Kurt and Lancelot rode together after leaving the Castle Anthrax. Kurt was
still very depressed at having come so close to finally getting a chance
with Amanda, only to have it torn from his grasp. To make things worse,
Lancelot was constantly boasting about how he had encountered considerable
peril on his own journeys while Kurt hadn't gotten to experience any peril
at all, thanks to him of course.
As they made camp for the evening, Lancelot threw out more tall tales as he chopped wood for the fire.
"Do you have to keep going on about how many people you killed back in that pub fight?" he asked.
"Oh, come off it, Galahad," Lancelot said, realizing why Kurt was so depressed. "Sure, she was cute, but wenches like that are a dime a dozen in these parts," he said. "Besides, you'll have plenty of time to find a proper wife after we find the Grail,"
Kurt felt his hackles rise at Lancelot's suggestion that Amanda was a wench. I hope Scott's not having this much trouble with Jean, he thought glumly to himself.
"Here, I've got a story that's sure to cheer you up," Lancelot said. "I promise, this is a new one,"
"That's what you said the last six times," Kurt grumbled.
"Well this one IS new," Lancelot said. "It starts not too long ago, in a castle not too far away,"
"Where have I heard THAT before?" Kurt asked. This is going to be a long night, he thought forlornly as Lancelot began his tale.
X
The Tale of Sir Lancelot
Today was a special day, and not just because it was Family Night at the Camelot Diner again. Today was the wedding day of Prince Herbert, and people were coming from far and wide to witness the event.
Up in the tower of Swamp Castle, the king was helping his son get ready for his big day, and was telling him about what he could expect once he was married. The king of Swamp Castle was a very unique man, easily recognizable in a crowd. He was eight feet tall and had claws for hands. Some people said that he was descended from one of the lion-gods of Egypt.
"One day, lad, all this will be yours!" said the king, sweeping his hand across the room in a grand gesture.
"What, the curtains?" asked his son, Herbert. Herbert was a short, skinny boy with flame-red hair, who looked as if a gentle breeze would break him in half.
"No, not the curtains, lad, all that you can see!" exclaimed Sabertooth the king. "Everything, stretched out across the hills and valleys of this land! That'll be your kingdom, lad,"
"But mother," Pyro the prince said weakly.
"Father, father, lad," Sabertooth corrected him. The lad was always getting his genders mixed up for some reason. Sabertooth's doctors had told him that the boy had a genetic affliction, whatever that meant.
"But father, I don't want any of that!" Pyro said.
Sabertooth recoiled at this affront. How could his son not appreciate what he would be inheriting? He decided to remind him about how bad things had been for them in the past.
"Listen, lad," he said. "I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started, all our land was swamp. Other kings said it was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em!" he bragged. "Of course, it sank into the swamp, so I built a second one. That one sank into the swamp, so I built a third one! That one burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp," he said, recalling the time that the horrid Hummingbird of Glasgow had flown through their castle and tipped over an oil lamp that had started the tragic conflagration.
"But the fourth one stayed up!" he finished proudly. "And that's what you're gonna get, lad. The strongest castle in these islands!"
"But I don't want any of that," Pyro said. "I'd rather,"
"Rather what?"
"I'd rather just, sing!" Pyro said. In the next room, a choir of bridesmaids began tuning up for a romantic ballad.
"Stop that, stop that!" Sabertooth said, incensed at his son's fondness for singing such girlish tunes. The choir in the next room hushed up at the shouting. "You're not going into a song while I'm here! Now listen, lad. In twenty minutes you're getting married to a girl whose father owns the biggest tracts of land in Britain!"
"But I don't want land!"
"Listen, Alice," Sabertooth began.
"Herbert," Pyro corrected him.
"Herbert, right," Sabertooth said, wondering why he had made such a silly error. He hoped he wasn't coming down with the same gender-confusing affliction his son had. It was bad enough that his own flesh and blood was such a sniveling little wimp.
"Look, we live in a bloody swamp. We need all the land we can get!" he said, trying to get his son to come round to his way of thinking.
"But I don't like her!" Pyro complained.
"Don't like her?" Sabertooth asked, completely flabbergasted. "What's wrong with her? She's beautiful, she's rich, she's got huge," he said, holding out his hands in front of his chest, palms open. "Huge, er, tracts of land," he said, realizing his gesture and not wanting his son to get too enthusiastic about marriage. Heaven help the world if the boy actually managed to breed.
"I know," Pyro said. "But I want the girl I marry to have a special. something," he said. The choir of bridesmaids began to sing again.
"Cut that out, cut that out!" Sabertooth snapped. "Look, you're marrying Princess Lucky, so you'd better get used to the idea!" he shouted, and smacked his son for emphasis. Then he walked over to the guards standing at the door, where Remy and Colossus were standing. Colossus had been in his own room drinking vodka when the vortex had sucked him into this dimension, and so far he was chalking the whole experience up to a very bad hangover for the explanation.
