by T5, The Eurostar and I'm Not Mister Mxypltk
Ma Kalunga smiled as the heroes peered through the doorway, seeing the chaos in there. She looked at Danny Hearn and said, "You are the one we seek. Join us, and you will be rewarded with riches beyond your wildest dreams."
Danny looked uncertain. "Join you? A bunch of voodoo artists who kidnap young girls? I don't think so, Kabunga."
"I am called Ma Kalunga, you fool." And then she held out a small, glowing rock that suddenly turned the whole team into frogs.
A black frog in the doorway called Naecken jumped on her back, and kicked her hard.
Frog Marv Velo was in shock. How could this have happened?
Frog Danny tried to smile, which is hard for a frog. He simply changed himself into his old self again, but he soon realized that his real self was the frog body. Still, the shock value was great. Ma Kalunga could not believe her eyes: a mere man ignoring her spells. Impossible!
She tried again, but this time Frog Naecken was ready for her and grabbed the stone from her hand in his mouth and jumped away, out of an open window.
Frog M'xy realized their predicament and turned the glue around the team's feet into air, and said, "Rrrrribit!"
The team followed him outside and caught up with Frog Naecken, who was waiting for them.
Inside, Ma Kalunga could be heard cursing many different gods and various familiars.
The team of Frog Revolutionaries jumped around in the compound looking for the missing girl.
Frog M'xy closed in on Frog Naecken and said, "Rrribbit, wribbitt!"
Frog Naecken replied, "Wribbit? Oowwribbitt!"
He let go of the rock and let M'xy handle it. In seconds, the team was returned to normal.
Velo looked stunned again. "Hey, that was actually kind of fun. I rather enjoyed jumping like that."
Danny exclaimed, "I've found her, guys! She's in here!" He pointed toward a window. The team scrambled.
Ma Kalunga saw them converge outside the cabin where she kept the Biggins girl and realized the game was up, so she cast a minor spell and crept out on the far side of the building into the bushes. She would make them pay for not giving her the faceless one. One day he would be her willing slave, she promised herself.
M'xy looked at the rock and realized with a shock what it was. "Someone has trapped the heart of a fifth-dimensional being from my world into this."
"So this Kawunga character is more resourceful than meets the eye. Let's go back to the house and get some answers," offered Lance Lorenzo.
"Good idea," said Velo.
The team went inside, only to find the desperate henchmen still stuck in the glue floor.
Lance sighed, "At least we got the girl. That's what we came for." But everyone in the room knew that Ma Kalunga would be back, sooner or later.
Suddenly, Naecken spun around and looked at M'xy. "Did you feel that?"
"Yes," said M'xy, "a rip in the time continuum on the island. We'd better take the girl and head back home... before anything else happens."
"My name isn't 'the girl' -- it's Rose," she said, overhearing. "Rose Biggins."
"Sorry, little missy," said Lance.
"Gah!" she said, already exasperated.
And soon, the gang sat on the boat, heading home with their minds full of thoughts about the weird events that took place today, and what could be in store for them.
On the boat, the silence was deafening.
M'xy, Sam Dawson, and Lance Lorenzo felt ashamed of having being so bold as to have taken the mission all by themselves, shyly avoided the gaze of Marv Velo, the one who, although having no leadership position, was seen by all the others for his age and experience as a near-fatherly figure from whom to expect a loud reprimand.
But Velo had other things concerning his mind. Having being transformed into frogs was a thing that had a very lasting impact on him, because it was something so far from his scientific mind that even the explanation of Ma Kalunga's "magic" being empowered by a fifth-dimensional being was not sufficient to put him back at ease. He began to wonder if she was actually a skilled hypnotist or a meta with an illusion-creating ability.
For Danny and Pete, that occurrence was not so different from the other strange adventures that they had experienced before, so it was not a big concern. But they had just gone through, in the few hours the other three friends were away, the seeming death of one of them, the mysterious Sonja Ljzavet. Naecken's subsequent revelation that the girl was indeed alive, but now far away from them, sounded appalling and totally hard to believe.
Naecken was not thinking about Sonja. That was something of the past, something that should have been different, a mistake he had to repair. It cost him a lot of energy, and he was still tired from what he had accomplished. But now he had a new thing to consider. The rupture in the time continuum he felt concerned him greatly. Demons? Angels? Otherdimensional beings? Or something even greater?
The last person on the boat, Rose Biggins, was silent just because after the apparent joy and excitement of her liberation, fell into a deep, rewarding sleep.
So, the only sounds were the purr of the boat engine and the gentle whisper of the waves.
Then, it was Lance who broke the peaceful atmosphere, when he loudly asked, after having looked all around the boat, "But where is Tobias?"
The electromagnetic bio-cerebral field entity known only as T5 came to La Perdita Island around noon that very same day. It possessed a small Ford pickup truck and went about looking for the target.
The Quadinc had been quite specific: locate the quantum-melded scientist and bring him back for questioning.
He pursued the biofield signature and soon ended up at the island boat rental. His senses told him that the scientist was getting closer, so he looked around for a more subtle shell to inhabit.
A small boy was playing outside the rental office. He had a strange mechanical device that seemed to mimic this world's simplistic animals. It had four legs and a tail. Around its neck there was sign that said "Rufus." The device contained all sorts of simple gadgets, like a clock, a radio, and an emulating system that allowed the mechanical device to record sounds and use it as form of communication.
The boy's father stepped out of the office and turned toward his boy. "C'mon, Alec. It's time to head home. You can play with that later."
"Yes, father," the boy replied and bent over to pick up the mechanical dog. But suddenly, a spark shone in its eyes, and off it went. It ran down the harbor and hid itself under a pile of timber, where the boy could not reach it.
The father talked to the manager, who shrugged and laughed, "If ya can't control a toy dog, maybe it's a sign that you shouldn't have a dog at all."
That earned him a dark look from the father, and a kick on the leg from the son.
Nursing the bruise, he said, "You're welcome to try to shift those logs, but otherwise, until they're shifted by the company, I'm not allowed to touch them. Company policy. We don't mess with our customer's cargo."
The father threatened him with a lawsuit and slammed the car door, burning a few millimeters of rubber when he spun his wheels too hard, giving the Porsche too much gas, and roared away at top speed.
After being teleported away from the place of her defeat, Ma Kalunga had expected to appear on one of the other islands as her spell had indicated. Instead, she found herself in a place she had never seen before. She looked around and saw monitors everywhere showing news stations from several countries.
She immediately discarded the idea of having cast her spell incorrectly, so she assumed someone had brought her here. Before she could investigate any further, the monitors suddenly turned off, leaving the place in complete darkness.
"Who...?"
"WELCOME."
"What is this? I demand an explanation! Are you in charge?"
"He? He'sss not even in charge of hisss own body."
"I'D TAKE YOURS, IF IT DIDN'T STINK SO MUCH."
"Gentlemen!"
"UH, NO, NEITHER OF US IS IN CHARGE."
"The bosss isss busssy right now."
"HOWEVER, WE CAN EXPLAIN TO YOU THE REASONS HE HAD FOR OFFERING YOU A CHANCE TO JOIN US."
"What makes you think I would want to join with you?"
"Ooooh, lisssten to me, darling... after we tell you about it, you'll beg usss to ssstay!"