The Meeting

in which two unusual allies appear

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It wasn't long afterwards that Control Freak managed to finish the necessary alterations to his remote control. Rubbing his shabbily-gloved hands together in glee, he began to giggle. He knew giggling wasn't very villainous at all and that he would do better by throwing his head back and letting loose a deep and throaty "MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!", but he didn't quite have the lung capacity for it and, besides, he was feeling more delighted than evil.

Hurrying back into the Couch Potato Den—he had been working on the table of the Couch Potato Kitchen of Happiness—Control Freak picked up his VCR remote and rewound to the beginning of the commercial, then fast-forwarded until he found the clip where the Orson Welles mouse explained how to control a tornado. At the first moment where both mice were in the same frame, he paused it to allow for more accurate beaming. Pointing his new, souped-up remote at the huge plasma screen, the supervillain wannabe prepared to click the button—but he paused midair, contemplating what he was about to do. He had, as aforementioned, only just finished the repairs and modifications to his remote. So realizing, Control Freak had little to no idea of what would happen if he actually pressed the button. On the one hand, the mice might come out as totally real, living and breathing creatures. On the other, they might just end up as broadcast signals like all the others. Or the remote might beam him into the commercial, maybe permanently. Or it could blow up. Was his membership to the Coven enough for him to risk his well-being and personal comfort for?

Then he remembered the Leader's ultimatum about apprehending his entire collection of fanbased merchandise and, without further thought, Control Freak pressed the button.

For a moment nothing happened, but then a huge crackle of electricity burst out around the screen and the image vibrated dangerously. Light exploded into the room, forcing Control Freak to throw up an arm to protect his eyes. Pops and bangs of all sizes reverberated across the Couch Potato Lair, and smoke began to billow out. A huge wind of some sort rushed through Control Freak, nearly forcing his massive bulk backwards before the supervillain braced his legs against it. His thumb was still firmly on the button, and the storm continued.

Then, with a final FWOOOM, it was over as abruptly as it had begun.

Coughing and wheezing, Control Freak waved at the smoke in an attempt to clear out the room. Darn subterranean secret bases! he screamed internally, wishing that the Couch Potato Lair had a chimney for the fumes to escape through. He could've sworn that he heard a few unexplained groans, but when he opened his streaming eyes to look, he couldn't stand the irritation from the smoke and had to shut them again. What had he done?

Control Freak staggered in the direction of what he thought was the secret entrance, but instead tripped over the Awesome Super-Powered Couch Potato Swivel Chair and banged his head on the Ultimately Sturdy Couch Potato Desk. Groping blindly, he eventually found the door and released the hatch, letting out the fumes.

High above in Jump City, a few passing joggers wondered why there was smoke coming out of a manhole outside a well-known comic shop...

Back in the Couch Potato Lair, however, Control Freak was crouching behind the Magical Red Couch Potato Beanbag Chair as the air in the room cleared. He couldn't be sure of what to expect, since his remote could by no means be perfect, and he wanted to be out of sight in case anything dangerous happened. He was a coward, but he had lived this long and didn't really want to cut his existence short at this point in time. ...This was a very good strategy except that he was still wheezing and choking, making him a very noticeable presence anyways.

After a moment, a few shapes became distinguishable through the smoke. The Couch Potato Plasma Screen TV of Contentment (thankfully) appeared unharmed, as did the Couch Potato Laptop of Doom, though the Awesome Super-Powered Couch Potato Swivel Chair would never be quite the same again. However, aside from the TV only one—actually two—things in the room concerned him: the pair of very small shapes visibly coughing their lungs out on the floor in front of the Beanbag Chair.

"Where are we, Brain?" a voice choked out in high-pitched Cockney, seeming to come from the slightly taller of the two silhouettes.

A lower voice, bewildered but composed, wheezed slightly in answer from somewhere in the vicinity of the smaller silhouette. "I don't know, Pinky. However, it—it feels like the inside of a chimney."

What was more clearly becoming the big white ears of the taller shape perked up. Some of the smoke around it thinned, and the tall, thin, blue-eyed mouse from the commercial came slowly into focus as he jumped for joy. "Oh, is there a weenie roast going on?! I hope we get invited, oh I do, I do!" he rejoiced, and immediately afterwards Control Freak heard a loud WHACK.

