Disclaimer: "EAT MORE BEAVER!"
(An: Time to begin anew. Yayz.)
As our scene opens Pietro catapaults himself into the throne room using an elevator... WTF? Mags is sitting on a little cushion, moaning to himself. "Oh great King Mags, have no fear. Pietro, your grand vizier, is here!"
"Death and destruction, Pietro! My kingdom will come to destruction and death!" Mags clutches his beard and moans some more.
"Be calm, serene highness. You must catch your breath! What dawn of disaster? Why speak you of death?" Pietro looks oddly cheerful for a matter so grave... but then again he is a sick little bastard. "HEY!"
"I've had a dream- a nightmare- no! A vision! A vision of invasion by a race of mulleted men!"
Author: -cough cough- Avalanches! -coughcough-
We switch to Remy, who is holding his bo staff like a pole vault... pole. He looks up apprehensively at the giant mineret that holds the golden balls. "You know, it's funny nobody ever tried dis before, if all dat stands between dem and gold is a really, really tall tower. All right, sports fans, we switch you now to the world-champion pole-vaulting event. Marv, it's an excellent day. The field's not too wet, there's a light wind blowing from the east, and if he doesn't get his smock caught in the pole, he could really go for the gold!" He runs up to the wall, but misses his chance and smacks into the wall, the pole jabbing into a very sensitive place."OWW! He blew it!"
Author: Wonder if that'll give him brain damage... Honestly, there're so many rude jokes I could make involving the golden balls...
Back to Pietro and Mags, where poor Pie is trying to soothe Magneto.
"Now, excellent majesty, ruler supreme, I can safely assure you, a dream's just a dream!"
And back to Remy again, who's trying to pole vault again. "All I can say is dat better not happen again."
Author: At least there aren't any bones -cough- down there...
"You have a sick mind, do you know that?" Storm asks, looking disgusted.
Author: -smirks-
"Oh, I tell you, he's something else. The fact that he's hurting- every bone in his body broken- look at him move, look at him move, oh, oh, yeah, there he goes, he's up, there he is, there he goes, he's up, he's up, oh, oh, look at that form, Marv," this time he actually makes it up on the pole, but only halfway on the tower, "he's reaching, he's reaching, he's stretching, his long, bony but beautiful toes are grasping for the brick, aaah..." And then he starts to fall back down again. We see Piotr filing away at his bars... where'd he get the file? Anyway, he sees Remy and is naturally quite confused. "Huh?"
"Oh, rats..." And Remy falls back down again.
Magneto is still ranting and raving from his cushion, and Pietro is still trying to calm him.
"I saw it, I tell you!"
"Calm down, your highness. Invanders? Mulleted? But this is against what has been prophesied! Hey, that didn't rhyme!"
Author: It did, but Lance has two eyes, as opposed to King One Eye. His distinguishing feature is his mullet... or that fruit bowl he wears.
Lance: -offstage- IT'S A HELMET, DAMMIT!
Pietro shrugs and goes on. "For has it not been written that we are safe from any threat, as long as those three golden balls are on the mineret?" He gestures out the window at the mineret, which they can just see. Of course, they don't see Remy, who is back on the ground.
Speaking of Remy...
Remy is giving it another shot. "Well, Marv, his father, twenty years on the force, instilled in him the attitude of 'Never say die'..." He almost makes it, but then his pole bends and he starts sliding down. "But frequently say 'help!'"
From Kitty's window, you can apparently see the mineret as well, since we view Remy falling off through it. "Where could Tack be, nanny?" Kitty asks, paying the poor theif no mind. "Well, he did, like, spy on me naked!"
"AND IT WAS MIND-SCARRING!" Remy yells from the courtyard.
"He left without a word! And he stole your shoe!" Mystique replies, angrily gesticulating with her flimsy glasses.
"Well, something's happened to him, I just know it!"
"What's so special about this cobbler anyway? I just don't see it."
"Well, you need new glasses."
Back to Mags and Pietro...
"AAAH! What if the balls are taken awaaaay!" Magneto gets really agitated now, and rises up off his cushion.
Pietro tries to get him to sit back down."A way has never been found to take them away! What freak of nature could ever get up to the top of that mineret?"
Back to Remy, who is giving it yet another try.
Author: Apparently, that freak of nature.
"HEY!"
Storm snickers. "You set yourself up for that."
He gets up high enough this time... maybe a little too high, because he just misses the balls.
