August 2009 to September 2009

Author's Note: Apparently, yours truly wrote a Play 3, but she hated it so much that she threw it away. Seriously, I have absolutely no idea where my notes to the third part went off to, however memory does recall that I disliked a lot so I probably flushed it down the toilet and it's making a left turn at Albuquerque.

Anyway, I then decided I might as well write up a new play for my last part to this loosely called three-parter.

Musashi Theatre Presents: IY CRACKED FAIRY TALES

Play 3
By Illusionary Ghost (aka Yashira)

A small, innocent looking monkey wearing a thong walks onto the stage and waves eagerly at the audience. Upon instinct thousands of umbrellas bloom open as the querulous monkey begins to fling poo.

Imagine if you will the sort of cries echoing back-

"How can a little monkey have so much?!"

"It keeps coming and coming and it's not cute and pink with a drum!"

"Oh god, the inhumanity!"

Behind the stage curtains though...

"You have got to be kidding me!?" The question danced on Yashira's lips between outrage and clear stupefied disbelief. She stood there staring with wide blue eyes as if the Ragnarok had finally fallen. "I did not authorize this. Who the hell authorized this?!"

"Well someone rewrote the script," Miroku said quietly as he glanced over with a sly look. He should have still been royally pissed and annoyed at his director. In fact somewhere deep down he was still incredibly brewed to frustration and disgust, but it was held in check at that moment by one simple question. Was she wearing any pants?

It was a hard question to avoid when your hot boss is wearing what appears to be a white billowy pirate shirt so long that it covers up the beige shorts - really short shorts- underneath. All he could see right now was a pair of long silky legs that moved in soft seduction. With Sango still in intensive care, his instinct to grasp was growing.

Inuyasha's golden eyes flicked across the stage with one cold, calculated look, ignoring Miroku's glazed face when he circled back to face Yashira. "Okay, I think I've figured it out. One good Kaze no Kizu ought to do it."

"Inuyasha, don't you dare. You'll take out the audience." Kagome's tired face peeked around Yashira's shoulder with something akin to annoyance on her face. She looked tired and haggard as if she'd been up half the night practising new lines for a play that had been suddenly rewritten. Unlike Yashira, Kagome wore her usual school outfit, green sailor collar and short pleated skirt with white shirt and baggy socks. Different outfits, but with the same reaction growing in Miroku. Hot chicks were hot chicks.

"Well, ladies. It seems like the show's been cancel then," and instigating himself between Yashira and Kagome so that he could rest his hands on their hips, Miroku grinned his most flirtaceous smile. "Shall we go back to my plac-"

WHACK!! SLAP!! A pretzel, though not entirely accurate for Miroku's jumbled limbs, would be the closest image right now.

"Wow, double teamed and everything." Inuyasha had crossed his arms, making the haori of his red outfit crease in folds along his chest. With something between bemused smugness and pride, he added. "And I didn't even have to lift a finger." The warning hung there sharply though. Even though Inuyasha believed his sister and his girl friend could both handle themselves, he was not adverse to offering his own incentive that Miroku keep his hands off. Tetsusaiga's hilt shone, in the theatre's backstage light, menacing.

"He's not completely off though. Might as well call it quits and take out the smell in the process." Kikyou's aloof and cold voice echoed from several spaces behind them. She had raised ash-coloured fingers to her lips and wore her traditional red and white miko outfit. Taking care to avoid the new Miroku sculpture she came to rest a hairbreadth behind Inuyasha's shoulder. Gently she placed her fingers on his sleeve so that the guilty look Inuyasha wore betrayed him.

This was not lost on Kagome whose tired face registered both a spark of jealousy and hurt.

Almost as if on cue, Kouga came pounding behind them. Unlike the others, he had already changed into his costume. He wore a blue tunic belted at the waist with gold trim and knee length gold boots. "What is the damn hold up? Get the monk to clean it up if Inu-koru is too busy throwing his shit around." Struggling to catch the sparkling gold circlet he wore, he let out a dark curse. "Smells so bad here."

"I did what?!" Kikyou forgotten, Inuyasha shoved himself forward. "At least I'm not dressing up in a pansy outfit. Just look at you. Blue and Gold? Who wears that?!"

"Didn't your brother wear something similar."

"Shut up Pretzel boy. I'm starting to think the wimpy wolf has a point with you going to Kaza Ana the thing."

With a crinkling sound followed shortly by a snap, crackle pop, Miroku righted himself and ran numb fingers behind his stiff neck. "I'm not collecting that crap in my hand, that's more toxic than Naraku's miasma." Miroku growled the words as he straightened. "I vote we send you out with a toothbrush."

