EPISODE 3-1
Dimentio woke up suddenly. He jumped out of bed and put his hands in front of him, in a defensive mode, ready to protect himself, to fight. But nobody was there.
He lowered his hands slowly. 'How strange,' he thought. 'What on earth could have woken me up?' He rubbed his stomach. 'Perhaps it's time for breakfast?'
A quick check of the time proved to him that it was not time for breakfast- it was 3:27 in the morning.
"Hm," he mused out loud. Well, something must have woken him up. Was it too cold?
No.
Was he still feeling sick?
No.
Was the Chaos Heart calling him to bring about the end of all worlds?
…No.
What, then?
So he decided the best (that is to say, easiest) thing to do was to go back to bed and forget it ever happened. After all, he was still extremely tired.
He was snuggled back under the covers, and right away started to drift off to sleep. It was very likely he would have fallen asleep almost immediately, and had the entire event wiped clean from his memory by it, had it not happened again.
This time, since he was already mostly awake, he heard it. It was the sound of chains rattling loudly and banging against brick or stone- a very distinctive sound. It was coming from down the hall to the west, the direction of Mimi's bedroom.
Dimentio stuck his head out of his room and checked the halls. Nobody else was up at this hour. It was unlikely anybody else had been disturbed, since Dimentio and Mimi had the only bedrooms on the second floor of the west wing.
"Goodness, I wonder if Mimi is all right," he said to no one in particular. "Even if she is, I'd better go and see what the trouble is…"
He dragged his sleepy self down the hall to Mimi's room. Once he was next to her room, he could clearly hear clinking, clanking, growling, and soft talking.
Dimentio knocked on the door. "Oh, Mimi!" he sang. "I do hope I'm not interrupting your beauty sleep, but would you mind telling me exactly what you are doing in there?"
"Nothing!" Mimi called through the door. "Go 'way!"
Dimentio knocked on the door again. "Whatever is coming from this room is keeping me awake."
"I have it under control!"
"If you had it under control, I would be asleep right now."
"It'll be quiet again in a minute!"
"I'm coming in."
Dimentio turned the knob and was just opening the door when Mimi threw herself onto it from the other side and bodily held it shut. "No, no!" she shouted. "Don't come in. You can't call on a girl when she's still in her sleepers!"
They had a brief shoving match against the door, but Dimentio found he couldn't budge it. He slowly let up the pressure on the door and waited for a moment until Mimi was confident that he wasn't shoving against her. Then, a split second after she released her pressure, he shoved his whole body onto the door and it tumbled open.
They both tumbled and went sprawling into the room. Dimentio went head over heels and landed flat on his back, staring up at the face of a black chain chomp.
"Ah," he said. "It all makes sense now."
Mimi grabbed the back end of the chain chomp's chain. She was busy trying to attach it to a hook in the wall- there were quite a few gouges in the wall by her bed that signified she had not been entirely successful in previous attempts to restrain the chomp.
Dimentio sat up and rubbed his head. "Is this a real chain chomp?" he asked, completely taken aback. "Do you actually have a real live chain chomp in your room?"
Mimi grabbed the chomp's head in a big bear hug. "She followed me home," she explained. "Her name is Charlotte and she's my best friend."
The chomp growled and lunged forward at nothing in particular. Chain chomps were very unpredictable in their charges. It gnashed its teeth a few times and growled some more.
"That thing is a vicious wild animal," said Dimentio. "There's no way you will be able to keep it a secret in your room for more than a few hours."
"I know," Mimi said. "But you won't tell anyone, will you? I mean, I don't want anybody to know until I have it all figured out. That shouldn't take very long! Please don't tell anybody!"
Dimentio looked at the chain chomp. It looked back at him with empty, dizzy eyes. It gnashed its teeth a few times and made small yipping noises. Then it started bouncing around in a little circle.
"I think I'm going to have to," said Dimentio at length.
"You can't!' Mimi yelped. "Please, I'll take care of everything! Charlotte's going to be a good girl from now on!"
"Oh, I'm telling!"
"You wouldn't!"
Dimentio grinned at her, but a second before she could react he disappeared.
"He would! Oh, no, now I'm gonna get in trouble," Mimi wailed. "What am I gonna do, Charlotte?"
Charlotte bounced back and forth, and let out a few wild barks.
"I know!" Mimi suddenly bounced up and clapped her hands. "I'll head him off!"
She ran out the door as fast as she could, slamming it shut behind her. She slammed it shut so hard, in fact, that it bounced open again.Count Bleck wasn't asleep. He was up late again, pouring over the pages of the Dark Prognosticus by candlelight. Nobody knew he still read that book, not Nastasia, not his minions, and most certainly not Tippi. He especially kept the book's presence hidden from Dimentio, who would probably be only too happy to know it was still in the castle.
