The universe is filled with billions of extraterrestrial beings, many of them new and undiscovered! But one man named Dandy plans on finding and registering them all! He travels the universe with his crew and amazing pompadour in search of adventure, excitement, and boobies! These are the adventures of the dandiest guy in space, Space Dandy!
Admiral Perry's Lady Liberty-shaped starship docked at a massive space station resembling a dumbbell. Its crew disembarked the vessel and were led to a room by some armed guards. A large holographic screen projected on the wall in front of them, Claire's face on it.
"Ah Admiral," she said. "I hope your trip was pleasant."
"If you think we're going to swear our allegiance to you just because you bought out our empire, then you've got another thing coming! You're not even canon!" Admiral Perry yelled.
"Oh, I assure you, the transaction has been made and was very legal. You had some incredibly outstanding war debts, however those are now liquidated…"
Claire's smug face turned deathly serious. Admiral Perry remained skeptical, but convinced, and for good reason. Cybernetic Solutions mainly produces affordable, but reliable tech for all forms of spacefarers. Think of them like Apple, only in space and with a longer lifespan.
However, where Cybernetic Solutions really shines is its ability to loan out its more expensive equipment towards any organization or empire with potentially valuable assets to CyberSol. Like a Venus flytrap, it entices them highly advanced technology, then hits them with impossibly high interest rates behind the organization's back. And before they know what hit them, they're neck-deep in debt. Then, like a kettle of vultures, they swoop in and pick apart their prey, either assimilating it into their business.
"Anyway, now that you are under our control, I wanted to talk to you personally about your record. From what I've seen, your performance has been… unsatisfactory. The board is considering immediate termination of you and permanent dissolution of the entire Gogol fleet."
"I helped win fourteen battles during the Gogol-Jaicro Wars, and I fought in the Sendraeti Hyperdrive Wars," the Admiral argued.
"And those are remarkable achievements," Claire assured the Admiral. "However I was referring to your recent mission of apprehending a young man named Space Dandy. Why has it taken you so much time capturing one man?"
"I put Dr. Gel, my best man, in charge of that mission-"
"And he failed you," Claire interrupted. "We don't want terminate our newly acquired Gogol assets, but the company can't afford to keep dead weight. Therefore, you have one shot to prove your worth."
Claire's face shrunk to the side to make room for a holographic 3-D render of Space Dandy.
"CyberSol has looked into the Gogol's records on this 'Space Dandy', and we are highly intrigued. To prove you're valuable CyberSol assets, you must capture Space Dandy, his ship, and his crew unharmed. You will use only your initial resources and your own funds. You have exactly one month. If you do not succeed, it will cost you your job and your life."
Claire smirked coyly at him. Admiral Perry scowled defiantly at her.
"I will, however, lend you my associate, Shusuka. I'm sure you've grown fond of her during your trip here."
Admiral Perry shot Shusuka a scowl, who was standing at the door.
"Very well," Admiral Perry replied. "I'll capture Dandy, his crew, and his ship and bring them to you."
"Very good, Admiral." Claire leaned back in her chair. "Remember, you have one month. Good luck!" And with that, the holographic screen vanished.
"What are your orders, sir?" Dr. Gel asked the Admiral.
"I want capturing Dandy to be your top priority!" Admiral Perry replied sternly. "No more fooling around! We are going to capture Dandy and use his power to overthrow this CyberSol Incorporated and take it for ourselves! With their massive assets, we'll be rich!"
"I like the sound of that…" Dr. Gel mumbled, imagining himself surrounded by ethrite crystals and scantily-clad women.
"But sir," Bea, the cucumber-shaped alien said. "What about her?"
Bea nervously pointed his thumb at Shusuka, who was just staring at the other side of the room with a cold stare.
"We'll reprogram her, or something," Admiral Perry replied. "And if she stands in our way after we've caught Dandy, we'll simply destroy her! Alright, let's move out!"
