Ah, another chapter. At least I've been inspired for this story – now if I could only come up with stuff for some of the other ones… Anyway…
Let's get back to the weird situations, now-evil Ashley and our hero with the questionable intelligence.
Plus, you ever wonder what the Merchant was doing right before hanging out in weird places and selling Leon weapons? Well, you're about to find out.
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Chapter Three: There's a Pirate on the Brainship
Of all the places the Merchant ever thought he'd be, this wasn't one of them. His dream was to sell random, and possibly psychotic people weapons without any form of a background check. But due to the lack of people in these parts, he ended up being an odd jobs guy, which led him here.
The room was elegant, suggestive of the Victorian era, with a grey and blue wallpaper that probably dated back to that time. Deep red curtains that occasionally fluttered with a breeze were drawn across the windows lining the wall behind the bed, casting a shadow over the normally bright quarters. Lining the three walls surrounding the bed, contrasting the dark wood floor, were long flowerbeds full of orange lilies, Chinese lantern and oriental poppies, lit up in the darkness by lights along the back – the only lights in the whole room.
And in that aforementioned bed…
"You, stay and strike up the music again," Saddler said to the Merchant, who'd been turning to leave the room.
"But I don't really want to watch you - "
"If you do not wish to do as you were told, I can always have you put to a better use as a research subject…"
The Merchant sat back down on his stool, pulling his harp close and beginning to pluck the strings, playing a slow, gloomy melody.
"My love, you'll soon be queen of the world. Does this please you?"
"I'm content just being with you," Ashley responded.
The Merchant tried desperately to pretend he was somewhere far, far away and ignore what they were doing while he played.
"I'm in my happy place. Yeah, I'm in my happy place, and I'm surrounded by guns," he chanted quietly.
"Do that again," she said, and the Merchant started chanting to himself even faster.
"I'm in a cave by the lake, and I'm surrounded by dangerous weapons! Weapons, weapons, weapons!"
"So," Ashley said suddenly, "What was that you were telling me about being a magician?"
Saddler stopped what he was doing, rolling dejectedly onto his back. "It's a long, painful story," he replied, hoping she'd take a hint.
"I have all the time in the world."
"I'd rather not go into it. All I can say is that I hate all magicians everywhere, especially the famous ones…"
"David Blaine?"
"Creepy bastard."
"Chriss Angel?"
"Annoying bastard."
"Penn and Teller?"
"Creepy and annoying bastards, with a weird idea of entertainment."
"What about David Copperfield?"
"Isn't that the name of a book?"
"It's also the name of a magician."
"Oh. Yeah, then him, too."
"That's a lot of people to resent."
"Whatever," Saddler said, wanting to change the subject. "Anyway, I'd prefer not to think about that anymore…"
"We think someone is coming here!" Salazar and Mendez said in unison, throwing open the bedroom doors.
"Ooh, what are you two lovebirds up to?" Salazar asked, receiving a dirty look from Saddler.
"What does it look like? Forget that, what did you disturb us for?"
"I get the feeling someone is coming here … Like ABBA," Mendez replied.
"Nonsense," Saddler said.
"I do, too," Salazar added. "I can hear Super Trouper!"
Saddler rolled his eyes. He really needed new lackeys. "Can you just go away, so we can get back to what we were doing?"
Meanwhile, Off in Pueblo…
Ada was busy fighting off a horde of crazy villagers with extremely sharp farming tools, wondering whether they were xenophobic, or just really hated unannounced visitors. She had just killed the last one of them when –
"Hellooooo."
She turned around, coming face to face with Wesker. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in a dark room somewhere, sitting around and being generally annoying?"
"Well, technically yes, but - "
"You caught the wrong flight and got stuck here?"
"No… I figured I'd come to Spain and… Harass you in person."
"Uh-huh." She rolled her eyes. "What am I supposed to be doing, anyway?"
"Getting the plaga."
"Yeah, and why?"
"Because… I have a plan for it."
"Which includes?"
"Okay, okay. I'm going to combine the plaga with what's left of William Birkin's body, and then merge that with one of Jim Henson's puppets."
"… … … Are you serious?"
"Yeah. I even have the puppet already – the scientist Skeksi from The Dark Crystal."
"You think that will even work?"
"It's worth a try."
"You're crazy."
"Well, that may be so. But at least I never slept with Lumberg."
"Um, why did you just quote Office Space?"
"I don't know. What I do know is that I have to run now. I have people to manipulate and others' expenses to laugh at." With that, he ran off.
"Why do I bother working for that guy?" she asked herself, moving on.
Only a Short Way from Pueblo…
Leon was still next to the house, staring at the path.
"What if this path is evil? It could lead me somewhere that's really… evil. Where evil could be in residence. Resident evil," he murmured, "Resident evil to the fourth power…"
He kept staring at the path intensely.
"Eh, it couldn't be that evil."
