Chapter 14 - Ready for Betty?

Chapter 14
Looking up at the stars used to be enjoyable for Betty. She used to look up and think that each of those little specks represented a sun with planets that had billions and billions of creatures on them with their own cultures, lives and dreams. Now the stars just made her jealous. Thinking about all those worlds and civilizations out among the stars reminded her that she no longer had a home. She quickly shook those thoughts out of her head and moved along the dark streets of Hannas-Barrbados. She would talk to Phantom about it right now but she wanted to keep quiet until they got to the storage facility. Better safe that sorry she told herself. But still, she wanted to talk to somebody. It almost felt like more that she could bare some days.
‘Just focus on the mission’ she told herself. She and Phantom walked through the eerie silence until they reached the warehouse Spacely had directed them to. Betty pulled a bubblegum wrapper out of her pocket. It figured that Spacely would be too cheap to write the warehouse’s lock code on a sticky note or any thing else. After punching in the code the doors slid open and Betty and Phantom went in.
“Alright Phantom,” Betty said, “Start using that shrink-ray and let‘s get out of here as soon as we can.”
“It‘s more of a Cramming-beam, but whatever.” Phantom quickly set about to shrinking boxes and crates and Betty began putting the toy-sized supplies in a bag she had brought. After a few piles were packed away Phantom started feeling uncomfortable. He knew there was only one thing to do about that. “Uh, Betty?”
“What? Something wrong?” Betty asked, stooping down to pick up a stack of tiny boxes about a foot tall.
“Well, uh about that fight with June-” Phantom began
“I know Phantom.” Betty said, putting more boxes in the bag.
“You-you do?” Phantom said with shock, knowing he himself found out less than an hour ago.
“Yeah, I‘ve seen before.” Betty moved on to another stack of shrunken boxes, “You’re worried that Because June’s so powerful that she’ll replace you.”
Phantom nearly tripped after hearing how wrong Betty was. “Well, it’s not quite-”
“Don’t worry Phantom. We need you. We’ll always need you. In fact if there’s one person in this crew we can’t do without,” Betty stood up and turned to face Phantom, “it’s you.”
Phantom looked back at Betty for a moment. Could he really tell her the truth? That he was slowly melting? Then he remembered what Jenny had said. That if he didn’t tell Betty, she would. So he mustered up all the courage he had and opened his mouth, “Betty, it‘s like this-”
“Wait a minute…” Betty suddenly dashed forward, pushing Phantom out of the way. She leapt over a pile of un-shrunken crates and, after a few sounds of movement, walked out from behind the boxes with something small and furry in her hand. The furry thing looked like some odd-white furred mix between a rat, a kitten, and a cockroach. The result was something oddly cute that currently looked traumatized.
“Phantom,” Betty glared at him, “You closed the door behind you, didn’t you?”
“Uh, yeah, bu-”
“Then how did this get in here?” Betty shook the furry thing out for Phantom to see.
“I dunno.”
Betty turned the creature so it faced her and stared at it for a while as her mind worked out the possibilities. Then, with her free hand she slapped her forehead, “Betty, how could you be so dense?” she asked herself out loud, apparently unaware of saying it. “You should have seen through this so easily, it‘s cadet stuff.”
“Betty, is everything alright?” Phantom asked, not sure if her really wanted a the answer.
“We’re surrounded.” she said plainly.
“What?”
“They must have gotten to Spacely shortly after we did. He told them where we would be picking up supplies, so they got in first, accidentally let this in with them,” Betty held out the furry thing again, “and now they’re all over the place and ready to pounce.”
“Who?” Phantom’s question was answered for him and hundreds of alien solders in matching uniforms of all shapes, sizes and colors came out of nowhere and everywhere. Phantom instinctively began powering up his ghost rays, but as the effort made him dizzy he settled with clutching the Fenton Crammer and pointing it menacingly at the intruders.
“The Galactic Guardians.” Betty said letting the furry thing drop to the ground.
One of the aliens stepped forward, this one was short, not much taller than Betty, and had a grassy green tint to his skin , a round, boyish face that was accentuated with a large, blue-green nose. Somewhat nervously he spoke.
“Uh, Hey . . . Chief.”
Betty coolly acknowledged him, “Sparky.”
Phantom clutched the Fenton Crammer even tighter recognizing Sparky as the one who got him a free night in the Fenton Weasel suite, “You again?”
“I figured they’d put you in charge of my capture, Sparky. But I’ve gotta say, I really didn’t expect such a basic cadet move out of you.” Betty said, ignoring Phantom.
“Hey, look,” Sparky said, raising his hands defensively., “This sooooo wasn’t my idea!”
“Good! Because I really was expecting some over-complicated, half-baked, hair-brained trap-scheme that actually ends up working.” Betty grinned at the memories of the past for a moment.
Sparky allowed himself a grin as well. The grin quickly faded however, “Betty, Please, just turn yourself in. Trust me, it‘ll be better if you do.”
“I can’t do that Sparky. I‘m the only one who can stop those invaders from attacking again. We‘re so close, Sparky.”
“Look, Chief, if it was up to me I’d let you go, but…” Sparky looked at the other solders as if wondering if he could say the next thing, “It’s just…bigger than us. I’m not in control here.”
“Wait,” Phantom chimed in, “If you’re not in control, then who is?”
“That would be me.” came a voice from behind. Betty and Phantom carefully turned their heads that way. They saw a boy who appeared very much human with a gangly, almost scarecrow frame that was covered with a uniform a little different than all the others.
“And you are…?” Phantom asked.
The boy opened his mouth and began talking but was quickly interrupted by Betty.
