The Three Wielders of the Enchanted Silverware
by Mizalaye
Note: Once again, I must ask your forgiveness for the length of time it has taken me to update this story. A combination of writer's block and the insanity of my life have conspired to prevent me from getting much writing done lately. Forgive me.
Chapter Eleven: How to Kill Off an Army of Uruk-hai Using Ordinary Objects
"Who spiked the popcorn?" Camli muttered as the drum-beats in her head faded away into a dull ache.
"Camli, we've been through this," Anagorn muttered as she slowly sat up, massaging her temples.
Katholas remained flat on the floor of the Mirror, groaning. "We're gonna die."
Surprised to hear such a pessimistic comment from the usually cheerful elf-girl, Anagorn asked, "Why do you say that?"
Katholas glanced over at the TV screen. "Because we're about a minute away from Amon Hen. And all we have are these stupid backpacks! Let's face it – we'll never make it home."
Camli leapt to her feet and stalked over to her friend. "Kat," she snapped, purposefully using the other girl's nickname, "You talked me into doing this in the first place. You said it was our only way home."
"Actually, that was me," Anagorn commented.
Both Camli and Katholas shot her looks that clearly read, "Shut up."
Anagorn vanished and reappeared on the TV screen, talking to Frodo.
Camli turned her attention back to Katholas. "All through this crazy adventure, you've kept calm. You've cheered the rest of us up by cracking jokes, you've been able to handle the other characters, no matter how messed up, and you managed to figure out how to down the cave troll. All through this movie, you haven't given up. I'm not about to let you start now!"
Katholas gave Camli a hard look. "Do you really think we can survive?" Clearly, she was expecting the so-far cynical girl to reply with a no.
"I don't know," Camli replied honestly. "But I do know that Galadriel's Backpacks have gotten us this far. I think we can trust them a bit further."
After a long moment, Katholas grinned crookedly. Springing to her feet, she said, "Let's hunt some Uruk-Hai!"
Camli smiled back, but her smile was rather weak. "This had better work," she muttered under her breath.
Both girls' hands slid back to their Enchanted Backpack as – yet again – the scene changed, dumping them into the middle of Amon Hen.
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
"Welcome to the party!" Anagorn called as Katholas and Camli ran into the scene.
Then, all sense of time left the three as they grabbed objects and improvised the best they could.
Anagorn already had out an unloaded carbine, which she was using as a club on the attacking Uruk-hai. A moment later, however, one of the Uruks got it away from her, so she reached into the green Backpack again. This time, she pulled out a police whistle. Putting it to her lips, she blew as hard as she could. The resulting squeal earned her the attention of every Uruk within earshot. Anagorn yelled the first thing that popped into her mind.
"Cheeze it! It's da bulls!"
A large group of Uruk-hai whirled and ran away.
Meanwhile, Katholas had whipped out a distinctive white bottle. "Oh, sure, NOW I get the painkillers!" she said. After spending a few precious moments wrenching the childproof cap off the bottle, she began flinging the pills at the oncoming Uruks. One by one, the minions of Saruman swallowed the aspirin and began falling over, out cold.
Katholas shrugged. "I really don't want to know why that works."
By her side, Camli pulled out a roll of duct tape. "I never get things when I want them," she muttered. It was a matter of moments, however, before she had duct taped two Uruks to a tree, strapped another's hands behind his back, and taped the sword of a third to his forearm – with the point toward his body.
Anagorn pulled out four old-fashioned white fans. "Uhm…here!" Acting without thought, she tossed the fans to four oncoming Uruks. Music drifted down to her ears as the Uruk-hai began dancing in perfect unison, fans fluttering.
"Ok…that's damaging," Anagorn commented softly, turning away from the sight.
Katholas took a stand in a small clearing and began systematically flinging thumbtacks at her attackers in true elven style. Most of her tacks were on target, and the Uruks fell after a single hit.
Camli was also wreaking havoc among the Uruks, now with a bullwhip, since she had run out of duct tape. A single cut along her cheekbone was her sole injury so far, and she had given it to herself with a badly-aimed crack of the whip.
A moment later, however, Camli's bullwhip was wrenched from her hands and Katholas ran out of thumbtacks. Katholas' next foray into the Backpack revealed a black Holocaust cloak.
In the moment's breathing space they were allowed, the same plan emerged in both minds. It solidified when Camli pulled out a lighter.
Katholas threw the cloak on, transforming herself into a wraith-like figure. "I am the Dwead Piwate Woberts," she intoned, deepening her voice. Of course, she still sounded absolutely nothing like Fezzik…but there was no helping that. "There will be no survivors…" Then, turning her head slightly, she muttered, "Light me."
Obediently, Camli held the lighter's flame up to the edge of the cloak. Now wreathed in flame, Katholas started forward again. "The Dwead Piwate Woberts is here for your souls…"
Apparently terrified by the flaming specter, the Uruk-hai turned and fled for their lives. Katholas quickly tossed the burning cloak aside.
"Nice job, Dread Pirate Katholas," Camli congratulated her.
"Thanks."
Suddenly, a near-deafening noise rent the air.
It took Katholas a moment to place the noise. As soon as she realized what it was, she rolled her eyes in disgust. "The air horn of Gondor!"
Anagorn groaned. "Boromir!" Reaching once more into the Backpack, she retrieved a Frosty. With a shrug, she dumped it over the nearest Uruk's head, giving him a nasty case of brain freeze.
