The submarine flew through the sky in exactly the way submarines don't.

  It glided effortlessly above the water instead of under it, all the better to show off its sterling chrome hull, adorned with a dazzling array of garish neon lights, blinking and flashing in all its radically epileptic-inducing glory. Eye-popping animations, palm trees swaying, clamshells opening and closing, mermaids frolicking, and dominating the conning tower, a simulacrum of the classy 'Mud Flap Trucker Girl', only this time she was a pirate girl, wearing big boots, one leg animated to kick up and down while her neon hair waved behind. Across the bottom, in swirling neon letters, each one lighting up individually before they all flashed as one, it read: The Naughty Lass.

  Dozens of bikini-clad pirate girls, wearing the ever popular, ever iconic tri-corner hat and thigh-high leather boots, cutlasses and flintlocks strapped to their hips, swaggering about, going “Arr!” And, “Where's the rum?” And, “Aye, aye, matey!” All in all, a jolly band of cutthroats who looked cute with their bums bouncing around.

  High up on the flat deck of the conning tower stood two figures, gazing at the majestic city rapidly approaching. The city was a marvel, huge crystal spires and impressive air traffic, countless hover-cars, trucks and cycles flowing in and out in nonstop pace, although the submarine's presence had disrupted things a bit, commuters peeling off designated flight paths, darting off hither and yon (at least those lucky enough not to collide into each other). At the front, straddling the railing like some great Grecian colossus stood a strange young woman, her skin as pallid white as some demented clown, not a drop of pigment staining her haunting alabaster flesh. Her long black hair tumbled down to her knees in inky rivers, clinging to her icy pale shoulders the way seaweed clings to a rock at low tide. Her eyes were inky black pools devoid of sclera, iris, or pupil, her lips the same abyssal hue, and her fingernails painted to match. She wore a tight leather corset, chest as flat as a pancake, but she did not care because flat meant justice, and a pair of leather breeches, strings knotted down the sides in X-shapes.

  Behind her stood a young man, perhaps her age, perhaps not, for he appeared essentially ageless, both advanced in great wisdom yet seemingly eternal in beauty. Long locks of golden blonde tumbled down his neck and shoulders, while he wore a brilliant white shirt with large puffy sleeves, and leather britches that showed off the elegant turn of his calves. Under the bright sunshine he sparkled and glowed, oddly compelling and simultaneously repellent. If hot and bothered had a face, it would be his. The ethereal white woman grin, her inky lips pressed tightly together in a sour grin, as if she ate one too many lemons but frankly didn't care because she enjoyed it. “Yanno what I hate, Chicago?”

  “No, Steely Dan,” he replied casually, hands clasped behind his back, the strings of his puffy-sleeved shirt undone, showing off his chiseled physique, stellar abs, proper pecs. “What do you hate?”

  “Snap Zasperate,” she answered tartly. A bikini-clad pirate-babe swaggered up, giving her a telescoping spyglass. Extending it to its full two feet, Steely Dan peered through it, her black lips screwing up like a pair of languid leeches, forming a curdled frown. “Dang it, why can't I see anything?”

  “Perhaps,” Chicago said in his steady, calm tone, “because you're staring through the wrong end?”

  She pulled it away, sniffed, and turned it around. “Right.” Squinting through one eye, she looked again, lips curling into a delightfully hideous sneer again. “And here they come, right on time, good ol' John Law.” She collapsed the spyglass and tossed it back to the pirate-babe. “Greet them with a volley off the port side.”

  The pirate-babe just stood there, a curious expression on her lovely face. “Uh, would that be the side of the submarine where we keep all the port? And other booze?”

  Steely Dan regarded her a moment, wondering if it would be worth the cost to the hike in her insurance premiums if she didn't simply chuck her over the side of the railing to the ocean below, figured it wasn't, and turned to her brother instead. “Command the girls to fire at will!”

