"Audio Log #214... I guess you can call it my resignation. By the time you read this, I will be, by all accounts, insane. I've spent the last few years studying that villainous Black Hat, hoping to discover some sort of biological weakness or origin. The results were…inconclusive.

For this reason, I've decided the best way to understand and exterminate him…would be to work with him. The process will be extreme. I may not have any recollection of my former self. I could be as much of a threat as Black Hat in some regards. But if there is even a 1% chance of me exploiting a possible weakness by presence alone, and preserving my memory, I have to take it.

But if I am wrong, I have another theory that suggests his origin is non-biological but hypothetical. A being who can feed off raw emotion like a biblical parasite. Given what we know beyond the observable universe, I can deduce that he could, in fact, be a manifestation of not just the evil in our reality but what lies outside of it. As new worlds continue to loop or be left frozen in time, I wonder if the disappointment, jealousy, and anger we've felt for the ones that continued to prosper was what made him real. A villain of our own design. One who believes himself to be better than all the others, the way we believe one world shines above the rest. If we are responsible for his conception, then that means we still have the power to destroy him, not simply by way of physical blows but by unification. This universe and the world outside created him out of sheer hatred for one another. But, only when all are one will we have any hope of stopping him.

It's an outlandish theory, and my methods are unwise. But I can't sit back and continue to let this happen. I need to become his servant…so I can become his mistress, no matter how long it takes me." - Dr. Tracey Gordon, PHD

At this point, the once proud Doctor Flug found himself planted in his wheelchair in an empty office previously owned by his master. He occupied the desk, setting a heavy drink atop it after chugging it just before Black Hat in his proper form could arrive. Slys casually turned to get a better look at the rugged state his boss was in. Barely healthy from his multiple body swaps and damages sustained from years past, Black Hat placed his hands on his old desk, putting his weight on it as he slowly regained balance, clearly ignoring his supporter.

Exhausted and battered, Flug spoke up, uttering his name. "Black Hat…?"

"Doctor," the villain acknowledged. "I trust you have found the location of our next target?"

"Yes, sir," Flug said with a tired sigh. "Despondos' hyperspace path is perfectly aligned with our universe."

"Excellent." Black Hat tightened his fists against the table as he continued to speak. "That wretched furry squandered my plans for Disney. But it won't change what I will do to Etheria."

"With all due respect sir, apart from the hit on Venomous and our first assault on Toon City, all our previous efforts were quite loud and frankly sloppy. All your clone bodies are gone, and this final contingency isn't making any sense to me. You never told me the full scope of it other than something to do with a Horde Prime."

His master faced him in a mocking, commanding gesture. "With all due respect, doctor, that's the point. The less anyone knew about it, the better. Especially one as clumsy as you. Despite that, you...helped me in more ways than one. And now, you've earned your place at the table."

Quietly, Flug shook his head and lifted his eyebrows under his bag-mask with a chuckle. "Hmhm… Of course I did. I should've come to expect that from worshipping such a pathetic excuse for a role model."

This response caused Black Hat shock. He raised an eyebrow and turned back to the doctor, his mouth agape from hearing such words come out of his mouth. "Oh…?"

"Yes, I have helped you like you said, boss. I did everything to the letter as you and your girlfriend intended, and look where it got me!"

Black Hat grew haughty from the jab at the Catra clone. He scowled as Flug began to grip his chair's arms and wheeled over to his master, staring him directly in the face. Perhaps the fear he felt for Black Hat was gone for the first time in his life, replaced with abject disgust and anger. He straightened his spine and continued his rant, pointing his finger at the washed-out crime lord.

"Joining you was a mistake... Half my life has gone into a man who lets my hard work go to waste and pins the blame on me instead of those who ruined it. Although, truthfully…I'm glad they did because I hate you and this miserable planet…! The heroes here are absent-minded, stereotypical meatheads no better than us. Villains like you are all talk and no bite. And they're so far up their tails, they can't even register when they're being played."

Now Flug had the mastermind pondering what he meant. Black Hat straightened both eyebrows and nearly shut his mouth when Flug continued to explain.

"Oh, don't pretend you didn't know. Those clone bodies we've made used barely a quarter of what I could have given you. Ninety percent of our assets went into resurrecting 5.0.5. after I had to sit and watch you squander my greatest work yet…! He was perfect the way he was, and you turned him into a mindless brute like the rest of them…! But you'll never find him. Not that it matters since you're about to go on this suicide mission, given the state that you're in. You're no better than the minions you've manipulated and treated like trash. You're just as trash as they are."

