"Out of the shadows, he rises! The caped crusader! Do-gooder of all good things! Stop thief! Or be tickled by the fingers of justice! Narf!"

Draped in a dark purple handkerchief, the masked mouse leapt down from the bookshelf to tackle a rather crude drawing of 'bahd gai'. He wrestled with him, rolling about the counter top. On his back, he kicked the binder paper into the air before turning onto his belly and pouncing. He stapled the sheet to the section of the bulletin board that had been labeled 'jayl' with several other scribbles that vaguely looked like people or monsters of some kind.

Holding the stapler high above his head, he struck a heroic stance. "Evil never naps! Not with Super Mouse on the case! Protector of all things fun-fun silly-willy! It's a bird! It's a banana! It's-"

"Pinky!"

Startled, the caped crusader released his grip on the stapler only to have it come crashing down right between his ears. He laughed nonetheless and spun around to wave at his cagemate. "Never fear, citizen! Super Mouse will keep your lab safe from the icky-oogly-boogly things!"

The Brain rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes. I feel quite secure with 'Super Mouse' on the prowl. However, I am in need of my associate, so if you would kindly revert back to your secret iden-"

"Shuuuuush, Brain!" He held a finger to his lips, his mask slipping down his nose. "It's a secret!" With a flutter of his cape, he spun away behind the bulletin board, only to pop out seconds later sans mask and cape. "Hi, Brain! Poit!"

Sighing heavily, Brain rubbed his forehead. "Yes. Hello, Pinky." With a flick of his tail, he gestured for his companion to follow. "Now come. We have much to do for tonight."

Oh, boy! It was tonight already! Pinky clapped his paws together and immediately followed the shorter mouse. "What are we gonna do tonight, Brain?"

"Tonight's plan is simple, Pinky," Brain prefaced, leading him to the computer. "It takes advantage of humankind's penchant for 'smart shopping' so to speak. Tell me, Pinky, what is the one thing humans can't resist?"

"Umm... collecting various antennae balls to stick on their cars to create a sense of individuality?" Pinky offered up. He himself was currently trying to get the whole Bisneyland holiday set. So far he had Christmas. It was just so frustrating because every Christmas they made new ones, so he clearly had to keep buying them.

Brain made one of his scowly-annoyed faces and Pinky chuckled at the sight. "No, Pinky. Sales! People can't resist sales!"

"For their boats?"

The bop he received for that was delightful, sending him spinning with dizzy laughter. Brain rubbed his fist absently. "Pinky, one day I believe I will set you on a boat that goes very far away if only to gain a reprieve from your lunacy." Reaching out as Pinky spun past him, Brain yanked him down by his ear. "No, Pinky. The type of sale I am referring to is of the market variety. Retail, grocery stores, car dealerships, every single one of these institutions thrive on their weekend deals where they attract twice as many customers with the promise of bargain items."

"Buy one get one free!" Pinky chirped, jumping up and down once Brain released him.

"Precisely." The megalomaniac tapped his cagemate's hip. "Simmer."

The taller mouse stood at attention, making the other sigh. "Right, Brain!"

"Now, pay attention, Pinky," Brain reminded him, though it wouldn't be the first time he'd demand his focus that evening. "There is something that goes hand in hand with sales."

"Big inflatable gorillas?" Rather than a bop this time around, Pinky was on the receiving end of a withering look.

Brain snatched up a pencil and raised it threateningly. "Quiet, Pinky, or I shall have to hurt you." He waited until he'd made the zipping motion with his lips before continuing. "Coupons, Pinky. People are suckers for coupon books. They buy them without actually reading what the coupons are for." He tapped the computer monitor, then gestured to the screen where a word document was pulled up. "I have created my own book of coupons to circulate throughout the world. In all the major markets! Everyone will be enticed by the vast amounts of money they have the potential to save and have no choice but to purchase them. But we'll make the expiration dates on these sometime next week, so those so-called 'coupon-clippers' will flock to the Lab in order to trade in a single dollar for the chance to allow ME to rule them! They won't be able to tolerate allowing their preciously paid for coupons to expire." He rubbed his palms together fiendishly, a satisfied smirk playing at his lips.

Clasping his own hands together, Pinky looked on with adoration. Oh, Brain looked so happy! Surely this was a good plan! "Egad, Brain! Brilliant! Oh wait, no... what if people lose the coupons in their purses? Those soccer moms, whooo, I have no idea how they find anything in there. It's like a box of crayons. You never know which chocolate you'll find."

Gritting his teeth, tossing around the idea of injuring him once again, The Brain settled for actually considering Pinky's inane observation. "Hm. We'll make the books too large to fall to the bottom of their handbags," he decided, then snapped to garner Pinky's attention once more. "Now Pinky, we must print out these volumes and prepare them to be shipped out immediately. The sooner they're revealed to the unwitting populace, the sooner I will rule the world!"