  Chicago leaned over the railing, whipping out a megaphone. “All hands! FIRE AT WILL!” The girls cheered, pulling out their flintlocks and unleashing a volley at the ruddy girl wearing a chef's hat and apron, 'RRRR YA READY FOR SOME GOOD EATS?' The girl shrieked, hitting the deck, bullets whizzing over her head, perforating her chef's hat. Chicago grimaced. “No! That's Wilhelmina! Our cook! If you shoot her, we'll have no one to cook our meals, and then we'll all STARVE.” He pointed with a dramatic flourish towards the city, palm open, all fingers pointing as one unit, for as it is written when you point there are three fingers pointing back at you; this way, all his accusations were on point. “FIRE AT THE POLICE!”

  Whooping and hollering, the pirate-babes shuffled off for battle stations. They mounted their cannons and powered them up, wheeling them around, pointing towards the city. In the distance, dozens of police cars flew in, sirens blaring, lights flashing, zipping along at breakneck speed.

  The foremost police car swung around, afterburners kicking in, bright blue flame licking out of the exhaust tubes. The side door swung up gull-wing style, and out popped the most ornery, cantankerous police officer who ever existed. Shaggy salt-and-pepper hair hung messily over his scalp, bloodshot eyes squinting weirdly, and an IV of coffee jacked directly into his veins. Above his head floated a little brown cloud, rumbling excitedly, a weird mixture of caffeine, amphetamines and tobacco that never strayed from his presence. He gestured at the other cop cars following his. “DON'T SHOOT UNTIL YOU SEE THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES!”

  The blonde, buxom police-babe behind the steering wheel gawked at him, shuddering involuntarily. “What the heck does that even mean, Frank?”

  “Heck if I know, Allison,” he grunted. “It just sounds exciting and dramatic!”

  Allison screamed at the top of her tobacco-free lungs. “Frank! Good lord, get back in the car! FRANK!”

  “Nah, I like it out here,” he chuckled, hanging onto the door, letting the wind whip through his shaggy hair and mustache, ignoring the bugs splatting him right in the face. “I feel like some despotic conqueror, and you, you're all my unhinged lunatic Amazons, heeding my every beck and call! Onward! Crush my enemies beneath my heels!” A cannonball whizzed by, Allison forced to swerve to dodge it, and Frank lost his grip.

  “FRAAAAAANK!” Allison screamed.

  No you fool! her brain screamed at her., causing her to bang her head against the ceiling. Think, dammit, think! With Frank dead, YOU become top dog!

  “I see, I see.” She considered this and waved out the window towards the ground. “Bye, Frank!”

  “AAAAAAAAH!” Frank flailed about uselessly, as if somehow he could generate enough lift by just flapping his scrawny, amphetamine-drained arms he could achieve flight, but alas he could not. “Remember me as a saintly leader of MEN!”

  “Tally-ho! Tally-ho! Onward mighty gwowler bear!” A huge grizzled furball galloped across the rooftops, smashing apart gargoyles and crashing through pigeon coups, clearing the distance between buildings, the skull-faced ursine sailing right under Frank, its rider catching the imperiled lieutenant in her four strong reptilian arms.

  The gwowler landed on the next roof over, licking its chops, satisfied with its performance. Lt. Frank blubbered and heaved, his eyes popping like engine pistons, his little brown cloud hiding behind him for a change. He stared up in disbelief at the pretty freckled face staring back at him, a giddy grin spread from lizard ear-fin to lizard ear-fin. “Hey, Franky baby! Did ya miss me? MMM-WHA!” She shoved her lips against his, resulting in a loud, satisfying lip-smacking POP!

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  “No! NO! NOOOOOOO!” he shrieked, his hair as frazzled as his nerves. He spit and he spat and he wiped off his mouth. “Not you! Anybody but you – SNAP ZASPERATE!”

  She tossed him aside like yesterday's stinky laundry, goading her big, flat elephantine feet into the gwowler bear's flanks, causing him to rear back on his hind legs, her passenger, a tall, muscular minotaur sporting a pastoral black-and-white Holstein pattern across his body, grabbing her waist and screaming in terror. “Would ya warn me before ya do that!” Samson Knight Luggage squealed in dismay.

