Chapter 1:
In the Beginning...
Sage
One day, as Mr. Saaa was cackling over his plans to take over the world, he saw that a lowly splot was hanging from the rafters of the dusty old mansion he called home.
Unbeknownst to him, Mr. Saaa's house had been blessed with the presence of our hero, the great and manly Todd, just the night before. Please note that I've used the word "blessed" because it's not called breaking-and-entering when our hero does it. Todd and his intrepid younger half-sister-in-law snuck into Mr. Saaa's house and planted a spy camera in an effort to catch Mr. Saaa plotting his evil deeds.
Now, as Mr. Saaa gazed suspiciously at the lowly splot, Todd, far away in his private underground bunker headquarters in Switzerland, felt a momentary chill. What if the evil Mr. Saaa were to discover the spy camera carefully embedded in the splot? He glanced at his co-conspirator, Sage (who, by an amazing coincidence, happened to be Todd's best friend's grandfather's fencing partner's former lover's neice's daughter, though neither of them knew this), who nodded as though in agreement. A diversion was needed. Sage pressed the big red button marked "diversion", hoping the intrepid Piquet was by now in position as planned.
* * * * *The intrepid Piquet was not, alas, in position. She had been distracted by the lovely Lleshye, who was painting a beautiful picture of, coincidentally, the lowly splot, (who was her algebra teacher) in one of the hidden rooms in Mr. Saaa's mansion. Piquet, stunned by Lleshye's beauty, was incapable of moving.
"Why, hello," said Lleshye, in a voice that was like rippling water in a stream, "I've been wondering when we'd meet, Piquet."
The intrepid Piquet looked at the lovely Lleshye and felt dazed. Who was this lovely woman? And was she good or evil? For the intrepid Piquet, entranced though she was by the lovely Lleshye's beauty, had not forgotten her mission - to rescue her co-conspirators' Sage and Todd's next-door-neighbour in law's great granduncle's triple heart bypass, quadruply removed, Kalaleq, from Mr Saaa's evil clutches. By a remarkable coincidence, Kalaleq and his alter-ego, the nomadic Admon were also her Valentines.
Kalaleq, meanwhile, was busy in the sealed basement of Mr. Saaa's dusty mansion home. He had found a packet of matchsticks in one corner of the room, buried under years of fallen cobwebs, and the meal brought to him by Mr. Saaa's midget flunkies had luckily contained two green apples. With some slight modifications, he should be able to use Mr. Saaa's own invention to foil the madman's evil plans. What irony! Now if only he could finish his computerless mindlink device in time to warn the intrepid Piquet of the lovely, but evil, Lleshye, who had been commanded to foil her diversion attempt! Far away in Switzerland, Todd's eyes glowed with a deep blue flame, but that was another story entirely.
* * * * *Lleshye was, however, drawing the helpless Piquet ever further under her evil spell.
"Do you like my portrait of the lowly splot?" she asked, showing it to Piquet:
"I..." Piquet stammered, "I...yes..."
Unfortunately, meanwhile, Kalaleq had begun to feel very, VERY hungry. He kept glancing over at the green apples while he worked, and began to salivate. (It was the result of conditioning by the torturous cult of Ommarns he had been captured by as a innocent babe in arms). Finally, sobbing, he reached over to the apples, shouting, "I can't help it!"
Sage and Todd, meanwhile, were having an argument.
"When I pushed the 'diversion' button, I didn't mean THAT kind of diversion!" Sage said exasperatedly.
"I... wha..." stammered Todd, in the face of Sage's outburst.
"I... wha..." stammered Piquet, in the face of Lleshye's seductive smile. Or should that be "in the smile of Lleshye's seductive face"?
Kalaleq was left as the only one of our characters with any presence of mind. Which is rather unfortunate, since he was locked in a basement at the time, slaveringly devouring a green apple. But as he bit deep into the apple's core, he was surprised as his teeth hit something hard, metallic, and suspiciously keylike, buried inside the apple.