X
Sabertooth had hired these guards personally to watch over the prince. They were known for their unique fighting skills. One of them was said to be lethal with the wooden staff, and the second had the most spectacular suit of armor the world had ever seen. There were rumors that he never took it off, not even to go to sleep.
"Guards, make sure the prince doesn't leave the room until I come and get him," he barked.
"Yes, sire," said Remy
"We won't let him out of our sight," Colossus said.
"Good," said Sabertooth. "Er, you don't have any questions?" he asked, a little suspicious. Usually he had to repeat his instructions to the palace guards several times.
"No, sire,' said Remy. "I mean, it's simple enough to understand. You just want us to stay here and make sure he doesn't leave until you come back for him,"
"And you probably don't want us taking him anywhere with us if we had to leave either," said Colossus
"No questions about who you're supposed to be guarding?" Sabertooth asked just to make sure.
"Of course not!" said Remy. "Who else would you want us to guard? Ourselves? How ridiculous would that be?" he asked, and chuckled a bit at the notion.
"Um, right," said Sabertooth, wondering why his other guards couldn't be as smart as these two. "Well, carry on then," he said, and left the room.
Sabertooth did not realize that his son was not as foolish as he appeared. Pyro was actually very clever, but had played dumb his whole life lest anybody suspect how smart he really was and try to kill him. While Sabertooth had been talking with his guards, Pyro discreetly scrawled a plea for help on a piece of paper, attached it to an arrow, and shot it out the window. Then he resumed his guise of the weak simpleton.
"But father!" he called.
"Shut your noise, you, and get that suit on!" Sabertooth said, and walked out of the room.
"Yes, father," Pyro mumbled, suppressing a grin as he began to get dressed. Hopefully, help would soon be on its way.
X
By this time, Lancelot had finished cooking dinner, and they ate while Lancelot told his story.
"So where do you come into all of this?" Kurt asked, sipping a cup full of hot cider.
"Be patient, I'm getting to that," Lancelot said, biting into a leg of lamb. "Now, my squire Concorde and I were riding through the forest, looking for adventure, when we got the prince's note,"
X
Lancelot and his squire Concorde (a girl who went by the name of Amara in her own dimension) had come to a small river, and were carefully hopping over the stones. Lancelot praised the girl, who had claimed to be descended from a royal house, on her agility as she negotiated the river without getting a single drop of water on her clothes.
"Well done, Concorde, you'll make a fine knight someday!" Lancelot said.
"Thank you, sir," she said. "Say, do you see that funny looking bird heading our way?" she asked, pointing at a rapidly approaching shape in the sky.
"Where?" Lancelot asked. "I don't see it. Is it big enough to cook for dinner tonight?"
The 'bird' suddenly hit Concorde in the chest with a loud WHACK! "Uh!" she grunted as she took the full blow of the arrow. "Message for you sir!" she said, pointing at the note wrapped around the arrow, before she collapsed.
"Concorde!" Lancelot cried. "Concorde, speak to me!" he said, grasping the girl by her shoulders. She gasped once, and then went stiff as stone.
Lancelot cursed under his breath at losing such a promising squire, and pulled the note off of the arrow and read it.
"To whoever finds this note: I have been imprisoned by my father, who wishes me to wed against my will. I am in the tall tower of Swamp Castle," Lancelot read.
"At last! A call! A cry of distress!" he exclaimed excitedly. "This could be the sign that leads us to the Holy Grail!" Or a beautiful princess, he thought. Either way he'd probably have a good time.
"Brave, brave Concorde, you shall not have died in vain!" Lancelot said, vowing to make his squire proud of him.
"Uh, I'm not quite dead, sir!" Concorde said, opening her eyes.
"Well, you shall not have been mortally wounded in vain!" Lancelot said, hoping that he could perform one last heroic feat for the girl before she died.
"I. I really think I could pull through, sir," she said.
"Oh, I see," Lancelot said, slightly upset.
"Actually, I think I'm all right to come with you, sir," she said.
"No, no sweet Concorde!" Lancelot said. The last thing he wanted was for her to get a piece of his heroic success. "Stay here! I will send help as soon as I have accomplished a daring and heroic rescue in my own particular. particular," he said, then sighed. He was always forgetting the dramatic vocabulary words that he had learned back in hero school.
"Idiom, sir?" Concorde offered.
"Idiom! Yes, that's it!" Lancelot said, snapping his fingers. "Farewell, sweet Concorde!" he said, and rushed off in the direction of the arrow's flight.
"Um, right," Concorde said, the arrow still in her chest. "I'll just stay here, then, shall I sir?"
X
Inside the town square, the festivities were getting under way. Minstrels sang, jugglers juggled, and merchants passed out wreaths of flowers for all the guests to wear at the wedding. People were talking, drinking, and generally having a pleasant time. Little did they know that an unexpected guest was about to crash the party.
At the main gate, two guards stood keeping watch, flower garlands around their necks. One of them squinted as he saw a shape appear several yards away. It looked like a man.
Hmm, thought the guard. Must be a latecomer. He made no move to sound the alarm.
As he looked closer, he saw that the man appeared to be running in place. That's a bit odd, the guard thought. He's running so hard that he should be here by.
