Okay, this is probably my longest chapter yet. Of those respective rights this humble bard owns not a one.
Soundtrack
1. Itsumo no fuukei: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
2. Snoke: Star Wars VII The Force Awakens soundtrack
Parties, Physiologists, and Winter Depression
Acidicus slithered back and forth in the middle of the room.
"Okay, let's see, music: check. Food: check. Chairs: check. Decorations: check." He muttered to himself as he looked around the room.
"Dude, you're worrying too much," Skalidor commented, leaning back in a chair.
"I am not," Acidicus argued, before asking. "You made sure to send everyone their invitations, right?"
"For the one hundredth time, yes," Skalidor replied, in exasperation. "One hundred's a big number right?"
"Well this is very important!" Acidicus argued. "This party has to go flawlessly." The ironic thing was that Acidicus hated parties in general. He disliked having too many people together in his home at a time and was awful at dancing. But winter depression had struck, so Acidicus in a desperate move to cure himself had decided to throw a party.
"Oh, I wish that the painter could have come sooner. The bathroom looks awful. Skalidor, you're sure that we have enough food for the guests, that you're sure you invited," Acidicus questioned. Which earned a groan from Skalidor.
"One: no-one cares what the bathroom looks like. B: I bought enough food to feed an army, plus I'm going on a diet. Three: For the twentieth time, I sent the invitations. G: Stop worrying," Skalidor pointed out. "Twenty's bigger than one hundred, right?"
Just then, a knock sounded at the apartment door. Acidicus slithered to the door with enough speed to earn the jealously of a jet plane. Acidicus opened the door to reveal a venomari slightly taller than Acidicus wearing a scarf.
"Spitta! Good to see you," Acidicus greeted extending a hand.
"Ah, general, good to see you as well, and may I thank you for inviting me," Spitta replied. Spitta had a very cordial manner about him, probably due to his noble origins. Despite the fact that after Pythor rose to power most of the nobility had lost its power, Spitta still saw himself as a notch above your typical serpentine. On the plus side, Spitta had a great amount of dignity and sophistication about him. On the other hand, he was a tad-bit arrogant.
"Hi there," Said Skalidor as he slithered closer. "I think you've hear of me. Acidicus has told me a lot about you."
"Charmed," Spitta replied, barely hiding a hint of irritation at Skalidor's informality. Spitta stepped into the apartment, and as he stepped in he revealed another venomari, female and slightly shorter. She glanced up nervously, her eyes darting from Acidicus to Spitta.
"Oh, pardon my manners, this is my sister, Venoma," Spitta introduced. "I hope you don't mind my bringing her along."
He then leaned over to Acidicus and whispered.
"She's suffering from winter melancholy I'm afraid and I thought that this would help."
"Sure, of course," Acidicus replied, thinking of his own problems with the winter depression. "Come in."
"Thank you, sir," She replied. Venoma walked in and Acidicus noticed a few books held tightly in her arm.
"Shall I take your coats?" Skalidor asked, before realizing that neither of them were actually wearing coats.
And the next twenty minutes or so continued in a similar fashion. Acidicus and Skalidor greeting various guests, mostly venomari or constricti but with a few fangpyre. Acidicus greeting whomever in a perfectly friendly fashion while Skalidor was either too formal or too informal, depending on the guest. After the last guest, Acidicus slithered to a chair and sat down exhausted. He looked around to make sure everything was going smoothly. He saw the guest all socializing. Everyone smiled and chatted amiably, a few laughed at a humorous anecdote. Acidicus let out a sigh. How can they just stand there and be perfectly happy without putting any thought into it He thought jealously. The more rational side of his brain pointed out that he was being childish and that once he started interacting with the guests he would probably feel better. He stood up and started slithering toward the rest of the guests when he heard a knock at the door.
"Um, isn't everyone here already," Skalidor asked, slithering next to Acidicus.
"Yeah, well wait. You said that Snappa was sick right?" Acidicus said.
Skalidor nodded his head in response. Another knock sounded from the door. Skalidor shrugged and headed to the door, Acidicus following. Skalidor grabbed the door-knob, looked at Acidicus for confirmation, and then opened the door. And thus began the strangest night of their lives.
