Chapter 9

---------------------------------------------------------------

April 2, 2001 - Monday

Dear Diary,

The next time a man tells me he knows of a brilliant means of escape – or of doing almost anything else in the world – I am NOT going to listen.

Of course, Agent Rock – who made a point of telling me that his real name is Florence last night when neither of us could sleep for sheer anticipation of putting our Brilliant Plan into motion (and also for terror of the mice periodically scurrying up my skirt, in my case), thus proving that he wants very badly to be picked on – did manage to get us out of that well-stocked dungeon.

I only wish that our daring escape hadn't ended in our doing dishes whilst chained to the sinks in a large, industrial-looking kitchen.

And I REALLY wish that Bone hadn't found it necessary to make me wear a bloody maid outfit! First a collar; then a leash; then lots of poufy skirts, an apron, and a ruffly hat!

And why didn't Agent Florence have to wear one?

Hehehe…yes, I have been having fun with this, and shall doubtlessly continue to. Although, I did nearly lose a finger the fourteenth time I said, "Be a dear and pass the tea towel, would you, Florence?"

I think it is just as well for my own continued existence that I didn't bother to share with him the delightful mental images of him wearing a frilly outfit similar to mine.

At any rate, all of this is doing very little towards explaining what our daring escape entailed, and exactly where it went wrong.

And that IS an interesting story.

Well, closer to a painful and embarrassing story, if you want the truth.

Either way, whether interesting or painful and embarrassing, I had better get on with it quickly. I only have so much time, as I am currently on my break.

At least Mr. Bone gives us breaks.

Rather an odd thing to do, when one considers that we're prisoners, and this whole dish-washing thing is a punishment.

Have suddenly realized, with much dismay, that the counter I am perched on while writing is soaking wet.

Wonderful.

Well, at least I didn't ruin any GOOD clothes this way.

I am honestly going to complain to Bone about wearing this while Agent Rock gets to wear his own clothes.

I wonder why, anyway.

Have concluded that Mr. Bone is simply a pervert with a maid…thing.

Have also concluded that my attempt to explain Our Daring Escape and How it Went Wrong has hit an undeniable wall.

Am going to try this again.


Honestly, I should have known that we were headed for nothing but pain and trouble when Agent Rock voiced those fatal words, "You flirt with him to distract him, and I'll knock him over while his attention's on you!"

Did I warn Agent Rock about the inevitable failure of this abysmally stupid plan?

No.

Did I instead congratulate him on thinking of this and ask how exactly I should flirt with Bone and would he let me practice on him first?

Oh, yes.

Well, come now! It was the stupidest possible thing to do in the situation; why wouldn't I have done it?

I think it fit the pattern quite admirably.

The pattern of what? Why, the pattern of absolutely everything we've tried to do so far while on this mission.

Well, to make a long story short, Mr. Bone was not fooled when I assumed a seductive pose and asked him if that was a cucumber in his pocket, or if he was just happy to see me.

Although, I almost did manage to get him side-tracked into explaining that yes, it was actually a cucumber in his pocket.

Apparently, he likes to have one on hand, just in case.

While he was explaining this, Agent Rock tried to rush him.

I say "tried" because, still being chained to the wall, he was utterly unsuccessful. He ended up just sort of running in place several feet away from Bone, while Bone stared at him oddly and I groaned in despair a whole lot.

Honestly, I wonder why neither of us considered that Bone might not come close enough to Agent Rock for him to knock over.

For that matter, I wonder why Agent Rock didn't decide to abandon the plan when it became clear that it wouldn't work.

I think he's inhaled too much flour, and it's beginning to affect his brain adversely.

Well, upon our attempt at escape, Bone became very angry for about ten seconds, during which he threw a tantrum that would have made any two-year old shake their head in disgust at the man's inability to control his emotions. Then, very suddenly, he calmed and assumed a scary sort of smirk. Then he told us that, since we wanted to leave the room so badly, he had just the thing for us, and that we wouldn't be returning to the room to find out just how good we'd had it for a long, long time.

I don't mind admitting that at that, I started screaming like Drake confronted by a diary as all manner of complex, bizarre, and utterly, utterly painful death machines made their way through my mind.

