Disclaimer: "Yo the name is Batty The logic is erratic Potato in a jacket Toys in the attic I rock and I ramble My brain is scrambled!"
(An: By the bye, after this, I'm going back to my weekend updating schedule since- eep!- school starts September first. Curse you American school system!)
"Ok, ok, we be startin'," Remy says, in the tone of someone who is nursing a hangover.
"Are you always drunk during parodies?" Dani asks.
Remy holds up a finger. The finger goes down after a moment. "Oui.."
So Ororo is still standing on that hill contemplating life, making a point to waste her time, she's walkin' on clouds... of black- There's a skipping sound.
"Ok, who put on de Anna Nalick CD?" Remy demands. (1)
Jamie raises a sheepish hand. "Sorry," he says. "Wrong CD." He puts in a different one, looking embarrassed.
Anyway, she's just standing there when Hank flaps in. "Wave the flag for Hudson High, boys, show them how we stand!" he sings.
"What is he on?" Kurt asks Remy quietly.
"I don't t'ink we want t' know."
"Good point."
Hank lands on Ororo's nose and doffs his cap. "I am a roving gambler, how do you do?"
"So... I actually get to talk now?" Ororo asks.
"Oui," Remy agrees.
"Goody," Ororo mutters. She does some random head movements, and then continues. "Hello butterfly, welcome! Have you traveled very far?"
"How far would I travel, yes sir," Hank says, and we do a close up to see he's wearing a new hat, more in the style of "A Bicycle Built for Two" now. "To be where you are! Clay lies still, but blood's a rover. Red rover, red rover, let Charlie come over!"
All the rest of the cast simultaneously mouths "Who's Charlie?" and then thinks better of asking.
"Won't you come home Bill Bailey, won't you come home?" He hangs on to Ororo's horn, warbling, "My wild Irish rose!"
"...I'm from Cairo..."
"Details, details, my dear," Hank slurs.
"Seriously!" Kurt cries.
"Why are y' takin' such an interest, anyway?"
"Well, you know, being stuck together to a guy for fifteen chapters kind of makes you concerned for him," Kurt replies, shrugging. (2)
"Ah... no, I don't."
Kurt blinks.
"Be a little respectful, butterfly," Ororo replies. "Do you know who I am?"
He slides down her horn. "Excellent! Well, you're a fishmonger!"
"What's a fishmonger?" Jamie asks.
"Somebody who sells fish," Kitty informs him. Everyone stares at him. "I've got an IQ over 120! I'm a freaking genius! Why doesn't anyone ever remember that!"
"Because you're a vapid, mindless Valley Girl in Evo?" Dani replies, inspecting her nails.
Kitty holds up a finger, then blinks. "...Dammit, she's right," she mutters.
"You're my everything, you are my sunshine," Hank goes on. "You are old and gray and full of sleep! You're my pickle-faced consumptive Mary Jane!"
Ororo blinks, obviously trying to see if this works out to be a compliment.
"Spiderman's not making a cameo, is he?" Kurt whispers to Remy.
"It's not on m' clipboard," Remy replies.
SOMEWHERE IN NYC...
Peter Parker blinks. He turns to MJ. "Ever get the feeling that somewhere someone's talking about you?"
MJ just stares at him, and then slowly gives him the WTF eyebrow.
"...Forget I asked."
BACK IN THE STUDIO...
"That was weird," Remy mutters.
"I hope it doesn't happen again," Kurt agrees, and clears his throat meaningfully.
Ororo, however, seems stuck upon getting Hank to say her name. "Say my name, then..." She pauses, hearing music.
"Say my name say my name
When no one
is around you
Say 'Baby, I love you'" (3)
There is a scratching nose, and then the sound of a CD shattering. "NEVER AGAIN!" Rogue yells. "That was a really bad joke, anyway."
"If you know my name," Ororo continues, undaunted, "tell it to me."
"You're really stuck on that, aren't you?" Hank comments, in what will probably be his only moment of lucidity in the whole chapter.
"I s'pose," Ororo comments, and stands a little straighter. "After all, Ororo does mean beautiful." (4)
"Yeah," Remy agrees, "in some random, probably-made-up-just-for-Marvel African language."
Ororo gives him the evil eye... it's not really effective. She's a unicorn, after all.
Hank goes back to being nuts. "Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart," Hank intones, clutching his chest.
(Forge does not look pleased at this suggestion of Hank/Ororo.)
"I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name."
"Say it, if you know!"
"Rumplestiltskin, gotcha!"
Ororo shakes her head. "I should know better than to expect a silly butterfly to know my name... well he is apparently one of my only friends!"
