The Jetts: Episode 5 (part 3)

The hole opened up right at the base of Ptarmigan Mountain. And true to Grey’s reminder and Jack Ezekiel’s observations, a building was high up in the mountain face. That soldier paged in on Alan’s watch, “Alan, are you there? Dr. Kenneth heard something from our position.”
“Yes, but don’t ask how we got here. *ahem* It’s complicated,” Alan replied.
It was nighttime, so all that man could do to signal the two men watching from the lab was by using the built-in flashlight on his phone. He turned it on and waved it side to side. Jack reported that he had confirmation of their position.
Then came the matter of getting to that building which was several hundred feet up. While Lora, Mindy, and Toonman had it easy because of their elasticity and the Verdant Valkyrie could fly, Alan would have needed to act like a real mountain climber and use a grappling hook and some cleats. Fortunately, Toonman was able to just ‘conjure’ those things thanks to the things Wile E. Coyote and Bugs Bunny could, just having them inexplicably stored somewhere in crazy-preparation.
It took over half an hour for him to catch up with everyone else, but he made it nonetheless. When the group was back together, they found themselves to be on the balcony of a huge wooden building, seemingly in the style from the 15th-century; Odd, concerning its location. Through the windows, Lora could see the silhouettes of a dozen people moving around somewhat. When the 5 heroes slinked around the balcony to a door, Alan took the opportunity to bang on the door and shout, “Open up! We know who’s in there!”
Strangely, no one answered. Then the man, who had been hogging all the action at this point, turned to his sister and asked, “Lora, you up for the ‘break-in’ maneuver?”
“Sure am, older bro!”
“Oh yay! I love turning into goo, it feels funny!” Mindy chimed in as her 8-year old imagination would crave.
The two elastic girls simultaneously melted into wads of living gum and almost silently oozed under the door. Then one of them flipped the deadbolt on the other side to let everyone else in.

-----

The large brightly-lit room, apparently a dining hall of sorts, was empty.
“I have a bad feeling about this. Anyone think this place is too quiet? Any feelings of...you know, being watched?” Lora voiced her thoughts.
“Yeah, I got that too,” Ms. Carnodyne nodded.
“Hey mom, who’s that green woman?” Mindy asked in breaking the mood.
All of a sudden the superpowered teacher felt hesitant to speak, but Ms. Jett answered, “She’s...uh, well, ask Ms. Carny when you’re back in school, okay? I bet she’ll know.”
Alan looked about and noticed that there were three doors in this room, each leading different directions. He knew what that meant and addressed the rest of the team, “Pop quiz: If there’s multiple ways to go in a suspicious building, what do you do?”
“Split up? That usually helps in comics.” Ms. Carnodyne answered.
“Not in Scooby-Doo, it doesn’t!” Toonman almost jumped off the topic.
“The woman got it right, Toon-meister. *ahem* Okay, there’s about 5 of us, so...Lora, you go with Mindy and take the middle door. It looks larger than the others so it must be important. I’ll go with...what’s your name again?” Alan asked as he formed a plan.
“It’s...call me Amy.”
“Huh, that should be easy to remember. Right, Amy, you come with me and we’ll check out the right-side door. Mr. Toonman, you can go find out whatever’s on the other side of the left-hand door.”
“Ha, what are you, Fred Jones now?” Toonman further pushed his joke.
“Shut up and go make yourself useful!” Alan groaned.
“Fine, alright, but let me get my game face on,” the cartoon guy sighed before quickly changing his outfit to look like a Private Investigator. He even carried a magnifying glass and was wearing a fairly wide fedora.
“Hmm, you know, that guy just gave me an idea for the next time we go to a party,” Lora pointed out as a light bulb went on in her brain.
“What?” Alan picked up on that.
“Cosplay, that’s what. It would give Mindy and I an opportunity to use our powers to morph in other ways, and I remember a certain lady in red who would be a good candidate for me,” Lora started smiling as her brain hatched a future plan.
“Okay then, I should see what sort of costume parties there are when this mission blows over,” Alan smirked. “Now can we move on, please?”
“Right, just a little distracted. Sorry.”

