The smell of fake flowers and other artsy things hung heavily in the air throughout the entirety of the Michael's arts and crafts store. Robert Downey, Jr. had not decided this was what he wanted to do with the extra three hours, but Rhonda had literally dragged him here, having been distracted by a store pamphlet blown on the wind.

"Excuse me, sir," the supervillainess asked an employee, arms full of markers, glue sticks, glitter containers, foam shapes, pipe cleaners, and all other manner of elementary school-level craft material.

The teenager turned, one of those artistic types. She had hair too short to even be considered a pixie cut, which was probably why she was mistaken for a man. She peered at the caped criminal for some time rather apathetically through her green plastic-framed glasses before answering, "Ma'am, you might want to get a shopping cart."

"No shopping carts until I find out where to get war zeppelin materials! Have you a zeppelin-fabric aisle? Perchance some fins and rockets?"

"If you're looking for the supervillainy section, you should ask him," said the aproned worker, pointing her thumb toward a man also wearing the Michael's apron, but over a latex catsuit and a cape with an impressive neckpiece that was covered in spikes of the variety one might see on a bulldog's collar. His name tag read, "Professor Pandemonium".

"Good sir," asked the supervillainess, "Might you point the way to the supplies of villainy?"

"It's right there," he answered in a deep and commanding baritone, gesturing toward a large sign over a section of the store that read, very specifically, "Supplies of Villainy". The sign was not only upwards of ten feet tall, it was also on fire. Rhonda wondered how she could have missed it. Past the sign the store became quite a bit more sinister; the shelves and floor were black and covered in dagger-fins and test tubes (to represent whatever kind of villain the customer happened to be).

Professor Pandemonium followed Rhonda (and thus also Robert Downey, Jr.) into the supervillainy section, where the damsel eagerly perused the "Jet-Propelled Rocket Robot" section. Never mind that jet-propelled rockets were just redundant; it was a cool title. "Madam," he purred, smirking ever so roguishly, "I could not help but notice that your interests indicate you are of the supervillainous persuasion. Might I offer any assistance in your plan, which I trust is taking over the world in some way, shape, or form?"

Rhonda was offended. She lifted the handcuff in the supervillain's face. "Can't you see I've already got an overlord to serve? Look here, Robert Downey, Jr. is the most villainous of villains! We're in the process of committing great villainy together, if you don't mind."

"How can this be?" questioned Professor Pandemonium. "I am the most villainous of villains!"
"You work at a craft store!"

"In the supervillainy section!" His apron burst into flames, and those flames burst into tiny robots that set about to terrorizing all the bacteria they could find. But only the good ones.

Robert Downey, Jr. was, unlike his companion, taking the man quite seriously. "Guy, I'm just an actor. For some reason this woman thinks I'm a supervillain. It's not true. At all. In fact, it's the opposite of true. It's a lie."

Rhonda, for a second, was taken aback by Robert Downey, Jr.'s very persuasive argument. Then she remembered that supervillains are persuasive by nature, and obviously this was some great ploy to get the poser to leave them alone. Professor Pandemonium was unconvinced. It showed in his goatee. Other things around him started bursting into flames, too. "Normally I would be unwilling to accept anything short of a partnership, and possibly also the signing over of a few souls or so," began the for-realsies supervillain, rising up in the flames of the destroyed supervillainy section of the Michael's. "But today I shall be merciful. And so I beseech thee: let me be thine liege. Nothing will change, really, except for that you'll have to follow my orders and I will murder you several times over if you don't. You also have to swear complete allegiance and wear my insignia. But it's not that bad." He laughed maniacally.

"Yeah, sure, whatever, dude," muttered Rhonda, overusing several commas. "What a poser. I mean, can you believe this guy? He takes himself so seriously. Let's go, Robert Downey, Jr. I got what I came here for."

And so all three left the burnt-out husk of the craft store without even paying. Frankly the supervillainess hadn't been planning on paying from the start, but everyone inside being dead certainly made it easier to avoid legal repercussions.

They spent the night watching old horror movies projected onto another moon Rhonda had had specially gravity-rayed into orbit in front of the fortress while sitting on a giant chair the supervillainess had forced the employees of Rooms To Go to build out of the five thousand smaller chairs, an activity which was punctuated only by either Rhonda's screams and claspings of Robert Downey, Jr.'s arm flirtatiously and the rumbling laughter of Professor Pandemonium as he thought up dozens upon dozens of evil schemes, all while building plasma guns and lasers.

He'd been searching for a new line of work anyway. Eight dollars was not the hourly wage he wanted.

It's just that it was impossible for him to find a job that wasn't at a craft store, with the economy the way it was.