"Aagh!" groaned the guard as Lancelot impaled him with his claws. The second guard raised his spear but Lancelot sliced it in half, then slashed the guard's throat and stormed inside, yelling and screaming like a banshee.
Guests scattered through the streets as Lancelot ran back and forth, slicing and slashing at everything that moved. The princess, who despite her bovine appearance looked quite a bit like Rogue, and the bridesmaids (Rahne, Jubilee, and Kitty) ran for their lives as Lancelot approached them, but the princess was not fast enough to escape. Lancelot caught up with her and kicked her to the ground before running off in search of his quarry.
Lancelot made his way up the stairs of the castle, dispatching guards left and right. Most of them didn't even see him coming, but that didn't stop him from driving his claws into their flesh. Lancelot felt his heart beat at a tremendous rate and heard the blood rushing through his ears. This was the life!
Finally, Lancelot made his way to the Tall Tower. He kicked down the door, squashing the heavily armored guard like a roach.
"Here, you're not allowed in here!" said the staff-wielding guard, but Lancelot paid him no heed and picked up a chair and smashed it over the guard's head. The guard collapsed like a rag doll.
Lancelot saw a figure with long, curly red hair standing by the window of the room. This must be the princess!, he thought, and ran up to her side and knelt down.
"O fair one, I am your humble servant Sir Lancelot of Camelot," he said, looking up expectantly as she began to turn around. "I have come to take you. oh, I'm terribly sorry!" he said, realizing his mistake.
"You got my note!" Herbert said excitedly.
"Um, well, I got a note, yes," Lancelot said nervously. This hadn't quite been the rescue he had had in mind.
"You've come to rescue me!"
"Um, well, no, you see, I hadn't," Lancelot stammered.
Herbert ignored him. "I knew someone would!" he said, spreading his arms. The choir next door began to sing once more. "I knew that somewhere out there, there must be someone who would,"
"Stop that, stop that!" Sabertooth roared, bursting into the room. "Who are you?" he asked Lancelot.
"I'm your son!" Herbert said.
"No, not you!" Sabertooth snapped.
"Uh, I'm Sir Lancelot, sir,"
"He's come to rescue me, father!"
"Well, let's not jump to conclusions here," Lancelot said.
"Did you kill all those guards?" Sabertooth asked, indicating the numerous dead bodies strewn in the halls.
"Uh, oh. Yes, yes I did. Terribly sorry," Lancelot said apologetically.
"They cost me 50 pounds a piece!"
"Well, I'm awfully sorry," Lancelot said, highly embarrassed at the whole situation. "Look, I can explain everything,"
"Don't be afraid of him, Sir Lancelot!" Herbert said, walking over to the window. "I've got a rope all ready!"
Indeed, he did have a rope ready, and he tied it securely to the bed, cast the end out the window, and prepared to climb down to freedom.
Sabertooth ignored Pyro. "You killed 8 wedding guests in all!" he said, continuing to list the casualties.
"Well, you see, I really thought your son was a lady," Lancelot said, blushing.
"Oh, well I can understand that," Sabertooth said, just as embarrassed as Lancelot was.
"Hurry, Sir Lancelot, hurry!" Pyro called, standing up on the windowsill.
"Shut up!" Sabertooth said, then turned back to Lancelot. "You only killed the bride's father, that's all!"
"Well, I really didn't mean to," Lancelot explained.
"Didn't mean to? You put your sword right through his head!"
"Oh dear! Is he all right?"
"You even kicked the bride in the chest! This is going to cost me a fortune!" Sabertooth moaned.
"Well look, I can explain," Lancelot said. "I was in the forest, riding north from Camelot, when I got this note, you see," he said, holding up Pyro's note.
"Camelot?" Sabertooth asked him in a curious tone. "Did you say you were from Camelot?"
"Uh, I am a knight of King Arthur, sir, yes,"
Pyro started to climb out the window. "Hurry!" he called from outside, clinging tightly to the rope.
"Very nice castle, Camelot," Sabertooth said. "Very good pig country, I understand,"
"Is it?" Lancelot asked. He had not been at Camelot long enough to notice how well suited the land was for raising pigs.
"Hurry! I am ready!" Pyro called again.
Sabertooth walked over to the window and stealthily pulled out a dagger. "Say, would you like to come have a drink?" he asked Lancelot, his back to the window.
"Ah, well, that's awfully nice of you, I mean, to be so understanding and all," Lancelot said.
"Oh, don't mention it," Sabertooth said, and sliced through the rope.
"You see, I'm afraid that when I'm in this idiom I tend to get a bit carried away sometimes," Logan said.
"Of course, of course. It happens to the best of us," Sabertooth said and put his arm around Lancelot's shoulder and led him out of the room.
X
Outside, Pyro felt the rope suddenly go loose in his hands. He had time to scream meekly before he plummeted to the ground.
