Planet Arus: 5:00 a.m.

Dawn's pinkish hues illuminated the impressive silhouette of the Castle of Lions; the steel gray fortress took on warmth as the first lazy rays of the sun appeared over the horizon. The burgeoning light soon touched the lands around the Castle, highlighting the meadows that were liberally dotted with symmetrically rounded trees of equal height and breadth. The rear of the palace was also revealed, including the flawlessly formed lake that was glimmering in front of the manicured courtyards. The gardens were filled with impeccably maintained flowers that stretched open their petals to the first faint beams of sunlight.

Graceful, pillared structures reminiscent of ancient Greece emerged from shadow as the sparkling rays blanketed them. The emerald green grass that grew on the flawlessly angled hill on which the buildings rested, took on new verve as wildlife began to stir. Small, shy bunnies emerged from their burrows to hop to and fro, little songbirds trilled a catchy melody, and gentle does and their fawns romped in the meadows.

It was another perfect, sunny day on Planet Arus.

All was peaceful, all was quiet on this Shangri-la of a planet ...and that is exactly why our story doesn't start here, I mean really, how dull and trite can you get?

The building had been condemned, but that didn't bother its occupants. Acme Labs hadn't earned their results-with-minimal-cost-to-the-client reputation by being frivolous with a buck.

The humungous letters of the blinking neon sign that crowned the dilapidated laboratory jutted into the stormy night, providing an excellent allegory for what occurred inside the structure; rare flashes of brilliance mixed with the inevitable power failure due to low wattage. Tonight the sign spelled 'ACE BS'.

The scientists corralled within the lab's dingy walls scurried about, performing their assigned duties, which consisted of experimenting on field mice collected by ACME Pest Control, and then watching the resulting mutations go about their business. Everything about these mice had to be carefully recorded as data. Data was a scientist's best friend, data was their bread and butter, as long as they provided data of any kind for the Big Man, they all had jobs.

Eventually, the eight o'clock bell sounded, ending the evening shift. The white-coated humans simultaneously dropped their clipboards and exited en masse, speedily departing their world of test tubes, rodents, and paperwork for the comforts of home.

The door slammed, and a morgue- like silence fell over the room, broken only by the sporadic sound of a squeaky exercise wheel.

"Pavlovian imbeciles, once again they've left the place a wreck," muttered a cultured voice. It came from a cage far above the others in the lab. "Ah, but at last I have some peace!"

A steel cage door swung open, and the misshapen mouse the scientists had dubbed 'The Brain' crawled out of confinement with a thankful sigh. As soon as he was free of the pen, he stood in an upright position on the laboratory table and placed his fore paws in the small of his white, furry back, stretching it out with pleasure. His grossly oversized cranium almost overbalanced him for a moment, but he managed to stay upright as he completed his exercises, his abnormally tiny body making little cracking noises.

"Ahhh, that feels so good. How I hate having to regress to such primitive measures to get around. Four-footed locomotion should be reserved for inferior creatures like cats and rats. " He grumbled, his perpetual scowl deepening with contempt.

"Zort! Brain, is that you?" A loud voice liberally laced with a Scottish burr piped through the bars of a nearby cage.

"No, Pinky, it's actually Mr. Rogers." The Brain replied, with sarcasm. He strolled over to the enclosure directly below his.

"Ooooo, really? The Mr. Rogers? The 'oh, won't you be my neighbor' Mr. Rogers? Oh my, I'm all tingly, now!" The happy voice trembled with excitement. A pink nose bracketed by two large eyes and a buck toothed grin suddenly appeared between the cage bars. Two extremely outsized ears quivered in ecstasy on either side of the broadly grinning face. "Mr. Rogers, I'm a big fan of yours...poit!...would you play make believe with me? Would you please? Oh, I simply love King Friday, and Prince Tuesday, and Daniel..."

"Pinky, your inability to grasp the obvious never fails to astound me," the big- headed rodent answered, wearily. "Are you coming out or did you forget how to open your door?"

"No, Mr. Rogers, I didn't! Look! I can do it by myself now! Look!" The gangly mouse whipped open his cage door with a flourish and scurried over to his friend, eagerly glancing around. "Oh hi, Brain! Where's Mr.- "

"Not here," The Brain cut him off, speaking in simple sentences. "Never was here."