And with that, Admiral Perry, Shusuka, and all the rest of the Admiral's men boarded their ship and flew off to capture Dandy.
Meanwhile, the Aloha Oe was rocketing through hyperspace, far away from the colony it called home.
"Dandy, don't you think we should take a moment and read the stuff in the first few paragraphs first?" QT asked the alien hunter who was sitting at the ship's controls.
Dandy shook his head without a second thought. He didn't have time to read a bunch of boring exposition that would be of vital importance in the future. He was completely focused on the "now."
"Like I said last chapter, we'll worry about that later," Dandy answered. "Right now, we're going to go eat breakfast at the new Boobies that opened up in the Orion Sector!"
QT sighed. "Very well… Hey, shouldn't Carrie and Meow be awake already? It's 10 AM."
"I thought I heard Carrie up earlier," Dandy replied. "Though I don't remember her doing her normal morning routine of waking me the hell up at five in the morning…"
"I don't think I've seen her all morning. Maybe we should go check on her."
"She better not be eating my magazines again!" Dandy yelled.
He put the ship on auto-pilot and stormed into his bedroom. He was positive that when he opened the door, he'd find the blonde Sepian girl munching away at his pin-up magazines. He opened the door and stomped into his room.
"Carrie! How many times must I tell you…"
He looked around, but everything was in its proper place. There wasn't either hide or hair of the Carrie anywhere in his room. Dandy looked around, puzzled, as QT rolled into the doorway.
"Carrie's not in her room," QT said. "I even cleaned it for her, hoping to find her buried under all her junk, but I couldn't find her. Is she in here?"
Dandy just shook his head.
"What about Meow?" Dandy asked. "Has he seen her?"
"He's passed out on the sofa…"
Dandy cupped his ear, allowing him to hear Meow's nasally snores coming from the ship's lounge.
"Yup, still asleep. Lazy little bastard…"
"Morning guys!" Dandy and QT heard Carrie say as she cheerfully meandered past the door.
"Hold on!" Dandy shouted at the Sepian.
The alien hunter bolted out the door after her, caught her by the shoulder and spun her around towards him.
"Where were you?"
"In my bed," Carrie replied. "I overslept."
"Overslept, but you never oversleep!" Dandy exclaimed. "You always wake me up at five in the morning. This isn't like you."
"Calm down, Dandy," QT said. "There's a first time for everything."
Dandy eyed the Sepian suspiciously. He noticed a couple things off about Carrie. Her hair was neatly brushed, and it appeared to have been trimmed. No longer did it hang down to her calves. Her clothes looked proper for a young lady her age; rather than her typical attire of a baggy oversized graphic t-shirt, thigh-high gym shorts, and blue flip-flops, she wore a pink camisole that hugged the contours of her chest and torso, a short pleated skirt, thigh-high socks, and brown loafers.
"When the hell did you hair get shorter?"
"I trimmed it," she said flatly.
"I take it you trimmed your boobs as well…"
Dandy pointed out, noticing Carrie's bust size had shrunk.
"Maybe I lost weight."
"Lost weight my ass! You're not Carrie!"
"What are you talking about?" Carrie asked, sounding rather defensive.
Carrie backed away from Dandy and put her hands behind her back.
"Dandy, what do you mean?" QT asked. "That has to be Carrie! Who else would she be?"
"Shut up, QT! Another thing, look at those clothes! QT, have you ever seen Carrie wear socks?"
QT examined Carrie's wardrobe.
"Come to think of it, no. In fact, I've never washed any socks out of her laundry since she joined our crew."
"Maybe I decided to change my wardrobe," Carrie argued, her voice shaky; she knew they were both onto her.
"You're not fooling anyone! Who are you?"
Dandy stepped forward to grab "Carrie", but the blonde girl had a surprise hidden in the waistband of her skirt; a loaded pistol. As Dandy grabbed her arm, she jerked back and aimed the pistol right at the alien hunter's forehead.
"Get back, Dandy," "Carrie" demanded coldly.
