Not a whole lot to do in the little bird house. I mean, it had some creature comforts, like a bed, kitchen, shower, and a TV, but bird cable was a little ridiculous.

Judge Whoo-Dy.

The Big Bawk Theory.

Diners, Fly-Ins and Dives.

They had Falcon Crest with literal falcons, and a Doctor Who (actually `Whooo') who occasionally regurgitated a bone puck after devouring a mouse. Corny. I shut it off.

I grabbed a controller and was about to play `Caw of Whoooty' on their `X-Bawks' when I suddenly noticed a glowing blue figure seated in the couch next to me.

The queen.

She picked up a controller. "There's a two player cooperative mode on this."

I shrugged and started a game with her.

Nothing really groundbreaking. It was just a generic Call of Duty game with birds in it. "What we're doing now is symbolic of the joint rule I wish us to have over the bird kingdom."

"For that I'm going to blast you," I said, unloading a few rounds into her player.

We didn't talk for a few minutes.

"What's it like on the other side?" I asked.

"It's all right. I'm a cartoon character, so I sat on a cloud and played a harp for awhile. Got tired of that, went down to a fun little diaper party in limbo..." She sighed. "I was told my time was not yet, which makes what we discuss very important."

"What do you want me to do? I saw you getting stabbed and bleed out. Face it, you're history."

She answered, "You can return my life to me. If you agree to assume the throne."

I blasted some uniformed cat on the screen. "I'm sorry, Cupcake. I can't. You're going to have to go back to your little diaper party. I'm not interested."

I pressed pause. I expected the screen to say `paws' like it does in some games, but they're birds, so whatever. "Is there any way I can use this TV to check on that missile Misty sent up? I want to see where it is now."

Cupcake touched her temples with her fingers, and a wavy bubble appeared before me, showing the rocket taking off in the air. "There. How's that?"

"Great. Now look. Isn't there some other way we can bring you back to life that doesn't involve me becoming queen forever?"

"I don't see why you're making such a fuss over it, Jessica. Do you have something important to do in the noid realm?"

She had me there. I didn't. Other than conquering the world, which I wasn't sure I wanted to do anymore.

Still, it was better than hanging out with all the bird brains..."I...can I have some time to think this over? It's a lot of responsibility..."

Cupcake gave me a nod. "I'll give you a day to think it over. When you're ready, simply place my crown upon your head, and wear my symbol. You do have my crown, don't you?

I pulled it out of my bikini. "Right here."

"Good."

She touched the crown, and it glowed, the inside flaring with a string of glowing Elvish symbols.

Well, they looked Elvish to me, and I'm mostly basing this off of a collectible glass I got from Burger King, not because I'm a geek. "Uh, Cupcake? Can I please go outside to think this over?"

"You most certainly may." She wiggled her beak and the cage door suddenly popped open.

I hurried to the `porch', looking around for a way to safely cross the chasm, but there wasn't any.

"I meant your castle. Can you help me out a bit further by taking me back where I came from? Please?"

Cupcake smiled. "It would be my pleasure. All you need to do is wear the crown, and summon the birds to your aid."

I rolled my eyes. "Nice try. If you wouldn't mind..."

Instead of helping me, she vanished.

"Stupid bitch," I grumbled. "You're actually making me glad you're dead!"

All of a sudden, I see a bunch of termites chewing a hole through the wall of this dungeon, one big enough for a person to walk through.

And then Misty came through the opening on the back of a giant scarab beetle.

The bug flew across the chasm, latching onto my cage. "Are you cozy here? Or would you like a ride out?"

"Out, please."

She ordered her bug to rip open some bars, and in no time I was back outside, zooming over the forest. "Be careful with the wings. This belongs to my sister."

"You know, I haven't seen your sister around, Insectia, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's her name."

"If I remember your story correctly, shouldn't she be stuck in a capsule somewhere, ready to be awakened, instead of hanging around with bugs in Cool World?"

Misty sighed. "Okay. You got me. I actually cloned myself, and there was a bug inside the machine at the time."

