid was lounging in a chair with his feet propped up. How could he be so relaxed?

"I know, I know!" Dexter said, throwing his hands into the air.

He whirled around when he heard the doorbell ringing downstairs. He bolted out of his room and made it halfway down the stairs when his dad, Douglas, opened the front door. Standing on the porch, as casual as ever, was Sergeant Cosgrove.

Dexter froze mid-step as Douglas slowly turned to stare at him. "Dexter? The police are here to see you."

Dexter's eyes darted nervously back and forth between Cosgrove and his dad. "Oh, yeah!" he blurted. "He's here to help me… with schoolwork." He cautiously descended the stairs, watching his dad warily.

Cosgrove nodded, completely straight-faced. "Big spelling test tomorrow. It's a doozy."

Douglas smiled and nodded, accepting this instantly. He gave his son a reassuring pat on the back, or at least something close to it. "Good luck with your test, son!"

Dexter chuckled uneasily. "Thanks. Uhm, why don't you come upstairs, Sergeant?" Dexter led Cosgrove up the stairs. Cosgrove looked around the bedroom with an appraising eye, but made no comments. He took a seat on Dexter's desk chair, spinning once before settling. Dexter remained standing. And pacing.

"So," Cosgrove said, folding his hands over his stomach. "The reason I'm here—besides the spelling test, obviously—is that I got some intel on that Data Hoarder company."

Dexter perked up. "Oh! Great! What do you think the villains were up to last night?"

"Well," Cosgrove said, "according to my sources, Data Hoarder was mapping the Internet."

Dexter blinked. "…Mapping the Internet?"

"Yep."

Dexter frowned. "That doesn't even make sense. The Internet isn't a physical place. How do you map the Internet?"

"I know," Cosgrove said, nodding sagely. "That's what I told them. But they said it anyway."

Dexter ran a hand through his hair, confused. "And what does 'mapping the Internet' even do?"

"Beats me," Cosgrove admitted. "But if a bunch of supervillains want it, it's probably bad."

Freakazoid's voice suddenly chimed in. "Wait-wait-wait—let me out! I want to tell Cosgrove something!"

Dexter paused for a moment. "Is it a stupid joke?" Cosgrove arched a lone eyebrow as Dexter seemed to start talking to himself, but said nothing.

"Yes! …Well, not just a joke! And not that stupid."

Dexter rubbed his temples. "Okay." He took a deep breath, then threw his arms out. "Freak out!" In an instant, Dexter vanished—replaced by a spinning top of blue and red energy. The blur coalesced into Freakazoid, grinning wildly.

Freakazoid clapped his hands together. "Okay, so this whole 'map of the Internet' thing gave me an idea. Imagine, for a moment, you're a moose."

Cosgrove nodded. "Sure."

"And you walk into a department store. You're looking for a new hat, but the clerk is a badger who doesn't trust mooses? Meese?"

Cosgrove squinted in thought. "It's just moose, I think."

"Even when there's more than one?"

"Yeah. Language is weird."

Dexter—now in Freakazoid's head—groaned. Freakazoid ignored him and pressed on. "Okay, okay! So anyway! You're a moose! And then a raccoon in a trench coat bursts in—"

Dexter sighed. "Where are you going with this? Just get to the end!"

Freakazoid grinned. "And then badger says, 'That's not how you spell ukulele!'"

Dexter stood slack-jawed in the gray emptiness of Freakazoid's mind. There was a long pause before Cosgrove nodded. "Yeah, that's a pretty good joke."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Dexter practically shouted.

Freakazoid lifted a finger. "Ah, well you see…" He squinched his face in thought. "That is…" He paused and furrowed his brows. "...I forgot."

Dexter groaned. "I'm coming back out now."

Freakazoid gasped dramatically. "WAIT! No, no, no! Hold on! I have a real idea!"

Dexter paused. "…Do you?"

Freakazoid nodded furiously. "Yes! And this time, it actually makes sense!" Freakazoid straightened up, cleared his throat, and took a very serious tone. "We email Roddy MacStew!"

Dexter blinked. "…Huh. That's actually not a bad idea." Roddy MacStew, former computer engineer of Apex Microchips, had been living in the World Wide Web for months, selflessly maintaining a protective firewall to prevent anyone else from gaining Freakazoid's Internet-based superpowers. If anyone would know the ins and outs of the Internet, it surely would be him.

Cosgrove nodded. "Even better than the moose thing." He stood up from the chair in front of the computer, and Freakazoid immediately hopped in.

Freakazoid cracked his knuckles and wiggled his fingers over the keyboard. "Alright! Time to reach out to our good pal Roddy MacStew!"

He began typing, his fingers dancing over the keyboard. Freakazoid cleared his throat, and read his message as he typed.

Dear Roddy, 

Hi! It's me, Freakazoid! Remember me? Of course you do! We had such a fun time on the World Wide Web after Brain stole my superpowers! It was great! Anyway, I'm writing because we have a situation. A supervillain-y situation! Maybe nothing! But maybe something! I dunno! How's the firewall? I bet it's great! Okay, write back soon! 

— Freakazoid.

Dexter watched the email being written. He tilted his head. "…That's it?"

"What?" Freakazoid blinked. "Too formal?"

Dexter sighed. "Just send it."

Freakazoid raised his hand dramatically in the air, and then dropped a single finger on the left mouse button. With the sound of an electronic whoosh of wind, the email was sent.

He sat back, arms behind his head. "Alright, now we wait for Roddy to—"

A chime sounded from the computer, and a message immediately popped up on the screen.

Freakazoid grinned. "See? Instant reply! What'd I tell ya, Dex?"

Dexter looked through Freakazoid's eyes. He did not like what he saw. "Uh, Freakazoid. It says 'undeliverable mail—recipient not found.'"

Freakazoid stared at the email. He tapped the side of the monitor, but nothing happened.

Dexter frowned. "Wait. You did enter the right email, right?"

"Of course!" Freakazoid pouted. "[email protected]!"

Dexter ran a hand through his hair. "Okay. But maybe there was a typo?"

Freakazoid shook his head furiously. "NO! Something is wrong, Dex! Roddy never ignores me! Not even that one time I sent him an email with nothing but pictures of llamas in hats!"

Dexter exhaled. "That was a weird day."

Freakazoid turned to Cosgrove. "Cosgrove, I think we have a problem."

Cosgrove nodded. "Yeah. You got really worked up about those llamas."

Freakazoid hopped up. "No, I mean a real problem! Roddy's gone! And that means…" He pointed dramatically at the screen. "I gotta go in there and find him!"

Dexter's eyes lit up. "Whoa! You mean—like—jump into the Internet?"

Freakazoid grinned. "Yup! I'll write another email, attach myself to it, hit send, and—zap!—I'm in cyberspace on my way to Roddy!"

Dexter nodded excitedly. "That's actually awesome. Okay, let's do it!"

Freakazoid paused and shook his head—Dexter could see his bedroom move back and forth through Freakazoid's eyes. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're not going."

Dexter's smile vanished. "…Wait, what? Why?"

Freakazoid wagged a finger. "Because last time you got sucked into the Internet, you almost went crazy! And then—" He gestured wildly to himself. "This happened!"

Dexter crossed his arms. "So? I'll be inside your head, won't I?"

"Mmmmmm… no," Freakazoid said bluntly. "I can't take that chance."

Dexter's face fell. "But I… I was actually starting to help with superhero stuff. And now I'm just… stuck being me again?"

Freakazoid hesitated for a split second. With Dexter inside his head, he couldn't see the teenager as much as feel his emotions. And Dexter wasn't mad. Not really. But he felt disappointed, and Freakazoid didn't like that. For a brief moment, Freakazoid thought about throwing caution to the wind as he always does, and taking Dex into the Internet with him. Maybe there was an alternative? Surely, there would be some way for him to turn this all around. "Hey, maybe Cosgrove will let you drive his cop car while I'm gone!"

Cosgrove shook his head. "Nope."

Freakazoid snapped his fingers. "Well, I tried! Anyway, time to launch Operation: Email Freakazoid!"

Dexter sighed, lowering his head. "Yeah. Whatever. Have fun."

Freakazoid cracked his knuckles again. "Alright! Second email to Roddy, coming up!" He typed quickly.

Dear Roddy,

It's me again! Update: You are missing! Unless you're just ignoring me, in which case, RUDE! But I don't think you'd do that. So I'm coming in to find you! Sit tight! Or, like, float tight? I dunno how gravity works in the Internet.

See you in a sec!

— Freakazoid

"Now I just got to climb in and attach myself to the email," Freakazoid casually explained as he awkwardly placed a foot on Dexter's desk, lifting it over the keyboard. Bracing himself on the chair, he then tried to shove his other leg in through the computer screen. Freakazoid made it into the screen up to the knee before he started getting a little off-balance.

"Okay, hang on—" he said, wiggling himself trying to get the angle just right. He bent at the waist and then rotated his shoulders. He got his other foot into the computer screen, and managed to get most of both legs in. His arms started flapping as he twisted, trying to get his torso through. It was like watching someone carry a sofa around a corner on a narrow staircase.

Cosgrove hmmed to himself. "Do you need me to hold a limb or something?"

"I got it!" Freakazoid grunted. "The angle's weird! Hang on—"

With one final push, Freakazoid slipped inside. Everything except his head. "Okay. This is where we part ways, Dex."

A strange, peeling effect rippled over Freakazoid's face, like two different frequencies overlapping on a glitchy television. A split second later, Dexter sat alone in his chair. Freakazoid was now inside the computer screen, waving.

Dexter exhaled. "Yeah. Good luck, Freakazoid." He clicked the mouse, and with another whoosh sound, the email was sent. Both Freakazoid and the email vanished.

Cosgrove glanced at Dexter. "Hey, kid, you want to go see—"

"No," Dexter said abruptly. He turned in his chair. "Sorry, Sergeant. Maybe… another time?"

Cosgrove nodded. "Just let me know." He stepped toward the door.

Dexter hesitated. "Sergeant?"

Cosgrove paused.

"Thanks. For your help."

Cosgrove nodded once more. "Anytime, kid." And with that, he left the room.

 

---

 

The halls of Acme Labs were growing dark. Scientists gathered their things, shutting off computers, flipping switches. Lights winked out one by one. A security guard yawned, locked the front doors, and whistled as he left.

The building was eerily quiet, until a vent suddenly popped loose from a wall. From inside, two tiny figures emerged. 

Pinky landed with a thud. "Narf!"

Brain followed with a gentler landing, brushing himself off. "Do you have to be so noisy, Pinky?"

"It's part of my charm!" Pinky helpfully explained. "So, Brain! What are we going to do tonight?"

"Ah, well," Brain said hesitatingly. "I have a… meeting tonight."

Pinky's eyes gleamed. "Oooo! A meeting with cowed members of the United Nations? Oh, oh, I know! Veiled threats to the Queen of England?"

"It's… a highly technical meeting. A scientific query about… gravity." He straightened up importantly. "The fundamental nature of gravity, its role in quantum entanglement, and the unresolved complexities of gravitational lensing within a multidimensional framework."

Brain paused, eyes drifting slightly. "Gravity is the most enigmatic of the fundamental forces. It pulls all things together—inescapable, relentless. No matter how great the distance, its influence remains. Even when unseen, it exerts a quiet, undeniable force upon the world."

His expression softened for just a moment, surely dwelling upon the scientific wonders of the universe. "It is… inevitable."

Pinky blinked. "Like how a bowl of oatmeal gets hard when you leave it sitting out!" 

Brain snapped back to reality. "NO, Pinky, it is not like oatmeal! It is a fundamental force of the universe! A precise, calculable, inescapable—"

"So when does our meeting start, Brain?"

Brain's eye twitched. "Not our meeting, Pinky. My meeting."

Pinky's ears drooped a fraction. "Oh. Again? I guess I'll just find something else to do."

"An excellent idea, Pinky."

Pinky wandered down the hall, tapping his chin. He made his way into a research lab and plopped himself down on top of a table.

"You know, it's been a weird couple of days," he began. "I miss Dexter and Freakazoid and the aaaahmazing adventures we had! And my zappy-zoop powers! But… it was nice having things back to normal." Pinky chuckled quietly to himself. "Well, as normal as it can be when your best friend wants to take over the world every night!"

Pinky sat quietly, looking at his hands. "But now things feel different again."

Pinky's ears drooped slightly, and he kicked his feet idly from the edge of the table. "Brain's acting all secretive. I don't mind, really! Brain's always busy with something. But… I dunno."

He tilted his head. "Sometimes, I feel like he's plotting schemes with somebody else."

There was a moment of silence before Pinky nodded to himself. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm probably just overthinking things! You're right."

Pinky reached over and gave his listener an affectionate pat. "You're such a good listener, Lefty." It was an inflated latex glove, its fingers stretched outward like a tiny balloon hand. A crudely drawn Sharpie face smiled back at him. 

Pinky gasped as an idea struck him. "Do you think I should go check on Brain? Just to make sure he's okay?"

He turned to look at Lefty expectantly. Pinky's expression fell. "What? No, of course not!" He sighed. "I'm just… worried, that's it."

Pinky narrowed his eyes. "Oooh, I see. You think I'm being jealous!"

He crossed his arms. "That's ridiculous, Lefty! I trust Brain!" Pinky exhaled. "Mostly."

Pinky leaned in, as if listening to the response of the inflated latex glove. His ears drooped slightly. "Well, sure, I could just let it go… but what if Brain needs me?"

He frowned. "No, Lefty! I will not just sit here while Brain secretly plots with someone else!"

Pinky stood up dramatically. "I thought you understood me, Lefty!" He turned away, shoulders squared. "Fine! If you don't support me, I'll just do it myself!"

He hopped off the table, but paused at the bottom. He turned and gave Lefty one last disappointed glance. "You've changed, Lefty."

And with that, he marched out of the lab.

Lefty, as always, remained silent.

Pinky tiptoed down the hall, pressing himself dramatically against the wall. He was mostly quiet, except for him softly humming a spy movie theme under his breath. "Dunna-nunna, dunna-nunna… sneaky-sneaky, spy-spy…"

He slowly peeked around the corner. Inside the dimly lit lab, Brain sat at a glowing computer screen, carefully hopping from key to key on the keyboard as he typed out messages. His tiny face was illuminated by the eerie light of the monitor. Brain muttered as he typed. "Yes… we are of one mind on this issue."

Pinky's ears perked up.

"Their foolishness will be their undoing," Brain continued. Pinky's eyes widened in alarm. "Indeed, they will not suspect a thing."

Pinky gasped loudly—then immediately clapped both hands over his mouth. But Brain kept typing, oblivious.

Pinky stumbled back, panicked. "Oh no! What do I do?!" He pressed himself flat against the wall, eyes darting. "Okay, okay… whatever I do… don't panic." He sucked in a breath. "Oh well, too late for that."

He slid to the floor in a cartoonish crumple, his ears twitching as Brain continued muttering to himself behind the door. Pinky sat in silence for a moment, blinking up at the ceiling.

Then he sprang to his feet. "No! I can do this!" He struck a dramatic pose, hand to chin. "What would Brain do in this situation?" Pinky stood quietly in thought for a moment. "Oh, I know! He'd come up with a needlessly complicated plan! That's perfect!"

He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "Operation: Figure Out What Brain Is Up To And Why It Doesn't Involve Me, His Best Friend… is a go."

 

---

 

A darkened warehouse sat on the outskirts of Washington, empty but not entirely abandoned. A loading door rumbled open, metal clanking loudly in the silence. Six figures slipped inside, their voices low but eager.

"Hoo-whee, I wonder what the brains of this operation's got planned for us this time!"

"You should have been at the heist last night. It was quite the raucous event."

"I say, that Freakazoid chap was quite the pain in the backside!"

"Freakazoid? Fuggedaboutit, the guy's a nightmare."

"That'ssss why we're all here, issssn't it?"

"Heh. By the time we're done, that city slicker'll be buzzard food."

Overhead, fluorescent lights flickered to life, casting a harsh glow over the empty space. At the center of the warehouse, a lone table stood beneath the buzzing lights. Atop it, a computer hummed and whirred, its modem screeching as it connected to the Internet. The figures gathered around it, watching the screen intently. A pixelated feed flickered to life. A silhouetted head appeared on screen, features obscured by shadowy distortion—someone with a large head and ears pointing out from the side. The voice crackled through the speakers. "Greetings, villains."

The pixelated figure on the screen remained still, its voice low and deliberate. "The heist was simple in design, yet elegant in execution." The villains leaned in, listening in respectful silence. "The facility was infiltrated. The data retrieved. Our enemies, none the wiser."

The figure on the screen paused. "And yet…" The static crackled slightly as the voice shifted to a sharper tone. "Half of the data was useless!"

Cobra Queen flinched. 

"It was corrupted. Glitched. Rendered worthless." The shadowy figure didn't move, but Cobra Queen, Major Danger, and Cave Guy all shrunk back just a little.

"You three. You were supposed to ensure a clean retrieval."

Major Danger bristled. "Now, see here—"

"ENOUGH." The villains froze. Then—just as suddenly as the rage had come—it was gone.

The figure's voice softened, almost… encouraging. "Still, setbacks are inevitable. And despite this failure… this team shows promise. I gathered you all because of your amazing and unique abilities." The villains visibly relaxed.

"Cobra Queen, your powerful venom is a mighty weapon, and you have the uncanny ability to control snakes." Cobra Queen smirked.

"Major Danger—the most ruthless hunter of Europe." Major Danger straightened his pith helmet haughtily.

"Cave Guy, your raw strength is formidable." Cave Guy grinned smugly.

"Longhorn has unmatched fortitude and power." Longhorn chuckled to himself.

"Kid Carrion, your deadly aim is peerless." Kid Carrion spun a revolver around his finger before smoothly holstering it.

The voice hesitated. Arms Akimbo stood straight and puffed his chest out in anticipation of the upcoming praise, his arms proudly placed on his hips. "And… er… Arms Akimbo… your… elbow superpower is… pointy." Arms Akimbo visibly deflated.

The voice continued smoothly as if nothing happened. "You were all chosen for a reason. Each of you possesses abilities that, alone, make you a menace against Freakazoid. But together—"

"So, what is our team name, anyway?" Longhorn cut in, completely derailing the moment.

"The Legion of Mayhem?"

"Freak-Wreckers!"

"Doom Kittens!"

The villains froze. All eyes turned to the short, gray-skinned figure who had somehow appeared among them. He laughed nervously to himself.

Cave Guy rolled his eyes. "Who invited Waylon?"

"What?" Waylon Jeepers sneered. "They've got tiny little fangs. They're very sharp!"

The leader's voice rose over mayhem. "The name doesn't matter—only results!"

"The data we retrieved was incomplete. Without a full map, the next phase of the plan is impossible." A glitchy, pixelated diagram appears on the screen—an intricate web of servers and connections. "We need a direct access point to the Internet itself."

The villains exchanged glances.

"So, we will take what we need from DARPA."

The villains stiffened. Even they knew that was a bold move.

"Indeed," the shadowed figure continued. "DARPA holds the largest cyber-mapping archives in the country. Their research into classified digital architecture is exactly what we need to complete our objective." There was a brief pause, and then a sharp, clearly rhetorical question. "Any… disagreements?

It was clear that no answer was needed, and the leader moved on, unchallenged. "Very well. We are of one mind on this issue."

Arms Akimbo cleared his throat hesitantly. "Ah, what about their security?"

"Their foolishness will be their undoing!" The static crackled. "Indeed, they will not suspect a thing."

Longhorn tilted his head. "So... we're not goin' with Doom Kittens?"

 

to be continued

Chapter 3: The Fresh Mouse of Acme Labs

Summary:

Lord Bravery has arrived in Washington, D.C., fully prepared to fight evil—just as soon as he survives the bureaucratic gauntlet that is airport security.

Meanwhile, Freakazoid dives into the digital depths of the Internet in search of his old pal Roddy MacStew—but something big, sniffy, and suspicious is already on his trail.

And across town at Acme Labs, Pinky launches a well-meaning mission of his own to uncover what Brain’s up to. Can Pinky and an inflated latex glove outsmart Brain?

Nigel Skunkthorpe—known to some as the mighty Lord Bravery, champion of justice, defender of the realm, and barely remembered British superhero—stood in line, shifting his weight impatiently. Perhaps saying he was known to "some" was a bit of an exaggeration. At least a few proud British knew of Lord Bravery. For certain his wife and mother-in-law did. But whether they would be considered proud British, or they would consider Nigel a proper superhero, would be a matter of debate. And after an exhausting international flight from London, they were certainly the last two people Nigel wanted to think about. No, he was ready to get on with his mission. Unfortunately, the bureaucracy of Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. had other plans.

"Next!" A bored customs officer gestured him forward.

Nigel strode up to the counter, placing his passport down with careful precision. The officer didn't even look at him. Instead, he lazily flipped through a stack of forms.

"Purpose of visit?"

"Business."

"Duration of stay?"

"As long as it takes."

The officer finally looked up. "…Sir, I need an exact number of days."

Nigel sighed. "Fine. Let's say… three? Maybe four? I don't know—it depends on how quickly I catch my man!"

The officer blinked. "Of course, sir. I won't judge your lifestyle choices as long as the paperwork is correct." He slid a form across the counter.

Nigel glanced down, skimming the questions. Then, his eyes widened.

"What's your favorite thing about me? Ideal body type?! What are you looking for in a—" He sputtered. "No, no, NO! I am in pursuit of an international criminal!"

The line behind him went quiet.

The officer sighed, but his expression was otherwise unchanged. "Sir, are you bringing any weapons into the country?"

Nigel sighed again. "No, just my wit, my impeccable sense of justice, and—"

The officer pulled out a new form, replacing the first one. "I need you to fill out this declaration, stating you are not entering the country for unsanctioned vigilante activities."

Nigel stared. "You have a form for that?"

The officer met his gaze without blinking. "Sir. This is America."

Nigel begrudgingly took the form and grabbed a pen from the tin on the counter. He turned away from the counter, muttering to himself, clutching the paper in one hand and the cheap plastic pen in the other. Now, he just needed somewhere to sit.

There was row after row of brutalist metal chairs, cold and unwelcoming. Armrests separated every seat, making them just a little too narrow to stretch out comfortably. And yet almost every seat was filled with a traveler. One lone bench with actual padding was already occupied by a snoring businessman.

Nigel scowled. "Honestly, how difficult is it to make a comfortable chair? This is America, for heaven's sake! You people just love sitting!"

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he spotted a workable seat. It was less metal torture device, more slightly-inclined backbreaker—but it would do. Nigel sat down with a huff, smoothed out the form on his lap, and uncapped the pen. He pressed it to the paper.

Nothing. Not a single mark. He flipped the paper over and furiously scribbled on the side of the form, trying to coax the ink out, but the pen refused.

Nigel stared at it. "Oh, you cannot be serious."

Nigel grumbled under his breath as he bared the pen down on the declaration form.

He gave the pen a violent shake. Still nothing.

Finally, with a strangled growl, he shot up from his seat and stormed back to the counter to grab another pen.

Armed with a fresh (hopefully functional) writing instrument, he turned around—only to find that a sweet-looking elderly woman had taken his seat. She offered him a kind smile.

Nigel stood frozen. "You've got to be joking."

The old woman adjusted her cardigan, settling in comfortably. 

In theatrical succession, Nigel opened his mouth, closed it, and then exhaled dramatically. Then, without another word, he marched over to the nearest oversized plant pot and sat down on the edge. It was a cheap plastic ficus tree, dusty and slightly lopsided. The pot wobbled slightly beneath him.

Nigel grimaced as his feet bounced slightly, trying to stay balanced while filling out the form on his lap. He sighed again. "Brilliant. Just brilliant."

The pen worked. The paperwork was complete. He exhaled. "Finally."

He stood up with purpose, smoothed out his coat, and strode back toward the counter. With all the dignity he could muster, he slammed the form onto the desk. "There. Signed. Happy now?"

The officer took the paper, glancing over it lazily. "Sir, you didn't check the box confirming you are not a carrier of livestock diseases."

Nigel blinked. "…I beg your pardon?"

The officer pointed at a tiny checkbox near the bottom. "You need to confirm that you are not bringing any cattle, sheep, or goats into the country."

Nigel stared at him. "Do I look like I am smuggling goats?!"

"Sir, I don't make the rules."

Nigel snatched the pen off the desk, muttering violently under his breath. With pure, unfiltered irritation, he pressed down hard and drew a thick, angry X in the box.

The officer took the paper, gave it a quick glance—then shook his head. "Sir, this paperwork is now invalid."

Nigel's eye twitched. "…What?"

"You were supposed to check the box, not put an X in the box. You'll need to fill out a new form."

Nigel gripped the counter. His entire body went rigid. "OH, FOR THE LOVE OF—!"

Then he stopped as a thought crossed his mind. He slowly inhaled and smoothed out his coat. He leaned forward on the counter, lowering his voice to a calm, conspiratorial tone. "I didn't want to have to do this," he said smoothly.

The officer raised an eyebrow. "But you see," Nigel continued, dropping his voice to a secretive whisper, "I am, in fact, a British superhero. I have traveled here on important international business to assist your fine country." He offered his most confident, diplomatic smile.

The officer stared at him. "Oh! Why didn't you say so?"

Nigel blinked. "Really?"

The officer nodded, reaching under the desk. He plopped down a massive stack of paperwork, easily three times the size of all the paperwork Nigel had filled out before. "You'll need to fill these out, too, then."

Nigel stared at the stack. There was a long, pained silence as he wondered what he had done to deserve this. Then, Nigel inhaled sharply through his nose. "Brilliant."

