"Duffano!" squealed Stephano, launching herself at her partner.
"GAH! Why are you so perky?" shouted Duffano, shoving Stephano into a chair.
"Because we forgot the disclaimer last time."
"Oh sure, bring attention to it, why don't you? And why would that make you happy?"
Stephano struck what I'm sure she thought was a bad ass pose. "Because I'm bad to the bone. And I enjoy copyright infringement."
"Uh-huh… right. Stop standing like that, you'll scare the children," Duffano ordered.
"What children?" Stephano wanted to know.
"My children."
"You don't have any kids."
"Well that pose is so bad that some of the suckiness is bleeding into the future and boring out my children's brains. Now stop it."
Stephano pouted, but stopped. "Hey, don't we usually end up introducing the chapter theme in our ridiculously long Author's Note?" she asked.
Duffano shrugged. "I guess. I can't really think of any. They usually develop later on in the chapter though…"
"But it usually stems off of whatever happened in here, right?"
"Yeah, I think… well I certainly hope your poses aren't going to be the theme for this chap-" Duffano stopped short, realizing what she had just said. "Oh, no. No, come on, Stephano, don't do poses the whole time!"
Stephano was grinning evilly, but said, "Whatever are you talking about, Duffano? Why would I pose a lot?" She carefully arranged herself in an uncomfortable looking position in her chair.
"There! See, you're making it the theme already!" Duffano shouted.
"Either that or your paranoia will be the theme," Stephano replied calmly.
Duffano opened her mouth to protest, and realized Stephano might be right.
Stephano smiled smugly, and said, "Blah blah blah, you know the drill. We don't own this. New Line and the Tolkiens own this. More power to them. We just make fun of it in a vaguely legal manner."
Chapter 8
Gandalf pulled through two parking spots in the Subway's parking lot, and parked the limo. He turned around to look at his passengers. "Well… we're here," he said. "Everyone out."
The Fellowship sighed in an oddly similar manner, and exited the limo. Gandalf pulled Frodo aside, claiming he needed Frodo's help getting something out of the trunk.
"We're not bringing that drag, are we Gandalf?" Frodo wanted to know. "Because I think Pippin would start prancing and giggling nasally whenever he talked to you if we did."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Gandalf demanded.
"Erm… nothing," Frodo said.
"Right, well I wanted to warn you. I think you're in danger."
"Um… duh."
"FROM WITHIN, FRODO, FROM WITHIN!" Gandalf screamed suddenly.
Frodo jumped, and decided that the best course of action was to just nod and smile. So he nodded, smiled, and ran to catch up with the others as they were hurrying down the steps into the Subway Station.
"NOT THAT WAY, YOU FOOLS!" Gandalf yelled.
The other men jumped and turned to stare at him. "Why not?" demanded Boromir.
"It's too conspicuous!" Gandalf said impatiently, as if this should be obvious. "We have to go around the back!" Beckoning mysteriously, he led them around the building and through a dense thicket of thorns.
"OW!" screamed Frodo as an inch-long thorn attempted to pierce his hand. "Gandalf, are you certain this is the only safe way in?"
"Yes!" Gandalf replied insistently. "Even plumbers have trouble getting to their entrances!"
"This recalls the pressing question," Pippin said irritably, nursing a nasty scratch on his hand, "why the hell are we going through THIS door?"
Gandalf finally pushed through the final layer of thorns. The Fellowship stumbled through the thicket to gather around him, panting and ragged. Gandalf tugged at the handle. The door stayed closed. He tugged again. Still nothing. Gandalf began cursing and wrenching the doorknob in an attempt to open it.
"I don't think it's open," Pippin muttered to Legolas.
"I have the key somewhere in here," Gandalf muttered, rifling through his pockets.
"What if you lost it?" Pippin inquired curiously.
"Then we'll feed you to the thorns."
"Why?"
"Because I want to. DRAT! I don't have it."
"Um… Gandalf?" Frodo said uncertainly.
"What, Frodo? I'm rather preoccupied right now," Gandalf snapped impatiently.
"It's just… um," Frodo said tentatively, turning the doorknob and pushing in.
Gandalf stared at the open doorway, his eye twitching. An hour passed before anyone had the nerve to disturb him. "Um… Gandalf?" Aragorn prodded gently.
"WHAT?" Gandalf roared. Apparently an hour was not enough time for him to cool off.
"Are we going to go in? It's just… you know, that Saruman is still after us, and the butterflies-"
Aragorn was cut off at this point by Merry and Pippin snickering uncontrollably. Everyone sent them nasty looks, which just made them snicker harder. Boromir hit them over the head and Gandalf led the Fellowship inside.
