With great hesitation...

And heavy footsteps that sound evil...

And much confusion...

Purple Productions inconclusively presents...

It had been a devil's bargain, but a bargain nevertheless. Young Ronald whistled as he walked home from Pathetic Loser Highschool, happily trailing the small package behind him. Finally, he was following in his mother's footsteps: this day, young Ronald was a bargainhunter.

Now it would help this coming narrative to note that his mother, 'Lady', had been dead for some years now. She had died at the tender age of twenty five when Ronald was only a wee little baby. His 35-something hippie father was even now still in his prime, though, and would be, Ronald expected gloomily, for some years now.

Truth be told, Ronald didn't really like his groovin' father all that much. True, he had cared for Ronald ever since 'Lady' had died, but somehow... Ronald wasn't quite sure, but there was something - SOMETHING - about his dad that he really didn't like.

"Yo, Dad. Did the check come?" This was Ronald's way of greeting his father, at least on the second Thursday of each month (when it usually came).

"Yes it did, sonny-boy," screamed his father, brutally hitting his son repeatedly with a large, smelly trout. "The groovin' government has sent us plenty of these smooth bills for our benefition. Like, they've got mighty smooth bills down at the groovin' gov-place. 'Alas, poor Lady, I knew thee well' and all, but gov symp sure pays well. What!?"

"Whatever," muttered Ronald, wiping chocolate pudding off his face. His hippie dad, a Washington patrician, was known to paraphrase Shakespeare on occasion, and seemed to think that it was still the 60s. Oh, and he was evil. And the fact that most of the stupid kids at Ronald's stupid high school couldn't hear him talk well because of massive earwax buildup stemming from global warming didn't help, either.

"Your dad's a washed-out poltrician?" had come up just the previous day. "Dude, man, I LOVE chickens!" It had taken Ronald several hours (and three shots from the pop-gun that he always carried at his waist) to explain to his dimwit friends the difference in phonetics.

"Phooey!" muttered Ronald, recalling the scene as if it were, as it was, yesterday. "Stupid phonetics-impaired yodeling freaks! Why couldn't my dad have taken a more interesting career, like a racecar driver, Jedi knight, or loan shark? Who wants to be the son of a dang PATRICIAN, for crying out loud?"

Yes, this was Ronald's quarrel with his remaining parent... despite all other benefits stemming from nobility, his job title was ultimately, in Ronald's opinion, entirely lame. This was why the young master was so full of anger... anger that might someday lead him to make some bad choices...

"Oo hoo hoo," smirked Ronald Donald, son of an evil Washington aristocrat. "I can hardly wait."

"What's that package you've got there, son of mine?" asked his father, eyeing it lazily. "And wasn't today, like, career day or something?"

"Yes, my verbally outdated ARISTOCRATIC IDIOT HIPPIE LOSER MORON JERK BAD PERSON parental unit," replied Ronald, somewhat irate. "It was career day today and people came and showed us their careers. I really am quite unable to fathom why career day even exists anymore... it's totally lame-o city."

"Well put, son of mine! So, how was it REALLY?"

Ronald rolled his eyes. "Please. They practically put us through Heck today, my foolish father. It was pure E-VIL."

His father laughed. "Ha ha ha HA ha ha! Son o' mine, you're one baaaad dude! We should've had you back on the opium farm in the old days... I made a mean drug-laced fruit cocktail!"

"No thanks," replied Ronald, just to get that one out of the way.

"But, like, son o' mine," continued the father slyly, "I bet you now know what you want to be when you grow up, don't you?"

Ronald sighed, hating to be gotten the better of. "Well, yes." Stupid rich tricky lamer!, he thought. Always trying to catch me naked out in the open.

"Only for the family picture album, son of mine. So, what'll it be? Policieman? Fireyman? PATRICIAN?"

Ronald shuddered. "No way, Pops - Devilry is the business for me."

"Oh, right, devilry!" Ronald's father slapped his knee heartily. "You want to be a lord of the underworld when you grow up! Great choice! You know, your great uncle Nick was lord of the underworld for a while... great guy, Nick. Always pure evil! What a burning oil-tanker full of laughs! Ah," he sighed, turning suddenly sad, "but I nearly forgot! Great uncle Nick took the 'Long Vacation' many years ago..." He shook his said sadly, becoming lost in thought. Ronald had a feeling he'd be lost there for a while, so he left.

"No!" Ronald told himself, when he was finally safe in the privacy of his own bedroom. "That doddering old PATRISH-SHANNY FOOL doesn't know who he's talking about... he clearly has no concept of what devilry is all about, or what it can mean. And what is more…" he added with a wicked smile, "…I'll be lord of the underworld before the week is out, before the world even knows what's hit it! MWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA - !" For, unbeknownst to nearly all the rest of the characters in this story but soon to be known to you, our noble reader, that same innocent-looking package that Ronald had been carting around since the beginning of this disturbing narrative contained an ominous obsidian key to the gates of Heck itself... and Ronald had a deal with the Devil. Cue the ominous music, folks... it's gonna be a strange ride.

Yes, that's right, sweet little patrician-angst-feeling Ronald had a deal with the Devil. It had all started the previous day, which Ronald remembered as if it were yesterday...

Okay, so it WAS yesterday. Now. For you see, I just took the liberty of advancing our story a day - I hope you don't object - and as a result it's now the day after yesterday which, as everyone should know, was that fateful career day whose implications would forever alter the lives of thousands.

"You talk about it as if that was a bad thing," Ronald observed. Clever boy... I would have liked to have known him.

Anyway, the Devil had been only one of the many career-type people there, reflected Ronald as he slowly walked off the straight and narrow path (that is, off of Route 76 for about five miles, up Mount Doom, and into the long-forgotten mine shaft that led down quite a ways... and was home to a lesser-known path leading to Heck, 10 kilometers down). There had been a fireman, and a policeman, and a nuclear physicist, and a optician, and a philanthropist, and a psychologist, and an agnostic, and a prognostic, and a priest, and a pirate captain, and another nuclear physicist (the first had been demonstrating cloning technology, you see, and there had been a shortage of volunteers), and an astronaut, and a gorilla man, and a fringe theologian, and a systems administrator, and a systems defenestrator, and an astronomer, and an astrologer, and a vending machine, and a big out-of-work can of Spam, and... and... oh yes, the CEO of Global Megacorp, Inc..

"That's right, kids!" he had proclaimed that fatefully fateful day so many... well, hours ago. "You, too, can be a Global Megacorp CEO if you only manage to become the present CEO (that's me)'s favorite employee through blatant shoe-licking! You know, I used to be a slacking slacker of a janitor who never did anything useful... and look where it's got me! I'm now filthy rich and I STILL don't do anything useful! What better job could there be?"

"A garbageman?" ventured the garbageman. "Without us, the world's environment would disintegrate and life as we know it would - "

"Too late, I just purchased your entire company and turned it into a yacht-making business. I'll need it to stay afloat once the world is flooded with trash..."

There had been a couple other participants as well. There had been the Devil, of course, showing how the benefits of eternal darnation can help you win friends and influence people. Then there was that clown who played the accordion while doing the polka in big funny shoes, who had tragically not made it through the night.

"After the mob started to tar and feather that halfwit, I managed to take his big funny shoes. I sold 'em for twenty bucks on E-Bay!"

Oh, Ronald. Always such a philanthropist...

"I am not!"

I was being sarcastic, Mr. Dumbell-the-Flying-Elephant. Sheesh!

"I am NOT Dumbell the Flying Elephant!"