Dandy raised his hands and took a step back. QT threw his arms in the air as well.
"Don't make any sudden moves, either of you!"
"You know, you're a terrible actor," Dandy smirked, his hands still raised. "Also I knew something was wrong the moment I saw you walk past the doorway. Carrie's a short thick girl, but your ass is kinda flat."
The imposter glanced behind her for a moment, her face flushed beet red. Seeing an opening, Dandy rushed her. The alien hunter grabbed the gun and the two struggled, "Carrie" squeezing off a couple of rounds; oddly she was much weaker than Dandy remembered. He managed to wrestled the gun away from her and tossed it aside. He pinned her to the wall, easily overpowering her.
"Now, who are you and what have you done with our crew member?" Dandy asked.
The imposter kicked Dandy between his legs, causing him to release her and collapse to the ground. She ran down the hallway, but tripped and fell hard on an end table.
Still in excruciating pain from being kicked between his legs, Dandy staggered to his feet and he and QT went to apprehend their unconscious imposter. When they got to her, they discovered shards of some broken, flesh-colored pieces lying beside her. QT picked one up and scanned it.
"It appears to be a brittle plastic of some kind," the little robot informed Dandy.
Dandy rolled her over with his foot and made a disturbing discovery. The imposter's true face was merely a system of multicolored cogs and gears, with a set of almost marble-like eyeballs that looked exactly like Carrie's set inside two large red gears.
The red gears whirred to life and the imposter grabbed Dandy's leg. Dandy jerked himself free and stomped on its face, smashing it to bits. Cogs, gears, shards of flesh-colored plastic flew everywhere. Dandy lifted his foot, the imposter's blonde hair clinging to his shoe.
"What the hell was that thing?" Dandy asked, pulling the doppelganger's hair off.
"It appeared to be an android of some kind, but made out of intricate clockwork parts," QT replied, examining the broken pieces. "I haven't seen anything like this in quite some time."
"Yeah, you would remember clockwork tech," Dandy joked.
He knelt down and copped a feel of the dead doppelganger's breasts; they were hard like a department store mannequin's. The fake Sepian tail felt like artificial snakeskin, but spray painted badly with gloss green paint.
"I'm not that old!" QT snapped. "Anyways, you've smashed its memory disc, so we can't read its memory anymore."
"Memory disc?" Dandy asked, sifting through the parts with his foot. "I don't see anything like that."
"The memory disc used for clockwork machines was a disk with holes and grooves etched into it made of vinyl." QT picked up a few black shards and showed them to Dandy.
"Like a vinyl record?" Dandy asked.
"Sort of. They use the same principal, but are much different."
Meow walked into the hallway and looked at the mess.
"I heard gunshots and…Whoa, what the hell happened in here?" He asked.
Dandy unholstered his gun out and pointed it at Meow.
"Hold it right there!" Dandy yelled, putting the barrel of his gun in Meow's face.
"Wha-what the hell is wrong with you!?" Meow stammered as Dandy grabbed his face and stretched it out; aside from his face being gritty from the cheese puffs he had been eating, he felt normal.
"Yeah, you're you…"
Dandy shoved Meow out of the way. He picked up QT and examined him as well.
"Hey! What are you doing!?" QT protested.
"Just checking," Dandy answered, opening up QT's maintenance panels. "Yeah, you're you, too."
Dandy then felt of his face, pulling on his cheeks and ears.
"Could someone tell me what the hell is going on!?" Meow screamed.
"Apparently Carrie was replaced by some mechanical, clockwork doppelganger," QT replied.
"Well, looks like no one else's one of those things," Dandy said, holstering his gun.
"So what do we do with that?" Meow asked, pointing at the fake, mechanical Carrie, who was still lying broken on the floor.
"Toss it in the garbage bin."
"That thing was obviously after us for some reason," QT added. "We better head back to the docks and investigate."
"I agree. We can also stop at the Boobies there and get some breakfast!"
