"And for my next trick, I'll come up with a dragon by changing the first letter to E."
"It was night. It was in a forest. It was quite dark out and badly littered with dimly painted backgrounds. There was a thin, scraggly tree in the foreground. I was dressed in something hideous that was not my normal outfit, and I wondered what the hell I was doing here. And more importantly, author, if you can be called that," Mandy continued, "I seriously doubt the opening paragraph you're attempting to parody had THAT many adjectives in it."
As Mandy had stated, it was night and she was in a forest. Imagine that. Somewhere, the howl of a wolf could be heard, possibly a werewolf and possibly just one of the non-werewolves that were trendy and hip. Mandy once again found herself wondering why she was wearing something that looked like it came out of a teen novel.
And then it approached. Dressed down in a nondescript T-shirt and jeans, touched off with a leather jacket for the sexy highlight, was a vampire. You could tell he was a vampire because even in the moonlight, he was sparkling.
"Um, I don't think it worked like that. They sparkle in the daylight, dimwit."
Shut up. The author hasn't actually read Twilight, okay? This was a requested scene, and gosh darn it, you'll like it. Anyway, the vampire, who was indeed sparkling despite the fact it was night and shut up I am the author and what I say goes, approached Mandy with a dark, serious look in his eyes.
"Oh, hell no," Mandy stated flatly, censors be damned.
"What?" the vampire protested, sparkling as if he were a supernatural craft table. "I haven't even said anything yet, darling."
"You're not going to say anything else if you insist on calling me darling," Mandy replied, clenching a fist and preparing to make good on the statement.
"Hey, whoa, wait, hold up, darling," the vampire protested. "Let's not be hasty or nothing, darling. I'm just here to play the scene, kay, darling?"
"You have about three seconds to do the following things," Mandy told him, yanking him down by his jacket. "One, tell me where the Grim Reaper and assicorn are. Two, stop saying 'darling'. And three..."
"Um, what's three?"
"I'd tell you, but I have to think of a way to get it past the censors." Mandy scowled, crossing her arms as she considered. It had to be the dress, she thought. It was making her feel stupider by the moment. Just as she thought this, she mysteriously tripped despite the fact that she hadn't been walking. "Whoa!"
The vampire caught her, smiling charmingly as he drew his face close to hers. "I do say, it looks like you've fallen for me, darling."
His moderately punny pickup line got him a punch to the face as a reward. "Augh! My nose!" he yelped. "It's bleeding!"
"So drink it," Mandy said. "You like blood."
"Ewwww," the vampire protested. "That's just unsanitary."
"Mandy!" came a joyous cry from nearby, and to her annoyance, it was not the Grim Reaper or Billy the assicorn, but Irwin, stumbling over as he joined her, tossing a cape over his shoulder. "I didn't know you were out this way, yo. Oh, wow, nice outfit!"
With a grimace, Mandy grabbed the dress and ripped it off, revealing her normal clothing underneath. "Irwin. How did you end up here? Last thing I remember, we were all separated."
"Oh, I came over here for a family reunion," Irwin explained. "On my dad's side. I see you've already met my cousin?"
"Well, more like her fist meeting my nose," the sparkling vampire grumbled.
"That's your cousin?" Mandy looked at the vampire. Despite the fact that he was dressed the right way and was indeed a pale, undead predator of the night, she could see the family resemblance. He had "dork" written all over him.
"My name's Reddy, darling," the vampire said, holding out a hand. "Pleased to meet you?"
"'Reddy'?" Mandy eyed him in disbelief.
"Yeah, um, my parents were sort of hippies, and..." Reddy began.
"Your parents were hippies? How does 'vampire hippies' even work?"
"It was the sixties, darling. There was a lot of strange stuff going on."
She considered, then punched him in the face again. "I said to stop calling me darling."
Reddy let out a 'gack' noise and fell back. "So, does he always sparkle like that? And do all your relatives do that?"
"Um... Reddy doesn't really like to talk about it, yo," Irwin said softly. "So let's not go there, okay?"
"Then the less said, the better."
"So, you wanna come see the family mansion?" he asked.
"Your family has a mansion?" She eyed him. "Then how come you live in the suburbs?"
"It's less of a commute. This is more like the vacation house, yo," Irwin explained as he led the way, only tripping over his cape occasionally. Mandy must have still been feeling the effects of the clothes, for she tripped over it a few times, too. "Dracula left it to us after he went to live with his friends in the nursing home. But since we're having a family reunion, he's back there. Aren't you glad, Mandy? You'll get to meet Dracula again."
"My heart spills forth with a vast and unending joy."
The path through the forest ran too long for more interesting exposition. By the time they had finally arrived, Mandy had converted Reddy to her own personal horse, complete with bit and making the sparkling vampire crawl on his hands and knees toward the mansion. "You know, it's a fair bit more modern than I expected," she commented to Irwin.
"My aunt and uncle took out a renovation loan on it a few months back," Irwin told her. "The rates were really good thanks to the economy crashing and all, yo. It was a pain finding a licensed contractor, though, and our loan officer was a piece of work."