AAAAAAAAAAANNnnnnyway, back to our story at hand. In the time that this narration has taken, it seems that Ronald has drawn ever closer to the heart of the planet. Oh well, it seems that I've been talking for longer than I thought. Emerging from the old mining tunnel complex into a large, fuzzy clearing about 2/3 of the way down, Ronald has already passed the turnoff / underground cave entrance leading to Heck and is now -

"Great, thanks a lot, Mr. I'm-So-Cool-I-Can-Talk-All-Day-Narrator-Guy, you made me miss my first line here! Idiot... but I'll never manage to remember my lines out of order. I guess I'll just have to start from the beginning…"

"Oh my, there is the cave entrance leading down out of this mine and into Heck just up ahead," proclaimed Ronald, walking stiffly through the hot tunnels. "Oh dear, these tunnels are getting hotter. I wonder where they lead?" he wondered as he tripped passed a beautiful waterfall. "That is a very beautiful waterfall there," he said, wrinkling his nose at the smell of liquid sulfur emanating from the lava pits. "What hideous lava pits these are!" he said, approaching the Gates of Heck. He absentmindedly turned the key. "Gee, I hope I don't fall in. Hey, those must be the gates of Heck up ahead!" He entered a long, shadowy chamber. He walked down its length. "Good thing I have the key. $2.95 from the Devil himself - what a bargain! Hey, there's the Devil at the other end of this infernal chamber! Hey Devil! Can you hear me down there?"

"I'm... right here in front of you, actually."

Ronald blinked. "Oh, sorry. That stupid narrator man messing me up on the way over here, so I was a bit behind on saying my lines. Sorry."

"Quite all right, sonny-boy," said the Devil, smiling at Ronald's inappropriate use of the present participle in his speech. "Well, you're here now, and that's all that matters, isn't it?"

"No. I'm here about the succession," added Ronald coldly. "Nothing more… and nothing less."

The Devil's smile grew rather strained. "Yes, right, THAAAAT. You know, your great Uncle Nick was the devil before me..."

"I know," said Ronald.

"But that was before he took 'the Long Vacation', wasn't it?"

"Right, before he died of old age and hiccuping. That's how the story goes, anyway…"

"Precisely so," said the Devil absentmindedly, recalling the good ol' days with a tear in his E-VIL eye. "Ah, those WERE the good ol' days, weren't they? I remember one day when we were back in Devil School. We were supposed to use our powers of darkness to generate confusion and pain… extra credit, you understand. Good ol' Nick and I summoned some ivory poachers in though the bathroom, you know. There was right chaos after that, eh? A number of our fellow demons lost their horns in the resulting melee. Our teacher gave us an A triple-plus for THAT assignment." The Devil smiled proudly. "And whattaya know? First Nick then myself get the job of Devil! Great stuff, this!"

"Riiiiiiight." Ronald blinked boredly at Heck's REAL torture - listening to the Devil reminisce about the Evil Old Days, or whatever he calls them. "The succession?"

"Righto." The Devil leaned forwards conspiratorially, and said in a low, conspiratorially E-VIL tone, "Yes, well, mind you, before you start to get your hopes up - you're not the only little devil I've found and agreed to take under my E-VIL wings as my successor-in-training. There are a number of others who I'm sure could do the job as well. Your gate key to Heck only gets you into my Little Devil School (and the sushi bar)... and no further. I sold you that key, you understand, because I thought you'd be a suitable Devil yourself, and because I know how much you like sushi."

"I hate sushi," said Ronald.

"Right. What did I say? And let's face it," the Devil added sadly, shaking his head with the tragedy of it all, "less fire and brimstone in mainstream Christian beliefs over the past decades has sorta drained my treasury, so I take what I can get." The Devil paused. "I have great hope in you, boy. But we shall see... oh yes, we shall see..." He laughed maniacally, his maniacal laughter echoing off the shadowy walls of the underworld with evil force.

"…Whatever."

It was, once again, the next day. Ronald had returned to the underworld once again (the Devil having ever-so-kindly provided him with an Eternal Absence Pass, he didn't have to worry about attending Loser High anymore). This time, though, rather than falling ten kilometers down a mine shaft and winding up mysteriously 2/3 of the way down to the center of the Earth where, as everyone knows, Heck was arbitrarily placed by the first fire-and-brimstone preachers, he had taken a more direct route... the elevator hidden in the hall closet.

"Your Uncle Nick had it sitting there since you were three," the Devil told him proudly. "Saw to its upkeep in his will. I think he had his eye on you, boy... thought you'd turn out to be good and bad, like us." The Devil got a faraway look in his E-VIL eyes. "You know, your uncle and I were bosom pals for years. Did I ever tell you about the time when - "

"Probably. Now shut up."

"Oooooooh," muttered the Devil. "You know, kid, some day you're going to talk smart to the wrong arch-demon. Sheesh!"

"Hmph." Ronald went back to filling in the entrance exam that the Devil had provided.

"Let's see," he muttered to himself. "'What is the appropriate color of attire for the lord of the underworld?'... Oh, of course... black! No, wait, too easy..." He ran his hand through his red hair thoughtfully. "That can't be it. Which means that it's got to be... pink!"

"Pink?" repeated the Devil, staring dazedly over Ronald's shoulder. "Pink? PINK? Does the lord of the underworld retain ANY dignity?"

"Hmm... yes, small fuzzy pandas DO make good servitors for conveying one's E-VIL bidding. And big belt buckles will come back in style any day now." He scribbled his answers hastily down on the page. "I'm sure of it."

"You know," the Devil grumbled, turning irately away, "if this entrance exam actually had any point in the story other than to make pink jokes at my expense, I would fail you out of hand. As it is, though, I suppose I have to let you pass... darn that plot device! Always lowering my standards!"

And with that, the plot device was cast down into eternal flames, never to be seen again.

"Good day, class," smiled the Devil broadly as he entered the classroom. "We've got a new student today, as you may already know. Now, will you please all give a warm - wait, this is Heck... better make that eternally burning hot - welcome to... Ronald Donald!"

There followed a scatter of hand clapping throughout the room.

"Come on, put a little eternally burning hotness into it!" said the Devil, annoyed.

"There are only two of us, you know," remarked a girl of about Ronald's age. Micki, I believe her name was.

"Well, yes, but even so."

Ronald edged his way into the room. "Hello," he said.

"Hi," said Micki.

"Hi," said Basil. You know, the other guy. The one with the horns.

"Now, my E-VIL class of doom," continued the Devil, assuming a schoolmaster's robe, "as the two of you already know, we've been dealing with how to create widespread pain and suffering. Now, Ronald is rather new to this, and so - "

"Um... I once saw an episode of Jerry Springer when my dad was away…"

The Devil frowned frowningly from his frowsy frou-frou of frippery goodness. "I deal with evil, boy, not Jerry - THAT stuff's just plain wrong."

"Oh, okay." Ronald frowned back. "Well... I marketed a clown's shoes on E-Bay just a few chapters ago..."

"Perfect! All right, then you already know all the basics. Let's move on to - "

"Got twenty bucks for 'em, too!"

"Yes, I'm sure you did. As I was saying, we shall now proceed to advance to the world of - " The Devil narrowed his eyes. " - Cults," he pronounced.

"Woo, woo, the Devil owns my house, the Devil owns my hat - "

"CAT, you blockhead!" The Devil glared at Ronald. "Grr... you put the sacred name of E-VIL to infinite shame. What an idiot!"

"Just saved the eternal soul of his cat, too," observed Basil.

"Will you be quiet, MISTER Bub, and please leave the observation and commentary to yours truly?"

"Bub?" Ronald looked at Basil. "Your last name's Bub? What kind of a name is that?"

Basil frowned. "Hmph. A sudorific and auspicious name, that's what. Some day," he stared defiantly up towards the ceiling, "some day, SOME DAY, people will come to fear the name of… Basil Bub!"

"In your dreams!" muttered Ronald.

Basil glared at him angrily, then regained his composure. "Yes. In everyone's dreams, Ronny-boy! I will be the stuff of nightmares, the stuff that bad dreams are made on! I will be the source of all that is evil and not nice! I will be, the KING of the underworld of doom! Mwa ha ha ha haaaa - !"

"And anyway, I'd never REALLY take the soul of a cute, fuzzy little cat. That'd be cruel, and I'm not cruel... just E-VIL. Just part of the mantra, you understand. MISTER Bub," the Devil said suddenly, "kindly stop your bragging. There'll be no inflated egos in MY class-room. For *I* am the true king of darkness, of all that is E-VIL! I am responsible for anything bad that happens, and so I'm really really bad. I... AM... INVINCIBLE... AND... REALLY... NOT NICE!!!"

