Chapter 5: Miss Gaslighting USA

She was on in three seconds. The man counted down with three fingers then motioned Oprah to come back from behind the scenes and onto the stage.

The crowd went wild as they saw Oprah come back on regular tv for the first time in two years. More cheers. “Thank you, thank you!” Oprah said. “Welcome to the Grand Premmmmmeeeeeirreeeeeeeeee!”

After the cheers died down enough, Oprah spoke again.

“Now, you are all of course wondering what I’m doing back on public television” Oprah said. “The truth is, my critics were right, I was being too greedy and egoic with my OWN network. It cost too much for the middle class – and I know you poor sons of –“ Oprah realized she was on air. “I mean, I knew I had to be more generous than that.”

“But there are a lot more reasons why I’m back on ABC, and those reasons are multifaceted. For one, I was deeply moved by the story of young adult runaway, Sam Gates.”

*Oprah pressed a button and showed an awkward blown up picture of Sam on the big screen behind her for the world to see.*

“You see, Sam ran away because he was gay, and believed nobody could ever love him.” The audience awwwwed at that.

“But Sam, we are all here today to prove you wrong. Today, ALL OF AMERICA IS GOING TO SEARCH FOR SAM! And show him that they love him, regardless of his sexual orientation.”

The audience clapped and cheered. Oprah Winfrey was back.

“If you all look under your seats, you’ll find keys to your brand new 2014 Jeep Paaaaatriot!” Audience went psycho in happiness. “You will take your new vehicles and search every place in America for Sam… as long as it takes. The first person who finds Sam will win a free lifetime supply of tickets to the Oprah Winfrey show, $50,000 in cash, and the ability to throw fireballs at all those people you never liked! ... Oops. Did I say that last part?!”

“We’ll be right back with a popular college gymnast dating a young man with down syndrome, an insecure housewife that got dumped by a black dude for being obese, and a bunch of other small town losers for you to feel sorry for. Stay tuned!”

Commercial break. Oprah went to the back to drink some water. And gossip about world domination.

“How you holding up?” A gay man with nice shiny black hair asked Oprah with a clipboard hugged to his chest.

“I don’t know Brian. I feel weaker. But there was no other way. In order to get my show up again this quickly, I had to sell almost all my demonic powers. Only way I could make the necessary connections…”

Brian smiled. “Oprah you are so… giving. So full of self-sacrifice. I don’t know how you do it.”

Oprah raised a brow. “You do know that I gave all that up just so I could get something even more self-absorbed quickly down the road, right?”

Brian hugged Oprah. “I just love you Oprah. You’ve inspired me to not kill myself because I’m effeminate.”

Oprah pushed Brian off of her. “Whatever.” Another man peeked his head from behind the wall. “On again in 20” he told her.

***

Dolphin and Mune saw the entire Oprah episode on their kitchen tv. Dolphin stopped cutting up carrots for a moment, and just stood there with her jaw dropped open. She was wearing a flattering white blouse and light blue jeans with flowers on the knees.

“What the hell is Oprah up to this time?” the Water Mage wondered.

“Hitta told me all about it while we were playing League of Legends on Skype” Mune said. “Oprah wants the piece of the Crown of Gaslighting- which Sam has. She already has one piece, and Sam has another. Three total pieces and the wearer can like, make the entire world into whatever they want or something.”

“Sounds epic” Dolphin said. “So wait, who has the third piece? And how did the Crown become broken up anyway?”

“We don’t know…” Mune said. “But if Oprah gets Sam’s piece…”

Dolphin squinted her eyes, reading Oprah’s social imprint. “My female intuition tells me Oprah is weak. She probably had to pull a lot of strings to pull off a countrywide search for Sam.”

“Yeah, like give away most of her powers” Mune said. “I felt it too only uh – in a much manlier way.”

“Since she’s weak, now’s our chance” Dolphin said. “We need to stage a full group attack against Oprah to thwart her before she can become World Head Bitch.”

“But what about Sam? He’s gonna have a lot more people on his tail now that Oprah did this…”

Dolphin thought. “We’ll send half the group to protect Sam, the other half to defeat Oprah.”

“I’ll go help Sambo” Mune said. “I never really had a grudge against Oprah and my services would be better spent helping Sam.”

“I wanna come with, but I should lead the troops for the Oprah boss fight” Dolphin said. “See you for dinner tonight honey.”

The legendary couple kissed, and went out of the house to save the world.