Lia watched as her poor friend Chunky leapt onto the bed. She was afraid that it would be poisoned and he would die. But, as he said, it was his duty and she could not interfere even though she was the Queen.

Chunky snuggled down into the bed. "Ooh. Ishcomfy!" He sniffed the air several times then blinked rapidly. "Ismellcoffee. Whereisthecoffee? Must... Have... Coffee..."

And then he promptly fell asleep. Lia shook him gently. "Chunky? Are you really asleep?" When that didn't work she poked him with a rather long stick. Who knew what kind of pests the chubby rodent might have. When even that didn't work, she grabbed a canteen of coffee from a rather startled squirrel's paws. She waved it right under Chunky's nose hoping he would come back from being asleep. He sleepily opened his eyes and looked at Lia, "Itwasthehonorablethingtodo, QueenLia." Then he fell asleep again, never to wake up.

"Well," said Lia to Summer. "You saved me!"

Echo was halfway back to the hollowed-out-tree-prison-place before she realized that Lia was, in fact, still with the rest of the group and hadn't really gone to bed yet.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she snarled irritably at Cherry, jogging back towards the place they had started at, the dress slung over her shoulder.

"IDIDTELLYOU!" said Cherry. "Youjustwereignoringmeeeeee."

Echo sighed. Luckily, the others weren't too hard to find. When she barged into the room, the smell of coffee assaulted her nose. Not that this was anything out of the ordinary in a squirrel city. But something about it was...off.

Then she caught sight of Chunky lying motionless in the bed and heard the sound of crying squirrels. Cherry shrieked and toppled off her shoulder in a dead faint.

Echo caught him. Her senses on high alert, she stared dumbstruck at the others. "What happened here?"

"Poisoned!" one of the squirrels cried. "Someonedoesn'twantLiatobeQueen!"

Echo's mind was whirling. "But why?" she murmured. "Everyone knows the squirrels aren't leaders - they're followers. That's why they wanted a Queen in the first place, so they'd have someone to lead them. They couldn't have come up with this on their own. Someone must have planted the idea, someone who doesn't want the squirrels taking orders from an ANTI Agent like Lia. Someone like..." She trailed off and looked around at the others, wondering if they suspected the same person she did.

Poor Chunky lay still on the bed, and Summer had never felt so close to tears for a squirrel in her entire life. How could someone do such a thing to anyone, even a queen? If Lia hadn't heeded her warnings and had went to bed... The though terrified Summer to the bone. She wanted to say something clever or comforting to the poor squirrels around her, but she felt speechless.

All of a sudden, her mind went whirling, and the scene in front of her changed to a strange, black and white office room. What's going on? Chunky died, and now I'm in a silent movie or something?

There before her were two silhouettes, one of a woman, and another of a tall guy. "Professor Jenson," The female asked, "Are you sure feeding these squirrels coffee will really help us get one step closer to finding where Crazy Hazel is hiding the ingredients?"

Summer was alarmed. Professor Jenson was well known to have helped create the MUPPETZ in the first place. There he was, shifting around, but then he declared, "We must find her and what we need to make better MUPPETZ monsters. It's sad enough that we were able to turn her into one before she ran away, and we still can't find her or her teammates. Those squirrels might come in handy one day to help us find all the answers we need..."

In the blink of an eye, Summer found herself back in the dreaded bedroom. No one seemed to have noticed anything different, and she figured she was the only one to have had the flashback. But one thing had been learned from that. Trying to get used to the bright colors around her, she weakly admitted "There's more to this than we're seeing. Someone must've gained the trust of some of the squirrels so this would happen. As far as we know, these critters could possibly be a part of a bigger scheme that they don't even have an idea about. We also might be a piece of something that's quite beastly. We need to figure out what this plan is, and stop it before it's too late!"

The things one does to try and get ahead in life... Cheyenne thought to himself as he balanced on the balcony railing outside of the Count's "counting" chamber. Fortunately it had become a dark and stormy night, so the rogue in black blended in with his surroundings.

