A/N: It all started when the thought that Zurg was probably the type of guy to have no idea whatsoever about... some delicate matters, ehem... since he's so caught up in trying to conquer the galaxy, came to mind. Thinking about it some more, this scenario actually seemed to have merits, which would be provided in cracktastic proportions, so here it is! So yes, you could call it crack, but it's well thought-up crack, if you get my drift. Oh, one warning: beware some rather specific terms and descriptions. This is rated T for a reason.

...Gosh, being an Evil Emperor sure gives you a sheltered upbringing, doesn't it? XD

The Day Zurg Learned About Love

(And He Wasn't Happy)

Evil Emperor Zurg, the most notorious villain in the entire galaxy, was currently enjoying his Sunday morning, sitting languidly upon his throne while sifting though the comic strips in the Sunday comics section of the Astro Times. He pushed his glasses a bit further up so he could view the minuscule print properly, and hummed a cheery tune. It was going to be a fantastically evil day, he just knew it!

"The Adventures Of Captain XR And The Women From Femi Alpha..." he muttered under his breath. Wait a crater-smashing minute! He knew that name! "That tin can has his own comic strip?! Why doesn't the Evil Emperor have one?! Blasted discrimination..." He made a disapproving noise and pouted a bit for good measure, but read on anyway. He would take care of the Affirmative Action suit later, but now, now it was Sunday and he always read the comics on Sunday. It was a tradition to read comic strips every Sunday, and tradition must not be broken! That's what Nana Zurg said, and besides, just because it was made by one of the rookies of his arch nemesis wasn't any reason to not read it... at least that was the rational way to look at it.

His eyes scanned the brightly colored images slowly as he soaked up the depicted storyline; a small frown shaped his teeth right from the very first panel, which was unusual, for he normally started his Sunday funnies with a smile. That frown increased in intensity as he read on, until he reached a small bubble of text, which read, "Hey, why don't you and me get in a 69 later? Call me!"

The Evil Emperor leaned back, removing his glasses to clean them on the hem of his leg-length skirt, and held them up to the lighting to inspect for blemishes. He couldn't have read right. Couldn't possibly have. "Darn prescription... that's what I get for buying wholesale!" He peered at the speech bubble again, but right as the solar wind, it still said the same thing. "69?" he snorted. "That's a number! How do you get in a number?! Kids these days and their hip lingo..." He straightened the newspaper to get into a more comfortable position, but still grunted a murmur. "69...whatever... probably some petty gang code..."

He pushed it aside and continued to read the rest of the paper, albeit a bit disturbed. However, even after his traditional sit-down to read comic strips, and his regular ZV-zapping afterwards to see if there was a good space opera on ZV, the thought still nagged at him. What was this... 69?

He stopped zapping when he fell upon a familiar face. Wasn't that Vicki Vortex? The supermodel? And what in the Cosmos was she wearing...? Zurg had to lean forward, and take off his glasses. Was that a... bunny outfit?! What in the solar flare was she wearing that for?! Didn't she know Halloween was months over? He always knew that woman wasn't right in the head. Always knew. Although she did manage to blackmail him into a forced date. Still, not right in the head, he reasoned.

"Would a space job be too much?" she was saying somewhat petulantly to a small figure perched upon the edge of a bed. Her satin gloved hands made their way up her body with suggestive manners, smoothly rubbing her sides and thighs, and slowly crawled closer to the skinny figure, whose nether-regions were obscured by her head as the camera changed view.

That mop of orange hair and glasses was familiar... Klerm! How did that sniveling brat get a place on Cable?! Zurg never got on Cable save for the hourly news report. That, and for the brunt of Cable's talk show host David Vidman. That man loved to crack jokes about the Evil Emperor's skirt.

"Space job? What's that...?" Zurg mused. "Did she detail something?" He frowned and stroked his smooth, purple cheek thoughtfully with a long, metallic finger. "Maybe she waxed his ship... Cosmos knows how tiny it is... must have been a quick job." A thought struck his mind, making him pout. "Why didn't she wax my ship? What, is Klerm more special? What does he have that I don't...? Besides an annoying laugh...?"

