Disclaimer: I don't own Baten Kaitos, or Wal-Mart.
AN: Contains spoilers, randomness, and strange items of food.
I came up with this idea when I was playing Baten Kaitos one day, and pondered what it must be like to eat Avocadoes and Pickled Eggplants together while beating up Malpercio. The answer would definitely be unpleasant, and I somehow knew that Lyude would be the first to complain…
Note that Lyude and Gibari are kinda OOC. But who cares about Lyude, anyway? He doesn't deserve to be loved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Being:
An Exciting and Intrepid Adventure
Starring That Most Handsome and Daring
Sort-Of Heroic and Noble
LYUDE,
Presented Most Wonderfully By the Notorious
Becky Creighton,
This Is The Epic Tale Of How:
Lyude Went To Wal-Mart
And Didn't Come Back
Chapter 1: Mind Your Table Manners
It was roughly 7 a.m in the morning, and Lyude was looking forlornly at his breakfast which consisted of Green Tea and Salted Sweetfish, whatever the heck that was. All he knew was that he had used a Magnus which healed 970 HP (he wasn't entirely sure what HP was either – isn't that out of a video game or something?) and it had come up with this.
Sometimes Magnus cards pissed the hell out of Lyude. I mean, nice enough carrying stuff around in cards, but the problem was food. Milk would turn to cheese in a matter of days, meat would go rotten after a couple of battles and even be used as an offensive weapon, and bamboo shoots would become pointy sticks and even those would somehow end up as fishing rods. All very well if you're vegetarian or not on an epic quest to stop an evil god, but as Lyude is on aforementioned quest and lactose intolerant, this was just more than he could bear.
He stared glumly outside the window of his room in Queen Corellia's castle, and suddenly the prospect of jumping out of it was looking very attractive.
And then, just to brighten up his day, as soon as he captured the Magna Essence of a basket of strawberries that was lying on his table, it turned into Rotten Fruit.
"Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" he yelled in frustration, promptly hurling the card onto the floor and jumping on it in much the same way a five-year old would do on a bouncy-castle.
He brandished his Imperial bazooka-trumpet thingy and whipped out his deck of Magnus, shouted, "RHAPSODY!" pointed his gun at the card and shut his eyes tightly.
There was a terribly nasty clicking sound.
There was a terribly nasty explosion.
There was a terribly nasty aroma of burnt wood…
When Lyude opened his eyes again, he had blown up 500,000GP worth of Anuenue furniture, and all that was left of his bedroom was a large smoking crater with a perfectly intact card of Rotten Fruit in the centre of it, glinting mischievously in the Komo Mai sun at him.
"Geldoblame's underpants!" he swore, "I want food, dammit!" Lyude then realised that part of his long crimson hair had been singed off, on the whole making him look like a large lump of charcoal wearing gold trousers. "And I want shampoo as well!" he added.
There was a noisy clatter of rapid footsteps, and Lyude's friend Kalas opened the door, who was not only surprised to find the ex-Imperial ambassador for Diadem crouching in a crater and scowling at a card, but at the fact that there was no door.
"Lyude, what the hell?" he asked irritably.
"I want food, dammit!" Lyude repeated. "Shampoo, now!"
"You have food, you moron! Jeez!"
"You mean you're content with having to eat Cheese Fondue and…and…and Salted Sweetfish immediately after one another in the middle of an intense battle?"
"Well, um…" Kalas mumbled
"See?!?"
Lyude grabbed the charred remains of a chandelier and repeatedly whacked himself over the head with it, blubbing like a rejected X-Factor candidate.
For a split, guilty second Kalas was tempted to leave him there to club himself to death, but then thought better of it. After all, he needed Lyude's help in fighting the war against Malpercio.
But he and the others had also unanimously agreed that when all of this had blown over, they would abandon Lyude on Wazn.
Seriously, think of the economic advantage of doing so. For example, by now the guy had already gone through five boxes of Kleenex. If they got rid of him, there would be less whining, less unhelpful comments and an abundance of handkerchiefs for all.
Just then, Mizuti, Xelha, Gibari and Savyna walked in, all garbed in baffled facial expressions, except for Mizuti, who, uh, doesn't really have any facial expressions.
"Lyude, what was that?" Savyna demanded.
"Yeah. We were just havin' brunch when we heard ye usin' Rhapsody and all that." Gibari noted.
"I want food, shampoo, and a box of tissues NOW!" Lyude moaned.
"The Great Mizuti thinks Lyude is a tad crazy. Just a little bit loony. Kind of insane."
"You're one to talk, Mizuti!" Lyude sobbed. "We only found out yesterday that you're a girl!" Then he turned to Kalas. "And you have blue hair!"
"So does Mizuti!" Kalas countered, resulting in Mizuti taking off her mask just so she could scowl at them.
"Lyude! Kalas!" Xelha exclaimed. "When did you become so…so…callous?"
"Ever since I had to eat Ice Cubes, Beer and Pickled Eggplants simultaneously!" he explained. "If I keep up this sort of diet I'm going up obese or bulimic!"
"Since when did you care about your food? We're in a video game, remember?" Kalas pointed out.
"Shut up!" Lyude snapped.
"Well, if you're gonna keep complainin', why don'tcha go to Wal-Mart and buy yourself some food, you angsty li'l whining jerk?" Gibari suggested, silently delighting in insulting him.
"Maybe I will!" Lyude riposted, picking himself up from the scorched ground. Then, his indignant face dropped off him like an anvil thrown off a truck. "Where the heck is Wal-Mart anyway?"
"The Celestial Alps." Savyna replied, matter-of-fact.
Lyude stared at her in disbelief.
"Alright then." He answered at last. "I'm going."
"Whoa whoa whoa!" Gibari cried out, drawing his battle-oar and pointing it at Lyude's head, making him go cross-eyed in fear. "We may totally hate your guts and want to dump you in a snowy wasteland, and you may have been told by the ghosts of your dead family and colleagues that you don't deserve to be loved or to love another, but that doesn't mean that you're going out there alone," Gibari explained. "You two, Kalas, Xelha," he added, pointing at the unsuspecting victims of his master-plan, "Go with him to Wal-Mart. Lyude can't go off on his own because he's an incompetent little twat, even though he's several years older than you."
"I hate you!" Lyude, Kalas and Xelha chorused in anguish.
Somewhere above them, Lyude could've sworn he heard King Ladekhan, Queen Corellia and Duke Calbren cheering.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------