Chapter 4
DISCLAIMER: The majority of animals, vegetables, and minerals playing major roles in this story are not mine. They do belong to some people, but those people are not me, so I really have no legal right to be publishing this epic of madness on the web, but everyone else is, and heck, it is fun. Anyhow, most of the characters belong to Lucasfilm Ltd., with some other characters belonging to The Lord of the Rings and whatever Tolkien calls his company. However, Beatrice, the Yoshimoto Sushi Bar, the Hat of Frosty the Snowman, and likewise the evil cult of Frosty the Snowman, are all mine. Mine, I tell you, mine! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! (Well, technically they're property of the Shnibbidy League and Shnibbidworks Publishing, but I am Shnibbidworks Publishing and my fellows in the Shnibbidy League have no problem with me using their stuff.)

If anyone uses any of Shnibbidworks' animals, vegetables, or minerals in their stories, the wrath of the chickens will be brought down upon you, and in the last alliance of the ancient Halls of Box, Cockroach, and Chicken you will be the first to fall!

APOLOGY: Sincere apologies to anybody whom I may have left hanging for a long time. I am very bad about keeping track of what I am supposed to be doing. Also, my younger brother, the Royal Steward of my home planet, Vuebegon VII, had to call me in from my business on Earth to take over as King for a while, since there were diplomatic matters that only the true King could handle. The Cilbuper of Ognoc is threatening our last bastion of monarchy in the Vuebegon System again, and I needed to make sure that the President didn't manage to swindle my weaker-willed younger sibling into giving him the planet. I pray that you will find it in your hearts to forgive me for the delay.

Thanks again,

Chickens4Brains

a.k.a. Wellenforf the Gruge, Last Lord of Vuebegon

a.k.a the Champion of the Chickens.

I have way too many alternate personalities.

Happy new year to everyone!

Light, noise, and the overwhelming smell of fish assailed Luke, Han, and Leia (Leah the Local Beatles Freak) as soon as they passed the threshold into the sushi bar. Bar patrons swirled around them in a dazzling collage of bright fabrics and strangely colorful skin. For a moment the three humans only stood attempting to take it all in, while SOS-180 hummed quietly to himself behind them. Visibility was down to a foot or less, the bar was so crowded. It was an awe-inspiring sight.

Luke Skywalker had never seen such a sight in his life. This topped even the three white mice in dark glasses that he had caught behind the refrigerator once when he was a boy. Never had he seen such crowds packed into a single room, nor such an immense array of colors. Disco lights flashed over the dance floor towards the back of the bar, and earsplitting music throbbed in his ears.

Han Solo had never seen such a sight in his life. There was a lot of expensive stuff in the room. He liked expensive stuff. Naturally, he was delighted when a few anonymous but apparently immensely generous people deposited their gold-and-diamond jewelry into his pocket. He smiled, glad to see that there were still some people who would give their valuables to an unemployed man and not insist on a lot of thanks and credit.

Leah the Local Beatles Freak had never seen such a sight in her life. If she remembered correctly, the sushi bars back home in North Dakota generally weren't managed and patronized by the sushi.

This was unusual, Leia decided. Definitely a little out of the norm. The flamboyantly dressed customers that were packed into the room like sardines in a can happened to be real, overgrown sardines. Or salmon. Or sole, or halibut, or octopi. A large group of squid manned the counter, swiftly mixing up custom alcohols for the patrons. A whiting waltzed across the dance floor with a water snail. All of a sudden, Leah from North Dakota was bumping fins with a lot of ocean animals that had no right to be as tall as she was, not to mention breathing air.

"Well, it certainly does look to be an experience, doesn't it?" SOS-180 chirruped from behind them. "Seems like a nice place. And they have the menu walking around so you can see your dinner up close."

SOS-180 leaned over and pinched the fin of a plump trout in a pink cocktail dress, then sniffed it as if to test its freshness.