However, he ignored his brain's workings, and again, the Evil Emperor pushed the thought aside, placing it alongside the previous one, to peruse and ponder on it later on. Like that would ever happen, but he never knew when he wanted to think, so it was better to be safe than sorry.

He switched the channel to the news, muttering happily to himself, "Can't go wrong with the news! Save for that awful Brent Starkisser... ugh... that man has no sense of style whatsoever! His mother probably still dresses him!"

And sure enough, Brent Starkisser was on the news, speaking in that annoying preppy voice of his that so got on the Emperor's nerves. He made a mental note to have him whipped into shape once he conquered Capital Planet and to buy him a new wardrobe. Preferably with something purple.

"This just in, ladies and gentlemen! I just got wind that Spokesmodel Extraordinaire, Vicki Vortex, has recently been in a scandal with Gaming Whiz, Norbert Klerm! And what a scandal it is! Cover your childrens' eyes, ladies and gentlemen, for this footage most definitely needs viewer discretion advised!"

Zurg rubbed his hands in evil anticipation, even going so far as to press one of the numerous buttons beneath the throne's arms to bring the screen closer so he could get a better look. He didn't want to miss a thing, and his eyes were already bad as they were.

"Oh, goody! Viewer discretion advised? That can only mean one thing: pure, uncontrolled, malicious violence! What a perfectly evil way to start my already evil day! I already glued Warp's locker shut! This is too great to not make tantalizing!" He would make note of it to record it for later, and re-watch it afterwards for his evilly delighted pleasure. Especially where chaos and mayhem were concerned. What the trade pool would call a double dilly!

Of course, it did turn out to be violent... only not in the way the poor Evil Emperor was envisioning. Before he knew it, he was watching something completely and utterly obscene, and immediately started feeling a queasy sensation in his stomach. What was she doing over his... on his...?

Zurg's abdominal reflexes kicked in and he swung over his throne's right arm to let out a series of violent gagging. Thank goodness he had an empty stomach or else he might have vomited all over the floor, and that wouldn't have been a very evil way to start his already perfectly evil day.

He raised a trembling hand to his face, hoping it was all over, but the model was currently... currently... "What in the Cosmos...?!" He didn't even know a person could do that! His eyes bulged with horror after a few more seconds and he gagged over the throne's arm even louder, hoping no bile would work its way up his esophagus and stain his beautiful floor. He just had it cleaned!

He knew in the back of his mind that he couldn't take it a third time, like so many other things, so, fumbling blindly, he pressed a random button that mercifully put the ZV on mute. Then, trying his hardest not to look at the screen, he climbed down the throne, his back to the obscenity behind him, nearly stumbling over the hem of his skirt as he ran to the massive double doors in search of the one person who might understand what he was going through.

"Darkmatter! He would know something like this! It's right up his perverted alley!" The Evil Emperor scrambled madly past hornet guards and almost made it to the elevator, before his brain restarted itself on its usual, clean, empty purple slate.

"Wait a minute... I'm the Evil Emperor Zurg!" he said, slamming an armored fist against an open palm. "I should know these things! It's not proper for the Evil Emperor to consult one of his lackeys! That just will not do!" He mused, tapping his teeth with a long forefinger. "Now... if I were to seek information... how would I go about it...? Ahhh!" He smiled, finally getting his mental cogs to rotate in creaks. "Zoogle. That's it. I will Zoogle these terms '69' and 'space job' or I'm not the Evil Emperor Zurg, which I am!" He cackled, whisking back to the throne room with a majestic twirl of his cape.

He hopped back onto his cold, metal throne and brought up his personal command console right away, ignoring the muted ZV. If he didn't hear it, it was out of mind. He stroked his metal-clad fingers on the delicate lilac Z-board, and entered the term '69' first.

"Can't go wrong with a number... save for 42..." he said to himself, hitting the brightened ENTER key.

With a whoosh, the screen loaded the page, and what Zurg thought to be gang-related was actually...