He was looking for answers. The love of his life was still not human, even though the Pure Hearts had given her that form back. He wanted to know why. Most of all, he wanted to know how to set it right. In a situation like this, the Light Prognosticus would have the most answers, but the Dark Prognosticus was all he had for the time being. He hoped that it, too might have some answers of it's own. Because the Light Prognosticus was only written to counteract the dark one, it had more detailed information about the Pure Hearts. But the Dark Prognosticus mentioned them, too. If only he could get a clue, just one solitary clue… That was why he had been staying up late, reading the book closer than ever before.
The door to his bedroom was slammed open and Mimi bolted into the room, waving her arms and shrieking frantically, "It's a lie, it's a lie, everything he says is a lie, I do not have a chain chomp named Charlotte in my room, he's just trying to get me in trouble!"
Count Bleck sighed inwardly and closed the dark book. First he checked to see if the shouting had woken Tippi, who was sleeping on the far side of the room. It had not. Then he turned around on his chair and leaned down so he was eye-to-eye with Mimi, who was panting madly.
"Tell me, Mimi," he said. "Who is Charlotte?"
Mimi giggled. "Did I say Charlotte? I meant… I meant… Um, never mind…" She started to back away slowly, an innocent grin on her face.
Count Bleck shook his head and prepared to give a lecture. "You can't keep a chain chomp in your room," he said. "Chain chomps are vicious creatures that are only good for guarding or attacking, not for pets. It will make a mess of the entire wing. It will terrorize everybody that gets close to it. It will keep everyone up all night. No, it's simply a bad idea all around."
"Don't make me give up Charlotte! She's my best friend!"
"I don't have time for this," the Count said, getting quite annoyed. "I have a lot of work to do. If that chain chomp is still here in the morning, you had better not be."
Mimi crossed her arms and glowered. Then, suddenly, she noticed the book on his desk. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"That's none of your concern," said Count Bleck. "Now go and get rid of that chain chomp."
Mimi nodded slowly, turned around, and slowly started to walk out of the room. When she opened the door, Count Bleck turned back to his book and opened it back to the page he'd left off at. He heard the door close quietly, so he pulled the candle closer to his book.
Suddenly, he felt Mimi land on his back! She'd skittered up behind him and jumped onto his back to take him by surprise. He almost cried out in surprise, but he didn't want to wake Tippi.
"What are you doing?" Mimi gasped, looking over his shoulder at the book.
Count Bleck slammed the book shut. He tried to close it quietly, but he was angrier than he realized. Then he grabbed Mimi by the collar and plunked her back on the ground.
"You said you were done with that!" Mimi said anxiously.
"I have very important information to gather, and I am using this book as a lead." Count Bleck was using the last of his patience to say that calmly and quietly.
Mimi backed up nervously.
"I'm trying to undo the last of the damage," the Count explained. "I want Timpani to be a human again, and this is the only thing I can think of."
"But what about the tempting allure of the dark secrets?"
"Bleh heh heh heh…" Count Bleck chuckled. "I'm quite finished with the dark secrets of this book… they've brought me nothing but pain and frustration. I want only for the last of our suffering to be eased. You can understand that, can't you?"
"Ohhh… I get it." Mimi said. "It's like when you're sitting on a tack, and you need to use evil pliers to get it out of the chair?"
Count Bleck stared at her.
"Gimme a break, it's four in the morning."
"You can not tellanybody about this," Count Bleck continued. "Not Nastasia, not O'Chunks, and especially not Dimentio."
"Well that goes without saying." Mimi shifted on her feet. "Um… Count?"
"Yes, Mimi?"
"Does Tippi know?"
Count Bleck shook his head. "No. Timpani does not know."
"How come you get an evil book but I don't get an evil dog?"
By now Count Bleck was ready to do anything to get her out of the room and leave him to his work. He had to finish and get at least a little bit of sleep before he had to wake up and resume his duties as the head of the castle. That was why he decided to take the easy way out, for the time being.
"Fair's fair," he said. "If you can keep that… Charlotte under control… you may keep her." He cast a quick glance across the room, to where Tippi was sleeping. "But if you tell anybody, anybody at all what you saw me doing tonight…" He shook his head. "Your chain chomp is as good as gone, in that scenario."
"Nooo! Not Charlotte!" Mimi squealed. "I'll take care of her! You won't even notice she's here! I promise!"
Count Bleck clapped his hand over her mouth. "Will you keep your voice down?" he hissed. "Do you want to wake the whole dimension?"
Mimi giggled. "Oopsy. I'll just be going now."
"Great. Good. Fine." He pointed to the door. "Now go to sleep!"
"Yes, Count," she said. "Maybe you should get some sleep, too."
The Count put his face in his hand and groaned. "Yes. I will consider that. If you would please leave, now."
Mimi left the room, for real this time- Count Bleck watched her open the door, cross the threshold, and close it again. Then he went over to the door and locked it. After that, he took the Dark Prognosticus and locked it away for safe keeping, in the secret place he'd been keeping it all along. Then he went to bed himself, and for the next few hours, no one in all of Castle Bleck was awake. All was as it should be.