"Muahahahaha! It iss almost finished! Once mu petrification machine iss done… NO ONE would be able to sstop me! Not even that pessky hero Cherí! HYAHAHAHA!" – a tall and thin man with dark hair to his shoulders laughed.
He was wearing a black and yellow-striped suit with a monocle. He stood in fron of a control board.
"Gee! YOU sure are the best boss!" – a minion said.
"Yeah! You'll show THEM who is boss!" – another waid.
"You dunderheadss, shut UUUUP! You are ruining thiss moment!" – the villain screeched from his spot.
He straightened up, to look regal while he did his speech.
"BOSS! BOSS!?" another minion ran in the control room "It is here." – he presented the villain with a small chest.
"Finally!" he snatched the chest from his minion's hands "The Eye of the Gorgon iss finally here!"
He carefully opened the chest, revealing a faintly glowing green gem. It was carefully removed by the man's gloved hands, the chest thrown far away.
"Finally! My Zeppelin of doom iss complete! With thiss, NO ONE will be able to sstop me! HAHAHAHAHA!"
"WEEE!" "You're the best, boos! "Oh, boy! Can't wait!" "Let's celebrate!" – the minions around started to cheer.
"Once I inssert this in my machine, I'll be able to turn ANYONE into a sstone sstatue! No one would be able to sstand in my way! First, Tempolis, then, THE WORLD!"
*BOOOOM! Crash~!*
The sound reverberated thorough the whole zeppelin. Smoke filled the room.
"Then what about two?" – a female voice said, two menacing-looking figures in the smoke appeared.
"WHA-? Who're you?! How did you even get in?! This zeppelin is flying more than 600 meters in the air!" – the villain almost dropped the gem in his hand from the surprise.
The smoke slowly cleared to reveal a girl with neon-colored clothes, unicorn hat and cotton candy-like hair. She held a bat with stickers on it in one hand. Beside her stood a man in a white suit with a top hat, cane and he didn't quite look right, his lack of visible nose and the too sharp teeth in his smile made the villain wary.
"I am the great and wonderful Clemencia! Guardian of all good and glitter! And this is my boss, the amazing White Hat!" – she did a proper introduction like in a TV show, jazz hands and all with a pinch of glitter.
"Clem, dear, this is not necessary at all. I am not that amazing or anything." – White Hat laughed a bit.
"NO! You are the bestest, the most amazing, kindest and bravest of all! You deserve this and a lot more!" – she protested, waving her hands and accidentally smacking a minion that was trying to sneak behind her on the head.
"What are you sstanding there? GET THEEEEEM!"
The minions took out different weapons. Some had knives, other lasers, some even had chains. They lunged at the two intruders.
Clemencia dodged their hits and swung her bat, making a squeaking noise every time it hit, sometimes she made faces at the minions or kicked them away. White Hat on the other hand just stood in one place as he was attacked, he didn't need to move from his spot! He swung his cane, using it as a weapon to deflect weapons and knock out minions.
"HEY! Bed-resin! Can't you see we had a conversation?!" – Clemencia shouted.
"The name iss DR. Bergauzze! You freak!"
White Hat noticed a minion was about to hit Clemencia and he was too far away to run to her in time, so he acted instinctively and swiped his had in the minion's direction. A wave of dark energy flew out and hit the minion, sending it crashing in a wall, slumping on the floor afterwards.
"Nice save White Hat!" – she gave him a thumbs up.
"Uh, yes…"
"Cursess!" the doctor took out a laser gun and started shooting at them but with his minions gone, there was no chance for him to win. Clemencia smacked him on the head and he was knocked out. White Hat gently lifted the fallen gemstone with one gloved hand and looked at it.
"Hmm…"
"What is it? Can I help with something?" – Clemencia asked him as she piloted the zeppelin towards a safe place to land.
"No. But this gemstone is too dangerous to be left unguarded and to be honest, after it has once been stolen from the vault, I am not that sure handing it to CIA is the best course of action…"
"Then why don't we take it and, dunno… hide it in a porcelain statue or something like that?"