  “Aww, get over yourself, Splotches!” she shouted, motivating the skull-faced bear onto great heights and faster speeds. “Ya, Gwowly, ya! We got pirate butt to kick and my toes are aching!”

  Frank jumped to his feet, rushing to the edge of the roof to see them gallop off, leaping into oncoming traffic, leapfrogging hovercar to car like lily pads. “Snap Zasperate! I swear on my badge, I'll see you buried in the deepest, darkest prison cell forever!”

  “I LOVE YOU TOO, FRANKY!” she screamed back.

  Samson shrieked, burying his face into Snap's back, directly into her thick fluffy pink hair, the distinctive aroma of freshly chewed bubblegum radiating in nauseating waves out of it, and shielded by her leathery vestigial wings. “Why am I here?” he moaned.

  “To make the world a better place than how you found it!”

  He grimaced. “I mean why am I here, now, with you, rampaging across Pareidolia City-”

  “'Where the palm trees are green and the girls are pretty',” Snap sang, nay, warbled in her off-key falsetto.

  “Uh, right, anyway, why am I here with you? On our way to confront pirates?”

  “Because you're cute,” she said, twisting her head around 180 degrees. “And ya gimme sugar, baby.” She kissed him right on his rough bovine snout, eliciting a high-pitched scream that made her ear-fins curl.

  “SNAP XOXANA ZASPERATE!” She craned her neck, spotting the huge pink Cadillac with solid chrome tailfins soaring in flying alongside them as she prodded Gwowly to faster and bolder speeds. Mounted on the hood stood a silver statue of Cupid, bow drawn, arrow notched, and along the side in sterling cursive it read Hydrogen-Powered, while the Pareidolia City license plates spelled out 'L0V3CRFT'. Behind the heart-shaped steering wheel sat a golden feline female, lovely blonde hair spilling down her elegant neck and shoulders, subtle spots dappling her face, neck and arms, and her huge belly sticking out between her black sports bra and gym shorts. She swung in close, shaking her fist, her face a mask of rage and fury. “Turn this, this, this BEAR around and get back home this instance! Let the cops handle these stupid pirates!”

  “Cops have better things to do than get killed, Mom!” Snap replied tartly. She kicked her heels into the huge ursine's flanks. “Onward, Gwowly! Let's show those nasty felons of the sea who's the boss around here!”

  “So help me, you do what I say, Snap Zasperate,” her mother yelled, beating her fist on the horn, playing 'What's Love Got To Do With It?' “Or so help me, you are GROUNDED!”

  “You can't ground me,” Snap said. “You'd barely be able to sell me for 3.99 a pound!”

  The cheetah-woman blinked at her in confusion. “What? WHAT?”

  In the middle of the Cadillac dashboard, standing out amidst a sea of switches, buttons, dials and knobs, was a circular black screen, currently lit up with radar detection, only to frizzle and sputter, turning into the face, if it could be dubbed a 'face' of a man, again debatable. A nose, for lack of a better term, dominated that unusual mug, half-ugly, the other half uglier, with large, mismatched, misshapened eyes like bulbous warts sticking on the top of his head, one the size of a grapefruit, the other elongated like a banana. His philtrum ran a solid foot from his nose to his upper lip, while a large chin shaped like a cauliflower doorknob jutted from his jaw. Three little wisps of black hair fluttered from the back of his elongated eyeball. “Hey, Acinony. Between berating our kid and going slowly insane, could you pick up some milk on the way back home?”

  “AND COOKIES!” the little silver-furred cat-girl squealed, bouncing up and down into view. “Chocolate chip! And not the cheap store brand! Good ones! Chips Ahoy! A thousand chips delicious!”

  “You heard the whirling dervish,” Zeke muttered. “Be there, or be square. Zeke Zasperate signing out. But that's ANOTHER story.”

  “Zeke!” Acinony screamed at the screen, causing him to flinch even though they were miles apart. “Tell your daughter to get home NOW!”

