After the activation of Doc's ingenious device, the 4 found themselves in an unrealistically lit, poorly described forest in an improbable clearing. Stoker got right down to business. He calmly placed his book back in his coat pocket, drew his foil, removed the cap before replacing it in its sheath, and said in a delighted voice "Let's go kill some vampires." He had barely managed this when Jim regained his bearings and began yelling at him "ARE YOU MAD! WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE WE?" Stoker retained a general air of good natured joy as he responded "We, my enraged friend, are in Forks, Washington, setting of the gravest threat the world has yet encountered. Doc here invented a deviously useful machine –good work on that by the way Doc- which allows us to enter and exit books at will. Any changes we cause occur in all publications of the novel. I.E., we kill a character, their role in the book is removed. Put simply, our purpose here is to eradicate the shinepyres before they have a chance to star in the world's worst novel. We don't have much time, if the sparkly bastard meets the girl it'll be too late. At least the beginning will be published. Are you with me or against me?" On the latter statement, Stoker threateningly placed his hand on his sword hilt. They all knew this wasn't the only threat. Stoker had trained to rapidly draw his boot dagger and throw it with impressive accuracy. Not that any of them were against him. Jim's first response wasn't to Stoker, but to Doc. He stared at him in utter amazement. "You invent something this awesome" he asked incredulously, "with such amazingly varied possibilities as this, but that can also destroy twilight, and the first thing you do, before you do anything else, before you do any of the astounding things this machine offers, you mention to Stoker that you've invented something that can destroy twilight. What the hell is wrong with you?" Doc rose to defend himself fairly quickly, replying in a reasonable tone "No, not the first thing I did. First thing Stoker and I did was go back and kill Steve the happy pirate, that goddamn half a dimensional, pointless, irritating bastard who ruined peter pan!" Jim, understandably, looked confused "Wait, I don't remember a Steve the happy pirate in peter pan." Doc interrupted him here stating "Why do you think that is? Because Stoker killed him!"
Stoker felt it wise to cut the argument short here and said in a loud, firm voice "We'll talk about that later. Not relevant. Right now we have to fix the greatest blunder ever recorded on paper. We have a once in a lifetime chance to free thousands of teenage girls from the dark, grasping tentacles of sheer stupidity. We have a chance to end the greatest affront to literature in history! And what do you do? You argue about better uses of equipment. You should be ashamed of yourselves. I for one am no longer content to sit back on my pampered ass and do nothing. Think, my lads, of the greater good. If we are not to do this, who will? This challenge to all sanity must be stopped, and it must be stopped here, at the source. It ends here, where it began. Today we end a reign of terror, of ignorance, of foolishness. Today we free the minds of the world's youth. Today, we fight back, we resist, and we rescue thousands. If any have a problem with that, he can take it up with my steel." With the last sentence, his foil flew from its sheath to a perfect guard 6 as he assumed a fencing stance. After this speech, Jim simply couldn't oppose Stoker on this issue. Stoker had stage experience, and it had clearly contributed to his delivery. It imbued one with a sort of pride, duty, and loyalty that you couldn't help but be moved by it. It must have echoed Washington at the Delaware, Napoleon at Austerlitz, and Wellington at Waterloo. Even Boom was inspired. That was an achievement. They didn't rush to his side, they didn't cheer, they didn't cry VIVE LE STOKER!, but they listened. And they were moved. It was Jim who spoke first, and it was in a somewhat long suffering tone that he said "What do you need us to do sir?" Jim, although he fiercely disagreed with Stoker on many issues, considered him his leader and his commander on occasions such as this, hence the formality. Stoker smiled and said "Knew you'd see sense. In any case, I got 3 extra stakes when I realized the potential Doc's machine had. 1 for each of you. Remember, straight through the heart. Our main target is the main character, who, out of personal habit, I will not address by name. I shall simply call him The Sparkling Bandit of Westchester. Please, don't ask. If we can neutralize him, it brings the entire plot to a grinding halt. After that, there a few secondary targets that must be addressed, but if we don't take him out fast enough, the whole plan goes down the drain. Unless absolutely necessary, avoid contact with the other vampires or the regular citizens. We don't want to tip our hand. There is 1 exception. That werewolf –and I use the term loosely- bastard is to be taken out at the first convenient chance. That said, focus is to be kept on the sparkler. As to him, remember: He's not what we know as a vampire. He's fast in normal form and fairly strong. And for some reason I can't comprehend, his vampiric telepathic abilities have been extended to the point