Panting for breath, SC stepped into an apparently abandoned warehouse.

"Hey, is that you, my little chromium dude?" said a voice from the shadows.

"Puff? Puff the magic dragon? Could it really be you?!? I haven't seen you since 'Nam, man!! What are you up to?"

"Oh, nothing. I'm just chillin' here in Cincinnati. It's quite a bit more fun that Honah Lee, and it's not to far of a trip as the dragon flies."

"Well, I hate to cut things short, but I'm being chased by an angry pitch-fork-wielding mob who'd really love to kill me."

"Woah, that's pretty harsh. What did you do to get them so angry?"

"Well, I forgot their birthdays."

"How'd you manage that?"

"I'm not used to this dratted Roman calendar with its stinkin' twelve months. I'd completely forgotten that Julius and Augustus, those dirty Roman emperors, renamed months after themselves. Even though October has the root word Oct, meaning eight, it's really the tenth month!! I need a calendar with ten months, by George!"

"Hey! Don't say the name of George the dragon slayer around me! Anyway, there was a ten-month calendar before some of the Roman emperors decided that they needed to have months named after them."

"That's it, Puff! We'll go back in time .... and kill the Roman Emperors!!!!"

"Dat's cool wid me. Anything for the clip that saved Jackie Paper during the war."

At that moment, several of the pitch-fork-waving mobbers dove through the window of warehouse. Three of the four of them skewered themselves on their pitch forks. The other mobbers intelligently used the door.

"Don't move, you birthday-forgetting scum!!!" shouted one of the mobsters.

"Hmmmm, I think now would be a good time to get out of here," said SC as he jumped onto Puff's scaled posterior. Breathing fire from his fanged mouth Puff shoved his way through the mobbers and out onto the street. With a few flaps of his great wings he flew into the air.

"Ok, hold on, Chromi'; time travel has always been a bit bumpy for me." SC felt the familiar sensation of complete inversion before passing out cold (very very cold (Editors Note: SC is considered a cold-blooded creature, even though he doesn't have any blood (Thought you should know))).

* * *

When he awoke he was in the middle of a large clearing in a very dark forest. He shook his head, only to find himself staring into the blurry red eyes of an unshaven white male.

"You must be Canadian!" exclaimed SC, "What are you doing here in 46 B.C.?!"

"Actually," said the Canadian, in a gruff Canadian accent, "We've been sent on a God-given quest to alter history and make sure that Canada is the world's largest superpower by the year 2003!"

"How are you going to manage that?" asked SC, still a bit dazed from his time traveling incident. (Contrary to popular belief, time travel is not something that happens instantly and painlessly. If you read SC XI you'd know that one of the ways to time travel is by wading through the icy blackness of space-time. Space-time isn't so bad--it's a bit boring, but not too painful. A much worse thing is to black out and suffer from bizzare hallucinations when you wake up.) "Wait a second," said SC, "are you just a time-travel-induced hallucination of mine?"

"No," said the Canadian, "I'm an actual Canadian, and I'm working on a plan to make Canada the biggest superpower in the world by the year 2003."

"Ok, you've convinced me," said SC. "Please explain this plan to me. I love getting glimpses into the minds of nefarious masterminds."

The Canadian settled into a comfortable position and began laying down his plan. "Surely you've heard of the 'Butterfly effect.' The popular belief is that if a butterfly flaps it's wings in some remote place, usually China, that the weather patterns can change all over the globe. We're basically doing that, changing the weather, but our method is more effective because we have tens of thousands of butterflies! When the time is ripe we will strategically release the butterflies all over the globe. When they flap their wings they will create hurricanes to destroy all the major costal cities of the world!! Mwahahaah!!! Anyway, we've been raising butterflies in our butterfly farms for some time now..."

"Wait," interupted SC, "You say 'we' and 'our'...there are others like you?"

"Of course!" exclaimed the Canadian, "A large group of us have been sent back in time to tend the butterfly farms. Unfortunately the evil Romans destroyed our first two farms. That's why we built our third one here in the Black Forest; the Romans have never been able to penetrate it."