"I'll take this one," he called up to his human companions. "I've already decided which one I want."

Then, much to SOS-180's embarrassment, the trout shrieked indignantly and landed him a powerful buffet with her fin.

"Oh! Really, how rude!" it huffed, jerking away from SOS-180. "I've already got a boyfriend, thank you, you crude womanizer!"

SOS-180 jumped back as though a bee had stung his metallic nose, and then the odd red mist clouded his optical sensors again. His voice dropped to a vicious, poisonous hiss.

"will take what we want, will not resist or will die.slice.fish.nice fish.death."

Leia exchanged a puzzled look with her insane new friends. SOS-180 obviously had a few layers underneath his cheerful façade. In a moment, however, as the affronted trout stalked off into the crowd, the red mist receded and SOS seemed to be back to his normal self.

"Well, that wasn't very nice of her, was it?" he observed cheerfully. "I'm not sure I like dinners who talk back."

Seeing the three humans eyeing him strangely, he added, "And sorry about what happened a minute ago, I get odd spells like that sometimes. Part of growing old, eh?" He chortled electronically and shuffled off towards another fish.

"Hang on!" Luke grabbed SOS-180's arm before the android could start inspecting any more fish. "Somehow I don't think these fish are the menu. And besides, you can't eat them, anyway, why bother?"

"Why bother?" SOS chirruped indignantly. "Why, for the life experience, of course-"

"Hello gentlemen, lady." An oversized sea bass in what appeared to be a top hat and tailcoat swept up to them on its muscular fins. It bobbed its wide-mouthed head in a courteous greeting. "Pleased to have you here in our humble establishment. Please, right this way..."

The bass beckoned with one willowy forefin and snatched three menus off the counter with the other. Leia turned to her nutcase companions and shrugged. Seeing as she was already hallucinating, she figured they might as well follow the fish and add a little more interest to the evening. For the "life experience," to quote SOS-180. And the sea life did not seem particularly hostile, with the exception of the trout that SOS had felt up earlier. (She was still shooting dirty glances at the party over her tatty feather boa.) Meeting no apparent objections from her companions, Leia shrugged again and headed off into the crowd after the sea bass steward, Han and Luke close at her heels and SOS-180 clanking noisily several feet behind.

"Here you are folks," the bass said brightly, pulling back a chair at a little round table and motioning for Leia to sit down. Leia plopped into the chair and leaned back gratefully, letting out a long, loud breath. This was just beyond weird. Han glanced at her concernedly as he sat down, perhaps wondering at the source of her anxiety. These hallucination people, she decided, really had no measure of normalcy. Of course, they didn't exist, perhaps she couldn't expect them to.

Abruptly, she realized that the bass was still talking.

"...naturally we're very excited to see you here, we don't get many two- leggers around our place. All seem to think it's odd or something." The fish threw up his fins in a dramatic expression of consternation. "We've no idea why. But at any rate, it's nice to see that some people don't let prejudices cloud their mind when it comes to fine dining establishment."

"Well...well," Leia began timidly, unsure how to inform this extraordinary ichthianoid that, by Earth standards, the entire bar was basically on the level with something a stoned hippie might describe. "Well, I'm not exactly knowledgeable about this galaxy yet, so don't hold it against me, but-you know...I haven't seen all that many bars run by sushi around. No offense," she added hastily.

"None taken." The sea bass bowed again. "We are, in fact, the only true sushi bar in this galaxy or any other. The Yoshimoto is truly unique."

"Ah," said Leia.