After returning to Corter and having to reassure the old hermit multiple times that he was not going to kill him for letting Thorn out of his sight, Cheyenne had set to work repairing his hover plane. Shortly after beginning to instal the fiber combustion engine, Corter had started rambling on about how the Count has a mind control device to control the MUPPETZ. While at first this seemed to come out of left field, the rogue soon realized his old companion was telling him this because the crazy MUPPETZ were roaming around again.

It was at that point that Cheyenne had the idea to steal this mind control device and get back at the Count... and possibly the MUPPETZ as a whole. So, after some slight trouble, the rogue was know waiting for the right opportunity to snatch the device from the Count.

Fortunately, the Count had decided to call off his counting game thanks to the storm interfering with his view of the proceedings and had left the room a few seconds ago.... leaving the controller on the overlarge (and overGothic) desk. After waiting a few more minutes, Cheyenne stealthily made his way into the room and grabbed the controller.

Just as the rogue was about to climb over the balcony... the Count returned. "Almost forgot my remote. Now, where did I leave that, I wonder...." the pale man said aloud as he began looking around the room. Noticing that the balcony door was open, the Count walked over and shut/locked. If he had looked a little closer at the outside, he would have seen the top of Cheyenne's hat disappear over the other side of the railing.

Cheyenne quietly and quickly made his way around the castle and down to the prison chamber at the base. As was typical, a henchman was guarding the entrance.

"I'm here to see the newest prisoner. Your Master asked me to interrogate her. Seems she knows something he wants." Cheyenne told the guard. With a blank look and a stupid nod of it's head, the guard let Cheyenne enter without any questions. Sometimes having dumb henchmen was a good thing....

It didn't take long for Cheyenne to find the cell Thorn was in, especially since the ANTI agent was the only prisoner in the entire prison. "Well, you do know how to get around, don't you?" the rogue said with a smile as he leaned against the far wall in-front of Thorn's cell.

(M.U.T.A.N.T.Z. Island)

"Cheyenne!" Agent Thorn gasped, scrambling out of the shadows and over to the bars of the cell. "Where have you been? Where did you go? How on earth did you get down here?"

She had almost completely forgotten about him, so caught up in the spell of the island and the idiotic Count. Maybe it had been stupid of her to wander off in search of answers in the middle of the night. . . but it hadn't exactly been very hospitable of him to leave without letting her know.

"Never mind, there's no time to talk," she said in one breath. "The Count will be down to torture information out of me any minute, and as soon as he finds out it's not going to work, it'll be curtains for me. I've got to get out of here, Cheyenne."

She dropped her voice to a whisper.

"There's something hidden on this island, something more bizarre than either of us could ever imagine. And I'm the only one alive who knows how to find it."

She peered through the bars, her earnest eyes trying to pierce through the other agent's cool indifference.

"If A.N.T.I. is ever going to have a chance at winning this fight, it must be found at all costs."

After Chunky's tragic death, the squirrels did a ceremonial chicken-dance in memory of their friend and leader. In the bushes, CyKo could hear movement, but he assumed it was no more than just squirrels. And he was probably right.

CyKo himself joined into the ceremonial dance, emitting all his emotions into the desperate moves of the ever-clucking chicken. Of course, he felt sort of silly afterwards... But it was for Chunky. Chunky, the one who had saved Lia. Chunky, the one who led the squirrels in dark times. Chunky, the one who drank 13 cups of coffee every hour.

Chunky, leader of the squirrels.

Walking over to Lia, CyKo whispered, "You have big shoes to fill, if you're going to take over the leadership that was once Chunky's. Well, little shoes, cuz they have little paws, y'know, but- I think you get what I'm saying. It was meant metaphorically... nevermind."

Lia stared at Cyko after he explained the 'little shoes' thing. She was trying to figure out how the MUPPETZ had infiltrated her little woodland clan of rodents. After all, the only people who knew where the ANTI agents were were the Squirrels. And, well, the agents. So that left her with two options. Agents arranging her death or Squirrels arranging it. After all, there was a death to consider.