-----

The whole group started their search around the Renaissance-style complex, and true to Toonman’s word, it was every bit as creepy as a Scooby-Doo skit.
The door Alan and the Verdant Valkyrie went through led to a set of stairs leading down to a rather dim area. Several gloomy corridors were all that could be seen, but VV kept it lit with a ball of green plasma in her right hand. Alan felt particularly nervous because that aforementioned cartoon was really paralleling their situation right now. Then around a corner to the left was another door opening into a completely dark chamber. From what Ms. Carnodyne could see, there was an antique chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and a few plasma bolts managed to safely light the candles.
Alan almost jumped back, because it turned out that this room was some kind of potions laboratory. Several bubbling flasks lined shelves on the walls, some on tables, and a few steaming cauldrons were on the floor. As the duo searched more, they discovered books and scrolls strewn about, some detailing strange elixirs and tonics that Alan thought alchemists would come up with. Titles like “Moon Dew”, “Tincture of the cobra”, and “Test tonic #35 for ‘Philosopher’s Stone’” caught his eye.
But it was only 5 minutes later that he noticed that the two heroes weren’t alone after all. Far in the back, two people in long dark robes seemed to be talking to each other while stirring some sort of brew in a cauldron.
Alan readied himself for a fight and yelled, “Put your hands in the air, or we’ll get medieval on you!”
The two people indeed turned around but not with their arms up. Instead, they were holding wands glowing with a strange purple energy. A bad sign indeed. Ms. Carnodyne got a good look at them and discovered one of them to be a middle-aged woman with white hair and slight wrinkles, wearing some kind of beetle-shaped medallion and a green inner tunic. She was an almost perfect interpretation of a wicked witch, save for the gross warts.
The other magic-weilder was a man wearing thick coke-bottle glasses, Hispanic in skin color, long hair, a short beard on his jaw and dressed in a dark blue tunic dotted with strange symbols. The pair both started chuckling but didn’t say anything.
Ms. Carnodyne fired up her energy powers, but fear fizzled them back out because she knew that they were just as powerful. Alan suddenly felt stupid for making everybody split up...but then again, like Lydia once said, magic-wielders were just as powerful as metahumans, so what difference did it make?
Before he could think of a plan, he bumped into a table and made a bunch of bottles wobble a little bit. Then he suddenly picked up an idea and grabbed one of those bottles. He threw it right at the wizard and his old partner, and they ducked just in time to miss it hitting their heads. Alan wished it had, because it exploded in a blistering hot flash.
Alan smirked heroically to the green-suited teacher, “Who needs superpowers when you’ve got good old-fashioned brain power?”
“You do, fool!” The old woman shouted. In an instant she brandished her wand, uttered a weird-tongued spell and a beam of purple light burst forth and struck Alan in the chest, knocking him backwards onto the floor. The man used telekinesis on the Verdant Vakyrie, and after bashing her back and forth between a couple of tables, he slammed her body to the floor and effectively knocked her out.
The two mages started laughing in an evil fashion as they bore down on the superpowered duo with more glowing energy. The man gloated, “Ha ha, Mistress Nirvana will be quite pleased to see two new captives!”

-----

Toonman was off on his own snooping down another hallway. This one was more brightly lit and even had a dark red carpet over the floor. Even though it was getting old now, he still couldn’t shake that joke and started quietly whistling the Scooby-Doo theme. Then he suddenly stopped when discovering a 4-way intersection that led...nowhere it seemed; for all the other hallways quickly dead-ended at mirrors. Wait...mirrors?
Making use of his powers, Toonman stretched his left arm around to the right and touched the mirror. Bizarrely – though not to him, being a cartoon – the hand slipped right through it, Alice in Wonderland-style.
Pulling it back, he decided to get a closer look and directly walked through it. He just felt determined to find out what was behind that fake reflective panel.
The surroundings seemed similar to the ones he’d just left, only a little darker. This time the hall ended at a spiral staircase leading up. Toonman stopped short of climbing it, though, because he noticed a black cat staring back at him from a few steps up, in a very ominous way.
“Here, kitty kitty kitty,” he tried coaxing it down from there. It was to no avail, though, as cats weren’t as flexible as dogs with obeying commands. Then he remembered Tom & Jerry and yanked out three small white mice. Throwing them to the floor got the cat’s attention and what Toonman didn’t expect was how it ate those mice. It wasn’t quite as fast as Tom would have done; this cat was vicious and tore them all apart piece by piece, so graphic that if he hadn’t started walking again he would’ve thrown up. Where in the name of Pixel and Chisel did I get real mice? He thought.
But Toonman continued ascending those stairs in hopes of finding something useful. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he himself was a mouse; A mouse in some kind of maze trying to find the exit. If there were people using magic here, that could have been a literal possibility.

