Randomness, and a whole lot of it. Here you go. Just mind you take nothing too seriously; this is strictly for fun, you know.
There's a problem. A big one. After trying (and failing, for the second consecutive time) to elicit the aid of one Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei and his sworn brothers go home to the worst news of their miserable lives.
Benevolence...has died.
"NO! Oh heaven's above, WHY? Why must this tragedy befall us? What did we do wrong? -erm, THIS time!" Liu Bei wails, dropping to his knees and beseeching the very heavens above. ...Oh wait, he already said that. Well, you get it.
Zhang Fei is rooted to the spot, frozen in complete and utter disbelief at what his ears surely could not have heard but seem to have anyway. The peasant that just delivered this most agonizing of news stands before the small band of men shivering in fear. He's not about to reveal that...well, he might have been involved with this disaster. Him and a couple other guys, who only just slipped off to go hide themselves. After all, this could well be a matter of life or death here. Should he find them out, Liu Bei might just forsake their poor hides over this one, and considering the circumstances, he might even stand to become scarier than having Cao Cao's very, er, 'abrstract' cohorts running them down.
"This...this can not be," Guan Yu finally breathes, before the weighty silence about them all has the chance to get too comfortable.
"No...no, you're right, it can't be, it isn't!" Zhang Fei finally cries as beside him on the ground, Liu Bei's doing just that, only in a more 'literal' sense of the word. He's bawling so hard the other peasant's milling around them are looking on and wondering if his tears might expedite the growth of their crops. Zhang Fei promptly runs into their quarters (or at least what they consider to be 'quarters'), only to find out that yes, it's true.
Benevolence has truly died. In fact, it's broken in half right before his very eyes.
"That is IT!" his sudden roar of rage echoes out to them all. A mere second later and he's stomping off toward the local beer garden to go procure something heavy with which to wash away this catastrophe, at least for the time being anyway.
"Leave us," Guan Yu waves off the peon messenger, who eargerly scampers off at his command, most likely to go join his buddies hidden in some nearby weeds. Kneeling down to console the still-whimpering Bei, he mutters some manner of 'comforting words'...all of which only serve to make the man cry that much harder. Finally realizing that he's beating a very-much dead horse, he sighs and goes off to behold the damages for himself.
Sure enough, walking into what serves as their 'home', it's every bit as bad as he expected. Even the dying evening light seeping in through the side window seems to feel his anguish as it's rays highlight the remains of the once esteemed being.
Benevolence, their long-standing friend, is truly broken beyond all repair.
Benevolence, of course, was their couch.
Yes, their couch. The very couch the three men had been sharing ever since after that whole Yellow Turbans mess...after they'd finally been recognized for having done anything in the first place. You remember, that one Province or...whatever...Liu Bei was made magistrate of? You don't? Well, there's a reason for that.
-Benevolence had survived many hardships alongside it's three big, beefy (ok only in two cases, let's be reasonable here) companions. It had followed them through most of their most trying trials. It had held all three of their big, burly asses through many nights of sweaty man-spooning after a day's hard fought battle.
Now it was gone.
All gone.
And outside, fledgling shoots of grass were cropping up beneath Liu Bei's incessant stream of tears.
For once, the God of War was at a total loss on what to do here. His brothers were inconsolable. He, himself, was starting to feel like a shadow of his own former glory.
And Zhao Yun still had yet to be told the terrible news.
Later that night...
"Oh heaven's above, WHY?" Zhao Yun shrieked upon seeing the wreckage. He had only just been introduced to the glory of Benevolence, but it still dealt him a hard blow to see it in it's current sorry state now. Ever the loyal one, he quickly assumed the same position as his lord; within moments those two were wrapped in each other's embrace, bawling together with enough combined force to cause the worms in the ground below to crawl for cover at the risk of drowning. Guan Yu could only stand in the doorway to their once happy abode, at least, this newest one that (like all the rest before it) was really little more than four walls with the makings of a roof and a gaping hole that stood one each for a 'window' and 'door'- and watch his cohorts stain the earth with their sorrows. Stroking his beard as usual, he tried to mask his own grief and stand strong for those that needed him most.