"Oh," Pinky's face fell, then brightened. "How about Mr. McFeely?"

"Not here."

"King-"

"Nope."

Pinky's lower lip quivered. "The trolley isn't here either?" he asked pitifully, his eyes starting to water.

"Pinky, I was only joking! We are the only ones present in this godforsaken hellhole, and we have work to do, so just get over it, please!"

Pinky was immediately distracted from his sulk. "Work? Oh goody, I love work!" He clapped his front paws together.

~Has the attention span of a flea at a dog show.~ The Brain thought despairingly. Good thing Pinky made the perfect lackey, or he would be tempted to personally put the addled rodent in the crowded rat cage experiment.

"What are we going to do tonight, Brain?" His dimwitted counterpart inquired excitedly.

"The same thing we do every night, Pinky..." the mousy genius replied emphatically. "...try to- TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

"Oooo goody, so how are we going to do it this time?" Pinky danced around in delight.

"Well, up until a minute ago I hadn't a clue," the Brain admitted, "but your inane prattle has actually given me an idea."

"That's nice of you to say, Brain, but I don't own an 'inane prattle'," Pinky informed him gravely.

"Never mind, Pinky. What I am saying is that we will use make- believe to take over the world!"

"Will King Friday be the ruler?"

"NO! Just forget about Mr. Rogers and try to focus, Pinky; gather those genetically scattered wits and concentrate!" The Brain bellowed, then calmed himself. "We are going to use the beloved world of animation to send a subliminal message to the earth's population to worship The Brain. All that remains is to choose a suitable series to use in our plan."

"Does that mean I get to watch cartoons again?" Pinky asked, with a hopeful grin.

"Yes, I do believe that would be the best way to choose...and since I installed the satellite dish on the roof, we now have 540 channels to pick from."

"Naaarrrf! That's amazing, Brain! I'll go get the remote! Zort!"

"You do that," his friend replied, with a sigh of relief. Pinky had actually mastered that task. "I'll wheel out the big screen television."

The two mice went their separate ways, Pinky to the remote, The Brain to the huge closet that contained the television and the 'Big Suit', a headless, life size mechanical body he had built for all the world domination schemes that required him to appear human. He managed to pull the cart out without dislodging the suit, and wheeled it to the nearest power source.

Soon the T.V. was on and the two laboratory mice were seated on the table in front of it, eyes avidly fixed on the screen.

The first channel showed an animated gray cat and large- headed brown mouse wrecking havoc on a house and each other. Pinky chortled in glee as the cat's face took on the shape of the steam iron that had flattened it.

"Ah yes...the classics..." The Brain intoned, thoughtfully. "That mouse had the right idea, but his ambition is limited to a lowly cat. A good looking fellow too...but what a waste of talent. Too bad. Switch channels, Pinky!"

The intellectually impaired mouse leaped to his feet and jumped up and down on the channel changer.

The picture tube now showed a tuxedo- clad mouse and a duck in nautical type garb having a very animated conversation. The duck was spitting and sputtering intelligibly as the mouse calmly listened to his tirade.

"Not much to go on here," The Brain muttered.

"Yes, but isn't Mikey a sharp dresser?" Pinky sighed wistfully. "It almost makes me wish that I wore clothes."

"Oh honestly Pinky... it's 'Mickey', not 'Mikey', you simpleton!" His companion corrected him in disgust. "Hm...I will say that it is simply amazing to me that such a banal but amiable personality could be running a corporation that has come so very close to the objective I have been trying to achieve."

"Duck is funny," Pinky laughed heartily. " I like him."

"Just change the channel, please," The Brain sighed.

"Aw..."

"Do it, Pinky!"

The channel flipped, and suddenly a dog and four humans appeared on the screen. One female in horn-rimmed glasses was speaking animatedly.

"Jinkies, it's the ghost-!"

"Next one, Pinky!!"

"Velma, I hardly knew ye," Pinky whispered sadly, as he hopped.

"Yabba dabba-"

"Change it!"

"Oh Bother, Piglet-"

"Change it!"

"Eh, what's up, Doc?"