Author: That sounds wrong, ok? Actually, a good bit of this chapter referring to the balls sounds wrong... ick.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, no!" Piotr, halfway done, sees him fall, and then slide down a tower with a corkscrew-like ramp. He goes flying, yelling incoherently, and bounces off about ten awnings before flying into an open window. "So many awnings!" He ends up with several potted plants, and then loses them all as he goes through the last. A women screams as he peers back over his shoulder, a rose in his mouth. "Was dat... Rogue?"
Author: Yep.
Remy moans and says something that's undoubtedly quite rude in French.
"I thought you said he couldn't have Rogue," Storm says, cocking her head.
Author: Yes, well, I recanted because I decided to make The Last Unicorn Kurtty.
"Oooh, naughty!" He hits another awning, still over the moon, and then lands hard on the ground. Dazedly, he walks around a second before collapsing. "Well, Marv, this concludes our pole-vaulting event, now let's move on to the floor exercises..."
Back again, back again, to Pie-pie and Mags.
Magneto is apparently almost all the way soothed now, because he's sitting down again and looking a tad sleepy. "I just... have this... funny feeling..."
Somehow, Remy has gotten to the wires that connect The Tower to another tower.
Author: Is it the Dark Tower!
"Hmmm... finally, I benefit from my parents being circus people... WHAT!"
Author: It makes no sense. Better not to ask. Remy shakes his head and uses his bo staff to balance. "I hate heights..." He makes a lot of incoherent mumbling and rambles to himself in his Inner Monologue while trying to cross. "Rule number one: keep your eye on the wire and have feet like a monkey. Rule number two: It's always good to wear underwear when you're up this eye. Otherwise you attract a sizeable crowd. That brings us to rule number three. Rule number three- oh, what's rule number three? I always forget rule number three. Rule number one: eyes and feet, rule number two: underwear. I think rule number three has something to do with not doing this!" The wire begins to rock dangerously back and forth. "Or this! Or-or probably this! Oh yeah, rule number three! Throw down the stick and run like hell! Cool! I'm de first one who gets t' swear!" There's more incoherent mumbling as he drops his staff, and makes a kamikaze run all the way to the tower.
And we're with Piotr again, who has filed his way to freedom. "Finally I was free. But freedom wasn't enough. I had to get to the princess!" He pulls himself out.
There's still more incoherent mumbling back with Remy as he climbs the top of the tower. There's quite a bit of butt-wiggling and scrabbling involved. "Hmm, oh, wow! Phew." He grabs the pole supporting the balls and stands up, managing not to slip on the slick surface. He strikes a pose, grinning. "Ok, ok, who's got the camera?"
Piotr (and his albino mouse pal) are now out of the thing, but there's still that ball-and-chain to deal with.
Author: Honestly. For a G rated movie there's enough sexual imagery to gag a horse. A big one. Imagine what Freud would do to it!
The ball (gah) sticks. "Hmm?"
Remy works the first and smallest ball free. "You're gonna buy me a castle by the sea!" He sticks it between his legs... oh man that's a bad image. He does the same with the second. "And you're gonna buy me everything I need to turn the basement into a rec room!" He pulls the last, and biggest, ball free and almost drops it. "And with you, oh, I tell ya, sweetheart, I'm going to Disneyland!"
Piotr and his friend (what say we call her Matilda?) are now working on the ball-and-chain problem. He pulls out one of his Everpresent Tacks (that make useful dues ex machina) and pick the lock with it. "Who needs a genie, when a tack will do the trick?"
And another thing with Pietro and Mags. Now Pie's trying to get Magsy to sleep, completely oblivious to Remy, who is trying to make off with the balls. Easier said than done. "DAMN STRAIGHT!"
"These people are quite unobservant, aren't they?" Storm asks.
Author: Yep.
"It's not time to get up, too early to rise. Too early to open the king's sleepy eyes." Magsy begins to drowse.
"Gotcha!" Remy think-murmurs as he grabs the last golden ball before it slides off the tower. He begins to make his precarious way across the wire. "I'm gonna die!"
Author: Actually, you don't. Evan does!
Evan rides in on his poor, completely exhausted horse. "Hey, I'm bleeding to death here, and you care about my horse!"
Author: Well... yeah!
"Determined to warn King Mags. the fearless scout finally made it to the golden city."
"Home again, home again, jiggety jiiiiig!" Remy just about makes it into the adjacent tower, and then drops his balls... oh, man, that sounded wrong. They clang down the tower, smashing out of the stained glass windows. Remy rolls out of the doorway, looking pained. "Y' damn right I'm pained!"
Meanwhile, the balls clang around like gigantic metal superballs, scattering people everywhere in the courtyard.