"A piece of work?"
"Yeah, she seemed to think that everyone else should be doing her job, and when they didn't, well, we could hear the screaming from her office. When we found out our builder wasn't licensed and couldn't legally build, she kept trying to use him anyway, yo. It took a month just to close."
Mandy nodded, then paused, facing the audience again. "Okay, author, enough. This is really only funny to you."
"But it's true!" protested a voice from the heavens. "Loan officers suck."
Reddy whined as he spit out the bit, and Mandy yanked it back in. "Well, let's go in and I'll show you around," Irwin said, leading her inside.
The mansion had indeed been redone. Unlike most haunted mansions which were host to vampires and their kin, the place was well lit and clean, decorated tastefully in a more modern style of trim and furniture. Even the chandelier hanging from the ceiling was more sculpted and smooth, lit with a few lights instead of the traditional candles. "This is the first time Grandpa's seen it since it's been renovated, yo. I wonder what he's going to think about it."
"Uh, it's Dracula. What do you think he's going to think?"
"Dracula doesn't like none of this nonsense!" came a voice from a nearby room, and then the aged vampire stormed in, glaring at a flower-patterned couch. "Dracula didn't have this sort of trussed-up tomfoolery when Dracula was living here! This isn't a haunted mansion, it's a bat-loving day spa!"
"Come on, Dad," Irwin's dad's voice could be heard, trying to sound placating. "We have to stay up with the times, you know. The youth of today just can't connect with the relics of the past. We have to modernize. Hey, did you know we have wifi now?"
"Modernize nothing! Dracula wants things back to the way they were!" Dracula crossed his arms and planted his feet. "Dracula ain't going back til the house is fixed up proper like!"
"Come on, dad," Irwin's dad urged. "Just relax and have a good time. Look, it's your grandsons Irwin and Reddy," he said, gesturing to the short boy and sparking vampire, who had finally been allowed to stand again. "You remember them, right? Look how handsome Irwin's become. He even brought a girlfriend!"
Mandy took a step back. "I am not his girlfriend. That will get you killed."
"Hey, Dracula remembers you!" he said, pointing at Mandy. "You, uh...I remember you! It was someplace that we met at some time," he insisted. "Did I wrestle you in high school?"
"No, and that would be incredibly creepy."
"Interpretive dance, two semesters? Dracula was always in the back because Dracula's weak ankles."
"No. Now you think you're a Disney character."
"Dracula ain't no mamby-pansy Disney character!" the vampire shouted suddenly. "Off prancing through the woods if you please, saving princesses and fighting dragons! That ain't the way animation was done in Dracula's day! Dracula had REAL settings and REAL villains, and by gumbo, Dracula made those heroes shake in their boots before they staked Dracula!"
"How are you still alive if you've been staked?" Mandy questioned.
"Oh, it wasn't much but a flesh wound. You kids today have no idea how it was back in the old days. Why, Dracula was staked while walking to school the eighteen miles every morning, uphill both ways in the ashes of a nuclear winter!"
"...You know what? Let's forget this whole conversation ever happened. Talk to your sparkling grandson."
"Do you really have to bring up the sparkling?" Reddy whined. "It's not like I can help it, darling."
"Come on, Grandpa," Irwin urged, leading the elderly vampire into a nearby room. "Let's get you some nice, warm blood and let you sit down for a spell, okay?"
"Dracula don't want no warm blood! Back in his day, Dracula drank it cold and Dracula LIKED it!" Dracula shouted as he was led away.
That left Mandy, Reddy, and Irwin's dad. "It's so nice of you to come all the way out here," Irwin's dad said to Mandy. "I'm sure Irwin appreciates it, too."
"I'm sure he does," Mandy muttered. "I didn't mean to come out here. It just sort of happened."
"Well, all the same, sit down and have something to eat, okay?" Irwin's dad offered. "We've got plenty of goodies, including Grandmama's home-baked biscuits."
"Well... I suppose I could stand for a biscuit." Mandy relented, following Irwin's dad.
Reddy followed as well. "So I guess it's just you and m-" Mandy hit him again without turning around.
Irwin's dad entered the kitchen, opening the door cheerily. In there already was a werewolf, a huge creature, mostly huge in the gut. His ears went back as the group entered, and he slowly put down the bowl of leftover cookie batter he had been licking at. "Jakey!" Reddy said in surprise. "I didn't know you'd be here."
"Reddy!" Jakey greeted, running over to him on all fours and sitting in front of him like a dog, tail wagging. "You're looking well."
"I'm feeling much better now that you're here, darling," Reddy lamented. "You have no idea what a tough journey it was getting here! Why, first I ran into some whiny girl who wouldn't stop throwing herself at me, and then I met this other girl who I wanted to throw myself at, but she kept punching me..."
"You were throwing yourself at a girl?" Jakey said with a scowl.
"Oh, c'mon, Jakey, it don't mean nothing by it. You're still my favorite, bestest werewolf," Reddy said, cuddling the werewolf in an overly friendly manner.
