The Brain VS. The Claw Machine
(The Illustrious Crackpot)
A/N: "The Brain VS. The Claw Machine" was originally a placeholder title that stuck. Other titles considered were "Je Ne C'est Narf", "C'est la Brain" and "A Troz in the Dark". YOU decide whether or not I went with the best choice.
Chapter 1
"Gee, Brain, What Do You Want To Do Tonight?"
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away—from Tattooine, that is—was a small, insignificant and somewhat oblivious planet called Earth. On one of the more lit-up continents (by virtue of neon lights), you would find "United States" scrawled in big bold letters. In the lower east corner of this strange, probably-fictional place, you would find an equally-fictional state called California. If one survived the Los Angeles smog and reached a town called Burbank, you might have been able to get through to a small patch of California known as the Warner Lot. If you scooted off towards the watertower, turned left and headed that way for a couple of minutes, you'd find a small, almost deserted laboratory closed down for the evening. Inside this facility, known as Acme Labs, lived two white laboratory mice in a cage—one, a tall, goofy-looking character, was running in the exercise wheel while the other, rather short and with a gigantic, genetically-altered head, stood staring pensively out through the bars of the cage.
The exercising mouse panted a little, though he didn't slow down at all. "Gee, Brain," he asked the other mouse, sticking his head out of the spinning wheel, "what do you want to do tonight?"
Slowly, the Brain turned and faced his companion, his pink bloodshot eyes flashing. "The same thing we do every night, Pinky," he replied in a deep, Orson Welles voice: "TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"
Music began to rise in the background and a chorus of deep, powerful voices started to sing.
"They're Pinky and the Brain
Yes Pinky and the Brain
One is a genius
The other's insane
They're laboratory mice
Their genes have been spliced
They're Pinky, they're Pinky and the—"
Brain grunted in irritation. "Pinky, stop playing with that radio!" he ordered.
"Sorry, Brain," Pinky apologized, then for no discernible reason added "Poit!" Reaching up, the mouse turned a dial and the music stopped.
Jumping off the exercise wheel, Pinky shuffled over to the door of the cage where Brain was already hard at work unfolding a paperclip—a somewhat tricky operation for a mouse. Once it was no more than a simple wire, Brain inserted it into the cage's lock and turned it. With a smart click, the door swung open.
"Oooh, narfy, Brain!" Pinky commended, clapping enthusiastically as he followed Brain out into the rest of the lab. "I never knew you did origami!"
"Only in your feeble mind, Pinky," the Brain returned gruffly. He jumped off the desk their cage lay on and landed neatly on the narrow outcropping of shelf on a nearby bookcase cluttered with scientific tomes. Pinky attempted the same feat and simply collided into a Webster's dictionary.
"You see," Brain continued, climbing down the side of the shelf and onto the rim of a nearby wastebasket, "I have at last discovered a foolproof plan for total world domination!"
Making a small jump, Brain reached the tiled floor and turned around to wait for Pinky. Pinky, however, was hovering on the edge of the shelf with tears in his eyes. "Brain," he sniffled, "you mean I can't help this time?"
The Brain paused in momentary confusion, then rolled his eyes exasperatedly. "Foolproof to all fools besides you, Pinky," he corrected himself, holding out a hand towards the taller mouse to show that he still...tolerated him.
Pinky's ears popped back up and, overjoyed, he attempted the leap to the floor directly from the bookshelf. As was the law of physics in such a situation, Pinky accidentally landed on top of the Brain, slamming them both against the floor. He grinned weakly.
"Heh heh...Sorry, Brain," he apologized, standing up awkwardly. Pulling the Brain to his feet, Pinky brushed him off from head to toe in an attempt at repentance. Brain pushed him roughly away and continued walking, Pinky following close behind.
"Actually, it's amazing that I haven't thought of it before," Brain remarked as he came to a halt in front of a massive file cabinet. "It's all so simple, it makes me wonder what I was thinking during all of my past plots." The Brain usually delivered such egotistic monologues at dramatic times, so Pinky was used to it. He liked suspense before the revelation of their plan anyways.
Using a piece of string and another paperclip as a grappling hook, the Brain opened the bottommost drawer and climbed up the side to the top of the drawer. Pinky followed a bit more hesitantly, making sure not to trip. Once Pinky was perched precariously on the edge of the drawer, Brain pulled up the makeshift rope and cast it into the drawer as a fishing pole. Reeling the line in again, he brought up with it a piece of paper he had hidden there the night before. The scientists at the lab never used that cabinet anyways—it was all full of information about animal rights.
"Troz!" Pinky exclaimed, leaning down and poking the sheet experimentally. "That's a whopper, Brain! Wait, wait, I've got to get a picture—" Using his hands to frame the scowling Brain and the piece of paper, Pinky stepped backwards to "angle the shot". "This's one for the scrapboOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKK!"
Brain glanced over the edge of the drawer and sighed down at Pinky, once more splattered on the floor. "A remarkable display of intelligence, Pinky," he commented sarcastically.
"Thanks, Brain! Narf!"
Sighing again, the Brain descended slightly more gracefully from the drawer as Pinky sat up eagerly. "This is our plan for tonight, Pinky," Brain began, unrolling the comparatively huge sheet of paper. He glanced at his companion. "I'm sure I shall regret asking you this, but what is the greatest drain on money throughout the world?"
Pinky scratched his head, thinking hard. "Ummmm..." he tried, "the government?"