That was about when a very drunken Zhang Fei staggered his way over, swinging a flask, and judging from the new recruit to the 'Weeping Brigade', he accurately guessed that Zhao Yun had just been brought up to speed. Taking in this most pitiful sight of the two such virtuous men reduced now to nothing more than blubbering ninnies filled him anew with the rage of a thousand really enraged men.
Benevolence, broken beyond repair...why, it was such an unspeakable evil that surely-
"-Cao Cao must be involved!" Zhang Fei randomly spat, fury ablaze in his eyes as he angrily flung his long-since emptied flask aside. Guan Yu, ever the 'sensible' soul, raised an eyebrow and actually stopped stroking his beard at that one.
"Somehow I highly doubt that." He spoke as calmly as possible.
"Oh and how is that?" snapped back Fei in fiery response. "Why, it's just like that old miserable bastard to sweep in here while we were all out and destroy the very pillar of our army! The son of a bitch was probably bouncing around just having a good old time-!"
"I can't even begin to see how you came to that conclusion." Guan Yu's stare was fixed off into space as he tried -and failed miserably- to picture The Hero of Chaos bouncing around on their prized couch, his cape flapping about him as he joyfully -and so sinisterly- hopped up and down, up and down, up and- "Augh! Lord my eyes!" Yu yowled, covering them in an effort to burn that ridiculous image from his very mind.
Just a ways away, having heard his sworn brother's shout, Liu Bei sniffles pitifully and looks up, barely managing to choke out, "W-Whadda ya wa-wa-want? Can't you see I c-can't do anything about a-a-a-anything any-more?" These words, of course, are then followed by many more tears.
This is the last straw for Zhang Fei. His own eyes every bit as red and bleary as his lord and brother's (albeit under very different circumstances), he decides the absolute best way to make things work out is-
"Dat ish IT! DAMMIT! E'ryone. onna foor! NOW!" In light of his prior ungodly rage abating somewhat, his words now slur horribly, but nonetheless the point gets across. Unfourtunately.
"I-I can't sleep in there!" Liu Bei howls like a wounded dog. Zhang Fei, too heavily intoxicated to put up much of a fight, shrugs before slumping to the ground in an alcohol-induced coma. When the booze finally catches up to the man, look out; even idiots like Lu Bu can get past his 'impenatrable defenses' when that happens.
FLASHBACK
"Damn," Lu Bu says as he stands over the slumbering heap of horse manure before him that calls itself Zhang Fei. "This is so easy I feel like I'm doing Chen Gong's job."
"How do you think he feels when the bottle gets one over on you?" Zhang Liao mutters under his breath.
"What was that?"
"Not a damn thing." Zhang Liao shrugs with a small cough.
"Oh. Right...er, in that case, help me hoist the colors!"
"Lu Bu you tard you're taller than I am-"
"Exactly! Stand on my shoulders! And be quick about it, curse you!"
"Heaven help me..."
END FLASHBACK
...Yeah.
The next morning
The sun comes up, but does little to warm the men in turmoil beneath it's radiant rays. Somewhere in the middle of the night, Liu Bei and Zhao Yun cried themselves to sleep, and the fruit of their tears stands before them proud and tall in the form of a mighty oak, it's full branches waving in the gentle breeze. Guan Yu, too, somehow managed to find sleep as well, and Zhang Fei was comatose long before any of them as we all know. The peasants around them have already long since been up and have thus been tending to their own doings, careful not to wake their leader and his men in the hopes that rest might help ease the pain they all must surely be suffering.