"Right," said Micki, after a long pause. "Cults?"

"Enough of cults!" said the Devil suddenly, slamming the book - Satanism for Dummies - shut. "I think you know the basic principles of Devil-worship, don't you? I mean, it really isn't all that much different from what you were doing back up on Earth, except that now instead of worshipping N'Sync and Britney Spears's unclothed midsection, you worship me. Got it?"

"Yes."

"Yes..."

"Yes, siiiiiiiir." Basil was apparently still smarting from his previous chidings.

"Darn right I'm a siiiiiiiir," said the Devil. "I'm certainly not a maaaaaaaaadam, now am I?"

"Well - "

"That was a rhetorical question, MISTER Donald," growled the Devil, spinning to face him. "Don't answer it. And if I recall that one lame chicken joke earlier in this ridiculous narrative- "

Stop it, or you're ALL going to be wearing dresses. Pink ones, too.

"Blasted wri - no, I guess I better not say that," the Devil smiled sweetly in my general direction. "Don't want to lose my job, after all..."

Darn right you don't, Devil-boy, or you'll go right back into the garbage bin where I found you, drunk, that one night several years ago. Now, anyway, where were we before this whole -

"Pop culture references," said Ronald. A good fellow, like I said. Agreeable, and all that.

"Oh, right, well, anyway, on to our next subject." The Devil smiled in his E-VIL way. "And if this one isn't E-VIL, well, then I'm a little schoolgirl in pink tights."

"Well - "

"Shut up."

"Now, my class of doom of doom," said the Devil, staring down at the mean streets of Miscellaneous City #2006 from their high perch atop the Observation Tower, "we shall begin to explore some of the many Paths of Darkness. Are you taking notes?"

"Yes, sir." The three spoke in unison this time because, quite frankly, I'm getting tired of writing their dialog out separately when that can be so easily avoided. I'm also getting tired of describing everything that happens in great detail, which is why they suddenly ended up in this strange urbanity with no indication of how they got there. I mean, really, if anything it's YOU who should be kowtowing to ME, the great author of this fine tale, and NOT the other way around. I am so superior to you that it's not even -

"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD," said the Devil, a little bit too loudly. "Now, I'll take you to the spot of your first lesson." Turning from the fine view of Miscellaneous City #2006 out the observatory window, the Devil carefully pressed the elevator button.

There was a long pause. "Stupid cheapo miscellaneous bureaucrats," muttered the Devil, pushing the button again. "All MY elevators work better than this one, and *I* am evil."

They waited. "Couldn't we all just summon fiends of darkness to carry us, screeching, down to the streets below?" asked Micki.

"Too obvious... that's the jock Devil style. And besides, Ronald still doesn't know HOW to conjure up evil minions. It just wouldn't work."

"Whatever," said Micki, glancing at Ronald. She frowned.

"Have you ALWAYS thought of me as a burden?" asked Ronald, coldly, as they rode down in the elevator.

"I did not say that, you know," she replied, equally coldly.

"Then why the long face?"

Micki paused. "Hmph," she said after a moment. Her face was flushed. "Are YOU always this touchy?"

Ronald turned away angrily. "I thought as much, you can't answer that without incriminating yourself or lying."

"And YOU can't answer THAT without incriminating yourself or lying!"

"Nyaahh!"

"Nyaaaahh!"

"Children, children!" cried the Devil. "Please, settle down and act like PROPER little demons! No self-respecting devil quarrels with another! It's not kosher!"

"Hmph." They spoke in unison and, equally in unison, turned away.

"That's better," said the Devil, smiling broadly. "Oh, look, we're here! Oh, it HAS been a long time since I've been up on the mean streets of Miscellaneous City #2006! Well, it's great to be back!" He took a long breath of the city air. "Just take a whiff of the fresh, clean, city - bwaaaah!" He broke off, choking. "It smells HORRIBLE down here! Sheesh, I mean, boiling sulfur is fine and all, but SMOG? Think of all the innocent fish that are dying because the acid rain produced by all that pollution!"

Yes, the Devil IS a Communist.

"Green Party, man, not Communist! Though hey, why CAN'T we all play nice and get along?"

Oh Devil... always the fuzzy pink one around here.

"You - "

Oh, I'm sorry, the Devil suddenly became inaudible, so now know one can hear him. What a shame! But such is the fate of members of the Green Party... what a bunch of Communists!

"Well, just about ANY media exposure would be beneficial to their campaign to save the world, whales, and rainforests," observed Basil.

"Shut up! I'M the one supposed to be doing the observation around here!" shouted the Devil, as our exceeeeeeeeedingly noble writer eeeeeeeeever so kindly restored his capacity for speech. "You shut up, too, author-boy, or I'll cast you into the Smelly Pits of Eternal Darnation!"

And you'll lose your job, Devil-boy.

"Grr..."

Just then, a Tibetan monk walked by.

"Hey, look there!" cried the Devil suddenly. "Okay, kids, for your first lesson in practical devilry... pick-pocketing!"

"Pick-pocketing?"

"PICK-pocketing?"

"Figures." Yes, Basil was still in a foul mood. "I THOUGHT it'd be something lame like this. Loser!"

"Hmph. Lousy archdemon..."

Ignoring him, the Devil walked casually up to the passing Tibetan monk who was, at this point, waiting at the bus stop. Ever so slowly and carefully, the Devil wandered towards the monk - one moment pretending to check his watch, the next, to straighten the large bow tie that had just appeared for the occasion. He inched closer by degrees.

"Um, excuse me, sir," said the Devil, in what might have half-vaguely passed for a casual tone of voice. "But do you have the time of day?"

"No one can hold the sun on his wrist," said the Tibetan monk wisely. "I do not have the time of day."

"Really," said the Devil.

"Really," said the monk wisely. He eyed the Devil. "You know, young sprout, you look like you could use a weight loss plan. Their is a heavy aura of darkness surrounding you. And if you'll excuse me," a large bus had just pulled up at the bus stop, "I have to take the Monk Mobile to Northern Whaddahekischtan. Toodles!"

"Um, that's a city bus."

"It's the Monk Mobile if I say it is, bub. Less conspicuous than making it fly... I'm saving the world here!"

"Stupid manga-style super-power monks!" muttered the Devil, as the bus rocketed away down the long city streets. "No discipline whatsoever! You'd think they owned the place anymore..."

"They do, oh but they do," said the Devil's Economist. "Now that they've come into popularity in America, their toy lines are a big sell-out, and, last I heard, they just purchased Canada from French Morocco with the money from sales."

"I didn't know that French Morocco owned Canada," said the Devil, intrigued.

The story?

"Oh, right. Children," declared the Devil, turning back to face his charges, "the first step in pick-pocketing is identifying a likely victim. Now, super-power monks do not make good victims. Nor do regular Tibetan monks - they never own anything anyway. Let this be a lesson to you."

And so it will, Devil-boy... and so it will.

"You know," remarked the Devil as they continued down the street, "I think it's just about time for your next lesson." He straightened up, stopping so suddenly that Ronald, Micki, and Basil all bumped into him at exactly the same moment. He brushed them back in annoyance. "Cut it out, CUT IT OUUUUT~! No tailgating…" He cleared his throat. "Now then, as any good lord of the underworld could tell you, every proper little demon should know how to hail a taxi cab." He nodded sadly. "You know, children, SOME PEOPLE don't put enough emphasis on this core skill. They seem to think that people are smart enough to figure it out for themselves. But what they neglect to mention is," the Devil sighed at the obvious decline in Western civilization, "hailing taxi cabs is a fine art. It takes a special kind of demon to hail one with any skill. Watch and learn." He stepped forwards into the street.

"This should be good," murmured Ronald. Micki looked at him strangely.

"Now then, my children," said the Devil, "watch and learn. Taxi! Taxi!" He did a little dance in the general direction of a speeding cab. "Taxi! Taxi! Here boy, come on, taxi!"