Slys firmly grasped his seat with all his might and lifted himself slowly. His legs wobbled as he fought to balance himself enough to reach Black Hat's height, standing face to face with the bewildered crime boss.

"When the Toon Force inevitably gets in your way, and Catra rightfully doesn't accept your invitation to join your band of misfit villains, I would dedicate my very soul to ensure that you feel what I've felt under your wing for an eternity. And I won't do it simply for justice. I'd do it because I want… I…!"

His pulse faded. Flug felt his heart stop as he fell back in his chair, scrambling to catch his breath as he glared at his former leader. His squirming caused his goggles to fall off, revealing the light in his eyes dimming from a lack of oxygen. One thing that remained as he died was his eyebrows curled in abject rage. His final breath left his body as he rested in the prison he called home.

Black Hat stood silent watching his servant's body, casually scoffing at it while another figure approached him from the entrance. A tall, thin-built human with a greenish tone, having a crystal embedded where his heart would be. He bore armor derived from Diamond guards and had sharp, threatening eyes.

His response to seeing the fallen doctor was, "Well, that was unnecessary."

"It was more than a necessary sacrifice, Vardun," Black Hat retorted. "Give no love for incompetence. Not while we're this close to achieving our perfect victory."

"Your victory, Black Hat. I still intend to use that Heart you keep talking about to gain the upper hand against those Diamonds."

Vardun began to pace around the room, scanning out the red-tinted window with his arms behind his back.

"This Toon Force tried them for their crimes when those tyrants should have been executed on the spot. They're nothing but tyrants. Especially the pink one who gave birth to that stupid hybrid."

So says the hybrid…

Stepping out of the shadows was another slender figure gracefully walking toward him. A human female with pinkish skin and a distorted costume, including pink paint over her eyes where a mask would typically be. Her hair was unkempt, and her bare arms were scarred as if having clawed herself and covered the wounds with polish.

"Who are you," Vardun asked.

Heed got close to him and said, "I'm a hero like you. Except, I don't believe in violence. I believe in love. The real kind."

Unsettled from her poking his chest with her sharp fingernail, Vardun asked Black Hat, "Alright…? What's with this change of heart?"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," the supervillain answered. "I was hesitant at first, but I struck a deal with her after both our plans were foiled."

Miss Heed quickly darted at Black Hat and pointed to Flug's corpse, yelling, "And don't think I forgot about what him and his girlfriend did to lock me up like I'm one of you! I had everything under control till they had me canceled!"

With a chuckle, Black Hat snickered, "Yes, keeping the masses under hypnosis is certainly not like me."

"Grrrrrgh," the former influencer growled, balling his fists.

"However, there is a way to not only supply you with followers, but to give Vardun here a chance to have his way with Steven, and provide me with the means to tear the Toon Force from the seams."

He placed his hand on his still-wounded chest and took a breath. "Even if it means I have to make…unlikely allies."

"You still aren't well from your fight years ago," Vardun commented.

"All the more reason to reach our next benefactor so that I may heal. You can take solace, Miss Heed, knowing that the goodness in the Toonverse prevents me from drawing off the hate and sorrows that plagued it before."

"I guess now you have no choice but to go…since you don't have any backup bodies," the woman said, folding her arms and grinning. "After all, you just bumped off your provider."

"My last forms were weak because of his blunders. No mortal could ever hope to make a perfect form for me to possess. And I cannot hope to possess the body of one currently living in the state that I'm in. But…if I could turn them…"

Before he could finish pondering, Black Hat caught the sound of a Ghost Portal opening outside the borders of the old manor, along with the gate's familiar warm green hue from the window. He knew then what he needed to do.

"Our time here is short." He directed with his hand over to the exit hall. "Shall we?"

Soon, Max and the commando unit, Bob, burst through the barricaded doors into the mansion's dimly lit galleries.

"Agh," Max grunted. "No readings on 'em yet."

"I say we give them a warm welcome," said the mech.

Beats after the sound of a portal in the lab closed, the duo made it up the staircase to the office floor, where they breached Black Hat's quarters armed with energy spheres and Bob's shoulder guns. Instead of finding the crime boss, they discovered Flug's expired state resting against his wheelchair.

Max called out, "Doctor Flug," and got no reply. He got close to examine him, scanning him with his helmet, and nearly touched him before Bob wiggled his fingers, speaking in a playful tone.

"Ah-ah-aaah... No fingerprints."