"Why don't we send Inuyasha out?" Sweet and innocent, Kagome wore the perfect serene face.

"Kagome?!" It wasn't just Inuyasha who looked at her with widening eyes.

"I mean, after all, he has enough time to take care of ..." and here she paused, eyes flickered long enough to Kikyou to emphasis her point, "other things, so I'm sure he has no problem with this."

"A woman after my own heart. We're going to dinner after this Kagome." Kouga would have wrapped his arm around her shoulder right then and there if Inuyasha hadn't pulled out his sword.

"No one is going anywhere with pansy-wolf boy here. I'm going to end this right now."

"Go ahead and MAKE me, Dog-turd!"

"Stop it, both of you! Kouga, back off and Inuyasha, for god's sake, put that damn sword down. I swear I feel like I'm babysitting and not getting paid for it." Yashira who had stood there forgotten, now stood between them a soccer referee, both hands gestured in firm warning. The threat of her anger hung like an ugly stain, its potency thick and heavy. "As always, I'm going to have to clean up this stupid mess you guys made." And while they wanted to complain, to remind their angry Director that they hadn't told the monkey to go fling poo at the audience, they did not. Inuyasha with his lips gripped in an ugly scowl and Kouga, hand clenched to the side, had noticed where her hand was.

The wand.

God-like powers seemed infused in this wand which allowed the fabric of time to distort and reweave itself. It was rumoured that it was called the Author's Whiteout Tool and that on whim it would rewrite scenes or events. For some reason it had found its way into Yashira's care and had bound itself into her keeping. No amount of sneaking in to steal it had ended well. Inuyasha had the vague sense that he must have tried several times to take it, but he was always left with the déjà vu feeling that placed him outside theatre in the rain. (And why was it always raining in the alleyway when it was clear and sunny elsewhere, who the hell knew?!)

Sadly, the most Yashira had ever figured out was a few waving techniques employed in an off-handed fashion you'd find in a Santa Claus Parade. "Fix this stupid play so that we can end it all. I'm tired and I want to go home."

And then in that waving, the stage faded away, the audience went poof, and they disappeared.

The play:

"Do you feel like something just happened?" Inuyasha was looking nervously behind him, his fingers itching for the steel of sword he did not carry at his side. He was a bit disorientated and confused. The weapon. Where had he put the weapon?

"I don't know. It's probably just you." But Miroku had the sinking feeling he was angry at someone, but right now it was a difficult thing to address when he was staring down at himself with something akin to pure horror. "What the hell am I wearing?"

"It looks like some sort of blue dress, a red hood and cape."

Miroku who was quicker on the uptake found the blood curling inside him. "Oh no, she didn't. Oh hell no, she didn't." If he could have banged his face against the cold, cement wall, he wouldn't have stopped until he was knocked out cold. "Why am I the girl? Who wears lace anymore? And it's FRILLY! Why?"

"Hey, think of it this way. You don't have to go far to feel yourself up." Cold silence answered Inuyasha in the same way as Miroku's violet eyes balefully glared at him. "What, you can't say you never thought it?"

"I'm still a 100% man in here. It's NOT like I have the parts."

"Ah, so you checked already!"

"No!" Turning purple with exasperation as well as livid red with embarrassment when the audience roared to life around him, Miroku shook his hand out. Or he would have it there hadn't have been a bright orange basket filled with cookies, tarts and a large chocolate cake. "What the hell is this. Wow, this smells good actually."

"It looks like a basket... with food. Mmm."

"I know it's a basket. Come on. Why is it... why are you drooling?" Suddenly the basket was clutched protectively between the billowy fabric of Miroku's fake bosom. It wasn't as if he was particular happy about having this orange box stuck to his hand, but when a dog demon with sharp fangs gives you a look as if you're a pork chop, it would make anyone nervous. Especially if said dog demon had often promised in the past to kill you over minor, let's say frivous things about feeling up his girl friend. "If you want one so badly get your own."

"You have cookies and candy and... chocolate cake! Hand that basket over!"

"Oh hell no! Get your own. Don't you know chocolate is bad for dogs?"

"Do you think I care? Damn it, is it stuck to your arm with crazy glue or something?"

"Let go- let go- let go..daaaammiiit!" Being shook by the basket end in a forcibly up and down motion made Miroku dizzy and sick to his stomach. He felt like a soda bottle about to explode.

Flexing his claws as if he were sharpening a steak knife, Inuyasha said nonchalantly, "I guess it can't be helped then, humans can't re-grow limbs right?"