Ronald watched in silence. There was a growing fear in the back of his mind, something nagging to get out just like an M1 Abrahams tank trapped in a swimming pool. For a moment, he thought he'd lost it - then the thought came back to him full force, and he knew just what had been bothering him.

"Of course," he murmured to himself. "How silly of me not to have seen it sooner!"

The Devil was not amused. "Shut up, Ronald, I'm trying to hail a taxi here! Your loudly blatant voice will scare them all away! TAXI!"

"What is it?" asked Micki. Despite herself, there was an expression of concern spread across her beautiful face.

But Ronald was too lost in thought to notice much, or to object to her sympathy. "That is it," he said. "Of course. That has to be it!"

"That's what?" asked Micki.

"Yes, I'm quite sure now. It could be no other thing! My gosh... it's worse than I expected!"

"WHAT is it!?" Micki almost screamed. She seized Ronald by his shoulders, shaking him roughly. "What in HECK is going on?"

"Now, now," said the Devil absentmindedly. "...Taxi! Taaaaaa-xi! We don't use such foul language around here, Micki! Wash your mouth out with soap! Hey... didn't I tell you all to SHUT UP!? BUNCH OF RETARDED FREAKS! ...TAXI!"

Ronald stared at Micki's face in surprise. "Well... I was just thinking that the reason that I kept feeling so dejected, like my life had no meaning and all and I had no friends to speak of and everybody hates me, was that when the Devil said that he was going to show us how to hail taxi cabs - you know how he said that? Just now. Well, when he said that, *I* thought he was going to show us how to make taxi cabs hail from the sky. But… I guess I was mistaken, huh?"

Micki sighed with obvious relief. Basil laughed derisively.

"I should've known you'd come up with something that ridiculous, Ronald!" he laughed jeeringly. "...Pathetic!"

"Hey, it was a perfectly logical inference, Bub!" Ronald replied, suddenly very angry. "The verb 'hail' has BOTH of those meanings, and it could've been either one!"

Basil laughed scornfully. "Ha ha," he laughed, "ha ha ha! The indefinite article 'a', as in the phrase 'hail A taxi cab', should've tipped you off! What a dork!"

Ronald was furious. "My specialty is phonics, not parts of speech! You jerk!"

Basil laughed again. "Ha! You couldn't tell a peroration from a few thoughts in closing!"

"Where's the indefinite article now, Bub? I said parts of speech, not the parts of A speech!"

"Loser!"

"Hypocrite!"

"Boys!" said the Devil. "Couldn't we resolve this like nice, civilized folk here? Can't we all just get along?"

"NO - !"

"You know, Ronald," Micki said carefully, "it really was rather silly of you to think that the Devil here was going to teach us how to make taxi cabs fall from the sky, and - "

"Oh, so now you, too, think I'm an idiot?" Ronald rounded on her like a greased spheroid.

"No, it's just - "

"Fine! I never liked you all anyway! GOOD-BYE!" Ronald stormed off down a side street and out of sight.

There was a long, long pause. Long. Really long. Long enough that I have to repeat the adjective 'long' six times before it's long enough - darn, make that seven. But when the pause ended, it was Micki who spoke first. "Shouldn't we go after him?" she asked.

"Ha!" Basil laughed... yes, again. "If that loser wants to leave, I say, let him! He disturbs the air of scholarly learning surrounding our eternally darned friend here." He grinned nastily at the Devil, who did his best to ignore him.

"Shouldn't we?" asked Micki. Her voice was almost wheedling, if not quite imploring.

"No, it'd only make it worse. He'll be back," declared the Devil sagely. "You mark my words. The only thing to do now... is wait."

Ronald rushed through the darkened back alleyways of Miscellaneous City #2006. "I never needed them anyway," he told himself. "A big bunch of dopes, that's what they are! No appreciation for my brilliant logical deductive skills. I say, let them suffer! They'll die without me... and who's to be the worse off for it?"

A tear trickled slowly down his cheek. Realizing its presence, he sighed dejectedly and sat down in one corner of the alley, illuminated only by the dim filtering of the mid-afternoon light through the eternal smog. It was a dead end... like his own life, he reflected. He didn't even bother to brush the tears away as they came.

"Here now, what's wrong?" A young girl in a predictably short pink dress, apparently only a few years older than himself, emerged from the shadows on the other side of the alley and sat down next to him. "What's the matter? Come on, I won't bite!"

"Go away!" said Ronald. His silent crying continued, tears running down his cheeks at regular intervals.

"Come on now," the girl said kindly. "I only want to help you fix what's wrong..."

"NO one can fix my problems," cried Ronald suddenly, almost sobbing. "I'm like a broken spatula, no good to anyone now. Let me die here in peace!"

"Oh, come now, that's hardly going to happen," said the girl reprovingly. "I mean, you're the hero of this story! You can't die! It just wouldn't happen."

"Hmph," muttered Ronald, brushing a fresh batch of tears futilely aside. "All the worse, then."

"What you need," said the girl, squeezing Ronald around the middle, "is some self-confidence. You just need to believe in yourself! Have a little faith in your own abilities... don't let yourself get choked in the darknesses that sometimes populate life, but get some hope goin' in there!" She patted him on his chest.

"Don't... TOUCH... me..." Ronald growled.

"There, see? Back to your old self already!" The girl got up, apparently ready to leave. Then she stopped. Slowly, she turned to face him. "Though I have to say, you'd look a lot nicer if you'd put a smile on. Come on! Don't be so cynical all the time. Well, see you around!" She disappeared around the corner and was gone.

"Hmph," said Ronald. He sat there for a long moment. A long moment. "'Put a smile on'," he murmured. "Hmm. Interesting..." He got up slowly, hands in his pockets... and left.

Ronald came slowly walking back up the alley into which he had disappeared. The trio was still standing where he had left them.

"I'm back," he said plainly.

"Your next lesson," said the Devil in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, "is a very important one. As we will soon be moving on to discuss some of the more important issues of devilhood, I feel that I must teach you all (and especially you, Ronald, since you're new at this game) some more potent magic spells of doom." The Devil cleared his E-VIL throat. "Now, the first point of devilhood is this: you can do whatever you want to, so go ahead and do it."

Ronald raised an eyebrow. "Can I purchase a convertible from the year 1217 B.C. for 600 bucks from a goose in Manhattan?"

"Make it explode!"

"Make it learn how to knit!"

"Make it into a football!"

"All right, then," said the Devil amiably, not having any clue as to what any of them had said. All he had to go by was a vague impression of three people shouting at him at once - so he used that. "Cum magna fenestra vincens!" he cried passionately, and at once the bus began to learn how to knit exploding footballs.

"Lovely," said Ronald, after a moment. "But really, though, was there any point to that?"

"No," said the Devil. "I wanted to do that, so I did it. Devilry permits no higher cause. It saves money, you see."

"How does permitting no higher cause save money?" Micki asked.

"The same way that keeping the thermostat down low saves money," said the Devil in reply. "Obviously."

"If I wanted to make you all wear clown suits, could I do that?" asked Ronald.

"Well, yes…" conceded the Devil nervously. "…Not that I recommend doing that, but you could."

"Cool," said Ronald, and turned his attention to other matters.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" asked Basil.

"It's my 'Stare of Death'," returned Ronald. "I hate you, so I thought I'd save you the trouble of rolling over and dying for me."

"Lovely," said Basil, and was secretly glad that he was wearing a magical charm from the East Indies that protected against Stares of Death from people with names starting with any letter between M and W.

"Even if Basil wasn't wearing that charm, though, you wouldn't be able to kill him," the Devil advised Ronald. "You would have to fight Basil's willpower and win by a considerable margin before you could do that."

"Blast," said Ronald. And lo, something exploded.

"Stupid expletives with the power to arbitrarily do stuff," said the Devil. "Darn them all to Heck!"

Well, it took a while, but I've finally returned all of our expletives from Heck. Now, on with the story...

