"The Search for Bruce"
Episode transcript (provided by phantym)
The Righteous Indignation is being pursued by a squadron of double bubbles. Deadeye wants to turn and fight, but Bucky is more interested in simply escaping. Jenny flies through an asteroid field to elude the toads. Several of them hit the asteroids and explode, much to Deadeye's delight. After successfully making it through the asteroid field, the Righteous prepares to go into hyperspace. Just as they do, though, one of the double bubbles fires a tracking device that attaches to the Righteous' tail fin.
After the ship exits hyperspace, Blinky is shocked when three stormtoads suddenly teleport into the engine room and begin shooting at him. He alerts the others. The stormtoads hold Blinky upside-down and bang his head against the floor until the mammals come in and make them stop. At the sight of Bruiser, the toads panic. Three more stormtoads teleport aboard and take Jenny hostage. One of them threatens to shoot her unless Bruiser backs off. Before this confrontation can go any further, a ghostly image of Bruce, Bruiser's brother, appears, to the surprise of everyone. He notes his friends have a problem and that he'll fix it, then vanishes.
Meanwhile, at a toad space station, some scientists are operating a teleportation machine powered by numerous toads turning a big crank. As they prepare to teleport more stormtoads, Bruce appears, frightening them. He forces a scientist to yank out some crucial wires before the toads all run out. Back aboard The Righteous Indignation, the six stormtoads suddenly disappear, due to the wires getting yanked out. Bucky figures they need Willy's expertise on this issue (they aren't aware of the teleporter), and Jenny contacts him with her memory stone.
On Earth, Willy is about to go to a movie with his parents. Upon being contacted by Jenny, he makes up some excuse to stay home and journeys to the aniverse to be with his friends. Jenny says they missed him, and he blushes.
Meanwhile, the Air Marshal has been told of a "big scary ghost Berserker" and chides the toad scientists for believing in ghosts, saying they don't exist. Suddenly, Bruce reappears with a cry of "Boo!," and the toads all run away again. At this, KOMPLEX contacts the Air Marshal and asks why the attack was stopped. When told of Bruce, KOMPLEX says Bruce isn't a ghost and that he knows how they can use his existence to their advantage. Neither of them notices that Bruce (who never left) is listening in.
The mammals get a message from "Bruce," who tells them to come to Quadrant Fifteen, where he'll explain where he's been all this time. The real Bruce appears and insists that it's a toad trick. Bruiser, overjoyed, tackles his brother in a hug, and both of them disappear, leaving Bucky and the others thoroughly confused. Willy theorizes that some kind of spatial displacement occurred. Bucky doesn't know which Bruce to believe. Since Quadrant Fifteen is their only clue, they decide to follow the first Bruce's instructions and head there.
Upon arriving in Quadrant Fifteen, they are immediately ambushed by teleported double bubbles. Deadeye manages to hold most of the attacking ships at bay. Meanwhile, the Air Marshall goes into the empty control room "haunted" by Bruce and calls out that unless Bruce leaves, he'll destroy Bucky O'Hare. When Bruce appears, he freaks out and runs smack into Bruiser, knocking himself silly. Figuring they should go and help Bucky, the baboon brothers steal a double bubble and fly off. The Air Marshal wakes up and goes and gets the scientists back to work teleporting more toads.
As they fly along, Bruiser asks his brother where he's been, and Bruce explains he was teleported across the aniverse and landed in "baboon heaven," a primitive planet inhabited by monkeys with purple bananas. He says he was working on his own teleportation machine and thinks the toad one interferred with his when he attempted to activate it, leaving him temporarily trapped between one place and the other. Bruiser vows the toads will pay for what they've done.
Meanwhile, stormtoads wearing jetpacks and space helmets teleport into the area around the besieged Righteous. One teleports aboard and tries to sneak up behind Bucky. Jenny warns him, and he tackles the toad, only for his opponent to disappear suddenly. The stormtoad reappears back in the teleporter control room, and the Air Marshal yells at the scientists for being unable to keep the teleported toads in one place for very long. When one of them tells him the machine is still malfunctioning, the Air Marshal literally kicks all of them out.
