This is my friend Daaren's version of our 'modernize Beowulf' English assignment. I felt that it was too funny not to share with you guys. Hope you agree!

Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story. It belongs to my friend Daaren, but he doesn't have internet, so I'm posting it for him. He doesn't own anything that's been previously copyrighted or is owned by someone else. This story is clearly just for fun & neither of us is profiting from it.

Beowulf: Strange Crime

In the dank ghettos of New York City, a gang of Blu-ray pirating graffiti artists was destroying the cleanliness of the city's walls. There, they spray-painted the sides of countless buildings with their gang symbol... and advertisements telling people where to get one-day-only sales on discounted movies.

This gang was called "Children of Cain." It was led by a boss called Grendel. No one knew his real name. Children of Cain was formed in the 1920's during Prohibition by Grendel's grandfather. Its main purpose was to bootleg whiskey and rum for rich people. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933 by the 21st amendment, the gang found themselves without a source of income, so they switched to smuggling marijuana. However, in the 1960's, they discovered that smoking was harmful to people. Children of Cain really didn't want to harm people, just illegally take their money and spend it on their elaborate baseball card collections.

It was about this time that the gang started to pirate various forms of media. First, it was books, then cassette tapes, VHS tapes, CD's, DVD's, and finally, Blu-ray movies. In the early days, the pirated products were sent by mail throughout the world. However, when the US Postal Service was forced to raise their shipping rates in the 1990's due to inflation, Children of Cain realized they could no longer afford to ship their products overseas. This is when they started their one-day-only sales in abandoned warehouses, and sold to people who either were not aware or who didn't care about the legality of cheap Blu-rays.

But where would they get their supply of new movies to copy? They thought it was ridiculous to have to pay for even one copy, so the gang decided to target the Herot Hotel.

Herot Hotel was run by a kind old gentleman named Mr. Hrothgar. His family started this hotel in World War II, and its ownership was passed on from generation to generation. The hotel itself was known for the excellent service and hospitality shown by Mr. Hrothgar's trusty band of Danish bellhops. Mr. Hrothgar was not only nice, but rich and generous. He paid his bellhops large sums of money for their work. That is why Children of Cain chose to target them.

Late one night, Grendel and two other gang members pulled up to hotel in their Ford Pinto (which had awesome tinted windows, by the way). As one of the bellhops, who was named Bjorn, came out to meet them, two of the gangsters grabbed him and threw him in the back of their car. They promptly drove him to their secret lair, which was called "The Mancave." When they arrived, the two gang members tied Bjorn to a chair, and Grendel persuaded him with aged cheese to say where he lived. When Grendel got the information he wanted, he "rewarded" the bellhop with Neapolitan ice cream drugged with sedative. When Bjorn fell asleep, he was tied up and thrown once again in the back of the Pinto. Grendel and his henchmen drove to the bellhop's place, broke in, and stole his Blu-ray movies. After this was done, they dropped Bjorn off right at the hotel where he was picked up, as dazed and confused as a Capuchin stuck on a merry-go-round.

Mr. Hrothgar thought at first that this was just a random, isolated incident. He was wrong, though, as the exact same thing happened to another one of his bellhops, his nephew Johann, the next night. Hrothgar knew just who to call... "Beowulf!"

'Beowulf' was the code name of an undercover cop who was always disguised as a gangster. He was the leader of the other undercover cops who made up his unit of the NYPD.

"Yo, man! What's up? What's the problem?" called Beowulf when he saw Mr. Hrothgar.

"Well, every night for the past two days, some gangsters come and kidnap one of my bellhops. After that, I don't know what happens, and neither do the bellhops," explained Mr. Hrothgar. "They must get drugged or something."

"Oh, gangstas! I got an idea," Beowulf whispered his thoughts to Hrothgar.

"It had better work!" replied the hotel owner.