-----

Lora and her green-suited daughter tiptoed cautiously down a hallway wider than the others. “How big is this place?” Mindy thought. What she didn’t know was what her mom really had in mind. That thing was the goal that had set her on this path the whole time, back before Mindy had even been adopted: Finding Lydia Nirvana and bringing her down for good. That grudge had never left Ms. Jett since their last encounter. It hit her hard because she was involved with her family. Why did both her own and her daughter’s parents need to be dead? What did supervillains and terrorists have against families? Come to think of it, it didn’t really add up as to why Mindy wasn’t showing enough emotions whenever her own parents were brought up. That was another fishy thing to ponder on. But pondering wasn’t the best thing to be doing right now. What was important was finding Lydia and the rest of her organization.
The hall was lined with doors every few yards, some with signs like “Archivist’s chambers”, “Lavatory 4”, and “Paranormal Library”. Some of the names made Mindy shiver, and not because of the minty chill constantly coursing through her body.
Finally, the hall dead-ended at another set of double doors. Before even knocking, Lora remembered that she still had her ear radio and dialed in her brother’s frequency, “Alan, do you read? I’ve reached an important door and I want to know if you want to reach us before then.” To her surprise, only static came up. She hailed him again, no answer.
That couldn’t have been good in the slightest.

-----

Alan Jett and Ms. Carnodyne happened to be trapped in a stone room somewhere else in the base. The former was restrained to a wall by glowing manacles on his wrists and ankles, which happened to be splayed out in an X-pattern. His strength levels felt the same, but he couldn’t move. Whatever those clamps were meant for, they were cancelling out his superhuman strength.
The Verdant Valkyrie, on the other hand, was suspended by her wrists from the ceiling by heavy steel chains hooked to manacles. Her costume was still intact, but a red glowing crystal was strapped to her chest, somehow weakening her by a great extent. Alan could see her from his position, and figured that that crystal was her kryptonite. His knowledge of comic books also ran a parallel with the Green Lantern as well.
As Alan looked around the room, he found it to be not friendly in the slightest. He almost flinched at the sight of various torture devices placed against the walls – a metal bed with half-burned coals underneath; an iron maiden, a blood-stained butcher block with a meat cleaver embedded in it, and a cage wired to what seemed to be a car battery. That last one seemed a little out of place in a medieval setting like this.
Someone had left a plate of food and a glass of water at their feet, apparently a couple of rather old ham sandwiches with a long-ripened banana. He didn’t feel like touching those things – not that he could, anyway.
Alan knew that to get out of this room, he’d need help. First he turned to the Xomni-Watch, but unfortunately it was at 23% power and the comm. function wouldn’t work at power that low. He couldn’t reach the cell phone in his pocket because of his shackled arms, either. And the radio Alan carried on his person was lying in an empty corner on the other end of this cold stone room. He tried thinking of ways to get it, and suddenly regretted that he didn’t share his sister’s powers.
Then he called to Ms. Carnodyne for help, and she was just conscious enough to answer ‘yes’. Alan asked her if she could try and roll the compact radio out of that corner with her feet. Despite not having her energy powers on hand, she was able to physically rock back and forth with her torso muscles. Looking as far back as she could, Amy stuck her left foot out and tried several times to push it forward with the tip of her boot. On the 7th try, she did it and managed to roll it all the way towards Alan Jett. He then asked her to use it to contact Lora, but just before she could try that, footsteps started coming up a staircase outside the only door in this room, and they both remained still.

-----

The source of those footsteps was Toonman, not one of those wizards. In fact, he’d quickly taken them down with the use of another handy-dandy anvil trap. Then he trudged up the stairs to discover that same wooden door with a glass window in it. He took advantage of his unique powers and simply pulled the door seamlessly out of its frame like a piece of cardboard, then leaned it against the wall.
Then Alan saw that man and called, “Hey, get these things off of us, will ya?”
“Can’t you get out of this cell with your own powers?”
“Hello, magic? People are using it here! Seriously, if these shackles weren’t glowing trust me, I would’ve been out of here before you came through that door, Toonman!” Alan justified his ridiculous situation.
“Fine, I’ll help.”