"Oh, right," Max pulled away. He scanned the room with his mask, detecting Flug's lack of a heartbeat and picking up on the residue from Black Hat's ruined form. Kitra shortly arrived at the scene as well, stopping herself from entering the room when she noticed Max walking along the floor.

She paused at the door, "Shoot, I'm not wearing shoes."

"No worries," said Max. "I'm already seeing the residue. Looks like they went down the hall."

The laboratory with the warp gate fried from its last entry was close to where they stood. While Kitra noted the intact computer terminals, Max continued to scan the area with Bob watching his back.

As she turned on the monitors, Kitra said, "Looks like they just used their warp gate. Maybe destroyed, but I can still see where they're headed..."

Quickly, she accessed the closest computer to check its data. To her luck, the first results were that of Black Hat's destination.

"Bingo. They're getting sloppy hiding their tracks. It looks like an old spaceport for Gems."

"The guy who escaped with Black Hat is a Gem too," Bob explained. "A sort of hybrid between a race of humans and the emotional aliens."

"Why'd ya say it like that," Max asked.

"You know. The trial with the Diamonds where everyone cried over peace?"

"I wasn't there for it."

Kitra explained further, "Vardun was arrested for trying to kill the Diamonds after their trial. He's got the power to absorb energy and dish out a negative charge, and blames his own people for it. He was corrupted like a lot of the ones on Earth, and the race that took him in was wiped out in the whole thousand-year colonization thing."

Max lowered his ears. "That's terrible…"

"To his credit, the Diamonds did have this coming," Bob commented as he scanned the room. "The Toon Force always planned on prosecuting them waaaaaaaay before they got around to it. If it wasn't them, the many races the ladies kicked out - like the ones Ben turns into - really would've lost it."

"Sounds to me like Black Hat's planning on going to Etheria too," Kitra deduced. "The only way to get there is with a spacecraft since we don't have proper coordinates for instant teleportation. That's not to say it can't be done. It just wouldn't be easy."

"Don't wanna end up like me," said Max. "Etheria was in the Toonverse in the future, but it was next to impossible trying to get in without screwing with reality. Can't imagine what going to Despondos is like."

"I don't know how fast Gem ships usually are. And I don't know if Black Hat's taking a different route than us. What I do know is a gal..."

Business at the sprawling factories of Costech Drive Yards was booming. New ships and various other technologies were being assembled at record speed, using warp tunnels to send goods across the universe. At the security terminal of the docking station to the main facility, Kitra arrived through a ghost portal as the titanic XJ-Guards stood firm.

"Halt," said one of the droids. "State your business."

"I'm here to see Mrs. Fink on behalf of an important task from the Toon Force," said the cat.

"Further authorization required."

Hey hey, stop that!

Another woman's voice chimed in as the mouse, Fink - specifically a cloned version of her - strolled out of the luxury lift to interrupt the checkup.

"You already know her," stated the shadowy one. "This lady gets a pass, remember?"

"Oh... Apologies."

"Its ok," Kitra grinned. "I don't come here very often."

Shadowy Fink reacted harshly, "You dropped in my office twice, and one of those times was to tell me something I already knew."

"Well how was I supposed to know you knew Venomous and Boxman faked their death to evade the Toon Force with clone bodies?"

The two paused, looked each other in the eye, and, after a few moments, shared a laugh. The mouse pats the hybrid cat on the back, walking her over to the lift as they giggle.

"Nice to see you again, little friend."

"I'm 20," Kitra retorted.

"That was a figure of spe... Wait, really? Already...?!"

"Last I was here, I think I was, like, 15 or something."

"Time sure flies, does it?"

The two entered the private office at the top of the station spire, where Robotboy and Robotgirl played a dance title along the side of the oval room.

While walking by, Fink commented, "Hit those notes, Robots."

They responded in unison, "Yes, Ms. Fink!"

The pair walking in sat at the desk by the viewport. Shadowy folded her legs and asked, "So, to what do I owe the pleasure today, Kitra?"

"Well, I hope I'm not intruding, but..."

Fink held her hand up, "Wait... That's right. You need a ship capable of taking you to the Despondos galaxy? Already on it."

Kitra tilted her head. "You are…?"

"Yeah, I just remembered. Anais was informed of current news before you got here. We did the math, and it just so happens we've got a ship built for this kind of action."

"Where is it?"

"Being piloted by the other me and her two girlfriends in...God knows where. I don't keep track of where they're going."