"It was a brilliant mistake of evolution." The fish took a deep breath, and all three humans sensed a long story forthcoming. (SOS-180 was too busy trying to ignore the murderous voices in his primary control circuit to sense anything.) "A brilliant mistake, that made the Yoshimoto Sushi Bar what it is today. You see, in the early days of the establishment, several milleniums back, this place was actually a bar where you-ugh!-ate raw fish. And then, one unhappy day, the managing family went on a long vacation, and while they were gone, their spaceship encountered an unfortunate accident involving a white rabbit and some asteroids. At any rate, the Yoshimoto was left completely untended, and one by one the tanks began to leak. We knew that in our present state we could not go on living with the tanks of salt water draining every hour, so some of the wiser fish suggested seeding evolution. The lungfish and mudskippers, as well as the crustaceans, got to breed the most according to the lots, and over a period of time all the fish had evolved into amphibians." The bass drew himself up proudly and puffed out his white-vested chest. "Just goes to show the quick thinking of fish during terrible times. And then, well, evolution enabled us to grow bigger, and bigger, and finally we fish fixed up the old sushi bar and started the place running again. And don't we mix up an excellent tequila, yes sir!"

"Oh," said Leia, feeling rather faint. "Isn't that nice."

"Very lovely story." Luke wiped a tear out of the corner of his eye. Whether it was a real tear, or a fake tear designed to encourage discount prices, was anyone's guess. "I never new fish had such keen minds. Truly exemplary behavior in the face of a looming apocalypse." The fish puffed himself up a little more, now resembling something like a water balloon, except that few people could possibly be so desperately bored as to stick a tailcoat on a water balloon.

"Well, good sir, I must thank you for your compliments. Now, can I get you three anything to drink? As I mentioned-"

"Lemon juice, please," Luke answered instantly, a vaguely manic look in his eye.

"Very well." The bass beamed and turned to Han. "For you, sir?"

"Two margaritas," Han responded with a shrug. "With lime and cherries on the side. And the little flag stuck on top. I collect those little things." He shrugged when Luke eyed him strangely.

"Excellent, sir. And you, madam."

Leia sank back against her chair and closed her eyes, trying to pretend that she was back home in North Dakota.

"Whiskey," she said faintly. "A lot of it."

"Thank you very much." The bass tore off the little slip of paper with their orders and stuck it into his deep coat pocket. "And to thank you for your kind attendance despite our differences, as well as your sensitivity to the history of the bar-" He beamed at Luke again-"I believe I shall give you some sort of discount. How about...mmm...seventy-five percent, hey? Always good to save a little money."

The large fish winked, which was rather odd as he hadn't any eyelids, and trundled off into the crowd.

Leia continued to watch the fish's receding back with an expression similar to that of a rabbit staring into the headlights of a lumber truck.

"Okay," she said finally, turning back to her crazy new friends. "Well, that was interesting, when do I wake up in the nice padded room?"

Han looked at her oddly, as though she were speaking gibberish.

Luke looked at her oddly, as though she were speaking gibberish.

"What's up?" She raised her eyebrows. "You're looking at me oddly, as though I were speaking gibberish."

"I dunno." Luke shrugged. "I didn't get the thing about padding, that's all."

Leia was about to open her mouth to explain to her hallucination all about American mental institutions, but was interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a lot of burly men wearing red crosses on their chests.

The entire bar fell silent in an instant (with the exception of the pounding disco music) and turned to watch the bizarre spectacle. The whole legion of men came pouring through the front door, yelling and clanking in their heavy chain mail. Hundreds of swords suddenly rent the air (and in some cases the ceiling fans) and polished shields reflected the churning disco lights into bar patrons' eyes with exceptional accuracy. Still more interestingly, there seemed to be no end to the tide of armored men. The entire room was filled, as was the lobby and God knew how much of the street outside.

On closer inspection, made possible by the clearing of the clouds of wood shavings, the horde appeared to be chasing someone. At the head of the immense group was a lithe, dark figure, ducking between the knots of fish and apparently running for his life. The warriors pursued, yelling and waving their swords. Of course this just piqued the interest of the audience even further, and when the dark figure elbowed aside two lobsters and leapt up onto the bar-counter the very air seemed to crackle with gossipy excitement.

Then, abruptly, the figure drew a mighty broadsword, thrust its shining blade aloft, and cried, "Stop!"