And suddenly things came into perspective for Miroku as he focused on what Inuyasha was wearing. Someone had gone to the trouble of taping odds and ends of different coloured fur patches to create a motley skin of varying shades of grey, brown and silver. It might even have looked authentic, as if he were some mutt born to seven different parents, if it wasn't for the fact that someone had left their scissors, assorted scraps of thread and paper littered all over the costume. But that wasn't what drew his eyes. What did was the huge wolf head - the kind of stuff animal head you'd find at an amusement park walking around saying hello to you. Big, bloated and balding, the main thing it had going for it was the huge yellow eyes - one of which was popping out on a spring. "I think you might want to look behind you a second."

Inuyasha scoffed. "What? Do you expect me to fall for the oldest trick in the book?"

"Right. Like you really think I can get away from your inhuman speed. Pul-eaze. I just never thought that you'd grow a tail... like your brother."

"What tail?" Inuyasha turned slowly, unsure if this was another of Miroku's cheap tricks. Instead what he saw made his gold eyes livid. Someone had taped what could only loosely be called a brown feather duster with a small name tag which read, "The wolf's tail" to his butt. "Who the **** put this here?! Miroku?"

But Miroku had fled - running as fast as his stocking legs and skippered feet would carry him.

***the scene shifted with a wobbly blur which bent in on itself and then melted***

"Woah. What the heck happened here?" Kouga was standing in a cozy, cottage kitchen surrounded by garlands of onions, garlic and other drying herbs over head. A clean sink with drying dishes in neat little rows sat behind him as well as a black little stove wherein gingerbread cookies cooked. The floor had been swept, the walls with their curios and boat pictures dusted and the vinyl clear protectors on the sofa, armchair and cushions set out in force. Everything was sweetly looking, clean and smelled faintly of antiseptic. Much quicker on the uptake than Inuyasha and Miroku, Kouga felt for the shawl and frilly dress he had on. His face registered what the audience already knew. He was wearing a grandmother's dress with matching bonnet to match.

He reached up to jerk the hat off, but another one sat there in its place. "What in tarnation?" You could probably picture a rapid spin of hands pulling and the quickly filling the floor full of white "Little House on the Prairie" bonnets, but that's not quite what happened. As soon as the bonnets left his hand and touched the floor they disappeared. The place quite liked to be kept clean. "Why am I the old woman? I even have the make-up too...ew. Inu-koru better not see me like thi-"

Through the opening door spewing in sunshine, came Inuyasha on queue. While he appeared disorientated about his surroundings, there was one thing he wasn't confused about. Kouga in drag. He kind of figured Kouga was into the whole dress scene, but it was something you had to see to believe. Like I had to see it, I already knew! "Well then. This should be easy."

"Inu-koru? What the hell are you wearing?"

"Apparently, I'm the Big Bad Wolf." Dead panned silence.

Kouga wore the only look that he could get away with in a grandmother's outfit. Smug-disbelief in a "you can't pull the wool over my eyes". "HA HA HA. You wish and in your dreams, young man." He paused, touched his mouth with his hand as if he couldn't quite believe it. "Well gosh-darn it young fellow-" One could read the W-T-F crossing Kouga's eyes as he realized he'd not only been censored, but edited. "What just happened? I feel like I'm in some bagerized Viz translation."

"I think you were aiming at Bastardized." It wasn't that Inuyasha was being helpful, it was because he could see the anger building up in Kouga and it made him happy to add to it.

"Well you gosh-darn tooting young man. I'll just have to give you an extra special treat later." Kouga's feral looking scowl gave each overly sweet- edited word an unnatural feel. Inuyasha didn't know if it was worth pushing his luck to enjoy Kouga's intense discomfort or to back away slowly and let the demon explode in on himself. Given the amount of rage building up within Kouga's "rewritten" personality, it would be only too soon.

Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooooooooofffff!

"Well, well. Just a pile of clothes on the floor are we now. Keh. Miroku's running around with a big fat batch of chocolate cake, and I'm sweating in this hellhole scrap of fur. Now that you're out of the picture, he'll come in here shortly and then I'll take him out. Cookies, candy and chocolate cake for me!!!"

***The screen melts in mid shift, wobbles to the side and then falls off..****

"I'm getting kind of dizzy with all these dissolves." Inuyasha, who was laying under the covers and wearing the white bonnet OVER his fat, balding wolf's head wondered for the 5th time, just why he didn't blow the entire set to oblivion. Oh right, no sword. Oddly though, as he tried to focus on the director as well as that waving thing she had... he found his thoughts clouded and muddy. It couldn't be that important, could it?

"Grandma, I've come to bring you some food from home." Good. Miroku was on time and not a sweating moment too soon.

"Come in Miroku-dear." Grudgingly, he forced himself to add the dear in a grandmotherly and wizenly kind of way. No reason to tip the scale and let him know that Kouga wasn't here anymore. Rest in Hell, jerk face.