Hank bounces around on some flowers, apparently getting even more drunk. "One, two, three, O'Leary!"
Ororo ducks her head down by the flowers. "Butterfly," she begs (carefully avoiding the flowers lest she end up like Hank), "in all your wanderings, have you seen others like me? Have you seen even one?"
Hank breaks out into a little midair jig. "Oh, have you seen the muffin man, the muffin man!"
"I thought it was the Gumbo man," Pietro mumbles. (5)
"We're DONE with that parody, we've BEEN done for weeks," Sam says. "...and thank God for that."
"There's still Redneck Shrek Two, you know," Bobby points out.
"What're you excited about? You're gonna be a donkey again. A donkey who gets no love."
Bobby blinks, finding no forthcoming response to this. "...I want Mr. Cuddles..." (6)
Jubilee facepalms and drags him off.
"Butterfly, even one?" Ororo asks. "Tell me that you saw only one!"
"One?" Hank asks, holding up a poorly drawn finger. "One alone to be my own!" Then, of course, he ruins the moment, donning an aviator's cap and making airplane noises. "Buckle down, wind sock, buckle down!" He flutters over Ororo's head, advising her to "Go and catch a falling star."
"It serves me right for even asking you," Ororo mutters, walking away. "All butterflies know are songs and poetry and anything else they hear. I guess you mean well... fly away, butterfly."
She walks over by one of the lilac bushes, and Hank catches a ride on one of the falling leaves. "Oh Iiii must take the X-jeeeet!"
"Is it fixed, then?" Bobby asks.
"Any more joyrides, kid," Logan says, holding up a rather battered bear, "an' Mr. Cuddles here gets it."
Bobby squeaks and shuts up, rocking back and forth and humming to himself. Jubilee backs away slowly, and then books for the exit. "To hell with this! I'm not even in this parody!" She runs up to the door... and smacks into it.
"You have to open it first, you know," Rahne comments. (7)
Hank now dons a red captain's cap, saying, "Oh I am a cook and a captain bold and a mate of the Nancy Brig," as the leaf lands on the water. "Has anybody here seen Trishy?" he inquires as he flaps back up by Ororo.
"Who's Trishy?" Jamie asks.
Remy opens his mouth but Kurt cuts him off. "I'm telling you, you don't want to know. Remy, you shouldn't have told me, and I'm telling you, you don't wanna know." (8)
Jamie blinks, not getting the reference.
"I hope you hear many more songs," Ororo says. "I must find someone who knows me, who has seen others like me."
Hank appears to snap out of his crazy mood, intoning, "Unicorn. Old French,unicorn. Latin, unicornus. Literally one horned," Hank goes on, and now he's wearing a mortarboard. He adjusts his glasses. "Unis, one, and cornu, a horn. A fabulous animal resembling a horse with one horn, visible only to those who search and trust, and generally mistaken for a white mare. Unicorn."
"I think somebody's been memorizing the dictionary again," Ororo sighs.
"It makes great bedtime reading!" Hank slurs. "All those nouns and adjectives and... what're those things?"
Ororo deadpans. "Words?"
"Yeah, that."
Ororo rolls her eyes. "Oh!" she gasps. "You do know me! Please, all I want to know is if you've seen other unicorns like me, somewhere in the world."
"See you later, alligator!" Hank replies. "Close cover before striking!"
"Butterfly, have you seen the others?" Ororo asks, apparently taking this as a good sign. "Where have they gone? Tell me which way I must go to find them."
Hank apparently loses his lucidity... or is posessed... or something.
"We need a young priest and an old priest!" Kurt cries. "Somebody get the holy water! Hank's gone nuts!" (9)
"...And that's different... how?" Remy asks. "Sorry, I was obligated by contract; I had t' say it. Obligatory Skysong crack."
Anyway, he talks differently. "No, no, listen. Don't listen to me, listen."
We see Ororo, with the butterfly's shadow on her face.
"You can find the others if you are brave." His shadow flaps down a road that appears in the sky as he narrates. "They passed down all the roads long ago, and the Orange Bull ran close behind them and covered their footprints."
"The Orange Bull? What is the Orange Bull?" Ororo asks.
"About five seven," Remy says, "and datin' Wanda."
Kurt smacks him. "We're not supposed to tell who the Orange Bull is until we get to that part!"
"As if dey haven't guessed," Remy replies breezily, but shuts up.
