With a shimmer of light and Star Trek sound-effect, Plan 9 materialized in Papermonkies Headquarters, Beldar and Pulse at his side.

"Well, THAT went well," Beldar said with exhaustion in his voice.

"Cut the sarcasm," Plan 9 said calmly, "and your comment would be correct."

"Ook?" Pulse asked as he got two bananas out of a nearby freezer and gave one to Plan 9.

"Yeah," Beldar agreed. "You know the fee is going up for this job. You gotta get me a Nutrageous bar, too."

Pulse gave Beldar a puzzled look.

"All right, now," Plan 9 said. "Don't forget why we came here." He pointed to a workbench in the corner.

Pulse ran to the table, picked up the bomb that Howyadoin had been working on earlier, and looked toward his sidekick. "Ook, ook?"

"Yeah, back to the plan," Beldar said. "You know what to do."

Pulse put the device under his arm and scrambled out a nearby window.

Plan 9 smiled, "Well, I'll be off, too. I've gotta go pick up a couple of candy bars -- and a flyswatter!"

As Beldar turned to ask what 9 meant by that last part, the alien hoverchair shimmered away. "He's going to burn out his dilithium crystal, beaming twice in the same scene," he thought.

"Some villian YOU'RE turning out to be," a familiar voice taunted from a nearby mirror. Beldar turned to see his reflection, which was doing the talking.

"'Poopie?' Since when do you talk like that?" the reflection added.

"You know Ozbat has the Conn-filter on," Beldar snapped back, "and give me a break. I've only been in this community for six months."

"Explains why you've only been active in four chapters," the evil twin gloated.

"Five."

"I'm not counting this one."

"Fine, whatever. But I'm tired of this already. I mean, I'm all for global simian domination and I could care less about Tango's cult. But I don't know about all these other shadow conspiracies, and the fictional characters?"

"Perhaps you should get out then," the twin said. "Ask some questions, kick some butts, pull wings off of certain creatures... or we could switch places so I could."

"No way." Beldar said firmly. "We'd get retconned for sure. You're pretty close to a cheap plot device as it is."

"Ah, fine." Nothing seemed to wipe that silly smile off of the evil one's face. "But I know where you can start."

"OK, where?"

"You can't go unarmed," Beldar's evil twin said, pointing behind Beldar.

Beldar went to a desk and pulled out a side drawer. He didn't know what he would find for a weapon. It was the others who used the throw pillows, the puppy cannon...
Under a pile of top-five lists left by Silentbri there was a bag with what felt like marbles.

"Of course," Beldar said. "PenGwen left these here for me."

"Oh, those will be so perfect where we're going!" the twin exclaimed.

"What do you mean 'we'?"

"Come over here, and I'll show you."

Against his better judgement Beldar walked over to the mirror. The twin suddenly reached from the reflection and grabbed him, pulling him into the glass. Stunned by the sudden move, Beldar didn't resist, but found himself falling through the mirror as though it were a portal.

It was. He landed in a room with walls of crystal.

The room looked familar. "Hey, I'm in..."

"You're in the fortress of solitude!" Z-Mage said. "How did you get in here without me seeing?"

Great, Beldar thought, I'm in the Superman Board -- a place I never go to.

"Figures you'd hide out here, too," Z-Mage was seething. "You know T'Omm's is over at the Comm board." (Well that clears up the issue of who the moderator is, Beldar thought.) "It's you and me now, villian. I'm gonna get back into the story by being the hero -- Get him!"

"Now wait...!" Beldar barely had time to duck as flame shot by him.

"CHARRR"

Beldar grabbed a marble from his bag and expanded it into a pokeball. "Great! I thought we could talk this out, but if it's a battle you want..."

POP! "Diglett Dig!"

Z-Mage was mildly impressed. This CBR newbie had studied the ways of a pokemon trainer. And he knew it was best to aviod direct contact with a charizard. Still, the choice of a diglett was easily countered.

"Go!" Beldar shouted, pointing at Z-Mage and his fire-lizard.

The diglett disappeared into the floor. To Beldar's surprise that move caused the crystals around him to crack. His evil twin, who had been looking on from one of the facets, disappeared. So much for an escape plan.

Z-Mage waved to the charizard, who took to the air. Suddenly, he felt the floor shake under his feet.

"So I'm a target, too, eh? Pokeball, GO!"

"PI-GEOTT!!" Z-Mage grabbed the giant bird's feet as it flew up, barely avoiding the diglett as it burst up through the floor.

Darn, Beldar fumed to himself, it figures he would have pokemon in evolved stages.

"Get him!" Z-Mage commanded. With that the pigeott knocked Beldar back with a gust attack. He barely avoided another flamethrower attack and ducked behind a crystal formation.

"What do I do now?" Beldar mumbled as he went through the bag of pokeballs. His favorite pokemon, Meowth, was no match for Z-Mage's combatants. He grabbed a yellow pokeball. "I'll give this a try, it always seems to work for Ash in the cartoon..."

POP! "Pika!"

"Pikachu!" Beldar shouted. "Hit them with your thundershock!"

The chubby electric mouse tensed into a little ball, then cut loose. Beldar could barely keep conscious as the crystaline floor and walls conducted the massive amount of electricity. Lightning arced up to Z-Mage, Pigeott and Charizard. The bird was knocked out, and Z-Mage fell to the ground in a heap. The Charizard stayed aloft, but was obviously in pain, shooting flames everywhere.

An explosion rocked the room.

"That was some jolt, Pikachu," Beldar said proudly. He leaned against the crystal structure, waiting for feeling to return to his legs. Then it dawned on him that the explosion wasn't just the pokemon's doing.

"Is this a private party, or can anyone join?" standing in a newly-formed hole in the wall to Beldar's right was the evil (supposedly ficticious) Z-Mage!

Beldar glanced to his left, Charizard was helping the "real" Z-Mage to his feet. He was surrounded.

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