A/N: Just a little story I've had in my head for awhile. Oh, Don Paolo, you amaze me with your noobishness. But I still love you anyways~

I don't own Don Paolo or Professor Layton.

– s – t – a – r – t –

Sure, he could kidnap people to try and get at his self-proclaimed arch-nemesis Layton. He was also a master of disguise, posing as old grannies, young girls, and even the damned professor himself. And he could even create whirring and whizzing flying contraptions to enable getaways and easy, exciting travel, no problem.

But this was a far greater task altogether.

In front of him sat a very grimy, once-white-but-now-a-disturbing-shade-of-greenish-brown toilet. He'd lived in this apartment for a few years now, but he was usually out and about kidnapping helpless little girls, so he never really had the time to clean his place up much, especially the bathroom. Don Paolo figured that once you had to walk to the nearest convenience store just to use the restroom, it was time to clean.

Anticipating a great deal of gunk and build-up, the villain had brought few cleaning supplies he owned with him on his conquest: a couple of washcloths and a bar of soap. Upon arrival, the toilet confirmed his suspicions; rust and lime build-up complete with stains and a few remnants of unpleasant unmentionables. He shuddered at the gruesome sight.

"Alright, toilet, time for a long-overdue scrub-a-dub-dub," Don Paolo grunted, reaching for the bar of soap he'd come equipped with. He grabbed it, but hesitated for a moment. What would he do with it? He sure as day didn't want to stick his hand in there. Sitting there deep in thought, Don Paolo decided to try and find some gloves. He stood up and proceeded to his supply closet.

Said closet was shockingly under-stocked. A few spare bars of soap, a pack of toilet paper, and a couple miscellaneous boxes and bottles were placed on the shelves at random. Rummaging through one of these boxes, Paolo found a pair of gloves that covered up to his elbows. Perfect! He slipped his hands inside them and headed back to the bathroom.

Picking up the soap bar, he gingerly started to rub it around on the inside of the toilet. After a few minutes he decided that that was enough and swapped the bar for a washcloth. He scrubbed and scrubbed around on the inside, and the once-white cloth had turned a vivid shade of brown. Arm tingling from the effort, Paolo paused for a moment to admire his progress.

Or lack thereof.

He had barely even removed the topmost layer of grime, which seemed to be freaking super-glued to the side, and there were still stains to be seen. He'd only made them a few shades lighter.

Frowning, Paolo proceeded to scrub with more vigor than before. Increasing his pace every so often, he washed it madly, smiling evilly at the thought of this muckiness finally being vanquished. When his arms started to hurt from the repetitive back-and-forthness of his movements, he exhaled heavily and moved his arms to examine what he'd accomplished. And again, he had succeeded in pretty much nothing.

Letting out a loud groan of fury, Paolo threw the washcloth in a random direction behind him. This resulted in him knocking over a picture of his dear old Mum and sending it crashing to the floor. Cursing, he would have facepalmed had he not had filthy gloves on his forearms.

Deciding to try a different tactic, he ventured into his small kitchenette to grab the bottle of dish soap sitting next to it's sink. Dish soap was certainly more effective against things like this, he thought triumphantly. Once back to the toilet, he squirted what he deemed a suitable amount for the task at hand into the water and grabbed another washcloth.

Dipping the cloth into the water, he started to rub the sides again, dipping into the water again every few seconds so that he splashed the water up onto the grime as well. After a whopping five minutes of this, he stopped, his arms about to fall off and himself panting a bit.

Guess what? Same effect as the regular bar soap had had.

Letting loose a stream of colorful curses, he discarded the cloth and slammed his fists on the toilet's rim in anger. Stupid thing was the devil in disguise! Why did it refuse to be cleaned? Surely being dirty wasn't too appealing to it.

The grime seemed to form a smiling face on one side of the bowl, as if mocking him. Seething, he stuck his tongue out at it and flushed the toilet. Since the water inside was all sudsy from his steadily growing number of attempts to clean it, maybe it'd do a bit of good. He waited hopefully. No such luck.

Sighing heavily, he stood up and took up a pensive stance. If soap wouldn't clean this, what would? He wracked his brain. Think. Think. Think.