 

---

 

A streak of blue lightning shot through the digital void, twisting and turning as it zipped along glowing neon pathways. Atop it, grinning wildly, was Freakazoid. But he was not running or zipping along. No, he was riding. A horse. But not quite a horse—it had, of all things, an envelope for a body.

Because, of course, he was traveling via email.

Freakazoid held the reins, laughing wildly as the bizarre creature galloped through cyberspace, hooves clopping against an invisible, glowing floor. "Hyah! Faster, Email Horse that I just named Eudora! The cyber frontier awaits!"

The data-stream around him was a riot of color—emails, images, and stray packets of information zoomed by in all directions.

Everything—no matter its origin or purpose—was heading for the same place. Up ahead, looming like a digital colossus, was a giant Recycle Bin.

It rose high into the infinite void, its surface flickering with discarded files, half-loaded images, and broken bits of data. The closer he got, the louder the echoing "FWOOMPH!" of incoming files being permanently deleted inside.

Freakazoid's eyes widened. "Oooooh. That's probably not good."

As Eudora galloped toward the skyscraper-sized Recycle Bin, Freakazoid couldn't help but feel like something was… off.

Floating just above the data stream, flapping tiny, pointless wings, was a giant, disembodied nose.

Freakazoid pulled on the reins, and Eudora came to a stop. He blinked. "Huh. That's not something you see every day. And I'm riding an Email Horse."

The nose twitched. Its massive nostrils flared as it sniffed with a great big inhale.

Then, a metallic voice echoed through cyberspace. "NETWORK TRAFFIC IDENTIFIED. SEARCHING FOR TARGET: RODDY MACSTEW."

Freakazoid tilted his head. "Yup, that is definitely the weirdest thing I've seen today."

The nose turned, and its giant nostrils wiggled. It sniffed again, pulling in air.

Then, its electronic voice spoke. "IDENTITY MATCH: FREAKAZOID."

Freakazoid grinned. "Ooooh! You know me! I'm Internet famous!"

The nose flapped its tiny wings, hovering closer. "SCANNING FOR ADDITIONAL DATA."

Freakazoid shrugged. "Weird, but harmless. Alright, Mister Giant Nose, what's next?"

The nose inhaled. Not a simple sniff, but a hard and sudden pull of air. A powerful gust of wind sucked Freakazoid straight into the left nostril.

"GAH—" was about as much noise as Freakazoid was able to make before he slammed to a stop halfway inside a nostril, his arms and legs flailing outside while the rest of him from the shoulders up was lodged deep in the digital nasal cavity.

He felt something slimy. He glanced around and  immediately regretted it. The walls of the nostril were lined with green, glowing, sticky data mucus.

Freakazoid twitched violently. "Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope!"

The Sniffer let out a whirring noise. "ERROR: LARGE FOREIGN OBJECT DETECTED IN NASAL PASSAGE."

Freakazoid kicked wildly. "Yeah, and his name is Freakazoid! LEMME OUTTA HERE!"

The Sniffer flapped its wings in distress, trying to clear its nose.

Freakazoid kept struggling. He placed his hands on the edges of the giant nostril and tried pulling himself out. "This is officially the most disgusting thing I've ever—" He paused, still firmly implanted inside of the giant flying nose despite his best effort. Then, he grimaced. "Wait. No. Second-most disgusting thing. The Booger Beast still wins."

Freakazoid braced himself against the Sniffer's nostril. "Okay, okay… I just gotta time it right…" He pressed his arms against the outside of the nose, and waited as the Sniffer tried to inhale again. And then as it let out a massive exhale, Freakazoid pushed. He shot out of the nostril like a cannonball, spinning in midair, green digital mucus still clinging to his hair.

"Ha! Freedo—" Then, Freakazoid realized something. He was really, really high up, floating above a swirling vortex of data streams, random file fragments, and suspicious shareware. Before gravity—or whatever passed for gravity on the Internet—had a chance to assert itself, Freakazoid lunged towards the Sniffer, clinging desperately to the slippery, rubbery surface of the Sniffer's bridge.

"Ugh! You're so oily! Haven't you heard of Stridex pads?" Freakazoid exclaimed. He kicked his feet, trying to get a better grip. His eyes got bigger as he heard the Sniffer inhaling another deep breath. He tried twisting away, but Freakazoid was yanked backwards, back into the nostril.

Butt first.

His legs flailed wildly as his posterior became firmly lodged in the nasal cavity. He dangled helplessly outside, arms waving. "Y'know, somehow, this feels worse."

"ERROR: LARGE FOREIGN OBJECT DETECTED IN NASAL PASSAGE."

Freakazoid tried crossing his arms petulantly, but couldn't quite get them in position thanks to hanging upside down. He pouted. "Look, buddy, I tried to leave! This one's on you!"

The Sniffer flapped its tiny wings harder and harder, but it wasn't helping. The massive nose wobbled, dipped, and began to lose altitude. Freakazoid grimaced. "Oh, that's not good."

The Sniffer drifted lower, tilting slightly as it struggled. Freakazoid turned his head, trying to get his bearings. "Uh-oh." The gargantuan Recycling Bin, once looming dangerously in the distance, was getting closer and closer as the Sniffer drifted straight towards it.

Freakazoid wiggled furiously, trying to pull himself free. "Curse my perfect posterior! If there's one time it would have been better to have a flat bottom, it's now."

The Sniffer ignored him, its robotic voice crackling. "INITIATING PERMANENT DATA REMOVAL."

Freakazoid's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Whoa whoa whoa! Hang on! I'm not deletable!"

The Sniffer simply sputtered, its wings flapping wildly. It tilted sideways, and Freakazoid flinched as the Recycle Bin's massive, gaping lid came into view. A deep, echoing FWOOMPH sounded as another batch of discarded files plummeted into the abyss.

Freakazoid gulped. "Okay, uh—new plan! Let's not go in there!"

Freakazoid kicked, squirmed, and flailed. His eyes darted around wildly before he broke into a mischievous grin. He reached across to the other nostril, fingers wiggling. The Sniffer's entire body—which was technically just a nose—began to shudder as he tickled the edge of the opposite nostril.

Its robotic voice crackled. "ERROR: LARGE FOREIGN OBJECT DETECTED. INITIATING—"

And then the Sniffer let out a thunderous sneeze, launching Freakazoid like a snot-covered missile. Freakazoid relished in his newfound freedom, his arms spread wide as he soared through cyberspace, victorious. Until he realized he was heading straight for the Recycle Bin. His smile immediately vanished.

"…Oh no!" Freakazoid started paddling wildly in midair, as if he could somehow swim away. Despite his effort, the Recycling Bin was rapidly approaching. "C'mooooon, cartoon physics! Just this once!" There was a loud FWOOMPH as another batch of deleted files vanished forever. Freakazoid squeezed his eyes shut.

Then, something wrapped around his midsection. A tight, spiraling chain coiled around him, yanking him backwards just before he crossed the point of no return. Freakazoid blinked, suddenly being pulled toward solid ground. He landed with a thud, dazed but unharmed.

Slowly, he sat up, looking down at what had saved him. A chain of interconnected web rings unraveled from around his torso, shimmering with neon-blue energy. Freakazoid tilted his head. "Huh. That's new. Where'd you guys come from?"

A gruff, familiar voice answered. "Can ye believe someone tried deletin' t'Best of Haggis web ring?"

Freakazoid whirled around. 

Standing proudly atop a digital outcropping, face painted in blue cyber-woad, was none other than Roddy MacStew.

Freakazoid's jaw dropped. "Roddy?! What's with the Braveheart cosplay?"

Roddy grinned. "Welcome to the wilds of the World Wide Web, laddie."

 

---

 

Acme Labs hummed with the usual late-night whirring of machines and droning of fluorescent lights. Brain was somewhere in the building, locked in his own work. Pinky sat on a table, deep in thought. Papers, string, and an impressive number of glue sticks were scattered around him. It was time to get serious.

"We might not see eye to eye anymore," Pinky said. By way of reply, Lefty the inflated latex glove swayed back and forth slightly in the climate controlled air conditioning.

Pinky nodded solemnly. "But you've made a very compelling argument showing your support." He reached out, gently padding Lefty on the knuckle.  "I really appreciate that."

Pinky suddenly brightened with a smile, standing up. "Okay, you're back on the team, Lefty!" He grabbed Lefty's thumb in his hand and shook it.

Pinky pulled out a sketchbook covered in crayon, glitter, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. "Now, it's time to start Operation: Figure Out What Brain Is Up To And Why It Doesn't Involve Me, His Best Friend!"

Pinky rolled his eyes. "Well, I'm sorry, but I usually don't come up with the plan names. You can just call it… Operation F.O.W.B.I.U.T.A.W.I.D.I.M.H.B.F. for short if you'd like."

Pinky leaned in and whispered. "Now, Lefty, here's what I need you to do…"

What followed was a plan so foolproof, so precise, that it would either go down as Pinky's greatest success—or end in a disaster so catastrophic that it would be spoken of in hushed tones for years to come.

Pinky had everything in place for Operation F.O.W.B.I.U.T.A.W.I.D.I.M.H.B.F.

The plan hinged on Lefty—good old reliable Lefty. Lefty was strapped to a wheeled lab cart, gripping a canister of compressed gas with a combination of unwavering determination and most of a roll of duct tape. Lefty stood ready for his most important role yet.

At the back of the cart, a tangle of electrical cords held a collection of metal trays, empty tin cans, and what appeared to be an old coffee thermos.

Pinky was on top of the cart beside Lefty, whispering to him. "Alright, Lefty. This is your moment."

Lefty did not respond. Because he was an inflated latex glove.

Pinky nodded solemnly. "I know, I know. It's a big responsibility. But I believe in you. All you need to do is cause the distraction! Make as much noise as possible so Brain will leave his computer."

Pinky smiled. "And, yes, you do look quite dashing with that duct tape!"

Pinky hopped down and put his fingers on the release valve of the canister. "You know your job! Now—onward!" He tightened his grip and spun the valve. There was a brief hiss of gas, and then the lab cart shot forward like a rocket, immediately lifting off the ground. The cart, electrical cords, and everything attached to it sped down the hallway with nothing touching the floor.

On the cart, Lefty held on as best as the duct tape allowed. Its inflated fingers flapped wildly from the sudden acceleration as the hallways of Acme Labs blurred past in a streak of white and gray. The metal trays, tin cans, and the lone coffee thermos flailed wildly behind them, but failed completely to make the intended racket. It sped past the lab Brain sat in, appearing as a brief gray blur and only making a quick whooshing sound as it flew over the linoleum floor.

For a moment, Brain stopped typing on the computer. He paused, and slowly turned his head, but the hallway on the other side of the doorway was empty by the time he looked. "Hmmph. Must have been the air conditioning."

Unaware of the success or failure of the plan, Lefty continued onward riding the rocketing lab cart, up until it smashed headlong into a wall with a deafening crash. The wall cracked, the floor shook, and a ceiling tile toppled down from above.

Brain looked up from the keyboard with a start. "What in the name of Coulomb's Law is that racket?" He shook his head. "I cannot afford distractions when I am so close to achieving my goal."

He quickly typed for a moment longer and minimized his program. Then, with one last glance at the monitor, Brain left the room. 

As soon as Brain had left, Pinky quickly dashed inside, nearly bumping into a rolling whiteboard. It wobbled slightly, knocking a dry erase marker to the floor. Pinky looked up at the scientific scribblings. "Huh. Laws of attraction? I guess Brain really is studying gravity."

He turned to the computer on the desk up against the wall. "But why's he spending so much time on the computer?" He scampered up the office chair to the keyboard. "Let's see what diabolical programs are on Brain's computer! Ooo, there's Minesweeper! And Solitaire! Something called AOL Instant Messenger… Oh, there's that Space Cadet pinball game!"

Just then, the computer dinged as a chat notification appeared on the screen. Pinky squinted at the new window with its flashing title bar trying to catch his attention. Pinky read over the words slowly. "Your insights are remarkable, Brainpower. I feel as though we are of one mind. I eagerly anticipate the moment we can finally meet face to face—there is so much to plan."

Pinky gasped, pressing his hands to his cheeks. "It's all true! Brain is planning without me!" He clutched his chest. "I… I trusted him!" He dramatically turned away from the screen. "How could he do this to me?" Pinky placed the back of his hand against his forehead and nearly swooned. "What if… what if Brain wants to take over the world with somebody else?"

Pinky's drama stopped when he picked up the sounds of tiny footsteps in the hall, along with Brain's low grumbling. "Blasted runaway cart… now where did Pinky get to? He is undoubtedly behind this cacophonous fiasco."

Pinky hopped off the desk, his head swiveling left and right, looking for any possible exit other than the only door to the room. Brain's muttering continued, getting closer, "Bah! I don't have time to waste on such trivialities."

Pinky made a run towards the door, but there wasn't enough time. He veered in the direction of the rolling whiteboard instead as Brain's footsteps grew louder. He scrambled behind one of the wheels of the whiteboard and ducked low. 

Brain stepped into the room, the door behind him slowly closing. Pinky pressed himself as close as he could, hiding behind the wheel of the whiteboard. But he had forgotten one key quality about wheels.

Wheels roll.

The whiteboard started rolling slightly to one side, and Pinky panicked, scrambling to stay behind the wheel. Brain's gaze followed the whiteboard, his eyes narrowing. He glanced at the floor, noticing the fallen dry-erase marker. His brow furrowed slightly. Then, he turned—and noticed the new chat notification on the computer monitor.

Brain inhaled deeply. "Already?" He rushed to the computer.

Pinky, still behind the whiteboard, was watching the door continue to close. His eyes went wide. He had only seconds left before he was trapped. He bolted, sprinting for the exit. He could only hope that Brain was too busy reading his chat messages to notice anything else. With one final leap, Pinky dove through—yanking his tail behind him a split second before the door snapped shut. He lay flat on the floor, eyes wide. "Narf! That was too close!"

Pinky slowly sat up, pulling his knees up to his chest. His ears drooped. "I can't believe it! My best friend is scheming without me." He got to his feet, his face hardening. "I know what I must do! I… I have no other choice!"

 

---

 

"Dexter! There's a mouse here to see you!"

Dexter barely looked up from the spreadsheets of actuary tables on his computer. He let out a tired sigh at the sound of his dad yelling from downstairs. "Dad, I'm kind of busy."

He turned back to his monitor, rubbing his temples. Maybe if he just finished this long-term amortization schedule, he could stop thinking about—

Wait.

Mouse?

Dexter blinked. He swiveled his chair toward his bedroom door. Did he hear that right? He poked his head out of his bedrdoom and saw his dad standing by the open front door, hand on the doorknob. And on the porch stood Pinky with a Pinky-sized suitcase behind him.

"Another spelling test, son?" Douglas asked.

Dexter shook his head. "Uh… group project. With the… foreign exchange student?"

Douglas simply nodded. He watched as his son and the little white mouse with tiny little luggage went up the stairs. He stared for a moment even after they were gone, his face shifting from confusion to concern several times. First there was the police at the door, and now this… mouse. He turned to his wife Debbie, who was sitting on the couch watching television.

After a moment's hesitation, Douglas cleared his throat. "Debbie, do you think maybe… Dexter is hanging out with the wrong crowd?"

Debbie didn't even look up from the television. "Oh no, dear. Dexter is a social recluse and doesn't hang out with anybody."

Douglas blinked. "That's worse… right?"

Upstairs, Dexter quickly closed his bedroom door once he and Pinky were inside. Dexter stared. It was all he could think of to do at the moment. Pinky smiled brightly up at him.

"Pinky?" Dexter finally said, rubbing his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

Pinky patted the suitcase. "Well, it's not like we're perfect strangers!"

Dexter opened his mouth. Then shut it. Then opened it again. "... wait. What?"

"I thought about going to see Freakazoid," Pinky continued, tapping a finger to his chin, "but we'd be a pretty odd couple! Also, I don't know where he lives."

"Pinky, I—"

"Maybe all three of us could be together! But, you know, three's company!" Pinky giggled nervously. "Aah, that would be happy days!"

Dexter squinted. "Wait—are you just naming sitcoms?"

Pinky gasped, eyes wide. "You got that?!"

"Pinky. I hang around Freakazoid." Dexter pinched the bridge of his nose. "I get hit with at least six obscure pop culture references before breakfast."

Pinky clasped his hands together. "Oh, I knew moving in with you would be better than staying with Brain!"

Dexter once again felt he wasn't prepared for whatever was happening around him. "Wait. Moving in? Pinky, what is happening?"

Pinky sighed dramatically, placing one hand over his heart. "Oh, Dexter, it's dreadful! Brain is plotting without me! My own best friend has been sneaking off, whispering in the dark, mysteriously typing mysterious things on a computer!"

"... and this somehow means you live here now?"

Pinky nodded. "Well, obviously!"

Dexter sighed. "Do you think that maybe you could have asked first?"

Pinky gasped. "Oh, but Dexter, if I asked and you said no, that would have been terribly awkward! For you, I mean. That's how I knew you wouldn't say no!"

Dexter groaned and sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing his face.

Pinky, unfazed, perked up. "Oh! Before I forget—could you help me get the rest of my things off the porch?"

Dexter froze. He slowly lifted his head up. "The rest?"

Pinky nodded cheerfully. "Oh, yes! There's still the other suitcases, my workout bag, my emergency pajama satchel, my Beanie Babies tote—"

Dexter groaned again, louder this time, and flopped backward on his bed.

 

to be continued…

 

A beat thumps in the background.

Freakazoid is wearing a luridly neon baseball cap, precariously perched backwards on top of his hair. A pair of wraparound sunglasses are placed partially above his forehead, and his feet are covered with mismatched high-top sneakers. He clears his throat.

"Now this is a story all about how

Pinky's life got flipped, turned upside-down,

And I'd like to take a minute, so don't you grouse,

I'll tell you how he ended up livin' in Dexter's house!"

"In Acme Labs the mouse was raised

In the research labs he spent most of his days

Chillin' out, snackin', crackin' good jokes

He liked hangin' out with Brain and other cool folks."

"But his best friend Brain started actin' real weird

Started makin' trouble just like Pinky feared

He had one little fright and things weren't easy

He said "I'm movin' with my besties like Dex in D.C."

Freakazoid spins on his feet, and crosses his arms over his chest after he completes a full turn. "Thanks, Will! Please don't sue—I'm technically a different genre!"

Notes:

I've been wanting to introduce Lord Bravery for a while now. Originally, I thought about writing a little one-shot for him, but then I realized I had already made Major Danger into a British villain. So who better to attempt to bring him to justice than a British superhero like Lord Bravery?

Chapter 4: A Tale of Two Capes

Summary:

Lord Bravery and the Huntsman reluctantly team up to stop the villains from executing the next phase of their mysterious leader's plan—assuming they don't trip over each other's egos first.

Meanwhile, Freakazoid is increasingly upset that he's barely in this chapter, and would like to speak to whoever's in charge of the scene distribution.

Freakazoid is frantically reading through pages, his expression growing more and more incredulous until his eyebrows are practically into his hairline.

He finally gathers the strength to speak. "What is going on with this chapter?" He flips through the pages again. "Where am I? Where is Freakazoid?"

He angrily jabs his finger on the first page. "This fourth wall breaking scene is practically my only scene! You know who gets to chew the scenery in this chapter?"

He flips a page with exaggerated disdain. "I'll tell you who! Well, I would tell you, but I don't remember their names! That's how unimportant they are! Just a bunch of characters that only appeared in a few shorts from the show. From my show!"

"Ugh!" Freakazoid groans, tossing the pages in the air. "I need to go lay down. Or possibly scream into a throw pillow."

 

---

 

Deep in the forest of Glover Archbold Park, the Huntsman heard the call. His keen ears picked up its distant cry, carrying through the trees, down from Wisconsin Avenue, past brick and steel, until it reached its mighty source: the Horn of Urgency, mounted atop a police precinct in Washington, D.C.

Destiny had spoken, and she said a hero was needed.

He immediately dropped everything he was doing, which at that moment was playing a card game with a bear. He glanced at the cards in his hand forlornly. It was a good hand, too. Two Wild Draw Fours.

The Huntsman grimaced, his large white teeth shining in a way only possible with heroic magically enhanced teeth. "Another time, perhaps."

The bear across from him let out a soft growl. Then, with the quiet dignity of a true competitor, it reached down and ate one of the cards.

With the grace of an antelope and speed of a cheetah, the Huntsman dashed out of the park and onto the expressway, his feet weaving in and out of traffic until he reached his destination. He came to a stop and straightened his green jerkin over his chiseled chest before striding up the stairs towards the office of Lieutenant King.

With a heroic flourish, Huntsman burst through the doors, standing tall, his hands firmly on his hips. "Lieutenant King!" he announced. "What is it? Is Mrs. Neederlander's cat stuck in a tree again? Did the orphanage run out of apple juice?"

Normally, Lieutenant King would glance up from his crossword, sigh, and tell the Huntsman to go home. He'd make some off-hand remark about how the Horn of Urgency was accidentally used, and that would be that. But the Lieutenant wasn't at his desk. Instead, he stood in front of a city map mounted on the wall, dotted with little red lights, along with his fellow detectives. The room was silent, save for the ominous blip of one of the lights flashing.

The Huntsman was scratching his chin in thought when King turned around and noticed him. "Huntsman! You're here!" The other detectives shifted on their feet uneasily.

The Huntsman marched to the cluster of detectives, his keen eagle eyes on the map. "What's the problem, Lieutenant?"

One of the other detectives spoke up first. "The problem is that another precinct has been trying to page Freakazoid, but can't reach him."

The Huntsman's face lit up. "So... what you're saying is that I am needed!"

King quickly interceded as groans erupted from the detectives around him. "We've got a high-level breach at a secure federal—"

The Huntsman gasped. "The president has been kidnapped?!"

"No," King said, shaking his head. "It's a break-in at DARPA headquarters."

"... Ah. That was going to be my second guess."

King pulled out a file. "We have a list of confirmed supervillains involved."

The Huntsman reached for it, but a detective handed him a thick manilla folder instead. The Huntsman slowly flipped through the pages, his page flipping increasing in speed as a feeling akin to panic started to settle in his gut. "Which… which supervillain is at DARPA again?"

"All of them!" one of the detectives smugly said.

The Huntsman's page turning suddenly stopped, and his eyes narrowed. A grainy black and white picture showed Major Danger, complete in safari outfit, pith helmet, and waving a net at something off camera. The Huntsman's eyes glazed slightly, lost in thought. He could already see their inevitable battle. The Huntsman, standing atop the Capitol dome. The villain, twirling his mustache from the shadows. A dramatic duel in the wilderness! A thrilling chase through the jungle! A final, climactic standoff at Niagara Falls!

"Who… who is this man?" the Huntsman asked quietly.

"Don't know his name. Some new villain," King responded.

The Huntsman stared for a moment longer at the picture. His fingers traced the outline of the pith helmet, the knotted ropes of the net. "He's… a hunting supervillain?"

King shrugged. "I guess."

The Huntsman blinked, breathless. "He's… magnificent."

King watched the Huntsman carefully. "So, do you want to go capture him and the other villains, or… ?"

The Huntsman looked up from the photo. "Yes! That's exactly what I'll do!" Clutching the overstuffed manilla folder under his arm, he ran out the door.

The detectives stared at the doorway as the Huntsman left. "This guy is our only option?"

King cleared his throat. "Gentlemen, the Huntsman is the savior of the Lobe Appreciation Day Parade! I guarantee there's not a finer hero within a hundred miles!"

 

---

 

Less than one hundred miles away, Lord Bravery sat in the back of a taxi, clutching a portable shortwave radio on his lap. He kept one hand over his ear, listening to the police frequency, and he kept his eyes nervously on the traffic, unable to shake the feeling his driver was on the wrong side of the road.

The cabbie—a broad-shouldered, thick-necked man with a greasy Yankees cap—chomped on a powdered doughnut as he steered one-handed through traffic. A suspiciously greasy box of doughnuts sat within easy reach.

"So, youse a superhero, huh?" the cabbie asked mid-chew, crumbs tumbling down his shirt.

Lord Bravery arched a single eyebrow, glancing down at the light blue costume he was wearing.

"What gave it away?" he asked dryly.

Unfortunately, the dry British wit was lost on the cabbie. "Oh, y'know, the skin tight costume, the little red cape, and that hat thing."

Lord Bravery stiffened. "Hat thing?!" He questioned both his hearing and his driver's intellect. "This is a centurion's helmet! A proud symbol of—"

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing, buddy," the cabbie cut in, waving a dismissive powdered doughnut at him.

He smacked his lips, thinking. "My cousin once gave a ride to a guy dressed like a big black robot. But he was a supervillain. I know 'cuz he was a lousy tipper. Also, he had them big, spiky shoulder pads." The cabbie gave Lord Bravery a once-over in the rearview mirror. "I figgered you for a superhero cuz of the bright primary colors."

"Yes, yes, very astute," agreed Lord Bravery as he tried to listen to shortwave radio over his cabbie's conversation.

The cabbie shrugged again. "Ain't you fellas usually able to fly? What's the cape even for?" He tapped the meter. "Not that I mind you takin' a cab, of course."

Lord Bravery pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, well, apparently I require the proper paperwork for 'personal flight in federally restricted airspace,' and I was not about to fill out any more forms today."

"Oh yeah, bureaucracy's a killer," the cabbie nodded sympathetically. "Like my cousin—my other cousin—he got a fungal infection on his big toe, right? Well, you wouldn't believe the paperwork he hadda file to get his drivers license back—"

But Lord Bravery had already stopped listening to the prattling American, focusing instead on the hurried voices crackling over his shortwave radio.

