The usual disclaimer: Cosgrove Hall owns Dangermouse, all the other characters and the whole general idea. I own nothing but a fevered imagination.
The less usual disclaimer: The characterisation of DM here is meant to be like that of the surviving pilot episode - this is set before the series as we know it started, so it makes a sort of sense. The idea of DM in a tux and tie grew out of my research into the first (lost) pilot, by the way.
The downright unusual disclaimer: This completely contradicts my earlier fanfic, The Assistant. The two simply can't have happened in the same universe. But what do you expect from a grown woman who still watches childrens cartoons and then writes stories about them?
London, England. Land of hope and glory, mother of the free. Where every man is equal, and there are buttered scones for tea. And where, inside a regulation red pillarbox at the fashionable end of Mayfair...
"Check."
"Nonsense. Can't be." The white mouse frowned across the chessboard. "Where did that Knight come from?"
"It's been there for seven moves."
"Now look here, I might have one eye..."
"And if you used it, instead of obsessing over cornering my Queen-"
The video phone hissed into life with a burst of white noise. The pair abandoned their argument and sprang to attention as the Colonel's black and white image solidified.
From deep in his office, in a building so secret even he didn't know where it was, Colonel K surveyed his two best agents. They made an odd-looking team, even dressed identically in the regulation black tuxedoes of Her Majesty's Secret Service. The mouse was ex-military, one of the best in the business with an air that suggested he knew it. He provided the tactical knowledge, while his partner provided the technical nouse and scientific knowledge. His partner had the broad shoulders, muscular arms yet spindly legs of a toad.
"Ah, Greenback, DM. Got a job for you. Trouble abroad."
"Best place for it," muttered the mouse.
"You remember last week Molvania declared war on Russia?"
"Yes Sir. Unusual act for a country with a population of seventeen."
"Twenty-three if you count the donkeys, Greenback. And then, three days ago Luxembourg declared sovereignty over all the world's stewed prunes. Brought supermarkets to a standstill across Europe. And then this morning, a small republic in the Coral Sea announced that they had a nuclear missile aimed at Julie Andrews..."
Both agents looked horrified.
..."And unless we hand over control of the world to them..."
"Yes Sir?"
"They'll make her sing a selection from the Sound of Music. Now, the boffins have tracked all this rampant evil down to a funny sort of ray, emanating from a castle in the Black Forest. Want you two to go and take a look."
"Yes Sir!" Both agents turned to go as the screen went dead. Dangermouse bounced into his seat on the couch, and as Greenback landed to his left, the lift descended to the garage.
The castle was dark and damp. Moisture glistened on the cold stone walls, the air was rank with the smell of neglect. Greenback traced one finger along the wall, gathering a thick layer of slime as he did.
"Nasty place."
"Well, it is German."
The toad sighed. "Dangermouse?"
"Yes, Greenback?"
"If you get hit by this unpleasantness-inducing ray..."
"Yes?"
"How will we know?"
The mouse stared down the dark corridor, avoiding his friend's eyes. He was quiet for a while.
"It's all right for you, Greenback. You spent the war in the radio control room. You weren't out there. You didn't see..." The mouse exhaled heavily. "There's a light down here. Come on."
The room was bare, but for the machine. It jutted from the floor like a slender metal pyramid, the point disappearing through a hole in the ravaged roof. Cables hung from the ceiling, connected to the machine like thick, dark cobwebs. The machine hummed to itself, an E minor suspended chord that would send shivers down the spine of any sane person in the room. But the only person in the room was not sane. A lupine figure bent over the controls, gently adjusting the precise combination of noxious poisons that made up the ray, carefully blending a mind-bending concoction of blue cheese, phosphorus, chloroflurocarbons, jazz trumpet solos and the aroma of stale socks. Suddenly, the figure laughed.
"Fools! All of them! They laughed at me, at my plans. Called me mad! We'll soon see who's mad... They'll rue the day they laughed at Professor Philadelphius Timothy Octavian John Winston Howard Mornington Crescent von Crumhorn!"
Crumhorn laughed again, so heartily he didn't hear the door softly open behind him.
"The game's up, Crumhorn!" The wolf spun around to find himself at the business end of a pistol brandished by a white mouse with an eyepatch.
"Now stop this nonsense and come quietly." Dangermouse advanced, slowly circling Crumhorn. As he circled, the wolf turned to follow him, giving Greenback an opportunity to examine the sinister machine. The toad cast a practiced eye over the device, committing the important specs to his photographic memory for the Service's records before rendering it inoperational with a single bullet to the CPU. Crumbhorn spun around, furious.
"Fool! Imbecile! Amphibian!" Crumhorn lunged for the toad in a blind fury. Dangermouse moved in to protect his partner and was sent flying with a blow from a furry fist. The mouse was momentarily airborne before becoming entangled in the cables hanging from the ceiling. He struggled to free himself when he realised the cables had gone slack - his weight had caused the tall machine to overbalance.
"Greenback! Look ou-"
And then the room exploded.
"Where is he now?" Dangermouse stared hard into his teacup, avoiding Colonel K's gaze.
"We think he's set up shop in a disused hedgehog packing factory on Wilsdon Green in the company of a crow and a catepillar of the Acherontia styx. Something to do with robot cats. All a bit sketchy."
"Is there any hope?"
"For Greenback? Impossible to tell. The long-term effects of that much jazz trumpet are unknown to science. For you..."
"I'm all right, Sir."
"Yes, well I still don't think it's a good idea for you to work alone. I want someone to keep an eye on you."
I promise the next story will be Penfoldcentric! And will probably contradict this one...