X
"So you see, here I thought I was rescuing a beautiful princess," Lancelot said to Kurt. "But it turned out I was really rescuing a beautiful prince! It was really quite embarrassing. But it was an honest mistake. I mean, with his long red hair, his smooth, fair skin, that soft gentle voice, I really did think he was a woman,"
"Right, right," Kurt said, feigning interest in Lancelot's story while analyzing what the knight had told him as he tested a theory. I was right, he is gay, Kurt concluded, thinking about how Lancelot had described the prince. "So then what happened?" he asked, trying to suppress a yawn.
"Oh, you wouldn't believe the excitement that happened next!" Lancelot said, and continued on with his story.
X
Sabertooth led Lancelot downstairs into the main part of the castle, giving him a tour.
"This here is the main hall," he said. "We're going to have all this knocked out and made into one big living room, though,"
Several of the guests were still milling about, tending to their wounds and consoling their friends who had lost loved ones to Lancelot's onslaught. One of them caught sight of the knight coming back into the hall.
"There he is!" he shouted, and the guests roared and charged at Lancelot. Lancelot unsheathed his claws and prepared to do battle one more time.
"Oh, bloody hell!" Sabertooth muttered as Lancelot carved a few more people in twain.
"Alright, enough! Stop it! Stop it!" he shouted, trying to restore order. After several minutes and several new corpses, he was able to get everybody settled down.
"Sorry, sorry!" Lancelot said and turned to Sabertooth. "You see what I mean? I just get carried away. Sorry everyone, I really am!" he called to the crowd.
"He killed the best man!" shouted one of the guests. The other guests began to clamor again, but Sabertooth held up his hands for silence.
"Hold it! Now! This is Sir Lancelot, from the Court of Camelot, a very brave and influential knight, and my special guest here today,"
"Hello," Lancelot said, giving the hostile crowd a wave.
"He killed my auntie!" shouted a guest.
"Please! Please!" Sabertooth shouted above the ensuing noise. "This is supposed to be a happy occasion!" he said, reminding them of the scheduled nuptials. "We are here today to witness the union of two young people in the joyful bond of holy wedlock. Unfortunately, one of them, my son Herbert, has just fallen to his death," he said with not a trace of sorrow in his voice.
The crowd began to wail and moan at this sad turn of events.
Sabertooth quickly got their attention again. "But I don't want to think that I've lost a son," he said. "So much as I've gained a daughter!"
The crowd clapped, and Sabertooth continued.
"For, since the tragic death of her father,"
"He's not dead!" said one of the guests as the bride's father slowly recovered from his wounds.
Sabertooth frowned. He was close to gaining a huge inheritance, and he did not want to lose it so suddenly. "Since the near fatal wounding of her father,"
"He's getting better!" said the guest, as the father of the bride stood up, looking fairly healthy despite the slashes across his chest.
Sabertooth snarled and nodded at one of his guards. "For, since her own father, who, when he seemed about to recover, suddenly felt the icy hand of death upon him!"
At that, the guard stabbed the bride's father in the back, and the man crumpled dead to the floor.
"He's died!" said the guest.
Finally, Sabertooth thought, and continued on. "And I want his only daughter to look upon me as her very own dad, in a very real, legally binding sense, of course,"
"And I feel sure that the merger, er, I mean, the union between the Princess and the brave but dangerous Sir Lancelot of Camelot," he said, hoping that he could now get Lancelot into his family as well.
"Um, wait just a minute," Lancelot said. It was bad enough that he had nearly rescued a prince instead of a princess, but now he was being asked to marry someone that looked more like a cow than a person.
Suddenly, one of the guests jumped up and pointed to the drawbridge. "Look! The dead prince!" he cried as Pyro limped into the room.
"He's not quite dead!" said one of the guests.
"Shut up!" roared the room at him. The guest looked around nervously and said nothing.
"No, I feel much better," Pyro said.
"You fell out of the Tall Tower, you creep!" Sabertooth roared, his grand plans for the future ruined by his son's survival.
"No, I was saved at the last minute," Pyro said.
"How?" Sabertooth asked, in shock that his son of all people could survive such a fall.
"Well, I'll tell you," he said. The bridesmaids took their cue and began singing.
"No! Not like that!" Sabertooth said, but he was ignored as Pyro began to recount how he had been saved.
Lancelot watched the bridesmaids and the guests singing along with Pyro and decided that it was time for him to leave. The trouble was, he couldn't seem to find an exit. Just then, Concorde appeared in an open doorway, looking very much alive.
"Quickly sir!" she called. "Come this way!"
"No, it isn't right for my idiom!" Lancelot said. "I must escape more, uh," What was that word again?
"Dramatically, sir?"
"Yes, dramatically!" Lancelot said, glad that he had the girl around to help him through these tough spots.
With that, he dashed up the stairs and grabbed onto a dangling banner, intending to swing out the window and make his escape. Unfortunately, he had misjudged the length of the banner, and came up short on his swing and wound up dangling several feet above the floor.
"Um, excuse me!" he called to the singing guests. "Could someone give me a push?"
X
"And that's how I made my daring escape!" Lancelot concluded triumphantly. "What did you think?" he asked, turning to Kurt.
