Perpetually Purple

Written for The Adam West Conspiracy, April 17 & The Fortnight Ink Clash & TCC

"Sir, your violets are violet again," the butler interrupted.
Sir Snives Shambleston glared at him unpleasantly, unwilling to be distracted from the delightful tea and crumpets in front of him. "They're violets, Chesterton. They're supposed to be violet."
The butler disregarded the stern warning. "But sir, they-"
"Do not interrupt your superiors," interjected Shambleston. "They are violets."
Chesterton walked away, worried. Well, yeah, they're violets, but not the whole plant! He checked the plot again - yep, leaves, stems, and flowers, all purple. Just like they had been. In fact, now that he looked at it, the grass around it began to look purple too. He called the gardener over. "Evanson?"
Evanson strode over blandly. "Wh-" His sarcastic remark was cut short by the harsh realization that there was, indeed, a problem. "The violet dye is leaking?"
"...I don't think that's how flowers work." Chesterton was unimpressed. "Or at least I've never seen that before."
Evanson's eyebrows shot upwards, concerned, but not so much from the phenomena as from Chesterton's sudden lack of formality. "What's happened to you?"
Chesterton adjusted his cravat uncomfortably, sweating in the spring heat. "These flowers are not proper! How can I maintain perfection throughout the grounds with such egregious malarkies residing in the front garden? It ruins our perfect mountain view!"
Chesterton's face had turned a peculiar shade of purple, Evanson noted. Rather similar to the color that the violets were. Looking down, Evanson noticed that Chesterton's boots... and pants... and suit... and even cravat had changed color, uniform with those horrendous violets. "Sir?"
Chesterton wiped his face with his hand - and could hardly keep from noticing that his hand was purple. "...I see." He checked his cravat to see if, perhaps, by some fluke or miracle, it had stayed its proper hue - but it had not. Suddenly, he turned deathly, lavender pale and started to run back to the house - and tripped, falling unconscious.
"Oh dear."
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Sir Snives stared languidly out the window at the purple yard below, politely ignoring Evanson's rambling. "We shall not evacuate. My family has lived on this land for thousands of years, and we will not be driven away by an impolite color scheme!"
"Sir, have you seen Chesterton? Do you want to end up like him?" Evanson's face was far from violet, furious at Snives's incompetence.
"Yes, I have. He looks very proper, despite his purple cravat." Snives refused to even face Evanson, uptight to an extreme, just as his father had taught him.
"The floor turns purple wherever he steps! I don't know about you, but I don't want to turn purple!" Evanson yanked Snives around, daring to face his fury. "Are you insane?"
Snives lorded his six foot frame over Evanson, not budging an inch. "You're fired. Leave the premises immediately. I shall not."
Evanson simply left. He had no desire to become purple as well.
"Good riddance," Snives muttered, too polite to yell. Men like that could not be trusted anyway.
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Snives stared at his purple tea in disgust. "Proper Earl Grey tea is grey!"
The replacement butler, Chesterton out of commission, stammered politely. "S-sir, the pantry is entirely purple."
"What?!?" The word was positively hurled out of Snives's polite mouth, an expression of horror and terror.
The butler stumbled back behind the force of that one word, silenced.
Sir Snives Shambleston towered over the butler with the entirety of his six-foot frame, as he was wont to do. "I will not-" He suddenly stopped, noticing the floor. It was as purple as the day he was born. That is to say, mildly such. Snives quickly banished such impolite thoughts from his head. "Let us leave immediately. Call the nearest cab."
At the butler's shrill whistle, a horse with buggy soon pulled up to the now purple mansion and Snives walked briskly out to him, apologizing profusely. "I'm terribly sorry, you see, I do not like disturbing your peace and quiet, I'm mostly terribly sorry, you see, you can see the problem, we need to evacuate immediately. Are you sure you do not want to go back home?"
The cab driver simply nodded politely, sagely not listening to a word Snives exuded. The butler sighed deeply. "Shall I notify the scientists?"
Snives nodded reluctantly, a frown shadowing his features. "Yes."
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"A letter for Giovanni Jones, of Geneva Laboratories?" The mailman's voice wobbled, as if regretting he had brought the news at all. But soon enough, Giovanni came down, a young man with hair already white, frazzled, and a white suit blotched all over with brown marks from some unknown chemical or something of the like. He was always like this... but at least he didn't often get mail. Looking into Giovanni's eyes was like looking into a kaleidoscope of madness, too much for mere mortals to take in. Well, at least that was how it seemed.
"A letter? For me?" Giovanni was clearly wondering who could possibly be crazy enough to send him, of all people, a letter. His mom?
The mailman nodded curtly, handed him the letter, and ran away from that accursed shack as fast as his legs could carry him. Not that that was very fast, mind you, but still, he tried.
Giovanni, meanwhile, took it upstairs, muttering the latest poem that had come to him. "Birds upon a chimney wander, geese up in my head, they gander, who can save me from myself? Keep my brain from on that shelf?" No, he shook his head at himself, that would never do. Absolutely horrendous. He opened the letter, whose flowery handwriting perturbed him to no small extent. .