Camli pulled out a cell phone. It was ringing to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." Thinking quickly, she answered it. "Hello?" Turning to the oncoming mass of enemies, she called, "Mr. Uruk-hai? You have a phone call." Then, she tossed the phone towards them – and ran. Predictably enough, the Uruk-hai began fighting over the phone. Within moments, all of them had killed each other off, except for one, who answered the phone and wandered away, involved in deep discussion with whoever was on the other end.
Katholas whipped out a rubber chicken. "I knew one of those had to be in here somewhere." Using the chicken to replace the elven knives which were strapped to Legolas' back, she slapped three Uruk-hai upside the head. All three collapsed senseless to the ground.
Anagorn suddenly found herself charging toward Lurtz. Without enough time to get anything out of her Enchanted Backpack, she did the next-best thing. She tackled the chief Uruk-hai. Lurtz fell to the ground, but regained his feet moments later and charged after the girl who had attacked him. The fight was very one-sided as Lurtz hacked away with his massive sword while Anagorn dodged as fast as she could.
However, Anagorn was exhausted, her head still pounded from the abuse it had sustained earlier, and she was simply no match for an armed Uruk-hai at any time. A badly-placed tree root caught her behind the ankles, and she tumbled to the ground. Looking up, she saw Lurtz draw back his blade, aiming for her neck. With a flash of clarity, Anagorn realized she was about to die there in Middle Aerth.
Suddenly, a voice rang through the air.
"Oh, Lurtz!"
Both Lurtz and Anagorn looked up and saw Gerard from The Three Musketeers waving cheerily. "Don't lose your head!" he called.
With the fury-filled roar of a true Uruk-hai, Lurtz halted the blade's descent, hefted it up over his head, and charged the little man who had taunted him. Gerard screamed and dashed away.
Anagorn struggled to her feet and ran to where Boromir stood. Boromir cocked his head slightly, as if not understanding what was going on. "Oh. Ok. I'm dead."
With that, the Man of Gondor fell over, stone dead.
Anagorn knelt by his side, but it was too late. Figuring he couldn't hear her anyway, she skipped to the end of her speech. "Be at peace, Son of Gondor, knowing that when you awaken, it will be to a restored movie in which you possess more than three brain cells."
Katholas and Camli ran onto the scene, breathing hard. Neither spoke. They were far too glad to see their friend alive and in one piece to say a word.
And then they stood on the bank of the Anduin, but none of them bothered with the actual lines.
"We did it," Katholas whispered.
"We survived Amon Hen," Camli said, a grin of pure relief creasing her face.
"We survived the movie," Anagorn replied with a matching grin.
"And now it will all go back to the way it was," Camli said.
The smile faded from Katholas' face. "Not necessarily."
"Now what?" Anagorn asked.
Katholas looked off into the distance. "We still have not found our enemy."
Three hearts sank as the three girls found themselves back in Galadriel's Mirror. Across from them stood a figure, cloaked like a Ringwraith.
Music reached their ears – "Here comes the Man in Black…"
Three hands flew to Backpacks…and fear pierced three hearts as all of the girls felt cold fabric at the bottom of their packs.
The Enchanted Backpacks had been emptied at last.
The Man in Black cackled gleefully.
Sheesh! These disclaimers are getting longer and longer every chapter!: The carbine is from Les Miz; the police whistle idea is sorta from Newsies; the aspirin and duct tape are mine; the fans are from the ballet of The King & I; the thumbtacks are mine; the bullwhip is from the Indiana Jones trilogy (kudos to those who figured that out from the "hitting oneself across the face with a bullwhip" comment); the Holocaust cloak and Dwead Piwate Woberts are from The Princess Bride; the Air Horn of Gondor is mine; the Frosty belongs to Wendy's fast food restaurant; the cell phone and rubber chicken are mine; Gerard and The Three Musketeers belong to Disney; the theme music from Men in Black is from…well…Men in Black. Anything that does not belong to me is stolen without permission – I do not claim possession of it. Anything that does belong to me is mine…so nobody else had better steal it.
Even More Notes: We're almost done! Only one more chapter (and an epilogue) to go! Does anybody want to hazard a guess as to the identity of the "Man in Black"? If you're enjoying this, please review! If you hate it, review anyways! =o) Thank you to my reviewers!
Mellum – Yes, we do exist…welcome to the club! Of course you get a review note…I write one for everybody who reviews (or, at least, I try to). Thank you for reviewing…and thank you for missing sleep to read!
Miranda – Thank you for reviewing. I'm glad you're enjoying it!
lil' odd me – Yeah…I'm sure it is a VERY odd feeling. Thank you for the review…I hope you liked this chapter, too
Mendy - Actually, I don't know where I got the idea to put the girls in the Mirror. It just popped into my head while I was brainstorming for this story…and I liked it. Thank you for your encouraging review!
Lady Eowyn – Thank you for the review. I hope you enjoyed the twisting of Amon Hen.
ElfWarrior – I'm glad my shameless advertising actually worked! I'm glad you're enjoying it. I hope you liked this chapter just as well.
Noel – I'm glad you enjoyed that. I very much enjoyed writing it. Thanks for the review!
Alia – Thank you for the review. I'm afraid the sequel is still very much in the works and will probably be a while. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Figure – Thank you for the *ahem* interesting review…I'm glad you're enjoying this!