Middle-Earth was in disarray. Oswald the Blue could feel it in his tentacles. So he telepathically summoned his trusted compatriot and fellow wizard Henry the Penguin, and together they rode Oswald's mount, Wienie, all the way to the Public Library of Truth which is on the outskirts of Elf Town and they got there at 4PM on a Saturday so they had to wait overnight until midday Sunday when it opened again. Friffing public libraries.

But so as soon as the library opened up they hit the books, in search of some…some mention of an ancient *cough* *splutter* -Prophecy- *hack* *wheeze* which had long since been lost to the mists of time but which (Oswald suspected) was suddenly about to become, like, apocalyptically relevant.

They pored over stacks of dusty leather-bound tomes with yellowing pages and shockingly lame pop-up illustrations, but the books yielded no sweet whispers of any ancient prophecy worth mentioning.

So they approached the librarian. The librarian's name was Valdea. She was of indeterminate age, her complexion vaguely Elven(1). They asked her (quietly, because this was a library and only fools speak loudly in libraririi of publicness (sic)) if this particular library had a section for prophecies and such. "Truly," Valdea replied, laughing mirthlessly, her voice a husky monotone drawl, flavored by a certain graceful world-weariness common among the elven-kin of rurality, "the only true prophecies are to be found within the soul: doubt and hatred; declarations of certainty and impossibility… surely only these follies are fated to be fulfilled. Or inverted…" She paused to clear her throat. "But aye, the Prophecies section is just back here..."

They found themselves in a tiny room, surrounded by walls stacked with dusty scrolls. Oswald and Henry groaned at the renewed scale of their task. The hour was growing late. It was almost 3PM, which meant that the library would soon be closing up again. Oswald the Blue could see that his notoriously caffeine-dependant comrade was growing bleary-eyed and despondent.

"Want me to get you some coffee, friend?" Oswald asked Henry.

"Sure, Oswald," Henry replied appreciatively.

"Milk? Sugar? Stevia? lol"

"Two marshmallows. No more, no less."

"Coming right up, buddy."

Then Henry was alone. He donned his hat, which was actually a red rubber glove, and slicked back the inflated phantom fingers, just like that scene in The Wrong Trousers. He picked up one scroll, which was inscribed with "The Mary-Sue Files" in Comic Sans, in the colour of blood.

And so he began to read the ancient prophecy which had all afternoon been eluding them; had been tactfully eluding the zeitgeist of an entire era.

It only took a few seconds before Henry's moral conscience was unequivocally and permanently corrupted by the horrors that dwelt within the ancient text.

A few minutes later, the unassuming Oswald the Blue returned with two coffees, only to be viciously assaulted by his dear wizardly friend, who was tossing thunderbolts and distant planets around the small room, telekinetically. Oswald was shocked by the betrayal. Betrayal was not even in the like general lexicon of his understanding of the behavior of sentient beings. He shed a patriotic tear, which was colored red, white and blue and had fifty stars and thirteen stripes all trapped within it.

Oswald the blue knew that his only chance of surviving the encounter was to switch into pure instinctual mode, just like he'd learned from Cid in Basic Mage Training One-Oh-One all those years ago.

From his comically tiny black wizard's top-hat did Oswald produce eight magic staffs. He did. One for each tentacle. Henry was still screwing around precariously with various celestial objects, directing some of them toward the map of his former ally. Valdea was probably super pissed off about all the ruckus that was going on right now, Oswald reflected as he armed himself and began to fire sheer bursts of elemental energy at the newly-insane Henry the Penguin. The battle was intense and SFX-heavy, which makes me glad that this is only a text-based story, because the logistics of filming this scene would be a nightmarish undertaking for any filmmaker of the low-budget persuasion.

For a second Oswald thought he had the upper hand (or tentacle, to be pedantic) and was within sight of vanquishing his friend-turned foe but then…

Henry used his magic to levitate Oswald, all the way up to the ceiling!

"I want you to levitate me…" spaxeth Henry, the elderly scroll still in the possession of his malicious penguinoid mittens.

"Don't you love me yet…?" respondex Oswald, his limbs magically bound to the roof-bottom of the librarium, hope rapidly deserting him, leaving behind only a will-sapped husk of his former personage.