The second that Skalidor opened the door, a figure lunged out of the shadows and practically tackled him to the ground in a massive hug. The figure then gave Skalidor a large kiss on the forehead before jumping back into the door way. Acidicus, after recovering from being completely dumbstruck, looked the figure over. The person was a female human of about twenty-nine, with mid-waist-reaching brown hair and gleaming amber eyes. Well that was all fine and good until Acidicus realized what she was wearing. The woman wore a matching black jacket and skirt, white blouse, a massive orange bow-tie, a necklace with two drying paintbrushes tied to it, an orange arm band, and a headband with brown bunny ears sticking up and yellow ribbons hanging off it.
"The guest of honor has arrived!" She announced with a confident smirk before giving a low cordial bow to Acidicus. As she bowed, Acidicus noticed that 'V.I.P.' was written on her arm band, in perfect serpentine. I don't think that Skalidor can write that well and he's an actual snake. Acidicus thought.
"Alright, alright, Marc, you don't have to get that excited," Came a rather embarrassed voice. A man in a blue suit with thinning hair and a crutch walked into view. He gave Acidicus and Skalidor an embarrassed smile and an awkward wave.
"Oh, but Nathan, this is my first party with snakes," The woman replied standing back up.
"Um, who exactly are you?" Skalidor asked, having finally recovered from shock.
"Marcy Elizabeth Juneday Sheppard, at your service," the woman replied giving another low bow. "And he's Nathan."
"Hi," He greeted.
"And I would like to personally thank you for inviting us t-…Is that fondue!" Marcy exclaimed, before running past the two shocked hosts.
"Okay, seriously, who are you?" Skalidor asked, impatiently.
"Nathan Sheppard, and I think you can tell who she is," Nathan replied.
"Wait a minute, you were at that peace dinner," Acidicus said, suddenly recalling the two. "Didn't she have red hair?"
"She goes through hair color 'bout as fast as I run through razors," Nathan replied with a shrug.
"Better question: why are you here?" Skalidor asked.
"Because we were invited," Nathan replied, pulling out an invitation. Acidicus grabbed the invitation, and looked it over.
"This says Snappa," Acidicus pointed out.
"Okay, so I might have accidently borrowed it from him when I ran into him at the drug store, and I might have accidently let Marcy see it, and I might have accidently not have had the heart to tell her we weren't invited when I saw how excited she was," Nathan explained.
"You can't just show up at my house and invite yourselves to a party," Acidicus said.
Nathan let out a sigh before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a checkbook and a pen.
"All right, I hope you don't mind checks. I don't have any cash on me," He said. "So how much do you want?"
"Wait, wait, wait, are you bribing me to let you stay at this party?" Acidicus asked.
"I'm okay with that," Skalidor said.
"This happens all the time believe it or not," Nathan replied. "So is two hundred good or do you want higher?"
"Look, I'm not going to take your money," Acidicus said.
"I will! Two hundred sounds like a big number," Skalidor interjected.
"Wait, what are you saying?" Nathan asked.
"You…you can stay," Acidicus said.
"Really, thanks! You don't know how much this means to her," Nathan said, smiling. "Can I hug you?"
"No," Acidicus said.
"Handshake?" Nathan asked.
"Sure," Acidicus replied. After the aforementioned handshake, Nathan walked off to join his wife.
"We should have taken the money," Skalidor said. Acidicus shrugged and started slithering to join the other guests, Skalidor following. Acidicus pulled up a chair next to Spitta.
"I didn't know you invited humans," He said nodding to Nathan and Marcy.
"I didn't. It's a long story," Acidicus asked. "So how's life been treating you?"
"Splendidly," Spitta replied. "Apparently, the humans are willing to accept the gold coins in my inheritance and I can actually buy a house. I was thinking somewhere out in the country."
That's great. I have to live in a crappy apartment, and pay ridiculously high rent Acidicus thought.
"Venoma is going to move in with me," He said nodding toward his sister, who was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room engrossed in a book. "She really is a darling, though not the most socially graced."
That's nice. I never had any siblings and grew up incredibly lonely Acidicus thought.
"I think that Hypa will approve," Spitta continued.
"Oh yeah, she's your girlfriend, right" Acidicus asked.
"Actually, she's my fiancé," Spitta replied. "We plan on announcing it next week."
"Oh well, congratulations!" Acidicus said.
Oh that's sweet. I'm single and still incredibly lonely Acidicus thought.
Skalidor slithered through the various guest, munching away at a bowl of lizard rolls. He noticed Marcy and Nathan sitting alone at a table. Unsurprisingly, most of the other guests had avoided them. Skalidor remembered Acidicus saying that a good host should make sure to talk to every guest. Or it was ignore everyone and eat all the food Skalidor thought. Ultimately, he decided that the former was more accurate but he liked the latter better.