It couldn't be the Squirrels, thought Lia. Not after the mold and Chunky's dedication...

Lia mentally reviewed each ANTI agent. Cyko... out of the question. He wouldn't do anything to sabatoge his own agents. Clo... she didn't know much about Clo, but she seemed to be very dedicated to ANTI. Thorn... she had just been rescued from an MUPPETZ warship. Of course, that could have been just a cover story for her real reasons, but she was one of the very first agents. And she had a squirrel as a friend. Summer... Summer was one of the nicest agents and she had given tea to the other agents. Hope... Hope had just shown up when--

Lia had just reached the conclusion that it had to be one of the agents (although she didn't know which one), when she bumped into somebody. Looking up she saw several Squirrels. Each of them wore a ninja mask and carried a long foam sword. "Attack!" yelled one of them.

Fall loomed over all of the MUPPETZ agents, finally finished explaining the plan. "So," he concluded. "We will move in tonight, but we won't get close to the ANTI until the time is right. Yes, I understand that this is a crazy plan, but I am not going to be one step short of defeating ANTI this time! Head out, MUPPETZ!" And with that, all of the MUPPETZ creatures packed into a flying box (one of Fall's early inventions), and they flew away.

Fall himself would be following behind in a moment, but first, he sneaked over to where he stored his self-made weapons. Although he loved trying to outwit ANTI, he also loved to use his designing and building skills to create new and powerful inventions. He could've become Mad Scientist Fall, but he didn't want to be such a thing while ANTI still roamed the earth he lived in.

First, he grabbed a Absorb Orb, which could suck any victim into it, and trap him or her there unless broken. Then, he snatched the Spider-Spray, that sprayed many different types of spiders (and since almost everyone is afraid of spiders, he knew it would come in handy). Next came his MUPPETZ Mighty Gun, one of the best MUPPETZ guns in the entire organization. And finally, with a dark smirk, he took out one of his new inventions, the Black-out Blaster. He hadn't tried it yet, so he couldn't wait to see how it worked.

Ah, yes, he thought grimly as he went into his flying box, CyKo and the rest of his group are about to pay for everything they have done...

"It's sup-time, you ol' piece of HumETZ filth!"

There, in a room, lied the body of a young man. Everything around him was black, so he couldn't see a thing. Not even as the cook threw a piece of raw meat to the bottom of the pit he was in could he see anything. He was half-starved, and felt like he had no strength to get up. His so-called "teammates" had put him there for betraying MUPPETZ, and it wouldn't be long before they started torturing him. Was there any reason to escape this wretched hole and live now?

Yes, there was. Summer. For the first time in days, he felt power deep within him. Shakily, but determined, he lifted himself up from the ground, and the rage poured out from his heart as he glared at the hole above, his eyes unusually reptile-like, and hissed.

(M.U.T.A.N.T.Z. Island)

Cheyenne was about to explain where he'd been (actually he was going to make something up), but there was no need. Thorn quickly began talking about a hidden weapon or something. The rogue wasn't quite sure what this "bizarre thing" was, but the thought of getting his hands on something powerful was too enticing to pass up.

Even though he kept denying it, there was a small part of Cheyenne that actually wanted to help ANTI again and take a break from his double crossing. It was only a small part of him and was easily overridden by the lure of money and power..... still, it was there.

"Sounds like a wild goose chase to me." Cheyenne said dryly. "I'm in, though. Haven't had one of those in awhile, anyway." He added with grin. "Hold on, I'll get the keys and get you out of that cell...." With that, the rogue disappeared into the shadows.

A few minutes later, Cheyenne returned with a large key ring full of numbered.... keys. "If they don't want people escaping, they should really keep these in a safer spot than on the wall with "Keys" above them..." the rogue said as he found the right key for Thorn's cell and unlocked it.

"We'll need to slip out through the back door. Doubt we could leave through the main entrance without being stopped." Cheyenne said as he opened the cell door and waited for the ANTI agent to step out.