of being able to read almost anyone's mind. The speed necessitates surprise, and the telepathy makes it impossible. Above all keep your minds clear until he's gone. Don't focus on the task. I never thought I'd give this as advice, but keep as much random crap floating around your brain as you possibly can. If you're following him, start debating Trek vs. Wars with yourself, or try to justify the creation of Jar Jar Binks. As to the wolf, don't let him see you. When the time comes, I'll probably just toss my dagger into his heart from behind. He's supposedly quite formidable physically, and turning into a wolf is an advantage. We'll split up. We all know basic vampire killing procedure…" As the effects of the speech were beginning to wear off, Jim felt it necessary to interrupt here with a cry of "Only because you forced us to learn it" Stoker shot him a glare and retorted "And I bet you're thanking me now, aren't you?" Jim ignored him, and continued with "I mean for god's sake you made us do drills! Bloody drills! I think we know how to stab stuff, thanks." Doc, realizing that the usual Stoker vs. Jim debate would get them nowhere with an actual mission to perform, and that Stoker's sword was dangerously close to Jim's vital organs, managed to calm Jim allowing Stoker to continue. "Thank you, Doc. As I was saying, we all know procedure. Straight through the heart. Unfortunately, sparklepyres break another rule: They don't have to sleep in grave dirt. They don't sleep at all. This means someone has to stab him while he's up and moving. I have a slight advantage: Slitting a vampire's throat is as good as staking them, at least short term. Therefore, one swift move with my dagger and a thrust with my stake and he's down for the duration. As to further equipment, I'm afraid I can't help you. If you need money, a homeless beggar is actually a decent lookout so we can kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Now I don't know which way to town so…" He was interrupted by a moderately large, fairly unattractive man, who cut him off with "Who are you and what are you doing here" Stoker jumped about to face the speaker and a spark of recognition flashed in his eye, but he quickly regained himself and said "Pardon good sir. We are but poor lost circus performers who have lost our way. Might there be a village or a town nearby?" The man seemed somewhat phased by Stoker's phrasing, not getting the obvious princess bride reference, but replied none the less telling them that the town was to the north, which Stoker knew he could recognize from tree moss. Plus the guy pointed north. "Now go. This land belongs to the Quileute." And with that he turned away, and never saw Stoker draw his dagger and throw it into the man's back with deadly accuracy in 2 seconds flat.
Jim was instantly outraged. "What the bloody hell you psychopath! What'd you kill him for! He gave us directions!" Stoker facepalmed. "Haven't you seen the movie commercials? That was the wolf. One less on the list. I thought I might as well get him out of the way now." He said as he calmly walked over and retrieved his dagger, cleaning it on the grass before returning it to his boot. Although Stoker appeared to throw the weapon into the man's back casually, and with little care, and looked to retrieve the weapon as if he'd only thrown it into a wall, a moral dilemma had raged in his head. On the one side was that the man was a human being like any other, although more 1 dimensional, and didn't deserve to die from a knife in the back because an author who didn't even exist in his world –although the girl was clearly a self insertion- had managed to popularize stupidity, which happened to include him. On the other stood Stoker's hatred for the franchise to which this man belonged, and said man's fairly disturbing character, his desire and duty to free those who would otherwise be taken in by twilight, and his need to save literature from the menace swooping down upon it. It hadn't been an easy decision. It had begun the moment he saw the wolf and ended only an instant before he reached for his dagger. In that time, there was crammed a battle between morals, both grand and true, both of which had to be obeyed, but which conflicted each other. In the end, the one temporarily subdued the other, and the wolf found a knife in his back. Stoker reminded himself that the stupid bastard had been a fictional character and got over it fairly quickly. And not the kind like Jean Valjean or Sherlock Holmes where you're SUPPOSED to cry when they die (or in Holmes' case "die"), or even Javert who you're meant to pity, but a one dimensional one that should have been killed off before being created. He'd just begun the process of liberating the world's entire population of teenage girls from Stephanie Meyer's corruptive drivel. He was upholding the (positive) ideals of the French revolution. Liberte, he was liberating millions from the affront to intelligence known as twilight, egalite, he was bringing their brains and preferred literature back on par, fraternite…well he didn't really have one for fraternite. But Liberty and equality were being upheld. If that meant a few fictional, sparkly "vampires" had to die, so be it.
To anyone who gets the 2 references in here, I may or may not have a small reward for you. Limited time offer