"Next one!"

"Ji-ga-lee-puff..."

"Oh good lord...NEXT!"

"Good thing I work out on the wheel as much as I do," Pinky gasped, continuing to jump.

Channel after channel went by, and The Brain felt himself falling into the depths of despair. Were all American cartoons full of inanity and mindless violence, with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever? How could he hope to win people over to his side with anvils, a blue-eyed canary, or a pudgy cat that ate lasagna?

Finally, there was only one option left; the Anime Channel, a network that showed only cartoons imported or adapted from Japanese animation. What could the Japanese offer that good old American ingenuity had overlooked or hadn't watered down beyond recognition?

Stirring music spilled into the room and the screen was suddenly filled with the impressive form of a lion-headed mechanical warrior that was, the announcer informed them, "a mighty robot, loved by good, and feared by evil."

"My God, it looks very much like the design of my Big Suit," The Brain gasped in astonishment. He watched in awe as the Robot formed his blazing sword and various other weapons to defeat ugly mechanical monsters. He noted with astonishment that the warrior was made of five separate parts, flown by five pilots; four men and one woman. The humans were shown in split screens from time to time, exchanging information and witty comments.

"Naarrrfff! Oh, look at the Princess, isn't she lovely?" Pinky sighed dreamily. "I'm pretty sure she and Captain Keith are in love, even though Lance flirts with her; she has kissed Lance on the cheek a few times, but I don't think it means anything because Keith and Allura always look at each other in the most amazing ways, and they always are shown together. Keith obviously admires her and loves her very much but he's very quiet about it, because he's not a Prince, not that it matters, mind you, although that horrid Nanny makes it seem like it does. He's so adorably protective of her too; last week he took a slash in the chest to defend her honor, and she was so upset she sat by his bed the entire time until the Robeast attacked, and she went to protect him, and then he came out of his coma just in time to help save her and defeat the monster." Pinky sucked in a deep breath and his goofy grin turned wistful. "Ain't love grand, Brain?"

"Pinky, I take it that you have watched this show before?" The Brain impatiently interrupted his friend's stream of semi-conscious babbling.

"Poit! Oh yes, many times. It's quite a spiffy show, really. Although there are some really icky poo poo people on it that want to capture the Diamond Galaxy and ruin the Alliance, then there's that evil Prince Lotor who is always after Princess Allura, ooo, he makes me so mad!" The gangly body bristled with repressed ire. "It would be so marvelous if they would let Captain Keith really smack Lotor one, sometime... Zort!"

"Yes, yes, whatever. I am more interested in their Big Suit, Pinky. It looks practically invincible, and all the people on the show seem to admire or fear it greatly." The Brain's myopic eyes grew wide as he saw the mechanical man standing on a pedestal in front of cheering, flower- throwing throngs of people. "Look Pinky! Look how they worship the Big Head Lion Suit!"

Pinky giggled. "Oh Brain, you silly-willy, it's not a Big Head Lion Suit! It's Voltron, Defender of the Universe, or V:DOTU for short."

"Voltron, eh?" The final credits were now rolling, and The Brain was greatly disappointed. "I wish I could have seen more, my loquacious friend. I feel that we could have learned much from this series."

Pinky beamed. "You're in luck; it's Wednesday, and every Wednesday they run a V:DOTU mini-marathon. Wait until you see the Castle of Lions, and how they form Voltron!"

The Brain raised his tiny fists in triumph. "Yeeesssss! I foresee great potential in this show. Let the marathon begin!"

Six hours later....

The Brain, still murmuring excitedly to himself, had filled an entire notebook with specs on the Defender of the Universe. Finally, he threw his pencil down in triumph.

"That's it!! If my calculations are correct, Pinky, we can modify the exoskeleton of our own big suit to emulate that of Voltron."

"Why do we want to do that Brain? Besides, I'm afraid of extra skeletons, Narf!" The pink nosed mouse cringed as his gaze remained fixed on the screen.

"Oh for the love of..." his friend sighed loudly and rolled his droopy eyes. "Don't make me hurt you, Pinky. Now listen up."

"Okay," was the distracted reply.