"We have a code 10-30 over at 675 North Randolph Street!"

"It's right here at DARPA headquarters!"

"Geez, Stanley, this is an official channel! You don't just blurt out—I mean, keep the chatter down, Officer Kowalski!"

"Correction: code 10-30-Omega! Multiple supervillains sighted!"

"One of'em got's a funny accent and is wearing a hat thing!"

"Stanley, that's called a pith helmet…"

"Oh, well, excuuuuse me, Sarge, not all of us went to fancy hat college."

Lord Bravery leaned forward. "Do you know how to get to something called DARPA headquarters?"

"Buddy, I know where all the federal buildings are!" He looked back in the rearview mirror with a grin. "Is this one of them superhero emergencies?"

"Indeed!" Lord Bravery declared, chest puffing out.

The cabbie let out a hoot. "Oh-ho! Now this I gotta see! Better hold on to that hat thing of yours!" Before Lord Bravery could correct the cabbie yet again, the cabbie mashed the accelerator. The taxi lurched forward like a missile, rocketing between lanes. Lord Bravery was slammed into his seat, clutching his shortwave radio for dear life.

His noble British composure nearly cracked. "You don't have to drive like a maniac!!"

The cabbie cackled, weaving wildly through traffic. "Relax, buddy! You ain't seen nothin' yet!" He jerked the wheel hard to the right, cutting across three lanes.

Lord Bravery let out a strangled noise. "Oh good heavens—"

A horn blared. Tires screeched. A pedestrian dived into a hedge.

The cabbie whistled through his teeth. "Woo! That one was close!"

Lord Bravery closed his eyes, and uttered a mantra about the inanity of Americans. He refused to open them again.

He did not open them when the cab took a turn so sharply that he was nearly thrown into the door.

He did not open them when he heard a symphony of car horns and a pedestrian scream, "YOU'RE A MENACE TO SOCIETY!"

He did not open them when he felt the unmistakable sensation of the cab briefly going airborne.

But he did open them when he heard the cabbie chuckle, "Hoo boy, almost missed the exit!"

Lord Bravery risked a glance out the window. He immediately regretted it. They were barreling toward a security checkpoint at entirely the wrong speed.

His voice broke slightly. "For the love of the Queen, SLOW DOWN!"

The cab screeched to a halt in front of the DARPA entrance, where multiple police cars already sat with their lights flashing.

The sudden stop sent Lord Bravery smashing face-first into the partition.

The cabbie turned around, grinning. "Aaaand that'll be twenty bucks."

Lord Bravery peeled himself off the glass, muttering darkly about the colonies. He searched his wallet for the correct bills, and handed the money over. He stumbled out, his equilibrium no longer used to standing up after his harrowing journey. Lord Bravery adjusted his cape, took a deep breath, and prayed for strength to deal with any further Americans.

Then he saw him.

A tall, muscular man in a bright green jerkin like a steroid-laden Robin Hood stood a few feet away, hands confidently placed on his hips. His stance was powerful. His boots were polished. His chiseled jaw gleamed in the morning sun.

Lord Bravery narrowed his eyes.

The Huntsman did the same.

There was a palpable tension in the air, like two rival predators recognizing each other for the first time.

The Huntsman's gaze flicked over Lord Bravery's red cape and blue costume. "You there! You must be… some sort of hero."

Lord Bravery huffed. "I am Lord Bravery! Champion of justice! Defender of the realm!"

The Huntsman nodded, stroking his chin. "Ah. A fellow man of valor."

There was a brief, thoughtful pause.

Then, in perfect unison, they each took one bold step forward—straight toward Sergeant Cosgrove.

Lord Bravery and the Huntsman spoke at the same time.

"I am here to offer my services—"

"I am here to fight villainy—"

They both stopped.

They both turned.

They both scowled.

Cosgrove sighed. This was going to be a long night. 

"I am Lord Bravery, representative of—"

"Destiny calls me, the Huntsman, to—"

Cosgrove held up his hands placatingly. "Okay, fellas. Let's do this one at a time."

The two heroes stared at each other, neither willing to cede the floor. A tense silence settled over them.

Finally, Lord Bravery sniffed and adjusted the cape over his shoulder. "Ahem. As I was saying—"

"Ha! You think you get to go first?" The Huntsman crossed his arms, chest puffed out. "I am the Huntsman! Champion of truth! Guardian of the innocent! Protector of—"

"Yes, yes, very nice," Lord Bravery interrupted, waving a dismissive hand. "I am Lord Bravery, and I am here to stop the international criminal known as Major Danger!"

The Huntsman gasped. "His name is Major Danger?!" He clutched at his chest as though struck by divine revelation.

Cosgrove blinked. "You know that guy?"

"No," The Huntsman said solemnly, staring into the distance. "But I will."

Lord Bravery pinched the bridge of his nose. "Oh, for pity's sake."

The Huntsman clenched his fist before him, already feeling victorious.  "I vow that I will bring my arch nemesis Major Danger to justice!"

"Your arch nemesis?" Lord Bravery exclaimed. "You didn't even know his name a minute ago!" He turned towards Cosgrove. "Major Danger is a British villain that I intend to apprehend and return to the United Kingdom."

"Great." Cosgrove nodded. "Do you have the signed copy of municipal form 117-G?"

Lord Bravery's expression froze. "Form… what?"

"Form 117-G," Cosgrove repeated. "Authorization for international superhero law enforcement operations on U.S. soil within city limits. Standard procedure."

Lord Bravery's eye twitched. "I was not… made aware of such a form."

Cosgrove shrugged. "Yeah, it's a whole thing. Gotta make sure you're not some weirdo in a costume running around causing trouble."

The Huntsman grinned. "Ah-ha! Then I alone shall take down Major Danger!" He thrust a finger dramatically into the air. "For I require no forms! Only destiny!"

Lord Bravery glared at the Huntsman before turning towards Cosgrove. "Do I need a form to enter into combative resolution with a similarly designated hero?"

"Nope." Cosgrove admitted in a monotone reply.

Lord Bravery smiled thinly. "Splendid."

The Huntsman blinked. "Wait—what?"

"Gentlemen," Cosgrove said, taking a slow step back. "You're standing in a federal parking lot. I suggest you keep your battle mildly symbolic."

Lord Bravery lifted his fists in front of him, elbows bent out and one foot forward. He slowly rotated his wrists as if he was preparing for a polite boxing match. The sort of match one enters while wearing a waistcoat or a cravat.

The Huntsman stared for a second, then let out a loud guffaw. "Are we dueling? Or are you just trying to be absolutely fabulous?" He leaped in the air, fists clenched and right foot out, spinning in an arc towards Lord Bravery.

Lord Bravery floated out of reach, his cape flapping in the wind as his toes skimmed a few inches above the ground. As the Huntsman passed, Lord Bravery bonked him on the head with an overly formal punch.

The Huntsman straightened his jaunty cap. "Touché." He turned around, and wrapped his beefy arms around a street light, and ripped it out of the parking lot asphalt. He turned back to Lord Bravery with a wide, white-toothed grin.

Lord Bravery reached out with one arm, grasping a similar street light in his hand. With a soft grunt of effort, he lifted it out of the ground.

The two heroes began circling one another, holding their street lights out like swords ready to strike.

"You call that superstrength?" the Huntsman called out. He shifted his street light to one hand, holding it over his head so he could flex the bicep of his other arm.

Lord Bravery raised an eyebrow. "Superstrength is not about size. It is about precision, poise, and proper technique—three qualities with which you are clearly unacquainted." He gave his street light a twirl—awkwardly, since it was far too long to twirl properly—and nearly clocked himself. He recovered immediately, adjusting his centurion helmet as if nothing had happened. "Besides, your posture is all wrong. You're holding that like a javelin. This is a duel, not the Highland Games."

The Huntsman smirked. "So what you're saying is, I win… fashionably?"

Lord Bravery scowled. "If you're trying to match green with Errol Flynn, then yes, you're a style icon."

The Huntsman shrugged, the street light lifting slightly. "I don't even know who that is!" he declared proudly.

"He was Robin Hood!" Lord Bravery sputtered.

"Ah, you mean Kevin Costner!" The Huntsman raised his street light into the air.

Before either hero could strike, there was a sudden BOOM—an explosion rocked the fourth floor of the DARPA building. Shattered glass and smoke billowed outward as six shadowy figures burst through the fire-blackened opening.

Grappling hooks clinked as thick cords unraveled down the side of the building. One by one, the villains began rappelling rapidly down the façade.

The Huntsman gasped. "Look! Villains descending from on high! A dramatic entrance!" He pointed. "There! It's him! The one in khaki!" His eyes sparkled. "Major Danger."

The Huntsman took off in a sprint—only to be immediately intercepted by Cobra Queen, who landed in front of him with a hiss and a flourish, while beside her her oversized snake sidekick landed like a coiled spring.

"Out of the way, madam!" he declared, brandishing his lamp post like a joust.

"You'll find I am not ssssideline material," Cobra Queen snapped. "I'm going to be the sssssupervillain to take down the Ssssavior of the Lobe Appreciation Day Parade!"

In response, the Huntsman chuckled nervously.

Meanwhile, Lord Bravery watched the chaos unfolding, but kept his eyes on the only target that concerned him: Major Danger. Then his view was blocked by something massive. Lord Bravery tilted his head upward... and kept tilting. Towering above him stood Cave Guy, broad and blue and brimming with bravado.

Lord Bravery sighed. "Americans are always trying to do things bigger."

Cave Guy pointed at Lord Bravery's helmet. "What an inspiring accoutrement! Evocative of classical heroism! A sartorial nod to centurions and emperors!"

Lord Bravery blinked. That was not the vocabulary he expected.. "Uh… thank you?" he eventually managed to say.

Cave Guy politely smiled—and then let out a thunderous roar that sent Lord Bravery skidding backwards a few feet. "Now it's time to smash!"

"Ah, yes," Lord Bravery said, brushing off his cape. "That sounds more appropriate." 

He floated into the air and lifted the streetlight he was still holding. He glanced at it thoughtfully.

"Oh dear," he said flatly, raising it over his head like a sledgehammer. "I appear to have lost my grip."

With impeccable form and maximum drama, he brought the metal pole crashing down onto Cave Guy's head. The streetlight bent in the unmistakable shape of the caveman's cranium—complete with a flattened curl of hair on top.

Cave Guy wobbled, dazed. "Ow," he muttered. "That was rather rude."

Lord Bravery, already setting the lamp post aside, tutted. "Terribly sorry. Accidents happen. I certainly wouldn't dream of flouting international superhero law enforcement regulations."

He grabbed a small sedan from the parking lot and held it overhead with surprising ease, then floated higher.

"Oops," he declared again, in the same dry tone. "I seem to have dropped a car on the giant blue caveman."

Cave Guy looked up just in time to say, "Oh bother—" before the car landed on  him, flattening the sidewalk in his general direction. He wasn't down, but he wasn't thrilled.

Standing a safe distance away, Cosgrove cupped his hands over his mouth and called out in his usual deadpan, "Hey, Lord Bravery! Statute 14-B, subsection 9 allows for self defense!"

"Brilliant!" Lord Bravery said with a smile. He swooped down towards Cave Guy with renewed vigor.

On the far end of the lot by the building, Major Danger landed with a gentlemanly thud. He straightened his pith helmet and adjusted his monocle before dusting himself off. "Jolly good! The escape is a touch noisy, but I suppose subtlety is overrated."

Arms Akimbo landed with a harsher thud, the rappel rope wrapped around one of his elbows. "We better get while the gettin' is good." He glanced across the parking lot at the growing battle. "Hey! It's that Savior of the Lobe Appreciation Day Parade guy!"

The Huntsman found himself surrounded by Cobra Queen, Longhorn, and Kid Carrion.

The Huntsman spun his lamp post with flair, planting it in the pavement beside him. "Stand aside, villains! For I have no quarrel with you this day!"

Cobra Queen took a step closer, her snake coiling beside her with matching menace. "Then you're about to have one, ssstupid."

"We all heard 'bout how you single-handedly ended the Lobe's reign of terror!" Longhorn bellowed.

The Huntsman winced. "Er—well—"

Kid Carrion sneered as he adjusted his hat. "Any one of us takes you down, we hit it big. Headlines, reward money, custom action figures…"

The Huntsman's jaw tightened. He leapt skyward in a flash of green—but Longhorn was faster than he looked. He barreled forward and caught the Huntsman midair with a shoulder tackle, slamming him back down in a cloud of pavement dust.

From the other side of the lot, Major Danger adjusted his gloves. "Right then. Where's our getaway vehicle?"

"Right here!" Arms Akimbo shouted, pointing with both elbows to the side of the building where a large, unmarked black van waited with its engine running. From the front seat, Waylon Jeepers waved enthusiastically.

Akimbo squinted. "When did Waylon get here?"

Major Danger took a few steps toward the van before glancing back at the chaos. "Should we… assist?"

Arms Akimbo shook his head. "You remember what the big eared guy said! The goods are the priority. Just regroup and evac."

The Huntsman threw Longhorn off with a mighty heave, landing in a crouch. "No! I shall not be denied my nemesis!"

He sprinted for Major Danger—only to be tackled from the side by Kid Carrion, who lassoed him mid-stride and sent him crashing through a chain-link fence.

Major Danger blinked. "Well. He certainly has spirit."

Lord Bravery, mid-duel with Cave Guy, heard the commotion and glared across the lot. "Oh, come on!"

The moment he took his eyes off of Cave Guy, the villain took advantage of his momentary distraction. His massive palm connected with a meaty smack, sending Lord Bravery flying backwards into a nearby hatchback car. The car crumpled around him like a soda can.

The Huntsman, meanwhile, grabbed the lasso wrapped around him and twisted mid-step. With a mighty swing, he launched Kid Carrion into the air like a bolo.

"Back to the shadows with you!" he shouted.

Kid Carrion's flight path arced beautifully—right into the hatchback.

With a resounding thwump, the outlaw collided feet-first into Lord Bravery, who had just managed to sit up. The impact sent them both tumbling back into the wreckage in a heap of limbs, groaning and mutual indignation.

The Huntsman froze. "Ah—oops?"

From the depths of the crumpled vehicle, Lord Bravery's muffled voice bellowed, "You utter imbecile!"

"I was aiming for Cave Guy!" the Huntsman protested, rushing over.

The two heroes immediately began squabbling, pointing fingers, gesturing wildly with their remaining bits of dignity.

Across the lot, Arms Akimbo whistled. "Uh, yeah—time to go!"

Major Danger nodded. "Capital idea!"

The villains piled into the van, Kid Carrion dazedly reaching it last. With a screech of tires and a burst of exhaust, the getaway vehicle peeled out, just as Cosgrove calmly stepped out from behind a parked cruiser, sipping from a paper cup.

He watched the van disappear into the distance, then glanced over at the squabbling superheroes by the wrecked hatchback.

He sighed. "Yup. Long night."

 

---

 

Out on the Internet not too far from a towering Recycling Bin, Roddy Macstew helped Freakazoid to his feet. "Well, laddie, I'll bet ye're wonderin' what's happenin'—"

Freakazoid quickly interrupted. "No time for long exposition, Roddy! Quick! Out with it!"

Roddy arched an eyebrow. "Out with… what, exactly?"

"Those two knuckleheads have pushed me out of this chapter, but if we hurry, there's—" Freakazoid stopped suddenly, eyes wide. He looked around, panicked. "No! It's too late! It's already here!"

Startled, Roddy glanced around. "What? What's here?!"

Freakazoid points at the line of text below. "There!"

to be continued…

Notes:

I have been wanting to have a Lord Bravery and Huntsman team up for so long. It's finally happening!

Chapter 5: Of Mice and Phlegm

Summary:

Freakazoid and Roddy MacStew race through the Internet on a quest to escape before Freakazoid breaks down into a mess of ones and zeroes. But progress is slow—what with kung fu stick fingers, giant flying noses, and the occasional existential detour. Meanwhile, in the real world, Dexter convinces Pinky to finally confront Brain… only to uncover a deep, digital secret that could change everything.

"I can't believe it!" Freakazoid shouts, his jaw dropping in exaggerated shock. He jabs a finger furiously at the previous chapter. "I was left out of a whole chapter! It's one thing if you do that to the mice, but why me?"

Hands now on his hips, he gives a huff. "I'd go into a lengthy backstory to explain my angst, but—hold up, wait a minute!" He perks up, eyes gleaming. "It's finally my scene?"

Roddy reached out a hand and helped him to his feet. "Ye feelin' all right there, laddie?"

"Yeah, I was just having a momentary fourth wall breaking crisis." Freakazoid dusted himself off and glanced toward the towering Recycle Bin in the distance, watching as countless Internet files were sucked in and erased from existence.

"Thanks for the assist, Roddy. Another few seconds and I'd have disappeared like the Atari E.T. game." Freakazoid looked around before grinning at Roddy. "Together again! Just like old times!"

Roddy glared at Freakazoid. "Oh, ye mean like the time ye were trapped in the Internet because a wee mouse stole yer superpowers? And ye wouldn't let me free ye until the right dramatic moment?"

Freakazoid looked away. "Well…"

"Or the time I had to pretend t'be yer drivin' instructor t'rescue ye from Guitierrez's goons—only for us to get captured and held at gunpoint?"

Freakazoid brightened. "Oh, thanks for bringing Guitierrez up! Readers familiar with my franchise will love the reference!"

Roddy sighed and turned, scanning the data horizon. Streams of light streaked by like digital comets. "Lad, it's not that I'm no' glad t'see ye, but there's a lot goin' on out here, and—" He stopped short, suddenly alarmed. "Wait. Where's Dexter?"

Freakazoid blinked. "Dex? Oh, he's fine! He's back at home."

Roddy's eyes narrowed. "Ye came here… without him?"

"Well, yeah! He was all mopey after I told him he couldn't come with me, so I peeled myself off him like a neon fruit roll-up and zipped into cyberspace solo on an email."

Roddy paled. "Ye separated?"

Freakazoid tilted his head. "I mean, it was a tasteful metaphysical schism, nothing messy."

Roddy took a quick step forward, glancing over his shoulder. "No, no, no! We've gotta get ye back, now! If ye're separated too long, ye'll dissipate—become one with the Internet!"

"And… that's bad?"

"Aye! All that ye are'll get broken down into ones and zeroes, scattered across gigabytes and gigabytes of lnternet data! Ye'll be everywhere and nowhere. Ye might end up as someone's banner ad, or one of those little 'Under Construction' images everybody has on their web page!"

Freakazoid looked glum. "I guess Dexter was right, and I should've taken him with me."

Roddy threw up his hands. "No, that's bad, too! Lad, you and Dexter are essentially the same person—"

"Actually, that's not very clear canonically," Freakazoid interjected.

"—but even if ye weren't, ye'd risk a forced fusion! Or worse, ye'd create a race condition and become a livin' logic error!"

Freakazoid stared, then raised his hands. "Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me there'd be catastrophic problems if Dex and I both entered the Internet, and catastrophic problems if I go in by myself?"

"Aye, lad! Ye don't casually just enter the Internet. It's not something ye just carry around in yer pocket! Ye have to account for connection speed, bandwidth stabilization, data packet fragmentation…" Roddy trailed off, his expression souring. "Ironically, the safest way is using the flaw of the Pinnacle chip, which only might cause insanity."

Freakazoid blinked. "Y'know, I really miss when my biggest concern was getting a supervillain's boot off."

Roddy opened his mouth, and closed it again. "I want t'ask, but I won't."

"Sorry, Roddy, that's a reference to something four chapters ago. But wait—what about you, Roddy? I rode Eudora all the way here just to rescue you!"

"Rescue me?"

"Yeah!" Freakazoid nodded, starting to pace a few steps as data wind blew past. "We had a question, and when I wrote you an email, it bounced right back!"

"A question?" Roddy raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Look, if it's about those llamas again—"

"No, no, it's a real question! Why would bad guys want a map of the Internet? And how do you even map something like the Internet? And if a llama could wear a hat, what hat should it wear?"

Roddy crossed his arms.

Freakazoid raised his hands in defeat. "Fine, forget about the last one."

Roddy's ears twitched. He glanced up at the distant neon sky.

"We've gotta move," he muttered. "Sniffers like the one that grabbed ye—they're searchin'. And if they find me…" He trailed off grimly.

Freakazoid looked around. "Yeah, okay, fair. But where the heck did Eudora go? You'd think a horse with an envelope body would be easier to spot." 

They set off, navigating the surreal topography of cyberspace. The first landmark they passed was a canyon of crumbling websites—half-rendered pages suspended mid-air, their HTML skeletons exposed like digital fossils. Broken image icons hovered like ghosts, forever waiting to load.

After a few minutes, Freakazoid grew impatient with the quiet. "Okay, spill, Roddy! Hit me with the exposition!"

Roddy sighed. "Something's been off, laddie. Strange activity on the World Wide Web. More sniffers, more tracers… pokin' around like they're searchin' for somethin'. Or someone."

Freakazoid jogged to keep up. "Someone like... you?"

Roddy nodded grimly. "Aye. I started noticin' it right after I secured the firewall with some help from a new online mate—SnowballNotAHamster."

Freakazoid perked up. "The firewall you diligently maintained for months on end, trying to prevent supervillains from gaining access to the same Internet-based superpowers I ended up with?"

Roddy blinked. "Yeeees?" His voice tilted upward, confused by the sudden formality.

Freakazoid gave a sheepish grin. "Sorry, just filling in some additional back story for new readers!"

Roddy rolled his eyes. "Aye, right. I couldn't monitor the whole firewall myself forever, so we built some automated defenses. Clever wee programs that kept things tight while I finally got a bit o' rest." He paused, frowning. "But then SnowballNotAHamster stopped respondin'. No messages. No status updates. Just... nothin'."

Freakazoid tilted his head. "You think something happened to him?"

"I don't know," Roddy muttered. "But right after he vanished, I started seein' more sniffers sweepin' the Net. At first I thought they were just pokin' at the defenses. Then I realized… they were lookin' for me."

They crested a glowing embankment and found themselves overlooking a vast, open plain littered with thousands of disembodied cursors. Some were the classic white arrow, others the hourglass, and a few horrifyingly turned into spinning beach balls. At first, they floated aimlessly. Then, all at once, they snapped to attention—every single one rotating to point directly at Roddy and Freakazoid.

Freakazoid froze. "Are they... pointing at us?"

Roddy grimaced. "Aye. Feels like a bad pop quiz dream."

Freakazoid waved awkwardly at the nearest cursor. "Uh, hi? We're just passing through! Please don't click us!"

The cursors continued to track them, rotating in eerie synchronicity as they moved. Only when they left the field behind did the cursors relax, scattering to their previous idle dance.

At last, after sidestepping a pop-up ad trap and narrowly avoiding a banner labeled "Click Here to Win a Free Scanner!", they stood at the threshold of a glowing gateway made entirely of animated pixels, blinking and strobing like a badly wired neon sign.

"Roddy, this way!" Freakazoid exclaimed while pointing animatedly.

"Ye sure this is the right way?" Roddy asked warily.

Freakazoid stepped forward, eyes wide. "It has a flaming dragon logo, a scrolling 'WELCOME TO MY SITE' banner, and a background that's just the word 'KARATE' written in Comic Sans tiled over and over. All the letters are capitalized! Of course it's the right way!"

As they entered, a black and white dojo made out of line art materialized around them, complete with floating platforms, glowing weapons, and a pair of stick figures locked in an epic kung fu battle.

Roddy blinked. "They're made of lines, Freakazoid."

"Yes," Freakazoid whispered reverently. "And yet they are artists."

The two stick figures launched into a flurry of impossible moves—wall runs, spinning roundhouse kicks, a flying double punch that exploded the floor beneath them.

Then a third stick fighter dropped in from the ceiling. And then a fourth, riding a dragon made of line art and raw creative inspiration.

"They're multiplying!" Roddy shouted.

"They're adapting," Freakazoid replied, eyes sparkling. He pulled out a pair of 90s-style sunglasses and slid them on over his eyes. "Time to go full Matrix."

He leapt forward, arms flailing that was less Matrix, and more wacky waving inflatable tube man. "HIYAH! WACHAA! I know kung—" One stick figure backflipped off a wall and launched a combo that sent Freakazoid flying sideways into a pixelated bonsai tree.

Roddy ducked as a flaming shuriken whizzed past him. "Right! That's enough kung foolery!"

He dropped to the floor and began scrambling across the tiled pixel dojo. "Where is it… where is it…"

Meanwhile, the fight had grown even more unhinged. Ten stick fighters now, battling with energy swords and summoned lightning. One of them had nunchucks made of smaller stick figures. Freakazoid charged back into the fray with a plunger in each hand. "YAH! PLUMB-FU!"

"Ah ha!" Roddy finally exclaimed. He stayed low to the ground, and moved as quickly as he could to a tiny gray button in the far corner labeled "Restart."

But before he could reach it, a stick figure somersaulted into his path—armed with a crudely drawn rocket launcher nearly twice its size.

Roddy skidded to a halt. "Freakazoid, we need a distraction!"

Freakazoid spun mid-kick, balanced both plungers in his hands, and shouted, "I AM the distraction!" before being flung across the dojo by a stick figure with helicopter legs.

The rocket launcher began to whine ominously, and Roddy closed his eyes before the inevitable happened. Lights along the side of the launcher blinked red. A tiny "CHARGING" bar appeared above it, slowly filling as energy lines spiraled in. 

Roddy peeked through one squinting eye—the launcher was still pointed straight at him.