Instantly the warriors stopped dead and dropped to their knees. The dark man stood on high on the bar above the humbled masses, tall and proud, with his weapon gleaming like some ancient relic in the disco lights. Godly he seemed, and yet terrible, shrouded suddenly in a spray of glittering gold and green drops of what could have been celestial rain. (He had just knocked over a beer, and several margaritas.) For a moment all was consumed by a reverent silence, with the exception of the BeeGees, who obstinately continued to wail, "Stayin' Alive" over the stereo system. But that mattered little to the awe-struck viewers. Even Leia was a little impressed by the sudden epic magnitude of her hallucinations.

Then a great cry rose from the assembled warriors: "All hail, King Arthur! Long live the King!"

The man on the bar sheathed his sword again and buried his rather shaggy head in his hands. A low rumble of frustration was audible even over the obnoxious disco music. After a moment he raised his head again and spread his arms wide to include the whole mass of knights, facing the group with a weary sigh.

"Look, people," he called. "I hate to let you all down, but I am not King Arthur! Period. End of story."

"But you are our King!" the masses cried. "You have drawn the Sword from the Stone. All hail, King Arthur!"

"I am not King Arthur!" the man yelled over the din. "Look, I'm just trying to get back home! I don't want to come and rule all of you nuts from some high tower with some batty old wizard! I already have a batty old wizard to work for. I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, not your Arthur character!"

"But you must be Arthur!" one of the warriors in front called. "There is no other who claims to be king. Besides, Merlin said you were."

"And Guinevere," added another knight from the left.

The man let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't care what Guinevere said about me. I am not her husband; I have a girlfriend back home, anyway. Now if you will all just leave now like nice little crusaders..."

"King Arthur," the mob cried, apparently for lack of any more logical response. "King Arthur!"

The Arthur-lookalike growled again in borderline deadly exasperation.

"LOOK! I did not pull any frikking sword out any frikking rock, and I am not frikking King of frikking Britain! Got it?"

From the yells of the crowd, the warriors hadn't got it at all.

Then, suddenly, a tall figure arose from a knot of fawning females at the back of the room, pushed a shock of blonde hair out of his eyes, and yelled, "Hey, people! Leave the guy alone! Go look for the Holy Grail or something!"

Several thousand pairs of people turned to look at each other. Then,

"The Holy Grail!" they screamed, clashing their weapons together and doing a neat about-face. "The Holy Grail!"

And as quickly as they had come, the crusaders flowed in a red-and- white river out the door.

Instantly the bar burst into a storm of applause, fins thudding on tabletops to a chorus of whistles and cheers. The man on the bar-counter turned a little red, but did a couple of elegant bows to the crowd before leaping off his perch and vanishing into the masses of people. It was still easy to follow his movements, however, by the fish in the area clapping him heartily on the back and calling, "Good show, excellent show, haven't had anything that good in the Yoshimoto for years!" It seemed that he was making his way as quickly as he could for the door, however, and frankly, Leia couldn't blame him. Then, all of a sudden, Han (resplendent in a new jeweled monocle that he had picked up somewhere) stood up and did something very unexpected.

"Hello, mister," he called, waving cheerfully. "Are you feeling out of place, too?" The stranger's head appeared over the broad shoulder of a trout.

"Yes, rather," he responded sourly. "No one else seems to carry a sword around here, except for those British crusader-type nuts."

"Then come on over." Han beckoned him with on splendidly beringed finger. "Join the club. We're all crazy, too."

There was a brief flash of peach, and suddenly a golden bracelet appeared around Han's wrist. It jangled merrily as he waved again.

The dark stranger looked up at the severed ceiling fans, down at his boots, sideways at the door, then, oddly enough turned on his heel and started pushing through the crowds to their table. SOS-180, being of course a tireless android, politely stood up and offered him a chair when he arrived.