He began walking down the path, trying to shoot crows and missing completely, when he came to a signpost decorated with human skulls.
"Is this area populated by sick-minded morticians, or is it Halloween? Ah, Halloween, it's the most wonderful time of the year…"
He was so busy humming Christmas tunes that he almost missed the dog with its leg stuck in the bear trap.
"Oh damn, hold still! I'll shoot it off!"
The dog, having already seen his bad aim with crows, bolted off, the bear trap still clamped onto its foot.
"Huh… Wonder what that was about."
Up ahead, Leon found himself in a spot that seemed safe. If you're blind.
And for his first feat, he managed to walk right into the explosive line.
"Ow. So that's what it feels like to be TNT."
There was a nearby shout, and a villager came to say hi. But before he could do so, he ran right into a tree, knocking himself unconscious.
"Aww," Leon said, "He looks like a homicidal villager angel."
There were two more villagers up ahead, standing in front of a bridge and tossing sharp objects at him. The only problem was that they were too busy staring at him to realize their aim wasn't the greatest.
"Dude," the one said in Spanish, "You just stabbed me!"
"I was trying to stab him."
"Well, you didn't!"
Leon watched as the two villagers screamed back and forth and began to attack each other. "Looks like their busy."
He walked right past them, and over the bridge, spotting some more people up on a hill, talking loudly.
"Come, we'd better go tell everyone there's a new guy coming into town."
"Yes, yes – we'll make him into soup."
"Right after we slaughter him horribly."
"Here he comes, let's go."
"Where are you going? Do I smell that bad?" Leon called after them as they ran down into the village.
Continuing on, he found a shack. And a dead woman pitchforked in the face. He stood there, looking at her corpse for a long time. "I wonder why she got killed… She'd make a great nude model for an art class."
Not thinking any further about it, he pulled the pitchfork out, and stuffed the mutilated body into his magical attaché case that could hold anything and once belonged to Puff the Magic Dragon.
At the end of the path was the entrance to Pueblo.
"This is it. End of the line." He pushed the doors open, and…
"I'm in the village," he said, putting one foot through the doors. "Now I'm not." He took his foot out.
"I'm in, I'm out, I'm in, I'm out, I'm in - "
His communicator beeped, and he answered it.
"Leon, what the hell are you doing? Go find the president's daughter!" Hunnigan yelled at him.
"Can't chat, still busy." And he hung up. "This is getting me nowhere. I might as well go look around."
He wandered inside, ducking behind a tree and pulling out his binoculars. "Wow, this town is like a home for geriatric farmers, or something. Maybe it's one big nursing home…"
He continued right into the middle of town, stopping at the stake where the one cop was supposed to be baking. But instead it was a cow.
"Awesome, barbecue!"
The villagers dropped everything they were doing (except for one who was coating the cow in barbecue sauce) and began to come at him, with weapons.
"Everyone's so hostile around here. Maybe I'll just go see what's in the house with the door that's wide open." As soon as he wandered inside, there was a sound of a chainsaw revving somewhere nearby. "There's a lumberjack in this town?"
He ran upstairs for no particular reason, and sat down on the bed. "Hey, this is kinda cozy. I wonder if this is memory foam…"
Dr. Salvador made his way up the stairs slowly, chainsaw ready, when he found the American – lounging on the bed.
"You should try this bed out. It's seriously comfortable."
Dr. Salvador scratched his head. Usually people found him much scarier.
He held the chainsaw up and said something in Spanish threateningly, but still nothing.
"You're a lumberjack, right? Do you know Monty Python's lumberjack song?"
He shook his head.
"I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I work all day. I cut down trees, I eat my lunch, I go to the lavatory. On Wednesday, I go shopping and have buttered scones for tea. I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I work all day. I chop down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wildflowers. I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars."
Dr. Salvador was dancing around to the song happily, right before he fell out the window and shook the whole town on impact.
"Aww, I was going to ask if I could draw him…" Leon said sadly.
Nearby church bells began to ring, and he ran outside to see everyone who had been in attack mode just seconds before, leaving.
"Where's everyone going? Bingo?"
"Yes," one of them answered before exiting the town, "We love Bingo."
"So, what do I do now?"
He looked at Dr. Salvador's body, and then the cow. "I know!"
He jammed Dr. Salvador into his attaché case, and pulled the cow down off of the hook, starting for the next path he could see leading past the tower. "Mmm, barbecue. Now if I only had a napkin…"
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This chapter was kinda random…
Well, there you go. Saddler has a home now, rather than just a throne room… I'm not sure why I was on a kick with orange flowers, though.
I couldn't resist giving Wesker more of a role in this, especially with a somewhat weird subplot. And those cops, they'll be back – I just don't know when.
Hooray, Monty Python! I'm going to watch that show tonight, I think…
Anyway, I must be off. Leave me a review, and let me know what you thought of this piece of… weirdness.