We apologize ahead of time for any wrongness in this.
Emily (Miss Piratess) and Tracee (her roommate)
Meanwhile, the janitor walked down the hall of the community center with his bucket and mop, whistling a Billy Joel song. It was seven o'clock, and the hero's room needed cleaning. As usual; it was always messy after all the blood that was shed each week.
The janitor jumped when he saw something move in the corner. "Ugh…." It was Frodo Baggins.
The janitor blinked. The meeting was long over. What was Frodo doing here? Was he homeless? Great, all he needed was another vagrant to be slopping up all the social welfare. He dipped the mop into the bucket and swung the dirty, soapy water all over the hobbit. "Hey, Frodo! Wake up!"
No response. He gave the hobbit a kick. Again, no response.
Maybe he was dead. The janitor ran to find Yoda. When they returned, Frodo was still lying in the same fetal position.
"I just found him like this," the janitor said. "He was just lying here, motionless."
Yoda nodded. "Wake him, I will." He waved his hand over Frodo's face. "Awake, you will."
No response.
"Do this the hard way if I must I will!"
No response.
"Feel no regret, I will." At which point, he kicked him.
No response.
"Stupid fat hobbit!" Yoda squealed.
Frodo's eyes fluttered open. "Hey, no fair saying mean things when I'm asleep! Say them to my face, you wrinkly old grey guy!"
Yoda snorted and stalked off. "Fine. I care not if miss your quest you do."
Frodo sat up and looked around. All he saw was a highly confused janitor. His fellow therapy patients were nowhere to be seen. Then he heard a clunking in the hall that sounded rather ominous. Upon going to check it out, he found the group walking back in with blank looks upon their faces.
"Are we back already?" Jake said (who was no longer a hawk.) "I just remember going out the window… They really need to fix that window, it's a bit short. Hey, janitor guy, can you do that?"
The janitor mumbled something about not getting paid enough and left the room.
"So," said Frodo. "Did you guys get everything?"
"How did you beat us back here?" asked Edmund. "That's not fair!"
"Luke forgot him," Rand accused. "Stupid airhead."
"So… Frodo wasn't with us?" Edmund frowned. "Then how did we read the list?"
"Good question." Ender said.
Frodo sighed. "So where are the items?"
"What items?"
"The ones on the list!"
Susan swore. "Men! They never read lists!"
Frodo pulled out the list. "Oh! I had it! Where's the cat?"
The other heroes looked at each other.
"Uh," said Harry. "I guess we didn't get anything done." He gasped. "I've accomplished nothing!"
"Where have you been, then?" Frodo was weary of his group mates. If he had been on the quest…
"We don't remember," admitted Ender.
"Well, let's go through the list and attempt to gather the items so Gandalf won't yell when he returns. I hate it when he yells."
Frodo pulled out his guide and began to write down the list in English so that the rest of the characters could understand it. He made four copies of it and folded up the elvish one and placed it in his pocket.
"Here, lets all look at the list and decide where to start first. I actually would suggest going through it from the beginning to the end, or from hardest to easiest." Frodo said.
"Well, I think I know where we can get a cat and a hat at the same time, as well as the literature." Rand said. "'Cause I can read."
"Ooh, aren't you special," sneered Ender.
Luke snickered.
"Why of course" said Rand, "I am the Dragon Reborn, I am the ultimate hero, I fight for the Creator. Which is a much greater cause than what the rest of you have."
The rest rolled their eyes; they had been through all of this before. There was no point in arguing. They knew they were right and Rand was wrong.
"Off to library," Edmund cried in his mock triumphant voice.
It was a short trip next door. The city library was a happy place full of small children in reading groups. And kind old ladies doing family history research. Jake, of course, felt the need to morph into a rhinoceros and charge through the large, oak double doors. Debris was strewn everywhere.
A brown sister hissed. "Hush, this is a library, not a monster truck rally."
The rhino hung his head in shame.