Kalaleq quickly finished off the apple, exposing the bright, shining key that had somehow been planted in its core. "This is too easy," he thought to himself as, clutching the key, he made his way up the rickety staircase down which he had earlier been thrown, "much too easy." He listened at the solid oak door for a moment, then, wiping the last bits of apple innards off on his shirt, inserted the key into the door's lock. He'd been right; it was much too easy. The key didn't fit. Kalaleq looked about in consternation, absentmindedly munching on the second green apple. Far away, Sage and Todd had more or less forgotten about him.
* * * * *Little did Kalaleq know that the [right] key was actually, at that very moment, right next to (but not touching) Piquet's bare skin. Said bare skin was attached to Piquet's hands, which were (ahem) entangled in Lleshye's dark hair. None of this did anyone any good, however, because the key was embedded in Lleshye's devious brain, and if anyone took the key out Lleshye would instantly lose her ability to turn off the radio when a bad song came on. No matter how evil a person is, it would be unspeakably cruel to take that ability away. Even Mr. Saaa would never even consider doing such a thing. Kalaleq stared sadly at the oaken door, feeling hopeless. Suddenly, the door began to open on its own! Kalaleq stepped back in horror, forgetting to eat the second apple in his terror - who could possibly be on the other side??
As the door creaked open, Kalaleq stood frozen. Who knew he was here but the evil Mr. Saaa and his minions? But then, suddenly a small tousled head popped through the door, and he nearly collapsed in relief. It was our hero Todd's intrepid younger sister-in-law, who had been forgotten by our storytellers until now, and who suddenly, miraculously, appeared to save the day.
"Erm... hi!" said Kalaleq, relieved. "Want some apple?"
"No," replied Todd's intrepid younger sister in law, "We've got to save Piquet. Somehow she's got herself conned into giving Lleshye a full shampoo and perm!!"
"Gasp," gasped Kalaleq, as he followed the intrepid younger sister in law, whose name, coincidentally, was Dott (short for Dorotty). "We must save her!"
"Now you're catching on," exasperated Dott, beckoning. "Hurry up!" Kalaleq stumbled after her, as quickly as he could, still clutching the second half of the second green apple.
In another part of the mansion (kitchen cum impromptu salon), Piquet was intrepidly scrubbing behind Lleshye's ears when suddenly Lleshye broke into sobs.
"I didn't really want to be evil, you know," she sobbed.
Piquet had unknowingly scrubbed away all the Extra Control Hair Gel, another of Mr. Saaa's evil inventions, and the only thing that had keept Lleshye in his grip all these years.
* * * * *Piq patted Lleshye's head as best she could, saying, "There, there, dear, no one thinks you're evil." In the process a tiny bit of the Extra Control Hair Gel got on her hands, luckily just enough to make her enjoy the talk shows that Mr. Saaa produced in his Talk Show Guest factory and forced the world to watch, not enough to make her anywhere near evil as Lleshye had been.
Meanwhile, Kal and Dott, in trying to run to Piquet's aid, had gotten lost. They found themselves wandering aimlessly around a really quite lovely greenhouse area, which Kal was enjoying immensely, but Dott hated. Her intrepidity was being frustrated, you see, and exclaiming with Kalaleq over that "particular blue of the carnations" just didn't fit her image of herself as Dott, Intrepid Hero For All Occasions.
Far away in Switzerland, Sage and Todd were busily ignoring the blinking lights and beeps coming from their Universal Command Console. But suddenly they both looked up, horrified expressions on their faces. What was that awful noise?! Unbeknownst to them, Mr Saaa had moved his television into the room that the spy camera had been hidden in, and was gleefully watching talk shows. As the horrifying story of The True Story of Girls Who Bought Cowboy Boots Just To Annoy Their Next Door Neighbours' Grandparents came out of their console, Sage and Todd had no choice but to faint from the shock.
Back in Mr. Saaa's mansion, however, Piquet's sharp ears caught the faint sound of the flatulent laughter of the Talk Show guests, far away in another room. Thanks to the small traces of Gel still on her hands, she was immediately entranced. "C'mon," she said, beckoning to Lleshye and changing into cat form for speed *morph morph*. As Lleshye struggled to keep up, Piquet led the way unerringly through the maze of twisty passages, all alike, that were the main part of Mr. Saaa's home.
In another part of the mansion, Kalaleq and Dott also heard the laughter, and fell to the floor among the daffodils, clutching their ears and moaning in pain.