"Good guess," Brain replied after a moment, then quickly jotted that down in the corner of the paper for future reference. "But not quite. What I am thinking of, rather, is—"
"Ooh! Oh!" Pinky cried ecstatically, leaping to his feet and waving his hands around. "I've got it! I've got it! It's Mr. Trump!"
It took only a moment for Brain to roll the plans up again and whack Pinky with it. Unfurling the sheet of paper again, the Brain proclaimed, "No, Pinky, it's the claw machine!" Pointing to different sections of stick figure drawings on the paper, he elaborated, "No one can resist the prizes in a claw machine, so people spend all of their money trying to get them. But it never works, so they simply throw away their earnings pointlessly without even a single trinket to prove for it!"
Pinky scratched his head in confusion—a not-uncommon state of mind for the little mouse. "Poit!" he discharged, screwing up his eyes in an attempt at rational thought. "But how does that work, Brain? Isn't a claw machine supposed to give people stuff?"
In reply, the Brain strode over to a corner of the lab containing a large object covered with a canvas sheet. Removing the sheet with a flourish, he revealed a fully operational claw machine filled with random knickknacks found previously on the lab floor and emblazoned with his likeness. The scientists in the lab were apparently very unobservant to have missed something like that in the corner.
"Naaaaaarf," Pinky breathed awedly as he scampered over. He then proceeded to climb on top of the controls, pressing his face against the glass containing the prizes. The Brain had built some pretty neat stuff before, but this was just amazing! "When'd you find the time to build this, Brain?"
"Last night, when you were struggling to answer the questions on 'Blue's Clues'," Brain answered smugly. Seeing Pinky's eager expression and the way he stared at the items inside the machine, Brain prompted, "Go ahead, Pinky. Give it a try."
"Zort!" Pinky ducked into the narrow space between the file cabinet and the floor, then groped about for a moment and reemerged with around a dollar's worth of spare change. Scampering back up onto the claw machine, the small mouse stuffed a quarter into the slot and grabbed the controls. Whirring to life, the claw moved jerkily at Pinky's direction towards a wad of crumpled-up tissues at the top of the pile. Descending, the claw grasped the wad—but as it was about to haul the treasure up, the claw lost its grip and dropped the tissues, moving back to its original starting position.
Pinky jumped. "Fjord?" he started, then confusedly stuffed another quarter in the slot and tried again. Once more the claw failed to carry the desired item far enough to get it in the disposal chute, and soon enough Pinky had exhausted all of the salvaged money trying. He began to whistle appreciatively. "E-gad, Brain! How do you do it?"
"Simply by utilizing the same method used by arcade owners across the globe, Pinky," the Brain answered in triumph, patting the claw machine proprietarily, "a rubber band in the correct location works wonders." Building up steam, he continued, "Everybody knows these machines are rigged anyways. But once we have instilled my machine into public knowledge, everyone on the planet will spend money on this claw machine, therefore giving us control over all the currency in the world, thereby allowing us to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"
Pinky danced in place atop the machine, clapping his hands. "Ha ha ha! Oh, brilliant, Brain!" he cheered. However, he suddenly paused, then shook his head emphatically. "Oh, no no, that couldn't work," he pointed out. "What if people just broke the glass and stole the stuff inside?"
Brain didn't even blink. "I've already taken that into consideration, Pinky," he explained. "Just try to damage that machine."
Confused, Pinky wavered with one hand still on the joystick of the machine. "But Brai-ai-ain," he faltered, stretching out the syllables of his companion's name, "usually you try to stop me from breaking things. Shouldn't I—"
The Brain waved the protests away. "Use what little mind you have left, Pinky," he offered not illogically. "Would I ask you to attack one of my inventions without knowing that even you couldn't harm it?"
Pinky paused. "Ummmm...Well, OK, Brain, if you say so," he answered hesitantly, then without further warning grabbed up a mallet and tried to whack the glass with it. As soon as he raised the weapon, however, a small window opened on the side of the machine and a mechanical arm shot forth, grabbing the mallet and whacking Pinky over the head instead. While Pinky staggered around dazedly, the white-gloved mechanical hand crumpled the mallet like a tin can before retracting back into the side of the machine. Brain hurried over to Pinky and helped him steady himself.
"Pinky!" Brain called to him a bit worriedly. "Say something!"
Pinky emitted a tiny giggle. "Narf!"
Once Pinky had back as many of his wits possible, he immediately started applauding again. "E-gad again!" he cried. "You really thought of everything, Brain!"
At that comment, the Brain suddenly fell into thought. "Perhaps not everything..." he tried slowly. The idea was forming in his mind that there might have been something he had overlooked. "What would make everyone in the world use my claw machine? Hmm. If I don't figure it out, I'll never—"
Struck by a sudden flash of genius, Brain snapped his fingers. "That's IT!" He turned to Pinky. "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
Pinky scratched his head. "I think so, Brain," he replied, "but isn't it asking too much for Miss Piggy to bring the herrings?"
Only extreme self-control and the thought of world domination kept Brain from whacking Pinky over the head again. "No, Pinky," he answered through gritted teeth, "we must secure the one item sought by everyone the world over—"
"OOH! OOH, I KNOW!" Pinky shouted, jumping up and down. "Animaniacs season 2 on DVD!"
This time Brain finally hung it all and smacked Pinky over the head. "THE PINK PORCUPINE DIAMOND!" he announced, not as dramatically as he would've liked, having been interrupted twice in the telling.
Pinky simply hobbled around, marveling with a blank expression at all of the stars erupting into the air about him. "Poit! I was going to guess that next!"