"Yay! Fun-fun silly-willy!" He spun around in a circle, arms flailing about. His eyes were shut in his glee, so it completely missed his notice when Brain stuck out a foot to trip his associate, the only way he knew to stop him before he made himself sick from spinning.

Unfortunately, as it went with most of his schemes, Pinky did something to screw it all up.

It wasn't intentional, though it never was. He'd just been so excited to hop on the keyboard and play with the mouse that wasn't a mouse. Why was it called a mouse? It didn't do anything mouse-like. Even when he tried playing with it. So he decided it must be vanquished, because clearly it was an evil mastermind in disguise as a mouse. Though mastermind of what he didn't know, but most superheroes had to face them. He tackled it like he'd done with the paper, but he accidentally deleted the entire document. Egad! Oh, Brain would be so mad he lost it!

"Come back! Narf! Oh, please come back, coupons!" He pleaded with the machine, moving the cursor all about in an attempt to find some way to salvage it.

It inched towards the funny looking rainbow-arched arrows, but on its way he passed over an icon that said "save". Oh, good! He could save the plan! The caped crusader saves the day again! But when he clicked the button, it just stayed a white, blank page. Pinky blinked and clicked again. Maybe it didn't hear him the first time. But still nothing. Frowning, he clicked it several times then frantically began trying the other buttons until the noise drew Brain over from where he'd gone to collect the necessary materials to bind the books.

His pink eyes widened, his grip going slack and everything clattered to the countertop. "Pinky! What did you do?"

"Zort! I'm trying to save it, Brain! But it doesn't want to be saved!" It was rather frustrating really. The caped crusader's job was to save people!

Brain shoved him out of the way rather forcefully, taking over control of the mouse and clicking the 'undo' button fervently. But Pinky had already clicked too many buttons, made too many changes, the history was wiped and the coupons were lost. He growled in frustration, rounding on Pinky who was just picking himself up and dusting of his fur. He blinked at his friend, smiling sheepishly at the angry-mad-angry face, though it faded as fury colored his cheeks red.

"Pinky!" he bellowed, causing the taller mouse to flinch. "How is it that you can't follow the simplest of instructions? You only had to hit the print icon! That's it! Yet your ceaseless inadequacy can't even allow for that much?"

Shuffling his feet nervously, blue eyes gazed imploringly at him. "But, Brain... I didn't mean to-"

"You never mean to, Pinky! But you always, always do!" Brain stormed towards him, only growing more furious when his cagemate backed away. "Why can't you just do as you're told? It would all be so much easier if you actually listened! It's as if you're only here to cause me grief!"

Pinky shook his head rapidly, ears wilting. "Zounds, Brain, of course not! I just want you to be happy! I do!"

"You want me to be happy? Then get out of my sight! I can't even stand to look at you right now! Follow instructions for once in your life and go away, Pinky! Go!" He made to wave him off, his wrist snapping along with him as he glared at the mouse in front of him. Tears were filling those wide blue eyes, and he had to spin around to keep his resolve and frustration from crumbling at the sight of him crying. He couldn't stand it when he cried. So he stomped away, drowning out the sound of his sniffles with the sound of his blood rushing through his ears.

"Fine! I'll go! Somewhere you don't have to look at me!" Pinky snapped, his hurt only manifesting as anger for a second before pure upset took over.

Wringing his hands together as he watched Brain go, Pinky released breathy sobs before covering his eyes and running in the opposite direction. Oh, he'd ruined everything and Brain was so mad! Madder than mad! Very mad! He wailed loudly in his despair, arms flailing. Forgoing the cage in case Brain wanted to go there later, Pinky sought sanctuary in the bookshelf. On one of the middle shelves he curled up over a book and buried his face in his arms while he trembled and cried. He was ruining his best friend's life. His destiny. Oh, he'd never love him back the way he wanted him to now...

The bout of crying only lasted about fifteen minutes. Pinky sniffled and rubbed his eyes as he lifted his head. He could see Brain hunched over something across the way, probably working on more plan thingies. Hiccupping, he watched him for a while, starting to feel a little better. Surely he'd been out of Brain's sight long enough by now. It usually didn't take too long for his friend to forgive him for being stupid. He honestly didn't try to mess up Brain's plan thingies, it just happened!

Shimmying down the shelf, he wondered if, perhaps, Brain would be better off without him... No, he'd seen it before, twice. Once when Brain went all the way to Hades to get him back from that rude Mr. Itch and again when he'd tried to throw himself off a bridge and met that lovely angel who showed him how sad Brain would be without him. He shuffled across the counter hesitantly. No, Brain needed him. He knew it. Perking up as he convinced himself of this, Pinky picked up his pace a little.

