Part One

  7:39 in the morning on Monday, and Rupee's latest Flash movie, Clocks Among Us, was finally ready for Newgrounds. He was supposed to release it a little over two hours ago, but if he did that, the audio would have had synching problems near the end, and the main menu would have looked like crap. He didn't think Strawberry would get too pissed if he explained all this to him, but with Strawberry, you never knew for sure. Especially the more prolific authors, such as himself, which bring more notice and respect to the Crew with every new front-paged movie.
     Rupee was pretty confident his newest movie would be a pretty large success. It would get a decent score, be watched about 20-30,000 times. Not amazing, but pretty good for clock movies. For some reason, the majority of people on Newground tend to avoid Clock Crew movies, except the major blockbuster flicks the come out of Strange and Blue Clock every once in awhile. No one could figure out why, since it was obvious that Clock Crew films, on average, were significantly higher in quality and entertainment than a lot of the unoriginal schlock that could be found on the portal (Note: The masterpiece,"B", is included in this figure, which skews the average up rather significantly).
     Well, this movie will catch the eye of a few people, at least, who will give it a chance, realize its awesomeness, and convert into a clock fan. Even if it doesn't, though, it will still be enjoyed by the small horde of clock supporters out there. And that was motivation enough.
     Rupee filled out the information for the movie, spent way too much time trying to decide on what to put in the author's notes (he finally decided on "A horror movie parody where clocks appear to be everyday, regular people, giving you change, cutting you off on the freeway, and taking the last copy of the movie you planned on renting tonight. But if you let them get too close to you, they attack, and you become a clock just like them! Teh horrorz!"), and sent the movie off into the Portal, where the general public would decide whether or not it was worthy enough to remain.
     "Okay," he said to himself, "now I can get some sleep." He yawned, and limped into bed.
     Not even two minutes later he was back in front of the computer.
     "Come on, dammit. Hurry up and pass judgement so I can see what score I'm getting, and read the reviews." The reviews would still be there when he woke up if he went to sleep, but he needed some reassurance his last two weeks weren't wasted now. Refresh. Refresh. Didn't seem to help him pass judgement any faster, though.
     He decided a different tactic might be better. It's was a little too early for most clocks to be up, but if he could find any online, he could get them to "vote 5" and get him closer to the 300 votes he needed.
     Crap. Just Battery. Well, he was worth a try, at least.

     RupeeClock: Hey.
     BatteryClock: HAI THUR!!!111
     RupeeClock:http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view.php?id=304588
     RupeeClock: Vote 5!!!
     BatteryClock: AJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAAJJAJJJAJAAJ NO YESNO.
     BatteryClock: I LYKE TO KISS KISS <3 BAI ME A HORSY AND JEWSEE FROOT!!!!!!!11ONE ONE EXLAMASHIN
     RupeeClock: ....
     RupeeClock: I can't tell if that means you voted or not :(

     Oh well. He decides to check the portal again. "Let's see. According to the most recent entries list, I'm about halfway through all the judgmented movies, now, and it's been about ten minutes, so I just have to wait like ten more minutes and I'll be able to see everything. Damn, I'm not sure if I'll last that long."
     So he decides to try to kill the time a bit by seeing what else is on the portal. Not enough clock movies, that much is certain. Looked like maybe his was the only one in the main page of the portal at the time.
     While Rupee was scouring the page, he spotted the corner that proclaimed who the "King of the Portal" was. He wasn't sure why, but he never really noticed that section before. "How nice," he said to himself. "Newgrounds is dedicating a whole section of the portal to letting everyone know that Strawberry Clock is the king of the portal."
     Suddenly Rupee shot up in his chair, blinked, and brought his clock closer to the computer screen. Why? Because that section of Newgrounds did NOT say that Strawberry Clock was the king of the portal. Instead, it claimed that a "rilstix" was king of the portal.
     Except that couldn't be! Everyone knew that Strawberry Clock was king of the portal!
     The only logical explanation was that someone hacked Newgrounds and put their name in that section! How cruel and disrespectful of them to slander Newgrounds like that! He immediately started an email to inform Tom Fulp. He would make things right.
     