------

Lora didn’t have the chance to speak to her brother again, because two doors on the walls opened and magicians attacked the 2 Jetts with conjured blue fire. It knocked them down on top of each other and melted Lora’s body right into her own daughter’s. A less decent man would have thought something very sexual about that.
From those mages’ perspective, they’d effectively created a pink and green blob of gum. Neither Mindy nor her mother could tell where either of their bodies were, but Mom suddenly came up with a new plan: They’d have to combine their powers to move as one entity. However, Mindy wasn’t totally sure of what to do. The blob simply moved side to side in a feeble attempt to reform into humanoid shape. Finally, Lora took control and tried as best she could to retain her shape. It worked to a degree, except her features were much more simplified, her skin was one entire shade of bubble gum pink mixed with mint green in certain spots.
“Great Merlin!” One of them shrieked.
Straining to stand up as one, the two elastic girls threw blobs of green and pink ooze at the culprits, effectively gluing them to the floor. Lora smiled as she noticed the scent they left caused those two to be dazed and grinning. And to be sure, Mindy chilled the air and hardened that gum a little. Finally, the stretchy pair willed themselves apart – a difficult task, as it was like separating two things from dried glue. But with a resounding “SQUIP!” Lora and her daughter fell to the floor as individual wads of gum which quickly reformed into humanoid shapes.
“Wow, Mom! That was...cool!” Mindy gasped in awe.
“Yeah, but let’s not do that again. It felt a little weird to me,” Lora replied while redoing her hair with a makeshift comb. Then her right hand flew to the ear-radio and she called into the mic, “Lora to Alan, do you read? I have hunch Lydia’s close by.”
Her brother’s voice came in loud and clear, “Roger, we got a little sidetracked and our powers were exploited.”
“Great to hear your voice again! Ha, now you’re getting the same dumb treatment I did in my first adventures. *ahem* Did you and...the Verdant Valkyrie find anything interesting?”
“Me and the lady in green found a potions laboratory, but apparently an old lady and some Hispanic dude with glasses caught us.”
Ms. Carny chimed in rather faintly, “Yeah, and they knew my weakness somehow: Red Xenonite!”
Lora suddenly burst out laughing, “Really?! You mean...you’re green and your weakness is red kryptonite? You’ve really got to tell me your origins when this all blows over!”
Alan then buzzed, “And maybe some answers to why it’s all happening!”
“And maybe something to eat, too!” Mindy said, hearing her uncle’s voice just enough for her ears.
“Copy that, Lora out.”

-----

Just before the escapees and the human cartoon returned to the ground floor, they stopped at a door that looked strangely out of place compared to the rest of the compound: It was a modern design with a long vertical one-way glass stripe along the left third, near the handle. A sign on it said: PRIVATE. Toonman took the initiative, pulled a simple magnetic card from his suit and swiped it between the frame and bolt. “Works every time!” He laughed.
Then Alan pushed it open and discovered that the room beyond was a completely modern office. Stylish, at least: The white plaster walls were paneled with the same type of wood as the rest of the base, bowl lights circled the top and made it feel like the study of a rich man. Four large flat-screen monitors hung from below those lamps, one to a wall, displaying a wide variety of data: Security camera readings, computer statistics, and one showing a DVD player screensaver.
A rich wooden desk sat in the center of the room, with a large wide window spanning the wall behind it overlooking the outside landscape, and a nameplate gave the answer to who this office belonged to: Donald C. Byron!
“Wow, Lora would be surprised to see this,” Alan whistled.
Then as he studied the desk in closer detail, there was a very modern computer screen perched on top among other paraphernalia, and a comfy leather chair behind it. Alan took the chair and his partners gathered around to see. As he jiggled the mouse to kick the computer out of standby – which from the CPU tower on the floor happened to be a Windows 13, with a screensaver of the Twilight Zone flyby – the first thing on screen was the Documents folder. Like any intrusive spy, he made sure to check every folder one by one.
Scooting forward to see the screen closer, he selected one folder marked “Jobs”. In it were subfolders for info on each job, but there was also a list of all of them in one Excel document. Alan opened that up and slowly read the list.


