Ash: Drop it.


Ash: You must be good to have gotten past the death traps, but I've been avoiding assassinations since I was 5. Who sent you?


Saturn: I'm not here for you. I'm here for Nightshade Moon.


Ash: Oh her? Wrong room. She's been down in the AV room playing video games for the past week.


Saturn: NOOOOO! I may already be too late! That's no video game. It's a world domination simulator!


"Right now she's learning how to build secret lairs...


...effectively use a multitude of booby traps to keep out government agents...


...and secure the loyalty of a legion of minions!"


Ash: No, really, it's a videogame. Like Sims Rollercoaster Themepark. I checked. Are we talking about the same Nightshade? Pink hair, red eyes, watches too many 007 movies?


Saturn: YES! After she plays that video game she goes from being your standard villain to a super villain! She must be stopped before it's too late!
Ash: I'd love to help, really, but I'm afraid I can't let you kill her.


Saturn: BUT IN THIRTY YEARS SHE'LL RULE THE WORLD!


Ash: Nightshade? Really?
Saturn: YES!
Ash: Well... maybe. We'll have to conduct a test to be sure. Come with me.


(later, in Ash's Lab)
Ash: I don't really know where Nightshade came from. You see, she just sort of appeared when I was performing an experiment to give Valentine some street-smarts. I can't get rid of Nightshade until I can be sure it won't harm Valentine.
Saturn: I see...


Saturn:...but what does this have to do with the midget?
Ash: The midget is a duplicate of Nightshade. First, we'll replicate the experiment by trying to make her nice.


Belladonna: AAA!


Belladonna: owie.


Saturn: My god! You were right!
Mini-Valentine: ???


Saturn: So what do we do now?
Ash: You've got the gun. Put a bullet in the new one and see if the old one bleeds.


Belladonna: NOOOOOO!


Belladonna: MINE! MINE!
Mini-Valentine: AA! Getitoffofme!


Saturn: This seems to have gotten more complicated than we thought.
Ash: Things usually do around here...

Commentary:
I realized that Nightshade was going to have to get a backstory at this point. Ash had hinted about Valentine and Nightshade having some kind of connection back in 'Ash is a Man', and now it was time to elaborate on it for the storyarc to take place. I couldn't really do a flashback, so I had Ash explain it and then do a demonstration involving Belladonna.

Spoofs in this episode? Terminator, for the future assassin, obviously. Evil Genius, the World Domination Simulation (a really kickass game. Like the sims, only fun) is the game Nightshade is using to train to become a supervillain and take over the world. There are constant references to the game in Nightshade's future plans, like shrinking the eiffel tower, getting a body double, minions vs henchmen, lair decorations, etc.

This is probably the first time we show Ash being ruthless during a pic-fic. It's best to remember this. Keep an eye on Saturn. She's quite a bit more than she seems.