Kurt's only reply was a snore. The boy was fast asleep, his tail twitching gently as he thought about Amanda.
"Oh, honestly," Lancelot muttered, and stirred up the fire again. "It wasn't THAT bad of a story!"
X
As they made camp for the evening, Lancelot threw out more tall tales as he chopped wood for the fire.
"Do you have to keep going on about how many people you killed back in that pub fight?" he asked.
"Oh, come off it, Galahad," Lancelot said, realizing why Kurt was so depressed. "Sure, she was cute, but wenches like that are a dime a dozen in these parts," he said. "Besides, you'll have plenty of time to find a proper wife after we find the Grail,"
Kurt felt his hackles rise at Lancelot's suggestion that Amanda was a wench. I hope Scott's not having this much trouble with Jean, he thought glumly to himself.
"Here, I've got a story that's sure to cheer you up," Lancelot said. "I promise, this is a new one,"
"That's what you said the last six times," Kurt grumbled.
"Well this one IS new," Lancelot said. "It starts not too long ago, in a castle not too far away,"
"Where have I heard THAT before?" Kurt asked. This is going to be a long night, he thought forlornly as Lancelot began his tale.
X
The Tale of Sir Lancelot
Today was a special day, and not just because it was Family Night at the Camelot Diner again. Today was the wedding day of Prince Herbert, and people were coming from far and wide to witness the event.
Up in the tower of Swamp Castle, the king was helping his son get ready for his big day, and was telling him about what he could expect once he was married. The king of Swamp Castle was a very unique man, easily recognizable in a crowd. He was eight feet tall and had claws for hands. Some people said that he was descended from one of the lion-gods of Egypt.
"One day, lad, all this will be yours!" said the king, sweeping his hand across the room in a grand gesture.
"What, the curtains?" asked his son, Herbert. Herbert was a short, skinny boy with flame-red hair, who looked as if a gentle breeze would break him in half.
"No, not the curtains, lad, all that you can see!" exclaimed Sabertooth the king. "Everything, stretched out across the hills and valleys of this land! That'll be your kingdom, lad,"
"But mother," Pyro the prince said weakly.
"Father, father, lad," Sabertooth corrected him. The lad was always getting his genders mixed up for some reason. Sabertooth's doctors had told him that the boy had a genetic affliction, whatever that meant.
"But father, I don't want any of that!" Pyro said.
Sabertooth recoiled at this affront. How could his son not appreciate what he would be inheriting? He decided to remind him about how bad things had been for them in the past.
"Listen, lad," he said. "I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started, all our land was swamp. Other kings said it was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em!" he bragged. "Of course, it sank into the swamp, so I built a second one. That one sank into the swamp, so I built a third one! That one burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp," he said, recalling the time that the horrid Hummingbird of Glasgow had flown through their castle and tipped over an oil lamp that had started the tragic conflagration.
"But the fourth one stayed up!" he finished proudly. "And that's what you're gonna get, lad. The strongest castle in these islands!"
"But I don't want any of that," Pyro said. "I'd rather,"
"Rather what?"
"I'd rather just, sing!" Pyro said. In the next room, a choir of bridesmaids began tuning up for a romantic ballad.
"Stop that, stop that!" Sabertooth said, incensed at his son's fondness for singing such girlish tunes. The choir in the next room hushed up at the shouting. "You're not going into a song while I'm here! Now listen, lad. In twenty minutes you're getting married to a girl whose father owns the biggest tracts of land in Britain!"
"But I don't want land!"
"Listen, Alice," Sabertooth began.
"Herbert," Pyro corrected him.
"Herbert, right," Sabertooth said, wondering why he had made such a silly error. He hoped he wasn't coming down with the same gender-confusing affliction his son had. It was bad enough that his own flesh and blood was such a sniveling little wimp.
"Look, we live in a bloody swamp. We need all the land we can get!" he said, trying to get his son to come round to his way of thinking.
"But I don't like her!" Pyro complained.
"Don't like her?" Sabertooth asked, completely flabbergasted. "What's wrong with her? She's beautiful, she's rich, she's got huge," he said, holding out his hands in front of his chest, palms open. "Huge, er, tracts of land," he said, realizing his gesture and not wanting his son to get too enthusiastic about marriage. Heaven help the world if the boy actually managed to breed.
"I know," Pyro said. "But I want the girl I marry to have a special. something," he said. The choir of bridesmaids began to sing again.
"Cut that out, cut that out!" Sabertooth snapped. "Look, you're marrying Princess Lucky, so you'd better get used to the idea!" he shouted, and smacked his son for emphasis. Then he walked over to the guards standing at the door, where Remy and Colossus were standing. Colossus had been in his own room drinking vodka when the vortex had sucked him into this dimension, and so far he was chalking the whole experience up to a very bad hangover for the explanation.
X
Sabertooth had hired these guards personally to watch over the prince. They were known for their unique fighting skills. One of them was said to be lethal with the wooden staff, and the second had the most spectacular suit of armor the world had ever seen. There were rumors that he never took it off, not even to go to sleep.
"Guards, make sure the prince doesn't leave the room until I come and get him," he barked.