"You… might be onto something here! I think we'll be able to take the gem with us to Hat island if I pull some strings." – White Hat mused.
=== A few hours later…===
606 was soundly sleeping in his coach while Dr. Slug was in his private lab room. He relished the peace and quiet while working on his newest project, only the bubbling of different chemicals and whirr of machines filling the room.
"Ah, how I wish they would never return."
He almost jumped in joy when Clemencia and White Hat announced they were going out that morning. He didn't give a shit where they went, just the fact that they were gone and he was left alone with his experiments.
"WE ARE HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMEEEEEEEE!" – Clemencia shouted the moment she entered the mansion.
"Speaking of the devil…" – Slug muttered darkly.
He tweaked a few more things before leaving his project alone, for now. He didn't want the neon hellion barging in and ruining all his hard work.
"Heya, Sluggy, 606! I missed you!" – Clemencia smothered the struggling bear with hugs.
"Hello, doctor. How was your day?" – White Hat smiled.
"Wonderful, until you got here."
"Ah, nice to see you've had a great day!"
"You paid attention to the wrong pa-"
Slug's eyes got wider than plated when he saw what White Hat put on the table. It was the Eye of the Gorgon! He rushed to the side and started examining it, pulling a magnifying glass and large tweezers from his coat.
"Wha-? How?! This is the real thing! There's no mistake about it!" Dr. Slug was getting excited at the mere thought of how many evil inventions he could make using its power "How did you get it?!" – he asked.
"From the market, duh! A snakey guy gave it to us for 3.99 bucks!" – Clemencia said, now sitting on 606's shoulders.
"Oh, really…" – Slug deadpanned, not expecting a serious answer from the girl.
"Now, now. Dr. Slug, I brought this here for safekeeping but I would like you to make something. A machine that uses this as a power source."
…..
'Shouldn't have gotten excited…'
Dr. Slug looked at the statue-making machine with a disappointed look under his bag. He had gotten excited at first, but it was natural that his current boss would want to do something nice with a gem that had the powers to turn people into friggin' stone!
"Now, behold my invention! By placing the gem in this slot here" he put the stone inside the machine "and pressing a few buttons," the machine started working "you get a stone statue."
A statue of Slug standing on top of the world appeared, making the scientist satisfied.
"Good job, Dr. Slug but-" – White Hat began.
"It's too gloomy! Lemme do it!"
"NO! Clemencia! This is a delicate-"
"Gruah!"
She, 606 and Slug joined the fight for the controls for the machine. Statues were made and re-made again and again. The machine started smoking and red lights started flashing.
"Watch out!" – White Hat pushed them down behind a counter and shielded them with his body.
The machine exploded, the gem flew, hit the wall and shattered. Where the machine was stood a smoking, sparking wreck, the surroundings were damaged and charred, even the back of White Hat had been damaged a bit but he healed in seconds, the same could not be said about his shirt that had a hole in the back.
"Are you OK?" – he asked.
"Guurr…" – 606 nodded.
"YEP! Totally fine!"
"My machiiine!" Slug wailed "At leas- NOOOO! The geeeem!"
"No worries, Sluggy! We'll superglue it and it'll be brand new."
"YOU! This is all your fault!" – he lunged at her.
"ENOUGH!" – White Hat shouter, his voice taking a bit of a demonic tone towards the end.
Everyone froze and looked at the man.
"You are going to have to learn to get along, so I am putting you on duty together! Now, let's all make sure no one is hurt and start cleaning this up."
They all nodded and shuffled out of the damaged lab just as the sprinklers started running.
White Hat stood there, his clothes getting wet but he didn't care. He looked down at his slightly trembling hands. It couldn't be seen because of the gloves but he could feel that his fingers had morphed into claws. He clenched his fist, took a deep breath (his body doesn't need it) to center himself and walked out of the half-destroyed room. His look of discomfort returning to his usual pleasant smile.