On the rocket launcher, a tiny fan kicked in, glowing coils buzzed, and a holographic countdown started in Japanese kanji for absolutely no reason.

Roddy opened his other eye, staring at the weapon in confusion. Dust motes lifted from the floor, caught in the weapon's rising energy. Somewhere, a violin started tuning up.

Roddy stared, unblinking. "Oh, for the love of… it's a Flash animation, not a season finale."

He crawled three feet forward past the rocket launcher and under a rain of stick figure chaos. He reached forward and jabbed the "Restart" button.

Everything snapped back to the beginning—the music restarted, the background looped, and the dojo reset with a single lone stick figure standing mid-pose, ready to strike—but there was a flashing pop up sitting in front of it, reading "Loading Flash."

Freakazoid, lying dazed under a collapsed weapon rack, blinked. "Did we win?"

Roddy offered him a hand. "Let's just say we kept yer spleen from being turned into a blinking gif."

Freakazoid unsteadily got to his feet. His sunglasses were crooked, precariously held on one ear, with one lens missing. "How did you pronounce that again?"

"What? Gif?" Roddy looked back quizzically at Freakazoid as he led them out of the dojo.

"Huh. I've been wondering how you say that." Freakazoid scratched his chin, and the sunglasses fell off. "I always thought the 'G' was pronounced like—"

A sudden, thunderous HONK echoed overhead.

Both of them froze. Slowly, they turned skyward.

Descending from the digital clouds was a sleek, mechanical monstrosity—twice as large as the first Sniffer. It was still a floating nose, but now plated in chrome, with massive turbine-powered nostrils and antennae shaped like nose hairs.

Its tiny wings had been replaced by jet engines. Its sniffing sound echoed across the landscape.

Freakazoid's jaw dropped. "Oh no. It's evolved."

The Sniffer dipped low, its chrome nostrils flaring with ominous purpose. Then, with a mechanical screech, it inhaled as it flew over the dojo.

The building beneath it buckled, ripped upwards in chunks of broken data and fragmented pixels, pulled skyward like leaves in a cyclone. Cracks spiderwebbed across the dojo floor, walls distorted like funhouse mirrors, and a startled stick figure was yanked screaming into a nostril.

Roddy staggered back, wind whipping at his coat. "It's pullin' the whole sector in with it!"

Freakazoid grabbed his arm. "Then we should be somewhere else now!"

They turned and sprinted through the crumbling dojo, dodging falling chunks of background art and flying clipart debris. The roar of the Sniffer grew louder behind them, the pressure of its vacuum pull closing in.

"Roddy, I don't wanna get stuck in a giant cyber-nostril! Again!" Freakazoid shouted over the chaos.

"Then run faster!" Roddy yelled back.

"This has to be the worst day ever!" Freakazoid screamed.

Behind them, the Sniffer surged forward, turbines screaming.

The screen blurred into white static as its shadow fell across them.

 

---

 

"This has to be the worst day ever…" Dexter muttered into his pillow.

"I'm putting all of my socks in the top drawer, if that's all right with you!" Pinky's voice rang out from across the room.

Dexter groaned and sat up. Pinky was unpacking like he'd just moved into a summer cottage. A small suitcase—one of many—lay open on Dexter's desk, overflowing with a colorful array of mismatched socks, novelty ties, and at least three rubber duckies. A tiny framed picture of Brain sat proudly on the nightstand.

"Pinky…"

"Oh, and I reorganized your closet by hug-ability!" Pinky called out cheerfully. "The softest shirts go in front, and I gave all the stiff ones encouraging pats before I put them back on their hangers!"

Dexter rubbed his face. "That's… not how closets work."

Pinky poked his head out from behind the closet door. "Well, not before, but that's how it works now!"

Dexter let out a long sigh and flopped back onto the bed. "What am I even doing…"

"Helping a friend in need, of course!" Pinky responded brightly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He opened up another suitcase with a cheerful hum. "Say, you don't happen to have a set of pajamas with different types of cheese on them, would you?"

"No…"

"Oh, well. I was hoping we could have matching pajamas for bedtime! Then we could stay up late and watch documentaries on puffins!"

Dexter turned his head just enough to see him. "Do… you like puffins?"

"Well, sure! Although to be honest, I'm not really sure what roommates do together. My only experience is with Brain, and we do the same thing every night." Pinky slowed slightly as he carefully refolded a sock that wasn't his. "Well, we used to, at least."

Dexter sat up, watching him now. The weight of everything—Freakazoid, the supervillains, Pinky's sudden arrival—pressed heavier on his shoulders than before. But so did the obvious: Pinky was hurting.

"Try to take over the world?" Dexter asked.

Pinky nodded. "But lately… he's been busy." He hesitated, fiddling with the corner of the suitcase zipper. "I think… I think he might be making plans without me." He gave Dexter a wobbly smile. "And we always make plans together."

Dexter blinked. "You mean like… evil plans?"

"Well, I don't think they're always evil," Pinky said thoughtfully. "But if they are, I'd still like to be included. It's only polite."

Dexter stared at him for a moment, then slowly nodded. The idea of Brain planning something evil seemed plausible. Honestly, pretty likely, based on Dexter's own personal experiences with the mouse mastermind. But one problem at a time. "Okay. Well. That's something we can figure out."

Pinky plopped himself down on the chair next to Dexter's computer. "Do you think Brain doesn't want me around more because of my zappy zoop powers?"

"What do you mean?"

"Brain tried so hard to take Freakazoid's superpowers! And then I ended up being the mouse with the superpowers!" He looked wistful. "It was sooo much fun, Dex! I got to look for supervillains, rescue people from an exploding building, and battle a giant papier-mâché robot!"

Dexter smiled faintly. "I remember, Pinky. I was there for all of that."

"Except for the part with the giant paper mache robot," Pinky corrected.

"...What?"

"Because Freakazoid came back and rescued you but then you had tummy troubles from too much cheese!"

"Oh. Right." Dexter said, remembering the excuse Freakazoid had given to explain why Freakazoid was suddenly there and Dexter was not in an attempt to hide his secret identity. "The… cheese."

Pinky's shoulders drooped. "I had all these fun zappy zoop powers and then… they're gone now." He looked back at Dexter. "Sorry, Dex. You wouldn't understand what that's like to have superpowers and then lose them. Between that and Brain…" He trailed off.

Dexter hesitated. He looked at Pinky—really looked at him. The drooping ears, the half-hearted swing of his feet, the forced smile that couldn't quite hide the disappointment behind it.

"I…" Dexter started. The words stuck in his throat. "I might understand more than you think."

Pinky perked up slightly. "Really?"

Dexter opened his mouth. The truth dangled there for a moment—Freakazoid. The Pinnacle chip. Everything he'd become, and everything he was still figuring out.

But then he looked at Pinky again. And he saw someone already dealing with loss. With being left out.

So instead, he forced a small smile.

"Well… I know what it's like to feel powerless," Dexter said. "And to wish I could do something about it."

Pinky nodded solemnly. "Yeah. That's it exactly."

A quiet moment passed between them.

Dexter pushed his glasses a little further up his nose.  "Pinky, have you tried asking Brain about what's going on?"

Pinky opened his mouth, and then closed it. "Do you think that would work?"

Despite himself, Dexter chuckled. "I don't know Brain as well as you. But you could at least try. Maybe he's just… caught up in something."

Pinky rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know… What if he tells me I'm being silly? Or worse—what if he says I'm right and he has been planning without me?"

Dexter leaned back on his bed, arms crossed. "Then at least you'll know. And knowing means you can do something about it."

Pinky blinked. "Like… sabotage his plans with pudding?"

"Preferably not," Dexter said. "Start with a conversation."

Pinky gave a slow, thoughtful nod. "Okay… okay, yeah! I'll do it. I'll talk to him. Maybe I'll bring pudding, just in case it turns into a sabotage situation."

Dexter smiled, faint but genuine. "That's the spirit."

Pinky hopped off the chair. "Okay, let's go!"

"What, now?"

Pinky nodded. "If things don't work out, then we can be back here in time for your mom's hotdish for dinner!"

Pinky paused. "And will you come and be my wing man, Dex? I'm afraid my last one crashed into a wall."

Dexter blinked. "You… want me to come with you?"

"Well, of course!" Pinky said brightly. "You're smart, trustworthy, and you've got a great sense for fashion!"

Dexter frowned slightly. "That's… not usually what people say when they want my help."

"But it's true!" Pinky beamed, then leaned in and whispered loudly, "Plus, you're way better at opening doors than I am." He wiggled the fingers of his tiny hand.

About an hour later, Dexter was having second thoughts. The Acme Labs campus loomed in the moonlight, cold and quiet. The only illumination came from the occasional security light, casting long, eerie shadows across the pavement. A distant ventilation unit hummed like a large insect.

Dexter pulled his jacket tighter. "This was a terrible idea. It's late. The building's locked. We don't even know what Brain is doing in there."

Pinky cheerfully padded ahead toward the front doors. "Oh, don't worry, Dex! I live here."

Dexter stared. "Yes, with the mouse who might be plotting global domination."

Pinky stopped at the door and turned back, head tilted. "Well, sure, but he always does that. That's not new."

"Exactly! Which means breaking in right now might not be the safest plan." Dexter took a nervous step back. "Maybe we wait until morning. Or call first. Or send a strongly worded letter."

Pinky pressed a hand to the glass. "But what if he goes to bed sad?" He glanced over his shoulder at Dexter, voice softening just a little. "This is still home, you know. Even if it's a bit weird right now."

Dexter hesitated, caught off guard by the sentiment. He looked up at the looming silhouette of Acme Labs. "Yeah," he muttered, almost to himself. "Weird is one word for it…"

Dexter looked at the front door again, unease creeping into his voice. "So, how do we get in? Are there traps? Security robots? Electrified fences? Laser grids that slice intruders into molecular confetti?"

Pinky, meanwhile, was already crouched by the welcome mat. "Oh, don't be silly, Dex."

He lifted the mat, revealing a small silver key with a tag that read 'NOT A KEY TO SECRET LAB – DO NOT STEAL.'

Pinky beamed. "It's right here where we always leave it."

Dexter blinked. "You're telling me the front door to a world-class scientific research facility, home to a mouse with genius-level intellect and aspirations of world conquest… is opened with a key hiding under the doormat?"

Pinky shrugged, unlocking the door with a cheerful click. "Well, sometimes it's under the third potted plant on the left, but only if Lefty forgets to move it."

Dexter stood motionless, unsure whether to be impressed, horrified, or just resigned. "…Lefty?"

"Long story."

The door creaked open, and Pinky stepped inside like he was returning home from a vacation. "Come on in, Dex! Don't worry, the laser robots don't usually activate unless you try to move the good stapler."

Dexter froze mid-step.

"Kidding!" Pinky chirped. "That one's retired. He just sorts paperwork now."

Dexter cautiously followed him down the dimly lit corridor, the hum of fluorescent lights echoing overhead.

Pinky pointed as they passed a room with an enormous coil suspended from the ceiling and wires tangled like spaghetti across the floor. "That's where Brain created a hypnotically-perfect pair of dentures! But it didn't work because somebody else took our timeslot."

Dexter tried working out the logic. "Okay…"

Pinky gestured to another room filled with posters of kaleidoscopic fractals and flashing colors. "That's the breakroom for the psychedelic research lab. Brain says I'm not allowed to eat any of the doughnuts from there!"

Dexter peeked in through the doorway and quickly looked away. "Good call."

They passed a junction where the hallway split. Pinky pointed to the right. "Restroom's down that way. Has the best hot air hand dryer. I use it to style my ears on special occasions."

Dexter muttered, "...I didn't know that was a thing."

Pinky rounded the final corner with a hop. "And this is the room where the magic happens! Brain plots every night right here!"

He pushed open the door to the lab.

Inside, Brain stood before a massive chalkboard filled with complicated gravitational equations, diagrams of warped space-time, and something that looked suspiciously like a crudely drawn cat in a top hat.

He didn't turn around.

"I see you've returned," Brain said coolly, chalk still scratching against the board. "Excellent. You can begin cleaning up the mess caused by an errant inflated latex glove." Without looking away, he gestured toward Lefty, who sat proudly on a nearby table—fingers spread, Sharpie grin still wide.

Lefty, as usual, said nothing.

Dexter looked at Pinky, who shrugged and whispered, "That's Lefty."

Dexter gave an encouraging nod. Pinky straightened his spine, took a deep breath, and announced, "We're here to talk to you, Brain!"

There was a pause. Then, very slowly, Brain set down the chalk. "We?"

He turned.

Dexter never had the opportunity to meet Brain himself, although he had vague memories of him from when he helped Freakazoid bring down the Lobe's giant robot, the Tissue Paper Titan 2000. Given the whole 'mouse' thing, Dexter knew that Brain would be small, like Pinky. But the weight of Brain's stare, his steepled fingers, and his unnatural stillness made him feel inexplicably huge.

"Ah. Dexter Douglas," Brain said smoothly. "Student at Harry Connick High School. Lives at 564 Funiculi Funicula Avenue with his older brother Duncan and parents Debbie and Douglas."

Dexter blinked. "How do you…?"

"I make it a point to know everything that might be relevant to my plans," Brain replied. "Including anyone who has spent time in proximity to Pinky for an extended duration." He paused. "Also, you nearly failed a science fair project on photosynthesis."

Dexter instinctively adjusted his glasses. "That… that was fifth grade…"

Brain's eyes narrowed just a fraction. "Sloppy diagram work. The C minus was a generous grade."

Dexter felt a chill down his spine.

Pinky stepped forward, fiddling nervously with his fingers. "Brain, I just… I wanted to know if you're planning something. And if you are, why didn't you include me?" He glanced at Dexter for reassurance. "Because we always plan together."

Dexter nodded silently, standing behind him like backup in a very polite standoff.

Brain studied them both, his face unreadable. Then he gave the smallest nod.

"I suppose it's time I told you the truth."

Pinky gasped softly. Dexter leaned in, heart pounding. This was it—the moment.

Brain turned to the chalkboard, reached up, and flipped it.

The reverse side was not filled with calculations or blueprints. No, it revealed a massive, poster-sized image of a gray mouse with bright eyes and a light blue sweater, clearly scaled up from a much smaller Internet profile picture. Around it were notes scribbled in red ink: "Likes: post-Newtonian physics, strategic global influence, speculative fiction." "Favorite music: Wagner, Tchaikovsky"

Pinky and Dexter stared.

"You see…" Brain began, with the dramatic weight of someone revealing his greatest secret, "I've met the new love of my life. Online."

There was a long, stunned silence.

Then, with a loud pffffft, Lefty deflated like a balloon, spiraling across the lab in sad little loops before hitting the floor.

 

---

 

Deep beneath the villains' warehouse, where storage rooms gave way to twisting corridors, there was a chamber that hummed with eerie electronic life.

Rows of old computer towers lined the walls, their lights blinking in synchronized patterns. Cables snaked like vines across the floor, up the walls, and into the ceiling. The only illumination came from the bluish glow of flickering CRT monitors and the pulsing LEDs of a dozen blinking modems, all chirping and whining in chaotic harmony.

A small figure stood at the center of it all—no taller than a shoebox—scurrying across a series of custom-built platforms. He didn't sit in a chair. He didn't need to. Instead, he hopped from one computer keyboard to another, tapping out commands with nimble paws.

The silhouette moved with unsettling precision. His whiskers twitched as one of the monitors let out a cheerful ping. He bounded over to the station and read the blinking update.

"Ah," he murmured with satisfaction, "the Sniffer program has located another anomaly… Excellent."

A flurry of rapid keystrokes followed as he adjusted the trace command. "There will be no more surprises. Not now. Not with Freakazoid pinned in my net—"

Another terminal blinked. A new notification, and a new instant message. A tiny smirk curled at the edges of his mouth.  "—and Brain so easily distracted."

He clambered to a perch atop a monitor, paws on his hips, silhouetted by the static fuzz.  "With Phase Two nearly complete, and every variable accounted for… I believe I've earned a moment of dramatic indulgence."

He inhaled deeply.

"MUAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Notes:

GASP! Who could this mysterious villain be?

Chapter 6: Hamster Dance

Summary:

The battle for Acme Labs begins.

Brain's old nemesis Snowball has unleashed Freakazoid's most infamous foes to destroy Acme Labs, and with it, any chance the heroes have to stop his sinister plan. Only Pinky, Brain, and a very bewildered Dexter Douglas stand between seven supervillains and total disaster.

As for Freakazoid? He's stuck on the World Wide Web... with Clippy.

An unmarked delivery van sped through an industrial district on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. It reached a warehouse by the water, coming to a sudden and unexpected stop with the sound of squealing brakes. In the driver's seat, his eyes only inches higher than the dashboard, was Waylon Jeepers. He turned around towards his fellow supervillains in the back of the van.

"Well, gents—and lady—we're here."

The villains groaned, slowly disentangling themselves from one another.

"Who had the bright idea of letting Waylon drive?" Cave Guy muttered.

"I didn't even know he wassss coming," added Cobra Queen.

They each grabbed a heavy sack with their ill-gotten goods from DARPA, and filed out of the van.

Outside, the warehouse doors groaned open on rusted hinges. A flicker of static buzzed to life as the monitor in the center of the room lit up, revealing the pixelated silhouette of their leader.

He didn't bother with a greeting.

"You're late."

Major Danger gave a crisp salute. "Terribly sorry, old bean, but we ran into a spot of trouble when a pair of superheroes showed up."

Cave Guy gingerly touched the knot on his head where both a streetlight and a car were dropped.

Arms Akimbo nodded. "One of'em was the Savior of Lobe Appreciation Day Parade himself."

"And yet… here you are. Still breathing." the leader stated flatly. "Do you have the hard drives?"

One by one, the villains slammed down their bags of stolen gear in front of the screen with a metallic clank.

"So now you gotta download them or somethin'?" Longhorn asked.

"Download them?!" the leader groaned in exasperation. "These government hard drives are a staggering ten gigabytes each! Do you know how much data that is?"

Longhorn looked to his left and right and realized his fellow supervillains, including Waylon Jeepers, had taken half a step back. Longhorn ventured a guess. "Uh… more than nine guggabits?"

The leader sighed, and his static-filled silhouette rubbed his expansive forehead. "It is unfeasible to download the data over a 56k modem. I will collect the hard drives myself."

Major Danger arched an eyebrow behind his monocle. "Does that mean we'll get to see you in person?"

The leader scoffed. "No, I have another task for you." His silhouette was replaced by a pixelated picture of Acme Labs. "I need this research facility destroyed," he said with a menacing tone.

"I've always wanted to blow something up!" Waylon chortled, rubbing his hands together gleefully. "The boxes of TNT, the big plunger…" The other villains looked down at him.

Waylon crossed his arms and pouted. "It's not my fault I have aspirations."

"You need us to nab anything before we—" Arms Akimbo began to ask.

"No," their leader flatly responded. "I want that building leveled and everything inside wiped out!" He chortled maniacally. As his laughter continued, several of the villains looked at each other warily. The villainous cackle finally tapered off into a low hum of digital static.

Cobra Queen glanced at the image on screen. "Acme Labsss? Doesssn't look like much."

Cave Guy raised an eye brow. "That building is a vulgar example of late-stage art deco. It would be vastly improved as rubble."

The screen crackled one last time. "Failure is not an option. Understood?"

The group nodded slowly—except for Waylon, who gave an enthusiastic thumbs up. The screen blinked off.

Major Danger adjusted his pith helmet. "Right then. Off to commit some light demolition."

 

---

 

Freakazoid grimaced. "You know what I hate, Roddy?"

Roddy sighed. "No, but I'm sure yer about to tell me."

Freakazoid eagerly replied, "We had to wait forever for the story to come back around to us! I really hate just..." Freakazoid paused dramatically. "...hanging around!"

Freakazoid dangled upside down, stuck feet first inside the nostril of the Sniffer, an oversized cybernetic nose with jet engines. Roddy hung upside down next to him in the other nostril. He had both hands on his Tam o'Shanter hat, keeping it firmly on his head despite gravity's insistence it fall off.

"Get it, Roddy? Get it?" Freakazoid asked. He tried poking Roddy, but couldn't quite reach.

"Aye. I get it." Roddy groaned. "Freakazoid, we've got to get out of here! This Sniffer is taking us further into t'Internet, when we need to get you back to Dexter… before you break down into ones and zeroes."

Freakazoid nodded sagely. "Roddy, you are the exposition master. I appreciate it. I truly do." He started wriggling furiously. "Alright, plan A: flail until something happens!"

Roddy scowled. "That's no plan, that's... that's barely even a suggestion!"

"Plan A isn't working, Roddy!" Freakazoid shouted, squirming like an overactive worm in a steel cyber-nostril. "We need Plan B!"

Roddy wheezed beside him. "Aye, well, if ye come up with one that doesn't involve flailin' like a drunk octopus, I'm all ears."

Freakazoid brightened. "I know! I'll call for help!"

Freakazoid started screaming for help. Roddy tried staring at him in disbelief, but couldn't get a good angle while stuck in the nostril. "Oh, for the love of shortbread… ye really think someone's just gonna appear out o' thin air and—"

Suddenly, there was a soft ding beside them, heralding the arrival of an oversized paperclip with large empty eyes and heavy black eyebrows, floating along on top of a piece of lined yellow memo paper.

"Hi there!" it chirped. "It looks like you're trying to… escape!"

Freakazoid blinked. "Yes! Yes, I am! Can you help?"

The paperclip smiled. "Of course! Would you like help with: A) Writing a resume, B) Formatting a newsletter, or C) Creating an attractive budget spreadsheet?"

Roddy grimaced. "And this is why I only use Notepad." He tried turning to get a better look, but was wedged too far into the nostril.

Freakazoid squinted. "Wait, wait, go back. What was that first one?"

"Writing a resume?"

"No, the other one."

"Creating an attractive budget spreadsheet?"

Freakazoid rolled his eyes dramatically. "Oh well. Never mind, Clippy. I guess this is too hard for you."

Clippy blinked. "Too… hard?"

Roddy, still wedged upside down in the other nostril, squinted suspiciously. "Freakazoid, what are ye doin'?"

Freakazoid frowned, disappointment painted on his face. "I mean, if this were something like… balancing columns in Excel or picking a friendly font for your banana muffin newsletter, sure! But escaping from a vacuum-powered cyber-nostril? Nah. That's way above your pay grade."

Clippy's smile twitched. "Excuse me. I'm an advanced intelligent agent assistant."

"I mean, maybe WordPerfect could've helped," Freakazoid added with a shrug.

Clippy bristled. "WordPerfect?!" His voice cracked into a metallic reverb.

Roddy's eyes widened. "Freakazoid, did ye just trigger the paperclip?"

Clippy shouted, "I'm not a paperclip! I am an advanced intelligent agent assistant!" It straightened, eyebrows lowering in determination. "I can help! I will help!"

Freakazoid grinned. "Oh, yeah? What're you gonna do?"

"Change the margins!" Clippy screamed, his metallic body vibrating. A glowing toolbar snapped into existence, floating in front of Clippy. It jittered through drop-downs at lightning speed until reaching the Page Layout menu. Then it scrolled past the options for standardized page margins like "Normal" and "Moderate" and highlighted "Custom." Strange artifacts appeared along the edges of the menu as it flickered and finally grew brighter. As it changed, so did Clippy, his metallic body glowing red at the edges. Clippy began laughing, a warped loop of madness mixed with joy that skipped and stuttered like a sound file still buffering. "I'd like to see WordPerfect try to do this!"

Roddy squirmed, sensing the light out of the corner of his eyes. "Freakazoid, what's going on?"

Clippy's menu had the normal options for the margins on each side of the page, but as the menu warped, a fifth option appeared at the bottom, shimmering and twisting.

Freakazoid's eyes grew wide. "Uh, Roddy… I think Clippy is going to change the margin of error."

Roddy stopped squirming for a moment. "What? He's going to… add uncertainty?"

Freakazoid quipped, "A certain uncertainty, certainly!" He shifted the tone of his voice to something a little more cerebral as he explained, "A high margin of error means more random stuff can happen." Freakazoid loudly added with a smile, "Best science ever!"

The Sniffer shuddered. Its polished chrome rippled like water, nose hairs standing on end. Code poured out from its surface like pixelated static. Its vacuum pull sputtered—then reversed violently with a giant sneeze.

Roddy and Freakazoid were violently ejected, tumbling head over heels through the Internet sky. They landed in a grassy digital field, in the middle of a group of badgers dancing to a tinny techno beat. Their sudden arrival scattered the badgers, who left only some mushrooms behind in their wake. Above them, the Sniffer suddenly turned into a flock of flying toasters.

Clippy hovered overhead, twitching. "Would you like to: A) Save your work, B) Print a hard copy, or C) Accept the consequences of unstable metaphysical variance?"

Before either could answer, Clippy vanished in a puff of pixel dust.

Roddy groaned, but didn't get up. "Did we survive?"

Freakazoid sat up. His arm briefly faded away to be replaced by a cursor before snapping back. His eyes flickered with scanlines for a half a second. "I think so."

Roddy narrowed his eyes. "Lad… yer glowin'. That's not normal."

Freakazoid looked down. Bits of him shimmered faintly. His voice buzzed at the edges. "Oh."

Roddy's tone turned urgent. "When Clippy messed with the margin of error, it accelerated yer breakdown."

Freakazoid gasped. "I need to hurry and get my parents to kiss at the The Enchantment Under The Sea Dance or I'll cease to exist!"

Roddy shook his head. "No, but we need to get out of t'Internet before it's too late."

Freakazoid frowned. "Okay, but where do we go? That big Sniffer wasn't exactly giving directions."