He let his teeth expand as wide as they could get, down to the very base of his face. "MOTHER OF PEARL!" he gasped loudly, covering his teeth instinctively with both hands. Were those two... two Jo-Adians?! "BACKSPACE! BACKSPACE! BACKSPACEBACKSPACEBACKSPACE!!" Zurg cried, shielding his eyes, while furiously pressing the BACKSPACE button. He was sure to break it at this rate, but anything to protect his delicate mental state!

Zurg gasped for air, and pushed his console away with disgust. How horrid! "Sweet Cosmos! How can people, especially Jo-Adians, pull that off?! They have got to be the least limber species in the entire Galactic Alliance!" He held his stomach, and tried his best to calm his mind. It took extreme willpower on his part to keep his hand close to his teeth, to prevent him from gagging for a third time.

This wasn't turning out to be a perfectly evil day after all! Zurg took a deep breath, and once he felt comfortable, he took away his hand, and stared at his console screen. Well... he only Zoogled one term... and that meant he left his task half-done. Nana Zurg would most certainly have a space-cow if she were here.

"Best to finish this... for Nana Zurg," he mumbled. "Curiosity killed the space-cat, but satisfaction always brought it back... isn't that right, Nana?" Zurg gulped, and stroked his Z-board again with less confident fingers, and tried his best to keep them from trembling.

He managed to type in the words, and squeezed his eyes tightly, as he pressed the ENTER key. The console chimed with a beep, saying in its own way that its task was complete. Dare he look? He did... and he wished he hadn't. Plastered right onto the screen, right SMACK onto the screen, was a picture of Crumford Lorak... in a straddled pose with money in his right hand, a cane in the other, women to all sides of the rat-nasty man, and a... a... barely dressed woman... on her... Zurg let out a loud yell in mental pain. ZURG OVERLOAD, ZURG OVERLOAD!

"NO! NO! NONONONONO! NOT CRUMFORD LORAK!!" He yanked his console into a fold, and smacked it into his head repeatedly. If only to get rid of the nasty, sickening images! At this rate, he was going to lose more than just his short-term memory, but for the sake of his innocent mind, this was the best way!

After several smacks more, he decided to stop hitting himself with the console. Not only had he broken it beyond repair, his head was throbbing too much from the blows. And after all, he thought mournfully, tossing the console aside, it wouldn't do any good to his image if he looked like someone had just beaten him up.

However, the events of this day (which was turning out to be a dreadful day instead of an evil one) did have something rather... constructive to tell him: he was completely ignorant on all things regarding the habits of those with... with... blast it all to the nearest black hole! He, the Evil Emperor Zurg, didn't even know what to call it! If there was even a name for such a foul, terrible thing!

Which only left him with one thing to do: seek a professional.

——————————

Warp Darkmatter took a sip from his purple coffee mug, the color so graciously provided to him by his employer, and tried his best not to screw his face into an expression of disgust. How he hated drinking his coffee without sugar. He made a mental note to smuggle a reserve of freddo cappuccinos with him next time he was called to Planet Z. He'd rather drink his preferred coffee than stoop to drinking it black and without sugar. No matter what sort of heinous torture the Evil Emperor had for disobedient lackeys. Was it so hard to have sugar? Really?!

He unfolded the freshly crisp magazine he had bought a few hours ago on his stop to Trade World and took a bite from his jelly donut, savoring the sweet, redberry taste. That, at least, he had managed to smuggle. He skipped the first few pages in search of the gossip columns, the most boring girl chatter, and his grin turned to a smirk at the scandalous two-page spread that met his eyes. The big bold yellow print shouting, "SECRET SCANDAL EXPOSED!" made his mouth turn up even more.

"Well, well, well, whaddya know? Klerm's not such a baby after all..."

He took another bite and began to read carefully, washing the bits of pastry down with another sip of coffee before recalling its sharp, bitter taste. He'd have to make sure he caught it on ZV before the video was banned. He didn't doubt that such a scandal would want to be hushed up by their numerous lawyers as soon as possible.

Just as he was getting to the juicy stuff, licking his fingers clean from the donut's powdery sugar, he heard a familiar, whiny, dual-chord voice that sounded somewhat agitated. That was never good, and could only foretell one thing...

"Warp, Warp, Warp! Thank all that is Evil I found you! I Zoogled these pictures and I need to ask you some things!"