"Yes, sire," said Remy
"We won't let him out of our sight," Colossus said.
"Good," said Sabertooth. "Er, you don't have any questions?" he asked, a little suspicious. Usually he had to repeat his instructions to the palace guards several times.
"No, sire,' said Remy. "I mean, it's simple enough to understand. You just want us to stay here and make sure he doesn't leave until you come back for him,"
"And you probably don't want us taking him anywhere with us if we had to leave either," said Colossus
"No questions about who you're supposed to be guarding?" Sabertooth asked just to make sure.
"Of course not!" said Remy. "Who else would you want us to guard? Ourselves? How ridiculous would that be?" he asked, and chuckled a bit at the notion.
"Um, right," said Sabertooth, wondering why his other guards couldn't be as smart as these two. "Well, carry on then," he said, and left the room.
Sabertooth did not realize that his son was not as foolish as he appeared. Pyro was actually very clever, but had played dumb his whole life lest anybody suspect how smart he really was and try to kill him. While Sabertooth had been talking with his guards, Pyro discreetly scrawled a plea for help on a piece of paper, attached it to an arrow, and shot it out the window. Then he resumed his guise of the weak simpleton.
"But father!" he called.
"Shut your noise, you, and get that suit on!" Sabertooth said, and walked out of the room.
"Yes, father," Pyro mumbled, suppressing a grin as he began to get dressed. Hopefully, help would soon be on its way.
X
By this time, Lancelot had finished cooking dinner, and they ate while Lancelot told his story.
"So where do you come into all of this?" Kurt asked, sipping a cup full of hot cider.
"Be patient, I'm getting to that," Lancelot said, biting into a leg of lamb. "Now, my squire Concorde and I were riding through the forest, looking for adventure, when we got the prince's note,"
X
Lancelot and his squire Concorde (a girl who went by the name of Amara in her own dimension) had come to a small river, and were carefully hopping over the stones. Lancelot praised the girl, who had claimed to be descended from a royal house, on her agility as she negotiated the river without getting a single drop of water on her clothes.
"Well done, Concorde, you'll make a fine knight someday!" Lancelot said.
"Thank you, sir," she said. "Say, do you see that funny looking bird heading our way?" she asked, pointing at a rapidly approaching shape in the sky.
"Where?" Lancelot asked. "I don't see it. Is it big enough to cook for dinner tonight?"
The 'bird' suddenly hit Concorde in the chest with a loud WHACK! "Uh!" she grunted as she took the full blow of the arrow. "Message for you sir!" she said, pointing at the note wrapped around the arrow, before she collapsed.
"Concorde!" Lancelot cried. "Concorde, speak to me!" he said, grasping the girl by her shoulders. She gasped once, and then went stiff as stone.
Lancelot cursed under his breath at losing such a promising squire, and pulled the note off of the arrow and read it.
"To whoever finds this note: I have been imprisoned by my father, who wishes me to wed against my will. I am in the tall tower of Swamp Castle," Lancelot read.
"At last! A call! A cry of distress!" he exclaimed excitedly. "This could be the sign that leads us to the Holy Grail!" Or a beautiful princess, he thought. Either way he'd probably have a good time.
"Brave, brave Concorde, you shall not have died in vain!" Lancelot said, vowing to make his squire proud of him.
"Uh, I'm not quite dead, sir!" Concorde said, opening her eyes.
"Well, you shall not have been mortally wounded in vain!" Lancelot said, hoping that he could perform one last heroic feat for the girl before she died.
"I. I really think I could pull through, sir," she said.
"Oh, I see," Lancelot said, slightly upset.
"Actually, I think I'm all right to come with you, sir," she said.
"No, no sweet Concorde!" Lancelot said. The last thing he wanted was for her to get a piece of his heroic success. "Stay here! I will send help as soon as I have accomplished a daring and heroic rescue in my own particular. particular," he said, then sighed. He was always forgetting the dramatic vocabulary words that he had learned back in hero school.
"Idiom, sir?" Concorde offered.
"Idiom! Yes, that's it!" Lancelot said, snapping his fingers. "Farewell, sweet Concorde!" he said, and rushed off in the direction of the arrow's flight.
"Um, right," Concorde said, the arrow still in her chest. "I'll just stay here, then, shall I sir?"
X
Inside the town square, the festivities were getting under way. Minstrels sang, jugglers juggled, and merchants passed out wreaths of flowers for all the guests to wear at the wedding. People were talking, drinking, and generally having a pleasant time. Little did they know that an unexpected guest was about to crash the party.
At the main gate, two guards stood keeping watch, flower garlands around their necks. One of them squinted as he saw a shape appear several yards away. It looked like a man.
Hmm, thought the guard. Must be a latecomer. He made no move to sound the alarm.
As he looked closer, he saw that the man appeared to be running in place. That's a bit odd, the guard thought. He's running so hard that he should be here by.
"Aagh!" groaned the guard as Lancelot impaled him with his claws. The second guard raised his spear but Lancelot sliced it in half, then slashed the guard's throat and stormed inside, yelling and screaming like a banshee.