Roddy squinted at the flickering digital skyline. "We need to find somewhere on this side of the Internet that has a stable exit. One with high connectivity an' low corruption. Something that'll let us anchor ye back to Dexter—or at least buy us more time."

"Okay, so what does that mean? Some place with a fast, reliable modem?"

"No, something better," Roddy replied, "We're lookin' for broadband, like at a university or research lab." Roddy excitedly added, "Maybe even a T1 line…"

"Wait a sec!" Freakazoid exclaimed. "Is that why a supervillain would need a map of the Internet? To get a better connection?"

Roddy's face darkened. "Because on the World Wide Web, everything is connected. Every site, every server, every wee machine talkin' to another—it's all part of a vast tangle of pathways and junctions."

He knelt down and drew a crude sketch in the pixelated grass—dots and lines, a simplified network map.

"When you click on a link," he explained, "you're not just poppin' over to a page. Yer makin' a request that hops through routers, pings through data centers, weaves its way across the globe faster than a sneeze at a pepper factory."

Freakazoid nodded solemnly. "I feel like this is going somewhere important. Also, I suddenly feel a sneeze coming on. Or maybe it's a hiccup."

Roddy continued, jabbing at the sketch. "Now imagine ye had a map—the map. One that shows how all those connections flow. Who's talkin' to who. What data's movin' where. That kind of power means ye could intercept anythin'. Fake credentials. Hijack data. Even reroute whole systems."

He looked up, serious. "A true map of the Internet isn't just lines and links. It's control. Influence. Maybe even domination."

Freakazoid tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Y'know, this sounds a lot like what Brain was trying to do when he wanted to still my superpowers."

Roddy arched an eyebrow and a smile touched the edge of his lips. "The wee mouse?"

Frekazoid rolled his eyes. "Yes, Roddy, you don't have to rub it in every time," Freakazoid said with a sigh. "Say, you don't think this could be some master plan by Brain? Getting supervillains working together for some nefarious purpose?"

Roddy scratched at his chin, thinking. "If it were… it'd be a sharp bit of villainy. Use others to do yer dirty work, stay clean yerself, and in the end—ye've got the whole web at yer feet."

Freakazoid nodded, a little too eagerly. "And Brain is short enough to get under everyone's radar."

Roddy didn't laugh. His eyes were scanning the horizon—lines of code rippling across the clouds like bad reception. "Could be him. Could probably be any number of possible villains."

Freakazoid's expression soured. "Ugh. I hate complicated plots. Just once I want to catch the villain standing in front of a chalkboard screaming, 'It was me all along!'"

Roddy turned to him, voice tightening. "We don't have time for guessin' games. If ye stay out here, there won't be any villains left to blame. There'll just be bits of ye scatterin' across email chains and badly compressed memes."

Freakazoid twitched—literally. A burst of static shimmered across his outline.

He looked down at his arm as the white of his glove flickered into transparency. "Okay, point taken. This is no place for existential fragility."

Roddy glanced down the pixelated horizon, shading his eyes. "We'll need to move fast. I don't know how much time you have left."

Freakazoid perked up. "Alright, Plan A! We'll move quicker if we're smaller. We just gotta compress ourselves!"

Roddy stared. "That sounds about as helpful as squirimin' in a Sniffer."

Freakazoid began tucking in his limbs, contorting himself into a rough square. "No, no, it's okay! You just have to click the little X, you don't need to buy the Winrar license!"

Roddy sighed, rubbing his temples. "Lad, ye're not a zip file."

Freakazoid uncurled, flopping dramatically to the digital ground. "Fine. Plan B! I'll call a taxi!" He hopped to his feet and whistled, waving one arm over his head.

Roddy looked around. "Well, we're stuck hoofin' it."

But then, on the edge of the horizon, a small cloud of data packets appeared. It slowly grew in size, getting closer and closer. Freakazoid straightened, and peered out towards the distant data packet cloud.

Roddy squinted. "What is that?"

Freakazoid pointed animatedly and shouted, "I recognize that thunderous, envelope-flavored gallop! I think it's the horse I rode in on!"

A glowing silhouette crested the pixelated horizon, the cloud of data packets trailing behind it. Freakazoid placed a reverent hand on his chest and whispered, "She's come back to me, Roddy."

Eudora the email horse burst into view, leaping towards them with all the grace of a digital horse that has an envelope for a body.

Roddy threw his hands out to the side. "How?!"

"Doesn't matter!" Freakazoid whooped. "She's canonically convenient!"

Eudora came to a graceful, skidding halt, snorting out a few lingering email pings. Freakazoid gently patted her paper flank.

Roddy shook his head. "Remind me to never question the laws of causality when yer around."

Freakazoid hopped into the saddle. "Right then! Where to?"

Roddy pointed into the shimmering distance, where a series of shining towers made of fiber optics and loading bars blinked in the digital haze. "That uplink node over there—see it? That's a broadband beacon. It'll give ye a strong enough connection to exit safely."

Freakazoid squinted. "Oh yeah! It's even glowing. Subtle."

He paused, smile softening. "Wouldn't it be neat if Dexter were waiting on the other side?"

Roddy rolled his eyes. "Don't push your luck."

Freakazoid reached his hand down towards Roddy to help him up, but the Scotsman shook his head. "I'm not goin'. Not yet. My friend SnowballNotAHamster is still out there somewhere, and I'm gonnae find him." He gave Freakazoid a stern look. "But you—you need to move fast."

Freakazoid gave a mock salute, then leaned down. "Don't be a stranger, Roddy. You're one of the good ones."

Roddy smirked. "Go. Before I start feelin' things."

With a cry of "Hyah, Eudora!" the email horse reared up and galloped toward the broadband beacon, trailed by a burst of data packets and a MIDI version of "Ride of the Valkyries."

 

---

 

A transport van, clearly labeled "Best Area Deliveries—Get U Your Stuff" on the side, rolled to a stop across the street from Acme Labs, its muffler wheezing. The engine sputtered off, and for a moment, there was silence.

Then the side door slammed open, and six distinct figures piled out—each trying to exit first, each grumbling about the others' elbows, horns, hats, or questionable hygiene.

Waylon Jeepers poked his head out last, clutching a suspiciously oversized duffel bag with a "TNT" label written in thick permanent marker.

"Well, gents—and lady—we've arrived at our target!" he said brightly. "Time to cause some wanton destruction, yes?"

"Waylon," Cave Guy growled, brushing past him, "You are not allowed to say 'wanton destruction.' You don't have the eyebrows for it."

Waylon clutched his duffel bag. "And what's wrong with my eyebrows?"

Major Danger adjusted his monocle. "Now, now, let's not bicker before we even breach the perimeter. This is a moment for finesse! Precision! Gentlemanly sabotage!"

Cave Guy snorted. "You wanna duel the security guard to first blood or plant the bombs already?"

"I'll have you know, my net demolition record is exemplary," Major Danger sniffed. "During the Great Louvre Mix-Up of '93, I leveled a wall and three excuses for modern art in twelve minutes."

"Oh pleasssse," Cobra Queen hissed, her large boa constrictor sidekick hissing in rhythm. "You both have the sssssubtlety of a gorilla in a tutu. Let me and my baby sssslither in, drop the payload, and vanish."

"Enough," Arms Akimbo said, stepping between them—literally, his elbows gently herding the others apart. "We're splitting into two teams. This doesn't need to become another Evil League of Doom bake sale incident."

There was a brief collective moment of reverent silence, and a few solemn nods.

He pointed to the others with alarming coordination. "Major Danger, Kid Carrion, Cave Guy—you'll enter through the east maintenance tunnel. It's low security and Carrion's smell should be masked."

"I resent that!" Carrion snapped.

"You may. Team two—Longhorn, Cobra Queen, and myself—through the lobby. We blow the server banks, short the labs, and make it look like a tech convention exploded."

"And me?" Waylon beamed, cradling his duffel bag. "Where do I go? I brought color-coded det cords!"

"You," Arms Akimbo said flatly, "stay in the van."

"What? Why?"

Longhorn shrugged. "'Cause trustin' you with explosives is like givin' a rattlesnake a tambourine."

Waylon pouted. "That's not fair. I don't even know what that means. Besides, I've always wanted to blow something up."

"Exactly," said everyone in unison.

Arms Akimbo clapped his elbows together. "Synchronize watches. We're in, out, and detonating within fifteen minutes. If anything goes wrong, regroup at the van."

Waylon saluted. "With cocoa ready!"

"No cocoa," Arms Akimbo muttered. "Just drive."

As the teams peeled off into the shadows, Waylon climbed into the driver's seat and carefully unzipped his bag. Inside were several bundles of dynamite, a remote detonator, and a copy of "So You Want To Blow Things Up" with several pages marked with dogears for easy reference. "They're gonna see. One day… they're all gonna see."

 

---

 

Dexter sat perched on the edge of a lab stool, one foot tapping against the metal rung as if trying to find a socially acceptable exit strategy. A cluttered lab table stood between him and the two genetically modified mice currently having what could only be described as a relationship talk. Technically, he wasn't eavesdropping—they knew he was there. But Dexter felt awkward, even by his usual standards. It was like being the third wheel in a really uncomfortable science fair project.

Pinky was clearly still processing the revelation that Brain had met someone online and was—apparently—dating her. Virtually. Through the Internet. Dexter rubbed the back of his neck. The Web could do a lot of things, but he wasn't sure "romance" belonged in its feature set.

Pinky looked up at the blown up poster-board printout of GrayMatterGoddess, taped askew to the back of the chalkboard. "I'm sure she's very nice, Brain. She seems nice, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Pixelated. But nice. She has a lovely blue sweater."

Brain, still holding a piece of chalk, didn't look away from the equations on the board. "She does," he said mildly. "Angora. Or perhaps a cotton blend. Difficult to determine due to image compression artifacts."

Dexter shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Was it getting warmer in here, or was it just the crushing weight of unresolved tension between the two lab mice? Probably both.

Pinky smiled, but it wobbled around the edges. "I mean, it's not like I expected you to wait around forever, right? I suppose everyone finds someone new eventually! Even if they live inside a GIF."

Dexter opened his mouth to say something comforting, but Brain beat him to it.

"That's a JPEG. And she's a real mouse."

Pinky blinked. "Oh."

An uncertain moment passed.

Dexter cleared his throat. "So, um. How did you two… meet?"

Brain finally turned from the board, folding his arms behind his back. "She responded to a comment I left on a Usenet thread regarding the ethical ramifications of memory implantation via sub-aural signal induction."

"Wait," Dexter said, trying to process Brain's technological stream of words, "Are you for that?"

"Obviously. The only thing standing between the world and paradise is voluntary compliance. Why not skip the 'voluntary' part?"

Pinky piped up brightly. "That's how love starts sometimes! With shared interests. Or questionable ethics!" He paused, then added with less confidence, "At least you were talking to an actual mouse, Brain. The last time I tried online chatting, I got catfished."

Dexter blinked. "What?"

Pinky waved his hand. "Very into underwater jazz. I think he lived in a lake in South Carolina."

Brain closed his eyes. "I don't even know where to begin with that."

"I still send him birthday cards," Pinky added softly.

Dexter cleared his throat. "Look, um, Brain," Dexter began and then cleared his throat a second time from nerves, "Pinky is, well, missing you. He feels that the two of you… aren't planning together like you used to."

Brain turned toward Dexter with surgical precision, his voice as crisp as a fresh lab coat. "Ah, yes. And I suppose you fancy yourself some kind of emotional liaison now? Or perhaps you'd prefer the term replacement sidekick?"

Dexter froze. "What? No—I was just—"

"Let me guess," Brain continued, his voice cold and clinical. "You imagine the world domination dynamic is somehow transferrable, like a group project in your horrible excuse for a public education. You and Pinky work together to stop the Lobe one time, and suddenly you're best friends forever?"

Dexter's mouth opened, a dozen retorts scrambling for position—but none of them made it past his lips. He just stared at Brain, who had already turned away, back to the chalkboard, the motion sharp and final.

The silence was thick.

Even Pinky, who had been humming quietly to himself and trying to re-inflate Lefty the latex glove, paused, his ears drooping slightly.

Then the lab rattled with a loud boom. The floor trembled as a violent crash echoed down the hallway, followed by the unmistakable sound of glass shattering and metal groaning under pressure.

Dexter whipped around. "What was that?!"

Brain's eyes narrowed. "That," he said coolly, dropping the chalk, "sounded like the front doors being forced open."

In the lobby of Acme Labs, the double set of front doors groaned before finally flying off of their hinges, splinters and metal flying inward. Longhorn stepped through the jagged remains of the entryway like he owned the place—if ownership came via blunt force trauma.

Longhorn shook his head, small bits of debris falling from his horns. "I bet if we had looked, them scientists probably left a key under the mat."

Cobra Queen slinked past him with a roll of his eyes. Her loyal boa constrictor followed with silent menace. "Stop fussssssing. A placccce like thisssss?" She spread her arms wide to take in the high ceiling and sterile lobby. "Worsssst thing we'll have to worry about is a couple of lab micccce."

Behind them, Arms Akimbo strutted through the shattered doors, hefting heavy bags of explosives within the crook of each elbow. "I dunno, I heard there's a vending machine in the east wing that once electrocuted a guy. Better keep your guard up," he said with a smirk.

Just then, a far-off clang echoed distantly through the empty corridor.

Longhorn narrowed his eyes. "Think there's anybody else in here?"

Akimbo flexed his elbows and grinned. "Not for much longer."

 

---

 

The warehouse was silent now.

The flickering screen where the villainous team had once received their orders buzzed softly with static.

Then, with a soft mechanical whir, a hidden trapdoor in the center of the floor slid open. From beneath the warehouse, rising slowly on a hydraulic lift, Snowball emerged.

He was a hamster, though few would dare call him that to his face. His body was small, his posture upright and composed, but his forehead was massive, a testament to the unnaturally large brain pulsing just beneath. Both he and Brain had been granted their intelligence by the Acme Gene Splicer & Bagel Warmer—a device of dubious legality and even more dubious culinary function—but the results could not have been more different. Where Brain was all cold calculation, Snowball's intellect burned with ruthless ambition. His eyes gleamed with cunning, his toothy grin all diabolical charm and zero conscience.

He stepped forward, backlit by the glow of the monitor. Arrayed neatly before him were the stolen DARPA hard drives, stacked like prizes. He reached out and gave one a proprietary tap.

"So much data," he purred. "So little interference."

Another lift from a hidden trapdoor, much wider than the first, opened up on the floor. Stacked on the lift was layer upon layer of desktop computers, each one bearing a simple emblem: "Apex Inside! Experience the Pinnacle of Processing!"

Snowball smiled wider. It was not a friendly smile. "Phase Two," he whispered, "is about to begin."

Notes:

There's just something irresistible about writing Freakazoid villains. In my last story, the Lobe had has soirée and Brain and Pinky got to hobnob with the weirdest and worst of them. And the idea of the mice having to defend Acme Labs using all of Brain's leftover (and questionably safe) experiments is equally appealing.

So I thought, why not both?

Roddy doesn't really use Notepad. He does all his coding and writing in vi, but that might be a reference even too obscure for Freakazoid.

Chapter 7: The Kevin McAllister Protocol

Summary:

Some of Freakazoid’s most notorious villains think they can storm Acme Labs and walk away victorious. But they weren’t counting on two determined lab mice, one gadget-filled research facility, and a teenager without superpowers who knows how to cause trouble.

Meanwhile, the Huntsman and Lord Bravery are forced to team up (begrudgingly) to track down a missing taxi cab before they can resume their pursuit of Major Danger, and argue over who gets to have him as their arch nemesis.

The low hum of the fluorescent diner lights buzzed overhead. The laminated menus stuck slightly to the formica tabletop, and the smell of bacon and burned coffee hung thick in the air.

Lord Bravery sat stiffly in the booth, arms crossed and expression grim. The Huntsman sat across from him, elbows too wide, and posture too confident for someone that just ordered dinner.

They had not spoken since placing their order, and the silence lingered like a wet sock.

"So…" the Huntsman began, his voice unnecessarily loud. "That was quite a skirmish back at DARPA headquarters."

"Indeed," Lord Bravery said. He pushed his fork to be a little closer to his knife. "Quite."

More silence.

"You, uh… throw a streetlamp like nobody's business," Huntsman offered.

"Thank you. That was quite impressive what you did to that zombie cowboy fellow."

Huntsman nodded in gratitude.

The waitress approached with a practiced smile and two glasses of water. She placed them down with a clink and left with the efficiency of someone who'd already seen too much this week.

Lord Bravery peered down at his glass with a frown. "Why is there ice in my water?"

The Huntsman looked at him blankly. "Because it's… water?"

"No, I mean—look at it. Chilled! Solid chunks floating about. I didn't ask for a freeze warning in my drink."

"That's how people drink water," the Huntsman offered helpfully. "Cold water. With ice. It's... refreshing?"

Lord Bravery poked one of the cubes with his straw, suspicious.

Their tea arrived next.

Two large plastic tumblers, filled to the brim with a golden brown liquid and an abundance of ice. Lord Bravery stared at his glass, aghast.

"What… is this?"

"That's your tea," the Huntsman said, already sipping his through a straw.

"Tea?" Lord Bravery repeated. "This… this is not tea. This is sugar-flavored pond water. And it's cold. Tea is meant to be boiling. If your teeth aren't in danger, it's not real tea."

"Welcome to America," the Huntsman said, raising his cup in mock toast.

Lord Bravery did not return the gesture. "No wonder you dumped all of your tea into the harbor," he muttered quietly. He sighed and pushed his tea away. "Look, I—we—need to be pursuing the villains from earlier. Who knows what they're up to!"

The Huntsman nodded. "We'll have to be ready as soon as the Horn of Urgency calls us to adventure."

"Horn of… ?! No, no, we can't just wait around until your Horn of Emergency—"

"Horn of Urgency," the Huntsman corrected.

"—toots or sings or does whatever it is it does. We need to be proactive!" Lord Bravery leaned forward. "Which is why I brought a portable shortwave with me."

The Huntsman arched an eyebrow. "Where is it?"

Lord Bravery puffed up. "It's—" he began, but paused. His expression faltered as a flicker of realization danced behind his eyes. "It's still in the back of the taxi," he groaned, collapsing slightly in his seat.

The Huntsman stood abruptly, a gust of righteous purpose practically lifting his napkin from his lap.

"Then fear not, brave companion!" he declared, planting one foot on the side of the booth like a noble flamingo. One hand pointed skyward heroically, and the other was solidly on his hip. "We shall recover your lost communications device, for no hero should be without his tools. The hunt is on!"

At that exact moment, the waitress appeared beside them, balancing two overloaded platters with weary precision. "Which one of you ordered the French dip?"

The Huntsman blinked. "Ah. That would be me."

He slid smoothly back into the booth without missing a beat. "After we eat," he added, with perfect solemnity.

 

---

 

The echoing sound of Acme Labs' front doors being smashed apart by Longhorn slowly faded away. Dexter looked at Brain in alarm, "What do you mean the front doors were forced open?!"

Ignoring him, Brain climbed down from the stool by his chalkboard. "Come, Pinky! To the janitorial closet!"

Pinky excitedly yelled, "Yaaay!" as he grabbed a partially inflated Lefty and scampered after Brain. Pinky came to a stop and turned back to look at Dexter. "What about Dexter?"

Brain lowered his head with a sigh, calculating the variables. "Very well," he begrudgingly said, "Dexter may come as well."

Confused, Dexter followed. "We're going to hide in a closet?"

Pinky opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again when Brain glared in his direction. 

The janitorial closet was barely wide enough for a mop and bucket, and was only more crowded when the three of them made it inside and closed the door. Shelves of half-used bottles lined one wall, with a space-hogging mop slumped against a cracked plastic bucket in the corner. An "Out of Order" sign dangled from a faucet above a deep, stained sink.

Dexter blinked. "This is… cozy."

"Don't let appearances deceive you," Brain said, climbing onto the edge of the sink. "Pinky, left valve. On my count."

Pinky saluted with the seriousness of someone preparing a rocket launch. "Aye aye, Brain!"

"One… two… three!"

They turned the handles simultaneously. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the plumbing behind the wall groaned to life, and the sink slid up with the sound of turning gears, revealing a short doorway. Cold fluorescent light spilled out from the other side into the cramped space.

Dexter stared. "Whoa."

Pinky and Brain stepped through the small door, and Dexter managed to stoop low and push his head and shoulders into a small mouse-sized room. It was a dimly lit control room with monitors lining one wall, displaying every corridor in Acme Labs. Shelves along the wall were packed with odd gadgets and half-finished prototypes.

Dexter looked around in awe. "Wow… this is like a secret supervillain lair." The moment the words left his mouth, he winced.

Pinky gave an apologetic shrug. "Don't worry, Dexter. Brain gets that a lot."

Dexter laughed awkwardly. "I meant it in a cool, aesthetic sense, not an evil one."

Brain slowly turned to look at him, his expression unreadable before giving a long, inscrutable harrumph.

Brain hopped up to a swiveling chair and activated a series of monitors with a flick of a switch. The screens flickered, then stabilized, showing grainy black-and-white footage of Long Horn, Cobra Queen, and Arms Akimbo stalking through the lobby like they owned the place. He scowled. "I recognize those misfits from the Lobe's Supervillain Soiree."

Dexter nodded. "That's Longhorn, Arms Akimbo, and Cobra Queen."

"Oooo, Brain!" Pinky waggled his eyebrows. "I think Cobra Queen was sweet on you at the party. Or sweet on Brainpower. Maybe she likes big robots."

"I have a girlfriend, Pinky. I met her online," Brain flatly stated.

Pinky nodded quickly. "Yes, yes, of course." He scratched his head. "Three supervillains working together? That's a bit odd, isn't it?"

"It doesn't happen very often," Dexter agreed. "But it seems to have been happening a lot more recently." He thought back to the encounter he and Freakazoid had in a server room the other day.

"They're heading for the inner labs," Brain muttered, eyes narrowing. "We'll need to intercept them before they reach anything valuable. Or flammable."

"Shouldn't we call for help?" Dexter asked.

"And alert the authorities that we've been storing weaponized Jell-O, expired uranium isotopes, and a working freeze ray prototype in the same building? Yes, let's definitely do that," Brain replied dryly. "No. We delay them. We confuse them. We make them regret setting foot in here."

He pointed a tiny finger at the map display. "Dexter, Pinky—you'll take the west corridor. I'll direct you from here. Take this radio with you for communications."

Pinky nodded. "You got it, Brain! The Kevin McAllister Protocol is a go!"

Brain sighed. "Please stop calling it that."

 

---

 

The server room buzzed and whirred around them, the hum of dozens of cooling fans filling the air. Blue light from rows of servers cast eerie shadows across the walls. It was cold here—colder than it should've been.

Arms Akimbo and worked quickly, setting explosives along the walls and securing bundles of detcord around the server racks. Cobra Queen rubbed her arms as she shivered. "I should've assssked for another ssssssweater," she said with chattering teeth.

Arms Akimbo gave the tiniest nod. "The sooner we get this done, the sooner we get out of here. Gimme a hand with this."

From the doorway, Longhorn stood, arms crossed, tapping one massive hoof impatiently against the floor. "This place gives me the creeps," he muttered.

Suddenly—a soft clink echoed from somewhere deeper in the building.

Longhorn's head jerked up, horns gleaming in the flickering light. "You hear that?"

Arms Akimbo shrugged. "Relax, probably nothin'. Old building like this makes all kinds of weird noises."

Another thump, a little closer this time.

Cobra Queen narrowed her eyes. "Go sssee what it isss, cowboy."

Longhorn scowled. "Why me?"

Cobra Queen bared her fangs. "Becausssse you're not doing anything usssseful."

Longhorn snorted and adjusted his belt. "Fine. But if it's some janitor with a mop, I'm gonna be mad."

He clomped off into the dim hallway. The hallway stretched out before him, shadows slithering across the walls.

Longhorn froze at the faint sound of something scratching. Slowly, he turned around, eyes darting around in search of something. But he saw nothing.

He shook his head and muttered under his breath. "Mice. Stinkin' place probably overrun with 'em."

He took another step forward, and heard the sound again. A scritching sound coming from behind him. Longhorn spun around again—and there, sitting cheerfully in the center of the hallway, was a lone white mouse.

Pinky gave a bright, enthusiastic wave.

Longhorn blinked, unimpressed. "What's this, some kinda joke?"

He stomped over towards Pinky. Suddenly, from an overhead vent, a blast of arctic air rushed directly at him. There was a brief yelp, and then silence.

In the server room, the sound of something heavy falling over echoed from down the hall. The two villains froze. Longhorn's unmistakable bellow sliced through the air, and then nothing but eerie silence.

Arms Akimbo and Cobra Queen looked at each other uneasily.

"You go check," Akimbo said, nudging her with an elbow.

"You go!" Cobra Queen hissed.

"Rock-paper-scissors?" Akimbo offered.

"Fine!" Cobra Queen spat. "One! Two Three!" She grinned triumphantly at her hand, two fingers splayed in a scissor-like shape. Then she looked down at Arms Akimbo's two hands, both stuck to his hips as always. And, as always, in a rock-like fist.

Cobra Queen growled and turned away from Akimbo's confident sneer, stomping out of the server room with her large constrictor following behind her. She slowed entering the hallway. It was even darker than before, with the lights overhead all turned off. She reached for the light switch, and flipped it several times before giving up. Sighing, she crept forward slowly.