"Hmmmm... I didn't intend to end up in the Black Forest... I'll just have to make do," SC mused. "On the subject of Romans, that's why I came back in time in the first place. I need to kill some Roman emporers so that they don't have a chance to change my calendar. Those dirtly little calendar-changing weasel-hearted..." but before he had a chance to finish something jumped from the forest behinds him and knocked him to the ground. SC felt the thing grab at one of his wires and sink its teeth into the area that for him was analogous to the human neck. Actually, it didn't quite manage to sink it's teeth into him. SC, being made of metal, was quite difficult to pierce, even for the most hardened competitive biter. The thing on his back jumped back from him and let out a horrible cry of pain and ultimate suffering, before settling down beside the man SC had been talking to before he was rudley interupted (on the subject of rude interuptions, nothing bugs me more than when you're doing something interesting, like reading the latest SC episode, and someone charges in and expects you to accomidate for one of their pointless little rants. This is even more agitating when the person turns out to be a crazed, rabid, Canadian commando who's trying to bite your neck, while taking some time off from tending the butterfly farm (oh wait, you didn't know that this person was rabid or a Canadian. Just read the next paragraph and everything will become clear)).

"Calm down, you perverted little weasel!" said the first man. "Oh, this is one of my collegues, Derek, and my name, which I havn't bothered to tell you yet, is Sid," he told SC.

"Nice to meet you both," said SC, "I'm Superclipium, holy paperclip of Antioch! I'm just hanging around 46 B.C. because I'd like to kill of the emperors who added two more months to the Julian calendar."

"My pleasure, I'm sure. I apologize for Derek trying to bite you. We're all just a little bit rabid, you see. The reason that we were selected to be sent back in time was at one point each of us was bitten by a rabid animal of some sort."

"You're telling me that a group of rabid Canadians was sent back in time to change history?" said SC, in a not-quite-believing voice. "Don't you guys know that there's a vaccine for rabies??"

"Yeah, but it was cheaper to send us back in time," explained Sid.

"Ok, that's a little strange, even for me. On a slightly happier subject, do you guys want to come to Rome with me to assasinate Julius and Augustus?" asked SC.

"No, I don't think we want to have any more encounters with the Romans right now, but thanks for the offer," said Sid. At that moment Puff dove from the sky and landed in the small clearing along with SC, Sid, and Derek.

"Hey little dude! I was just out getting a bite to eat. You about ready for the flight to Rome?" said Puff, while picking his teeth with one of his long claws.

"Hey! It's Puff the Magic Dragon!" exclaimed Derek, "Could I possibly have your autograph?"

"Sure," said Puff. Derek produced a small pad of paper and a pen. SC hopped onto Puff's back while he dexterously signed Dereks pad. With a flap of his great wings Puff rose into the air and they began their flight to Rome.

* * *

One might ask, "How does one get to Rome from the Black Forest in the year 46 B.C.?" Well, my friend, you see: all roads lead to Rome.

Disguised in togas, SC and Puff arrived in Rome after a strenuous journey. Making their way down the crowded street, they were completely unnoticed by the Roman peasants. Suddenly, SC was rudely knocked to the ground by a cloaked figure.

"Terribly sorry... but I must fulfill my duty... I must boldly go... where no man... has gone before... In the name of the Canadian government!!!!!!" said the stranger.

"Wait a second, I'd know that cliche-laden voice anywhere! You're William Shatner!!" cried SC.

"Oh no... I have... been found out!!"

"Well, with all your talk about the Canadian government and your recognizably horrible acting it wasn't too hard. What brings you to 46 B.C?"

"I was bitten by a rabid... tribble, during the filming of... ' The Trouble with... Tribbles.'!!!"

"You do know that the tribbles were only small fluffballs used on the set of Star Trek to simulate real creatures."

"Actually... it was a rabid squirrel... that snuck into the tribble bin."

"A rabid squirrel in the tribble bin?"

"Yes ... A rabid squirrel... in the tribble bin... eh?"

"Do you have anything to do with those rabid Canadians commandos that I met in the Black Forest?" asked SC in his normal inquisitive manner that his teachers loved.

"Why yes... I'm part of a covert mission... to stop Roman project... XXI!!!" screamed Shatner fanatically.

"Roman project 21??"

"Why yes... with that I must go... to fulfill my duty... to go where no man... has gone... before!" with that William Shatner darted into the crowed and ran into a melon cart. Shaking his head SC motioned for Puff to follow him in the opposite direction.