“No, wait…let me guess.” She looked him up and down, her eyes carefully combing him for clues. The boy felt a little uncomfortable with how she stared at him. “So, you’re obviously a cadet,” The boy blushed angrily at this, “But, you have the Nebula battle suit, class 99 weapon, right up there with the Omnitrix. You look like your were from Earth, but you obviously know your way around the galaxy. Got it!” Betty snapped her fingers, “You are, or very recently were, a student at the Celestial Academy, were the Nebula suit was being kept, which means you must be the only human to go there since I was there. Sprig Speevack, right?”
The boy’s face showed obvious surprise, “She is good.” he said under his breath. Wiping the surprise off his face he reminded himself to do this ’by the book’, remembering his encounter with June.
He cleared his throat and spoke up, “Atomic Betty, You are hereby under arrest for the charges of insubordination, harboring a known criminal, and grand theft warship. Phantom, you are under arrest for attacking a Galactic Guardian space station, suspected possession of unlicensed weaponry, Failure to appear on a scheduled court date, and impersonating a school mascot at Galaxy High.”
Betty turned her head quizzically to Phantom upon hearing the last charge. “Impersonating a mascot? When did that happen?”
Phantom sighed, “Look, I had a life before I met you guys. Okay?”
“Regardless,” Speevack chirped in, “You two are hereby ordered to surrender.”
“Fat chance, get ‘em Phantom.” Betty replied.
Phantom looked very nervous for a second, “Uh, Betty, can we talk?” Phantom grabbed Betty’s arm and turned her around so their backs were facing Sprig and Sparky, and started speaking in subdued tones.
“It’s like this, Betty, I just found out if I use my powers too much I’ll melt like a popsicle, and I’ll melt in two month anyways.” Phantom said.
Betty clenched her teeth, “You mean you mean you can’t beat these guys?”
“Not without turning into a puddle.”
“Would’ve been nice to know this earlier!”
“I just found out an hour ago!”
“Okay, okay, we’ll talk later, let’s just figure a way out of here. Just follow my lead.”
Betty and Phantom turned back around. Betty’s eye immediately darted to the pair of hand cuffs at Speevack’s side. Venusian hand cuffs, perfect.
“Let me get this straight,” Betty said, “If we turn ourselves in, you’ll put those handcuffs you’ve got there,” she pointed at the cuffs, “and then you take us back to Galactic Guardians HQ and we stand trial, have I got all that right?”
“Well, uh, yeah.” Sprig answered, wondering what was going on. Betty leaned over to Phantom and muttered something Sprig and Sparky couldn’t quite hear, Phantom muttered something back.
“Well, after consulting with my partner we’ve decided to turn ourselves in.” Betty said.
“That’s more like it.” Sprig said, smiling. He took the cuffs from his belt and walked towards Betty. The hand cuffs consisted of two metal cylinders to be clamped around the wrist and a metal chord attaching the two. Betty held out her wrists almost like expecting a gift. Sprig either didn’t notice or didn’t care and clapped the handcuffs on her. “Oh, and don‘t think you can get out of those. They’re Venusian handcuffs.”
“VENUSIAN?!?!” Sparky yelled, not believing what he was hearing. Before Sprig could figure out what was going on he saw Betty’s hands dart past his face and then the chord of the cuffs was shoved into his mouth. Sprig was forced backwards until he hit the ground, the Venusian chord still in his mouth and Betty doing a hand-stand over him. Betty lowered herself closer to Sprig’s face.
“Good try, but not good enough, Cadet.” She said and then did a hand spring up onto a pile of boxes where a very surprised and awe-struck Galactic Guardian was standing with a gun. Betty wrapped the chord around the gun and yanked it out of the Guardian’s hands. Holding the gun Betty landed a kick in the Guardian’s stomach, causing him to double over. Betty then leapt on the his back and leapt towards a window. She used the gun to blast a hole in the window and shattered through the rest of the window, disappearing into the night.
All the Guardians stared at the window in disbelief.
“Wow!” Phantom said, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. Realizing what they had all come there for in the first place the Guardians pointed their guns at Phantom.
“Uh-oh.” Phantom looked around as Sprig got back up. “Let’s hope I can still do this…” Phantom said to himself. Then, with a look of strain on his face, he vanished. Sprig was left, lying on the ground, slightly dazed and wondering what just happened. Sparky’s face came into view, looking very upset.
Sparky let out an sigh and looked around at the other Guardians. “Well, Don’t just stand there, Go after them!” The room quickly emptied, leaving only Sparky and Sprig. “Hey, Boss.” Sparky nudged Sprig with his foot.
Sprig slowly started coming out of the daze. “Ugh, What happed?”
“Do you know why we don’t use Venusian handcuff on Venusians?” Sparky asked.
“Uh, because they have six arms?” Sprig said, pulling himself up to his feet.
“Well, that, and they have a style of martial arts that those cuff were made specifically for.”
“She’s not a Venusian.” Sprig tried to save face.
“No, but she has trained with Venusians.”
“That wasn’t on her file.”
“No, but you could have asked me.”
Now up on his feet, Speevack reached for a communicator on his belt. “That’s it, I’m issuing the order.”
“What? No! you can’t!” Sparky grabbed Sprig’s arm.
“Look, I’m in charge of all this and I’ll move the deadline up if I want to.”
“Let’s just see if we can’t find them first.”
“You know, I’m starting to think you might be too close to this case, Sparky.” Sprig replied stiffly.
Sparky’s face contorted, “Well, apparently you’re not close enough. I know Betty well enough that I can tell you what will and won’t work against her, if you would just listen to me!”
Sprig stood silently for a moment, staring Sparky down. Then he put the communicator back on his belt. “In twenty-four hours, if she’s still out there, I’m going to give that order.”
Sparky looked at Sprig for a moment, “Fine, twenty-four hours.” Sparky then turned and left the wear house.

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