* * * * *Lleshye, a bit concerned at having fallen madly in love with a cat, ran after Piquet. When they reached the room where the television talk show sounds were coming from, Piquet morphed back into her human form *morph morph* and walked in gracefully. Lleshye stood just outside the door, a stricken look on her face. Piquet completely ignored the Evil Mr. Saaa in favor of the television set; she sat three inches away, entranced by the yelling coming from it. "But cowboy boots are Satan's minions!" pleaded a tearful mother to her unmovable daughter.
Luckily for our narrators, the batteries in Todd's spy camera were Generic BrandTM and chose that moment to give out. As Sage and Todd came moaningly to their senses, far away in Switzerland, one thought was foremost in Sage's mind.
"You didn't buy that cheap brand AGAIN, did you??" she said to Todd.
"Uhh", he replied, looking embarrassed. "Well...
I... er." he concluded decisively.
Sage, however, had efficently moved on to more important things. Unable to monitor the evil Mr. Saaa's mansion, she would just have to hope for the best. She pushed the big red "diversion" button once again.
"I hope wherever Piquet is right now, the diversion we arranged will still have a good effect," she hoped.
Far away, the specially programmed Reacto-MaticTM chip Piquet had agreed to have implanted in her brain, and which had formerly been overridden by Lleshye's stunning beauty, clicked and whirred into action.
* * * * *She fought valiently against it (after all, the demon posessed cowboy boots themselves were the next guests) but in the end the Reacto-MaticTM chip was too much for her.
Piquet reached up with a shaking hand, and as Lleshye cheered, Piquet turned the on/off knob further and further until...the picture...disappeared.
There was total and complete silence for a long time (In Switzerland Sage and Todd grinned at each other) and nobody spoke. Then Piquet turned around, whipped out her Non-Violent Ping GunTM, and shouted, "Mr. Saaa, DON'T MOVE."
Mr. Saaa looked at Piquet, blinked once, then began to laugh in a sinister, evil protagonist type fashion.
"I wouldn't worry if I were me," he chortled. "And since I am me, I'm not worried!"
Piquet looked around as Lleshye gave a gasp of horror. For looming up behind them was Samo Saaa, Mr. Saaa's evil Japanese cousin.
Meanwhile, the intrepid Dott and Kalaleq had recovered and were once again searching for Piquet. Kalaleq had been lagging behind for quite some time, and Dott was getting exasperated, when suddenly a loud crash from behind her made her stop in consternation. She looked back to where Kalaleq had, with typical grace, stumbled over a loose roller skate and crashed into a wall closet, breaking its door in two.
"Uh... sorry..." said Kalaleq.
But Dott was not listening. She was gaping at the thousands of perfect diamonds which had come tinkling out of the broken closet.
* * * * *Little did she know that the roller skate itself was more valuable than the diamonds -- it was an antique made in the days before rollerblades (yes, children, there was a time when rollerblades didn't exist) that had been worn by Mr. Saaa's daughter's best friend (who was, surprisingly, none other than the beautiful Lleshye). But since they didn't know this, Kalaleq took one step towards the diamonds, breaking the priceless roller skate in the process and almost lodging a diamond up his nose. Dott sighed fondly and helped him up. "Goodness, Kal," she said, "have you thought about getting better glasses?"
Somewhere in Switzerland, Sage's ears perked up. "Glasses? Did somebody say glasses?"
Todd looked at her in confusion. "Not I," said he, looking around. "But there's nobody else here!"
"Wait!" replied Sage. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Somehow Kalaleq must have completed his computerless mindlink device!"
Kalaleq had, indeed, completed his device, but not to his own knowledge. A diamond had become lodged in his shirt, next to his stomach where the green apple was slowly being digested. Apparently diamonds and matches have more in common than previously expected, because the diamond had completed the link. Dott's mention of glasses had caused Kalaleq to dazedly check his, and he had found, to his dismay, that they were broken. All he could think was "glasses... glasses... *sob*", which is what Sage picked up.
* * * * *Dott intrepidly figured out that the mindlink device was indeed working (intrepidness goes a long way in this story, after all) and shouted, "Kal, do you see what this means? We can finally save the world from talk shows forever!"