  “She is home.”

  “I mean the one who drives you crazy!”

  “She is home.”

  Acinony snarled, steam blasting from her triangular feline ears. “I mean the one who drives ME crazy!”

  “There's one that drives you crazy?”

  She groaned and rolled her eyes. “Your...favorite.”

  “OH! Hey, Snap! Come on home, we're having a chili cook-off, me, Doofus and Doc. We need a guinea pig, I mean, uh, taste tester!”

  “Hey!” Uncia gasped.

  He looked at her and shrugged. “What? You act so shocked, you know it's the unvarnished truth. Snap's just more fun.”

  The silver kitten grumbled. “Fine. But don't think I won't forget this slight when it comes time to pick out a retirement home to shove you into!”

  Snap pumped two of her four hands, the other two clinging tenaciously to the bear's grizzled back. “Woo-hoo! Just dial my enthusiasm up to 'Fart Factory', cause here I come! Yee-OW!” Gwowly ground to a halt suddenly, throwing Snap clear off his shoulders, Samson yelping, going over the side of the building, Acinony barely managing to hit the parking brake, swinging the Hydrogen-Powered Lovecraft around, allowing him to land harmlessly in the backseat.

  “Wow, killer moves there, Mrs. Z,” Samson stammered, nodding enthusiastically.

  “Aww, why be so formal?” she laughed. “Just refer to me as – future mom-in-law.”

  “Gee,” he said, grinning nervously. “You really think Snap is gonna accept my marriage proposal?”

  “Kid,” she sighed, leaning over the backseat to stare at him glumly, “I'M gonna marry you if it means getting my hands on that multi-billion dollar fortune of yours. Make no mistake – we don't love you. We love your MONEY.”

  He mulled this over a moment. “Cool!”

  Snap plummeted the 67 stories straight to the pavement below, face smashing into the asphalt, cracks spiraling out around her as she stood straight up, her body quivering like a doorstop. Slowly, she collected her wits, reaching around to grab her pink hair, peeling her face free, working her jaw back into place. “Ow.”

  “SNAP ZASPERATE!” She grimaced, staring up at the colossal floating fortress dominating the sky, crashing through the crystal spires with zero remorse, an unstoppable juggernaut of hate coated in a fine varnish of hypnotic neon lights. The underside of The Naughty Lass turned bright white, then transparent, and then Steely Dan's remarkable alabaster visage, framed by that creepy black hair slithering about like writhing eels, appeared, staring straight down at the city below in general and Snap in particular. “Oh, boy, how I LOVE making an entrance! How exciting, I'm getting goosebumps! See? SEE?” She held her arm up to the submarine-sized screen, showing off the great globs of clammy gooseflesh bubbling up and down her arm. “I am a zealot for the weird and absurd! Watch my power grow!”

  Snap spat on the ground, a great juicy dollop loaded with extra phlegm. “Steely Dan McCool, you right rancid fool. You smidgen of a pinprick of a speck of a turd dropling. Hold that thought, I'll be right up.”

  “Really now?” Steely Dan scoffed, flipping her the proverbial bird. “Read between the lines, Crap Zasperate! I am your NEM-E-SIS-SIS-SIS-SISSSSS! I eat bratlings like you up for breakfast and spit them out!”

  “What an unnecessary waste of good protein!” Snap gasped. “This is why you must be opposed!”

  “Just try and stop me, ya four-armed super-freak,” Steely laughed, harsh and condescending, two of Snap's favorite emotions when she was dealing them out. “You have 37 minutes to get your spiky thagomizer up here, and that's when all hell breaks loose on your beloved city!”

  Snap gagged. “'Beloved city'? I hate this shrimp bucket, it reeks of desperation and ingratitude! Except for Lt. Frank, he always appreciates me! Anyway, why 37 minutes?”

  “I expected you 23 minutes earlier. What took you so long?”

  She shrugged. “I'm lazy, sue me.”

  “Did you just say you're a lazy Susan?”

  Snap pursed her lips. “I'll be right up there.”