     Dear glorious and merciful creator of the portal, otherwise known as Tom,

     It has recently come to my attention that some filthy hacker has broken in to Newgrounds and is trying to deny Strawberry Clock his rightful place as "king of the portal". I trust you will ban this heathen, and use his IP address to subpoena his ISP, find his address, then go to his house, douse his computer with gasoline, light it, throw the kid into the flames, hold him in the flames until he stops flailing about (you may want to invest in a flame-resistant suit before heading to his house), and then chop his head off and put it on a pike, and use that pike as a mallet to play croquet with, and take pictures of the event and put it on Newgrounds to warn any other future troublemakers what will happen to them if they ever THINK of pulling such a stunt in the future.

     Thanks in advance,
          Your friendly neighborhood clock, Rupee.

     Send! Rupee Clock laid back in his chair, feeling like he just did a good deed for clockkind.
     Bing! He had a new message. A reply from Tom already, perhaps, apologizing profusely for this injustice and promising to make amends immediately and with extreme malice?
     Alas, no. It was a staff announcement.

     Hey!

     This is just to let you know that Strawberry has decided to host a press conference in the town square at noon, and he wants to make certain everyone comes. If you don't come, he's claimed he'll revoke your "Official Clock" status (if you're not an "Official Clock", you'll be be banished from Clocktopia), and he'll ban you from the Forums for at least three days (Oh Noez!). Personally, I wouldn't worry about this too much, since he'll have no idea who isn't there since there's no way in hell all of us in the staff are going to keep track of each and every clock at the meeting and follow through with the 100+ bans that would require ... well, Absinthe might be willing to, but the rest of us sure as hell aren't.
     Regardless, he claims he has an important and exciting announcement, which probably means he wants to show off his new haircut or something, but he desperately urges everyone to come. It probably won't take very long anyway, so if you can, please make an appearance. Thanks!

     Leek Clock, Clock Crew Staff

     Meh. Another stupid announcement by Strawberry. He gave about six every week ever since Golden Clock asserted in an editorial that Strawberry was "in his own little world" and "didn't relate with the common clock." So, in the process of trying to reverse that perception, he now held press conferences over every stupid thing that happened to him. Last week he had announcements regarding one of his dolls' heads breaking off, how far he could throw a football, why he couldn't stand black olives on his pizza, an appeal to stop DoctorClock from "maliciously causing clocks discomfort with his ice cold stethoscopes", and to warn us all of an impending volcanic eruption that would happen on the other side of the planet, and gave us tips on how to keep from being burned alive by the molten lava that would never get anywhere near us.
     However, he DID need to be told about this terrible mistake at Newgrounds, in case Tom gets too busy to respond in a timely manner and Strawberry has to send all the Newgrounds visitors pamphlets informing them of the mistake and assuring them that they can feel secure in knowing that Strawberry was still the king of the portal.
     So Rupee decided to go to what he felt could not possibly be too interesting of a press conference. After he took a much needed nap, that is.