There was definitely something large ahead, but it was difficult for Cobra Queen to make it out in the darkness. "Longhorn? Issss that you?" she hesitatingly whispered. She took another step, and a burst of cold air from a broken pipe sent a loose broom clattering to the ground beside her. Cobra Queen shrieked, stumbling back into the wall, and her snake sidekick wrapped itself around her leg in a panic.

Panting, Cobra Queen pushed her snake away and pressed forward, squinting through the gloom.

Finally, she saw it clearly: Longhorn frozen solid inside a shimmering block of ice. Only the tip of one horn wasn't completely frozen over, poking out of the ice awkwardly with a "Do Not Disturb" sign hanging from it.

Cobra Queen stormed back toward the server room, her snake slithering anxiously at her side.

"Akimbo!" she hissed. "You better not be napping, or I'll knot your elbowssss into a pretzzzzel!"

No answer.

She reached the server room and cautiously pushed open the door. The overhead fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed, casting erratic shadows across the floor.

It was empty—empty of everything. There was no sign of Arms Akimbo, and most of their equipment—the explosives, the timers, the wiring—was gone. In its place were overturned tables, scattered tools, and a few half-melted wires dangling from the ceiling like limp vines.

Cobra Queen stepped inside, muttering darkly. "Typical. Leave me to clean up the messss."

Drip.

She paused. A soft, steady sound echoed through the half-ruined lab.

Drip.

Something wet landed on her shoulder with a cold splat.

She froze. Slowly, she reached up with one gloved hand and touched the substance. It was sticky. Viscous. She flicked her snake-like tongue. And lime flavored?

She looked up.

High above, clinging to the ceiling like some kind of gelatinous cocoon, was Arms Akimbo—completely encased in shimmering, quivering green Jell-O. His eyes were wide with silent, panicked pleading behind the translucent prison, and his elbows twitched uselessly inside the goo.

Another glob of weaponized Jell-O dripped and hit the ground beside Cobra Queen with a wet splat.

She took a slow step back, trembling. "Thisss placccce is curssssed!"

 

---

 

The Huntsman crouched low to the ground, peering at faint tire marks on the cracked asphalt. His eyes narrowed with predatory focus.

"There," he whispered. "A recent tread mark. Aggressive driving pattern. Likely… a taxi. Or possibly a teenager in the middle of a pizza delivery." He leaned closer, his nose practically pressed into the street. He took a deep inhale through his nose. "No, definitely a taxi."

Lord Bravery arched an eyebrow. "You can tell all that from squiggles on the pavement?"

"I'm the Huntsman," he said proudly, chest swelling.

Lord Bravery gave a noncommittal grunt. "Marvelous. And will your mystical pavement divination lead us to the correct taxi? Out of all the taxis in the city?"

"Of course. Mystical corn has heightened my senses," the Huntsman replied.

Not to be outdone, Lord Bravery stiffened. "Fine. Then I shall employ actual reason and intellect."

He strode towards a nearby parking attendant, who was lazily reading a newspaper. In crisp, authoritative tones, Lord Bravery demanded, "You there! Have you seen a taxi—gaudy yellow thing, driven by a man with a Brooklyn accent as thick as sticky toffee pudding?"

The attendant, startled, pointed vaguely down the street. "Y-yeah, he hangs out near the doughnut shop his cousin works at. Two blocks that way."

Lord Bravery turned back to the Huntsman, folding his arms smugly. "Logic triumphs again."

The Huntsman shrugged. "Tracking pastry residue would've worked too."

Following the parking attendant's vague directions, the two heroes made their way down the block, past a row of increasingly eccentric storefronts until finally, nestled between a nail salon and a psychic who read fortunes in breakfast cereal, they arrived at "Ronnie's Doughnut Depot."

The scent of fried dough and artificial glaze hit them like a sugary freight train. Lord Bravery gagged slightly as the aroma assaulted his nostrils. The Huntsman pushed open the shop's door and strode inside.

The cabbie was seated at a booth holding a newspaper in his sugar-coated hands. A plate of powdered doughnuts was on the table, and judging from the amount of crumbs, half of them had already been eaten. He didn't look up as the bell over the door jingled.

Lord Bravery approached the booth, clearing his throat with all the dignity he could muster while standing in a shop called "Ronnie's Doughnut Depot."

"Excuse me, my good fellow—"

The cabbie lowered the paper just enough to peek over the top. "Hey, you're the limey fella from earlier! Thought I recognized the hat thing."

Lord Bravery bristled. "It's not a hat thing!"

The cabbie shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Want a doughnut?"

"We've come for something of far greater value," Lord Bravery said, standing taller. "I seem to have left my radio in the backseat of your vehicle."

The cabbie licked a smear of powdered sugar from his thumb and wiped his hand on his already sugar-dusted shirt. "Oh, sure, no problem. Lemme just grab the radio for ya fellas," he said cheerfully, patting his pocket for his keys. "Pretty sure I left it in the trunk right next to my emergency éclairs."

He pushed open the doughnut shop door and stepped outside, only to stop mid-stride. He looked to his left. He turned and looked to his right. "…Where's my cab?"

The man behind the counter looked up from sweeping powdered crumbs into a pile that defied both physics and hygiene laws  "Oh yeah. Tow truck came by 'bout twenty minutes ago. Said you were double parked again."

The cabbie turned slowly, blinking. "Tow truck?"

"Yeah. Big blue one. Had a beep beep sound and everything."

"Cousin," the cabbie sighed, "Why didn't you say anything?"

The cousin shrugged. "You said not to disturb you until you were done readin' the funny pages."

Lord Bravery groaned into his gloved hand. "I cannot believe this is our lives right now."

The Huntsman nodded sagely. "This is why I never double park. Destiny waits for no meter maid."

 

---

 

Dexter crept around the corner, clutching what looked like a souped-up Super Soaker strapped to a bright orange cooler on his back. The hose leading to the weapon jiggled as he swatted the side of the gun with growing frustration.

"I don't think the freeze ray prototype is working anymore," he grumbled.

He turned to Pinky, who tiptoed behind him with exaggerated stealth. "Pinky, how much of the weaponized Jell-O do you have left?"

Pinky paused, considered the question, and then burped. He wiped at a suspicious lime-green smudge stained the corner of his mouth. "Nope! It's all gone!"

Dexter stared at him, aghast. "You ate the weaponized Jell-O?"

"Oh, I can't resist lime! Narf!"

Dexter threw up his hands in exasperation. "We still have to get rid of Cobra Queen—and we're out of weapons!"

There was a sharp burst of static from the walkie-talkie clipped to Dexter's belt. Brain's voice crackled through, calm and cool. "Then by necessity... you will need to improvise."

Pinky clapped his hands. "Oh! I love improvising! Do we need props? I once improvised an entire dinner party out of spaghetti noodles and sock puppets!"

Dexter gave him a long stare. "You know what? At this point, I'm open to suggestions."

Brain answered sternly over the walkie-talkie, "No, we are not doing sock puppets again."

Pinky burped again. "Oooo, I can still taste it!" Dexter continued staring at Pinky. "...is what I would say if I had eaten weaponized Jell-O!"

"We can't just go up against the Cobra Queen without something to help," Dexter complained.

Brain's voice crackled over the walkie-talkie again. "There is a storage annex one level down. Experimental prototypes. Mostly failed. Some... mildly hazardous."

"Ooh, a prototype closet! Like a treasure hunt, but with more exposed wiring and regrettable design choices!" Pinky said with a grin.

One dim staircase and a few minutes later, Dexter and Pinky pried open the creaky doors of a cluttered storage room. The inside was filled with dust-coated boxes, sparking wires, strange devices stacked like forgotten IKEA furniture, and at least one strange tentacled statue that almost sounded like it was humming in a language not known to science.

Dexter looked around skeptically. "It's a junk heap in here."

Pinky proudly hefted up a box labeled, "Mouse traps." He giggled. "The staff keeps thinking there's a mouse problem! Ha! Can you imagine?"

Dexter said nothing. He shrugged the freeze ray off his shoulders and set it down in the corner. "Hopefully there's something else we can use."

The walkie-talkie crackled again. This time, Brain's voice had an edge to it. "Whatever you're doing, expedite it. There are more intruders coming."

"More?" Dexter practically shouted.

"Three, through the sublevel maintenance tunnels," Brain explained.

"Six villains?!" Dexter shouted again, his voice cracking.

Pinky pulled a tattered dusty tarp off a device leaning against a wall. It was some kind of skinny cylindrical contraption on caster wheels with six spindly arms. "Then we'll definitely need this!"

"What is it?" Dexter asked, peering more closely. "A combat training droid? Security enforcement robot?"

Pinky read the lettering off of the tarp. "It's the Automatic Laundry Folder!"

Dexter groaned. "Well, if we need to fold a fitted sheet, we're set."

The machine whirred softly, then sprang to life with a sudden mechanical ka-chunk. Its arms twitched. One of them unfurled like a tape measure and snapped back with unnerving speed.

Pinky clapped his hands. "Ooo! It's already warming up!"

The Automatic Laundry Folder spun, scanning the room. Several beams of red light cast about the storage area. 

Dexter took a cautious step back. "Why does it have lasers?"

"To smooth out the wrinkles!" Pinky said cheerfully. The Automatic Laundry Folder's multitude of lasers finally centered in one target. 

Dexter looked at his shirt nervously. His favorite blue shirt that he wore all the time, and hardly ever took off. His very wrinkly shirt. With red laser beams focusing on it.

Pinky leaned in helpfully. "You should probably take that off."

Dexter backed away, hands up. "That's not going to happen."

The machine issued a low ding, followed by a cheerful robotic voice: "Wrinkle detected. Initiating precision fold sequence." A spring-loaded ironing arm snapped out, hot steam hissing from the end of the appendage.

Dexter yelped and bolted behind some metal shelves. "Time to go!"

"Brilliant, Dexter!" Pinky exclaimed, "We'll lead it straight to the villains!"

Dexter hesitated a moment, then nodded. He pressed on his walkie-talkie as he and Pinky dashed out the door. "Brain, we've got a possible solution. We need to get to those other villains—fast!"

 

---

 

The impound lot looked like a prison yard for misbehaving vehicles. Fences topped with barbed wire. Grease-streaked windows. A flickering sign that read "TOW LOT – CASH ONLY – ABSOLUTELY NO WHINING."

Lord Bravery eyed it with distaste. "Charming."

The Huntsman adjusted his cape dramatically. "Let me handle this. I've convinced a chipmunk to share his acorn and talked down an angry swan. One crusty lot keeper is no match for my charisma."

Inside the office, a surly man sat behind a greasy counter, surrounded by clipboards, coffee mugs, and a calendar featuring muscle cars with women lounging across their hoods. He didn't look up.

"Excuse me, noble guardian of the iron stables," the Huntsman boomed with theatrical flair. "We seek a towed taxi. Within its confines lies a great treasure—a shortwave radio, and possibly an éclair or two."

The lot attendant stared at him for a long beat. "Do you have the plate number?"

The Huntsman blinked. "Plate number?

Lord Bravery sighed. The Huntsman stepped forward again. "Wait! Perhaps this... will speed things along." He placed a crumpled dollar bill and a shiny acorn on the counter.

The attendant stared at it.

The Huntsman pointed to the acorn. "I spent hours negotiating for that acorn. It's worth a small fortune. In cashews, mind you."

Lord Bravery stepped forward, smoothing his gloves. "Permit me." He adopted a patient, officious tone. "We represent a cross-jurisdictional transnational investigation and are authorized—under D.C. Municipal Code 12-7b—to retrieve time-sensitive materials stored within said vehicle."

The attendant squinted. "You got ID?"

Lord Bravery pulled out a laminated card and slid it across the counter. In return, the attendant slowly slid a form towards Lord Bravery. "Fill this out. Both copies. Front and back. I'll need thirty dollars."

The Huntsman pointed back to the acorn and his tired-looking dollar bill. "What about this?"

The man sighed. "Twenty-nine dollars. And you can keep the nut."

Minutes later, the Huntsman was slinging the shortwave radio over his shoulder like a freshly hunted prize. "I must say, Lord Bravery, I'm thoroughly impressed. I didn't realize you'd mastered American municipal law so quickly."

Lord Bravery adjusted the star over his cape and replied, matter-of-factly, "I made it up."

The Huntsman stopped mid-step. "You made it up?"

"Well, yes," Bravery admitted with a shrug. "But I did it in a confident tone. Americans seem to respond to bravado."

"Genius," the Huntsman whispered in awe.

Lord Bravery closed the trunk of the taxi and the Huntsman set down the radio. Lord Bravery turned the knob on the shortwave, adjusting the frequency with a flick and a scowl. Static gave way to a burst of chaotic shouting.

"... I repeat, the automatic laundry folder is on a rampage! Who builds a laundry death robot! And there's also a crazy evil British version of Crocodile Hunter shouting 'Tally Ho!' while cracking a whip! Who keeps these crazy things in Acme Labs, anyway?!"

Both heroes blinked.

The Huntsman straightened, his eyes alight. "Ah. Destiny speaks."

Lord Bravery was less moved. "It sounds more like someone having a nervous breakdown about folding a fitted sheet."

The Huntsman put a hand to his heart. "Acme Labs is under siege. And destiny is telling me that my arch-nemesis—"

"Your arch-nemesis?" Lord Bravery sputtered. "Do you even remember his name?"

The Huntsman dismissively waved his hand at the idea of a name being more important than the deep, natural connection between a hero and his villain. "The villain mocks the honor of the hunt itself. I must go!"

He turned to Lord Bravery. "Come! We ride!"

Lord Bravery hesitated. "Technically, I'm not authorized to perform unsanctioned heroism on foreign soil. The constable Cosgrove was quite clear."

The Huntsman's eyes lit up. "Then we outfox the red tape."

Lord Bravery frowned. "By… doing what, exactly?"

The Huntsman struck a bold pose. "You become… my sidekick!"

"I beg your pardon?" Lord Bravery said, his voice a horrified monotone.

"Yes!" the Huntsman declared. "If you accompany me as a subordinate, the paperwork will view us as a single heroic entity. A dynamic duo becoming a single unit! A righteous gestalt of justice! A virtuous marriage of vigilance!"

Lord Bravery looked ill.

The Huntsman clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll get you a proper sidekick codename. Hmm. What about… Hunt Lad?"

"Absolutely not."

The Huntsman turned to the cabbie, who was carefully inspecting his car for new dents and scratches. "Cabman! Do you know where Acme Labs is?"

"Buddy, I know where all the research facilities are!" the cabbie said with a grin. He opened the driver's door. "Hop in!"

He paused as he was getting in the car. "Is this one of them superhero emergencies?"

"No!" Lord Bravery quickly answered with a horrified twinge in his voice.

"Yes, it most certainly is!" the Huntsman declared at the same time at a slightly higher volume.

"Oh-ho! Now this I gotta see!" the cabbie said with a whistle, eagerly hopping into the car.

The Huntsman quickly got in the cab. "Hurry, sidekick! Destiny awaits!"

Lord Bravery groaned, his head in his hands. "Sometimes it feels like my mother-in-law was right."

 

---

 

The World Wide Web sprawled out in all directions—spiky firewalls, twisting hyperlinks, digital hills flickering like corrupted game textures.

Freakazoid slumped over the back of Eudora, the faithful email horse galloping in strained, floppy strides. Her envelope body crinkled with every heave, and her neon data mane had lost much of its previous sparkle and sheen.

"C'mon, girl," Freakazoid whispered. "Just a little further. You've still got postage left in you."

Eudora wheezed and released a puff of pixel dust as they crested one last hill.

And there it was.

Just ahead was the uplink node. Glowing, humming, majestic, and looking a lot like a glowing Ethernet plug the size of a grain silo.

Freakazoid blinked slowly, his glitching now more frequent—his outline flickered, his color scheme inverted for half a second, and when it returned, his gloves were momentarily hot pink.

He slumped. "I'm not gonna make it, girl. You go on without me," he murmured. "Save yourself."

Eudora brayed an exhausted e-neigh.

Freakazoid's head flopped dramatically to the side. "Ah, how the mighty have fallen. Once I danced with the dancing hamster gifs of the land… now I am but a forgotten GeoCities page… awaiting deletion…"

He raised one trembling hand to the heavens. "When you see Roddy, tell him… tell him… I never figured out how cookies work…"

And just then, the sky above the digital plain shimmered. A massive, semi-transparent floating head appeared, like a low-res Obi-Wan.

"Hey, Freakazoid. It's me, Cosgrove."

Freakazoid blinked. "I'm hearing voices from the great beyond! This is it! Goodbye cruel Internet Explorer!"

"Nope. Still alive," Cosgrove said flatly. "One of the guys at the precinct set me up with somethin' called ICQ. Or IRC. I dunno. It made a blooping sound, and now I'm talking to you in here. I think I also ordered something from AuctionWeb by accident."

Freakazoid blinked again. "…Okay. Not heaven. Just Internet weirdness. I can work with that."

"By the way, why does everyone on here keep asking me about 'A-S-L'? I don't even know American Sign Language."

Freakazoid snorted weakly. "It stands for—actually, no. I want to see how long it takes you to figure it out."

Cosgrove nodded solemnly. "Fair."

The giant head leaned slightly forward. "Listen. I got reports of strange activity at Acme Labs. Thought you oughta know. Figured Brain might be cooking up something big and villainous again."

Freakazoid's glitching slowed for a moment. He sat up straighter.

"Brain?" he muttered. "The megalomaniacal mouse bent on world domination?"

"That's the one," Cosgrove said. "You'd better get moving."

Freakazoid grit his teeth and placed one hand on Eudora's crinkled envelope neck. "Then let's ride, girl. For friendship. For broadband. For Comic Sans!" Eudora neighed heroically in agreement.

Freakazoid pointed forward… and immediately fell off the back of the horse with a flat thud, face-first into the digital dirt.

He groaned. Without lifting his head, he raised one gloved hand limply. "A little help, please?"

With his face in the ground, Freakazoid couldn't see anything, but he definitely heard the friendly ding. It was shortly followed by a familiar, overly chipper voice.

"Hi there! It looks like you're trying to survive a critical system crash!"

Freakazoid turned his head just enough to groan, "Oh no. Not you again…"

One of Clippy's eyes twitched. "Would you like assistance with A) Writing a last will and testament, B) Saving your document before imminent shutdown, or C) Writing a letter to your next of kin?"

Freakazoid coughed into the dirt. "How about D) Get me out of here?"

Clippy brightened. "Redirecting query!"

Suddenly, a motivational slideshow template opened with jazzy transition wipes. Each slide featured outdated clipart of workplace triumph: a clipart of a businessman giving a thumbs-up, a cartoon cat hanging on to a clothesline, and finally—Clippy himself, standing atop a rising bar graph, a light shining down on it from above in glory.

Clippy beamed. "Research shows that goal-setting improves productivity by 78%! Let's make a SMART goal! Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Ridiculous, and Time-wasting!"

Freakazoid blinked. "I don't have time to waste!"

"Excellent!" Clippy chirped. "Then we'll use the Mail Merge Wizard to fragment your molecular code into individual packets and distribute them across secure nodes!"

"…That sounds terrifying. And painful!"

"It's highly efficient!" Clippy gleefully exclaimed.

A progress bar appeared, labeled "Combining Data Sources." As the percentage grew higher, an alert window appeared overhead briefly before Clippy closed it. Eudora whinnied nervously.

Freakazoid turned over and backed away on trembling elbows. "No. Nooo! What did that say?"

Clippy shimmered ominously, and a red glow appeared around him. "Oh, nothing important. Just a tiny little warning about dynamic library instability, irreversible metadata fusion, that sort of thing." A giant "MERGE" button hovered over Freakazoid's head.

Clippy jumped forward, pressing the button with his whole body. There was a flashing of light, and Eudora let out a startled neigh. The sound of a dot matrix printer rumbled in the distance.

A peaceful silence followed. Freakazoid looked around, but there was no sign of Clippy. He slowly and unsteadily pushed himself upright. It took him a moment to balance himself on all four feet.

"Wait, four feet?!" Freakazoid exclaimed. He looked down. From the waist up, he was still Freakazoid. But he had the lower half of an email horse.

His jaw dropped. "Oh no! I've been mail merged!"

Notes:

How big is Acme Labs? There's nothing canonical about it. Sometimes it seems like it's just a lobby by the front doors that leads to a single research lab with two mice. Other times, it's sprawling, with plenty of room for Brain to tinker. For me, it's exactly as big as the plot needs it to be. And when I have two teams of supervillains and a stockpile of leftover experiments, I definitely need it bigger than usual.

Chapter 8: Attack of the Automatic Laundry Folder

Summary:

The epic conclusion to the battle for Acme Labs!

Brain has mostly rebuilt his old Supervillain Suit, Freakazoid has returned from the Internet, and Lord Bravery and the Huntsman have arrived by taxi to join the fray. Together, the heroes face off against a full roster of Freakazoid's most notorious villains in an all-out battle.

But as the villains close in, one question looms large: will this be the heroes' finest hour—or their last stand?

Dexter sprinted down the corridor, glancing behind him every few steps. "How is it gaining on us?! It only has tiny little wheels!"

Pinky kept pace beside him. "Maybe it's angry! One time, I couldn't figure out how to fold a fitted sheet and I just put it back in the hamper."

Behind them, the Automatic Laundry Folder rumbled with unstoppable precision. Its arms whirred and clicked, one of them now glowing red-hot from ironing mode. A mechanical voice calmly repeated: "WRINKLE DETECTED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. CREASE COMPLIANCE COMMENCING."

With a sharp hiss, the machine fired a blast of superheated steam. It scorched the air just above their heads, curling Dexter's hair slightly.

Dexter skidded around a corner and grabbed Pinky, scooping up the mouse in his arms. "We need to lure it somewhere more… villain-filled!"

Pinky blinked. "Like a birthday party at the Lobe's secret headquarters?"

Dexter gestured wildly. "The villains, Pinky. The actual intruders!" He slapped the walkie-talkie. "You talk to Brain and figure out where we're going. I'll do the running."

Pinky clicked it on. "Brain? Brain? If you can hear me, what's the best place to lure an extremely aggressive laundry appliance?"

Brain's voice crackled back: "Take the east corridor to the ventilation hub. The villains are congregating there. And whatever you do, don't go down the west maintenance tunnel. It's a dead end and filled with improperly stored chemistry experiments!"

Pinky turned to Dexter, eyes wide. "He says take the west corridor with all the fun chemicals!"

Dexter blinked. "What?"

But Pinky had jumped out of his arms and was already sprinting. "Don't worry! Brain knows what he's doing!"

Dexter groaned and chased after him. "That's not as reassuring as you think it is!"

Dexter skidded to a halt, flailing slightly as they entered the corridor lined with bubbling beakers and glowing canisters. The floor shimmered faintly with chemical residue, and the air smelled like citrus, ammonia, and previously unknown chemical cocktails.

Behind them, the Automatic Laundry Folder screeched around the corner, steam blasting from its ironing arm. Dexter backed up, eyes darting between the robot and the swirling neon concoctions around them.

"This is a dead end!" he hissed.

Pinky pointed to a precarious shelf stacked with pristine, monogrammed terry cloth towels. Each one had a tag that read: CAUTION – For Hazardous Cleanup Only.

"Oooh! Fancy towels!" Pinky said, reaching out toward them.

Dexter pulled him back. "Don't touch anything!"

The shelf wobbled. A cascade of fluffy chemical-grade towels tumbled down like a polyester avalanche.

The Laundry Folder let out a delighted chime. "Unfolded fabric detected. Recalibrating priority sequence."

With a whirr of mechanical fervor, the robot redirected its focus to the mess. Its arms spun into action, grabbing towels, pressing them flat, folding with laser precision, and stacking them neatly back on the shelf—even as more kept falling from the top.

Dexter stared. "It's… folding them all."

"Aw," Pinky cooed, "it just wants to tidy up the world, one towel at a time!"

Dexter shoved it in his pack. "No time! While it's folding—move!"

They darted past the distracted robot, its folding arms blurring in a frenzy of terry cloth and steam.

Dexter and Pinky emerged back into the main corridor, Dexter wheezing from the effort. "Okay. One accidental laundry apocalypse down, three villains to go."

Pinky raised both hands, three fingers outstretched. "I'm so sorry, Dexter. I mixed up east and west again." 

Dexter squinted. "What?!"

Pinky explained cheerfully, "See, I always get confused until I remember—if you hold up three fingers on your east hand, it makes an E!"

He proudly held up three fingers on each hand, forming two perfect W's.

"Oh no!" Pinky gasped. "I didn't realize I'd been west-handed this whole time! No wonder I have trouble with penmanship!"

Dexter groaned. "No more directions from you." He leaned against the corner of the wall, still gasping. He turned and watched the Automatic Laundry Folder. "Okay… okay. One homicidal folding robot successfully distracted."

The hallway behind them rumbled slightly as the Auto Laundry Folder continued folding the terry clothes into perfectly stacked squares.

They heard the robot let out a cheerful ding behind them. Pinky turned back and waved. "You did great, folder-friend!"

Dexter gestured toward the correct hallway this time. "Come on. East. Actual east."

Pinky raised his hand to double-check. "Right, three fingers. Like an E!"

Dexter stood up straighter, and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Okay. You ready?" Pinky responded with an enthusiastic thumbs up. Dexter took a final big breath, then turned the corner. "Hey! Automatic Laundry Folder!" He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and shook it. "I've got soooo many wrinkles!"

There was another loud ding from the robot. "Okay, now we run!" Dexter said.

 

---

 

Back in the dimly lit operations center, Brain adjusted a flickering monitor, the feed crackling slightly before stabilizing. One screen showed a blur of motion—Dexter and Pinky sprinting past shelves, the Auto Laundry Folder in hot pursuit. Another displayed a dark corridor where shadows of lurking villains moved just out of view.