Some hours later, and an extremely unkempt Bei rouses himself, unable to keep his eyelids closed even a second longer. Completely oblivious of the massive tree that nature erected right dead in front of him, he instead staggers over to where Guan Yu rests against the front wall of their 'home' and slumps beside him. A few moments later and the God of War himself wakes up to one hell of a sight.
"Jesus you look terrible!" he exclaims gruffly. "-And I don't even know who that is!" He adds as that stray concept wanders across his mind.
"Spare me," Bei replies, misery etched deep into the very fabric of his voice as he waves off the comment.
For a time, the two just sit side by side in silence. Eventually Guan Yu, after coughing up the last remnants of sleep, deems it neccesary to break that silence. "We must do something," he declares. "We must not allow this tragedy to beat us down. We've come much too far to quit now."
"What would you have me do?" Liu Bei sighs.
"We could always go back to that recluse's house?" Guan Yu suggests. At these words, a sudden spark of life shines behind Liu Bei's otherwise hideously-puffy and formerly-lifeless eyes.
"Yes," he breathes. Thinking on the idea a moment longer, he then jumps up from the ground and rushes over to kick awake the carcass he calls his other sworn brother.
"Mramahurrmurr," Fei grunts in response to Bei's efforts to rouse him.
"Brother, allow me," Guan Yu offers, moving forward with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Bei nods and thus moves off to wake Zhao Yun, who is a considerably easier target.
"What now, my lord?" he asks while simultaneously rubbing one eye. "Are we to continue wallowing in misery all this day too?"
"Er, no. At least, not right away..."
After Guan Yu manages to successfully bring Zhang Fei back to the land of the living (by means that need not be discussed), the group all rally around to hear what surely must be some grand plan of their lord's to raise their morale and everyone else's. What is this plan, you ask?
"We go back to the home of Zhuge Liang!" he announces...to the bewilderment of Fei and Yun.
"What, again?" Fei grunts, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, again! And as many times as we must until he opens his damn doors!"
"For the sake of our future filled with virtue?" Yun pipes up brightly, his eyes alight with sudden hope.
"-Erm, for that too! BUT! Most importantly!" Bei draws in their attention like a black hole, milking the moment for all it's worth before finally bellowing, "I'll bet HE has a couch!"
Back at Zhuge Liang's house, Liu Bei, flanked by his three officers, is to be seen hammering away and throwing himself at the doors like a man possessed. Needless to say, it's been roughly an hour that he's been at this, and by now (some) of the shock of seeing their lord being so, erm...well, you know...is starting to wear off. Then again, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu are more seasoned in this sort of thing...
"Dammit!" Liu Bei snaps, momentarily giving up his assault on the doors. "This house is nigh on impregnable! That's it! GUAN YU!"
"What now?"
"I want you to throw me through that window there! We'll get this man's attention yet!" Bei states in all seriousness, pointing toward the designated window. Just as Guan Yu's jaw goes slack, the door behind the man of virtue opens, revealing a mysterious dark void beyond, through which another man's voice wafts out to them all.
"There'll be no need for that; I've decided to grant you an audience. Heaven only knows why..." that last part is said in a considerably lower tone.
A very rigid Liu Bei turns slowly toward the now-opened doors just as Zhang Fei says, rather loudly, "Ugh, thank heaven! 'Bout damn time!"
"Was it my threat that got you to finally open up?" Liu Bei questions, still weirded-out by the sudden change in the situation as before him a man steps out from the dark beyond. "Because I really was about to come through that window, you know."
"No," the one and only Zhuge Liang replies calmly, his eyes fixed on Bei's from behind the feather-fan in his hand. "It was the realization that you were not, in fact, door-to-door salesman, that finally got me to open up to you. Now that I'm out here gracing you pogues with my presence, you are most welcome to explain why you're here plaguing my doorstep in the first place." He grins good-naturedly as before him, Liu Bei's brain looks like it's frying deep within the confines of his skull. What did he say?