"I serve a new master now," Henry explainethex simply, in that listless deadpan vox of his. "Said master will be very eager to learn of this prophecy, and how it pertains to one…Melanie T'Starlight von Goldensdawn!"

Just then a pair of rocket-propelled rollerskates grew out of Henry's cute lil' flippers, and the wicked wizard penguin sped off, through the wall of the library and toward the residence of his new dark master, whose identity remains unknown; leaving Oswald bound 2 the ceiling (UH HUH HONEY), waiting for the spell to wear off, feeling dizzy and lightheaded and disassociated, his vision arching across itself like a Scyther's Slash attack.

Oswald thought of SuperWhoLock feels.

Ten-score leagues away, or however far ten miles is in le-old-medieval-speak, a brawl was erupting at Row-D's café, which is usually a civil and respectable establishment. A battalion of dwarves, led by the warrior poetess Gilma, who is the only female dwarf anyone has ever actually laid eyes upon, had just now been like mightily peeved off by a gaggle of Halflings who were seated at the other end of the establishment. Apparently, one of the hobbitses had like totally (allegedly) filched an item of significant sentimental value which had belonged to one of the dwarves (not Gilma).

The object was a plastic dog-whistle, the spoils of a yuletide party cracker cracked some years ago.

The whistle, being a cheap plastic novelty, didn't actually work on dogs. It was in actual fact quite inaudible to canine-type entities.

The dwarves wanted the friffing whistle back, irregardlessly (sic).

The sole Owlish patron of the café, name of Zareen, watched on in horror as events unfurled, racking her wise mind as deeply as it could possibly be racked for any contrivance of a symbolic olive branch to hurl into the boarded no-man's land between the two factions, baying as they were now for the blood of others and the flight of flurried fighting fists.

In his Tower of Evil, erected from the bones of all who had dared to question his might, the Dark Lord Melkor was sitting on his Throne of Slain Skellingtons and watching a live stream of the Hogwarts Triwizard Tournament. He saw the pesky Melanie T'Starlight von Goldensdawn, unwitting enemy of the State and the Snake as well, being struck by a mithril dagger thrown by his BFF, Jenny Death. And he saw that it was good. He giggled dorkily, the Dark Lord. More like the DORK Lord, hahaha.

Melkor's manservant, Frank, entered the room, bearing tea and chumpits. "Afternoon tea, master," announced Frank in his nasally voice. Melkor, altogether too absorbed in the chaos he was viewing to care much for such trifles, emphatically declined Frank's offer. Frank was a decent enough butler, but was he evil enough to serve Melkor himself? Frank was more of a misanthrope than a genuine a-hole, Melkor reflected. He mostly preferred to keep to himself, Frank did, and watch his sole friend, a fish, name of Kemfu, glide around the depths of his small bowl, filled with H2O, than to commit any acts of actual malicious evil, like talking at the theater. Melkor was tempted to give the servant the boot. I'm getting major déjà vu just from writing this, which probably means I just wandered into an idiosyncratic dimensional plane, away from my wandering human wolfpack.

So but anyway Melkor saw on the live stream that Mel had survived Jenny Death's assassination attempt! How was that even hecking possible? He saw that she was glowing, levitating in midair, taking on the ethereal form of an esper, like Terra from Final Fantasy VI. She had eschewed her body's need for a kart, and was, like, instinctively flying toward the finish line. Jenny watched on in horror, twirling her mustache angstily. Fardeeror and Kittenplan passed by her kart, and she made no attempt to even apprehend the latter.

A choir of disembodied voices was chanting: "Princeeeeess oooof Teeeenissss". Melkor wondered if this singing was on the soundtrack or was actually taking place on location. It was hard to tell, sometimes.

Melanie reached the finish line, collapsing and slowly melting back into her final form as throngs of spectators cheered her on. Legolas emerged from the crowd and gave his beau(2) a worried hug. Dumbledore announced excitedly through a comically old-fashioned loudspeaker that the winner of the first challenge was…Melanie!

Melkor giggled nervously.

FOOTNOTES

1. Can't get any solid verification on this one way or the other, but Valdea is most likely a half-elf (i.e. of mixed Elven and Human parentage).

2. (sic)