They wandered down the street leading to the Emperor's palace. As they neared the gate of the palace SC had an extraordinary thought, which he immediately voiced to Puff. "Puff," he voiced, "there might be some people, like those gaurds over there who might be opposed to our assassination of the Emperor."

"No kidding man, we are in the middle of Rome... Didn't it occur to you that not everybody would hate a calendar that was in use from present day up to ... umm ... present day yesturday. Geez, this time traveling is complicated." Before Puff could continue his musings about yesturday being 2000 years in the future SC felt a tap on his shoulder. It wasn't really his shoulder though, because he was a paper clip. The tap was more on top of his rounded "head." He swiftly turned arount to look into the eyes of one of the royal palace's door guards.

"Sir, do you have a valid Roman dragon flying license?" SC began to search through his pockets when he realised that he wasn't wearing any clothing. Since he didn't have any pockets to search through he moved on to plan B.

"Puff," he said, "it's time for plan B. Eat him!" Obediantly Puff bent his neck down and a full three seconds before the guard caught on to this backstabbing behavior, swallowed him whole.

"Excellent!" exclaimed SC while clamoring onto Puffs back. "Fly us over the walls to the palace!"

"I can't believe that you didn't think of that before," sighed Puff and took off.

* * *

According to our sources, the emperor's palace was shaped like a torus. But since that doesn't sound very ancient Roman we'll just skip to the part where Puff and SC crash narcoleptically into the emperor's bed chamber.

"Puff, wake up!!!" screamed SC frantically. After prodding his friend several times he came to the conclusion that he was incurably fast asleep (or possibly knocked unconscious from going through the palace's three-foot seemingly-inpenetrable stone super-adjectified wall).

The only light in the room wafted from several torches hanging on the walls. On the opposite side of the dimly lit room hunched a man over a monstrous table. His hair was touselled (we find it extremely doubtful that that's spelled right) and it looked as if he hadn't bathed or changed his clothes in several weeks. Superclipium walked over to see what could interest the man so much, aside from a computer, that he hadn't washed himself for weeks.

As SC approached the table he realised that it wasn't a table, but rather four stone walls surrounding a opening to the the room below. SC glanced down into the aformentioned lower level and was nearly blinded by a beam of reflected light (fortunately he didn't have any eyes). After gazing dumbly at the light, which was reflected off of a mirror, he noticed that the mirror was not alone. A vast array of mirrors covered the surface of the floor. Each mirror was mounted on a fulcrum and was oscillating between two positions, one which reflected light up at SC and another which shot the light straight into a brick wall. On further investigation SC saw that the mirrors were not just randomly fluctuating, but when viewed together formed some sort of output device. On either side of the output device two small vertical bars were moving up and down trying with all their might to deflect the output device's rendition of a ball.

"Holy random number God, you're playing Pong!" exclaimed SC.

"Holy random number gods, you're a paper clip!" exclaimed the Roman emperor.

"Beware the ides of March," said SC.

"Huh?" said the emperor.

"Never mind, it's not important. Wanna play a game of pong...TO THE DEATH??!!!" (At this point the authors had quite a bit of discussion (i.e. fist-fight) about whether or not the plot is becoming too similar to the previous SC which featured a hopscotch-to-the-death match...but who cares)

"Sure," said the Emperor. Thus began the most intense game of Pong in history. The score was tied 3 to 3 when the door to the room was decimated by another angry mob. At the head of the mob was William Shatner.

"Onward my ... brothers!" screamed Shatner as the rabid Canadians rushed through the door and seized the Emperor, Puff, and SC. The last thing that SC remembered before conking out was a Canadian biting viciously into his left wire.

* * *

Several days later SC and Puff woke up simultaneously to the sound of a black squirrel chattering that they were in the middle of its designated mating grounds.

"We appear to be in the Black Forest," noted SC.

"And quite rabid," agreed Puff foamily.

"Guess we'll just have to wait one thousand eight hundred and and fifty odd years until there's a cure for rabies."

"Yup."

"On the up side: we know at least one of the two Emperors we were going to kill was dragged off by Canadians. That should make it so that there are only eleven months in each year."

"Great," said Puff, "only 20350 months or so left."

"Yup."