(M.U.T.A.N.T.Z. Island)

Agent Thorn quickly slipped out of the cell, all too happy to be out of it. (Dark, dank, and rat-infested wasn't really her taste in décor.) She turned to Cor, holding one of her fingers to lips, and beckoning with the other hand.

"C'mon, let's walk and talk," she said. "Or ramble and run for our lives. But let's be quiet about it."

As they traversed the myriad of lightless, musty passages, the dryad tried to put her strange story into words.

"I keep forgetting you know hardly anything about me," she finally began, in a barely audible voice as she peered apprehensively around a crumbling corner. "But. . . don't laugh. . . I was born and raised on a very posh estate. In a very posh family of dryads. Of course, the people who owned the estate didn't know we were there. They're so normal, they'd all die of shock if we ever revealed ourselves, and besides, my dryad family wasn't about to be chopped down by panicked rich people wielding axes. They liked their privileged life at Primberley estate, and would never do anything to jeopardize it. . . except for me," she said, with a roll of her eyes.

"A.N.T.I. was a Godsend for me. It finally meant escape, if only temporary. See, I'm still bound to my tree. . . and I have to go back sooner or later, until I can pay somebody who's skilled enough to move it without killing me," she said with a short, sharp laugh. "Anyway, I caused all sorts of chaos at Primberley when I was young. It was the only way I stayed sane. Or insane. You can be the judge of that.

"One of the things I used to do, being an adrenaline junkie, was sneaking into the big house on the hill while my dryad family and the owners of the estate was fast asleep. And I'd steal cookies and cheese puffs, but that's beside the point. The Primberleys are a very old family, and they have lots of interesting things, even if they don't appreciate the things themselves. . . most of the heirlooms and artifacts got shut up in the attic. And that was where I liked snooping best of all. Nobody hardly ever went up there, and it was just dark and creepy enough to satisfy my young self.

"Anyway, one night I found a journal written hundreds of years ago by an archaeologist who had been a Primberley, and had traveled the world. It was pretty fascinating, but the most intriguing part was when he talked about his experiences searching for an ancient treasure on an island inhabited by an ancient family obsessed with numbers.

"I. . . don't remember as much as I'd like, and I have a feeling that's going to come back to bite me. But it was a long time ago. I know he talked about the booby traps, warned of the dangers. . . and then spent several pages ranting about how the treasure chamber was empty.

"No, I'm not talking about risking our lives to find a nonexistent treasure! Just listen.

"One thing I do remember clearly: he included a map—a map that goes into the earth, not over it, and was covered in strange, freakish symbols that all looked like warnings. I remember looking at that map and feeling, somehow, that it was evil.

"I don't think he drew it himself; I think he copied it. Because I saw a painting that looked exactly like it when I was talking to the Count less than two hours ago. And when he realized that I knew what it was. . . he went white as a sheet. I knew something no one was supposed to know. . . not even the Count, judging by his intent to question me.

"You're probably wondering what an empty treasure chamber has to do with anything. I'm getting to that. But first, we need to get that map—"

She faltered, and held her breath, hardly daring to move. She could hear footsteps coming up the corridor that lay around the next corner.

"Shh!"

(M.U.T.A.N.T.Z. Island)

There wasn't much to do but walk alongside the dryad and listen. About halfway through the girls story, it suddenly struck Cheyenne that this particular ANTI actually, truly seemed to trust him. He had known several ANTI agents during his time with the organization, but none of them had showed any overt trust in the scraggly agent.

Cheyenne was about to mention that he could use the scanner on his pocket watch to get the map in the main hall when Thorn suddenly stopped. The sound of footsteps was quickly followed by the figure of Rogi turning the corner.

Without warning, Cheyenne grabbed the little creature around the mouth and pulled him into the shadows. In the same instant, the rogue pulled out his phaser and put it to the henchman's back.... for extra leverage.

"Don't try to escape. We need.... a favor from you." Cheyenne said in a low voice, just shy of a growl. This was his usually mode of operation for getting info from.... others.