I chuckled. "I see."

"I hear you and Chad got into a disagreement," she said as we crossed over suburbia. "I admit I haven't been very forthcoming about certain things..."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Of course, I can't honestly tell you that I didn't have fun..."

"So you'll stay and help Chad raise Isosceles?"

"I thought I'd have more to raise than just that."

Misty brought the bug to the ground in front of the apartment. "Oh come now. You honestly expect me to believe that you'd be happy as a full time stay at home mom?"

"These are semi-animated children we're talking about. I wouldn't have to change poopy diapers or clean up barf or scrub slimy Cheerios out of my car upholstery, so yes."

She gave me a consoling pat on the shoulder. "I'm sorry. I thought, with you knowing villains as well as you do, that this wouldn't be a surprise."

I thought about it a minute. "I guess you have a point. I'm not really that shocked. I'm more disturbed than anything. And mostly on account of Chad."

"You don't necessarily have to stay with him if you don't want to."

I didn't know if I wanted that, either. "Well..."

Misty dismounted her flying steed, clapping her hands. "Let's focus on conquering the world, shall we?"

"That's an excellent idea."

Misty had one of Master Blaster's magic mirrors set up next to her missile launch station, so we only had to step through to enter the floating jukebox.

We hovered over downtown Kansas City. Below me I could see a pointy concrete skyscraper with a multicolored prism on top, likely the KCPL building, and a few streets away, the Bartle Hall convention center.

Me and that center had a love-hate relationship. I sold a couple prints during an art show one year, but the following year, nada, and this creep kept trying to stalk me in the bathrooms and pull down my skirt.

And don't get me started on their sales tax. How is anyone supposed to make a profit when tax equals the amount of your sale?

I stared at the building in disbelief. "Seriously? Here?"

Misty pointed at the metal turnstile things on top of the structure. "Do those look like a feature of an ordinary building to you?"

"No. I've always thought those came from outer space. They're hideous."

"Disguising them as pathetic attempts at sculpture was part of the plan."

"That was a good plan!"

"Now. I need you to guard the stations at Bartle while I take over the main pod at KCPL. Can you do that?"

"I'm right on top of that, Rose."

She stared. "My name isn't Rose."

"Never mind," I groaned. "It was in a movie."

Master Blaster used those giant Stargate rings to beam us into position. I waited on the roof for maybe a half hour, and then the missile came, smashing the glass prism on the other building, electrifying it and the sky stations. Well, mostly the prism.

A few minutes later, Drew and his buddies came in, wrecking everything.

We fought.

To make himself even more of a prick, Drew had his magic ring, sending huge flocks of birds at me, trying to knock me into the street below.

I'm sorry, but Drew was really pissing me off. I knew his weak spot was real stuff like taxes and his bank, so I brought down his defenses by reminding him of these things, again and again. I threw him through a skylight, into the convention center.

Before I dropped him, I stole his ring.

I thought that would be the end of him, or at least hurt him enough to leave our stuff alone, but no. He pops back out and we start fighting again. Apparently he drank or ate something that made him permanently doodle-fied, which made him a pain in the ass to kill or throw off the roof.

In addition to that, he somehow managed to control the swarms of cartoon birds with nothing but his mind. I guess he always was a bird brain.

I wore the crown out of desperation. The moment I put it on my head, I knew it was a mistake, but what was I supposed to do? He was about to kill me!

"I knew you'd change your mind," Cupcake's voice said inside my head. "You will make a fine queen."

I didn't answer verbally, but in my mind I saw myself commanding an army of evil birds, aiding Misty with her ambitious project, and, most importantly, exploiting the feathered kingdom for menial woodworking tasks.

I could feel the bird queen smugly observing these thoughts, scoffing at them.

I called the birds to attack Drew and throw him over the side.

Drew, I guess, had been doing the same.

And then, I don't really know why, but our birds all started...going to town on each other, like it were mating season or something. Drew suggested it was a Freudian slip, but...well...

Okay, fine. I was kinda thinking about being his queen, but it wasn't a conscious thought that I'd intentionally think on purpose.