"I do hate lines," said the Devil, glancing over his - LUGUBRIOUS - shoulder to see that his flock was still behind him. "So long… so linear."

"Why don't we just summon a huge demon to annihilate all of the other people involved so that we can proceed to the front of the line?" Ronald asked.

The Devil grew suddenly terribly, terribly serious. "You know, Ronald, you can't just go about summoning demons all over the place and expect no one to notice. There are people out there who monitor these sorts of happenings - and once they come after you, man, you've had it. No hope whatsoever." The Devil shivered. "Horrible sorts, really. Opposed to everything I stand for. Cruel, callous, unfeeling - no appreciation of pure unfettered evil as an art form. Sheesh!"

Ronald was unconvinced. "Are you SURE I can't summon a huge demon to - I mean, the four of us should be able to take care of one of these demon-hunters? I mean, between us we're a pretty strong team, and - "

"No," the Devil said shortly. "Even *I* am no match for one of THEM. Their methods..." The Devil shivered. "Well, let's just say that they're horrible beyond belief, and if I told you you'd die outright from the sheer horror of it all. They're that bad."

"Hmm," said Ronald. "Well, I guess I'm convinced. All right, no massive evil demons for me..."

"Thank you," the Devil said, relieved. "It's a great weight off my shoulders to know that we won't have to deal with any of THEM over the course of this - "

"Hey Bill, give me Microsoft or I'll summon a demon to torture your pet spiders!" Apparently, Basil had run into someone he recognized.

" - chapter," finished the Devil, as a black form began to materialize out of the ground. He stood, hands on hips, as the E-VIL shape took on a horrible, twisted likeness of a cross between Richard Simmons and a muscular Viking of death. The Devil shook his head sadly. "You know, that's the problem with kids these days - they just don't listen anymore."

It was pandemonium. No, not pandemonium as in the technology stocks crash of 2000, nor pandemonium as in giant tokyo-eating dinosaurs - but close. Actually, the sheer chaos created by the emerging demon was greater than either of these events, as the line at the ice cream parlor dissolved and the earth began to shake. Debris and chocolate sauce rained down from above, while flames licked hungrily out from the trans-dimensional vortex to the shadow world that Basil had created. There was only one thing that could make the day any worse...

"In the name of the Spoon, I will punish you!"

"Lousy day," muttered the Devil to his bad self. "Definitely definitely definitely, this had been one Heck of a lousy day."

"So, back again, I see!" The pink-clad girl was posing dramatically on the top of a nearby building.

"No, no, not you again!" The Devil was whining like a whiny whiner who's very whiny, too.

"How DARE you corrupt these innocent kids to your dork, dork ways!" cried the girl passionately. "Why - "

"Wait a second," said the Devil. "Could you repeat that?"

"I said, how DARE you corrupt these innocent kids to your dark, dark ways!" the girl replied, smiling sweetly. "Why do you ask?"

"...Nothing," said the Devil, still not entirely convinced that he had not just been insulted. "Go on."

"Right. How DARE you summon a giant demon of death from the shadow world to destroy and maim, to take lives not meant to be taken by the forces of E-VIL! How DA - "

"Hold on a minute," broke in Ronald. "I can accept the fact that the sweet little girl who told me to have faith in myself in a dark alleyway is really a (pink) sailor-suit clad fighter for justice, and I can accept the fact that you've got more power than all of us combined - heck, I can even accept the fact that you've got a ditzy little theme song that starts up whenever you confront the forces of bad. However - "

"*I* think it's a NICE theme song!" said the girl, huffily.

"…Whatever," said Ronald. "But like I was saying, there's something that I find a little hard to accept. You, a (pink) sailor-suited fighter for justice, came all this way from Never-Never Land or wherever you Magical Girls are based to defend BILL GATES, whose corporate policies are not very nice and even kind of mean, even though you predictably stand for pure hearts, truth, love, and so forth?"

"I wasn't defending Bill Gates," rejoined the girl. "I was defending his spiders."

"Oh. Right."

"Now, like I said before..." The girl struck a really sort of dramatic pose with big waves crashing inexplicably behind her. "In the name of a Spoon, I shall punish you!"

"I thought it was 'THE' Spoon before, not just 'a' Spoon."

"Whatever, Ronald." The girl tossed her hair in annoyance. "But it really doesn't matter what indefinite article I used because that was then and this is now, and because I'm just about to kick your prodigious tail ends into sometime next month. Now - "

"My tail end is NOT prodigious!"

"It's a figure of speech, Ronald," said the Devil tiredly. "Get over it. Now, are you going to fight her, or do *I* have to do it?"

"I'll do it!" cried Ronald passionately. He eyed the girl angrily. "You fool! You don't know what happens to people who double-cross… Ronald Average™!" (His new supervillain name, with a trademark and everything.) He pulled a handy-dandy concealed ripcord on his fancy designer shirt and out popped his super new supervillain outfit, complete with cape.

"Um... they walk away unmolested?"

"Shut up, Micki, I didn't ask you." He turned his gaze briefly to her in an air of annoyance.

"Sorry..." Micki muttered.

"Prepare yourself, Ronald Average™!" The magical girl leapt dramatically from her perch and hurtled towards Ronald, hand upraised.

There was a silence. Then, a slap. And the mighty Ronald Average™ was unconscious.

"What have you done to Ronald!?" cried Micki, leaping to his side. "Oh, Ronald, wake up! I didn't want you to get hurt! Wake uhhhhhhhhp - !"

"He won't wake up for a goodly while," said the girl confidently. "That was a pretty weak slap, but let's face it, the kid's a wimp. A bunch of magical flying ballerinas could beat him in a fist fight!"

"I... will never allow myself to be beaten... by a bunch of magical flying ballerinas… in a fist fight!" Ronald suddenly launched himself at the girl in a righteous fury, or whatever evil people get into. Taken off guard, the girl collapsed to the ground.

"Ronald..." she gasped, as he put her in his patented Choke Hold of Ouchie Pain™, "You… can't do it… for… I... am... your... mo… ther..."

The universe blinked.

"What?" Ronald released her. "You're kidding me! Dad back at home's 35-something, and you - why, from the look of you you couldn't be more than fifteen years of age!"

"I'm 42 and a half years old," the girl said plainly.

"What!?" Ronald was taken aback. "Why, then how do you look so young?"

"Second childhood," she said simply.

There was a long pause, in which everyone tried to make the basic rules of logic apply to this universe. Needless to say, it was a hopeless struggle. Eventually, Lady (as Ronald now knew her to be called) spoke.

"You guys ARE evil, right?"

"We sure are," said the Devil proudly. "The best - I mean, worst, in the biz!"

"Okay," said Lady. "'Cause you sure don't act that way. All right, let's go, then."

WHAM! The Devil lunged at Lady. POW! Lady socked the Devil in the jaw. KABOOM! The demon that Basil had summoned inexplicably exploded, its warranty presumably having run its course.

"Darn it!" said Basil. He whirled around at Lady. "I will make you pay for occupying the author of this tale for so long that my demon's warranty expires! Curse you!" He lunged at her, and they went down in a tussle.

Ronald watched the two role about, fighting, on the ground with more pain than you could possibly imagine, you insensitive dope. A nagging emptiness was gnawing at his soul like some sort of deranged beaver that didn't exist but still hurt.

"Stop," he said at last, collapsing to the ground. "I can watch no more of this."

The pair stopped, staring. "Why, whatsoever do you mean?" asked his mother.

Ronald looked at the ground. "Basil… I…"

"What?" Basil looked from Ronald to Lady… then an E-VIL smile began to creep across his E-VIL face. "I get it," he said slowly. "You don't want me hurting your mother because… because you… LOVE… her… you…" Then he frowned, realizing that Ronald was three hundred times his own strength.

Ronald nodded. "She's my mom, stupid." He stood up, advancing to the pair. Basil took a step back. There was fear in his eyes.

"Come now, Ronald, it was only a joke - a joke, right? You wouldn't want to hurt me because of a little practical joke, would you? Would you, old buddy, old pal, old friend? Right?"