“Wow, this guy’s been doing so much stuff for years, and only a few missions a year with big, big payments!” Alan smiled as he finished reading.
Then after closing the file and looking at some others, he stumbled across a message labeled “Mission Update (Top Secret)”. Alan leaned close to the screen, double clicked it, and opened the file. Ms. Carnodyne moved back to the door to secure it and check for people going by.
The file was rather short, but contained very critical evidence:
“My dear friend Donald, I have some exciting news for you! We have pinpointed the location of Howard and Sarah Jett. It is the 13th floor of an office building, P.W.C. suite, Ross Avenue, Dallas, TX. We must find these rats and destroy them before their work is complete, or else all humanity itself would fall into chaos. As much as I would want to use the Flee system to reach it myself, my father insists that you go first as a scout. Report any possible signs of activity to me immediately. When you're done, I'll follow and payment is yours. Don't disappoint my father. As much as some of my colleagues want to launch a full assault, my father wants us to stay low and out of sight. He says that would 'ruin the fun'! Anyway, the money is all here and I promise you will get it all – IF YOU SUCCEED. Regards, Lydia.”
“Holy Mother of Lode!” Toonman cracked a pun as he finished reading along with Alan.
Immediately, to avoid suspicious, Alan hit Ctrl-P to print both the current file and Don's Mission list. This stuff had to be brought to the authorities and Lora! If what Lydia said was true, this meant that Alan and Lora's parents were still alive at the location she described!    
Oh what I'd give to be with Mom and Dad again! He thought.
Then after stuffing those documents into an empty file folder and cramming it – with some difficulty – under his body suit; his hand darted to the radio, “Lora! Lora! I've got some exciting news!”
“What, Alan? You sound a lot more hyped up than before!”
“I've got some crazy important evidence that you've got to see! Where are you?”
“Um...kind of in trouble, actually. We'll probably need you.”
“Affirmative, we'll move to your position. Over and out.”