"What's all the commotion about?" Then of course a ball bounces in front of Remy. "I didn't do it! I'll be goin' now..."
"Wake up, wake up father! Something's happening!" Kitty cries, running into Magneto's room. Apparently he's now acquired star patterened curtains, because she has to run through them to get to him. She shakes him awake.
"Is this opportunity ringing?" Pietro murmurs.
"Hurry!" Kitty cries, leading her father down the stairs.
"I think there are some balls you should be bringing," Pie whispers to the Courtiers, who nod eagerly. He grins angelically at King Mags, then continues. "Get those balls, keep out of sight! Bring them to me, late tonight!"
Spyke rides in, gasping for breath. His horse gives up and collapses, and he strides over it, seeming not to notice.
The Courtiers slide into the courtyard by way of a revolving wall.
"If they had this kind of technology, why couldn't they just get bazookas and blast the Lance Clones?" Jason asks.
Author: Good question.
"The balls!" one of the Courtiers cry.
"Ava..." Spyke stammers, unable to prounounce the rest of the word.
At the courtyard, Piotr and Matilda peer around the tower, seeing the Courtiers collect the bouncing balls... ugh.
"Ava... Avalanche!" Spyke cries, back in the throne room.
"Avalanche?" Pietro asks, cocking his head.
"Is coming!" Spyke adds, bobbing his head.
"Avalanche?" Kitty asks, looking equally confused.
"Avalanche!" Magneto cries, and runs over to the window that shows the mineret, seeming not to notice Spyke collapsing on the floor. "Well, yeah, he's an idiot!"
Author: For once, I agree with you.
"The dream- the nightmare!" He screams. "The balls! The balls are gone!" Pale as a ghost, he starts running around in all-out panic mode. "My kingdom will come to destruction and death!" Completely random thunder and lightning start as the storm that's been over the Impressionistic Hills moves in.
Piotr edges along a wall, tucking Matilda into his pocket, as some soldiers walk by, clad in shiny white uniforms. King Mags is apparently having a meeting, as he's leaning out of his balcony and talking to his armies and people. "My loyal generals! My brave soldiers! The three golden balls have gone!" Of course, the Courtiers are making their way along at just that second, the balls badly concealed beneath their robes.
Author: They win no prizes for ingenuity.
The people gasp and scream and what-not. "Our city faces invasion! The mighty Avalanche is coming!"
Remy pokes his head between the Random Card-Like Soldiers and grabs the uniform of one of them. "And I'll be going!"
"Take up your positions with my b-blessing!" King Mags coughs.
"Long live King Mags! Long live King Mags!" The people cheer and chant, even though he hasn't really done anything.
Remy grabs some green Mardi Gras beads from his own pocket. "Ooh..." he says, tucking them into a pocket. "Can I keep dese?"
Author: Once again, knock yerself out.
Cue the Three Courtiers, who come along. They keep dropping the balls and making loud, anything-but-inconspicuous clangs. "Make way!"
"Coming through!"
"Woman with a baby!"
"Hmm, babies don't go clang..." Remy murmurs, following.
"The princess needed my help," Piotr narrates, as his on-screen counterpart (and Matilda) finds the hidden door and heads after them. "I was the only one she could trust. From this point on there was no turning back."
"Aaah! I'm so hungry I could eat a vegetarian!" Todd squawks, flapping into Pietro's Secret Vulture Lair (tm).
Author: That was -so- not funny.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, what a delight!" Pietro takes the balls from the Courtiers as Todd swoops in, none too gracefully.
"You miss me?" In response, Pie knocks him off the table. "I'm calling the Humane Society!" Todd grumbles, climbing atop the globe.
"We'll let this be our little secret... All right?" Pietro uses that all-powerful stick to poke all Three Courtiers simultaneously, while Todd sticks his tongue out at him.
Author: Very juvenile.
"But it's also pretty satisfying, yo!"
"Uh-oh, Pietro!" Piotr murmurs.
"I'll rule the land after one little thing! Now that I've got the balls, I will go see the king!"
Apparently, Pietro, Piotr, and Remy are all walking the same black-and-white hallway, because Remy comes along at just that moment. "Must be hard to always talk in rhyme!"
Pietro enters a room through a wall patterend with interlocking P's, where King Mags is sitting, scowling."Have no fear, Pietro, your grand-"
"You're here, Pietro, but where are the balls?" he inquires desperately. If you really pay attention, you see Mags smack Pietro right where it hurts with an offered hand.
Author: Can you feel your brains draining away, Pie?