Bruiser and Bruce arrive at the scene of battle and exit their stolen double bubble. Bruiser wears a space helmet, but Bruce, being noncorporeal, doesn't need one. They fly over and assist in getting the attacking stormtoads off of the ship, stopping them from trying to forcibly depressurize the Righteous. The toads are all either flung far away into deep space by Bruiser, or fly away with their jetpacks at the sight of Bruce. After dealing with some more double bubbles teleported in by the Air Marshal, the mammals decide to infiltrate the toad station and destroy the teleporter.
At their arrival, the Air Marshal says it's time for desperate measures. Frix and Frax are now operating the power crank all by themselves. Frax says they're already pretty desperate, and when the Air Marshal yells that he doesn't like losing, Frix says he should be used to it by now. As the mammals land and infiltrate the building, several stormtoads are teleported to their location, only to immediately run away at the sight of Bruiser and Bruce. Each time a new group teleports in, the one before them warns the new arrivals about the baboons, resulting in all of them running away. Enraged, the Air Marshal teleports in the rebuilt Void Droid.
Initially, the mammals aren't frightened. Deadeye says he and Willy know how to handle the robot, and Willy sprays it with his squirt gun like he did before. This time, however, the Void Droid is waterproof and is unaffected. Jenny manages to get behind the robot by using a crawlspace under the floor. Climbing on top of it, she pulls off the top hatch and then uses her Aldebaran powers to destroy its central control circuit, stopping it dead.
As the mammals draw nearer to the control room, Frax suggests they leave. The Air Marshal sets the machine to teleport himself out, intending to leave Frix and Frax behind. The two try to rush in with him and disrupt the teleportation process. The three get teleported to a random, unknown location just as Bucky and the others arrive outside, and Bruiser punches the door in. Bruce explains that if Bucky shoots a certain part of the teleporter, then the entire machine will switch off. As Bucky prepares to, however, Bruiser stops him, saying he has realized that if the toads' machine is destroyed, Bruce will disappear again, and he doesn't want that.
As they argue, a group of stormtoads attacks. In the ensuing firefight, as Jenny, Willy, Deadeye, and Blinky try to hold them off at the door, a stray blast causes a piece of pipe to fall and hit Bucky, knocking him out, leaving the decision of whether to destroy the teleporter entirely up to Bruiser. At his brother's urging, he smashes the critical component, deactivating it, and he and Bruce share a tearful goodbye as Bruce disappears, vowing to return. An enraged Bruiser first beats up the deactivated teleporter before turning his anger on the stormtoads outside. As Jenny and Deadeye awaken Bucky, the hare notes that Bruiser has "really gone berserk this time."
Meanwhile, the Air Marshal, Frix, and Frax are stranded on a desert planet without any water. The Air Marshal yells at them for jumping into the teleporter and causing it to send them astray.
Aboard The Righteous Indignation, Bruiser has calmed down. He says he misses Bruce. Blinky reassures him that at least now he knows his brother is alive, and shows Bruiser a recording Bruce made of him congratulating his brother again and once more vowing he'll return. Elsewhere, on the distant monkey planet, Bruce is eating purple bananas and hard at work once more on his own teleportation device, intent on returning to his friends. Back aboard the Righteous, Willy says they'll find Bruce again -- or he'll find them. Bruiser says his mother would've been proud of Bruce. Bucky adds she would've been proud of Bruiser, too, as Bruiser tearfully hugs Willy and Blinky. The only one not joining in on the hugging is Deadeye, who chides his crewmates for their "mushy, mollycoddlin' sloppy bilgewash."
This episode is available on the US video "The Kreation Konspiracy" and the UK video "Corsair Canards."