Guests scattered through the streets as Lancelot ran back and forth, slicing and slashing at everything that moved. The princess, who despite her bovine appearance looked quite a bit like Rogue, and the bridesmaids (Rahne, Jubilee, and Kitty) ran for their lives as Lancelot approached them, but the princess was not fast enough to escape. Lancelot caught up with her and kicked her to the ground before running off in search of his quarry.
Lancelot made his way up the stairs of the castle, dispatching guards left and right. Most of them didn't even see him coming, but that didn't stop him from driving his claws into their flesh. Lancelot felt his heart beat at a tremendous rate and heard the blood rushing through his ears. This was the life!
Finally, Lancelot made his way to the Tall Tower. He kicked down the door, squashing the heavily armored guard like a roach.
"Here, you're not allowed in here!" said the staff-wielding guard, but Lancelot paid him no heed and picked up a chair and smashed it over the guard's head. The guard collapsed like a rag doll.
Lancelot saw a figure with long, curly red hair standing by the window of the room. This must be the princess!, he thought, and ran up to her side and knelt down.
"O fair one, I am your humble servant Sir Lancelot of Camelot," he said, looking up expectantly as she began to turn around. "I have come to take you. oh, I'm terribly sorry!" he said, realizing his mistake.
"You got my note!" Herbert said excitedly.
"Um, well, I got a note, yes," Lancelot said nervously. This hadn't quite been the rescue he had had in mind.
"You've come to rescue me!"
"Um, well, no, you see, I hadn't," Lancelot stammered.
Herbert ignored him. "I knew someone would!" he said, spreading his arms. The choir next door began to sing once more. "I knew that somewhere out there, there must be someone who would,"
"Stop that, stop that!" Sabertooth roared, bursting into the room. "Who are you?" he asked Lancelot.
"I'm your son!" Herbert said.
"No, not you!" Sabertooth snapped.
"Uh, I'm Sir Lancelot, sir,"
"He's come to rescue me, father!"
"Well, let's not jump to conclusions here," Lancelot said.
"Did you kill all those guards?" Sabertooth asked, indicating the numerous dead bodies strewn in the halls.
"Uh, oh. Yes, yes I did. Terribly sorry," Lancelot said apologetically.
"They cost me 50 pounds a piece!"
"Well, I'm awfully sorry," Lancelot said, highly embarrassed at the whole situation. "Look, I can explain everything,"
"Don't be afraid of him, Sir Lancelot!" Herbert said, walking over to the window. "I've got a rope all ready!"
Indeed, he did have a rope ready, and he tied it securely to the bed, cast the end out the window, and prepared to climb down to freedom.
Sabertooth ignored Pyro. "You killed 8 wedding guests in all!" he said, continuing to list the casualties.
"Well, you see, I really thought your son was a lady," Lancelot said, blushing.
"Oh, well I can understand that," Sabertooth said, just as embarrassed as Lancelot was.
"Hurry, Sir Lancelot, hurry!" Pyro called, standing up on the windowsill.
"Shut up!" Sabertooth said, then turned back to Lancelot. "You only killed the bride's father, that's all!"
"Well, I really didn't mean to," Lancelot explained.
"Didn't mean to? You put your sword right through his head!"
"Oh dear! Is he all right?"
"You even kicked the bride in the chest! This is going to cost me a fortune!" Sabertooth moaned.
"Well look, I can explain," Lancelot said. "I was in the forest, riding north from Camelot, when I got this note, you see," he said, holding up Pyro's note.
"Camelot?" Sabertooth asked him in a curious tone. "Did you say you were from Camelot?"
"Uh, I am a knight of King Arthur, sir, yes,"
Pyro started to climb out the window. "Hurry!" he called from outside, clinging tightly to the rope.
"Very nice castle, Camelot," Sabertooth said. "Very good pig country, I understand,"
"Is it?" Lancelot asked. He had not been at Camelot long enough to notice how well suited the land was for raising pigs.
"Hurry! I am ready!" Pyro called again.
Sabertooth walked over to the window and stealthily pulled out a dagger. "Say, would you like to come have a drink?" he asked Lancelot, his back to the window.
"Ah, well, that's awfully nice of you, I mean, to be so understanding and all," Lancelot said.
"Oh, don't mention it," Sabertooth said, and sliced through the rope.
"You see, I'm afraid that when I'm in this idiom I tend to get a bit carried away sometimes," Logan said.
"Of course, of course. It happens to the best of us," Sabertooth said and put his arm around Lancelot's shoulder and led him out of the room.
X
Outside, Pyro felt the rope suddenly go loose in his hands. He had time to scream meekly before he plummeted to the ground.
X
"So you see, here I thought I was rescuing a beautiful princess," Lancelot said to Kurt. "But it turned out I was really rescuing a beautiful prince! It was really quite embarrassing. But it was an honest mistake. I mean, with his long red hair, his smooth, fair skin, that soft gentle voice, I really did think he was a woman,"
"Right, right," Kurt said, feigning interest in Lancelot's story while analyzing what the knight had told him as he tested a theory. I was right, he is gay, Kurt concluded, thinking about how Lancelot had described the prince. "So then what happened?" he asked, trying to suppress a yawn.