Imagine my immense relief (and, oddly enough, my shred of disappointment) when we found ourselves washing dishes.

And now, I have just been informed by an angry Agent Florence (hehe!) that my break is up, so I'd better get back to work before Bone takes away our breaks altogether.

If he tried, I would complain to the Union of Prisoners Put to Work in the Lairs of Madmen.

All right, so I know I've no leg to stand on here. I know there's no such thing.

Although, there should be.

These villains are altogether too fond of oppressing people.

Honestly; a MAID outfit!

Your faithful (and disgruntled) servant,

Wendy

--------------------------------------------------------------

April 3, 2001 – Tuesday

Dear Diary,

You know, with every day that passes, I wish more and more that I had never had a six-hundred pound box of rocks land on me and narrowly escaped the same fate with five massive bookshelves.

Agent Florence has just peeked over my shoulder, and demanded to know what the hell I'm on about this time.

Have just explained how my "superpower" was discovered.

Have decided that I hate Agent Florence, as he has just nodded with the air of one finally understanding matters, and said,

"Oh! So, THAT'S what you're good for!"

Have decided that I hate Agent Florence even more, as he has just informed me with a mischievous grin, that would have been cute if it hadn't been on someone insulting me, that I am very, very good at being a hopeless bungler and an eternal klutz.

I am now officially not speaking to him.

Have relented, and decided that I will speak to him, but very coldly, since he has told me that I may be a klutz, but I'm a very cute klutz.

Humph! Flattery will get you nowhere, Agent Florence.

Oh, my. I ought to tuck my diary back out of sight, as the door has just slammed open again. I suppose it's back to the kitchen for us.

Sigh…

I was hoping I would be able to avoid that silly maid outfit again.

I didn't dare to hope that we would be rescued or escape or anything like that, after yesterday, but I had thought that avoiding the outfit was a reasonable thing to wish for.

Apparently not.

Have just asked Mr. Bone, who has just swept dramatically and menacingly into the room (I'm sure that was the intended effect, at least) why on earth he is having his prisoners wash dishes.

He has replied quite politely that it is because his entire staff of henchmen have threatened to go on strike if they develop dishpan hands from all this menial labour.

Prisoners, he has informed us, cannot go on strike.

Humph! Well, we'll just see about that if I have to stay in this silly costume much longer!

Your faithful (and still disgruntled) servant,

Wendy

---------------------------------------------------------

April 4, 2001 – Wednesday

Dear Diary,

Nothing terribly exciting happened today. Agent Florence and I washed a lot of dishes, Mr. Bone gave me a new maid outfit to try on (a bright pink one, with a much shorter skirt, as he is indeed a pervert of epic proportions), I attempted to teach a few of the mice that live in our nest of flour with us to tap-dance, I learned that you cannot teach mice to tap-dance, Agent Rock learned that when you poke a mouse in the back of the head it turns around and bites your finger, and I learned that when you laugh at Agent Rock's misfortune, he does not speak to you for the rest of the day.

Oh, yes; and we were fed to a large, scary death machine.

Nothing came of it, quite obviously.

Of course, I could be writing from beyond the grave.

Spooky, no?

But I'm not writing from beyond the grave. I'm still quite firmly on this side of the grave, in a sack of flour, listening to Agent Rock mutter about the mouse bite on his left pinky finger.

He's being extra-careful to mutter loudly enough that I can hear every word, since he can't actually talk to me.

He isn't doing that right now.

Talking to me, that is.

Imagine my despair.

Still, I suppose I ought to write an account of the only event of the day worth mentioning.

Let me just say that I was right about the egg-beaters.

This morning, at approximately 9:30 a.m., Agent Rock and I found ourselves tied to giant egg-beaters, which would then be lowered into a massive vat of meringue, where we would remain until we drowned in the mess of egg white and sugar.

I really, really, really hate theme villains.

But I really, really, really love my useless superpower.

You see, while the beaters were being lowered, Agent Rock and I were both flailing and twisting in a desperate attempt to free ourselves before we died in the silliest possible way that doesn't involve penguins.