"We will alter the Big Suit to be like Voltron, go to Japan to fight some giant monsters and save Tokyo from certain destruction. Since the Japanese are severely depressed over their latest economic decline, they will love us for bringing some happiness to their culture, and will reward us by giving us our own show. In the daily program, we will be shown performing heroic deeds, attending school, working hard and setting a good example of citizenship, thereby ingratiating ourselves into the hearts of all Japanese. At the end of every show, when they do the monologue, we will insert our own subliminal message to make me their leader! To control Japan, is to control of one of the seven world economic powers; we will then export our show around the globe, and in no time at all we take over the world!" The Brain chortled with wicked glee.

"Quiet!" Pinky shushed him. "I think there's a K & A moment coming up soon."

The Brain stopped chortling. "A 'K & A' moment?"

"Keith and Allura, silly. I just know that one of these days he's going to kiss her!"

"Pinky, one of these days I'm going to...wait! Who are those red eyed creatures?" The Brain pointed at the screen excitedly.

"Oh those are the Space Mice; they are the special friends of the Princess."

"What is that contraption they are flying?"

"Pidge, the Green Lion pilot built it; it's their version of a lion ship. They have to pedal it to get it to fly, poor suckers."

"Experienced pilots, eh? We are going to need recruits that are experienced in combat for our knockoff- I mean, our version of Voltron." The Brain scratched his head. "And you say they are very close to the ruler of , uh...uh..."

"Planet Arus," Pinky supplied helpfully.

"Yes, yes, of course. So we would have an inside way to get more complete information on the lions' infrastructure; I must admit I am a little vague on the concept of dynotherms and infracells." He watched closely as the Space Mice were rewarded with cheese for a job well done. "Ah, Pinky, this is excellent, they will work for food! Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

His skinny friend looked pensive. "I think so Brain, but Lance will never do that with Allura because Keith is his best friend. Oh look, the Princess is on again, isn't she beautiful?"

The Brain was too busy concentrating on his plan to look. Striding over to the remote, he switched off the television, and began to quickly disassemble the apparatus.

"Hey! You took her away! Why, Brain, why?" The besotted rodent wailed pitifully.

"Cool your mega-thrusters, Pinky, you'll be seeing her in person if this works." Little paws flew as they wired and re-wired the remote. The last step was to hook it to the surveillance camera mounted nearby.

"I will?" Pinky clapped his paws together. "Oh, that would be almost as wonderful as meeting Mr. Rogers and taking a ride on the trolley." He watched as the Brain hooked up various cables and wires to the video camera. He finished with a sigh of satisfaction.

"That should do it, now we must get the Big Suit. With all the technology that they have lying around on that planet, I can modify the suit there for next to nothing."

"Zort! You don't mean-"

"Yes, Pinky, we are going to Planet Arus via my Network Trans Warp Modifier!"

"But that means..."

"Going to another network? I know, and I don't care."

"It's against the rules, Brain. We'll get in big trouble." Pinky said stubbornly, folding his arms and sticking his nose in the air. "I'm not going."

"Do you want to see your precious Princess or not?"

"I'll get the Big Suit!"

The Brain shook his head as the hyperactive rodent ran for the closet. Romance was for idiots, and Pinky was their poster boy.

The suit was rolled out and set into position. The Brain entered through the open toed shoe, carrying the remote, with Pinky at his heels. Brain immediately sped to the top of the suit, sat in the captain's chair and stuck his head out of the large neck hole. He knew, of course, that his head was way too small in scope for the body it topped, but no one had seemed to notice this deformity on previous adventures, so he saw no reason to change it.

"Brain, do I have to sit down here? I can't see anything!" Pinky's plaintive tones rose up from the bowels of the suit.

"That's the idea," the Brain muttered to himself. Aloud he said, "It's only for a few minutes, my friend. Isn't it worth it to meet the Princess?"

"Naaarrrffff," was the dreamy sounding response.

"I'll take that as a yes. Hang on Pinky, we are ready to proceed."

"Let's go, Big Suit Force!" Pinky yelled.

"Whatever," The Brain sighed. He switched on the television, pressed the channel changer and instantly they faded into microscopic particles of light that were rapidly absorbed into the gorgeous Arusian countryside depicted on the screen.

To be continued...