"Shut up, Bub," said Ronald coldly. "I know as well as you do that you were dead serious. So now you're going to be dead."

"Ronald?" Lady looked at her son in shocked surprise, as he moved forwards to strike the unfortunate Basil. "Don't do it - it's not important! Oh, too cruel, TOO CRUEL!!!"

The Devil had been watching all of this scene with an increasing feeling of impending doom - but then again, he suddenly realized, why was he here if not to rejoice in doom and destruction? So it was a good thing after all. He grinned.

"DEVIL!" The scene swam before his eyes then, with the force of the voice. He stared down at the ground, where the voice seemed to emanate from, and then at everyone else - but they hadn't seemed to notice anything amiss. Ronald was still beating Basil into the ground, while Lady looked on in horror. The world swam again, and again. "WHY DO YOU NOT SEEK YOUR DESTINY?"

"My destiny?" said the Devil in bewilderment. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"YOUR DESTINY IS TO BE EVIL AND DESTROY THE WORLD. WHY DO YOU HESITATE IN DOING SO?"

"Destroy the world?" said the Devil, vaguely frightened now. "B-b-b-b-but - "

"NO B-B-B-B-BUTS ABOUT IT! REALIZE THE TRUE POWER! SEIZE YOUR DESTINY! EMBRACE! THE! DARKNESS!!!!!"

The Devil collapsed to the ground. Thoughts spun before his eyes, and a buzzing light filled his ears. "Destiny… my… is… darkness… power… true… the…" he said, almost babbling. His eyes lit up with am E-VIL light they had not had before. "The… true… power… darkness… is… my… destiny! MY DESTINY!"

Everyone looked up. Even Ronald stopped strangling the unfortunate Basil Bub for a minute to see what was going on.

"THE TRUE POWER OF DARKNESS IS MINE!" laughed the Devil, gazing at his hands with newfound appreciation. His voice was unnaturally deep and full, as if it had as many layers as a six-foot-thick pan of lasagna. That's a lot of layers.

"Come again?" said Ronald.

"THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUU, I'M EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL, AND I'LL KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILL YOU, NOW!!!!!!!!!" The ground began to shake, as if rocked by a fifteen-point earthquake; the buildings, looming high above them, seemed to swim before their eyes. And all around the city drifted fiendish strains of accordion music.

"HECK HAS A NEW MASTER!!" cried the Devil, as dark powers swirled around him. His form began to melt, and his presence expanded like a balloon. Pure, unbridled power emanated from him with incredible force. Ronald had to steady himself against Lady to avoid being blown away.

"What - what is this power?" cried Micki. "I've never felt anything like it before!"

"Hey, not bad!" said Lady appreciatively. "A fine attempt at cheesy dialog as the E-VIL villain transforms into a new and more horrible state. You know, if you ever get tired of devilry - " She smiled. "…Believe me, girl, Magical Girls Incorporated has a space open for you!"

Micki tried to envision what she would look like in a predictably short pink dress, but couldn't quite do so.

"Rhododendrann… the secret power…" Basil groaned, and turned over.

"What did he say?" Micki stared down at Basil's dilapidated form.

Basil stared up at her with blurred, half-seeing eyes. "The Devil… he's being possessed by the secret power… Satona Rhododendrann… the [evil one]…" And then he ran out of life, and Basil Bub was unconscious.

"AHHHAAAHAAHAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA-!" cried the figure who was not quite the Devil in glee. "THE CITIES SHALL CRUMBLE! THE NATIONS SHALL FALL! CHAOS SHALL REIGN FOREVERMORE!" Dark energy spread outwards from his twisted form, sweeping over the city and out into the world.

Ronald stared, then glanced over at his remaining two companions. "Come away from here with me," he whispered. "Lady! Micki! Let us leave this place and seek shelter in the farthest reaches of the world! We will be safe there… but come! There is no way we can fight this power!"

Micki stared at Ronald. Lady looked at him sadly.

"I wish that such a thing was possible, my son. But sadly it is not… for there is no corner of the world that will be safe from the wrath of the [evil one]. And besides," she added suddenly, "I've got a job to do, money to make. I won't have my little Ronny not being able to go to college because we're too poor to afford it!"

The world seemed to stand still to Ronald then, in that moment. He stared at his mother.

"But… the government… they pay 'bills of benefition'… child support and whatnot…"

"All a lie," said his father, emerging from the shadows of a nearby closet. He appeared to be wheeling a medical skeleton with one hand while balancing the plot in the other.

"*I* made that money," whispered Lady softly to Ronald. "It was never really the government at all. *I* made it, so that the two of you might live a comfortable life. You would be without me… but you would have enough to live on."

Ronald stared from one parent to the other. "But then the government's sympathy - "

"Also untrue." Ronald's father sighed a deep sigh. "There is no government. Washington is ruled by Bill Gate's pet spiders."

Ronald stared. "But… but I thought we were nobility…"

"No, my son. I really am just Donald McFloyd, a washed-out poltrician. I'm a chicken farmer, Ronald. A chicken farmer."

Ronald stared, from his father, to his mother, back to his father again, and then to the E-VIL figure surrounded by whirling shadows of destruction.

"THERE IS NO HOPE, BOY," hissed the voice. Though the figure that had once been the Devil was obscured by darkness, Ronald felt sure that the figure was grinning wickedly. "THERE IS NOTHING FOR YOU IN THE LIGHT. COME ON - DO NOT HESITATE ANY LONGER. GIVE YOURSELF UP TO THE WILL OF THE UNDERWORLD!"

The ground trembled. The world shook. The wind blew. That big Ferris Wheel in Atlantic City, New Jersey turned.

Ronald glanced about, to each of the other four faces watching him intently. His father, a poltrician… his mother, a magical girl… Basil - okay, so he was mostly dead, so he wasn't EXACTLY watching Ronald 'intently', but you get the idea - and then there was Micki. Micki… Ronald stared into her eyes, lost in their deep pools of brown… it was as if he was drowning in seventeen feet of mud, but somehow, he didn't care. Micki… Micki. What a pretty name…

"Micki…" he started.

"Yes, John?" she said, staring back. He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, sorry, Ronald. People are always named something like John or Tom in sappy scenes like these, so I got your name mixed up. Sorry."

"Micki…"

"Yes, Ronald?"

"Micki, tell me something… do you love me?"

She gazed at him, a little bit sadly. "Ronald… I… I… I love you, Ronald." She hid her face in her hands, blushing.

Ronald walked over to her, putting his hand on her shoulder. She looked up. "Micki, tell me something else… if I were to forsake everything I stand for and become undeniably EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL… would you still love me?"

She gazed up at him, tears beginning to form in her eyes. "Ronald… even then would I love you. My love for you is boundless and infinite, and I will love you to the ends of the earth, the expiration date of my zany Aunt Marge's fruitcake, and/or eternity, whichever comes first." She shuddered. "Gosh, I HATE her fruitcake!"

"Shakespearean!" said Mr. Donald. "Like, grooo-vay!"

Ronald squeezed Micki around the waist, and gave her a reassuring smile. She smiled weakly back. Then he turned to face the dark whirlwind.

"I will not join the side of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL," he said.

"WHAT? CURSE YOUR TOUCHING SAPPY-WAPPY OOH-IT'S-SO-TOUCHING-I-THINK-I'M-GONNA-CRY MOMENT!" the spinning whirlwind of a figure spat angrily. Shadows danced around it, and the world seemed to lose a shade of color. The ground trembled. The figure seemed to grow larger. "DO NOT TRY TO DENY MY POWER," it boomed. The world shook.

Ronald didn't see where he had come from, but all of a sudden, a middle-aged figure stumbled in from the side to stand next to Ronald, frantically clutching his fishing hat to keep it from blowing away. His sparse white beard outlined his hardy, weather-beaten face like a woolen toga.