"Um… hi," He said pulled up a chair.
"Oh, hello," Marcy greeted with a broad smile. Nathan nodded but didn't say anything.
"So um…" Skalidor began, desperately searching for a way to start the conversation. "I see you have serpentine written on your arm-band-thingy."
"Oh yeah, I've been studying your culture for years now," Marcy replied. "It's one of my hobbies."
"What are your other hobbies?" Skakidor asked.
"Let's see, there's: phycology, interior decorating, painting, baseball, archelogy, rock and roll, astronomy, quantum physics, opera, organic chemistry, playing the piano, criminology, fashion designs, wood sculpting, playing the flute, ships-in-a-bottle, naval warfare, social sciences, and snow globe collecting," Marcy replied.
"She gets bored easily," Nathan said.
We really should have taken the money, Skalidor thought.
Acidicus let out a depressed sigh. The whole reason he has thrown this party was to make himself feel better, however, the more he talked to his friends, the more depressed he became. Lasha had created a very successful business selling anti-toxins to humans. Toxa had managed to convince a human television station to let him become a professional actor. And, of course, all most everyone was either married, was in a happy relationship, or was perfectly happy being single. Acidicus did feel happy for them, but his jealousy overrode his goodwill. Slithering over to Skalidor, he said.
"Hey, I'm going to use the bathroom. You can take care of things right?"
"Yeah," Skalidor replied through a mouthful of lizard rolls.
Acidicus slithered to his bathroom, almost dreading going inside, because he knew that its ugliness would not help his mood. He knocked on the door to make sure that no-one was inside.
"Just one minute," Came the sing-song voice of Marcy. After twenty minutes, she finally opened the door.
"Well, what do you think?" She asked. Acidicus opened his mouth to ask what in the world she was talking about, but then he looked inside the room. His bathroom had been completely repainted an (admittedly very nice looking) purple.
"Y…you repainted my bathroom," Acidicus stuttered.
"Well, I wanted to repay you for your great hospitality and I saw how ugly the room was, no offense," Marcy explained.
"Well, it does look nice, I guess," Acidicus said unable to peel his eyes off the new paint of coat.
"Ya see, I take my inspiration for gratefulness from the ancient Maltruian culture," Marcy said. "In their culture being invited to anything was a great honor and had to be repaid."
"So they painted each other's bathrooms," Acidicus said.
"No, they swore eternally loyalty to their hosts, shaved their heads, offered him all of their worldly possessions, let him marry their mother, and let him consume their firstborn child," Marcy replied. "Well, better get back to Nathan, he's probably lonely."
With that, Marcy walked off, leaving Acidicus to sulk. She's completely insane, why does she get to be happy? He thought bitterly.
Skalidor slithered through the main room and looked around at the guests. Something felt wrong, like no one was interested anymore. Skalidor glanced over at the party food and found an unfortunate lack of food. Oh that's not good Skalidor thought. He looked around and saw a few of the guest yawn, one or two even looking at their watches. Now panicking, Skalidor ran through a mental list of things people enjoyed doing at parties or at least what he enjoyed. Okay there's: eating, eating, eating, more eating, oh there has to be something else, eating maybe Then a thought struck Skalidor: dancing.
He slithered over to the boom box that Acidicus had set up. Currently, it was playing Beethoven's 5th symphony. Skalidor started searching around for a song that people would probably dance to. Finally finding something, Skalidor went to put it in when he came to a shocking realization. I have no idea how to work this thing He thought. Now desperate, he started pushing random buttons hoping it would eject the CD. Instead it broke right in front of him. Skalidor, now desperately panicking, grabbed one of the pieces and tried to reattach it when someone said.
"Whatca got there?"
Skalidor looked up to see Marcy and Nathan standing over his shoulder.
"A boom box," He offered weakly.
"Looks like a piece of scrap metal," Nathan commented.
"I was trying to play some party music and then it broke," Skalidor said.
"What? Did you say music?" Marcy asked, before continuing without an answer. "I could play some music. I've got instruments in the trunk of our car."
"Really?" Skalidor asked, not noticing Nathan desperately shaking his head.
"Yeah, it's the least I could do!" She exclaimed. She then turned to Nathan and straitened like a military officer. "Permission to enact operation PARTY SUPPORT,"
"Fine. Just don't burn the place down, again," Nathan sighed.
Acidicus looked at himself in the mirror.