As he passed the window, it caught his eye. He wasn't sure what it was, so he paused to peer outside, opening the window to get a closer look. Oh, it was only Snowball on a big ray gun thingy pointed at Brain...

Snowball on a big ray gun thingy pointed at Brain! Egad! Pinky gasped, turning to see if Brain had noticed. But he still had his back to him, he wouldn't know, wouldn't see! Tugging on his ears in his panic, blue eyes darted between the machine doohicky and his bestest best best friend. The love of his life. Snowball, that meany-mean-head, reached out to push a button, snickering to himself like only really mean people do.

"Goodbye, Brain." Pinky heard Snowball mutter, the hamster clearly still unaware of the lanky mouse's presence. "See you in time..."

No! Pinky darted to place himself between the ray gun machine and Brain, squeezing his eyes shut as a big beam of colorful rainbow lights shot right at him. He felt all tingly at first, but it didn't hurt, then he felt all floaty in his feet and hands and head. What was going on? This didn't feel like exploding. Except, he didn't really know what exploding felt like, but he imagined it wasn't like this. Or with rainbows.

"Oof!" Suddenly he was sprawled out on the counter top... only it wasn't the counter top at all. It was a shiny tile floor. Blue and shiny. Pinky blinked. They didn't have pretty blue tiles in the lab. Unless someone came and redid them while he was sleeping and he just hadn't noticed. They were lovely though, the same shade as his eyes and reflective, he could see himself in them, they were so shiny!

Lifting his head up, he looked around. Oh no, this wasn't the lab. Where was the counter? Where was their cage? Where was the window? Where was Brain? Pinky gasped, eyes widening in realization. Egad... he was dead. Snowball's tingly rainbow ray of doom killed him dead.

With a startled shout, Pinky leapt to his feet, only to trip over his tail and go crashing to the floor. "Ow!" Hmm, no that wasn't right. If he was dead, then falling shouldn't have hurt. Right? Oh, he didn't know, but Brain would. Oh, wait, he wasn't there. Egad. Without Brain how would he ever find out if he were dead or not?

Pinky got to his feet more carefully this time around, brushing himself off. He seemed to be in a big hallway. Really big. With a giant sparkly chandelier above him with... zounds, were those glass donuts? "Naaaaaaarf." Either this was heaven or Brain had finally taken over the world and built the castle he was always talking about. But that was silly, he hadn't taken over the world yet...

"Prepare the podium for Emperor Brain's speech this afternoon." His ears twitched as he heard voices and footsteps, so Pinky turned around to see two human men dressed in all white stride past. They had little gold pins on their vests, oh! They were shaped like Brain's biggly-wiggly chubby-round chubby head! And come to think of it, they'd said 'Emperor Brain'. Emperor was one of the funny sounding titles he wanted to be called when he became supreme pizza ruler of everything.

With no other course of action on his mind, Pinky followed after the men. If Brain had taken over the world, then he was here! And these men knew him! Of course, they were in an awful hurry, and being so small, Pinky had a devil of a time trying to keep up. He ended up losing them around the library. Brain had always wanted a giant library. And it was right across from the room with a giant slip-in-slide. Oh, how lovely! Brain had taken his suggestions after all! Pinky was positive that it made their castle a bajillion times more fun-fun silly-willy with the additions.

Of course, it also made it really big and quite easy to get lost in. Pinky wished he had a map to navigate through this shiny blue palace of magic. Everywhere he went the tiles stayed the same shade. He didn't realize Brain liked this color so much. He'd have to keep that in mind when getting his next fourth of July present. But right now, the task at hand! He needed to find Brain. "If I were The Brain, where would I go?" Pinky mused, scratching his head. "Let's see..." He scrunched his face up into a scowl and hunched over a bit, deepening his voice and making it scratchy. "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" His ears wilted and he straightened. "I'm afraid not, Brain, I have no idea where you'd be-"

"Hey! You! Trespasser, the palace is off limits to commoners!" A voice barked out.

Pinky whirled around to face whoever it was, startled to see several guard type people rushing at him. "Egad! No, you don't understand, I'm just looking for Brain!" He tried to run away, but the guards were quick to pluck him up by the fur of his neck. "Ow!"

"Who do you think you are? Not just anyone can waltz in here and demand to see Emperor Brain." The head guard sneered, and Pinky had to smother his giggles because their helmets looked like Brain's head.

"Why, I'm Pinky!" The mouse explained, gesturing widely with his arms as he dangled high above the floor.

An uncomfortable silence passed over the guards, each of them exchanging glances with one another. The one holding him narrowed his eyes, Pinky could see his name tag read "Paul". "You're Pinky?"