"I'm Obi-Wan Kenobi," he explained, patting Ronald on the shoulder. "I taught your dad everything he knows about chicken farming. Here - " he said, rummaging into the coat of his pocket, "don't speak. I want you to have this." He handed Ronald a short tube-like whatchamacallit thingimabob-esque kinda thing. You know, the kind with whatchacallems.

Ronald stared at it, then looked over at his father. "You were taught to chicken-farm by a Jedi Knight?" he said.

Mr. Donald nodded. "He does a bit of race-car driving and loan-sharking on the side, but yeah, that's basically what he does for a living."

Ronald stared at his father, then down at the tube in his hand. Tentatively, he pressed the button.

There was a swish, and then a teal light. It was a light like Ronald had never seen before in his entire life, except on that one weekend when his dad had taken him to see the Star Wars trilogy fourteen-hundred times in a row. Ronald stared at the light-saber sitting in his hand, then took a practice swing. Everyone involuntarily stepped back - even the shadowed figure retreated one or two E-VIL paces. Ronald stared at it, and then up at the being of darkness before him.

"NOW, DON'T YOU BE GETTING ANY IDEAS, YOUNG MAN," said the being hesitantly. "COME NOW! PUT THE LIGHT-SABER DOWN… LIKE A GOOD LITTLE RONNIKINS…"

"No one calls me 'Ronnikins' and lives," said Ronald coldly, advancing suddenly upon the figure. "Prepare to die!"

"But what about me?" cried Lady.

"What about you?" Ronald stared back at her in confusion.

"Well, do you mean that *I* can't call you 'Ronnikins', either?"

Ronald considered the matter carefully. "Well, I guess so. But… preferably not in public."

Micki looked at him timidly. "Can… I…"

"No," said Ronald firmly, turning back to his EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL foe. "…Don't press your luck. Have at you!" He lunged.

A sword of vermilion light appeared from out of the darkness. Someone turned on 'Duel of the Fates' from Episode One.

"Cool," said Mr. Donald.

Their swords flashed. Micki held her breath as Ronald was almost cut in half by a sudden sword swipe from the figure. Swoosh, swoosh, the swords clashed. A shower of sparks, then another. Darkness whirled up out of the ground and almost obscured her vision, but Micki could still see the two swords through the light, gleaming with violent energy.

Ronald slashed, parried, slashed again. He ducked back - and then the figure raised its hand, and the surrounding shadows whirled in closer. Something oblong spun out of the dark stream, and he blocked. A can of tuna fell at his feet, lifeless. I mean, c'mon, it was a can of tuna. But then the Devil struck out - and he only barely managed to block the brutal attack.

Ronald fell back, winded, for no apparent reason. "Can't… win… against… this… foe… he's… just… too… powerful…" He sighed. "Dang it, too many dot-dot-dot thingamy-bobs."

"What?" said the figure.

"I said, Dang it, too many dot-dot-dot thingamy-bobs. No rhythm to my dialogue."

"Oh, okay. Have at you! Again!"

"Whatever."

Ooh man, ya know, after this point, the battle just kept raging on and on, ya know? MAN it was intense! Wow, I wish you could've been there, because this battle was like nothing you've ever seen before. But you know, a battle this intense is really hard to describe, ya know? So let's just skip ahead a bit, because otherwise I'll be telling you how intense the battle was 'til the Day of Judgement, and that would be bad for the main characters, ya know? 'Cause they're evil. So, without further delay, we return to the action, several minutes later…

…Ronald sook a tep back, I mean took a step back, panting. "You… are strong…" he panted, frowning up at the most evil villain in the entire universe or anywhere.

"Yes, well…" The most evil villain in the entire universe or anywhere dropped to one knee, panting. "…You're not bad yourself, for a kid. I mean, I'm the evilest villain in the entire universe or anywhere and all, and you're almost - ALMOST - a match for my strength. Not quite, there, kid," the figure said, with a hint of a wry EE-VIL smile. "…You still have a little ways to go."

Ronald smiled grimly at his adversary through the sweat that was dripping down his forehead. "Is that so? Well, I must be destined for great things if I'm already the second most powerful evil dude in the universe!"

"Don't bet on it, Ronny-boy." The figure straightened up suddenly, shaking itself like a dog shakes off water. "Unless you plan on joining my evil brigade right here and now - which I know you'd never do - you're still only the second most powerful evil being in the universe, which means that I rock and you're a losah! Nyya heh heh! Ptbbth!"

"Loser, is it? Heck, I can party the socks of you any day, Mr. Zero!"

"Yes, but can you rock da house?"

"Zero, I can shake da house to its foundations any day of the week with my bustin' grooves, slacka-boy!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! Just watch!"

And with that, Miscellaneous City #2006 suddenly erupted into the biggest disco party this side of the 7^th heaven. I mean, it was just INTENSE. Woah, man, you shoulda been there. Oh well.

Wow, you know how I said that giant disco party was intense? Well, better make that super-duper intense. Man, I mean it, the party was so intense, SO INTENSE, that if you weren't ready for this sort of thing, you might very well go flying all the way to Vermont. Or be eaten by a hippopotamus. It was that intense.

"Ya, dude, like, it was, intense."

That was our correspondent from Chicago, Mayonnaise O'Fun with the situation in Miscellaneous City #2006. Or maybe just in Chicago. I don't know.

"PARTY!"

Ah yes, Ronald. Anyway, the party was well underway in the mean streets of Miscellaneous City #2006, and already the partying contest between Ronald and the most evil dude in the universe was, like, totally underway. Man, it was intense, too! All this intensity is wearing me out. I think I have to go lie down.

***

Okay, I'm back. So here's how things've been going: Ronald busts a few moves, then the transformed Devil makes a step, then Ronald does the boogie, then the Devil breakdances, then everyone breakdances, then everyone does the disco, then things just sorta go on from there. Man, this is STILL so intense, I gotta go lie down again. Woo. Intensy.

"Whatever… Mr. Wimpy Narrator Man…" grunted Ronald, pulling off a very xtreme breakdancing combo move that would take an ordinary mortal at least five hundred years to master. "Good thing I got that tape, 'Impossible-Breakdancing-Moves-That-Would-Take-An-Ordinary-Mortal-At-Least-Five-Hundred-Years-To-Master-In-12-Easy-Steps'," he thought. "Man, I mean, if those steps hadn't all been easy…"

"Hoo-hah, Ronald! You're slowing down!" laughed the evilest dude in the entire universe or wherever.

"Oh yeah? Take this!" Ronald stopped suddenly, and pulled out a handgun. But before he could take proper aim or anything at his EE-VIL nemesis, the Devil who wasn't really the Devil because he was eeeviler blasted him with a deadly deathray of doom, leaving Ronald to flop over onto the ground, apparently dead.

"Ronald!" screamed Micki.

"Hahaha, Hahahahaha, HAHAHAHAHAAAAA-!" laughed the Devil. "No real archdevil uses a handgun! Handguns are for pansies!" Then he took a better look at Ronald, and let out a howl of rage.

"That's right," said Ronald, stepping out from behind a nearby pillar. "The me that you killed was only a cheap cardboard marionette I made in Arts & Crafts at Pathetic Loser High!" He was holding a machine gun.

"Gaaah! Curse you!" the Devil shrieked, taking a step back. There was a burst of machine gun fire. Obi-Wan Kenobi scurried for cover.

When the smoke cleared, the Devil was lying on the ground, apparently dead as well. BUT…

"Curses! Not you, too!"

"Yes, me, too! Hahahahahaaaa! Ronnikins, you can't expect yourself to be the ONLY person on the planet who can make a cardboard marionette, now can you?" The Devil stepped out from behind another pillar, also holding a machine gun.

"So, it's come down to this, now, has it?" Ronald stared over at his ex-teacher with a look of pure hatred and loathing and a tinge of hunger because he hadn't eaten since lunchtime and that was almost four hours ago now.

"Yes, so it has." The Devil leered leeringly over at him. "So, are you going to fight me?"

" 'kay." Ronald let lose a spray of shots across the plaza, blowing out the windows of several conveniently-placed shops.