"I sensed Yeerks" ake said sheepishly when he returned to his normal form.
Emily the angsty college student threw a book at him.
He picked it up and gasped. "Guys look at this: its two things in one." Jake held up the Cat in the Hat by Dr. Suess. He looked remarkably like Indiana Jones as he did so.
Susan swooned. "Oh, Jake! You're so smart!"
"But it was my idea," Rand said, wishing he were as good around girls as Mat and Perrin.
Jim patted Rand consolingly on the back. "Nobody cares."
Then Jim fell asleep in the entrance way, embedding a sliver in his hand.
"Now to find the literature," Ender said. He kicked Jim but Jim was sleeping soundly. Ender decided to let him be. "We can grab him on the way out, I guess."
Frodo frowned; no one remembered him when he was unconscious.
They strolled over to talk to the librarian, Verin.
"What is the greatest, most important piece of classic literature ever written?" Luke asked, trying to be dashing.
"I would say it was...Ethan Frome." She handed them her own personal tattered copy. "I especially like the ending where they are alive but horribly mangled for life. Such inspiration." Verin smiled.
"Thanks, I will cherish it for the rest of my life," Ender said sarcastically.
"Lets show this to Yoda, I think he would know if this is the right book." Susan suggested.
So after waking Jim, they returned to visit with Master Yoda.
"Crap this is, but the Cat in the Hat will work for the first two. Get a different classic book," Yoda said.
"What do you think Gandalf would like?" Harry asked.
"Almost anything but this. And please, nothing by J. K. Rowling."
So the heroes continued on their quest.
Meanwhile, the sidekicks were having their weekly golfing trip. Hermione, of course, was all over Ron. The rest of the girls were hanging on Legolas' every word. Gimli and Bean where trying to attract attention. But there where no hard feelings. There were always castoffs.
Mat swung at the golf ball, trying for a hole in one in order to win his game against Han. He succeeded. "Being Ta'veren has its advantages!"
Perrin tried duplicate Mat's move and missed, but a wolf wandered by and put the ball in the hole for him anyway. Legolas groaned. "Not fair."
The girls nodded in agreement.
The pounding of hooves echoed across the green, and a Unicorn pranced under the rainbow that the automatic sprinklers had created. She reared, then raced into the dark woods as butterflies flew into the air.
Hermione kissed Ron. The other girls sighed.
"The unicorn is not nearly so handsome as you are, Legolas," Lucy said.
Bean sighed. Someday she would realize that Legolas was a player and not nearly good enough for a queen of Narnia, unlike Bean, who was a genius. He decided to ask Sam for tips on girls.
"Hey, has anyone seen Neville?" Nynaeve asked.
"Nope," replied Egwene.
"Must have wandered off again," Elayne said.
Aveindha and Min nodded in agreement. "I wonder how Rand is doing?" Aveinda said.
Gimli made an off-color joke about polygamy. Rand's girls laughed.
The Heroes stood outside of the tall, spooky tower in the park. "I have heard that a Childlike Empress lives here," Luke said. "Do you think an Empress will qualify?"
Jake coughed. "It's a playground toy. And she probably has a Yeerk in her brain anyway."
Everybody else shrugged; it was good enough.
"Empress, Empress, let down your long hair," Jim called out. "Dang, I've always wanted to do that."
Cindy Lou Who peeked out of her Big Toys window. "My hair is short and I am not an Empress! Go away, you creeps!"
"You're not an Empress?" Luke said in shock.
"I am sorry, but your Empress is in another castle," The little Whogirl said. "That's where you want to go." She pointed straight at a tall black castle surrounded by a lava moat and a water moat. A dragon was lounging behind a white picket fence which surrounded the castle.
Jake turned into a hawk to make a closer inspection. The picket fence was made of bones as was the toothpick the dragon was using.
"Seems safe," he told them after returning and becoming human again.
Ender shrugged he had seen worse in a video game.