Somewhere out on a bright, sunlit beach and surrounded by his adoring public who cheer from behind an iron ringed fence, Kouga smiles at his screaming fans while his bodyguards keep any overly keen admirers away.

Miroku came into the room, but if Inuyasha had been expecting him to be in his red hood and apron and skippered feet, he was in for a shock. Dressed in what could only be described as Rambo- Miroku was bare-chest, streaked in black grease, wearing khaki shorts and loaded to the arms in military bullets, grenades, submachine guns and knives. "I am the Law!"

Gripping the bed sheets in a grandmotherly palsmy way, Inuyasha looked immediately at the audience and then to the empty backstage. Where in the world was Kagome, Kikyou and Yashira? "Oi, that's NOT in the story. Can we talk about this?"

Serious faced and burning with four wheels of fury, Miroku hefted the bazooka into firing range. "No, but after that stint at my basket and that comment about what a pretzel was good for, I did some creative rewriting. You are NOT getting my chocolate cake or my candies or my cookies! Die mother f-"

The great thing about being a youkai is the demon quick reflexes that allows, let's say, someone to leap out of bed and, hit the ceiling in one Abbott and Costello motion without stopping. Then to scramble onto the roof in an effort to avoid the nuclear missile aimed for the bed and ride off that explosion on some jagged part of the shingle roof- now projectiles as if they were surfboards. Meh, you could say that last bit was just a bonus.

"What the hell!?! Don't you care about the play?!" But his scream was lost as the house exploded in a shower of bricks and mortar. Echoing behind it all was an answering hiss and swoosh of the heat seeking missile which followed in close pursuit of Inuyasha's "the wolf's tail" accessory . "Gulp!"

**the scene shifts, coughs and sputters and then flares to life under the burning explosion**

"I'm a Lumberjack and I do care... or was it I don't care?" Naraku was thinking about this carefully, his pale finger pressed thoughtfully against his painted lips. "Well, it doesn't matter, because I'm not really cutting these trees." Glancing over at the cloned youkai he had formed to do the work for him, Naraku could only grin and smile. What better way to get work done than to shift the buck onto someone else's unwilling shoulders. Still, they had been grumbling earlier and though he had to call in some threats to shut them up, the low buzz had started up again. He was going to have to deal it with, but first-

"I don't even know why I'm here. I left earlier." Sesshoumaru was sitting up in the branches of one of the nearby - untouched - trees wearing what could possibly be described as part of the lederhosen from the costume of that first fatal play. A broken axe laid across his lap. Aside from the break in the handle, it was unused and shining in the afternoon sun.

"Maybe you've finally decided to give in to my sleek charm and sophistication." He purred, though the words held a lot less of a satisfaction because of the low buzz of complaints were gradually rising. "HEY! What do you think you're doing?!"

"Missing, apparently." Sesshoumaru did not sound surprised as he fingered the other half the axe. The handle, laying at Naraku's feet, gleamed accusingly at the near miss. "It works better when you don't get out of the way, you know."

"Do you want me to cut down this tree?! I can - I mean - my minions can do that." If they weren't complaining...though oddly enough he was starting to realize that there was something strange to the buzzing. It sounded more like a jet plane.

"Go ahead and try. I still have the head part of the axe and you're not too far down for me to miss a second time."

"You think I, Naraku am afraid of your idle threats!" The jet-plane sound grew so loud that he was forced to look up at the sky with something akin to wide-eyed disbelief. "Odd. It's too early for fireworks."
Listening closely, he was able to hear the repeated buzz of:

"Oh shi-shi-shi-shit!! Hot- hot hot hot....UAGGGH!"

"What the heck is this?"

"It's the Big Bad Wolf, coming in for a landing!!!!"

"Landing?! Drop and cover! He's going to -"

***The explosion of red light crackled through the scene, burning so hot that it destroyed the following scene as well.***

A trickle of morning light glances down on the hospital wing for burnt patients as if for brief exposure before the darkening clouds stretch out to obscure it. Further down and through the open window comes moans and groans of pain.

"I am NEVER doing another play ever. I'm burnt in places I didn't think I had any feeling in."

"Why don't you shut up. IF you hadn't instructed that monkey to attack the audience, she wouldn't have used that wand. Just shut up already. Considering I've lost all my hair, not to mention my boa is gone-"

"Boa or your tail?"

"Be silent!"

"Hey, it's not so bad, I've been here since Play 1 and I've golly well had such a great time. I'm not even upset that Miroku's hitting on everyone. Everything is just dandydori - yup it really is." The new voice was so chipper and happy sounding that the previous speakers grew silent.

"Dandydori?! Are you on drugs?"