Queen Tassara sat in her royal chamber, combing her hair before a mirror. She then blew out the candle by her bedside and went to sleep.
The night was ruined when a beam of green light shot into the window and enveloped Tassara, lifting her out of bed.
At that moment, the Queen's bodyguard, Akim, burst into the room.
"Tassara!"
He used one of the ropes decorating the curtains to lasso Tassara and save her just in time. The two of them looked out the window just in time to see someone ride away on horseback.
I guess the queen's subjects should be grateful that they weren't offered the opportunity to be …
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Queen for a Day
(Leo's Edition)
Author's note: Great beginning, eh? This isn't my usual format, but I'll use it for all future TS episodes. Well, on with the story! Oh, and one more thing. Remember the prank I played on Mandy at the end of the last ep? I'll be doing one of those at the end of every ep.
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Chapter 1: A Tale of Two Queens
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BEVERLY HIGH SCHOOL - 11:10 AM
"I'm telling you, girls, Leo," Clover explained, "with my new digital video camera, I'm a shoe-in for homecoming queen!"
Clover slipped a disc into a big monitor in the room. We watched Clover's little campaign video: "Vote Clover for queen! I swear I won't be mean!"
"Brilliant, isn't it?" The blonde seemed proud of her campaign, but we had other thoughts.
"It's, um, great, Clover."
"Yeah, in a painfully honest kind of way."
All of a sudden, the sound of a brass band filled the room. I jumped. "All right, who's the jerk who's running the school band through the cafeteria?"
The jerk happened to be none other than Mandy. She removed Clover's video disc and replaced it with her own. "Out of my way, ladies!"
Clover took her disc back angrily as we watched Mandy's campaign video.
"Clover is so over. It's Mandy who's dandy! Vote Mandy for homecoming queen! Yeah!"
The room was filled with cheers. Ours weren't among them.
"Aw, cheer up, Clover," Mandy said. "You did your best. Besides, it's not like you really ever had a chance at becoming homecoming queen, especially since I've got the entire football team in my back pocket."
"Must've had a hard time stuffing everyone in there," I commented.
"JB or varsity?" Alex asked.
"Both!"
"Wow. Impressive."
"I think so," Mandy responded as Clover elbowed Alex. "So, why don't you just give up now, Clover, and save yourself the humiliation of losing to me in front of the entire school!"
Clover reacted to this in the usual manner.
A LITTLE LATER
Clover drank the tea in her glass.
"Looks like you'll need to do some serious campaigning to beat Mandy," Sam suggested.
"Are you kidding?" Clover replied. "I can beat Mandy on my worst hair day!"
"What do you do," I quipped, "stand in front of Mandy's ballot box and make the voters laugh too much to vote?"
"Listen, Clover," a voice said from the balcony above, "I overheard everything, and I think I can help you with your campaign. Heck, I might even be able to secure the nerd vote for you. There's more of us than you think."
"Thanks, but no thanks, brainiac," Clover replied. "I do my own campaigning." The boy left.
"Don't be so hard on Arnold," I told Clover. "He offered to help your campaign, remember?"
"He'll get over it," Clover told us. "Come on, girls. You gotta help me campaign."
Clover approached the monitor, turned it off, and ejected Mandy's disc. She then threw it in a trash can outside the cafeteria.
As we began to leave, we heard a whirring sound from the trash can. We approached and looked … and were immediately sucked in.
Arnold opened the door and looked. The hall was empty.
THUMP! The WOOHP chute dumped us into a capsule that blasted off into the air.
"Ew," Alex said as the capsule started to drop, "Jerry's really crossed the line this time!"
"I hope he knows a good dry cleaner," Sam concurred.
The capsule locked into something on a WOOHP ship, dumping us out. My pencil had escaped from my ear during the ride; I found it in the capsule.
Clover looked around. "If this means Jerry's offering us a surprise cruise, then I'm willing to forgive him for ruining our clothes!"
Jerry stepped up to us. "No such luck, ladies."
"AHEM!"
"Right. Ladies and Leo."
CLICK!
Jerry showed us a map on a projector. "Right now, you are en route to the northern African nation of Lyrobia, where there's been a rather unusual kidnapping attempt on the nation's queen, Tassara. We suspect it may have been perpetrated by the neighboring enemy nation of Kenyopia. The two countries have been at war for 20 years."
"What do you mean by unusual kidnapping attempt?" Sam asked.
"Apparently the perpetrator used some sort of anti-gravity device to literally lift the queen from her palace."
Alex responded to this one. "Cool!" Jerry's expression changed her mind in an instant. "I mean, that's terrible, just terrible."
"Precisely why I'm sending you to protect Her Majesty. We don't want the existing conflict to escalate and spill over into other nations of Africa."
Clover had trouble with this idea. "Great. How am I supposed to campaign when I'm stuck in AFRICA?"
Jerry ignored Clover's question. "And now for the gadgets."
"Today you'll be receiving heat-sensor 6000 infrared motion-detector sunglasses …" He held a pair of sunglasses up to his eyes.
"… compressed water capsules for proper desert hydration …" He gestured to this item on the table.
… high-sensitivity electromagnetic bracelets, and an electromagnetic watch for Leo …" He put one bracelet on, activated it, and promptly found himself stuck to the metallic ceiling. He deactivated it and dropped down, laughing a little.
"… powerful little gadget, and last but not least, keys to a brand-new RATVAT."
This last one excited but confused Alex. "A brand-new RAT-what?"
"A RATVAT: Rugged All-Terrain Vehicle And Tunneler. It'll be waiting for you when you arrive at the palace. And don't ding it; we just had it painted."
Sam had one last question. "And how do we get-"
I stopped Sam. "Are you sure you want to ask that question?"
"Quiet, Leo. As I was saying, how do we get to the palace?"
Jerry smirked, and pressed a button, dumping us through a tunnel into a watercraft and shooting us across the water.
I had time for just one sentence: "I WARNED YOU, SAM!"
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Next chapter, coming up! Soon!