"Trust me, man, it will, or my name isn't Beowulf, son of Beowulf's father. Do you know how many of those gangsta weirdees I've taken down in the past five weeks? More than you can imagine! More than the number of stars in the night sky. The number must be up to 23 or so. This gangsta you're describing is surely gonna be number 24," boasted the cop.

That night, the same thing happened. Grendel and a couple of his followers came up in their Pinto, and a bellhop approached to get their luggage. The bellhop was quickly and silently bound, blindfolded, thrown into the car, and driven to "The Mancave." The only difference was that this was not a normal Danish bellhop- it was Beowulf in disguise!

When Beowulf's blindfold was taken off, he found himself tied to a chair, with a gangster and a plate of aged cheddar cheese in front of him.

"Feed him some cheese," said the gang leader. Beowulf was given a chunk of the cheddar.

"Good, wasn't it?" asked Grendel. "That's the finest cheese in all of New York City. You can have some more, all you want, if you give us your address."

"Why do you want my address?"

"It's for... a very secret health care survey," replied Grendel.

"Oh."

"And if you don't tell it to us correctly, you will be hurt... because your current health insurance may not cover your next illness or broken bone."

"Right." Beowulf gave the gang boss a random address.

"Very good! Because of your cooperation, you can have some more cheese," said Grendel. A gang member offered Beowulf another cheese chunk.

Well, thought Beowulf, this can't be drugged cheese because it came from the same plate as the first chunk. They would want an actual, sober answer, and it was tasty... Beowulf ate the second chunk.

Nothing happened. Beowulf still felt fully awake.

"And, as an added bonus," continued Grendel, "you can have some ice cream. It's Ben and Jerry's!"

Mental alarms went off in Beowulf's head.

"I don't like ice cream."

"How rude!" exclaimed Grendel. "You WILL have ice cream, or you will be sorry... because.. this is the last bowl of this flavor of ice cream in the WORLD!"

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Beowulf replied. "But untie my hands first so I can eat at my own pace. I have sensitive teeth, ya know."

"Oh, are your hands still tied?" asked Grendel. "My bad, I thought they were untied hours ago! We only tie our clients up because they are usually so shocked by this survey's secrecy that they.. tend to overreact a little."

"I see," said Beowulf as his hands were unbound. He reached for a teaspoon, but paused. "How's the weather in your part of town?"

"Good," replied Grendel. He did not notice Beowulf's other hand reaching for the phone in his pocket.

"Well, this ice cream sure smells good," Beowulf replied as he sent a text message to one of his undercover cops.

"Yeah, yeah. Are you gonna have any, or not?" Grendel asked.

"If you insist." Just then, the door slammed open, and in walked five of Beowulf's men. They quickly had the two Children of Cain in handcuffs.

"Leave Grendel for me," ordered Beowulf. He walked up to Grendel, who started for his jeans pocket. "Stop!" cried Beowulf, but the gang boss did not. Beowulf was forced to take Grendel down. Beowulf did not use sword nor shield. There was no helmet nor armor upon his body. The only thing he used was the strength of his own... taser, which he always carried with him.

"I told you: I DON'T like ice cream!" Beowulf exclaimed to the quivering Grendel. He turned to his men. "Did you bring my Ferrari as I asked?"

"Yup."

"Excellent! Take Grendel and his scummy followers away. Oh, by the way, you guys are awesome at tracking criminals."

"It wasn't all that difficult," replied one of his men. "I mean, how many other Ford Pintos are there? With the tinted windows and all, those punks probably didn't even see us following them from the hotel."

After Grendel and his two accomplices were handcuffed and driven off, Beowulf got in his custom-painted Ferrari. Once he realized where he was (which took quite a while because undercover cops dressed as gangsters don't have time to look at street names), he made his way back to Herot Hotel, where Hrothgar and his faithful band of Danes were very pleased to learn that Grendel's Blu-ray-pirating, bellhop-kidnapping days were over.

That wasn't what you were expecting, was it? Leave your thoughts via the magic blue button if you so desire!