"Oh, you wouldn't believe the excitement that happened next!" Lancelot said, and continued on with his story.
X
Sabertooth led Lancelot downstairs into the main part of the castle, giving him a tour.
"This here is the main hall," he said. "We're going to have all this knocked out and made into one big living room, though,"
Several of the guests were still milling about, tending to their wounds and consoling their friends who had lost loved ones to Lancelot's onslaught. One of them caught sight of the knight coming back into the hall.
"There he is!" he shouted, and the guests roared and charged at Lancelot. Lancelot unsheathed his claws and prepared to do battle one more time.
"Oh, bloody hell!" Sabertooth muttered as Lancelot carved a few more people in twain.
"Alright, enough! Stop it! Stop it!" he shouted, trying to restore order. After several minutes and several new corpses, he was able to get everybody settled down.
"Sorry, sorry!" Lancelot said and turned to Sabertooth. "You see what I mean? I just get carried away. Sorry everyone, I really am!" he called to the crowd.
"He killed the best man!" shouted one of the guests. The other guests began to clamor again, but Sabertooth held up his hands for silence.
"Hold it! Now! This is Sir Lancelot, from the Court of Camelot, a very brave and influential knight, and my special guest here today,"
"Hello," Lancelot said, giving the hostile crowd a wave.
"He killed my auntie!" shouted a guest.
"Please! Please!" Sabertooth shouted above the ensuing noise. "This is supposed to be a happy occasion!" he said, reminding them of the scheduled nuptials. "We are here today to witness the union of two young people in the joyful bond of holy wedlock. Unfortunately, one of them, my son Herbert, has just fallen to his death," he said with not a trace of sorrow in his voice.
The crowd began to wail and moan at this sad turn of events.
Sabertooth quickly got their attention again. "But I don't want to think that I've lost a son," he said. "So much as I've gained a daughter!"
The crowd clapped, and Sabertooth continued.
"For, since the tragic death of her father,"
"He's not dead!" said one of the guests as the bride's father slowly recovered from his wounds.
Sabertooth frowned. He was close to gaining a huge inheritance, and he did not want to lose it so suddenly. "Since the near fatal wounding of her father,"
"He's getting better!" said the guest, as the father of the bride stood up, looking fairly healthy despite the slashes across his chest.
Sabertooth snarled and nodded at one of his guards. "For, since her own father, who, when he seemed about to recover, suddenly felt the icy hand of death upon him!"
At that, the guard stabbed the bride's father in the back, and the man crumpled dead to the floor.
"He's died!" said the guest.
Finally, Sabertooth thought, and continued on. "And I want his only daughter to look upon me as her very own dad, in a very real, legally binding sense, of course,"
"And I feel sure that the merger, er, I mean, the union between the Princess and the brave but dangerous Sir Lancelot of Camelot," he said, hoping that he could now get Lancelot into his family as well.
"Um, wait just a minute," Lancelot said. It was bad enough that he had nearly rescued a prince instead of a princess, but now he was being asked to marry someone that looked more like a cow than a person.
Suddenly, one of the guests jumped up and pointed to the drawbridge. "Look! The dead prince!" he cried as Pyro limped into the room.
"He's not quite dead!" said one of the guests.
"Shut up!" roared the room at him. The guest looked around nervously and said nothing.
"No, I feel much better," Pyro said.
"You fell out of the Tall Tower, you creep!" Sabertooth roared, his grand plans for the future ruined by his son's survival.
"No, I was saved at the last minute," Pyro said.
"How?" Sabertooth asked, in shock that his son of all people could survive such a fall.
"Well, I'll tell you," he said. The bridesmaids took their cue and began singing.
"No! Not like that!" Sabertooth said, but he was ignored as Pyro began to recount how he had been saved.
Lancelot watched the bridesmaids and the guests singing along with Pyro and decided that it was time for him to leave. The trouble was, he couldn't seem to find an exit. Just then, Concorde appeared in an open doorway, looking very much alive.
"Quickly sir!" she called. "Come this way!"
"No, it isn't right for my idiom!" Lancelot said. "I must escape more, uh," What was that word again?
"Dramatically, sir?"
"Yes, dramatically!" Lancelot said, glad that he had the girl around to help him through these tough spots.
With that, he dashed up the stairs and grabbed onto a dangling banner, intending to swing out the window and make his escape. Unfortunately, he had misjudged the length of the banner, and came up short on his swing and wound up dangling several feet above the floor.
"Um, excuse me!" he called to the singing guests. "Could someone give me a push?"
X
"And that's how I made my daring escape!" Lancelot concluded triumphantly. "What did you think?" he asked, turning to Kurt.
Kurt's only reply was a snore. The boy was fast asleep, his tail twitching gently as he thought about Amanda.
"Oh, honestly," Lancelot muttered, and stirred up the fire again. "It wasn't THAT bad of a story!"
X