"I see you wish to rule the land with Benevolence," Zhuge says softly to Bei, Yu, and Fei, all of whom are situated before his desk, whereupon a single candle burns brightly through the otherwise-pervailing gloom.
"Yes, but I'm afraid we've lost-" Liu Bei starts, but Zhuge cuts him off (don't ask why I use everyone's last name but his, I just do).
"My lords, what if I told you there was a way to regain Benevolence?" the recluse says slyly, his eyes glittering with a devious light. The other three's own eyes go wide.
"You mean, you can do such things?"
"Of course." Zhuge shrugs simply, as though this information should be obvious.
"Ha!" Liu Bei exclaims excitedly. "And here I was hoping only to use YOUR couch!"
"My lord, my couch is hardly befitting of such a title!" Zhuge Liang looks stunned at the very concept. "The burden of such would be too great! Surely under the weight of so demanding a role my couch would merely crumble into the very flooring beneath it! -Besides," he adds as a random afterthought, "I got it from my mother! It isn't even -originally- mine!"
"Um...thats nice?" Zhang Fei cocks an eyebrow and shrugs. Beside him...
"Huh, that may well be true," Liu Bei nods, scrutinizing Zhuge's (mother's) simple little couch. "It's got to hold the four of us, you know..."
"Plus you, my lord, should you indeed follow with us." Guan Yu adds.
"Yes, you see? No, we must find you a worthy sofa...yes. Leave it to me, my lord. By morning, I will have the solution to this, your great and very troubling dilema."
Bei's eyes well with tears anew as he takes Zhuge's hand in his own. "Thank you, you have no idea how much this means to both myself and my men."
"Actually, I do. Now get some sleep, you're going to need it."
The next day...
"My prayers have proven successful," Zhuge Liang announces to his newfound entourage. The four he's addressing look on the verge of wetting themselves (ok, really, only two of them look that excited; three guesses who they are) to hear the positive news. "Now, I need you to do exactly as I say, lest we test the fates. Remember, I've never done anything of quite this magnitude before."
Obeying the strategist's words exactly as they are spoken, the results of his sorcery take hold...and transfer all of them to the only place where a couch the likes of which they seek can be found.
In 2012...
"Behold!" Zhuge cries, holding up his hands before the structure before them.
They've just been transported, through time...to a La-Z-Boy department store.
Or rather, the parking lot of said store. They still need to figure out just how the hell they're going to get in- without first getting hit by on-coming traffic. A true journey in and of itself...
Later that same evening...
After many in-store mishaps (the details of which I will leave to your capable imaginations, as writing them all out would probably constitute a small novel that I am sadly not in time to write), the newly-recruited strategist transports the men and their newfound luxury sofa home (which by 2012 standards they technically 'stole'...). However, upon re-arriving back in their own appropriate time, place and whatever else, they come to notice a problem...
"Where the hell's the damn couch?" Zhang Fei barks in surprise after he and the others finish a hurried search of their present location, which is once again outside of Zhuge Liang's home.
"I don't understand," Zhuge Liang ponders aloud, racking the vast expanse of his brain for a solution. "I said all the incantations right..."
"Apparently not!" Zhao Yun yelps, still frantically hunting around, even going so far as to yank up Zhuge's garden in case the couch might be hiding under his weeds.
"We went about the ritual just as I had forseen it..." Zhuge continues, by now more to himself than the others.
"My life is over!" Liu Bei wails before curling up under a random tree and rocking back and forth in the fetal position, muttering incoherently to himself.
"Something tells me so is mine," Guan Yu claps a hand to his forehead as he sees the previous stormclouds of misery collecting once again above his brother Bei's head. Not this shit again...
Meanwhile, somewhere in Wei territory...
Xiahou Dun is wandering the halls of the castle (I don't know, pick one), heading toward his cousin Cao Cao's room with the intention of exchanging some words and maybe even sharing a drink. As he draws nearer his destination, some rather strange sounds come to his attention, causing him to halt dead in his tracks.
