Team Arch TV Specials

Team Arch: Out Of The Black

Time: Between the end of Movie 13 and the start of Movie 14

~=~=~=~=~=

A US Marshal escorting a prisoner is on his way to California via plane. At one point, he leaves to use the restroom, leaving the prisoner by himself. As the plane lands, one of the stewards checks on the Marshal, only to find him dead.

Back on land, Lester and Kenta have a jogging race at one of the piers, which ends with Kenta winning, but at the cost of his ankle getting sprained. After Lester gets Kenta to local doctor, he gets a call from the others about the murder on the plane.

At SFO, Team Arch has accepted a deal from SFPD to investigate and recapture the Marshal's escaped prisoner, Salvatore Pike, in exchange for reward money, which the gang plans on using upon the completion of their new headquarters. As they investigate the corpse, Joey recognizes the Marshal as Sherman Briggs, a former juvenile detention guard that he befriended.

In the past, Joey often got into fights at school. Only one of them landed him in juvie. At a juvenile detention center, Joey had a tough time with some of the older delinquents and the guards, but one guard, Sherman, was kind to Joey, and would often give him privileges whenever the guards were rough on him. After he was released, Joey remained in touch with Sherman, and promised to not fight anymore, until one day, he saw a kid getting hassled by gangbangers, and rushed to his aid, having been inspired by how Sherman stood up for him.

Téa finds a smashed cell, possibly Sherman's, and passes it to Sally. As this happens, SpongeBob gets a call from Austin, who says that a passenger named Rob McKenzie is unaccounted for. Investigating his seat, the team finds a bag and Yugi leaves with it to look it over.

At SFPD, as Joey calls the Briggs Family about Sherman's murder, Kenta arrives, using crutches due to his sprain. The team then watches security footage of Pike and an accomplice, possibly McKenzie, escaping the plane and the tarmac. One of the officers pulls up info on Pike, which states that he was arrested for robbery and assault. Evidently, he liked to play high-rolling poker. He skipped town before sentencing, but was recaptured in Los Angeles and extradited back to San Francisco. Upon pulling up info on McKenzie, a seemingly normal civilian from Half Moon Bay, Gingka notices that McKenzie is 5'9", which is also Pike's height, but upon rewatching the footage, they notice that the accomplice is actually taller. The team decides to split targets, with one half (SpongeBob, Tai, Sakura, Yugi, Nate, and their subunits) focusing on Pike, while the other (Austin, Kaz, Hanayo, Gingka, Chase, and their subunits) focusing on the accomplice.

SpongeBob's half meets with Melanie Hollis, the witness to Pike's robbery. She mentions that Pike could be hiding with his cousin, Bronson, at a motel, which they used as their crash pad.

As SpongeBob's half heads to the motel in question, Austin's half calls to mention some info they found: The real Rob McKenzie had passed away in a car accident, and that his wife, Joanne, who had confirmed his death, mentioned that someone stole his ID card and accounts.

Meanwhile, SpongeBob's half recaptures Pike. However, Joey proceeds to water board him into giving up the accomplice, before being stopped by Tai. In the SFPD interrogation room, Pike mentions that he never killed Sherman, and that a guy came to him before the landing and helped him escape, before the two went their separate ways. Pike adds that the accomplice was quiet, but he suddenly got angry after losing a key that used to pry open the plane's cargo hold. Later, after the key had been recovered, they find that the key's serial number traces back to a private mailbox.

While Joey heads there by himself, Austin's half works on the evidence, including the key and the smashed cellphone, which happens to be Sherman's. Having restored the data, they find the call log, which shows that Sherman tried to call Joey before the cellphone was smashed.