Part Two

     Apparently everyone else was starting to get tired of these announcements also, since only about 150 clocks were in attendance by the time Rupee got there, a few minutes before the presentation. Up on the stage, Renegade Clock and Pineapple were busy trying to set up the firework launchers on either side of the podium.      Wow. The last time they brought those out were for the annoucement that Bit's reign had finally ended. Maybe this was an important annoucement after all.
     "Rupee!" said Tropicana Clock, as he hopped over to him. "How'd your movie go?"
     "Um...," said Rupee, "well, I got it finished more or less on time. It's doing pretty good, so far. It had a 3.96 score just before I came here, and had a few positive reviews. Not a whole lot of criticism yet, though."
     "You want some criticism? It sucked. Hard. In fact, I thought it was so terrible, I voted 0 with all THREE of my computers."
     Rupee died a little bit inside. In a tiny voice, he said, "Really?"
     Tropicana breaks out into a grin. "No, of course not! I'm just kidding. I haven't even seen the movie yet. I'll vote 0 on it later."
     "..."
     "Another joke! Anyway, do you have any idea what this announcement could be about?"
     "No idea."
     "Looks like this time it might be at least somewhat important, whatever it is. Do you suppose the staff know what it's about?"
     "I don't... think so. That email Leek sent made it pretty clear he didn't know."
     "Well, it doesn't hurt to ask them, I guess."
     Rupee looks back up on the stage. Some of the staff were helping set the stage up (why they ever bother taking it down, he had no idea). Strange was busy steadying the supports, Tree was using his height to get the satin curtains that hid what went on backstage to hang properly, and Leek was struggling under the weight of a life-size Strawberry Clock statue made of solid gold Strawberry insisted on being present everywhere Strawberry was, to remind his loyal servants (us) who was boss around here. The non-clock staff (Biggs, Losperman, and Cableshaft) had security detail, since Strawberry never trusts them with anything important since they refused to sign loyalty oaths to Strawberry and voluntarily give up their human bodies and turn into clocks. Since no one bothered to swarm the stage anymore, usually, they were mostly lounging about. Cableshaft had a notebook on him and was probably planning his next clock game he would never finish. Losperman was taking a light nap before the ceremonies. Biggskoo was engaged in conversation with a very nervous looking Nef Clock, probably using his newly acquired position of power to try to impress her and coerce her into going home with him afterwards and letting him fondle her clock.
     "Nah, they all look pretty busy right now."
     "Nonesense, come on."
     They headed up to Biggs. Sure enough, he was trying to pick up Nef Clock.
     "Well, I always had a thing with tails, that's why. Especially big, beautiful, bushy ones like yours. You don't see too many tails on humans. In fact, and I probably shouldn't be admitting to this, but women like honesty, right, so there was this one time when I was babysitting my neighbors cat, and I realized that her tail was absolutely beautiful, so I knelt down to it, and petted her for a little while, and then I-     Nef interrupts him. "Great story! Excuse me," she started backing away, and as she passed Rupee she leaned up against him and said, "First day back, and I want to get the hell out of here again. Now you know why I'm never around anymore. Do NOT let him follow me." and then she bolted.
     "Wait!" said Biggskoo. Then he turned back to Rupee and Tropicana, and in an extremely hateful voice, said, "Thanks a lot, assheads. You fucked everything up for me there."
     Tropicana suppressed a giggle. "Whatever you say, Rico."
     "Oh, and by the way, that story about the cat wasn't true either. I was just making it up to try and make her feel all warm and sexy in her sexy parts. And if you ever tell anyone otherwise, I'll fucking kill you."
     "Sure thing, dude," says Tropicana. Rupee had a feeling, though, that he'd conveniently let something slip to Golden and it'd be all over the next TIEM issue.
     "Um," Rupee interjects, "we were just wondering if you had any idea what this meeting was all about."
     "That's what you fucked my sex over? Can't you fucking wait a whole," he looks down at his watch, "one minute and twenty five seconds for the damn meeting to start?"
     "Uh, yeah, probably."
     "Uh...yeah...PROBABLY." mocked Biggs. "Get the fuck out of my face before I ban both of you assholes."
     "That went well," said Rupee to Tropicana after they got out of earshot. "It's not good to be on Biggs' hate list."
     "He'll forgive us," said Tropicana cheerfully.
     "You think?"
     "Hell no, dumbass! Just keep a low profile for the next couple weeks, and you should be fine."
     Just then, the air filled with noise as Leek brought a trumpet to his clock and played a triumphant fanfare for Strawberry's entrance. Most of the crowd became quiet and turned toward the stage. The curtains parted slightly, and Strawberry, complete with regal cape, crown, and scepter, slowly hopped up to the podium. The elder clocks stood in a line on the stage, two on either side of him, and held up signs that said, "Applaud, damn you!", "Cheer a little louder than that, fools!", "Smile! It's not like you were doing anything too important, anyway!", and "Vote 5!" The crowd mostly obliged.