"Ugh! Augh! OHHH! Mmm, mmhmm! AWWL yeah!"
Dun's expression cannot even begin to be recounted in words as he listens to the moans and groans of what surely can only be the deepest of pleasures emanating from his cousin's quarters. Of course, as the saying goes, 'curiosity killed the cat'...that said, Dun inches slowly toward the door until he stands before it, a hand raised as he debates whether or not he should knock. Then again, though, what with all the moaning, the gesture likely won't be acknowledged anyway...
"AUGH! Alright, that is IT!" Dun barks loudly before throwing courtesy to the winds and kicking the door open. Barging in like he's on a narcotics raid, he belts out, "Dammit cousin that is FOUL! As leader of this otherwise fucked-up establishment you should at least have some common decency and-!" His face then falls as he takes in-
There before him is Cao Cao, staring back at him with an innocently blank expression as he sits up on his sofa. There isn't a single handmaid in sight. Just a man and his...
"Er...uh, I, um, I...see you've, got a new couch?" Xiahou Dun quickly looks away, rubbing the back of his neck in earnest and hoping to the good lord above that the heat rising in his face isn't outwardly visible.
Shaking off his prior stupor, Cao Cao's demeanor instanltly reverts as he exclaims gleefully, "Do I!" He then sits up and scoots over, eagerly patting the empty space beside him. "Come! You simply MUST sit on this couch! I swear it's like, like..." He casts around for a good enough comparrison, finally coming to, "-It's like upholstered sex!"
"You don't say..." Xiahou Dun recalls the moans of before and decides to take the man's word for it.
No more than twenty minutes later-
"Augh, you guys're SICK!" screams Xiahou Yuan, having himself just barged on in. "I can hear you two practically throughout the whole-! Er, w-what the-?"
"YUAN!" both men on the sofa call jovially, beckoning the newcomer to join them.
"You really need to sit on this couch," Xiahou Dun offers imediately, scooting to the other vacant end so that the middle is left open.
"Erm, wait a minute, you mean a couch is what's causing all the noise in here?" Yuan questions, scratching his chin. "God, here I am thinking there's something obscene going on..."
"The comfort of this couch is obscene," Cao Cao breathes, his frazzled appearance giving him the look of a man who's just finished rolling amidst the sheets with a beautiful woman for hours on end. Xiahou Dun beside him is working on such a look himself as his hair is starting to look similarly unkempt.
"No way," Yuan scoffs before giving in with a shrug. "Ah, what the hell, I was gonna demand you guys share anyway..."
Sure enough, as he takes up the middle spot, even he's hugging against the couch's most finest of cushions. Together the three men are starting to look like a trio of dogs after a bath...
And yet...
A week later, a small pine forest in front of Zhuge Liang's door is testiment to the fact that yes, Benevolence the couch will forever be no more in Shu. Maybe that's why Wei and Shu are destined to never get along...let alone why Wei ends up outlasting Shu anyway. Damn futuristic furniture...
'Epilogue'
It's late in the day, and a lone woman sits outside, reading a book under her favorite tree when a horrible shriek reaches her ears. Alerted by the sound, she snaps her attention toward where she thinks it may have come from. Sure enough, as it is heard again, she realizes that not only is it from the castle, but she also recognizes just who it belongs to...
"My lord, what is it?" she cries, having just come tearing in from outside to find her lord frantically rushing about like a wild animal just released from a cage.
"WANG! There you are!" Sima Zhao yelps, still bustling about like a small hurricane, knocking various objects over and tearing still other things apart.
"You made that sound so...odd," she shakes her head before coming back to the point at hand. "For heaven's sake, man, what is it?" she snaps as he damn near bowls her over in his ferver to continue his hunting around.
"Are you BLIND? The couch -the good one- is gone!" he snaps franticallly, gesturing to the room at large. "I've looked everywhere for it!"