With a bit more coughing and the waving of a small pink palm, the shorter silhouette scattered the last vestiges of fumes as the room finally aired out. Control Freak's pulse quickened in glee; the shorter being was the same large-headed white mouse that had proposed that brilliant plan. He cackled to himself as the Orson Welles mouse glared around the room suspiciously through his bloodshot pink eyes, the tall mouse wobbling about in a daze.

"Perhaps those infernal scientists have devised another test for us," the short mouse guessed acridly. He lifted up a corner of the potato-colored Couch Potato Terminal Lifespan Throw Rug—it was called that because Control Freak had once tripped on it and as a result accidentally beamed himself into reruns of The Brady Bunch—and peered underneath it. "Do you recall that labyrinth they construed, Pinky? Perhaps we fell asleep inside another one and have now only..."

The one evidently called Brain continued with his thought, but Control Freak, still hiding behind the Beanbag Chair, wasn't listening. He was staring at the mice. The remote must have worked; the images of the two creatures were perfectly solid and unbroken, and they were obviously substantial. After all, a broadcast signal wouldn't have been able to touch the Couch Potato Terminal Lifespan Throw Rug. But the mice themselves—Control Freak glanced between the still image on the TV and the mice in his secret lair. There was no mistaking that they were one and the same. Perhaps this Brain's ears were slightly bigger and the other one, "Pinky", he might have been a little bit taller, but they were unquestionably the same characters.

Pinky, tottering around the room uncertainly, suddenly got a glimpse of the Couch Potato Plasma Screen TV of Contentment and stopped short, dancing merrily and pointing at it. "Ooh, LOOK, Brain!" he cried, then emitted a nasal snort that sounded like he'd said "Narf!". "We're on TV! We're on TV!"

Brain looked up irritably. "Pinky, if you had less gray matter your intelligence would be comparable to—" But he didn't finish his statement on what Pinky's mind was like, as he had also caught sight of the huge plasma screen. He rubbed his chin in controlled amazement as he stared at the still image. "It's uncanny," he proclaimed finally, cocking his head at an angle. "I'm even more stunningly good-looking than I thought." Then the situation hit him, and he looked back up in alarm. "But why are there pictures of us on this television set? Who is responsible for our sudden appearance, and why were we brought here?"

Control Freak decided that now was just the right time for him to make a dramatic entrance, and made an impressive somersault jump out from behind the Magical Red Couch Potato Beanbag Chair and landed on his feet just in front of the two mice. Both of the tiny characters jumped, clutching at each other in fear.

"I am CONTROL FREAK!!!!!!!!" the selfsame villain proclaimed overdramatically, striking random "12th-level Galactic Samurai" poses. Following that, he loomed over his targets with his hands intimidatingly on his hips and a nefarious, triumphant smile stretched across his piggy face. "And I am the one who summoned you, because"—here Control Freak crossed his arms and looked impressively in the opposite direction—"I think I can help you."

It took only a second for Pinky to dash behind Brain and crouch there, trembling with his minuscule knees knocking together. Brain himself stepped back warily. "I have never heard of anyone named 'Control Freak'," he informed the much larger supervillain in suspicion. "How were we summoned? And how could you help us?"

This was the tricky part. When his remote could only beam out broadcast signals in the shapes of characters, they had been mindless minions only retaining the abilities of the originals. Now that he could summon the characters themselves, they were obviously autonomous. Control Freak didn't know how they might react to discovering that they were only characters in a cartoon TV show. At least Control Freak himself was in no danger of something like that happening to him. So he decided to play it safe and lied on the spot.

"I have been surveying you two for quite some time, gathering information until I was sure that you, ehhh, that you were correct for the job," he made up, gesturing at the TV. The mice still watched him, the one nervously and the other with a deadpan expression. Control Freak figured that at least a little of the truth couldn't hurt, so he held up the remote. "Using this remote that I myself created, I was able to summon you from...a long distance away, in an, um, PARALLEL UNIVERSE!!!! using your depictions on this film clip."

Brain stared pensively at the remote, and Control Freak was sure he was thinking of how this could benefit him. But Pinky merely scratched his head, opened his mouth and ejected a nearly unrivaled piece of stupidity.

"My! It's better'n Cablevision then, i'in't it?"