"It's okay, It's fine, you are perfectly happy with your life," He muttered, splashing water on his face. "Now what are you going to do? You are going to walk in there and enjoy yourself." Acidicus reached to open the door when he heard a sudden burst of music. The sudden and unrelenting sound of rock music rocked the entire apartment. Acidicus slithered into the main room to find Marcy Sheppard standing on the refreshments table. She rapidly strummed a large guitar hooked up to an amplifier. All of the guests were dancing in the middle of room, except for Nathan, who was sitting in the corner wearing large ear plugs, and Venoma, who was still reading her book.
Acidicus, absolutely livid, fought his way through the various guests until he found Skalidor.
"What is going on?" He yelled, trying to be heard over Marcy's playing.
"The guests looked bored so I asked Marcy to play some music," Skalidor explained.
"What happened to Beethoven!" Acidicus shouted back.
"The player broke," Skalidor replied.
"B…but..I..oh forget it," Acidicus muttered, fighting back through the crowd. He found a chair and watched them dance wildly.
Acidicus let out a low sigh. Look at them, they're just throwing themselves around to dumb music and their still happy. He thought. Acidicus felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked behind him to see Venoma sitting next to him.
"Hi," She said nervously.
"Um hi," He replied. After a few moments, Venoma spoke.
"There was a book I read when I was a kid called the Snake with two Hearts," She began. "It's about a snake who's very lonely, so to try and get friends he starts to do things he doesn't like doing. But the more he does the things he doesn't like, the worse he feels."
Acidicus simply stared at her, trying to decide what to say.
"I feel like that sometimes. I want to be like them," Venoma continued, nodding toward the other guests. "I want to dance and have a good time, but whenever I do, I just feel worse. It took me a long time to figure it out but real happiness comes from enjoying yourself. By doing things that you like to do."
"Um..Are you trying to say something significant, or," Acidicus asked.
"What I'm trying to say is that I think you're like me," Venoma replied.
"Well, yeah," Acidicus replied. "I thought that I could have a good time but all I did was make an idiot of myself. I mean I let two random stranger stay."
"I think you're not getting my point," Venoma said. "It's a good thing that you let them in. What I'm trying to say is let other people like what they like, but you should do things you like to do."
"Well, I'm not really sure how," Acidicus sighed. Venoma then reached under her chair and pulled out a small music player with earbuds attached. She handed it to Acidicus. He put it on and realized to his delight, it was playing his favorite song: Beethoven's Fur Elise.
Cobra Ren (A Star Wars parody, minor spoilers but nothing really important)
In the night sky over the planet Jakku, the Star Destroyer Finalizer glided through the night like a malignant vulture waiting to pick off any poor weak soul that past its way. Within the depths of the great vessel, a dozen or so soldiers marched through the passage ways of the ship. Each of the soldiers wore the distinctive pale white armor of a First Order Serpentine Stormtrooper. The infamous legions of faceless soldiers inspired terror everywhere they stepped. However, it was their turn to be afraid very afraid.
Two of the Stormtroopers stood together talking. When a third trooper, a squad leader judging from the plaudron on his shoulder, approached. The others immediately stood at attention.
"Alright men, I'll take it you've already heard about the incident with the traitor and the droid with the maps," The officer began. The soldiers responded with nods of their heads.
"Well, reports have come in that the droid escaped the planet," The commander continued.
"Um, sir, what exactly does that have to do with us," Asked one of the soldiers. His designation was GR-13O1(but for the sake of convenience we'll call him Rattla.) Rattla had garnered a reputation not envied by his fellow soldiers as disrespectful, lazy and completely disinterested in the First Order's mission.
"Quiet, the commander's talking," Muttered a second trooper designated SIM-1302(called Snike for the aforementioned reason.) He was known as being a brown-nosed suck-up desperately licking the boots of his superiors for a promotion (though on the plus side he had a pretty neat stamp collection.)
"Anyway," The commander began again. "Well, General Hydra himself has ordered that your squad be the ones to inform Cobra Ren of this failure."
A shiver went down the backs of the troopers. Equal in authority to General Hydra and apprentice to the Supreme Leader himself, Cobra Ren was a dark warrior assigned to assist the First Order in its missions. Ren almost constantly wore a helmet covering his face and wielded a mysterious power known as the force. Cobra Ren had carved out a reputation for being completely ruthless, cutting down anyone or anything that stood in his way with his cross-guard lightsaber. The only thing more infamous than his weapon was his fiery temper. A few of Snike's friends had died reporting failure to Ren.
