Ships Ahoy!

The Revenant

What Otto didn't realize during the O Games is just how much he had to thank Todd for. If it hadn't been for his injured leg trap, Otto would've taken a lot longer to realize Dr. O's feelings for him. In fact, the same was true for Olive and Oscar. Unbeknownst to them, it was Todd who'd planted the Blobisite in the first place, intentionally doing so exactly a week before he'd planned to make his grand debut as an official villain: on Monday, August 11...

* * * * *

It was supposed to be a routine case.

The poor giant ball of gum had been shrunk, stolen, and rechewed before, numerous times over the years. That was nothing new.

But never had it been reduced to exactly forty-three wads before.

Olive froze in dread. It can't be...he's come back...oh please, no, he's come back... "It's Agent 43!" she muttered disbelievingly, staring at the impossible bronze sign on the ball of gum's marble pedestal.

"...Who?"

Otto was eyeing her bemusedly. She was going to have to explain. "Partner, I need you to scan this room for oddness," she ordered, hoping with everything she had that it wasn't true.

All this got her was an even more clueless look. "Why?"

"Please," she whispered. "Trust me."

The begging worked, and obligingly Otto pulled out his Scaninator and began scanning the room as she'd asked. While Security Guard Betty clutched her swollen belly, Olive took a deep breath and tried her hardest to calm herself down. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just a coincidence, and I'm only being paranoid. But as the scanning went on, she felt more and more tense in an uneasy way that she hadn't felt for over two years. Worse, there was a prickling feeling on the back of her neck like they were being watched. And when it was all added up, there was just no way it could mean anything else. What am I supposed to do? Only just last Friday when Otto ate the shrinking potato, I'd stopped Oscar from telling Otto and Oren about him because everything is confidential and taboo. So what now?

The scan ended. "Nothing," Otto reported as he checked the display, completely oblivious to her turbulent thoughts. "Just us, the gum, and forty-three paintings."

Olive shook her head. Was the room supposed to have exactly that number of paintings? Or...

"Impossible," Betty cut in with a condescending smile. "There are only forty-two paintings in this room."

Under any other circumstances, Olive would've promptly put the museum security guard's attitude in check, but the woman had just confirmed her deepest fears. This can't be a coincidence. The scanner is never wrong. If there's forty-three wads of gum left, and there's also forty-three paintings but there's only supposed to be forty-two...then... "...that means one of these paintings is—"

"ME!"

Olive and Otto whirled around.

Oh, Lord help us...

He'd...changed since she'd last seen him. The uniform was still there, but it had exploded into so many odd colors that it was almost recognizable. His once sleek brown hair was now wild and untamed, and a crazy shock of white ran all the way from the back of his head down through the center of his eyebrow. But as she looked closer, there seemed to be something still very much the same about him that she couldn't put a finger on.

Dramatically tossing aside the red velvet curtain he'd used to hide his legs, he let out the evil cackle of Olive's nightmares. "That's right, Scribbles," he declared, as if reading her mind. "I'm back! You didn't think I was gonna be gone forever, now did ya?"