-----

And in trouble they were, because after Lora and her child oozed under a huge set of double doors at the end of the hallway, it turned out they had entered a huge throne room of sorts.
Over two dozen witches and wizards filled the room, all sparkling with magic energy: Some from wands, others right in their hands, and a few holding spell books or scrolls. Everyone was dressed in cold-colored garb, but each person unique – One woman had a familiar-looking horned headdress; another happened to be Grey; a third standing by a window, while certainly not the same man, had the same haircut as Professor Snape and held a glowing wand; and at the back, on the throne, was a nightmarishly aged man with a fairly long gray beard.
Worse, right in the center and in front of the throne stood Lydia and her criminal-for-hire boyfriend Don Byron. He was holding a black sphere that Mindy recognized from cartoons as a bomb.
“Ah, Lora Jett, I was wondering when we’d cross paths again,” Don smiled while pocketing the bomb to brush his hair real quick.
“And this time you and that silly child of yours have nowhere to go!” Lydia sinisterly hissed. “By the way, have you met my father? Take a good look!”
She pointed at the throne and Ms. Jett suddenly realized that this man was the real leader of this whole organization! Grey was right, Lydia’s just a witch-in-training! As Lora stared at the throne holding the old man high in authority, she saw two banners matching the strange symbol she’d photographed from Sleepy Ann’s notepad, and two burning torches flanked the throne. “Welcome to our humble base, Lorraine Jett. I see you have a child with you. My name is Seth Nirvana, my daughter knows quite a lot about you,” the man declared in an ominously deep, gravelly voice. He sounded to be well within the range of 80 years.
The Snape-like wizard stopped fiddling with a ball of light to ask, “I bet you are wondering what that symbol on the tapestries is, right?”
Egads! Lora thought. Trying to stay calm, she cleared her throat and simply said, “Yes, I’ve been curious all week.”
“Figured as much; We are the New Order of the Raven, a legion of witches, mages, magicians and wizards, founded to set the world on the course it should have been eons ago, before modern society corrupted it,” The same man smiled in a dark fashion. “That symbol may not match the name very well, but it certainly does a fantastic job of hypnotizing new recruits, or at least ensnaring our enemies. Quite a remarkable shape, I must say: An eye with repeating shapes leading to blackness, and geometric shapes around it to draw viewers in. There’s a spell embedded in its sheer design, you know.”
“We’ve had support from like-minded...colleagues. Observe,” the woman wearing black horns added as she opened a normal-sized round door to the left of the throne. Out of it, led by a guard in dark purple robes, three familiar people appeared, apparently chained together and severely hurt: Sleepy Ann, her ‘girlfriend’ Color Maid/Rita Winwood, and the infamous hacker Amelia Finnegan, all apparently part of this scheme that had formed over the whole week. “Unfortunately, you persuaded them out of our cause, and thus we punished them as a result.”
It made sense why they all knew that symbol: Someone showed it to them and brainwashed them into attacking the Jetts. But it wasn’t quite so effective.
Lora heard Alan, Toonman and the Verdant Valkyrie emerge from the doors behind her, and Seth continued, “But no matter now, we have you right where we want you. And all that’s left is to wipe you and all the other wretched ‘metahumans’ off the face of this poisoned world!”
“Hold on a minute, buddy! I tore the power-negating spell out of Lydia’s book! How could you possibly pull that off now?” Alan pointed out.
“That was only ONE of our many spellbooks, and even if you or your pathetic allies somehow managed to destroy them, my great memory would still have it!” He grunted.
“Excuse me, Seth, but are we going to see some action or what?” Don Byron interrupted.
“Right, I had that planned out already before I was so RUDELY interrupted! Lydia, would you kindly?”
“With pleasure, father!” The purple-haired witch laughed. Suddenly, she unbuttoned her dress and cast it to the floor, revealing a black spandex jumpsuit underneath. The heroes could see dozens of hideous tattoos emblazoned on her skin, so disturbing that Mindy thought they were moving somehow.
“Now, who wishes to battle me? I’ve had enough kidnapping and running around, both me and my boyfriend want to actually plaster somebody over a wall!” Lydia yelled.
Lora looked side to side, and answered, “Me, challenge accepted, mudblood!”
“Very funny, Lorraine! Keep these rules in mind, though: No powers allowed, it’s a one-on-one fight only, but you are allowed to tag and switch, and – to make it more interesting – it’s a free-for-all match. Any moves we want!”
“What’re the terms of winning?”
“Ha ha, if I win, you and your pathetic family shall die! Oh, but if you win, (sarcastically) I’ll let you go and allow you to try and find where your pathetic parents are hiding.”
“That’s right, my PC’s security program told me you printed those files. I can’t really ask you to give them back because they didn’t go anywhere,” Don pointed out. “Speaking of which, do I get my money if she loses?”
Lydia lowered her voice, “You’ll get the money either way, sweetheart. We won’t give up that easily even if she does somehow beat me.” Then she turned back to her opponent, “Come on, let’s see what you’re made of, Wannabe Plastic Man!”
Seth fired a blast of white energy at the whole party which instantly disabled their powers – except Toonman’s, due to his illogical type. Lora’s costume fell off, revealing blue jeans and a white T-shirt reading “I ♥ ADVENTURE GAMES”; both apparently preserved by the costume since they showed no signs of sweat. Her hair even changed back to its normal blond and un-shaped form. After Alan grabbed the costume and properly stowed it away in a box that Toonman offered, Lora pointed out, “Hey, get this Lydia, I’ve grown a lot stronger since we last met. Age and strength suspension aren’t a problem anymore thanks to a new compound I recently got!”
“Whatever, I can still beat you!”