Hank does a kind of backing up shuffle in midair. "Hold tight, hold tight, hold tight hold tight!" He lands on the ground, and gives himself ox horns with his fingers. "His firsting bull has majesty, and his horns are the horns of a wild ox. With them he shall push the unicorns, all of them, to the ends of the earth!" He flaps back up again, seeming to become unposessed.
Kurt glances over at the priests, getting a little nervous grin. "Uh... that's ok.. you can go home..."
"We're still getting paid for this, right?"
"Uh... sure..."
The priests leave.
Remy stares at Kurt. "Dude, you are so weird."
Kurt looks at Hank and then back at Remy. "What's your basis for comparison?"
"Listen, listen, listen quickly!"
Hank starts to fly off and Ororo dashes after him. "I am listening! Where are the other unicorns and what is the Orange Bull?"
"Listen, listen!" Hank cries, and starts to laugh. "The king is in the counting house, counting out, counting out, counting!" He flies off, and the last thing we hear is "It's you or me, Moth. Hand to hand to hand to hand..."
"We'd, uh, better go find him, huh," Kurt says.
"Not yet, we're almost done," Remy responds.
He said I could find the other unicorns, Ororo thinks, again on that hill being introspective. But where? Or was the story of the Orange Bull just another one of his songs?
Apparently, she spent all day on that hill, again, because when we pan across the forest it's dark. Oh, I could never leave this forest... but I must know if I am the only unicorn left in the world! Suppose... they are hiding together, somewhere far away.
"Do you like her because she's a conspiracy theorist?" Kurt whispers to Forge, who gives him an evil look.
"Ah thought it was Far, Far Away," Sam comments.
Rahne kicks him. "We've used up our quota of Redneck Shrek jokes for this chapter! Shut up, ye daftie!"
Ororo doesn't seem to hear this, of course. What if they're waiting for me, in need of my help?
"Uh-oh," says Remy, looking at his clipboard.
"What?" Kurt asks.
"We need Hank for the eery foreboding in this next bit," Remy explains.
Kurt pulls a butterfly net seemingly from nowhere. "Let's catch us a scholar!" he says, doing a lock and load movement.
TEN MINUTES, THREE BUSTED BUTTERFLY NETS, AND LOTS AND LOTS OF UNECESSARY HASSLE LATER...
"I got him..." Kurt gasps.
Hank giggles and cries "Whee!" again.
"Good job, mon ami," Remy agrees. Then he blinks. "Although, now that I think of it, we could've just used de recordin' of Hank's voice..."
Author: I DID say it was unecessary hassle.
Kurt gives him a death glare.
Ororo cocks her head as Hank intones, "They passed down all the roads long ago, and the Orange Bull ran close behind them and covered their footprints." We see some more unicorns (not black) run by... in Ororo's imagination, of course. Ororo shakes her head and whinnies. She runs down a path and out of the forest. She pauses at the beginning of the road, looking angsty and stuff.
"ANGST!" Kurt yells, delighted. (10)
Ororo glances behind herself, and we see a bunch of random animals... including a pair of dodos.
"Those're the extinct flightless bird of Canada!" Logan cries. (11)
Ororo starts down the path, ignoring the imploring gaze of the dodos... and all those other random animals, of course. I must go quickly, and come back as soon as I can.
"You can find the others," Hank advises, from his butterfly net, "if you are brave."
"Foreboding AND angst," Kurt agrees.
"Did y' hit your head or somethin'?" Remy asks him. "'Cause suddenly you're a lot more annoying than normal."
Kurt is Not Amused.
"D'accord, people, that's a wrap," Remy says, and leans in towards the camera. "Don' y' just love random French?"
(Of course we do. Review! ...gah, verse!)
(1) That bit is modified lyrics from "Citadel" by Anna Nalick... I was listening to the CD at the time, so sue me!
(2) This, of course, is a reference to my last parody, "Quest for Sanity," in which Kurt and Hank play the two-headed dragon Cornwall and Devon.
(3) Some song by Destiny's Child to which I sang along when I was nine or so.
(4) It does... according to Marvel.
(5) Reference to probably my favorite bit in "Redneck Shrek." "The Gumbo man... who lives on Creole lane?"
(6) Another QFS ref... Bobby has a teddy bear named Mr. Cuddles, which people frequently steal and/or hide.
(7) X-Band ref, naturally.
(8) Paraphrased from Atlantis: The Lost Empire... GOD I love that line.
(9) The first line Kurt cries is from "Austin Powers: the Spy who Shagged Me," I b'lieve. One of them, anyway.
(10) Just to round it out, a third QFS ref... Kurt somehow has gotten into the habit of screaming "ANGST!" whenever an angsty bit comes up.
(11) From Fairly Oddparents.