Brain turned away from the walkie-talkie with a long, exasperated sigh. "As usual," he muttered, folding his arms behind his back, "it will be up to me to save the day."

He walked across the cluttered floor, stepping over coils of wire and half-dismantled bits and pieces. His eyes fell on a canvas tarp draped across something large and lumpy.

With a quick tug, Brain revealed the device beneath.

The Supervillain Suit. Or at least what was left of it after it was last in the middle of a battle between the Lobe and the Huntsman. The metal was scratched. A shoulder plate was held on with duct tape and what looked suspiciously like gum. Key components were missing from when Dexter had rummaged around for a device to use against the Lobe. The old control console, littered with buttons, still had a Post-it on it labeled "DO NOT PRESS" with another Post-it on top of that that read, "This means you, Pinky." But the power core at its center hummed faintly, stubbornly alive.

Brain picked up a soldering iron and a rat's nest of tangled cables, setting back to work with meticulous precision. "Once operational, this will be more than enough to deal with our uninvited guests."

He tightened a bolt, and a nearby servo gave a hopeful whirr.

Brain allowed himself the faintest smile—until a chime pinged softly from a nearby monitor. He glanced over, and his gaze lingered a beat too long.

A window from his desktop messenger blinked faintly in the corner: 

GrayMatterGoddess – Away. Last active: 2 hours ago.

His expression flickered. He tapped the trackball to refresh the feed. Still away.

"Curious," he muttered. "Our conversations typically maintain an 86.7% reply consistency…"

He shook his head sharply, returning his attention to the tangled cables. "Irrelevant. There are more pressing matters."

 

---

 

Freakazoid ran, or more accurately, galloped through the Internet toward a blinking broadband uplink node glowing in the hazy distance. His upper body remained human(ish), while his lower half remained cursed with four polygonal hooves and @ symbols branded into each flank.

"Never let Clippy help with travel arrangements," he muttered. "Who'd a thunk I'd be turned into an email centaur?"

In the distance, a glowing sign flickered: "Acme Lab Research Node—Enter At Your Own Risk."

Freakazoid grinned. "That's either a very well labeled trap... or my ride out of here!"

He spurred himself forward—his back legs clattered and his tail flopped sideways. "Almost... there..."

 

---

 

Back in the east wing of Acme Labs, the trio of villains crept into a science lab like an extremely disorganized tour group. Major Danger reverently carried a complex satchel of explosives, cautiously eyeing the equipment around him for anything potentially flammable. Cave Guy stomped ahead, dragging a toolbox and muttering under his breath, while Kid Carrion trailed behind, holding a long-range radio up to his ear and scowling. He took out his frustration on one of the computer monitors that lined the wall, punching his fist through the glass screen.

"Team B, come in," Kid Carrion said for the third time, thumbing the mic. "Anyone? Cobra Queen? Arms? Longhorn? Say somethin', y'all."

Nothing but static.

He shook the radio like it was a stubborn vending machine. "Dang thing's quieter than a cemetery at nap time."

Cave Guy dropped the toolbox with a loud clang. "Ugh. Can we move this along? The acoustics in this room are abhorrent. Everything echoes like a budget off-Broadway amphitheater."

Major Danger scowled. "Cave Guy, if I may remind you, setting high-yield charges is an art form. Precision is key."

"Precision?" Cave Guy crossed his arms, scowling down at Major Danger. "I could bring this whole building down with a kick to the foundation and a half decent nine iron. All this measuring and tippy-toeing is utterly bourgeois."

"Of course you'd think that," Major Danger sniffed. "Your last coordinated plan involved holding kids hostage at a school dance."

Kid Carrion sighed. "Look, as much as I'd love to referee whatever in tarnation this is," he gestured vaguely between them, "we still ain't got any idea what happened to the other crew. Maybe they bailed."

"Or maybe," Major Danger said slowly, "someone is picking us off."

A low hum buzzed from somewhere overhead. All three glanced upward.

The ceiling lights flickered.

"Coincidence," Cave Guy muttered. "Totally normal science ambiance. Besides, we're the brains of this operation."

"Technically, I'm the brains," Major Danger corrected.

"I can spell 'chrysanthemum,'" Cave Guy said, smugly.

"I once rewired a detonator using a teaspoon and British pluck!"

"I dated an Italian architect for three and a half weeks!"

"What does an Italian architect have anything to do with being smart?!"

"WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP?" Kid Carrion finally barked. "We're in a science lab filled with chemicals an' heaven-knows-what kinda doohickeys. You wanna argue, fine—but let's argue while workin'. I got a bad feelin', and that radio silence ain't helpin'."

Cave Guy and Major Danger exchanged uneasy glances, but eventually nodded in agreement. "Fine," Major Danger said. "Let's—Kid Carrion, why are there red laser dots on your vest?"

"Huh?" Kid Carrion looked down.

A robotic voice called out, "Wrinkles detected! Activating steam mode!"

"Oh no," Kid Carrion breathed. "Oh no no—"

A high-pitched hiss filled the corridor.

"This," Major Danger muttered, sidestepping behind a supply cart, "is why I starch my shirts."

The Automatic Laundry Folder barreled into the room, pushing aside anything in the way. Its wheels spun rapidly as it made its way straight to Kid Carrion, its arms emitting puffs of steam.

Kid Carrion fired a few shots from his revolver before turning around and running as fast as he could away from the robot.

From behind his supply cart, Major Danger called out, "Keep it distracted, Kid Carrion, while I think of a plan!"

The Automatic Laundry Folder nearly clipped Cave Guy as it chased after Kid Carrion. Cave Guy gasped in outrage. "Watch the loin cloth! This is authentic saber-tooth tiger—"

The robot paused briefly, its little sensors scanning. "Negative. Material is 47% silk blend." The top of it swiveled back around to follow Kid Carrion.

"You robotic monstrosity, I have an image to maintain!" Cave Guy shouted, a vein bulging in his forehead. Cave Guy sprinted after the robot, bellowing in primal rage.

As the robot spun to resume its chase, one of its caster wheels caught on a bundle of wires. A low zzzzzip echoed through the room as the robot inadvertently rolled through a half-unpacked explosives kit. Detonators, wires, and several very non-OSHA-approved bundles of plastic explosive became hopelessly tangled around its wheels and arms, trailing behind it like a wedding getaway car.

Major Danger peeked from behind the cart, his monocle nearly popping off. "Not the satchel!" he shouted. "Those are carefully calibrated!"

As the Automatic Laundry Folder chased Kid Carrion in a wild loop around the room, with Cave Guy not too far behind, Dexter and Pinky peered cautiously into the room. Major Danger was unfurling his whip and saying to himself, "Brilliant. I suppose I will single-handedly avert the robot from exploding all of us, shall I? Tally ho!"

Dexter took one look at the pandemonium: Cave Guy roaring in pursuit, the robot whirring in steam-spewing fury, Kid Carrion diving behind overturned lab tables, and Major Danger flailing over what appeared to be a tangle of bombs being dragged like a bridal train.

He activated his walkie-talkie. "...I repeat, the Automatic Laundry Folder is on a rampage!" Dexter shouted. "Who builds a laundry death robot?! And there's also a crazy evil British version of Crocodile Hunter shouting 'Tally ho!' while cracking a whip! Who keeps these crazy things in Acme Labs, anyway?!"

Dexter waited, but there was no response from Brain. "Great. Now what do we do?"

Pinky popped up behind him. "Don't worry, Dexter! I have an idea!"

Dexter turned to Pinky, eyes wide. "You do?"

Pinky nodded proudly and produced from behind his back… a perfectly ordinary broom. "We duel them! En garde!"

Before Dexter could argue, Pinky hopped on to an office chair, and pushed off with the broom straight toward Major Danger. He spun around once before straightening out, holding the broom in front of him like a jousting lance. "FOR CHEESE AND QUEEN!" he yelled.

Major Danger barely turned in time. "What—?"

Pinky collided at full speed, the bristles thudding harmlessly into Major Danger's chest.

Pinky blinked. "Oh. That didn't work like I thought."

Major Danger growled, grabbing the broom and snapping it in half like kindling. "You want a duel, you ridiculous rodent?"

Dexter yanked Pinky back just in time. "He's not a ridiculous rodent! He's a genetically modified laboratory mouse with attention span issues and questionable love of cheese!"

"Thank you!" Pinky chirped, then gasped. "Wait, are you saying I'm not a rodent? Does that mean I'm a marsupial instead?"

Dexter held Pinky to his chest and ran to a corner of the lab, away from Major Danger.  "Focus, Pinky! We need a plan—something distracting, something dangerous…"

The British villain growled and stomped after them both, but his feet were ensnared in the wires and cords dragged across the floor by the Automatic Laundry Folder. At that point, that same hyperfixated robot slammed into a row of lab carts, sending jars of volatile glowing goo skittering across the floor. One jar hit the ground and cracked open, oozing neon orange fluid.

"Something dangerous like that?" Pinky offered helpfully.

Dexter's eyes lit up. "Yes! Exactly like that!"

Dexter and Pinky scrambled toward the spilled jars, scooping up two intact ones as the Automatic Laundry Folder wheeled past behind them. Sparks flew from one of the bombs now dragging behind it.

Without hesitating, Pinky scooped up a full jar and lobbed it directly at Major Danger's nose. It hit with a satisfying splotch, coating his face in shimmering orange goo.

Major Danger froze.

Orange goop dribbled down his monocle and into his mustache. He blinked. Slowly reached up. Wiped a finger across his cheek.

Then licked it.

"Hm," he said. "Creamy. Zesty."

He turned the jar in his hand and read aloud: "Combination Orange Gelato and Facial Moisturizer. For dry to normal skin. Contains lactose."

He glanced at them with a wolfish grin. "Unfortunately for you, I learned the value of a good skin-care regimen while fleeing rebels through the jungles of Sumatra."

Dexter and Pinky blinked.

"I'm very well-moisturized," he continued. With a flick of his wrist, Major Danger snapped his whip forward, snaring them both in one practiced motion. He began pulling them towards him, his lips curled upward in a snarl.

Dexter grabbed the corner of a lab table, trying to keep them from getting any closer to Major Danger, but the villain was far stronger. As the table dragged against the floor, the far wall exploded inward in a hail of plaster and bent steel.

A cloud of dust billowed across the lab as something—someone—stepped through the wreckage. The gleam of salvaged tech glinted off riveted plating. Hydraulic joints hissed. And in the middle of it all, standing proud (if slightly hunched due to the narrow ceiling), was a mouse in a remade Supersuit, his head sticking out through the top of the hastily rebuilt chest piece.

Brain pulled a few levers, and the exosuit stepped forward. All villains—and the Automatic Laundry Folder—stopped and turned towards it. "I believe," Brain said flatly, "this is the part where I'm supposed to say something heroic."

Pinky gasped, eyes wide with joy. "Brain! You came to rescue us!"

"Indeed," Brain replied coolly, extending one arm-mounted device with an ominous click and pointing it at Major Danger. "Now kindly release my two companions."

Major Danger did just that, causing Dexter and Pinky to tumble to the floor. He then cracked his whip with showy precision, slicing a ceiling tile just above Brain's head. "Little mouse in a big suit, you're about to find out what happens when Major Danger has his sights set on his prey!"

On the other side of the room, Kid Carrion and Cave Guy were wrestling the Automatic Laundry Folder toward a supply closet, the robot thrashing and chirping indignantly as it tried to reach one last wrinkle.

"Quitcher squirmin'!" Kid Carrion barked, wrapping his arms around the writhing chassis. "Yer gonna end up on the scrap heap, you oversized trouser press!"

The robot suddenly spun and released a final concentrated hissssssss, unleashing a superheated blast of steam right into Kid Carrion's face.

"YEEEARGH!" he screamed, stumbling back and clutching his face. "MY FACE! I CAN'T SEE—AM I MELTING?! CAVE GUY, TELL ME IF I'M MELTING!"

Cave Guy, halfway through slamming the closet door shut, turned—and froze.

He stared.

Kid Carrion blinked furiously as the steam cleared. His formerly cracked, leathery, zombie-cowboy complexion was now smooth, glossy, and disturbingly supple.

Cave Guy looked horrified. "You look… moisturized."

The robot, muffled behind the closet door, chirped: "Wrinkle removal complete. You're welcome."

Across the lab, Brain's eyes narrowed as he adjusted the dials on his console, the cobbled-together supersuit emitting a few sparks before humming with restrained power.

Major Danger cracked his whip against the floor, sending a shower of sparks across the broken tile. "Well now," he said with a wolfish grin, "I must admit, I've never thought hunting little mice would be worth my time."

"Your miscalculation is irrelevant to me," Brain replied coolly. He raised an arm, and a pair of hydraulic stabilizers snapped into place with a satisfying whunk.

Without warning, Major Danger lunged—fast, low, whip arcing in a fluid strike toward Brain's legs.

Brain leapt backward with mechanical assistance, the suit's boots thudding heavily. "Your theatrics are inefficient," he muttered, activating a pulse emitter on his gauntlet. A shimmering burst of energy rippled toward Major Danger, who jumped over a toppled bookshelf with a flourish.

"Efficiency is for accounting firms," Major Danger quipped. "I bring British panache to villainy!"

For a moment, the lab lit with crackling energy and shouting, the scene nearly even. Brain fired precise, compact projectiles from leftover office supplies: paperclips, erasers, even rolls of packing tape. Major Danger countered with agile dodges, theatrical rolls, and one very well-timed backflip over a laboratory table.

As Brain was reloading paperclips, a sharp spark crackled across his left shoulder servo. One of the boot stabilizers twitched, unbalanced.

He frowned, adjusting a dial. "Unfortunate."

Major Danger's eyes lit up. "Did your clever little tinker-toy just hiccup?"

Before Brain could reply, Cave Guy barreled into the scene, muttering, "Whatever you do, don't look directly at Kid Carrion."

From the side, Kid Carrion pulled down a set of lab cables, fashioning a makeshift lasso. "Let's hogtie this oversized wind-up toy." he said, hat tugged low to hide his now disturbingly wrinkle-free zombie complexion.

Cave Guy turned to Pinky and Dexter, sneering. "I'll gather up the riff-raff."

He cracked his knuckles, each pop echoing like thunder through the lab.

Dexter backed up until his heels hit the wall, flickering computer terminals on either side of him. "Any bright ideas, Pinky?"

"We could try the power of friendship!" Pinky said cheerfully.

Dexter looked up at him, deadpan. "That only works in cartoons."

Behind them, the screen on the terminal sparked. A faint hum filled the air.

Suddenly, a distorted, pixelated face pressed against the inside of the monitor glass—Freakazoid.

"Are you guys having fun without me?" he grinned.

Dexter jumped back, nearly tripping over Pinky, who was already doing a celebratory little dance. "Freakazoid?! But—how—?"

"Internet. Long story. Very dramatic. Involved giant flying noses and centaur-mail hybrids. Anyway—" Freakazoid glanced nervously at the room. He suddenly shouted, "Hey, is that the complete VHS boxed set of Baywatch Nights autographed by David Hasselhoff?!"

Cave Guy's head whipped around, and Pinky turned to look as well. "Where?"

In that split second, Freakazoid launched himself out of the monitor in a flicker of static, jumping straight into Dexter. There was a sudden whoosh—a cyclone of red and blue light erupted around them, swirling like a technicolor whirlpool. The air hummed with digitized energy as the spinning storm collapsed inward, pulling Freakazoid and Dexter together into a spiraling blur.

With a final electric spark, Freakazoid was standing in Dexter's place, slightly dazed but grinning wildly. He slowly straightened, putting his hands on his hips and puffing his chest out. "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size, Cave Guy?"

Freakazoid strode forward.

He promptly stumbled sideways and face-planted onto the lab floor. "Ow! Man, I forgot how to walk with just two feet!"

Pinky hurried over to Freakazoid. "Is this supposed to be our rescue? And what happened to Dexter?"

Freakazoid gave a thumbs up from the floor. "Don't worry. Dexter is fine! And once I stop seeing double, the bad guys won't stand a chance."

Dexter found himself back in the gray void of the Freak-a-zone. Freakazoid's subconscious… or internal waiting room… or maybe just a metaphor that got wildly out of hand. Freakazoid never really explained it, and Dexter had given up asking.

It was the place where Freakazoid went when Dexter was in charge—and vice versa. From here, Dexter could see through Freakazoid's eyes, hear what he heard, even talk to him—at least until Freakazoid used his powers. Then things tended to get... scrambled.

Still, as surreal as it was, there was something oddly comforting about it.

Dexter kind of missed it. "Come on, Freakazoid! You have to get up!"

Pinky, determined as ever, grunted and strained with all his mousey might to hoist Freakazoid by the shoulder. The result was predictable: he succeeded only in lifting Freakazoid's elbow approximately two inches before collapsing in a squeaky heap.

Freakazoid groaned and rolled onto his side. "Appreciate the effort, Pinky. Really. Gold star for you."

"Freakazoid, what's wrong?" Dexter asked.

Freakazoid slowly pushed himself to his feet, swaying a little like a used car inflatable tube man. "Okay. Okay. Saving the day time. But let's skip the explanation for now—I'm saving it for a flashback montage later. Possibly with dramatic lighting and lifelike Muppets."

Freakazoid wobbled to his feet, shook the last of the static from his hair, and narrowed his eyes. "Alright, villains. Let's get freaky."

He lunged into action with a surprising burst of speed, bowling Cave Guy over and vaulting over a tipped-over lab cart to land squarely between Brain and Major Danger.

Major Danger blinked. "You again?"

Freakazoid beamed. "Me again! Back from the Internet and ready to ruin your monologue, Captain Peril!"

The villain ground his teeth together. "Major Danger," he snarled.

Freakazoid yanked Major Danger's monocle away from his face, and then with two fingers poked the villain in the eyes. "Ha! What'd I tell you, Dex! I should have gone for the monocle back in chapter one!"

Dexter groaned while Brain took advantage of Major Danger's painful distraction. "Engaging auxiliary restraint protocol," he stated. A hidden compartment on his suit snapped open, launching a roll of industrial-strength duct tape. In a blink, the tape wrapped around Major Danger, pinning his arms to his sides like a struggling burrito.

Pinky blurted, "Look out for Kid Carrion!" The zombie cowboy was trying to sneak up from the side, spinning his lariat over his head.

Without missing a beat, Freakazoid grabbed a nearby extension cord, twirled it like a lasso, and flung it around Kid Carrion's legs, yanking him off his feet with a startled "WHA—!"

Freakazoid leaned over, ready with a quip—but froze the moment he saw Kid Carrion's smooth, disturbingly supple face.

"He looks like a baby raisin," Pinky said softly.

"I don't wanna talk about it," Kid Carrion muttered.

Freakazoid quietly took Kid Carrion's cowboy hat and gingerly placed it over the zombie's face. "Thank you," came the muffled reply.

Before Brain could fully secure the final strip of duct tape, a hiss echoed from the doorway behind him—low, sibilant, and most definitely smug. "I wasss hoping to find lab mice," Cobra Queen said as she stepped through the half-collapsed doorway. Her massive serpent companion slithered beside her, tongue flickering. "My little darling wassss getting hungry."

Behind her, Longhorn lumbered in, still dusted with frost. Icicles dangled from one horn, and his breath puffed visibly in the chill. "S-s-somebody find me a space heater. Or s-s-something to punch," he grumbled.

And finally, Arms Akimbo staggered through the doorway, dripping lime-green Jell-O with every step. His dapper suit was still half-encased in gelatin, and his face had taken on the same queasy hue.

"Stop complaining," he groaned. "I had to eat my way out."

He burped once—wetly—and everyone instinctively took a step back.

There was a long, dreadful pause as the three new villains entered, the lab suddenly feeling a lot smaller.

Freakazoid glanced around, eyes darting between the snake woman to the Jell-O-covered man to the angry walking freezer.

"Okay," he said slowly, "this feels like the part where everything starts going really badly."

"Correction," Brain muttered. "It already has."

Meanwhile, Major Danger gave a muffled grunt and flexed against the duct tape cocoon still wrapped around him. With an impressive twist and a dramatic cry of "FOR THE EMPIRE!" he burst free in a spray of gray adhesive.

Dexter watched the number of villains grow. "Freakazoid, I don't like these odds."

Freakazoid groaned. "I know! It's Admiral Hazard again! I mean, seriously?!"

"Major Danger!" the villain snapped, lunging toward him. "Why is this so hard?!"

Pinky peeked around Brain's supersuit ankles at the snake. "You wouldn't happen to be a vegetarian, would you?"

The snake hissed and lunged. Pinky squeaked and ran for his life.

"I'll take that as a no!" he called over his shoulder.

Before Brain could react, Longhorn charged him with a ground-shaking bellow. Brain activated a repulsor burst from his gauntlet, but his suit stuttered, a servo shrieking in protest.

Freakazoid squared his shoulders, then immediately lost his balance and staggered sideways, just barely getting out of Major Danger's way.

He braced himself on a lab table. "It's okay, Dex! One superhero, two mice, and a supersuit can take on four villains!"

Cave Guy and Arms Akimbo flanked Major Danger with menacing grins. "Y'all ready for yer final showdown?" Kid Carrion drawled, twirling his revolvers around his fingers.

Freakazoid shook his head. "Okay, six villains versus one hero, two mice, and one—"

Brain yelped as a small electrical fire erupted within the supersuit's chest panel.

"Correction," Freakazoid said grimly. "Half a supersuit."

Freakazoid ducked under a swinging whip crack from Major Danger and narrowly avoided a backhand from Cave Guy. Pinky darted between lab tables, the snake hot on his heels, and Brain tried smothering flames with one supersuit hand and keeping Cobra Queen at bay with the other. 

Inside the Freak-a-zone, Dexter pounded an invisible wall of static. "Freakazoid! You need to flank left! No—wait! Arms Akimbo is right behind you!"

Freakazoid stumbled sideways into a lab cart as one of Arms Akimbo's elbows connected. "Ow! Okay! Definitely seeing double again!"

Dexter clenched his fists in frustration.

Kid Carrion fired a warning shot that zinged past Brain's shoulder. "Still time to surrender, little mouse."

Outside, Brain's supersuit let out a mechanical wheeze and sparked again. He barely rolled away as Longhorn's fist dented the floor where he had been a second ago.

Freakazoid regrouped by a broken console. "Okay! We're still good! One hero, two mice, and... a supersuit that smells like burning motor oil!"

Pinky slid in beside him. "Also, I may have accidentally locked the snake in a fume hood."

Freakazoid blinked. "That's either genius or wildly irresponsible. We'll figure out which later."

Just then, Cave Guy raised a heavy desk over his head and growled. "I think I've had just about enough of this comedy act!"

A wall of the lab exploded in a geyser of debris as a yellow taxi cab roared through it. Bricks tumbled, sparks flew, and a powdered doughnut bounced off of Cave Guy's forehead.

The taxi came to a stop, its hood covered in debris. The cabbie leaned out the window, the front of his shirt covered in a mixture of powdered sugar and plaster dust. "Oh-ho! I always wanted to do that!"

From the passenger side, the Huntsman rose, clutching his hat to his head like it was the only thing tethering him to reality. His usually stoic, statuesque face was locked in a rictus grin of barely-contained terror, the feather in his hat twitching in the breeze from the shattered wall.

He stepped out of the cab with theatrical effort, legs wobbling beneath him, and stared ahead with wide eyes that had clearly seen too much in too little time.

Lord Bravery emerged a moment later from the back seat, brushing plaster from his shoulders and adjusting his centurion helmet with great dignity, despite the fact that a coffee stirrer was lodged in his hair.

He took one look at the Huntsman's expression and said coolly, "I did tell you to close your eyes."

Cobra Queen's eyes gleamed. "It'ssss the Ssssavior of the Lobe Appreciation Day Parade!" she exclaimed, pointing eagerly to the Huntsman.

Kid Carrion holstered his revolvers. "He's the one they said stopped that rampagin' dinosaur single-handed. Takin' him down is my golden ticket."

Major Danger clapped his hands. "A capital idea. History shall remember this day—the glorious toppling of a top-tier American hero!"

The Huntsman looked alarmed. "Hold, villains! I am flattered by your misguided admiration, but—"

He was cut off as all six villains suddenly converged on him at once. The Huntsman yelped and sprinted behind an overturned lab table.

"He's mine!" 

"Back off, I saw him first!" 

"C'mon, let's at least coordinate!"

While the villains squabbled, Freakazoid seized the moment. "Dexter! We need a plan!"

"I think we need to take advantage of the chaos," Dexter said. "The villains are all focused on the Huntsman!"

"Oh, right, that's the green guy's name! I keep forgetting!"

Brain re-routed power through his gauntlet, sending a concussive shockwave into Longhorn's legs. The bull-headed villain staggered sideways into Arms Akimbo, who yelped and slipped in his own lime Jell-O residue. Brain shouted across the chaos, "Pinky, I need you to reroute the external coolant system on the supersuit!"

Pinky gave a chipper thumbs up. "Does that mean I can pull the lever labeled 'DO NOT TOUCH'?"

Brain hesitated. "Yes. Probably."

Cave Guy vaulted over the taxi cab still sitting in the middle of the lab, determined to reach the Huntsman first—but was brought to the ground by Kid Carrion's lasso. "This bounty's mine!" the zombie cowboy declared.

Major Danger was also making a dash towards the Huntsman, but was abruptly cut off by a blur of red and blue. Lord Bravery stepped forward, cape still fluttering, "That's quite far enough, Major Danger!" he said sharply.