Anyway, there was only one way to even the fight in my favor, and that was putting on that stupid ring I stole from him.

I probably shouldn't have done that either.

Cupcake took over my body. She possessed me. My ordinarily sexy doodle body became...bleah.

All right, so she's kind of cute, but it's not something I want to wake up and stare at in the mirror every morning. "What did you do to me?"

"I'm making you into a queen."

My brain flooded with ideas about restructuring the baby farms. I slapped myself, trying to force myself to stop thinking about it. "Stop! I want my body back!"

"When I'm through with you, you won't want it back."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

She didn't answer, she just told Drew to continue ruining Misty's plans, while she...resolved our issues.

"Tell me," I said. "What's happening to me? Why is this happening?"

I could see her ghost smiling and winking at me. "You know perfectly well, Jessica. For now we share the same mind."

"Shut up!" I shouted. "You're dead!"

"Yes. And you are partly responsible."

"So this is revenge."

"Not quite. In death, I have gone beyond that. Jessica, the crown of the bird queen can only be worn by someone who is worthy in thought."

I laughed. "You really think I'm royal material."

"No. That is why I had to leave my diaper party in the Great Beyond to join minds with you. You are not worthy on your own, so I must shape you into a proper queen."

"By possessing me."

"It has been proven necessary."

"What about Misty? She wore the crown, but nothing happened to her..."

"She did not assume the throne. My people allied to her out of simple necessity. They didn't want someone worse than her enslaving them. The ancients understood her intentions in thought enough to allow her power only until Flo no longer posed a threat. Your friend agreed mentally to abdicate the moment this was a certainty.

"You, on the other hand, defeated Flo. This cannot be understated."

No good deed goes unpunished, I thought. "And what about the ring?"

"The ring is the heart of the bird queen. Only a leader with a kind compassionate heart can be deemed worthy of wearing the ring."

"Hence why you transformed my body into this," I groaned.

"Actually, you do have more compassion than you let on, which is why I haven't destroyed you utterly from this body. There is a real bird queen's heart beating feebly within your breast. You don't want to admit it, but your heart hurts a little every time you see an animal being abused."

"Well..." I sighed and shook my head. "Are you going to give my body back sometime? Please say you are. Please."

She answered by slowly waving her hand at me.

And then, reality faded away, and I found myself floating in a white void, occupied by giant crystals with bird perches, suspended by nothing, and large ghostly bird heads that reminded me of that Necronomocon guy from Evil Dead.

I drifted downwards, alighting on a long wooden board. When I glanced backwards, I came to the sudden realization that I had taken the place of a kookoo in an immense kookoo clock. At present, the board didn't look like it was going anywhere, so I just took in my surroundings. "Hello?"

My voice echoed through this place like I were in a cave.

"Is there anyone there?"

A flock of winged creatures in red capes came flapping down from the void above me, settling on the perches of the surrounding crystals.

All birds, all in robes, looking like those blue midgets from the Green Lantern comics.

"Can someone explain what's going on? Please?"

Suddenly Cupcake appeared in the air next to me, a hovering blue phantom in Depends. "I think a more in-depth explanation is in order. I believe you deserve that much."

"Ready, go!" I said impatiently.

Cupcake cleared her throat. "Your friend's spear was made of noid alloy, which means my old body cannot survive in its current state. It will likely turn colorless and fade into nothing."

"But that's okay. You have your limbo diaper party."

"I'm afraid it isn't that simple. You see, I'm too important."

"The bird kingdom must never be without a queen to rule the Roost," a robed crow on one of the perches said in an ominous booming voice.

I noticed the Sorceress from He-Man seated on a crystal next to my clock, looking very frail. "My power continues to weaken as long as there is no bird queen on the throne!" she cried in an overly melodramatic way.

Groan.

"You have been selected for the replacement of our queen," said the blue bird from the Disney movie, Rio, also in a robe. "But your education is not yet complete."

"Education! I have a four year bachelors degree from art school!"

Everyone laughed at me, and it echoed.