"Well, then," said Rand, once again taking the lead. They strolled past the happy sandbox and teeter totter to the castle of death and doom.
Luke stared at the magma boiling in the first moat. "Daddy…" he whispered.
Everyone stared.
"Daddy?" Ender echoed. "Listen, Luke. Your daddy doesn't care! Mine didn't! That's why he shipped me off!"
"My father is dead!" Luke cried, falling to his knees. "I'm sorry, I can't go past the lava!"
"Loser," Rand said. "Come on, let's go."
Susan lost all respect she had previously held for Luke.
The dragon lifted his deadly snout to snarl at them, but the sneer quickly turned into a smile as he saw Frodo. "Hey!" he said. "You're Bilbo Baggin's nephew, ain't you?"
Frodo sighed. Why did he always have to be known as Bilbo Baggin's nephew? Did he not have his own identity? And two books more than his uncle? "Yes, I'm Frodo."
"Drogo, yeah," said Smaug the Dragon. "I heard about that. Well, I'm supposed to eat you, but your uncle was a good guy, even though I did want to eat him, so I'll let you guys go ahead. Have a good day, Fred."
"Frodo!" Frodo screamed. "It's Frodo!"
The Heroes passed Smaug and prepared to cross the water moat. Luke was still having a nervous breakdown by the lava.
Jim stared at the water… Water was bad… bad things happened on the water… All the times he had had a gun pressed to his head…
Susan and Edmund exchanged grins, then pushed Jim into the water.
The water was all of one and a half feet deep, but Jim thought he was drowning. "I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!" he wailed, splashing furiously.
"Luke!" Rand called back to the idiot Jedi panicking a few yards back. "Use the Force, please."
"Why do I always have to do everything around here?" Luke called back. "Can't you see I'm having a nervous breakdown? And you guys just ditched me! Make Harry do that Winged sardines levitating…thing."
Everyone looked at Harry.
"No," he said. "Rand, why don't you use that One Power you're always talking about?"
"Because the voices tell me not to," Rand growled. "Jake, turn into a dolphin or something and rescue him."
Jake gave a dejected laugh. "A dolphin in a moat? That's just stupid."
Everyone had to agree to that, even Jim.
Ender shrugged and waved bye to Jim. "We'll be back for you later. Stand up. It's not that deep."
Jim failed to do so.
"The castle gate is down!" Ender screamed. "Hurry! Let's go!"
"It's always down," Smaug tried to tell them.
But he was ignored as the heroes, minus Luke and Jim, charged forth screaming nonsense into the castle waving invisible banners. Mostly because Edmund and Susan insisted it was a very Narnian thing to do. Frodo, being short, was trampled.
Inside the castle was a large, winding staircase of molding and cracked stone. Our Heroes charged up the stairs, save for Frodo who, having short legs and had just been trampled, who just sort of managed to climb up, and Susan, who took the elevator.
At the top of the castle Susan found a girl about her age, but not as pretty and queenly. She was but a Childlike Empress. Not a gorgeous fox like Susan. Well, Jake would still love her, then.
"Hello," said the Childlike Empress. "Would you like some tea?"
Ten minutes after the tea was finished, the men managed to drag themselves up the stairs. Frodo was long gone.
"I think he fell back down the stairs," Rand said apologetically. "Harry refused to use his magic."
Harry threw up his hands. "Fine! Just blame Harry! If the Dark Lord is still running about, it's Harry's fault! If Rand takes everything from the vending machine, it's Harry fault! Harry, Harry, Harry!"
They all looked at Harry sympathetically.
"We're sorry," said Ender, though he didn't seem sorry. "You're just an easy target."
"It's because I have a disfiguring scar, isn't it?"
"Frodo has a scar," Jake pointed out.
"It's not a scar, moron," said Ender. "It's a missing finger." He winked at the Childlike Empress. "Hey… what's your name?"