     "Thank you for your applause," said Strawberry, as the fervor died down. "I'm so glad you love your king so much to show so much support for him, without being prompted to do so." A few snickers in the audience caused him to frown. He darted a look back behind him, but the elders were quicker and hid the signs from his view. Satisfied, Strawberry looked back to his audience, and assumed a couple people in the audience were just playing tricks.
     "As Leek no doubt said in his email to you guys, I have an important annoucement I think you guys will all be excited about. This announcement is bigger than all other announcements in the past. Even bigger than the time I thought there was a terrorist threat on Clock Headquarters, but it turned out to be one of Dwarfinator's peggeys who left a little soft, moist, steamy delight on my throne. No, friends, this one is big. This one, will change your lives, and my life, forever."
     That got everyone's attention.
     "Today, my friends, I am resigning my position as king of the portal." Immediately that caused a rumble in the crowd. Several clocks gasped, one quite audibly broke into tears, and several others began whispering amongst themselves. Rupee didn't want to believe it, but the Newgrounds Portal DID say otherwise.
     "I know, I know, it's extremely difficult to believe. So for those of you who think their ears are misleading them, I'll say it again. Today, I, Strawberry Clock, you know, the one with the shiny crown on my head, will be resigning my post as king of the portal. Oh, don't cry for me, Argentina Clock! I will still be around, giving everyone amazingly useful advice, showing up at your childrens' Bar Mitzfas, and stealing the last chicken breast at your birthday parties. It's just that someone else will be making all the rules, and, as my last action of king of the portal, I will announce who will become my heir now."
     Some random non-clock named Rilstix, Rupee finished for him. Some no-name who will come in and screw up everything, with his stupid rules. Why couldn't it be Tree Clock or Leek? Everyone loved those guys. Any of the elders would be fine also. No one's going to like this upcoming annoucement. Rupee braced for it.
     "And that person is.... ki1o! Everybody give him a hand everybody!" Rupee gawked. One of the most avid clock haters of all time, one who used to vote 0 and leave a negative review for every clock movie ever released, had just been named the new leader? Impossible! He had to be putting everybody on. Besides, hadn't ki1o disappeared like, years ago? The crowd went dead silent. Rupee waited for the punchline.
     But the punchline didn't come. Instead, the curtains parted again, the fireworks launchers shot huge, loud boomers into the air, Leek started blaring the trumpet again, and in hopped a very red, very real looking ki1o. Strawberry stepped down from the podium, bowed to his successor, and offered his crown and scepter to ki1o. ki1o eagerly snatched them both and threw the crown on his head, then turned and addressed the crowd. The elders held up their signs demanding applause again, but no one offered it.
     "Thanks for your appreciation, you ungrateful bastards," said ki1o. "Doesn't matter anyway, now that I'm king." He gripped the sides of the podium and glared at all his new subjects. "And all of you are devoutly loyal to your king, no matter who it is. You followed this last idiot-," Strawberry glared back at ki1o, hopefully regretting his decision, "-even when he told you to submit a bunch of spam flash to the Portal, making people like me hate you, and you fulfill any ridiculous wish he asks of you. Well, let me just say, I don't intend on breaking with tradition. I've got a list of new rules I'm just sure you'll love."
     "Rule 1, and the most important: Everyone in the Clock Crew must vote 0 on all Clock flash movies, including their own, and they must leave an all zero review that consists of nothing but the 'Thanks for voting! By voting 0 on this submission..' etc, just like I used to do."
     What the hell? Impossible! No one was going to go for that! And a quick scan of the crowd revealed that, indeed, no one seemed willing to do that either. A good 10-20 clocks started hopping up towards the stage, probably intending on going up there and beating the crap out of their new leader. But Biggs, Cableshaft, and Losperman were quicker, whipping out their ban-sticks and dishing out bans and chill pills to anyone who got close. How dare they!
     "Rule 2: All the female clocks are to take turns accompanying me to bed each night, and, when I'm in the mood, even two or three at a time. Considering there are only ten female clocks in the entire Crew, you will be required to move in to my private villa and you are forbidden from engaging in, or even talking to any male clocks or nonclocks in Clocktopia." This last part even got Biggskoo to frown, and look questionably at ki1o.