Coming up with next to nothing, he went with a last ditch attempt. Opening up his supply closet once more, he pulled out a yellow spray bottle: Windex. If this stuff could clean bird turds off of his window, than it should be of some help in his toilet, right? ...hopefully, he thought wistfully.

He sprayed at least a dozen times around the inner bowl, and a couple of times on the outside, where the toilet was rather dusty and sordid. Taking up his final washcloth, he wiped the outside surfaces of the john clean with only mild effort, which brought a giddy smile to his face. This just might be the end of his struggles!

He started wiping around on the inside. He could feel the muck starting to dissipate, which only made his arms scrub around faster in excited anticipation. He'd already spent at least an hour trying to clean this goddamned toilet already. When his cloth started to turn black, he decided to stop and check his progress.

Well, it wasn't a total loss. He had successfully taken off a lot of the build-up and a few stains were nearly gone, at least. He soon discovered that that was all the Windex would do; none of the remaining dirtiness would be coaxed off by the window cleaner.

Growling, Paolo threw the bottle and cloth onto the counter adjacent to his toilet. So close yet so far! There had to be an easier way to do this. Unable to control his temper any longer, he kicked the toilet angrily, much to his foot's pain. He hopped around on one foot holding the other in his hands rather comically, cursing himself and his newest adversary.

Deciding to retreat and form another plan of action, Paolo discarded his gloves and returned to his small living room area. He sat in the basic brown sofa and sighed. He'd already tried everything he could possibly think of, and the fact that the stupid thing seemed to be mocking him just made the man irate.

At that moment, the doorbell rang, and Paolo froze. Who could it possibly be? He seldom had any visitors, the last time being... Well, okay, never had any visitors. He stood up and walked to the door hesitantly, silently wishing he had a peephole in his front door. After a few moments of listening for hints to whomever this might have been, he gave in to curiosity and opened the door.

Standing there with a bag in her hands was a cute l'il old lady. The cute l'il old lady who lived next door, to be specific. She smiled up at Paolo, who just looked at her questioningly in return. "Why, hello there, sonny boy. Sorry t'be intruding like this, but I've been overhearing your little.. Ah, dilemma," she said, chuckling after that last part. "I just thought that I could help you out a bit, that's all." With that, she handed Paolo the bag and waved goodbye. "You can return them when you're done, then. Goodbye!" she called over her shoulder as she left.

Paolo could only offer a small "th-thanks" in return. Closing the door, he peeked into the bag, curious as to what it contained. In it were two things: a plastic stick with a bristly brush stuck on the end and a weirdly shaped bottle with a little nozzle on the end. It read, 'Lysol: Toilet Cleaner'.

His jaw dropped. How did that woman know...? Oh, right. He had screamed curses at the thing a few times today, and the walls in his building were pretty thin. Still, they made a cleaner specifically for the toilet? Gee, no wonder nothing he had tried would work.

He made his way back to the bathroom, praying that this would be the last time he had to do this today. He read the back of the cleaner: Squirt onto areas of attention and let stand for 10-15 minutes. Then scrubs and flush. Repeat once if needed. Okay, that sounded easy enough.

He did as was instructed, and used the fifteen minutes he waited to assemble and ingest a sandwich. When he re-entered the room, he saw that the cleaner had loosened up the muck enough that it was now sliding down the toilet's interior and into the water. Still a bit skeptical, he grabbed the toilet brush and slid it across a particularly grungy spot.

It came right off.

His eyes widened and he kept scrubbing, watching in awe the dirtiness come away with very little effort, like rain water sliding harmlessly down your window. In a matter of about two minutes he was done, flushing the toilet and staring blankly at it's now-white-and-sparkling-clean state.

That toilet cleaner sure did what it was supposed to.

Paolo stared at the toilet brush in his hand thoughtfully. Then he set it on the counter, strolled through the flat to his front door, and grabbed his handy dandy flying-machine-cleverly-disguised-as-an-umbrella. Stepping through the door and closing it behind him, he set off for the nearest store, on a new mission to get himself some of that miracle-working toilet cleaner and a nice little toilet brush of his own.

– e – n – d –