"You have to give me one, of course," the Childlike Empress replied. "I don't have one."
"Rumplestiltskin!" Edmund shouted!
His sister smacked him. "Wrong fairy tale and wrong gender! How about… Levina?"
"NO!" cried the Childlike Empress in horror. "How about Dorcas after the chick from Seven Brides For Seven Brothers? Wow, but I love that movie."
They all nodded in agreement. No point in fighting the Childlike Empress. She was too pretty to argue with. But not as pretty as Susan, as Susan herself would point out.
"Dorcas it is, then," said Jake. "Let's go, Dorcas."
Everyone giggled.
"What's so funny?" Dorcas asked.
"Oh, this is just way too easy," Susan said, trying to hide the truth. It worked.
The trip back to the community center was, for the most part, uneventful. Except for having to forcefully drag Jim from the water. Just before they returned to the community center, they were crossing at a crosswalk when a large semi-tanker carrying gas and other combustibles came screeching like lightning across the intersection at a dangerously high speed. Just when they thought they would all die, the truck went right over their heads and into the nearest building: the library.
Everyone turned to Luke as the library burst into flames and small children and kind old ladies screamed.
"What?" Luke whined.
"What did you do that for?" Harry yelled. "Now we have to go save them!"
"Not necessarily," said Ender. "Gandalf has been trying to free us from the compulsive need to rescue those even when we do not have the ability to."
"No!" Harry tried to run to the library. "I—must—save—them—" But he was restrained by Rand.
"It's not worth it, Potter," Rand said.
Harry burst into tears.
Dorcas looked bored. "Are we done yet?"
They entered the community center where Yoda was waiting and watching Dorcas with more than mild interest.
"Hey, Yoda," said Luke. "Can you baby-sit our princess while we go finish Gandalf's list?"
Yoda looked Dorcas up and down. "Sure."
"I'm Dorcas," Dorcas extended her hand for Yoda to kiss. Which he did, slobbering all over her hand.
"Beautiful, you are," Yoda said. "Like party games, do you? Twister, I have."
"I love Twister! Play we will!" She waved the Heroes off and slammed the door.
Everyone stared at the door. They were all very disturbed.
"Yoda is making out with the Childlike Empress!" Ender said, looking ill.
Rand whistled. "Go Yoda."
"What does 'making out' mean?" Jim asked innocently.
"We'll tell you when you're older," said Jake, shaking his head.
"I never had a girlfriend," Frodo said sadly.
"What about Sam?" Luke asked.
Frodo looked confused. "He had a girlfriend, and then he married her! Why are you asking?"
"I just thought… never mind."
"So," said Susan. "What's next?"
"I think we should go after the hamburger…"
An hour later, they returned to find Yoda playing Monopoly with Dorcas.
"I thought you guys were playing Twister," Rand said with a grin, nudging Luke.
"Yeah," said Luke. "Twister."
"Boring, Twister was," said Yoda. "Now Boardwalk I own."
"Weren't you going to get the hamburger?" Dorcas asked.
The group exchanged glances.
"I guess we haven't done that yet," Jim said. "Or at least I don't remember."
"Leave that to the end you should," Yoda said wisely.
"I just read a book called "Little Red Riding Hood", the Childlike Empress Dorcas said. "You should go slay the wolf!"
That sounded like a very heroic act, one to accompany rescuing a princess. So they set off toward the Forbidden Forest at a grueling pace. Frodo gave up and took the bus this time.
Will our Heroes slay Red Riding Hood's wolf? What were Dorcas and Yoda REALLY doing? Where is the hell is Neville? And why do we care? These questions and more will be answered in the next really bad installment!
Thanks to all of the folks who actually read (and amazingly enough, enjoyed) this story. (We think you have issues if you enjoy this, but you are appreciated none the less. D)
Amieken
Callisto Green
Frosty Pickle Juice
Holly
Hydraspit
The Missinglink
xPussyWillowKittenx