The stranger nodded his thanks and plopped wearily down into it, leaning back and crossing his arms across his chest. Now they could get a clearer look at him. SOS-180's eyes took on that strange red glint again as he glanced at the man who had taken his seat, and Leia just barely heard him hiss, "This is the one we were supposed to destroy long, long ago...he has returned to his death...slice..." No one else seemed to pay any attention, however, least of all the stranger, and so Leia shrugged, dismissed it as a slight programming error, and turned back to examine the newcomer. He was a middle-sized man dressed in black, with several types of blades hanging at his waist and strong, callused hands that suggested he frequently used them. Leia's stomach did a funny little double take as she looked at him, despite the fact that he was more than a bit dusty from fleeing his would-be subjects across the Tatooine desert. He had curly dark hair that hung down to his shoulders, peppered faintly with gray, and a neatly cropped moustache and beard. Intense gray eyes were currently rolled upward in lingering exasperation. He was quite a hunk, Leia decided, in a very 1450s sort of way.

The music had switched from disco to Latin, and was now enthusiastically blaring "Copacabana," Leia's number one most disliked song in the entire bloody network of parallel universes.

Now would perhaps be a nice time to start talking.

"Hello," she said to the stranger, trying to ignore the full-sized jackrabbit having a seizure in her stomach. "I'm Leia. Or Leah the Local Beatles Freak, only everybody thought I was the princess of some bizarre planet when I first started hallucinating. They called me Princess Leia. Use whatever's easier to say. Anyway, I'm nuts, and you don't exist, but you know, that's okay."

"She's convinced that the galaxy doesn't exist." Luke finished. "Hi, I'm Luke Skywalker; I have no social skills and a lot of embarrassing problems that even God doesn't know so why do you think I'm going to tell you?"

"Please excuse him." Han swiped a couple of daggers off the stranger's waist without anyone noticing. "He's weird. And I'm Han Solo the...er...well, most people call me the Kleptomaniac in a Sweater. Whatever that means."

"How lovely." The stranger nodded and smiled, perhaps relieved to find people in more of a pickle mentally than he was. "I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, soon-to-be Lord of Gondor, if I ever manage to get home. Pleased to meet you. Did you happen to arrive at this unusual place the same way I did?"

"I don't know," Leia gulped, administering heavy tranquilizers to the critically ill jackrabbit. "Ten years ago I touched a carrot back home in North Dakota and I just sort of got sucked into this place. You?"

Aragorn nodded slowly.

"Yes," he said, "There must indeed be strange powers at work. For I arrived in much the same way as you, only the vile culprit was a turnip." He reached into one of the many pockets in his black hunt-coat and produced a small, very wilted magenta root vegetable. "I was unlucky enough to arrive at the same time as a party of crusaders. They took me for their king." He snorted. "And only based on the word of some batty old fool in a long robe and their highly disreputable-looking queen."

Leia picked up a large rock and put the jackrabbit out of its misery in a last effort to get it to stop kicking. She could see why a woman might want to pretend to be this guy's wife.

And then a strong hand grabbed her by the collar, making her jump out of her skin. (Incidentally, her skin took this as an opportunity for a vacation to Baja, and Leia did not see it again until much later in this unfortunate adventure.) Slowly she looked up, seeing another hand clamped on Han's fur coat, looked up, up, up until she saw the face of her captor.

Upon seeing the corpse of the jackrabbit, a large kangaroo collapsed into a mad nervous fit in her stomach.

Some sort of Greek god must have walked into the Yoshimoto Sushi Bar all of a sudden. Aragorn was completely forgotten. The blonde guy looked down with eyes of stern blue and smiled grimly.

"One from Dakota where beetles sing/ One with a sword claimed by all as a King/ One for whom juice of the lemon is Lord/ One who unwitting steals gems for his hoard." Beatrice looked from one startled face to the other, his voice a mysterious whisper. "Well, well, well, we have ourselves a prophecy."