A sharp look silenced the taller mouse, and Brain turned carefully back to the somewhat-stunned Control Freak. "You said you could help us," he repeated deliberately, taking his time with each syllable. "...How exactly did you mean?"

Just as Control Freak had hoped, this mouse was no idiot. ...The same apparently couldn't be said for his partner, but the Brain himself was no idiot. Control Freak pointed at Brain. "You took over the world in your home dimension. But this is another, eh, BETTER dimension!" He jabbed a thumb at himself. "I want to take down the Teen Titans. If you help me defeat them, I will help you rule this world."

Pinky appeared confused, and Brain was still more than just a little suspicious. Leaning forward a bit more—keeping his feet firmly planted on the ground so the massive displacement of weight wouldn't bring him crashing down on the floor—Control Freak decided to even the odds a little. "If you tried to take over this world," he explained with a sly grin, "the Titans would surely stop you. So you'd have to defeat the Titans anyways." He wiggled the remote tauntingly. "And I think things would work out much better if we teamed up."

A vague hint of the logic of the situation flickered across Brain's pink eyes, but he still seemed a bit hesitant. He glanced back up at Control Freak. "What sort of 'parallel dimension' is this, and how can we get home?" he demanded. "And who are these 'Teen Titans'?!?"

Control Freak wondered why he didn't give it to them straight that they were transmogrified broadcast signals, since every moment he spent arguing with them was one less moment to fill his quota. But he couldn't risk alienating the only two sources of help he could summon at such short notice. So in a split second decision, Control Freak decided on reverse psychology...a trick he'd learned from one of the few times he'd watched Oprah.

"Oh, they're simply the most adept and WELL-PROTECTED people of the city," Control Freak informed him, then turned away in a show of disinterest. "Actually, though, I think I'd better go take them down myself. I think they're a bit too GOOD for you to defeat!"

Through his peripheral vision, Control Freak saw Brain stiffen. "What are you insinuating?" he demanded, crossing his arms and watching Control Freak's back. "I am a laboratory mouse with an IQ greater than any other being in the world—ANY world! You, if my guess is correct, are simply somebody with a few fancydevices who needs to exercise more often."

"HAHA!!!" the taller mouse couldn't help but ejaculate, his ears stiffening as he emitted (for incomprehensible reasons) the word "Fjord".

The jibe at his weight was a low blow (LITERALLY "below the belt"), but Control Freak tried to ignore it. Instead, he plopped himself in front of the Couch Potato Laptop of Doom and began typing nonchalantly.

"Oh, you may be a little smart," Control Freak allowed, leering creepily at the mouse out of the corner of his eye, "but the Titans are the best of them all! I doubt that you'd even be able to get into Titans Tower."

Brain was already putty in his hands. "A mere building cannot stop ME!" he asserted angrily, scrabbling up the leg of the Ultimately Sturdy Couch Potato Desk and glaring at Control Freak. Pinky followed behind him interestedly. "You are speaking," Brain continued steelily, "to someone who PERSONALLY broke into Fort Knox. This 'Titans Tower' would be child's play!"

"Oh?" Control Freak inquired mock-politely—although secretly amazed at this accomplishment of the mouse's—then turned the computer monitor so Brain could see it. The screen was displaying live video feed of the outside of the Tower, as well as a view into as many of the rooms as could be breached without detection. Clearly visible were traps and alarms systems, the sight of which would make any petty thief cringe. Both Brain and Pinky studied the image for a while, then Brain looked back up at Control Freak. The supervillain was once again struck by the realism of the mouse's expressions, and it took an effort to remind himself that Brain, technically speaking, didn't exist.

"If we assist you to infiltrate that building and oust these 'Teen Titans'," Brain repeated slowly, raising a critical eyebrow at him, "then you will help us take over this world?"

"Of course," Control Freak lied, his fingers crossed behind his back. This was too easy. A grin was stretching across his face, and he extended his right hand towards the small mouse. "Do we have a deal?"

Brain deliberated a moment more, then, gritting his teeth, he grasped as much of his new ally's hand as he could and shook. "I suppose that we do," he replied. Control Freak's smile widened even more, and there was an odd tingling sensation in the part of his hand that the Brain was gripping. The sensation of victory.

In the background, Pinky clapped his hands enthusiastically as his tongue lolled out. "Oh, I love crossovers!" he exclaimed gleefully, then his entire body made a small spasm. "Zort!"