"Wait, are you insane? He'll kill us!" Rattla objected.
"Um…frankly sir, I'm inclined to agree," Snike added more respectfully.
"…Well if anything of that nature happens then know that your sacrifice will be honored by the First Order," The commander replied.
Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Finalizer, General Hydra, the commanding officer of the division, and many of the officers gathered around a large viewing monitor. Ever since Hydra had taken command of the Finalizer, he and the other officers had keep themselves entertained by watching poor hapless Stormtroopers report failure Cobra Ren. The dark warrior's tantrums were surprisingly entertaining to watch.
"Hurry up, everyone, it's starting," Hydra said. "So I've got five bucks on the table going, and one of the trooper's heads, too.
"Personally, I'm leaning toward a lost arm," Commented Captain Venoma, the chrome armored Stormtrooper commander.
"Shh, it's starting," One of the officers said.
Snike and Rattla slowly creeped toward Cobra Ren's inner chamber. The dark warrior spent most of his time there doing, well no-one really knew what. The two Stormtroopers stopped outside the door to find it open. They nervously leaned their heads in and spotted Cobra Ren, knelling before the charred burnt helmet of Darth Garrmadon himself.
"It's nearly complete," Cobra said seemingly to the charred helmet. "Soon I will fulfill the destiny that you began so many years ago."
"Is he talking to that thing?" Rattla asked.
"Um…maybe it's inspirational," Snike offered.
"Really. He's talking to the helmet of a dead guy. How is that inspirational?" Rattla replied skeptically. At that moment, Cobra turned around to look directly at them. His eyes and scales were covered by his helmet, but the two troopers could definitely tell he was already furious. Panicking, Rattla pushed Snike into the middle of the room, before hiding behind the wall.
Snike glanced back and forth between Cobra and any escape route.
"What is it?" Cobra growled.
"Wha..um I…well.." Snike began sputtering.
"Spit it out," Cobra snapped.
"Well, sir it's just that, um, well that droid, you know the one with the map, well.. it kinda-sorta-maybe escaped sir," Snike explained.
Cobra began heaving furious breaths before wiping out his lightsaber and swinging it around furiously. Within a few minutes, the table, computer terminals, and a rather nice looking vase had already been destroyed. Cobra bellowed enraged continuing to swing the lightsaber around like a maniac. Outside, the room Rattla gasped as a piece of the wall came flying through the door. Well, at least I'm safe, He thought, before the lightsaber stabbed through the wall right next to him. The trooper then fainted.
On the bridge, Hydra having just collected his money for the destruction of the table, let out a low whistle.
"Wow, he's taking this really well," Hydra commented.
"Yeah, by this point one of the troopers would usually be dead," Venoma agreed.
"Ya know, I think those anger management sessions are really paying off," Hydra said.
Snike watched in paralyzed horror as Cobra, having already thrown his lightsaber into the wall, starting telekinetically throwing various parts of the room around. The dark warrior then unleashed a furious kick on the wall. This resulted in Ren shouting in pain and hopping on one foot continuing to shout in pain over his injured foot.
Finally, he collapsed on the ground and started punching the ground, making dents in the ground. After a while, Ren stopped and Snike thought he heard suppressed sniffles accompanied by a quiet "Why won't Dad just accept who I really am?"
"Um Sir, are you crying?" Snike asked.
"I AM NOT CRYING!" Cobra shouted, pinning Snike to the wall with the force.
"Ok, ok," Snike pleaded desperately. Cobra then huffed before turning back to Garamadon's mask.
"Get out, and shut the door behind you," Cobra commanded. Snike simply left, deciding not to mention that Ren had destroyed the door.
An Interesting Question!
Gydo, Birtir and J.C. walked down the streets of New Ninjago City.
"I can't believe they won't let me join," Gydo moaned.
"Who?" J.C. asked.
"The ninja," Gydo answered.
"Oh yeah," J.C. said, remembering Gydo's rather embarrassing incident.
"Ah who needs them," Burtir muttered. "With their stupid elemental powers, and flying ship and multi-headed dragon."
"Actually, whatever happened to that dragon anyway?" J.C. wondered.
"It's probably off doing something important," Gydo said.
Elsewhere in the New Ninjago City Zoo, a tour guide walked briskly in-front of his tour group.
"And now for our next attraction, the Ultra Dragon," He said pointing to the massive dragon, sitting down lazily basking in the sun.
Marcy and Nathan's theme: Super Driver: Aya Hirano