----

Toonman felt excitement welling up in him, grabbed a microphone out of thin air, winked at Alan for a second as if to say, “Don’t worry, I’m still on your side!” then he shouted in the voice of a WWE announcer, “Welcome ladies and gentlemen to our newest fight! It looks like a serious one this time, folks: In the blue corner, weighing at 178 pounds, Ms. Loraaaaaa Jett! And in the red corner, weighing 215 pounds, Lydiaaaa Nirvanaaa! LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!”
Ms. Nirvana, not using magic, charged right at Lora with her hands out to grab, but Ms. Jett kicked her in the chest with the same strength she had with her powers. Lora discovered that Lydia was preparing to cheat using the tiny creatures in the spheres magnetized to her long chain-like earrings, so while using one arm to hold her down, she disconnected the tiny clamps and threw those two long jewelry pieces clear across the room. But Lydia kicked her opponent back with her feet and punched Lora, of all places, in the crotch.
Alan grimaced at that last movement, but because of that pain, Lora tagged him to switch places. Being significantly more buff, he’d have a better fighting chance.
The male team member started with a kung-fu-style hand gesture saying “Come at me!”, then as Lydia approached he grabbed her by the right upper arm and threw her upwards in an arc behind him.
That didn’t stop the sorceress, though. She kicked him in the back from a crouched position on the floor.
“Ooh, didn’t see that coming, folks! I’d say this Lydia is full of surprises!” Toonman announced with glee. Then he started counting down from ten, but Alan was quick to push himself back up and somersault back to standing face to face.
Then the two fighters started a rapid fist fight back and forth like a Samurai Jack scene. One side aimed at multiple areas of the opponent’s body, but that opponent dodged every single one. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere for a few minutes. Mindy cheered while waving a morphed-on foam finger, “Get that lady, Uncle Alan!”
“Yeah, show him what the Jetts made of!” Lora added.
On the other side, most of the mages and wizards just stared quietly. Seth twiddled his fingers as if he was plotting something, and his horned companion asked, “What are you thinking, Master?”
He spoke in a low voice to her, “These 3 colored ‘heroes’ are quite resourceful, even without their so-called ‘superpowers’. We might have to change our plans a little. Or maybe even...” He paused.
Then the old man stood up and quietly threw a knife into the flay. Alan, noticing this, ducked out of the way, but that move allowed Lydia to gain an advantage and started beating the crud out of him. With one hand, she amazingly caught that knife by the hilt in midair!
“Great Scott! I’ve never known anyone who can catch a knife safely!” Ms. Carnodyne almost shrieked.
Then after punching him twice across the cheeks, Alan cried, “Uncle! Uncle!” Toonman again counted T-minus 10, and this time he didn’t make a move. “Lydia wins the match!”
Lora, Mindy, and her teacher booed at that statement, while the mages clapped their hands.
Then Lydia did something totally bizarre: she flipped Alan over onto his stomach and used Seth’s knife to slowly cut open his bodysuit. He remembered that it was a nylon-gortex material, breathable and able to adjust to his height powers, not to mention machine-washable, but this was the only one ever made, so it would take a lot of money to make a new one!
But Lydia had already torn the entire upper back section of the suit in a rectangular fashion. After she pulled away the flap, she disturbingly began to carve something right into his skin; In a matter of minutes, filled with the man’s horrified screams of pain, that shape turned out to be a mandala made from skin gashes, none of them very deep. While she was engraving those shapes, Ms. Nirvana was quietly mouthing strange incantations. Lora could see that she was casting a spell during this time, and all of a sudden a hidden surge of anger burst forth within her.
She roared, “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY BROTHER!” and charged right at the sorceress just as she put the finishing touches on that mandala. Just as the two women fell to the floor, the file folder containing Don’s printed files slipped out of the open segment of Alan’s costume. But no one noticed that yet, because Lora was now wasting her archenemy, unpowered, in a no-holds barred beatdown. It seemed that Lorraine, powers or not, cared very much for her team members and had grown sick of this organization out to kill them all, on top of the fact that she and Alan having been born in a cold, dark laboratory. Lora may have not shown this side of her to civilians yet, but it was a good thing she hadn’t.
Toonman described this event, “Yikes! Looks like we’ve moved to the Sudden Death round, folks! Keep the kids away, moms and dads. It’s not looking pretty for Lady Nirvana!” And he was right concerning censorship: Lydia’s face had taken so much thrashing in the entire match; from a bloody nose to 3 bruises on the cheeks and a black eye. Up to this point, she’d been entirely unaffected by anything, but now it seemed that implied invulnerability had now swiftly vanished.
Lora paused to take a breather and explain her rage, “I’ve had enough of you, you magic purple tissue box! This time, you’re going down without any sort of magic to back you up, like those times when I was just getting used to my powers and you always getting the upper hand by deactivating them! Well, this time you’re not going to take them away, or any other super’s!”
“Oh, really? What makes you think you’re so sure about that?” Seth chuckled.
“The hope that our family is still alive, and the fact that good always triumphs over evil!” Alan boosted his sister’s speech.
“Ugh, that was such an archaic speech!” One of the male mages groaned.
“Powers or no powers, we’ll beat you!” Lora yelled, still making sure that Lydia was secure.