"Magicked away, my lord!" Pietro pronounces gravely, recovering well from the slight brain damage. "I know what you're insinuating, and it's NOT TRUE!"
Author: Methinks the man doth protest too much.
"Magicked away? Oooh, no!"
Apparently, Remy looks a lot like a bird statue, because he hides as that while overhearing their conversation.
"You mustn't look so tragic! I am not unschooled in magic!
"You mean- you?"
"Alakazam!" There's a big flash of yellow smoke. "Observe!"
"Well, look at that... hmm!" Pietro spins the balls around in the cover of the smoke, letting Magneto glimpse them before poofing them away with a flash of golden sparklies. "Well, that's something!"
"You see, I can restore you the gold balls though they be lost."
"I'll give you anything, Pietro! Just do it!"
"As my peril will be dire, you must grant my heart's desire!" Pietro continues, going very pale and then very red.
Author: It's a lot weirder considering as how his skin is blue to begin with.
"What is it?"
"I require, sire, your daughter Kitty, to wed!" He goes very red again, his eyes heart-shaped, and interlocks his fingers.
"You! Worthy of my daugther? A practicioner of the black arts?" Mags begins to laugh. "No! She can only marry a man pure of heart! You will never marry her, never! Not in a thousand years!"
Author: It's odd that he finds this so funny considering how freaked out he was a few minutes ago.
Pietro storms out, going down another random black-and-white-plays-with-perception hallway. "We'll see who wins at the end of the day! We'll see who ends up grieving! I'll go to the one eyes right away! I'm taking the balls and leaving!" Piotr is going down the same one to end up near the throne room.
"Oh, my kingdom! What's to become of it? How could I defend the city against- wait! The witch!" He snaps his fingers. Apparently Kitty's in the room now, and she's watching with rapt attention. "She will have the answer!"
"Who? What witch? Who is she?" Kitty asks.
"King Avalanche's twin sister, the bearer of his other eye!"
"Wait," Kitty says. "Lance, like, has a twin sister?"
Author: Course not, this is just an attempt to lengthen and dramatize the movie.
"Only she uses hers for the forces of good! She won't see just anyone, and I can't trust Pietro... Oh, if only I had a son!" Piotr and Remy edge along the hallways leading to the throne room... yes, in the movie it is this confusing.
"A son? Nonsense! Where do I find this witch?" Kitty asks.
"In the desert, at the- what? You? Never! Much too dangerous!"
"Father, I'm smarter than any man in this city!" Kitty pauses. "Damn straight!" Beside her, Mystique, who apparently is in the room as well, blinks placidly up at everyone else.
"Old and short. This sucks."
"And faster than your clumsy henchmen!" Kitty asks.
"I have henchmen in this?" Magneto asks, getting a diabolical glint in his eye.
Author: No! Bad car part! Down!
Remy peeks out from behind a potted plant as Mags continues. "But you're so young! So- so-"
"So anxious! So excited! So ready to make you proud! You must trust me! There is no one else!"
Magneto rambles on in the background as Remy tries to pry himself from the plant.
Author: Funny, you'd think someone would notice...
"My little princess. I hardly know you. So brave. Just like your dear mother was. Very well. You will go. Look here." He pulls out a Random Pointer Stick and points to a Random Wall Map or the Desert. "Seven leagues out into the desert you will find the fabled Hands of Glory. At the very top dwells the witch! Below the mountain sits a golden idol-"
"Gold?" Remy asks, with a cha-ching sound.
"With a gigantic ruby-"
"Ruby?" Ditto.
"In the middle of its forehead. When the sun is directly overhead, the reflection from the ruby points to a hidden door. Only at that time will the mountain reveal the secret of the hidden door." Remy dashes along the hallway, cackling cheerfully to himself. "But oh, Kitty, the desert is rife with robbers, crawling with cutthroats, and at worst, broiling with brigands! And you could get lost!" Piotr walks in.
"Then I'll take a guide."
"You may have any man in the kingdom."
"Him, father." Kitty points at Piotr.
"Him? The cobbler?"
"Yes. I need someone I can trust."
Remy, muttering to himself, edges along the hallway, then catches sight of himself in the glossy walls."AAAH!" He runs off. "Dat's not funny!"
"So be it. The cobbler shall help you."
Author: And that's a rap. Quite a bit of back and forth dialogue in that chapter. Hopefully noone's confused...
"I'm confused!" Remy yells. "How is it dat me, Pietro, and Piotr were always in the same part o' de castle? And why would I run off at m' reflection!"
Author: All very good questions. Alas, we're done for the day.
"But-"
(And that's that, people. Review!)