To Warp's utter shock and horror, he saw the Evil Emperor himself, skidding to a halt beside his bench and hopping onto it, a worried expression on his face. Many grubs and brain pods had turned to stare at this unusual occurrence, as they had never seen their Emperor in the mess hall for any reason, unless it was to request a salad or to fry an insubordinate minion... or minions... depending on the Evil Emperor's mood. It was usually the latter.

Warp cursed his bad luck, which was always bad here on Planet Z. Zurg would definitely see the donut and magazine, fly into a rage about a horrible punishment for smuggling atrocities into his palace and probably flame his goatee for good measure. And he'd just had it trimmed! Although a second visit to that bodacious haircut specialist certainly made him feel better. It was too late to hide the magazine, but he could do something about the remaining donut.

Keeping the magazine before his face, he stuffed the last of it into his mouth and began to chew furiously.

"Seeing as how you blatantly disregarded my rules, I will punish you later..." Zurg said almost off-handedly, eyeing the new magazine, one that he had banned on his Z-list. "But now, I have more pressing matters! More... disturbing, pressing matters..."

"Mmmhmm?" Warp asked, swallowing the last of the donut. He hastily put the magazine down. He didn't want to further worsen his position. "What is it, my Evil Emperor?" Better suck up to him a bit for good measure, he told himself. Zurg always fell for that.

Zurg looked over his shoulder, as if afraid of being overheard. Grubs and brain pods hastily looked away, pretending to be absorbed in other matters, but their ears and hearing sensors were strained to pick up Zurg's next words. There was no missing this for the Cosmos!

Zurg turned back to Warp, but he frowned as he peered at him. "You have something on the corners of your mouth... and in your goatee hairs..." His eyes narrowed dangerously, glowing slightly brighter. "Is that... sugar...? You dare bring sugar to my palace?" He eased his purple head down to Warp's level, and creased his teeth into a sneer. "You know what this means later, don't you...?"

Warp gulped nervously and hastily wiped at his mouth, cursing himself. Why did it have to be a white powdered donut?!

"You're seeing the Wedgie Ray later. On ATOMIC," he added ominously.

"But Emperor—!"

"That's Evil Emperor for you! You just earned yourself a trip to the Wedgie Ray on UNREAL!"

Warp slapped his forehead and groaned. Could the day get any worse? Wait... he took that back. He was already there.

"But later..." Zurg added in a lower tone of voice. He looked around furtively once more before continuing. "Now then, if you hadn't interrupted, I would've been able to tell you sooner..." He glared at him, crossing his arms over his chest. "I... I need to know what the terms 'in a 69' and 'space job' really are."

Warp snorted incredulously. "Oh, no, you're not getting me this time! You want me to blab and punish me because I broke rule number sixty-seven or code number fifty-two or... whatever other rules you've thought up of in my absence!" He took his coffee mug. "Well, I'm not falling for it, no sir—" He choked on the coffee and wondered why even tried to look cool drinking it.

Zurg's eyes flashed. He suddenly grabbed Warp's armored collar, sending the coffee mug flying to the ground and spilling the rest of its contents all over Warp's chest. The Evil Emperor lifted him up from the ground and brought his face close to his, Warp's feet dangling several inches off the floor, leaving the blue man to consider his life insurance policy.

"You listen closely, Darkmatter. I want to know what they mean, and you're the man to talk to." His red eyes began to glow menacingly. "Have I made myself clear?"

It dawned on Warp at that moment that the Evil Emperor was dead serious. He could swear that he could even smell burnt hair. He swallowed hard and nodded. Anything was better than the Wedgie Ray.

Zurg unceremoniously let him fall to the ground with an ungraceful thud. He sat upon the bench, crossing his arms over his chest again, and looked at him with a deadly expression on his face. "Start talking," he growled.

Warp struggled to his feet, noticing that the grubs and brain pods had mysteriously vanished from the mess hall. In any other situation, he knew that he would be laughing his head off, but he didn't dare laugh in Zurg's face. Not after such a threat. His astro-undies would be merged to his skin on the UNREAL setting! Not to mention the rash marks...