"Can you call them and ask?"

"I dunno. Can I," the rat asked with a smirk. "Of course I have! They said they'd meet you at the Toon Force headquarters when the fastest, safest route opens. Probes say it should start first thing tomorrow morning."

Kitra raised her hands and meowed as she cheered, "Sugoi! With any luck, we'll beat Black Hat before he can reach the planet."

"And I'll send Entrapta the rest of the details so you know how much time you have once you get there."

The cat smirked, "Oooh, I wouldn't say that..."

When the sun began to dim and the great cartoon metropolis was showered in heavy rain, Kitra held a meeting in a room at the Toon Force H.Q. looking at the huge city from the wide window. Accompanying her were Adorabat, Max, Simone, and a recent member of the team. A modern model of the original entertainment Gem, Spinel, assuming her name as version 2.

"Black Hat should be on his way to Etheria by now," Kitra said as she paced the room. "But he's taking a much slower route than us. Don't know if he plans on making a detour. But regardless, reports say that our fastest route will open at 7 in the morning and close in less than an hour. Probably the result of the show looping since it's canon isn't broken."

Spinel asked, "Whaddya mean by that?"

Kitra pulled up a holographic demonstration from the meeting room desk, showing a diagram of a tube-shaped cycle endlessly repeating itself.

"When a cartoon's run isn't disrupted, it keeps looping. Like every world in the old multiverse before the Toon Wars. What's different about Despondos is that its only accessible once every few years."

On the eighth loop, a tiny hole poked through the tube, allowing access for a smaller shape, representing the gang, to enter, causing the cycle to end unexpectedly.

Max added, "Like tomorrow…"

"Which also means that mean ol' Black Hat's gotta be planning on going there. Of course, we still don't know what he's gonna do when he gets there to cause armageddon. But we can still head over and prepare for his arrival."

"So how we gonna do that," Simone asked while folding her legs.

The feline hybrid picked up a sizeable disk on the desk, explaining further, "Entrapta gave me this teleporting beacon. Once I get to Etheria, I'll place it somewhere safe so we can warp there instead of having to use a ship."

Max grew concerned and asked, "By yourself…?"

"Well, I was gonna see if one of you wanted to come with me and Emily."

Spinel quickly raised her hand, "I volunteer as tribute!"

"Oh, there we go! Welcome aboard!"

"YEE!"

"I'd go with you, Kitra," said Adorabat. "But I wanna make sure Black Hat didn't hide anymore locations. I'll meet with you when you place the beacon down."

Simone also agreed, "Yeah, same here."

"Sounds good to me," Kitra nodded.

Max shrugged. "I'd better get Oswald on board while we're at it. He's in the know." He snapped his fingers, "OH! And Dust and Blinx! Time travel is what they're all about!"

"Great! With their help, we'll have extra chances of finally bringing the bad guys down. We'll just have to be careful when we get there because our mere presence is enough to disrupt the show's natural course."

"Hey wait. If BH's already headed there, how we know he ain't gonna make it befo' us," Spinel asked. "I mean, it's a slow trip, but he's doing it overnight."

Kitra began to clarify, "Good question. I did a bit of sleuthing on those ships from the spaceport he went to. They're not nearly as fast as the one we're taking."

"When will his route close," Max wondered.

"That I don't know since we couldn't pick up when it opened today. My guess is it'll close in a few hours after tomorrow's is made accessible, considering how long it is."

"Let's hope you're right in case. I'll go ahead and get with Oswald."

Adorabat spoke, "And I'll get with Mao Mao about it with Simone."

"That's me," Simone said in a singing voice.

"What about you, Spinel," Kitra questioned.

"Is it OK if I stay here? I don't feel like going home if I have to come back in a few hours."

"Oh yeah. Totally. There's an extra room I'm not using. You can have that."

"Sweet!"

Adorabat opened the balcony door to the rainy weather while Simone projected a shield around themselves to keep dry. She held onto the anthro's back, and Adorabat said, "Well, we're outta here. Have fun running on six hours of sleep!"

She jumped off the edge and took flight into the cloudy night sky. With the two gone, Max began to walk to the turbolift where he'd head to his quarters. Before he left, Kitra, looking outside the window, asked him, "By the way, Max, was there ever a third party involved in Flug's death? I could've sworn I smelled perfume when I went down the hall."

"None that I could find," he answered. "Can't imagine Black using any even in his condition."

Kitra seized her arms and muttered, "Yikes…! Don't feed me that image, man."