The Count's minions had nine hours to get New Years Eve, counting from when the Shy Guys sent their ultimatum and vanished into the sky.
They had seven hours by the time Count Bleck got them organized enough to get themselves to go to Shy Guy's Toybox and confront the Shy Guys.
They had six and a half hours after they figured out how to get there from Sammer's Kingdom.
They had five hours after they were done arguing over who would be going on the mission and doing what.
That was when Count Bleck told them to either go get New Years Eve back RIGHT NOW, or else spend the next year in the Dimension of Magma and Magma Alone. That's about when they got it in gear and set off for Shy Guys Toy Box. Nastasia stayed behind to relay information between Count Bleck and King Sammer, and the rest of them were off.
"This is soooo unfair," Mimi was whining. "I really like a good party. And when am I gonna have another chance to show off a dress this good?"
"I'm sure you'll find one," said Count Bleck.
"Do you really think so?"
"There's jes one thing ah can't get right in me head," said O'Chunks. "How ezzakly do yeh go about stealin' a thing like New Years Eve?"
"It's quite simple, O'Chunks," explained Count Bleck. "You see, 'time' is an unstoppable linear process given compact measurement by man in order to understand its passage. When the measurements enter into the common consciousness, they become 'concrete' in the abstract sense, if you will. Once it's more or less established, it's a matter of taking a chronomagraphogram—"
"Magic. Got it. Thank yeh."
Count Bleck nodded curtly. "That's your department, Dimentio."
Dimentio bowed. "Master of illusions, pleasure of crowds, magician—"
"Thank you for dropping the charming bit."
"Charming doesn't even begin to describe me, o Count."
"I'll give him that," Count Bleck said to Tippi. He turned back. "You've been awfully quiet back there, Mr. L. Anything to add?"
"I'm trying to remember," said Mr. L. "Did my brother ever try and steal something that shouldn't have been able to be stolen from people who shouldn't have wanted it in the first place?"
"Probably."
Mr. L sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right. He's done everything."
"It's a matter of perspective. But we're dawning on a New Year. It's time to make some changes. Out with the old, and in with the new. Mr. L, I believe you should resolve to embrace your new persona and stop holding yourself back with the old one."
"A new year is just an abstract marker placed to remember that the sun goes in circles, isn't it?"
"It is what you make it."
"What, the sun?"
Count Bleck shook his head.
Nastasia was getting a case history from King Sammer.
"Oh, it's awful," he was wailing. He was still on his throne, but now Nastasia had taken the place of the guards on his left. King Sammer looked over her while he talked. "A tournament like I enjoy doesn't come around often, but a festival like this one comes around once a year! Except for now, apparently!"
"Yeah, let's talk about that," said Nastasia. She poised her pen over his clipboard and said, "So, let's start. How long have you been at odds with the Shy Guys?"
"Since… well, it's never come up before," he said. "You see, the Shy Guys don't live near here and they don't come here. I only know about them from travel."
"But they know about you. And your parties, apparently."
"Everyone knows about our parties," said King Sammer. "New Years is the biggest festival we have here, and the festival we have here is the biggest one in all the worlds."
"Do a lot of people get invited?"
"Well, we generally try to keep out the tourists… but an invitation isn't entirely exclusive, I don't think."
Nastasia looked out over the crowd of Sammer Guys. "Not a lot of ethnic diversity, though, is there?"
King Sammer shrugged. "Talk to the guy with the blue and green stripes."
Nastasia made a note of that. "Continue…"
"The Shy Guys attended years ago and got a little wild. We wouldn't let them back in until they paid for the damage, but Shy Guys don't have any money. We asked them to bring a dessert but they refused."
"I see."
"It's very odd. Shy Guys are never really this awful. They must be especially cranky about something."
Count Bleck was getting the bullet points of the conversation from Nastasia over his Cell Phone SP. "Uh huh… Yes… All right. I see, murmured Count Bleck. Very well." He clicked it shut and put it in one of his cape's pockets.
"She said the Shy Guys must be especially cranky about something," he said. "Normally they are very easygoing and very spiteful at all. I wonder what could have happened to set them off in such a way."
There was a brief pause. Then:
"Ooooooooooooops."
Count Bleck lifted up his hat with intrigue. "Tell Count Bleck."
"Funny story," said Mimi. "True story, actually. And it was all Dimentio's fault, too, see. I want to make that perfectly clear."
Count Bleck held up a hand. "Wait a moment." He flipped out, and then reappeared with a cushy chair and a bag of popcorn. "Proceed."
Mimi elbowed Dimentio. "Dimentio, tell 'im."
"Ah. Yes, you see… during our last encounter with these Shy Guys… O'Chunks, old friend, what exactly was it that happened during our last encounter?"
O'Chunks shrugged. "Yeh got me. I dinna know what in boogly bugs yeh'r goin' on about."
"See," Mimi said, "last time we were talking to the Shy Guys, Dimentio kinda put a boulder on top of the toy box so they couldn't get out." She paused. "D'ya think that might put 'em in a sore mood?"
Count Bleck flicked a piece of popcorn in his mouth. "It is quite possible." He stood up and brushed off his lap. "New year. Fresh start. Perhaps this year you could resolve to try not to do anything stupid."
"But it's hard!"
Count Bleck held up a finger. "Just ask yourself this one thing before you make a decision. Ask yourself, 'Would I do this if Count Bleck were watching?'"
Tippi had been fluttering above Count Bleck's head, somewhere between trying not to laugh and trying not to cry. "And you almost managed to wipe out all of existence how, exactly?"
"Well, the Count's the brains," Mimi mumbled.
"You flatter me," said Count Bleck. "But I believe it was Dimentio who was pulling the strings. That's why I'm so disappointed in him."
"I do not waste my A material on frivolous tasks such as sky retrieval."
Mr. L raised a hand. "I'd just like to say that I was totally not here when all of that was happening."
"Would it have been different if you were?"
"… Probably not."
Count Bleck pointed his finger at each of them in turn. "New year. New starts. New mistakes—I mean no mistakes." He looked up at Tippi. "That last one didn't work out well."
They arrived just outside of Shy Guy's Toybox, in an abandoned building in Toad Town. Count Bleck lifted the top and leaned in. "Hello," he called. "Anybody home?"
Three miniature Shy Guys spring boarded out and reverted to full size before they landed on the ground outside. "Who goes there!"
"It is I, Count Bleck, and my merry minions, come to retrieve New Years Eve."
"Oh, um, we don't have it."
Count Bleck blinked. "But we saw you at the party. Do not tell me it was another group of Shy Guys."
"Um, yeah, it probably was."
"Yep. We don't have New Years Eve in there."
"And if we did, we wouldn't give it back!"
O'Chunks picked the last one up by his foot and dangled him upside down.
"Aah! Aah! Lemme go! Lemme go! Okay, we have it! It's in the toybox!"
"Where?"
"I dunno! Samuel lost it!"
"I did not!"
"You did too!"
Count Bleck raised is hands. "O'Chunks, put him down!" he commanded.
O'Chunks sneered, but obediently dropped the Shy Guy onto the ground below. The Shy Guy jumped up and ran to hide behind the toy box.
The first Shy Guy had his face in his hands. "Okay,' he said, "so Robert already gave it away. But our offer still stands. We want to be invited to a New Years party."
Count Bleck nodded. "Very well. I believe I have an idea of how to work this situation out quite nicely." He turned his head over to the minions and said, "So long as you remember the resolutions we discussed."