Dandy waved a sheet of paper around.
"I got coupons!"
"Is that all you can think about?" QT groaned. "Don't you think we should at least figure out where this thing came from and what happened to our crewmate?"
"Hey, a man's gotta eat, baby!" Dandy exclaimed.
"Yeah, we can't investigate on an empty stomach!" Meow added.
"Ugh fine," QT conceded.
Dandy flew the Aloha Oe back to their home colony. The three of them all exited the ship, prepared to carry out their investigation, as well as stop for breakfast at Boobies.
However, when the ship was docked, they were met with a strange sight. The aliens and people that worked at the docks were strangely absent, and all of the usual hustle and bustle was eerily absent.
"Whoa, where are all the dock workers?" Dandy asked, looking around at the deserted hangar.
"Where's anybody for that matter," Meow added, looking around.
"I have a bad feeling about this," QT said.
"Maybe they're just at Boobies redeeming their coupons! Yeah, that's it!"
"Of course!" QT said sarcastically. "All two-hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants went to Boobies to redeem their coupons at the same time!"
"Hey, it could happen!"
QT groaned and covered his sensor screen.
Dandy and his two companions wandered deeper into the colony. Everything was deserted, however all the hangars were just as full as usual. Even more unusual, on occasion, they'd find a pile of clothes lying on the ground, as if the person wearing them was either sucked out of them, or just decided to strip naked and leave them in a pile where they were standing. Eventually, the three of them circled back to their own hangar.
"Check this out," Meow said, holding up a pair of leather loafers. "I found these in front of the newsstand. It's as if the person wearing them was sucked out if their shoes!"
"Maybe they all won a cruise or something," QT suggested.
"Let's go check Boobies out," Dandy said. "Maybe we'll find someone there."
The crew flew to the nearby Boobies restaurant, however the result was the same. Plates of half-eaten food and mugs of barely-touched beer sat at all the tables. There wasn't any sign of a struggle and everything was neat and tidy, save for the lack of customers and waitresses. The floor even looked as if it were freshly cleaned!
"Damn, not a soul here," Dandy remarked. "Let's split up. QT, you check the kitchen. Meow, you stay around the front and keep watch. I'll check around back. "
"Don't have to tell me twice!"
Meow jumped in a booth and took him a swig of beer from an abandoned mug. Oddly, it was still ice-cold as if it had been freshly poured…
Dandy wandered around to the back while QT went into the kitchen. The result was the same, more tables filled with barely-touched food and drinks. There wasn't a pickle out of place, save for the fact that the normally bustling restaurant was completely devoid of life.
Dandy began poking around behind the counter with his gun drawn when he heard a door slam and lock. Dandy crept towards the noise as he heard the sound of more doors locking as he crept closer. Suddenly, all the lights went out and the whole restaurant was engulfed in an eerie silence.
Dandy ducked behind a table; he knew something was about to go down. He waited for several minutes when he heard the familiar squeaking of QT's axles turning followed by the plodding of what he presumed to be Meow's footsteps.
"QT, Meow… Is that you?" Dandy whispered.
Neither of them answered. He heard QT and Meow scream, but they sounded far away.
Dandy ducked behind the counter and followed it around to the front of the restaurant. The booth Meow was sitting at was completely empty. He could still hear the squeaking and footsteps in the back of the restaurant getting closer and closer.
"QT! Meow!" Dandy called out.
The noises stopped, bringing back the ominous silence. The footsteps and squeaking started again, only they sounded like they were directly behind the alien hunter.
Dandy panicked. Without even taking a second to look back, he ran for the front door, but it was locked. Dandy picked up a chair and threw it at the glass in the door, but he couldn't break the glass. The footsteps and squeaking axle suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong, Dandy?" Dandy heard a voice sounding like Meow ask maliciously.
Dandy spun around to see two figures looking exactly like Meow and QT standing behind him. The QT figure held a huge butcher knife in its hand and Meow held a broken cue stick.