Sir Jones, the Shambleston estate desires your presence urgently due to a strange blight upon our land. Due to the odd nature of said blight, we have asked the services of the craziest scientist anybody had ever heard of - namely, you. You will be paid handsomely if you can solve the issue, otherwise, you will be reimbursed for any... unfortunate happenstances that may occur. The earlier you fix the blight, the better. Thank you - Sir Snives Shambleston.
Giovanni stared at it, shocked. A rich man, asking for his employ? Never mind that he knew nothing about gardening, a rich man? This was the opportunity of a lifetime! Multiple lifetimes! He hailed a cab before realizing he had no money. Never mind that, scamming worked any day. As the cab pulled up, Giovanni picked the driver's pockets, quickly coming up with enough for a fare. "One way trip to the Shambleston estate, please."
And it drove off.
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The cab driver dropped him off at the edge of the purple stain. It had grown since Shambleston left, covering the whole building, lawn, and a good portion of the land outside of it in a purple blight. "This is vile!" Giovanni exclaimed, horrified. "What a horrific color scheme!" He didn't even bother to speak in rhyme. It was that bad. Horrendous.
The entire house, road, lawn, and even surrounding mountainside was purple. All the same shade, a pitiful, rich lavender. Aside from looking miserable, it was probably also messing with their photosynthesis, Giovanni noted. All of the plants seemed to be quietly withering except for one patch nearly the center of the lawn. Always drawn to the weird things in life, Giovanni stepped out onto the purple, cab driver fleeing as his tires changed hue. It looked horrible! He knew he'd been thinking that for a while, but that didn't change it - it looked horrible! He sighed to himself, treading out towards the flowers, thriving quietly. They were a full inch higher than the rest of the grass, and going right up to them, Giovanni noticed that they had used to be violets.
In the middle of the mountain range, the violets smiled up at the sun. They stood alone in the fading grass, serene. And also bigger than any violets Giovanni had ever seen before. They were massive. And, catching a glint within the flowers, Giovanni soon saw why. A large crystal orb shone purple in the midst of them, the air bending purple in front of it. He picked it up and his hands started to turn purple. He didn't mind - after all, it fit his eccentric personality. He whistled the cab driver back, already entirely purple, and jumped in the cab before the driver could disagree.
They drove off, away from the mountains, and as they got farther away, the purple began to follow them, fading. They could see the house, now its proper white again, in the distance, as the purple scared the horses yet faster forwards. The driver would have stopped to accost Giovanni, but stopping would mean the purple would catch up to them. Who knew what it would do next?
The driver threw Giovanni out when he signaled to stop, not willing to turn purple like the rest of it. Before Giovanni could talk, he was gone. Giovanni sighed to himself. Most people couldn't handle him. Dusting himself off, he examined the orb again. Not finding anything strange about the smooth surface, he turned towards the house and began climbing the stairs.
A voice sounded from below. "Giovanni! How many times have I told you to quit messing with the furniture?" Startled, Giovanni lost his footing. Stumbling down the stairs, his feet came out from under him, sending the orb flying, to crash on the upper stair. It shattered, and the world went purple.
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Giovanni awoke in the same room as Chesterton. Glancing at his hands, they were their normal color again. Glancing at the hospital walls, they were how they ought to be. Worried, he looked up and asked why he was in a hospital.
"You were covered in shards of the most purple glass we've ever seen, wearing broken glasses that appeared to be of the same color," The doctor answered curtly. "You should be alright now."
Giovanni thought to himself, quiet, but was cut off abruptly by a loud thunk near him and the clanking of coins. His gaze torn to the sound, he saw a large envelope, addressed from Sir Snives Shambleston to Giovanni Jones in flowing cursive script. It was thicker than any envelope Giovanni had ever seen before, and he ripped it open with his fingernails. It split easily, already packed to its thick brim.
Giovanni noticed a letter inside and pulled it out, ignoring the glint of coins inside. It was covered in the same detailed script as the envelope had been, reading it aloud to himself.
"Mr. Jones, we would like to thank you profusely for your wonderful work. The purple has completely disappeared from our land, and our gratefulness is immense. It appears we were right to come to you. Enclosed is your payment, 20,000 pounds, and a sponsorship to fund your continuing creative research. If you need more money, more can be enclosed. In exchange, I would like to be mentioned as your sponsor for future discoveries. Thank you for fixing my lawn. Signed, Sir Snives Shambleston."
Giovanni, stunned, shook the money out on the table, the money crowding itself out on the floor. And as the coins clattered across the table, out fluttered a check - for 20,000 pounds. Giovanni gaped at it, stunned, his mind whirling for to describe it accurately, his body sounding them out for correctness. "My finances would woefully gurgle, but now they are saved from removing purple?" Disgusting. He tried again. "His flowers were so odio'sly vi'let, but now my cash is finally all set?" Nope. He sighed to himself, knowing he needed an alliterative adjective. "Perfect? Villanous?" He grinned, knowing he had it. "Perpetually." Snapping his fingers, he knew he had it. "Since I found that odd orb circle-" he cut himself off, confused again. Maybe he didn't need a poem after all. Sighing, he took one of the shards, a larger one, and began to polish it. If he made it into an orb, would it exude purple-ness again? Only one way to find out...