Doc Teeth slammed Beaker to the ground and grabbed Janice so hard she got whiplash. “What the hell—” he snarled, when two pickets from the fence blew outward and the huge furry head of an old friend appeared, wedged in the posts.

“MUNNEEE!” the head yelled.

“Animal?” Doctor Teeth said, “What the hell—” and then he was again interrupted by something spherical, bright red and dangerous: a huge fireball that turned Animal’s head into a fuzzy silhouette against luminous vertical lines for a nanosecond before the fence burst into matchstick-sized pieces.

For most of his life when something exploded, Beaker was the airborne one. Tonight, from his privileged prone position, Beaker saw it from the other side: Janice, Doctor Teeth, Animal, pieces of peeling fence, the former wall of his apartment, and (finishing the show) twisted components of what had once been a very illegal and highly explosive residential meth lab.

“Meep?” Beaker gasped as his kitchen sink sank a crater in the asphalt next to his head.