"I will take over your body, to teach you the right way," Cupcake said. "When you have learned to rule the kingdom to my satisfaction, I will depart, and you will regain the use of your body once more."

I suddenly felt cold. "And what if I never do?"

"I am a fictional character. By joining your mind with mine, you add memories, knowledge, and a rich tapestry of emotion, giving my personality a depth previously unheard of since the very beginning of Cool World."

"So I'm fleshing out your flat character."

"Perhaps you should think of it as me fleshing out yours!"

"Are you saying my personality is flat?" I said, anger edging into my voice.

"No...but you do strike me as a bit...shallow."

"I'd strike you, if you weren't already a ghost!"

She only smiled.

"I have taken you to this mystic place to help you through the transition. This way, if I decide to do something you find unpleasant, like, for example, killing your friend Miss Terious, or having sex with Drew, you will have a place to stay in, until you can learn to accept the new situation."

I shuddered. "Ugh! Seriously?"

"It is an appropriate villain's punishment, I'd say. One that is more than fair to both parties involved. You'll still be you. I'll just borrow your body from time to time, and you, in turn, can take care of important matters where my body resides."

"So, what. Do I just float around here and talk to robed Woody Woodpecker while you ruin my life?"

I wasn't joking. He was standing on the perch to the left of my clock.

"Actually, I did have another plan for you...You see, Cool World has a magical history, and I have ways of sending your consciousness back there, into the body of another doodle, while I take care of matters elsewhere."

"Why don't you go elsewhere and get out of my head?"

"Eventually I will. But at present, I have to save the world. Enjoy your little vacation in...Dungeons and Dragons!"

"What?" I said, but by then the realm of the bird council was gone, and I lay sprawled in a field somewhere in the middle of a forest.

Looking down, I saw that my arms had become titanium white, and ended in hooves.

Hooves! I thought. You're a bird queen! What right do you have putting anyone into the body of a hoofed thing?

But then I saw a scrawny looking wizard in a green robe, who just happened to have a bird-like beak...due to being a dragon.

"Uni!" he called. "Uni!"

Next to him, a little barbarian guy, a bird beaked dragon in a Viking helmet, was yelling too. "Uni!"

I looked around to see if I could humor him by finding this enigmatic "Uni," whatever it was, but as I was circling around, the barbarian guy rushed over to me, squeezing me to his chest. "There you are!"

And then he kissed me on the mouth, which was extra strange.

I jumped out of his arms, shaking myself indignantly.

"All right. That's enough of that!" I shouted, but the only thing that came out was, "Nyaah myaah nyaah."

This. I had to deal with this while Cupcake took off with my body and ruined everything.

In an impotent rage, I pounded my hooves against the dirt and screamed.

"Myaaaaah!"

000000000000

Drew

000000000000

"Drew!" Whiskers called from a sky station. "I'm about to reverse the polarity on the neutron flow! Keep Emm away from the pylon!"

I gave him a grim nod.

"Turtles!" I shouted as I chased after Miss Terious. "Cats! Birds! Anyone! This is your chance to save the world! Stop her!"

The moment I said this, four strange figures leapt down from the sky stations, blocking my path.

They resembled Miss Terious, with only slight variations. For example, one female was green, with a pony tail and mandibles sticking out of her jaw. One had no eyes, and had a proboscis for a mouth. There was a male, but he wore an exoskeleton bikini similar to the others.

It seemed they had been restored from hibernation just like Emm had planned.

Whiskers climbed down the fourth pylon, his task completed.

Miss Terious had been fleeing, but now she stopped, shouting to her comrades.

"Attack and kill those saboteurs, then repair the sky stations! Zorbatron must live again!"

The other aliens cheered in agreement, going on the offensive.

I sent my birds ahead, but the aliens drew swords and diced them to bits. I would have sent another swarm, but I felt bad enough about the last one.

The Ninja Turtles came in, engaging in combat with them, but they got thrown across the roof.

The male alien flung my sister down to the street, but I figured she was okay, being completely animated and all.