"S-stay back!" Dandy warned them, aiming his laser gun at them.
QT and Meow slowly walked towards him, holding their makeshift weapons over their heads. Dandy squeezed the trigger of his gun, but it wouldn't fire.
"What the hell? I just charged this damn thing this morning!"
Desperate to escape, Dandy lunged at the glass door and broke through, QT and Meow still slowly coming towards him. Dandy threw his useless laser gun at Meow, knocking the fake Betelgeusian over and shattering his now-plastic skin, revealing a set of gears in his chest very similar to the ones he saw when he smashed the imposter Carrie's face.
Dandy scrambled to his feet and ran towards his ship, however as he got closer to the hangar, his legs suddenly felt really heavy, as if he were wearing large weights on his ankles. The ship was finally in his sight, but his legs felt like jello and he fell to the ground.
"What the hell's going on?" Dandy asked as he tried to move his legs.
Unable to move them at all, Dandy dragged his body across the ground as fast as he could with his arms. As he crawled, his whole body burned like he was on fire. He could hear the Meow and QT imposters heading his way, the QT imposter raking his knife against the metal wall as he approached. He crawled towards the ship when a familiar-looking foot wearing a brown loafer and thigh-high socks stepped in front of him.
Dandy looked up to see what looked like Carrie standing over him, only her head was missing. She reached down and grabbed Dandy by his arms as "QT" and "Meow" finally caught up with him.
Dandy struggled, but he felt his strength leave him as the fake Carrie lifted him up off the ground. The fake QT and Meow grabbed his kicking legs and they pinned him to the wall.
"Get your hands off me, you damn Chinese knock-offs!"
Dandy shoved the clockwork Carrie away from him as the fake QT and Meow grabbed his waist. Dandy wrestled with them as the clockwork Carrie stood to her feet and wrapped her arms around his neck in a chokehold. The clockwork QT forced Dandy's hands behind his back as the clockwork Meow grabbed his ankles.
Dandy suffocated as the scene around him grew fuzzier and fuzzier. He wrestled the clockwork Carrie to the ground, but she still clung to his neck. He watched as a familiar-looking pair of boots with metal trimmings set down in front of him, then he blacked out.
Dandy stayed unconscious for several minutes, long enough for the clockwork imposters to do whatever they wished with him. When the alien hunter came to, he found himself inside a warehouse, hanging upside down with his legs chained to the ceiling. A guy that looked exactly like him stood in front of him, combing his huge black pompadour with a switchblade comb.
"Hey, how's it hangin', baby?"
The guy stepped jerkily towards him and poked Dandy in the forehead with his finger, causing him to rock back and forth.
"Ugh, what happened?" Dandy asked groggily. When he came to his senses, he found that the guy standing in front of him looked exactly like himself! "Hey you're another one of those cheap knock-offs!"
"Those are some pretty harsh words, baby," the clockwork Space Dandy replied.
"Where's my crew?" The real Dandy asked.
"Trust me, you don't wanna know. But I'll show you anyway."
The fake Dandy popped his comb in his pocket and pointed behind him. Dandy saw QT, Meow, and Carrie dangling upside down behind him, also in chains. They were attached to a chain-and-pulley system. Suddenly, they lurched forwards and were pulled through a glowing orange doorway, embers and smoke flying out of it as they entered.
"Who are you really? What are you?"
"I am a clockwork android designed by master clocksmith Kogg and built by the Clockworkians. I was built along with my counterparts to replace you and your crew in the Clockworkian's plan to take over the universe."
The fake Meow, QT, and Carrie stepped out of the shadows and stood behind the fake Dandy.
"So what are you gonna do with me?" Dandy asked.
"What we do with all the useless flesh-bags we capture!"
The fake Dandy pulled a remote control from his pocket.
"Throw you in our incinerator!"
He pressed a button and Dandy lurched sideways, the chain pulling him towards the same doorway his crew had been taken. The fake Dandy followed him as he was slowly pulled away.
