RVD passed by the dressing rooms, trying to both ignore Stephanie rehearsing her song in the showers and desperately attempting to block the image of Jericho hopping around as he tried to step into his skin-tight leather pants, his red-tipped long blonde hair sticking out in every possible direction and the brush in his mouth somehow still not preventing him from humming out something about shouting at McMahon--urk, the Devil. RVD was about to go past the sauna, designed for participants to warm up their delicate vocal chords in the moist, hot steam, when a most horrendous screeching noise caught the usually mellow wrestler's attention, and he stopped. RVD leaned against the doors, wondering who in their right mind would bring over a small cow to butcher in the saunas, then suddenly detected the vaguest hint of familiarity within the screeching noises. RVD frowned, pressing his ears against the doors and listening harder. He could now discern the banshee screams to be human ones, rather than those of a dying farm animal, and wondered whether the person behind these terrible shrieks was in some sort of intolerable pain...But wait! He could hear a certain rhythm to these screeches. Which meant...this was the sound of someone singing and warming up his vocals in the saunas! RVD struggled to make out the words, and was able to discern something along the lines of, "Blah dee blah-uh! Ah blah-uh blah suck-uh!" He winced, before deciding that he didn't want to end up popping his eardrums before he got his shot at the hundred grand first prize, and stepped into the sauna, ready to kick the blah-dee-uh-blah person's ass should it be necessary to shut him up.
A blast of hot steam greeted RVD, straight in the face, and he had lean back from the force and push a few loose strands of hair away from his eyes in order to see better in all the steam. RVD squinted, and could make out the shape of a distinctly male figure from whom the terrible blah-uh-blah screeches were coming from, his head flopping back and forth in a rather funny fashion. RVD used his hands to flip away the steam in front of him as he reached the figure, ready to give him a piece of his mind...and froze. And could only stare in shock. And stare. And stare. And continue to stare, at the sight that would have made even Jericho speechless.
Triple H was standing in the sauna, alone except for a portable cassette player which was blasting some heavy metal song out its speakers, and apparently very much the person from whom the blah-uh-blah banshee shrieks had been emanating. His muscular frame was squeezed into a black schoolboy's uniform several sizes too small for him, complete with the white knee-high socks and little cap perched smartly atop his head, which boasted a wild disarray of unruly dark blonde locks tightly wrapped in hair curlers. A bottle of Herbal Essence shampoo was grasped in his hand, into which he was belting out the blah-uh-blah lyrics that had made RVD's head spin.
"Ah've gah-uh blah luhs! Ca's blahs-uh!" the Raw Champion continued to holler into his shampoo, unaware of RVD's presence in the room. It wasn't until the other man loudly cleared his throat that Triple H's head--in all its hair curlers glory--snapped up, and he whirled around so fast it could make one's head spin, his sledgehammer already pulled out from wherever he kept it. RVD chuckled in amusement at this, and Triple H glared suspiciously, his sledgehammer still out but for now making no signs that he was going to clock RVD upside the head with it.
"Hn."
"Dude."
After the two had exchanged such ample, friendly greetings, an awkward silence settled between them, before Triple H finally spoke up again, apparently feeling obliged to explain his bizarre behavior.
"I was, uh, rehearsing for my, uh, act," he muttered, signs of what actually appeared to be a blush seeping into his cheeks.
"Cool," came RVD's prompt reply. Another stretch of silence passed between the two, before they both lowered their heads as Triple H rapidly muttered, "Let's never speak of this again."
"Cool." Which, translated from Van Dam-nese, meant, "Fine with me, but if by any grand miracle you win this damn thing, I get a fifty-percent cut of your money, no ifs, ands, or buts about it!"
The two headed out of the sauna, just in time to hear the announcer sing out grandly into his microphone, "Wasn't that a delightful rendition of "YMCA"? Now, the Us Festival and Crab Apple Computers is very proud to present to you Contestant No. 7, hailing all the way from his hometown!" Triple H, rapidly pulling a trench coat over his schoolboy uniform to hide it, briskly made his way toward the stage, ripping out hair curlers from his head as he did so and making a beeline directly for the microphone. The announcer hurriedly finished his introduction, spouting out in a bubbly voice, "Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Mr. Gunther Hirsch Leona Helmsley, who'll be singing his own version of the AC/DC classic, "Back In Black!" Triple H glared at the announcer for completely butchering his name, then grasped the slender silver microphone stand in his hands, as behind him the amplifiers began blaring out the familiar guitar intro. He waited impatiently through the heavy riffs, before picking up his cue and opening his mouth, leaning into the mic and beginning to sing.
"Ooooh." A collective groan rose from the audience as Triple H tried to hit that last high note, and had their eardrums not been in such abuse, the greedy festival vendors would have surely been concocting schemes to sell crappy earplugs for insanely high prices. Triple H, however, coolly ignored the moaning and groaning from the tormented audience, and instead continued banshee-ing away.
If he was curious as to how the hell all these tormented canine howls suddenly sprang up, Triple H didn't bother to find out. Either way, since nobody was booing like mad or chucking rotten fruit up the stage (mainly due to the fact that nobody had the energy or willpower to move a single limb after being subjected to one and a half minutes of Triple H's horrendous "singing!") the tall, muscular World Champion merrily went on.
Thankfully for the tortured audience, however, God seemed to have taken mercy on their pitiful souls and even more pitiful ears, as at that moment, Triple H succeeded in hitting another particularly high note, and promptly blew out the microphone. The bewildered WWE Superstar leaned back in surprise as his mic shorted out, which in turn was the catalyst for a chain reaction of all the tall, black amplifiers set up onstage blowing out as well, which in turn was a catalyst for the immensely grateful audience letting out one collective weak sigh of relief. As Triple H blinked in astonishment, the dazed host of the karaoke festival, holding his cordless microphone in one hand and gingerly rubbing his eardrum with his free hand, tottered onto the stage and tee heed into his mic, "Eh heh...wasn't that nice," as he pushed a stiff and silent Triple H off the stage.
"Um, let's see...the next act will be doing a karaoke cover of, um, Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love," he sputtered nervously into his microphone. A huge wave of tortured groans rippled across the audience, terrified at the prospect of enduring Triple H's little AC/DC venture, v. 2.0, only even more high-pitched due to the nature of Robert Plant's keening voice. The host himself didn't look too thrilled at the idea either, as he flipped impatiently through his notebook, muttering to himself, "On second thought, that contestant can be pushed back; let's see what would have been next--"Livin' On A Prayer," "Breathe," "Get Free," "Highway To Hell"--God no, not another AC/DC song!" He frantically flipped through the setlist, before finally finding the softest song available and mumbling into his microphone, "Um, up next, ladies and gentlemen, is Contestant No. 78, who'll be singing the lullaby, "You Are My Sunshine."