After all, that's what the heroes always do in movies, and I can't remember the last time I saw a movie hero die in a large, silly death machine.

While I was squirming and whimpering that I didn't want to be a pie, my shoe came off, and flew into the mechanism, which Bone idiotically left exposed instead of building a protective canopy, or even putting them inside the machine, thus proving that he is every inch a true super-villain by his sheer stupidity.

The mechanisms rather disapproved my shoe being in them, and began to creak and groan and spark rather wildly.

Bone was in the process of running from the room and leaving us to die in the explosion, when one of his minions scurried in and whispered something to him, while both of them cast me all manner of suspicious, loathing, and indifferent glances.

Then Bone said something to the minion before storming away in a rather monumental huff.

You see, as the minion who rescued us (George, by the way) explained to us on the way back to the pantry, he had found out through means that he told us with nervously shifting eyes were a secret, about my special gift for lucky accidents. When he had explained his findings to Bone, his boss had decided not to risk the health of his entire fortress by leaving me to cause more damage to the various things that will inevitably be trying to harm me in a blowing-up death machine just yet, until it became completely necessary.

Or until he was on the verge of succeeding at sucking the world into a black hole of sheer deliciousness and his own survival became a non-issue.

I asked curiously why they hadn't gone ahead and killed Agent Rock, who promptly put me in a headlock while yelling at me to shut up.

This, I suppose, is the other reason that he is currently not speaking to me.

Yes, it is still very tragic.

Your faithful servant,

Wendy

----------------------------------------------------------------------

April 5, 2001 – Thursday

Dear Diary,

Continuing on from yesterday's pattern of learning important lessons, I learned an important lesson today: when you try to feed Agent Rock to a giant death machine, he takes rather violent exception.

You see, I was awakened this morning by the sound of my dear friend Florence trying to chew through his leash again. This time, though, he seemed quite set on accomplishing it.

And then the silly boy proceeded to whine for the next hour about how much his chipped tooth hurt!

I was sorely tempted to kick him in a delicate area to take his mind off of the pain of his tooth, but I was derailed from this train of thought, perhaps for the best, when the door swung open.

I think Mr. Bone must be tired of having us around.

He's abandoned showmanship and stopped creaking the door open with ominous slowness, opting instead to just sort of slam it open.

Still, he made quite a sensation, not by his entrance, but by who he dragged in after him.

Or rather, who he had at least seven of his minions drag in after him, much with the air of the unfortunates in charge of rounding up a runaway bull, since he himself is far too noodly in the arms and chest to do it himself.

Honestly, he ought to think about taking up rugby. He'd build up his arm strength in no time, and he'd get some broadness to his chest.

Unless he ran away crying the first time someone shoved him.

Which is very possible.

At any rate, I have yet again become side-tracked, proving that the boredom is beginning to make me go more than a little mad.

At this, Drake, who has been reading over the shoulder that Agent Rock is not reading over, has snorted and said it was a little late to worry about that.

Yes, Drake.

Come now, who did you think Bone's minions had dragged in?

Yomiko's far too skilled to be caught (particularly by an idiot like Bone), unless she was being lured with a book.

Nancy is also far too skilled to be caught, and doesn't have the susceptibility to bribery by book.

Ye gods, could you imagine? What a pair they would be!

At any rate, I am being ordered to put my diary away so that the three of us can plan our escape.

I have just asked Florence, who has really gotten off entirely too easily for all the torment he has put me through in the past two days, if he is planning on suggesting something that will work this time.

I have just been told, in no uncertain terms, to shut up.

Drake has added that he's just itching for an excuse to throw my diary out a window.

Drake is now grumbling, as I have pointed out the severe lack of windows in our dungeon-pantry. I wish he would stop it; it is getting rather tiresome to hear these men grumble everlastingly.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I wish Drake would go back to grumbling.

You see, while we waited for Agent Rock to stop pouting over the indignity of being dipped into meringue (which Drake had enough questions about!), Drake asked why on earth I was wearing a maid outfit. And a bright pink maid outfit, at that.

I grudgingly explained that Mr. Bone is a horrid, dirty old man, upon which Drake laughed until I thought he would be sick.