"Well, I'm gonna go to Whit's room and talk to her...." Dori was saying more but Whit didn't catch it as she ran to her room. She was breathing heavily with only about a minute to spare before Dori quietly knocked on the door.
"Whit? May I come in?"
"Of course Miss Dori."
She enters with a horribly fake smile that made Whit cringe on the inside.
"Whit, there are a few papers we need you to approve before we can put them into action."
"Of course" Whit grabbed the 3 documents and read over them carefully. All having to do with bringing more children over to MUPPETZ. Oh ya, she had for gotten she was in charge of the Childrens department.
"Whit, theres no need to read them. Just signing is fine."
"I wouldn't feel right not reading them. I'm in charge of these matters, I must make sure these are the best policy possible."
With this Whit grabs her feather pink-inked pen and starts crossing out things and adding words here and there, finally signing the papers 10 minites later.
"Ok, I signed this- only if I get full control of the new troops coming in, they will be trained under my wing at all times."
"But why Whit? We already have hundreds of great trainers here. You don't need the dirty work. You are above them."
"Don't question me please. I have a plan. And all security camera will be taken out of the rooms I train them in. So when they attack ANTI you will all be amazed."
"Uhh...I'll see what I can do...."
Dori is obviousley stunned as she leaves the room and Whit sighs in content. Whit definitally had a plan alright. Train these children to go after the MUPPETZ, when the epic battle at any time comes- they will be ready at a moments notice. A smug smile crosses Whit's face. She could defitallly get used to this power.

Clo walked into the camp, saw the squirrels wreaking havoc and rolled her eyes. From her Coach purse, she pulled out a compact mirror and her lipstick. Applying a fresh coat of lipstick, she packed up her cosmetics and snapped her fingers. "Snaps for the squirrels, y'all. They have done a fantastic job at tearing this place up."

She touched her blonde curls, "Will someone please tell me what's goin' on here?"

Lia, still tired and wishing for some coffee, was being attacked by flying ninja squirrels. She hadn's even known that squirrels could be ninjas. It was all rather confusing. She reached down to pull out her laser sword, when she spotted Clo Verrz. She was giving orders to the ninja squirrels.

This made Lia mad. Nobody gave orders to her squirrels except for her. She was the queen, not Clo.

Then it hit her. Clo was the undercover MUPPETZ agent. She was purposefully giving classified ANTI information to their worst enemy. Ooh, thought Lia. She's really asking for it. Whacking the ninja squirrels with her bare hands (and consequently knocking them out), Lia crossed the clearing, careful not to step in the Slime Mold, and stood facing Clo with her hands on her hips. "Just what do you think you're doing, missy?" she yelled, balling her hands into fists. "Alright. Well, as queen of the squirrels, I challenge you to a smack down. If I win, you go to jail. If you win, you still go to jail. Got it? Good!"

Grabbing Clo's wrist, Lia dragged her to the middle of the clearing. Now they were standing in the mold. Lia turned to Cyko. "You can count down."

CyKo was attacked by Ninja Squirrels. He drove them off one by one with his steel knuckles (which he always keeps at-the-ready in the front pocket of his tuxedo). With every squirrel that was beaten, a new one came...

A squirrel jumped into CyKo's face. Its claws were sharpened, and were digging into Cy's face. Drawing blood, it streamed into his mouth. The squirrel was on a rampage.

CyKo was able to punch the squirrel off of his face and into the ground. Momentarily stunned, the squirrel stood still, giving CyKo time to take out his nerd whip. Whipping the squirrel around the stomach, Cy tugged upward, sending the squirrel above and behind. Turning, CyKo saw the squirrel crashed into a tree, and was knocked out.

Immediately after and without a second thought, he was dragged by Lia into what appeared to be a "duel" or sorts between her and Clo.

"Clo! What's... going on?" Cy looked at Lia, who's eyes seemed to tell the story of Clo's betrayal more than words could ever portray. Looking to Clo, he said "Clo, so this is where you were. This is who you are. This is how you shall be stopped." CyKo stepped back, and started counting down.

"10...9...8..."