"Well? I'm waiting." Zurg's foot began to tap the floor lightly in impatience. Patience was not someone he was in favor with.

Warp sat down upon the bench, several inches away from Zurg, looking at him in a rather terrified sort of way. This was uncomfortable beyond all degrees known to the galaxy... and beyond. "Well..." he croaked, then cleared his throat. "Umm... yeah. Well, those are rather specific terms that—"

"CURSE YOU, BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!" The scream was followed by snazzy-sounding music with hip-hop influences, similar to the music played in most discos and clubs. "C-C-C-C-CURSE YOU, YOU, YOU, YOU..."

"Craters, my phone," Warp whispered hoarsely, his wide eyes looking up at the towering figure before him, who was practically frothing at the mouth now.

"Hand it over," Zurg said in little above a whisper. Warp made a remix for his vid-phone out of his cursing?! Oh, that was it! That flunky was going to get wedgies for the rest of his cycle!

"But—"

"Now."

Warp steeled himself and took out the pink vid-phone from his pocket. Seeing the name flashing on the screen, he paled and looked at Zurg in horror, drawing it to his coffee-stained chest. "I don't think—"

Zurg, however, didn't give him a chance to protest. He snatched the phone from his hands and flicked it open, pulling out the screen to view the other person. It was probably some no good poker buddy of his! But Zurg would soon find out that he was yet again wrong, as always.

A rather scantily dressed female was on the other end, lying upon a bed with bright red sheets, moaning and moving her legs in suggestive positions. "Hey, hot stuff. Like what you did to your face. It'll be great to tear it off once we get started." She stretched languidly and chuckled rather saucily; the sheets barely covered her unwanted bits, or so Zurg thought them to be. "I just want to tug on those horns so hard... and you know what else I want to tug..."

Zurg made a whimpering sound in his throat. "I'm uncomfortable... so very much..." What was he watching, and more importantly, what was Warp doing on his breaks?!

"That's all right," she said steamily, raising slightly from the bed and crawling closer to the screen. Poor Zurg now had a close-up of her face, among other things. "I'll rub you all over to get those juices flowing..." She smacked her lips and gave him a saucy wink.

Zurg swallowed uneasily. He felt so cornered, he thought he was going to start crying. "W-W-What do you mean...? Are... are you going to touch me...?" That last phrase almost sounded like a cry for help.

"You bet your purple birthday suit, I am," she said kinkily, licking the screen. "All over—"

Warp and Zurg moved almost simultaneously. Zurg thrust it into Warp's hands, screaming, "TAKE IT AWAY, I DON'T WANT IT!!" while Warp had lunged to take it from him, finally deciding that taking the vid-phone from him sooner than later might ease the nasty punishment that awaited him.

It resulted in the pink vid-phone's destruction with its contact upon the floor.

They look at each other. Both guilty for different reasons.

After several moments of awkward silence, Warp and Zurg made eye contact.

"Er..." Warp finally croaked, blushing a furious blue color. "Are you going to pay me for that?"

Zurg didn't exactly trust himself to look at Warp. He was feeling very strange and very uncomfortable. "Are... are you going to pay for my counseling sessions with Dr. Animus?"

Upon an unspoken agreement, they both swore never to tell a soul what happened. That came with some perks. Warp was never punished and Zurg found his peace of mind again. They both learned valuable lessons. Warp learned to always make sure to keep his vid-phone silent whenever he was at Planet Z, and Zurg learned to stay away from unknown words like the plague. Until he heard the phrase 'space fisting,' that is... Nana Zurg always said he was a slow learner.

A/N: Sorry if you were just scarred for life and your brain just broke from the mental images. I personally couldn't stop laughing while writing this. And similarly banging my head on the keyboard. Reading it again, I can't help but think, "Poor, poor Zurg. The things we writers do to make you a laughing stock!" FF . NET needs more Zurg love. Why is he so underrated when he's so loveable?! I'll never understand that.

Oh, and you know the drill, right? There's a shiny purple button that says "submit review" right in the bottom left corner! It would totally not make the Evil Emperor's day to know that people found out what he just went through. But it would mine! XD