And honestly, I may well have been thinking the same thing since I first put the damn thing on, but I do wish Drake would stop chuckling about how I ought to make sure to smuggle it out with me when we finally escape, to model for Joker.

Although, I do wonder if he would like it. He would probably like the other one better. I doubt he harbours much of a hidden fondness for bright pink, even though the short skirt might convince him to develop a taste for it…

Ehem! Am now subtly wiping the trail of drool off the page and asking Drake how he came to be caught.

Am now waiting for Drake to stop grumbling long enough to tell me.

Oh, dear; Drake has just motioned for Agent Rock and me to gather around. I've seen him do this before – this story is going to be a long one…

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Am pleased to report, diary dear, that Agent Rock is still the stupidest person in the room.

I know that he was desperately hoping for Drake's story to surpass the stupidity of attacking twelve minions of a known enemy in a seedy bar, but really, it was quite heroic, and really rather dramatic.

And romantic, I would say, if he would stop describing Yomiko as "that stupid girl" long enough to let me!

Although, I suppose it is just as well that he doesn't exactly seem to be melting with passion for the woman he just sort-of rescued from the clutches of evil (and stupidity); Yomiko and Nancy are so wholly adorable together that it would be quite a shame to taint it with a sordid love triangle.

And now, here is the story:

Drake, Yomiko, and Nancy were in the process of tirelessly searching the city high and low in the desperate quest to find their allies (at least, that is what I am pretending, along with imagining into the scenario a nice bit of gut-twisting worry for my – er, our – no, just my – safety on the part of Mr. Joker), when they encountered a group of them quite unexpectedly.

At least, Drake said, that is what they assumed the group of eight men with muffins on their heads were.

Agent Rock snorted at this point, and commented that Drake must be a wuss, to have been taken prisoner by only eight henchmen, and with backup; he, as he so kindly reminded us, had required twelve henchmen to suppress just him.

At this, Drake told Agent Rock flatly to shut up.

Ah! It is nice to no longer be the only one being told that!

Back to the story.

The group of henchmen managed to divide the three of them, at which point a lot more henchmen flooded into the area, which has put Agent Rock into a bit of a snit.

At any rate, from where he was fighting off several men trying to repeatedly poke him in the head with carrots, he noticed three men dangling books temptingly before Yomiko's eyes. He looked around to see where Nancy was, and she was quite occupied with the twelve men poking her with carrots. Then he looked back to see Yomiko very close to taking the bait and being captured.

Then, as Drake puts it, he "sorta panicked". Utterly forgetting that Yomiko usually has more of a plan than one might think to watch her, he made for the three book-dangling henchmen, thus ignoring his own group of carrot-poking henchmen, who thus managed to quite effectively knock him out with some sort of blunt object.

A ladle, I told him helpfully, although I don't think he appreciated my helpfulness.

And the part of this story that made Agent Rock snort with laughter and Drake and I both hit him, is the fact that, as he went about the business of being unconscious, he saw, through blurring vision, Yomiko snatch up the books from all three men at once and use the pages to glue the men to the wall.

And now, here we sit, Drake and Agent Rock and I, all trying very hard not to ask why on earth Yomiko and Nancy didn't come to Drake's aid while he was being clubbed with a ladle or seven.

Perhaps they've simply gotten lost.

Agent Rock has cheerfully suggested the possibility of their having been attacked and killed by rabid cheese Danishes.

Now Agent Rock has been duly swatted, and Drake has declared briskly that we should really try to think of an escape plan.

I know that it will be far, far more intelligent and successful than the one that Agent Rock and I recently failed so miserably at devising.

After all, it can't possibly be any stupider.

And now that I have just sealed all our fates, I shall go and offer what assistance I can.

Your faithful servant,

Wendy

----------------------------------------------------------

End Note: It is a small update, but an update nonetheless! (Strikes dramatic pose) Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed it.

Also, you may have noticed that I've altered the year of each entry to 2001. Upon finding out that everything in the OVA (or OAV - I can never get that straight!) happened in 2001, I was rather horrified at having written a story, in which Nancy was a central character, a year before any of the other three would have met her. Oops… :)