After several properly tense minutes of sneaking around, made worse by Merry and Pippin making sexual references to every position and setting they found themselves hiding in, the Fellowship stood before the turnstiles leading onto the loading platforms. Merry and Pippin began frolicking amongst the strangely empty turnstiles. Aragorn threw a conveniently placed ambiguous object of correct throwing weight at them.
Stephano poked Duffano in the shoulder. "What?" Duffano snapped.
"Why are we so quiet?" Stephano whispered.
"Because you're obnoxious and have nothing interesting to say."
"You're just trying to avoid a theme."
"And if I am?" Duffano demanded.
Stephano smiled serenely. "Then your avoidance will become the theme." Suddenly dropping her calm façade, Stephano went into a fit of maniacal laughter. "YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE THEMES! BWUHAHAHA!" She then proceeded to fling herself about in overly dramatic poses.
Duffano rolled her eyes and went back to writing.
The entire Fellowship made it through the turnstiles, and turned to look back at Frodo. Frodo had been distracted by a conveniently placed-
"Are we conveniently placing everything?" Stephano wanted to know, as she conveniently placed herself in a showgirl pose.
"Yes, now shush," Duffano ordered.
Frodo had been distracted by a conveniently placed, ambiguous object of sufficient luster to-
"We're being ambiguous this chapter," Stephano observed.
"Why look, a conveniently placed frying pan!" Duffano shouted, grabbing the frying pan.
"No, no," Stephano admonished. "That's a randomly appearing frying pan."
Duffano's eye twitched, and she began beating Stephano with the randomly appearing frying pan. After Stephano had been reduced to a sobbing pile of humanity in the corner, Duffano sat down once again to write.
In short, Frodo had been distracted by something shiny. And now he was separated from the Fellowship by the turnstiles. Hurriedly, he started through the turnstiles.
At least, he tried. The turnstiles malfunctioned and wouldn't turn. In fact, they began turning backwards. Frodo started screaming. "Help me!" he screamed, trying to climb over the rotating metal bars. "Help me help me help me help me help me help me help me help me help me help me help me!"
The Fellowship began screaming as well, but incoherently and probably profanely. All eight of them rushed to the turnstiles but lacked the coordination to do anything productive to help Frodo. The security guard started out of his plexi-glass booth, frowning.
"DO SOMETHING!" Frodo screamed at Aragorn.
Aragorn pulled out his shotgun. Everyone in the station dove for cover. Aragorn shot the security guard for gratuitous violence, and then shot the turnstiles several times. Frodo, shaking madly, scrambled through the stilled turnstiles. "Um… thanks," he said, eyeing Aragorn warily.
Aragorn shrugged and discharged the empty shells onto the floor. "No problem."
A random bystander stood up and shouted, "You homicidal bastard! You just shot the security guard!"
Aragorn shrugged, and shouldered past the shocked Fellowship. "Well? COME ON!" he shouted back at them.
"I think she's going to call the cops."
"Yeah, I see the cell phone."
"Definitely calling the cops."
"Definitely."
"How long until they get here?"
"Twenty minutes."
"Okay. Yep, definitely calling the cops, there's the hysterical screaming."
"MERRY! PIPPIN! Come ON!" Sam yelled at the two frat boys, interrupting their highly amusing commentary. They complied reluctantly.
"Stephano, I think now's a good time to end this chapter."
Stephano looked shocked, and even threw her hands up stiffly in a surprised pose. "But we're not following the scene groupings decreed by that script website," she protested.
"Yeah, but this is getting tiresome," Duffano whined. "I think the reason we never update if because we set requirements for chapter length, and then we never have the attention span to reach these goals."
"Well that's just 'cause we're lazy."
"I know. But I feel bad for never updating. And it's not like this is extremely short. It's five good pages of spoof-ness."
Stephano skewered Duffano with a stern look. "You just ran out of ideas."
Duffano squirmed uncomfortably. "It's not my fault!" she burst out. "Nanners hasn't been on to help me because she's moving to Korea!"
"Your excuses mean nothing!" Stephano shouted dramatically, stalking out of the room aloof…ly… yes. Aloofly.
Duffano sniffled for a while until she realized that maybe now people would review. "All right, so I'm sorry it's a little short. But if you want updates you might have to get used to shorter chapters. By the way, we're using the Author Profile as a sort of blog. So I'll be posting stuff there in a vaguely regular manner." She waved at the readers. "See you next time! And review!"