"You see, the machine that creates us is steam-powered, and in order to keep it running, we must heat liquids at extremely high temperatures. Fortunately, most life forms are composed of mostly liquid!"
Dandy shuttered as he could feel the air around him get hotter and hotter.
"See ya around, baby!" The imposter Dandy quipped as he walked away, leaving Dandy to his fate.
"I gotta get out of here!" Dandy exclaimed as he bent up to try and free himself.
Dandy squirmed as he felt the heat from that furnace blasting his body, even though he couldn't even see it yet. He could also hear the mechanical ticking of more clockwork doppelgangers as they marched off an assembly line close by. Dandy finally wriggled himself loose and he hit the metal floor with a thud.
"He's free! Stop him!" He heard a voice sounding like his own shout.
Dandy stood to his feet as clockwork copies of Xander, Honey, Dr. Gel, and Scarlet. Dandy picked up the chain that held him and swung it at the mechanical Xander, smashing his mechanical body to pieces.
He swung the chain around his head to take out another one, when suddenly the chain just… melted! Dandy watched in horror as the chain melted into some sort of grey, liquid and slipped through his hands like water.
"Whoa," Dandy mumbled.
Wasting no time he ran deeper into the warehouse, the clockwork copies chasing after him with jerky movements akin to wind-up toys. Dandy ran as fast as he could, his legs feeling fine once again for some reason.
However, the deeper into the warehouse he ran, the hotter he felt, even though that machine the Clockworkians tried to dump him in was in the opposite direction he was going. Dandy saw a door leading out of there and ran for it, but before he could leave, two figures blocked his way, both of them wearing 17th century clown masks.
"Going somewhere, Mr. Dandy?" One of them asked.
"Yeah, I'm getting out of this madhouse!"
Dandy turned to run the other way, but found himself surrounded by a sea of mechanical doubles. He tried to push through, but they dragged him back to the two clown-faced beings.
"I am afraid you won't be going anywhere," the other clown-faced being said.
"What the hell are you?" Dandy asked as the mechanical doppelgangers pushed him to the ground.
"We told you, Dandy," the two clown-faced beings said in unison. "We are Clockworkians. We are the most superior creations of master clock smith, Mr. Kogg. You see, all other forms of life are inferior to us Clockworkians."
"Clockwork machines can work indefinitely as long as they are maintenanced properly while fleshlings grow old and feeble," Dandy heard a voice sounding like Scarlet's say.
"We are the future!" The Clockworkians and their army of mechanical clones shouted.
"Stay back!"
Dandy stood to his feet and ran around the Clockworkians, but as he approached the exit, he felt like he was trying to run through deep mud. Dandy looked down to discover that the metal floor was melting beneath his feet into sticky goop. The floor swallowed him up in the nick of time, just before the Clockworkians were reaching to grab him.
Dandy fell through some sort of black void, giant gears and the faces of the Clockworkians whizzing past him. Dandy landed on another metal floor, surrounded by boxes of gears and old-looking machine parts. He grabbed a large metal axle with a gear welded to it and made his way through the maze of boxes.
He eventually came to a dimly-lit empty space with a small desk in the center. A shriveled old man sat at it, chained to a chair that was also bolted to the floor, blueprints piled on top of the desk. Dandy looked over his shoulder to see that he was drawing up blueprints for more of those clockwork clones!
"So you're behind those monsters!" Dandy exclaimed.
The old man turned his head to try and look at Dandy, but was unable to look him in the eye due to his body being held to the chair by iron restraints.
"Regretfully I am…" The man replied. "I am Mr. Kogg, creator of the Clockworkians."
"What happened to you?" Dandy asked.
"A long time ago, when I was young, I created wondrous clockwork machines. The Clockworkians were my greatest creations, intelligent androids made from clockwork parts. Unfortunately, they turned on me and forced me to design these for them!"