"Uh..." she stares at the scene before her and comes to realize that, yep, he sure has. Under the desk, behind the bookshelves...
"Help me up, it very well could be behind the chandelier," he says wildly, looking up at the one thing he's yet to destroy. Yet.
"My Lord, you know damn right well-!" she starts, only to be ignored as he starts throwing random junk up at it in an effort to bring it down.
"Nup! I got it!" he calls over her. "Now if I can just-"
Wang Yuanji's eyes narrow at the blatant idiocy being displayed to her. If that man's father were still alive something like this would likely merit a disowning of epic proportions. Sadly, he's not here, and neither is Sima Shi for that matter, another who would've straightened this out real quick and in a hurry, and likely with violence (you've seen how he gets over a meat bun). Nope, it's just her to deal with this...
"KNOCK IT OFF!" she roars, throwing a knife so close to his head it only just misses his ear by a hair...that he no longer has. His attention thus gained, she sighs heavily before growling, "You know damned right well a couch can not be hidden in so ridiculous a spot, Zhao."
"...You mean, you know of a better one?"
"...You're making your bloodline look like idiots."
"Hey! Listen, you: they're all dead. Or at least, most of them are. Their problems are over. And mine will be too, if we don't find that most sacred of household furniture items!"
"..."
"I will hang myself, Yuanji. I mean it."
"Ugh..."
Not wanting to call him on that after having seen enough of his erratic retarded behavior to last three or more lifetimes, she decides to help him search for his couch...only in a far more logical way. She calls on as many persons inside as possibe to aid in their efforts, too. Lo and behold, it isn't long before a young soldier rushes before the pair, armed with some rather disturbing news.
"-outside, there is someone making off with the couch in question! Although, sir, I must say-!"
"To hell with your words!" Zhao barks, drawing his sword. "They will DIE, so help me!" That said he charges out like a raving lunatic.
"...Was he foaming at the mouth just now?" the soldier asks in bewilderment, his important message forgotten in light of that newest thought.
"It's likely," Yuanji sighs before following after Zhao.
Outside, there is indeed some scoundrel in possession of the stolen sofa, hurriedly finishing up the preparations needed for them to make their swift getaway. After having securely tethered the couch to a small team of horses, it's about high time they get the hell out of here, however not before-
"Hold it RIGHT THERE, fiend!" Sima Zhao calls down from atop the vast length of stairs that just had to be put before the castle. Hearing such words, said 'fiend' turns around-
"Wh-what the-?" Zhao chokes as he recognizes that which is, in fact, the very guilty party. "But-! You're DEAD!"
"Obviously not, you twit," one very much alive Sima Shi rolls his eyes.
"This isn't happening," Sima Zhao shakes his head in disbelief as below, his 'allegedly-deceased' brother draws his rapier.
"Of course it is! Look, I fake my own demise, you -finally- take over the land; so, I get to reposess this couch!" Shi leers wickedly. "As I see it, it's a win-win out here."
"That's BULL-!"
"Well if you want to do something about it..." the sentence is left open as Shi invites his own brother to a duel over a damn couch. Needless to say...
"Please, God, tell me that's not who it looks like down there," Yuanji stares, having just arrived at her Lord's side.
"I'm not God so I don't know who you think that is." Zhao responds absentmindedly. "I just know that- H-HEY!"
"BYE!" Shi waves over his shoulder as his moronic coach drives off, with the 'coach' part obviously being the couch that (as luck would have it) was mounted on wheels to begin with.
"Y-You bastard! Get back here! S-Somebody chase him!" Zhao cries helplessly as his brother blows through the front gates and out into the wilds of China. "Oh WHY did he have to take after our father so much?" he wails as he starts to feel an odd crying jag start to settle in. One the likes of which has plagued other heroes before him...
-Is it me, or does the word 'Benevolence' come up way too much in Shu's story mode dialouge in DW7...?