Riffraff and Cleo charged with their barbarian weapons, but they fared no better. Neither did Sneezer.

Even Master Splinter with his Kung Fu moves, couldn't get through.

I thought we were done for until I heard the last sky station explode.

Misty's crewmates turned toward the source of the noise, and as they did, the top of KCPL exploded.

The aliens screamed, clutched their chests, and collapsed on the roof. It seemed they hadn't fully charged or something.

"No!" Miss Terious yelled angrily.

Actually, one of the creatures survived. The green lady.

All of a sudden, this alien's body turned titanium white, and a stalk with a ball of red fur at the top exploded from her head. She gained cat ears, and...weight.

"I feel funny, kupo," the creature said. "I climbed inside one of those sky stations, and it messed me up bad, kupo."

I rolled my eyes. "Sorry to hear that. Can you please help me stop this crazy-"

A second later, I see a real knife tearing a hole through the mog's chest, a pint of ink gushing from the wound.

"I'm sorry, kupo. I think I'm dead." She collapsed on the roof.

"It's just you and me now," I said, marching up to Miss Terious.

She snatched the knife (a real blade) out of Ms. Kupo's back, sticking it onto a staff she formed out of energy. "I can take you."

"I'd like to see you try." And I came at her with flying punches and kicks.

The trouble was, she had a weapon and I didn't. I had to duck her swings in order to slip in a punch, and quite a few times she'd clobber me with the dull end of the staff, and I'd fall on the roof.

I sent a bird swarm after her, but she only lowered her visor and shot some sticky gunk at the whole mess of them, trapping them on the ground. "How do you think I caught the ones before?" she said with a self satisfied grin.

With cartoon speeds equaling my own, she swept my feet out from under me with her staff.

This time I stayed down. She had me pinned by the throat.

Her staff twirled around, and she had the real knife poised at my throat, ready to end my life.

"You leave my king alone!" a voice shouted.

Looking back, I saw Cupcake approaching with the nasty metal spear she'd been originally stabbed with.

"You?" Miss Terious cried. "Back from the grave?" She whirled her staff in challenge, careful to keep her foot pressed against my throat as she did so. "We have to do something about that!"

The two faced each other with their staffs, striking each other, blocking, neither one giving an inch.

I got up from the ground, and tried to help, but Miss Terious knocked me into a pylon.

"It was the crown," Miss Terious said to Cupcake. "Wasn't it?"

Cupcake blocked another strike. "Yes."

"If I beat you," Miss Terious said, swinging her staff. "The bird empire ends. I take your throne, and your people will have a great future in manufacturing. All of them!"

"And if I win," Cupcake said. "I will take your body to replace mine!"

The statement caused Miss Terious to miss a swing. "What are you using right now?"

Cupcake gave her a nasty smile. "Guess."

"Jessica?"

The bird shoved her spear through Miss Terious's stomach.

"No!" the Zorbatronian cried. "This can't be!"

"Oh, but it is!"

Miss Terious's visor snapped down over her face. "I will never surrender my body to you!" She paused. "Okay, that sounded really bad, but you get the idea."

Miss Terious took a small glowing pill out of her cleavage, swallowed it, and her whole body incinerated into ash.

"No!" Cupcake yelled. "You can't!"

But she could.

Cupcake burst into tears.

"C'mon," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. "Let's go home."

The bird queen blushed, looking all excited. "You mean...?"

I cringed. "Uh, I don't know. Maybe. Let's just...go back to Cool World. We'll...figure that out later."

Whiskers waddled up to me, glancing backward at the KCPL building.

"You think it's safe now?" I asked.

"I'm not certain of anything. The devices have absorbed a great deal of the spikes' power. Now that we have our villains out of the way, it should be no problem getting what remains of the spikes into safer hiding places."

I nodded. "I'll help in any way I can."

The jukebox in the sky, apparently aware of what had just happened, zipped away from the convention center in a hurry.

With the help of the birds, we searched all around the building where Misty's missile had exploded, but didn't find the spikes anywhere, even when Whiskers used a device he'd specially designed to detect such things.