Mr. Kogg showed Dandy some blueprints for his own clockwork double and for the other clockwork doppelgangers.
"I've been designing clockwork soldiers for them for the past four hundred years, replacing entire civilizations with clockwork doubles."
Dandy used the axle piece he was wielding to break Mr. Kogg free from his bonds.
"Well then, I guess you're overdue for a holiday, then!"
"Bless you, Mr. Dandy!"
Dandy hoisted the feeble Mr. Kogg onto his back and made his way to an open door.
"Say, what's the deal with the floor melting?"
"I don't understand what you're talking about," Mr. Kogg replied.
Dandy felt of his head.
"Those guys must've hit me harder than I thought…"
Dandy ran through the exit with the old man on his back and took a left down a long hallway.
"Now where are we gonna find a ship to escape with?"
Dandy looked through a window and saw the Aloha Oe docked at the warehouse.
"There's our ticket out of here!"
"Stop right there, Mr. Dandy!"
The two head Clockworkians from before stepped in front of Dandy out of a pitch black corner of the room, both of them holding guns.
"Put Mr. Kogg down and come quietly, Dandy," they ordered in an eerily calm voice.
Their clockwork copies blocked the hallway behind Dandy and there weren't any doors or vents for him to escape into. They were seemingly trapped.
"It looks like we're at the end of the line," Mr. Kogg said sadly. "Thank you for trying anyway…"
"They don't have us yet, baby!"
Dandy held his breath and jumped through a window into open space, a vacuum with no air! Dandy somehow flew towards his ship as the Clockworkians were sucked into space along with their creations and flung off into parts unknown.
Dandy slammed into the side of his ship like a bug on a windshield, Mr. Kogg still clinging to his back for dear life. The alien hunter then crawled into an air vent, jumped into his seat at the ship's controls, and got the hell out of there as fast as the ship could take him!
An unbelievably short time later, Dandy found himself standing before the Intergalactic Federation of Free Systems, Mr. Kogg standing at his side. Thousands of creatures from across the galaxy surrounded him, all dressed in their finest attire with the entire IFFS council seated in front of him.
One of their members, a slender creature with a long neck, got out of his seat and approached the handsome alien hunter. He held a gold colored medallion with a jewel at the center that glowed like a miniature star.
"For ridding the universe of those creepy, outdated clockwork monsters, the IFFS would like to reward you with our highest honor, the Star of Orion," the slender-necked councilman announced.
The crowd cheered as he hung the medallion around Dandy's neck.
"Also, as a bonus for your heroism and devilishly good-looks, we'd also like to present you with this check for nine-hundred ninety-nine bloo-million woolongs, a coupon for unlimited free meals from Boobies, and all the waitresses that have ever worked at Boobies!"
The crowd roared as the councilman handed Dandy a giant check as shapely, scantily-clad waitresses swarmed him. Dandy's eyes welled up as the councilman handed the sobbing man a microphone.
"This is the greatest day of my life! Th-thank you! Thank you all! I know, I'm so awesome!"
Dandy looked out onto the front row as the crowd kept cheering. Strangely, he saw all his friends seated at the front, QT, Meow, Carrie, Scarlet, Honey… It was odd because he had sworn that he had just watched the Clockworkians incinerate them earlier. Also, he started to feel incredibly hot. Dandy wiped some sweat off his forehead as the heat quickly escalated to unbearable levels.
"Could someone cut on some AC? I'm fryin' like an egg…"
Suddenly, two of the women surrounding him grabbed him by his arms as if to restrain him. Dandy screamed as the crowd began screaming words like, "Get him" and "don't let him escape!"
"Hey, what's going on? Let me go!"
Dandy struggled as he was quickly overwhelmed by the crowd. They pulled and tugged on him as he struggled helplessly.
Dandy screamed and opened his eyes, finding himself struggling wildly in a hospital bed. A doctor, two nurses, QT, and Meow tried to hold him down. Immediately recognizing them he stopped struggling.