Major Danger's eyes narrowed. "Lord Bravery," he said, voice like venom in tweed. "Still chasing glory you haven't earned?"

Bravery sniffed. "Still dodging justice you did?"

Across the room, the Huntsman was flailing at Cobra Queen with a lab stool. "Wait! Don't fight him! I was going to fight him! He's supposed to be my arch-nemesis!" he called out to Lord Bravery. But no one was listening.

Waylon wandered in, peering at the broken doorframe suspiciously. His eyes widened at the taxi cab and other destruction and debris that was once a tidy scientific lab. "Oh, there you guys are!" he said cheerfully. "I've been looking everywhere for you! I know Arms said to stay in the van, but nobody was answering, and the A/C in there was absolutely awful. Also, did you know you gave me a walkie-talkie with no batteries? That was very confusing for a while."

Everyone froze, turning to stare at Waylon.

Waylon cleared his throat and chuckled nervously. "Anyway! Since I didn't hear otherwise, I went ahead and finished setting up the explosives for you." He proudly raised his pocket watch high into the air. "Do you want to see a magic trick?"

There was a chorus of "NO!" from every corner of the room, except for Pinky, who gasped and raised his hand up in the air. "Oh, me, me!"

Waylon grinned. "With this watch, I will turn this building… into debris! Nyahahaha! I mean, not really, I just set a timer. But it felt magical." Waylon brought the watch back down and tapped it a few times. "Oh, wait, I think my watch is slow. Hold on a—"

Everything exploded.

Notes:

I did it! The big battle I wanted to do with all of the heroes and a multitude of villains has been done. Now I'm going to take a nap.

Chapter 9: Cleaning Up the Mess

Summary:

Just as everything at Acme Labs fall apart, the pieces start to come together. The heroes may not have been able to stop the villains this time, but they're not about to give up. A clue leads them to one diabolical name: Snowball, Brain's cunning archnemesis.

Once Brain has built a new supersuit, he'll be ready to lead Freakazoid and his friends against Snowball.

And Freakazoid's own diabolical foe Armondo Guitierrez will be there to help.

The courtroom was silent. Twelve jurors stared ahead, the foreman rising with the verdict form in hand. "On all counts," he read, "we find the defendant… guilty."

There was no reaction from the defendant, Armondo Guitierrez.

He stood motionless, clad in an immaculate charcoal-gray suit, his posture straight, his expression unreadable. The crisp white of his shirt was as unruffled as his demeanor.

The judge struck the gavel. Reporters scribbled notes. Flashbulbs popped.

But Guitierrez did not blink.

Outside the courthouse, Guitierrez was led to a waiting Department of Corrections transport van. A pair of stone-faced guards flanked him. One held the van door; the other waited inside.

Without protest, Guitierrez stepped into the van's secure compartment. The inner walls were steel-gray. Cold. Impersonal.

The guard inside took his time, fitting Guitierrez's wrists into wall-mounted manacle restraints—solid steel, locked to the side panel of the transport van.

The cuffs clicked with finality, and the guard gave a subtle nod.

Guitierrez returned it. Just once. Not a word was exchanged.

The guard stepped out, shut the van doors, and locked them. He turned and waved at the two drivers up front.

The van pulled away from the curb with the low rumble of reinforced tires.

The guard watched it vanish around the corner, then slowly doffed his police cap, revealing a head of flawlessly styled, thick gray hair. Then with deliberate care, he reached into his jacket pocket and removed a single, familiar item: a sleek black eyepatch. He raised it to his face, adjusting it into place over his left eye with a practiced hand.

And then Guitierrez smiled.

 

---

 

The warehouse smelled faintly of ozone, gunpowder, and burnt polyester.

Cave Guy limped past a toppled stack of CRT monitors, his hair singed and his loincloth noticeably more frayed than usual. Arms Akimbo sat in a folding chair, hair stiff with dried lime Jell-O, staring blankly at a wall while a chunk of ceiling tile slowly slid off his shoulder. Longhorn sat in a kiddie pool filled with hot water, snorting steam from his nostrils and muttering something about "thawing steak."

Cobra Queen sat atop a metal crate, her snake twitching occasionally from the static still clinging to its scales. "That wasss... not how I imagined thingsss going."

"Understatement of the century," Major Danger muttered, holding his pith helmet in his hands as he stared at the large burnt hole in the top of it.

In the center of the warehouse stood towering columns of desktop computers, stacked like technological obelisks. Each computer proudly bore a label, "Apex Inside! Experience the Pinnacle of Processing!" The computers were all connected with intricate cabling.

The overhead lights flickered once, and the air grew still.

A panel slid open in the back of the warehouse, revealing a silhouette framed by cold fluorescent light. Hydraulic pistons hissed. The clanking of servo-powered steps echoed across the concrete floor.

A tall, robotic suit entered.

Snowball sat within, encased entirely in a mechanical suit. He stood nearly six feet tall now, armored in gleaming white and silver. His supersuit was sleek, agile, and unmistakably cutting-edge technology, with every line sculpted for high tech intimidation. Unlike Brain's prior Supervillain Suit, or his currently cobbled-together prototype, Snowball's suit whispered of perfection with every mechanical step.

A glowing visor blinked as the air shimmered around the suit's heat exhaust ports.

"Hello, my dear associates," Snowball said, his voice perfectly calm, modulated with chilling precision. "I trust your little adventure was productive."

Waylon's hand shot into the air and he jumped to his feet, but with a quick glare from Major Danger, he sullenly sat back down.

No one spoke. Even Cobra Queen's snake pretended to be sleeping.

Major Danger cleared his throat. "Acme Labs is... well, gone. Completely. Quite exploded, in fact."

Snowball nodded slowly. "Good. Then we're almost ready." He turned to the stacks of computers, and with the press of a button, they powered on, humming to life. "We begin Phase Two."

Cave Guy screwed up his courage before the others. "Phase two?" he asked.

"My greatest threat has been eliminated. I have a map of the Internet thanks to your success at DARPA headquarters. I have the location of the fastest ISDN connection to the Internet in the city." The sleek metallic head of Snowball's suit turned to the stacks of computers. "And I have a horde of powerful 300 MHz Pinnacle processors at my fingertips."

"What're you gonna do? Take over the Internet?" Longhorn asked.

Snowball laughed, and his cohort of villains shivered. "No. I will become the Internet!"

 

---

 

"Hey, wait a minute, let's back up a minute and see what's going on with our heroes!" Freakaoid groaned from the back seat of the taxi cab, one foot sticking straight up into the air. "Okay, first… roll call! Everyone still alive?"

The Huntsman sat awkwardly in the passenger seat, brushing plaster dust off his shoulders and shaking debris off his hat. "I have been through worse. Once I fell into a ravine filled with stampeding water buffalo."

"Are you sure that wasn't the Lion King movie?" Freakazoid asked, raising a skeptical finger into the air.

The cabbie was hunched over his steering wheel, chewing a toothpick and fiddling with the glove box. "Still breathin'. Can't say the same for my suspension." He smacked the dash. The radio crackled with static and played the first few bars of "I Believe I Can Fly" before sputtering out.

Freakazoid finally righted himself. "We are definitely not where I parked."

The cab tilted slightly to one side, stuck in a narrow pocket of debris.

Freakazoid squinted at the walls of broken concrete. He tried opening a door, but it was jammed shut. "Soooo… plan?"

The cabbie shrugged. "Wait for a rescue, I guess. Some superheroes oughta be around to dig us out any minute now." He glanced at Freakazoid in the backseat, then at the Huntsman beside him. "...Maybe."

The Huntsman tugged down the brim of his hat. "Can't we just punch through it?"

Freakazoid rolled his eyes. "Sure, and then we'll have sent the whole building tumbling down on top of us." He slumped in the back seat and sighed dramatically. "Okay, if we're stuck, we may as well pass the time with something useful. Like clearing up one very important mystery."

"Who are the villains working for?" the Huntsman asked.

"What's with the mouse in the robot suit?" the cabbie chimed in.

"No, no, the real mystery." Freakazoid shook his head and turned to the Huntsman. "Why does everyone keep calling you the Savior of the Lobe Appreciation Day Parade? I was there. And no offense, you were pretty unconscious from what I remember."

The Huntsman looked out the cracked windshield. "I didn't ask for the title."

Freakazoid leaned in closer. "But you kept it. You even have it written on your official fan club website. Right under the banner that says 'Top 100 Green Super Hero Pages.' Number 97, by the way."

The Huntsman sighed. "Very well. I shall tell my tale."

Freakazoid's grin widened. "Oh boy, does that mean it's time for a flashback? We haven't had one of those in a while! Let's see what's waiting after the little horizontal line."

 

---

 

Charming news reporter Chet Chipsworth examined his hair in the handheld mirror for the fifth time. It was days like this that made him wonder if meteorology might've been the smarter career path. Being a news reporter had its perks, but then… "Zach, remind me again why we're doing this?"

Zach, already shouldering the camera, didn't even look up. "Because the Lobe told him—" he tilted the lens toward the broad-shouldered goon looming just behind them, "—to tell us to."

Chet nodded. "Right. Sorry, rhetorical question." He tucked the mirror and comb away with a sigh and gave Zach a small, defeated gesture.

The camera rolled.

Behind him, the Lobe Appreciation Day Parade unfolded in all its hastily assembled glory. Confetti fluttered like someone had shaken out a sad birthday card. Floats sputtered past—crooked, deflating, and completely off-theme.

"And so, the city unites once more under one banner," Chet began, voice smooth as broadcast velvet, "a day of civic pride, poorly coordinated pageantry, and absolutely mandatory attendance."

He turned slightly. "Behind me is… Miss Mid-Atlantic Dairy Queen Runner-Up."

He looked at Zach. Zach shrugged. Chet forged ahead. "Yes, folks, Miss Mid-Atlantic Dairy Queen, riding in the back of a sleek Acura Integra convertible. A time-honored tradition that dates all the way back to... I'm guessing ten minutes ago."

He leaned sideways toward the goon. "You've got to give me something better to work with."

The goon blinked. "What?"

Chet gestured at the sputtering procession. "So far, we've had the Harry Connick High marching band, one float shaped like a brain wearing a sash, and Miss Mid-Atlantic. If the goal was to get people to tune out and watch The Young and the Restless instead, mission accomplished."

The goon just stared at him, a hulking wall of confusion.

"Okay," Chet said, holding up a finger. "Here's a thought. Maybe a float that actually moves under its own power. Maybe a banner that isn't spelled wrong. Maybe—just hear me out—an actual celebrity. Other than me, I mean. Like whats-her-face from that lawyer show, Ally McBeal."

The goon blinked. "You want… a lawyer?"

Chet blinked back. "No, I want ratings."

The goon scratched his head again, clearly trying to decide between words he knew.

Before Chet could further clarify the concept of "a functional parade," Zach shouted from behind the camera, "Uh, Mr. Chipsworth? We've got movement! Big one! Tyrannosaurus float coming in hot!"

Chet turned just in time to see a thirty-foot papier-mâché T-Rex careening down the hill—wobbling, bobbing, and unmistakably picking up speed. The float's handlers were nowhere in sight. A family of onlookers scattered, barely avoiding a tail swipe.

And riding proudly atop its head—

"Ohhh, jackpot," Chet whispered, eyes gleaming. "Camera on me!"

Zach didn't need to be told twice. He swiveled into position as Chet's practiced smile snapped into place.

"This just in," Chet declared, voice rising with barely contained glee. "The Lobe Appreciation Day Parade has taken a thrilling turn as an out-of-control Tyrannosaurus float barrels toward innocent bystanders—wait, is that the Huntsman heroically riding on top of its head?"

He pointed dramatically. "He's going to try and stop it! Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing—dare I say it—a moment of actual excitement!"

The goon leaned over his shoulder, squinting. "Is that part of the parade?"

"No," Chet said, not taking his eyes off the chaos, "but it's about to be the highlight."

The inflatable dinosaur roared—well, wheezed, really—as its papier-mâché jaws flapped open and shut. The Huntsman, every inch the heroic outdoorsman, braced himself atop its head like a man posing for a motivational poster.

"He's going for it," Chet narrated breathlessly. "He's leaping—he's—oh, he's doing the action hero thing where you jump dramatically into danger!"

The Huntsman soared through the air, and if there was a way for Chet to have captured live footage in glorious slow motion, he would have done so. The Huntsman landed with a thunderous grunt directly in the T-Rex's path. He planted his boots, dug in his heels, and pushed both arms forward against the float. His feet dug furrows into the street as his muscles strained with effort.

For a second—just a second—it looked like he might actually stop it.

Then the T-Rex float bumped to a halt, teetered slightly… and gently collapsed onto him.

There was a splat. A sad puff of glitter, and a spray of confetti.

Zach lowered the camera slightly. "Did he… get squashed?"

Chet waved him forward. "Don't just stand there, Zach! This is gold!" He sprinted toward the wreckage, sidestepping a toppled cymbal from the marching band and a confused balloon handler.

Zach followed, though the camera's feed started acting up—shimmering static, odd color inversions, a frame stutter like a tape being rewound and fast-forwarded at the same time.

"Chet," he said nervously, tapping the side of the camera. "I think something's messing with the signal."

"Forget the signal, look at the story!" Chet said, crouching beside the collapsed float. The Huntsman was still there—splayed dramatically, breathing heavily, face full of noble pain.

Chet leaned in close, gesturing at the camera. "This… this is what journalism is about, Zach. In the face of budget floats and forced festivities, one man—one hero—risked it all to bring us a moment of unscripted greatness."

Zach gave a thumbs up, then winced as the feed gave one last burst of rainbow static.

"…and that is why," Chet said proudly, "the Huntsman is the true savior of the Lobe Appreciation Day Parade!"

The camera feed abruptly cut to black.

"…Without him," Chet continued, undeterred, "this whole thing would be boring!"

He stood up, brushing confetti off his blazer and checking his hair in a reflective foil balloon.

The Huntsman moaned.

Chet ignored him.

 

---

 

Back in Acme Labs at the present day, a faint hum echoed beneath the rubble.

Deep beneath the floor of what had once been a research lab, a single blue glow flickered—pulsing gently, like the heartbeat of a machine clinging to life.

Brain stirred beneath the protective curve of the Supersuit's forcefield dome. The cracked plating of the Supersuit sparked as the stabilizers groaned under the pressure of the collapsed ceiling. The power core buzzed like an angry bee.

Brain adjusted the fractured console with effort. "Forcefield integrity at six percent. Structural supports failing. Probability of catastrophic collapse: inevitable."

Beside him, Pinky coughed, then shook a bit of plaster dust from his ears. "Narf. Well, that could've gone better."

Brain didn't answer immediately. He focused on the controls, trying to find something that still had power. He calibrated the last functioning dial, rerouting energy just to buy them a few more seconds.

"This suit wasn't meant for battlefield rescue," Brain muttered. "Nor was it designed to shield us from the entire weight of a building. Still… it performed beyond specification."

Pinky gave a small, hopeful smile. "That's because you built it."

Brain paused. His voice was quiet. "Acme Labs is gone, Pinky. Our work, our research, our future… our home. Reduced to rubble. I should have seen this coming. Planned for this outcome."

There was a silence. Then Pinky leaned closer, placing a gentle hand on Brain's arm.

"Brain," he said, softly, "Acme Labs was just a building. But you and me? We're the home part."

Brain blinked.

Pinky smiled again. "Wherever we go—if we're together—that's where I feel at home."

For a second, Brain didn't speak. Then, just barely, the corner of his mouth twitched. "…That is a remarkably inefficient definition," he said.

"But it's a good one, right?"

Brain turned and pretended to examine the gauges of his Supersuit. "It is… sufficient."

The forcefield flickered again. The humming slowed. Dust began to trickle in from the cracks above.

Pinky leaned against Brain. "If this is the end… can I at least press the 'Do Not Touch' button now?"

Before Brain could scold him, a sudden metallic clang rang out above them.

A second clang followed. Then a crack, and the groan of shifting steel.

Brain's ears perked. "What—?"

A gloved hand punched down through the rubble. A voice, strained but unmistakably British, shouted, "Stand clear, citizens! Or mice! Whatever!"

The metal groaned again as debris shifted, then a chunk of concrete was heaved aside by an arm in a white glove and blue sleeve.

Lord Bravery's face appeared through the gap, dust-streaked and grim with effort. "Do hurry. I cannot hold this forever, you know."

Brain stared for a beat, ears twitching. Then he moved.

He clambered toward the opening, careful not to jostle the crumbling supports. Lord Bravery extended a hand—fingers outstretched, thumb steady. Brain reached up and grasped the thumb.

Their eyes met briefly.

Bracing against the broken beam with one shoulder, Lord Bravery began to pull. Brain's small frame rose slowly, sparks sputtering from the flickering Supersuit behind him.

Just as his paw caught the edge of safety, Brain hesitated.

He looked back.

The Supersuit lay tilted and broken in the flickering blue light. It was once the pinnacle of his success, going against superheroes and supervillains alike. For a time, being a supervillain consumed Brain.

Brain's gaze lingered only a second—then turned to Pinky.

The taller mouse gave a crooked smile, extending a hand.

Without hesitation, Brain reached for him.

Their hands locked—forearms to forearms, wrist to wrist.

"Ready?" Pinky asked.

"Together," Brain said.

With a grunt, Lord Bravery pulled both mice upward, his cape fluttering in the dust-filled air. The rubble shuddered behind them, groaning under its own weight.

As the last concrete slab gave way and collapsed into the crater where Acme Labs had once stood, three figures stood atop the debris: one superhero panting with effort, and two mice silhouetted in the settling dust—alive.

 

---

 

The Huntsman adjusted his hat again. "And that's how I became the so-called Savior of the Lobe Appreciation Day Parade."

Freakazoid squinted at him. "You got flattened by a papier-mâché dinosaur."

"I stopped it from hitting civilians. That counts."

Freakazoid heard Dexter from inside his head. "He might not have been able to help stop the Lobe, but the Huntsman did save those people."

"I know," Freakazoid admitted, "But if I tell him that, he'll get a big head! Well, bigger."

The cab lurched slightly as more debris settled outside.

The cabbie sniffed. "Well, if we're done with storytime, we're still stuck under a few tons of concrete. Any other plans, or do we grow potatoes and start a new society in here?"

Suddenly, a low rumble echoed through the wreckage. A beam of daylight cut through the debris.

A voice, deadpan and gravelly, echoed over a megaphone. "Hey, Freakazoid."

Freakazoid's face lit up. "Cosgrove!"

A crane hook dropped down in front of the cracked windshield. The cabbie blinked. "Well I'll be—a 1982 Chevrolet K30. You don't see many of those still in use," he murmured appreciatively.

Outside, standing on the back of a flatbed tow truck—sleeves rolled up, badge shining in the sun—was Sergeant Mike Cosgrove. He was flanked by the tow truck driver that had a distinct family resemblance to the cabbie, just with sunglasses and a much more aggressive mustache.

"Cousin Lenny?" the cabbie in the taxi called out.

"Hey Frankie!" Lenny waved. "I ran into t'officer here, an' he said youse needed some help."

The chain clanked and snapped taut. With a heaving groan of steel and tortured suspension, the tow truck began reversing. Chunks of concrete shifted. Rebar screeched. The taxi gave a sudden jolt.

"Hold on!" Frankie yelped, gripping the wheel like it mattered.

With a thunderous CRUNCH, the cab broke loose—tires squealing against the debris, sparks flying as the undercarriage scraped stone. A final slab of concrete slid off the roof with a whump just as the cab lurched fully into daylight, dragging dust and donut crumbs in its wake.

Freakazoid shoved open the now-loosened door and clambered out into the sunlight. "Cosgrove! You magnificent plot device! You came for me!"

"I missed you, too, kid," Cosgrove replied. "I know I wasn't the only one."

"Aaw! Mike from the hot dog stand missed me?"

"No."

Freakazoid scratched his chin. "Oh. Was it Valerie?"

Cosgrove shook his head.

From inside Freakazoid's head, Dexter answered. "I think he means me, Freakazoid. And I did miss you."

They stood side by side in silence for a beat, gazing at the mangled wreckage that had once been Acme Labs. Smoke curled from the edges. The air smelled like ozone and burnt wires.

Freakazoid took a deep breath. "Well… that's one building that's not getting its security deposit back."

Cosgrove nodded. "Yup."

Another slab of debris shifted. With a grunt of effort and a plume of dust, Lord Bravery emerged, pushing up with both hands and staggering to his feet. His cape was tattered, but he stood tall.

Perched calmly on his shoulder, side by side, were two small figures—one with his hands folded in his lap, the other humming quietly to himself.

Pinky gave a little wave. "Hello!"

Brain didn't speak. He just stared out over the ruins, his expression unreadable.

Freakazoid's smile faltered slightly. "Okay… yeah. That's hitting the feels a little."

Cosgrove nodded again. "Yup."

Freakazoid dusted off his gloves. "Okay. We've got rubble, emotional subtext, and all the heroes gathered together, silhouetted in the twilight sun. That's basically the end of the episode, right?"

The Huntsman grimaced. "The villains have absconded to wherever their secret lair is hidden."

"That's not all," Cosgrove added. He pulled a folded paper from his coat pocket and handed it over. "Tech guys back at the station sent this. Said the Internet's acting real weird. Like, extra weird. Even for the Internet. Abnormally large data packets. Unexpected packet loss. Something's eating all the bandwidth."

Freakazoid glanced at the note. "Wait… 'routing anomalies, ping-loop feedback spikes'—oh no. That's either a network crisis or Roddy's trying to cook again."

Dexter's voice echoed faintly in his head. "But if Brain's not behind it—then who is?"

"Now that's a great question!" Freakazoid said. He tucked the paper away and turned to Brain and Pinky.

The mice had climbed down from Lord Bravery's shoulder and now stood on a relatively intact chunk of concrete. Pinky looked mostly unbothered. Brain was staring at the ground.

Finally, Brain spoke. "Pinky… I regret not listening to you. I prioritized distractions over what truly mattered. I… may have allowed my judgment to be clouded by romantic intrigue."

Pinky smiled wide. "Aw, that's okay, Brain. I forgive you! Next time, we can both pick your screen name!"

Brain blinked. "What's wrong with RomeoBrain31415926535?"

"Nothing!" Pinky chirped. "But I think HeartOfSqueakness42 would've really told a story."

Cosgrove cleared his throat and held out another slip of paper. "This is what the tech desk came up with. They tracked the weird network behavior to a central node. All signs point to this IP address."

Freakazoid took the paper. "This is it!"

Dexter was startled—audibly so, though only Freakazoid could hear him. "What? What is it?"

Freakazoid held the slip of paper up in the air. "There are numbers on this piece of paper! I should have known!"

Before Freakazoid can say anything else nonsensical, Brain snatched the page from his hands. "It's a public Internet Protocol address," he said coolly. "With it, we can locate the host machine and—" His voice trailed off.

Pinky looked over his shoulder. "What is it, Brain?"

Brain's eyes narrowed. "That address… it was anonymized. Masked through several layers of encryption. But I'd know it anywhere." His voice dropped. "This is the same address GrayMatterGoddess was using to message me."

Pinky gasped. "But that means… she's part of this too?"

"Or," Brain said grimly, "she was never real."

Pinky pulled a crumpled printout of the profile picture of GrayMatterGoddess. "Here, Brain, I saved this for you. For, you know, closure."

As Brain stared at it, Dexter's voice sharpened. "Wait a second. Freakazoid, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

Freakazoid blinked. "How do the mice have pockets?"

"No!" Dexter snapped. "Look at that sweater!"

Freakazoid squinted. "It's… blue?"

Dexter practically shouted now. "That's the same blue color, and the same pattern as the sweater that Cobra Queen and her snake were wearing!"

Freakazoid gasped. "Oh my gosh! You're right! That's from way back in chapter one! And I'd like to add, that means I was right about the villains' clothing being important!"

Brain scowled. "Freakazoid, you appear to be talking to yourself."

"He's been doing that lately," Cosgrove added helpfully.

Freakazoid pointed to the picture. "I've seen that sweater before! Cobra Queen had one just like it when the villains were trying to raid the Data Hoarder Headquarters."

Brain's scowled deepened, his brows knitting together tightly. "Someone has been playing me for a fool. Distracting me." He crumpled the picture in his hands. "But why?"

"Somebody that thought you could stop them," Cosgrove said.

Then Frankie the cabbie cleared his throat. "Well, while you're all unravelin' sweater conspiracies, any chance one of you superheroes wants to help me fill out the insurance paperwork for my taxi?"

Everyone turned. Frankie held up a clipboard and a stubby pencil. His cab, half-buried under debris, still smoldered faintly behind him.

Lord Bravery sighed. "I shall assist. I am regrettably familiar with those forms. Paperwork is the unfortunate hallmark of our civilization."

The Huntsman scoffed. "Insurance is for the weak. When my tree house collapsed, did I file a claim? No. I wrestled the tree into submission!"

Frankie blinked. "...So that's a no from you?"

"Strong no," the Huntsman said proudly, arms crossed.

Lord Bravery was already flipping through the paperwork with a pen in hand. "Vehicle damage, property loss, acts of supervillainy… you're eligible for the Form 27-B/6. We'll need your VIN number and registration."

The wind shifted, and a long black car with tinted windows pulled up to the edge of the wreckage.

The back door of the car opened, and all eyes turned as Armondo Guitierrez stepped out, his face unsmiling. He straightened his tie and smoothed out the wrinkles of his pressed shirt.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he said coolly. "I see I've arrived just in time to watch things fall completely apart."

Notes:

New chapters will be posted every other Monday!

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Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of Freaks, Mice, and Supervillains