----

All the while, Amelia Finnegan, Sleepy Ann, and Color Maid had been watching from the sidelines – and tortured for failure of their missions. Seeing Lora’s rage-driven attack on the sorceress made her feel sorry for Ms. Jett and what her viruses tried to do to her team’s computers. Sleepy Ann was on the verge of crying because she was forced into all this by those witches and wizards, and her girlfriend also felt bad for everything that’s been going on.
But none of these women could do anything because they were handcuffed...or could they? Amelia’s pockets hadn’t been searched, and thankfully so because she had a specialized Swiss army knife containing a couple of lock picks. Struggling to reach into the left pocket where it was, she managed to grab it by the keyring and pull the device out. Then she opened one of the picks and carefully worked it in the old-fashioned manacles’ lock. After a few seconds – occupied by Lora finally giving up and letting the horribly beaten sorceress go – Amelia opened the handcuffs and did the same procedure on the other two ladies. Seth’s anti-superpower spell didn’t seem to affect the two girls from New Lake (or Mindy, for that matter), so Color Maid was able to paint something to distract the leader.
What she did was construct a strangely familiar green and black cobra (see: “Adventures of Gage McIntyre: Welcome to Reptolon”). It slithered quietly up one of the brass torches and leaped onto Seth’s face.
“You vile creature, get off of my face!” Seth growled.
“Put back their powers, or you’ll be sorry!” Color Maid threatened.
“Over our dead bodies!”
Lydia got to her feet and leaned against the throne, still weak with pain and slightly fractured bones, and pleaded slowly “Do...as...she says. *cough*”
“Very well, my daughter, but this isn't over yet!" With a couple of swishes and some weird words, another wave of white light came forth from that aged stick in his hand. Alan then tossed Lora's costume back over - right before some of the witches could snatch it - and as soon as she grabbed it, that supersuit almost instantly reformed back onto her body by itself. The Jetts soon felt their old strength coming back, and just as her red hairdo came rolling back like a wave across her blonde locks, she announced, "Sorry, but we've gotta run!"
 "You heard her, stay tuned, people! We'll have another match next time on Toonman Comedy Central!" The cartoon announcer ended.
 The guy in cokebottle glasses happened to be reading the printoffs, but Alan snatched them up and approached his sister with them. Then he asked the 3 women ex-prisoners, "We read of a 'Flee' network. Do you know where it is?"
 "Through there, we passed a transport pad on the way in here," Amelia pointed at the door near the throne where they entered.

----

 The entire 5-super group as well as the freed prisoners raced through that doorway into a dim corridor, while Seth yelled at his subordinates, "After those foul savages! They must not be allowed to escape this building!"
Like many castle chase scenes in Disney or MGM movies, the entire organization of witches and wizards started a raid through the whole building to surround the escaping heroes. Lora and Alan almost screeched to a halt when they saw a bunch of those magic-wielders dead ahead, but Alan pushed open a door to the left with his shoulder, and in a few seconds the team reached a dead-end terrace with a brick-lined circle in the middle.
 Toonman barricaded the door using a bunch of random objects that he seemed to just pull out of thin air, like a table, chair, a fridge and even a car. But even then, those witches and wizards were determined to break through.
 "That's one of the Flee network transport pads that...those people brought us here on," Amelia stated.
 "How does it work?" Mindy asked quickly.
 "I don't really remember, but I think one of those wizards took some powder and...and said where we were going," Sleepy Ann guessed.
 "Then that's what we need!" Alan concluded. He ran to the center of the circle, and his two female teammates followed, Just before he reached for a pot containing some strange black dust, he uttered some commands, "VV, get those 3 to safety. Fly them out of here to the nearest town and wait for my signal."
 "Got it, Alan," Ms. Carnodyne promptly took his orders. She generated a green energy bubble around Amelia, Sleepy Ann, and Color Maid and flew off at the speed of a jet plane towards what would probably be Denver. Then he turned to the human cartoon, who asked, "What about me?"
 "You're a resourceful dude, maybe you could outwit these guys for a little while. But if worse comes to worse, get your ass out of here and don't look back," Alan decided.
 "Right, maybe I can get Captain Hollywood down here for backup or something," he nodded.
 All of a sudden the door shattered into tiny wooden splinters in a flash of purple light, sending the whole barricade flying apart. Right in front of the advancing villains was Don Byron himself, who, although still bearing a deceptive grin, had a look of fury in his eyes concern how Lora punched the crap out of his girlfriend.
 Alan picked up a handful of the powder and yelled, "Downtown Dallas, Texas!" and just as he dropped it the whole platform became engulfed in purple flames. Taking a split-second opportunity, Don leaped into the fire and vanished along with the Jetts just as it died down.

TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO SEE WHERE THE JETTS WILL END UP, AND WHAT SURPRISES AWAIT THEM!
 Toonman: Oh, be quiet, they already know that!