     "I'll have more rules later, but in the meantime, I want you all to - " He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence, because suddenly a black blur materialized above him and a katana sliced clean through his body. ki1o sparked and sputtered, gadgets underneath his skin exposed, and fell in halves to the ground. Behind him, the black blur, which turned out to be Munglai dressed in a ninja outfit, got back on his feet, and slid the katana back into his belt.
     The crowd erupted into a large cheer. Better that than have some asshole lead the clocks, thought Rupee. Granted, Strawberry could be a bit of an asshole at times, but he never did that on purpose. Although, why was ki1o made of a bunch of circuits? He was a robot this whole time?
     Strawberry jumped up and down and clapped his hands together in glee. Then he hopped back up to the podium, and addressed the audience again. "Marvelous! That was fantastic! Thanks a lot there Munglai, for such a good show. And the rest of you, you all had the most priceless expressions on your faces. I haven't had so much fun since Orange bought five tickets for free pony rides for my birthday!"
     Once again, the crowd quieted down, except for Atomic Clock, who yelled out, "Hey, wait a minute. You mean this was all a big joke."
     "Yep!" said Strawberry Clock, a huge smile on his clockface. "And with that, I just want to say.... APRIL FOOLS, EVERYBODY!"
     Huh? It wasn't April. Was it?
     Atomic apparently felt the same way. "Strawberry, it's not April. It's June. You missed it."
     "Wait, what? It's June?" He looked back at Orange. "Why didn't you tell me?" Orange hesitated for a moment, then said, "Well, we decided not to say anything, since you looked so happy planning this thing, and we wanted to avoid the possibility of a tantrum-er, I mean, a disagreement from you if we told you."
     "Oh. Well, anyway, I'm still king of the portal, everythings happy, you all got PUNKED BY YOUR MOST AWESOME KING, and you can all go home now."
     "Wait!" Rupee heard himself cry out. Everyone turned towards him, probably pissed that he was interfering with their ability to go home. "Um... Strawberry?"
     "Yes? Make it quick, I have to go home and run my empire. And play with my trains. But mostly the empire thing."
     "Yeah, um. I went to Newgrounds today to submit my movie, and I saw on the portal, and it said you weren't king of the portal anymore. It said some guy named Rilstix was."
     "Oh. Um. Yeah, we knew about that."
     "What? You knew about that? How? Why?"
     "Um. Well, um. How should I explain this? Um. Orange, help me out, could ya?"
     Orange hops up to the podium. "For a couple of years, now, Tom Fulp has had the 'king of the portal' displayed on the Newgrounds Portal. Now, from the start he didn't list Strawberry Clock as king of the portal. Instead, he uses a program to determine the person who has submitted the most and best flash movies for the month. It changes every month."
     "Now, you're probably asking yourself, why would he do such a thing? Isn't such an action sacrilegious, and possibly, an act of war by Tom himself? Well, to be certain, it puzzled us at first as well. It was so obvious that Strawberry Clock has and always will be king of the portal, for Tom to want to claim otherwise, even with a program, is ludicrous. I mean, who wears the crown? Strawberry. Who does everyone say is the king of the portal? Strawberry. And it was with that very logic that he managed to convince us that this was a good thing."
     "You see, everyone with an ounce of intellect knows intrinsically that Strawberry Clock is the king of the portal. And so, when they see that Newgrounds claims that somebody else is king of the portal, that statement conflicts with and challenges the knowledge that exists within their head. And they will say to themselves, 'That can't possibly be right. B is the best film ever made! What could this guy have possibly made that deposes Strawberry Clock as king?' So they'll go through this guy's profile, who is a good artist himself, but possibly underappreciated, and they will see these guys' movies, and they'll see and be exposed to some great new movies. But after seeing them, they will breathe a sigh of great relief, for none of this artist's flash movies are better than Strawberry Clock's numerous masterpieces. And they'll know that Tom was pulling a fast one on him. And their faith will once again be renewed that Strawberry Clock is king of the portal, in which without this challenge to their intellect, they might have started to think that maybe Strawberry Clock was no longer king of the portal. And so, by doing this, the flash artists win, because the truly good artists get a little more exposure, and Strawberry Clock wins, because the common Newgrounders' faith in him is renewed and strengthened."
     "So you see, Strawberry Clock is, was, and always will be king of the portal. You don't have to worry about that. And nothing that claims otherwise, even on the holy Newgrounds, will ever change that fact. You satisfied?"
     Rupee was, indeed, satisfied. He beamed up at his king. "Yes, thank you."
     Strawberry speaks up again. "Good, and with that, the meeting is over. Enjoy the rest of your day, everyone."
     As the crowd disperses, and Strawberry and the elders retreat backstage, Strawberry said to Orange, "Phew, that was close. Why does Tom list people other than ME as king of the portal, anyway?"
     Orange just shook his head and shrugged.