"Toah!" The eeevil version of the Devil returned fire, ducking behind the fender of an old Model T for a shield. Ronald's new hail of bullets bounced off the car's fender. Gee, they just don't make 'em like they used to, huh? Why, I remember the day…

"Gosh, I guess that old narrator dude must be back now, then," muttered Ronald, diving out of the way of a flurry of bullets. "Great. Juuuuust great."

"Oh, Ronnikins…" The Devil smiled sweetly at Ronald for a moment, then took aim at the slender form who was standing right behind a support beam of the plaza. Micki froze, staring at the gun in his hands. She seemed unable to move.

Ronald turned around in slow motion. "Miiiiiiiiiickkkkkkiiiiiiiiiii……… nooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO………" He started running towards her, still moving in slow motion. "IIIIi willlllll saveeeeeee you… Hhollllld onnnnnnnnnn……"

There was a burst of machine gun fire. Ronald dived. Micki screamed. A pigeon cooed. A dog barked. A cow mooed. The Challenger exploded… again. A small planetoid fell into the burning sun. Bob hiccupped. I -

There was the sick sound of bullets hitting an expendable moron, and a figure crumpled to the ground, suddenly visible.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGH. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGRGRGRGHRHGHGAGHAGHARGHARGHARHGHRAGHARGHRGAHGHRGHARGHARGHARGHRGHARGGGHARGGHARGHARGGHARHGARYUIYOOYYOYYIYIYIYIOIYYYIIYYIYIYOOOWOOOWOOWOWOOWOWOOWOOWOWOWOWOOWOWOWOOWOOWOWOWOWOARGARGGRGHGHGHGHAHRGAHRGHARGHGHRAGHRAGHBRGHARGGHARGHAGHRGH OOOOH it hurts IT HURTTTTTTTTTS it HUUURURUUUUUUTS URTS URTs HURRRRRRTS!!!!!!!!!

Lady looked on in shock. "No quotation marks… no nothing… but I've never seen him around before… that can only mean… that he's…"

The transformed Devil blinked, a memory from his normal form resurfacing all of a sudden like a rush of bubbles. "No… that can't be… he isn't… no…"

FOOOOOOLS!! I AM THE NARRATOR AND I AM WOUNDED! ARRAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH! YOU HAVE INJURED ME! AND YOU WILL PAY! YOU WILL ALL PAY! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA - ! YOU'RE ALL FIRED! GET OUT! YOU WILL ALL DIE! MWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA - ! *urk* MEDIC…

The sound of an ambulance started far away in the distance, coming closer by the second. The vehicle pulled into the plaza all of a sudden, and two guys hopped out from the back, bearing a stretcher. Scooping the narrator guy quickly up, they quickly stuck him back in the back. Then they drove off into Never-Never Land, from which all Narrator Guys come, rarely to be seen again.

The entire world was shaking. "Oh no oh no oh no," whined the Devil, now back to his old self again. "Whatever shall we whatever shall we do?" He bit his evil fingernails furiously.

"This is all YOUR fault!" said Ronald furiously, kicking the dark figure in peevishness. "You made this happen by making a deal with the evilest force in the universe! Dork!"

"Don't interrupt me, kid, I'm whining pathetically. Anyway, *I'm* supposed to be the evilest force in the universe! What right did that slacker have to - "

Ronald clutched Micki tight. Lady clutched Mr. Donald tight. Obi-Wan Kenobi clutched the swimsuit edition of Jedi Powers Monthly very closely.

"We're all gonna die…" muttered Ronald. "We're all… really… gonna…"

At the last moment, just before everything EXPLODED into a painful sea of fire and death, there was a ripping sound. A door appeared in the sky, a door of light. And through that door came…

"Hey, dudes and dudettes, I'm back. Did'ja miss me?"

"Who's that guy?" asked Micki, opening one eye.

"Great… uncle… Nick?" Ronald stared up at the skinny, unshaven, groovy sunglasses-adorned, Bermuda-shorts-wearing, Hawaiian T-shirt-equipped dude standing on a surfboard before them in the sky. "Is it really you?"

"Well, of course it's me, Ronny-boy! Who'dja think it was, the Scottish bagpipes?"

"But…" Ronald looked in confusion to his father, then back over to his great uncle. "I thought you were supposed to have taken the 'Long Vacation' a long time ago! You're supposed to be dead!"

"Ronald, Ronald, Ronald…" The groovy gruff-voiced man smiled unshavenly down at his great nephew. "Ronald, taking the 'Long Vacation' doesn't mean that someone's dead. It just means that they're in Vermont. Didn't you ever know that?"

Ronald stared. "Why… no… I didn't…"

Nick laughed heartily, then his face grew serious. "You know, Ronald my boy, I used to have great faith in your growing up to be E-VIL, like me. I used to dream of having little Ronnikins as my noble successor, just as soon as my good friend the Devil here resigned HIS post. But tell me something, Ronald… do you feel like you're cut out for the job?"

Ronald hung his head. "No, Great Uncle Nick… no. I'm a failure, Uncle Nick… I'm no good at being E-VIL."

"Ronald, Ronald, Ronald…" Nick smiled kindly down at him. "You misunderstand my question. You have already proved your skill at being pure E-VIL. That is no longer in question. What I want to know is, do you really WANT to be pure E-VIL all the time? Do you want to devote the entire rest of your life to the pursuit of that goal? Tell me, Ronald, because I think you'll find the answer surprising."

Ronald stared up at his great uncle. He had never really given the matter much thought before! "Pure… evil… pure… E-VIL… no," he said suddenly, blinking in surprise. "No, I don't think I really want that. I'd much rather become a clown. A clown who," he smiled over at Lady, who smiled back, though a little puzzled, "helps people to 'put a smile on'. I want to help people get happy."

"You sound like you *urk* plan to deal in drugs," smiled Basil Bub painfully, sitting up with some effort. "If I didn't know better I'd think you were going to *grunt* start dealing in hallucinogens."

"Perhaps," smiled Ronald over at Basil. Strangely, he felt no malice towards his former enemy.

"Come on, Ronald," his mother said slowly. "...Let's go home."

After all these happenings were over, Ronald returned back to Pathetic Loserville with his parents, where he resumed his primary education. Basil and Micki, inspired by his example, gave up training under the Devil and soon returned to their own parents. Before long, it became apparent that they, too, lived in Pathetic Loserville, and were attending Pathetic Loser High alongside Ronald. The three became very close friends and, throughout the rest of their childhood, never quarreled again.

When Ronald was eighteen he went off to college, where he majored in Purple Chicken Theory and Application. Returning to his house after college, he spent several years admiring the new linoleum carpeting that his hippie dad had installed in his absence. Reflecting upon his life, he undertook a life of wanderings for the next ten years to make up for some of the mean thoughts he had had in his youth. Realizing that this was kind of silly, he decided to help all the poor starving people he had met on his travels. Assuming the aforementioned form of a clown as a sort of combination penance and ego trip, he devoted his life to convincing people to 'put a smile on', as Lady had put it.

Ronald never afterwards knew what later happened to his old friend and former enemy Basil Bub, although he eventually had to hire the Devil to take over quality control at the chicken farms after his old employees had proved too fowl. *EVERYONE GROANS* But it was not long afterwards that he met up with Micki again, and they got married and had two beautiful children named Todd and Melissa. And oh yeah... he wears a red wig and can talk to butterflies. But that's a story for another time.

THE END.

*** Copyright infringement notification thingie: anyone who steals, emulates, imitates, or otherwise perpetrates copyright infringement by stealing from this work has got to be NUTS. I mean, really, who'd want to steal or 'borrow' from THIS crazy crumpet of a junk-heap? Still, it's my stuff, and if you steal it, well, then I suggest you get yourself a good dental plan, 'cause I might just have to punch you into next week (unless I'm in a particularly harmonic mood at the time). On the other hand, feel free to be 'inspired' by my incredible brilliance. I am. This has been a public service announcement by the same strange people who wrote this oddity and who are now referring to themselves in plural. Thank you for your time. ***