"You gotta stay still, Dandy!" QT exclaimed, holding down Dandy's chest "Scarlet will be here with those records and you'll be better in no time!"
"Wha-what the hell's going on?" Dandy asked.
A sharp pain shot through his arm. He screamed in pain and grabbed it, feeling a tight bandage wrapped around it. Meow turned to Carrie, who was sulking in a chair at the opposite end of the room. She hung her head guiltily as Meow pointed at her.
"This is your fault! Why the hell didn't you tell us you were poisonous?" Meow yelled.
"Well how was I supposed to know?" Carrie yelled back. "No one ever told me!"
"You should know; it's your body!"
Meow smacked the Sepian over the head with an old magazine.
"Why did she bite Dandy, anyways?" QT asked as Dandy passed out again.
"He threw away my favorite stuffed animal," Carrie sobbed.
"Yeah, but poisoning him with your toxic bite and slamming him into the wall, breaking three of his ribs was a bit overboard!" Meow shouted, getting in Carrie's face.
"Stop yelling at me!" Carrie growled.
"Then you shook him around like a Rottweiler with a dead cat!"
Carrie and Meow growled at each other, both of them ready to fight.
"Hey! Hey!" A voice screamed.
Scarlet walked into the room with a doctor holding a file and a few vials containing some kind of green fluid.
"You shouldn't be fighting like this while your friend is suffering in his hospital bed! Now, we did some research and while Sepian venom can be fatal, its composition is very primitive so most modern anti-venoms should cure him."
Scarlet walked over to the side of Dandy's hospital bed, holding a file in her hand.
"What's his status?" She asked QT.
"Dandy is currently unconscious and suffering occasional seizures and symptoms of toxic shock," the little yellow robot answered.
The doctor took a syringe and put some of the green fluid into it. QT, Meow, and Carrie watched as he unwrapped Dandy's bandage and jabbed it into his arm around a nasty-looking bite wound on his forearm.
"There," the doctor said, covering Dandy with a blanket. "Your friend should be fine by tomorrow."
"So, does this mean no more fanfic chapters for a while?" Meow asked.
"Of course not!" The doctor replied. "Like I said, your friend should be fine by tomorrow, however I would advise that you take a rest for a day or so. Then you can get back to alien hunting, or whatever you guys do together."
Dandy finally opened his eyes again.
"Hey, what's going on?" He groaned. "Ugh, how much did I drink last night?"
"Dandy!" QT exclaimed.
"You gave us quite a scare!" Meow added. "Carrie bit you and sent you to the hospital…" Carrie blew a raspberry at Meow.
"What?" Dandy asked, a puzzled look on his face. "Oh yeah, I threw away some stuffed animal she tore up and she went ballistic…"
Dandy stared up at the ceiling. He felt something metal in the palm of his hand. Pulling his hand out from under his blanket, he opened it, finding a small, red gear. The memories of the Clockworkians came flooding back to him.
"Does the name Mr. Kogg ring a bell to any of you?"
"Mr. Kogg was a famous clocksmith who was enslaved by his creations a long time ago," Scarlet answered. "He was supposedly rescued by some young space adventurer a long time ago. Why do you ask?"
"No reason…" Dandy answered.
He laid back in his hospital bed and looked up at the ceiling. He smiled a bit.
"Say, do ya wanna meet me at the local ramen bar tomorrow night?" Dandy asked Scarlet, slapping her on the butt.
Scarlet wasn't the least bit amused by this. She grabbed the remote control to Dandy's bed.
"I would, but you need your rest!"
Scarlet pressed a button by his bed, causing it to fold up on him. Dandy groaned in pain as his bed bent in half, sandwiching him.
"Never mind, then…" Dandy groaned, his voice muffled by the mattress in his face.
A/N: Sorry it's a little late. This one actually required a lot of work, but that's because I wanted to make it feel more like a dream. Fun fact, this one was loosely based on an old Doctor Who episode.