"Yes, at least I was this morning when I woke up, though a lot has changed since then," Pinky replied looking around him. "Poit. Can you please tell me where I am if I'm not allowed to see Brain? I'm just lost that's all."

His ears perked up as he overheard the two other guards whispering to each other. "...gone all this time, the emperor's given up..." "What if he's lying?" "What would the emperor say?" Pinky's brow furrowed, what was going on?

Paul turned to both of them. "Go alert Emperor Brain of this visitor. He's either in the throne room or the gummy bear hall."

"Egad! He made a gummy bear hall too? Oh, please say there's a rainbow drawbridge! Puh-leeeze!" Pinky placed his palms together in a begging gesture, much to the surprise of the guards. No one was supposed to know about the rainbow drawbridge that led to the gardens.

"Hurry." Paul advised his companions, and the two guards saluted before running off in search of their ruler. Turning his attention back to the mouse, he laid his left palm flat and set Pinky atop it. "You say you're Pinky, yet you hardly look a day over two."

"Well, that's because I am two! Zort!" He laughed, brushing off his fur after being handled so roughly. "My birthday was just last month. Brain gave me a lovely present, a new box of crayons! He accidentally melted my last box when one of his plan thingies exploded. Poit. Oh, by the way, which plan thingy worked to get him the world? Was it the coupon one? Did he save them from the mean ol' computer?"

Paul shook his head, trying to get his bearings with the inane chatter. He held up a hand to keep Pinky quiet for a moment. "Just hold on. When is your birthday?"

"October!" Pinky chirped, then wiggled his fingers and made a scary looking face. "Hallooooweeeen! Poit, well, it's not actually on Halloween, it's before then. Brain's is closer to Halloween, he's a week after me."

"What day?"

Blinking slowly, Pinky just looked up at him for a few moments. "Umm... you know, I don't know. I'd need to look at a calendar. Can you show me one?"

Paul rolled his eyes, but carried Pinky into the library to show him the calendar that was propped up on the massive desk in the center of it. He flipped to October, then held Pinky up to examine it. Squinting his eyes, Pinky knew his birthday had been a Wednesday, right in the middle!, so he followed the days of the week, but for some reason it didn't look right. Halloween hadn't been on a Monday, had it? No, he was quite sure it had been a Saturday... the lab had been empty all day so Pinky had lots of time to work on his costume. Was the calendar lying to him? He looked up to make sure it was October he was looking at and not something silly like February, because February was quite a silly month, always forgetting how many days it had. His eyes went wide as he took in the date. The calendar was on October, but it was October 2011. Pinky was almost positive they'd been in 2009. He remembered those silly glasses for New Years'. There were definitely two 0s for the eyes, because wouldn't a 1 for an eye hole look ridiculous?

"I think your calendar's broken." Pinky pointed out to Paul, though the man just shot him a confused glance, unable to respond because the two soldiers burst into the library.

"Emperor Brain agrees to meeting with the visitor. He will see him in the throne room."

"Very well. Come, mouse," he said unnecessarily, since he was still holding him and controlled where he went.

"Troz! Oh, hoorah! I'll get to see Brain!" Pinky clapped, tail wagging as he looked around. This was such an impressive castle. Brain had done very well for himself it seemed. Though he was still confused by how fast he'd managed to take over the world without him even noticing. He swallowed thickly, ears drooping. So, Brain really hadn't needed him to take over the world it seemed. He'd done just fine on his own. Without him to mess anything up. "Poit..."

Just a quick shout-out to StarShineDC! All the love! She helped with my Brain's plan thingy monologue. There is a reason we frequently collaborate with each other. His spiel is why. All I said was "coupons" and she had a scheme. Then I had an "Oh, wait, no" and the rest is history.

I've been working on this baby for quite some time now. StarShineDC can vouch for that lol, I think it was around the beginning of March or maybe even the end of February when I came up with this. It was on my way back from the grocery store! Yeah, not really necessary information. I haven't finished it yet, but I figured I'm far enough along that I can start posting chapters. A lot of what StarShineDC and I put in our stories can be found in here, like the intricacies of their castle for instance and Super Mouse has become a recurring theme in our PatB-verses (just like boa and Brain's spectacles, fancy that lol).

I've also decided that Pinky's sign is Libra and Brain's is Scorpio (because they really, truly are those signs) and that puts their birthdays in October. Whether or not that's true is anyone's guess, but in my head that's the way it rolls. And the year is 2009 just because. They time jump all the time anyway, it probably doesn't matter, I just thought the glasses thing would be something Pinky would notice xD (and not because I gripe about it all the time, no siree).

Enough of my jibber-jabber! I hope you are intrigued thus far, and I'll try and update regularly (as long as I write for this regularly heheh...)