Satisfied that we'd given the area a thorough search and found nothing, we returned to the bank from which we'd come, my birds taking all the broken alien machinery back to Cool World.

The streets were crowded with people, police, and policemen on horseback. Cars backed up for blocks, several cop cars contributing to the jam. Everyone stared at us.

When we stepped through the shattered windows of the bank, a cop got on his bullhorn, yelling, "Hold it right there! Nobody make another move!"

I just looked at him with an expression that said, `Seriously?', stepping into the lobby.

Cupcake caused her servants to bury the officer in bird droppings a second later.

"Would you like to go out for sushi?" Splinter asked me as we marched through the hallway on the other side of the dimensional gate.

I frowned. "No."

But then, well, I guess I had gained some new hormones or something, for, after looking into his eyes, I suddenly changed my mind. "I...suppose it wouldn't kill me..."

So there it is. The entire story of what brought me into this strange existence in an animated parallel universe.

Master Blaster still abducts musicians, but we kinda left that one alone because he always puts them back after a few weeks, and it really makes the music interesting.

Dane and her boyfriend are happily `enslaved' together on Master Blaster's ship. It turns out the first pregnancy test she did was incorrect, but now she's pregnant for real. And super excited.

Extra stayed with the green bird he had (ahem) introduced himself to at Bartle Hall. They're happy together.

Okay, so the next Ninja Turtles book, or cartoon show, is going to be a little weird. Me and Master Splinter, we, um, tied the knot. Every day we go outside and do Tai Chi.

We rule as king and queen over the bird kingdom, and the turtles are our royal knights. Technically I'm an empress, because we're both Asiatic. Kind of. At any rate, it sounds cooler.

We have two sons, Titian and Rembrandt. That was Splinter's idea.

Cupcake still has issues. She and Jessica, sharing the same body for some time, have grown into each other, like the symbiote on Stargate or something. She's madly in love with Sneezer, which is cool because I can't seem to change out of my rat girl form.

She really turned the bird farms around. The storks can barely keep up with the amount of babies she's allowing to roll off the assembly line, but she's developed a system that makes it all work. She tells me it's like Amazon, but I'm not so sure if that's an adequate description.

After Jessica transformed into Cupcake, Chad failed to recognize the girl's new self, becoming terribly depressed. I'd go out with Splinter or something and see the guy nursing a milkshake at Hoofnagels. I hated to see him like that.

When I told Amanda about his predicament, she actually seemed interested, and came by to visit him.

Something between them must have worked out, because now they share the same apartment, and it seems they can't see enough of each other.

She hadn't told me this before, but they grew up together. Well, adjacent to one another. They ran into each other a few times when playing with The Muppet Babies and the Get Along Gang, and went to high school with Archie.

Amanda didn't even care that he's a single dad. She loved caring for Isosceles. I'm happy for them.

Dad and Holli got back together, and it seems like it's for good. He sent Chori Tart away, so she's moved in with Mr. Sleezington. They run the army of half human doodles, which my army has to fight from time to time, in comic book fashion. Weird, huh?

Riffraff and Cleo settled down, ruling their own fiefdom in the Shadow Realm. Their car, was not only recovered and repaired, but somehow paid in full, though I'm not sure how they did it. Some wacky adventure as usual, I suppose.

Whiskers, well, that one's a little strange. He fell in love with that alligator from the sewer that kept following me around.

At first, it was like he had a pet.

And then, I saw them kissing.

It turns out that there was an actual green humanoid lady trapped beneath that overweight reptile body, and Whisker's kiss broke a magic spell, making their relationship a normal scientist plus superheroine thing. I'm glad, because it would have been disgusting otherwise.

We still haven't heard anything about the spikes. I think we won't be hearing from them anymore, at least, not for a very long time.

The portals to Cool World are all closed now, unless you happen to get captured by Master Blaster. But that requires talent. If you're lucky.

Talented or not, you can still catch our adventures in the newest issue of Cool World, coming to your local comic book store this summer.

That's all, folks.