Mandy eyed the pair as the hugging continued. "Hey, Irwin's dad. Are they..."
"Are they what? Aren't they good friends?" Irwin's dad replied.
"Are they...more than friends?" Mandy guessed.
"They're friends," Irwin's dad repeated. "Very good friends."
Mandy's eyes widened as the hugging continued. "Very good friends don't hug like that."
"They're very good friends. They're just boys exploring their curiosities," Irwin's dad said firmly.
Mandy looked at him, then at the very friendly vampire and werewolf. "I didn't know vampires and werewolves could even stand each other."
"Oh, they usually don't, but they hate zombies more than they hate each other, yo," Irwin spoke up as he entered the room. "That's how those two met, on a zombie hunt. They were best friends from that moment on!"
"Are you sure they're just friends?" Mandy's eyes widened again, seeing things that she could not unsee. "Okay, I know that friends do not do that."
"They're just friends, yo. What's the problem?"
Mandy shook her head. "You know what, just forget it."
"Well, it's about time for the party," Irwin's dad spoke up. "Are you ready for your big party, Reddy my nephew?"
The sparkling vampire broke off his close inspection of Jakey's teeth with a sigh. "Do I have to?"
"Yes. Now get a move on, young man." Irwin's dad pointed out the door, and Reddy complied with a sigh, Jakey wagging his tail slowly as Reddy left.
"So what kind of party is this going to be?" Mandy asked as she followed Irwin and Jakey out to the main hall.
"Oh, the kind that you don't have to animate much," Jakey offered up.
"You know, considering this entire story is in text, I don't know that we really need to talk much about how it's animated," Mandy pointed out.
"Don't be so negative." Jakey said as they entered the main hall. Sure enough, it was filled with groups of people moving in repeated patterns to save on effort in animating it.
Mandy looked around at the bouncing characters, shaking her head. "I feel sorry for those that aren't main characters."
"I don't need your pity, yo," Irwin sniffed.
"Here comes the party ball!" Irwin's dad's voice came from above, and from the ceiling, dangling from a rope, Reddy was lowered down, the sparkling vampire looking very put upon as he dangled from his rope, lighting up the room with sparkles.
"Ooooo," everyone declared, and applauded.
"Look at it this way, Reddy," Irwin called up. "You've found your purpose in life!"
"Can I have a different purpose?" the vampire whined as he spun around on the rope.
Mandy looked around, and realized that Grim had been right. The show didn't have normal parties or family dinners and things like that, so something was bound to happen soon. She quickly listed off the possibilities: the place could drop into the Underworld, Reddy could start making a scene, the whiny girl from before could show up, they could find a bomb wired to the place, or Eric could show up to be trampled again. She'd narrowed it down to the bomb and the whiny girl when the side wall was knocked over, sending people and cheap animation flying.
"I AM A ROBOT. I AM PROGRAMMED TO OBEY AND DESTROY," came a booming, metallic voice from the outside.
"Drat," Mandy muttered to herself, trying to figure out where giant robots was on the list.
"Hahaha!" Someone laughed a only moderately deranged laugh from above, and Irwin put a hand to his face, groaning. "If Dracula can't Dracula's house the way he wants it, no one can have Dracula's house!"
"Dad!" came Irwin dad's voice from offscreen. "Come down from there at once, you'll break your neck."
"Grandpa! We just got the loan on this place, yo!" Irwin shouted up.
"Hey, Grandpa," Reddy chimed in, "while you're up there, mind cutting me down?"
"Dracula don't listen to nobody! Dracula don't take orders! Dracula's robot is going to get rid of this mamby-pamby modern place and make it the way it should be! Now go forth and destroy, Dracula's robot!"
"I AM A ROBOT. I AM PROGRAMMED TO OBEY AND DESTROY."
Mandy looked at the robot. "You know what, I'm out of here."
"You can't leave, yo!" Irwin yelped. "You're a main character, you have to help us!"
"This is really not worth my time." Mandy shook her head.
"Mandy! We're gonna get stomped on and killed by a giant robot, yo! You think that isn't really worth your time?! We're gonna die!"
"Don't worry," Mandy said, turning and walking away. "If we find the plot device, you'll come back to life."
"Mandy!"
Of course, the plotline (such as it was) couldn't have that. The robot set its laser eyes on Mandy, and then something happened. "I AM A ROBOT. I AM PROGRAMMED TO OBEY... AND LOVE."
Mandy stopped in midstride, looking over her shoulder. "You're kidding me."
"I AM A ROBOT. I AM MADLY IN LOVE WITH THE HUMAN FEMALE. I WISH TO TAKE HER WITH ME AND CUDDLE HER AND LET HER BE MY LITTLE SNUGGLEKINS." The robot flicked Dracula off its shoulder, scooping up Mandy instead.
"Enough of the snugglekins," Mandy said, eyeing the thing. "Are you still programmed to obey and destroy?"
"FOR MY LITTLE SNUGGLEKINS, I WILL OBEY AND DESTROY."
Mandy considered this option. "Don't do it," came a little voice, and a little shoulder angel popped up on her shoulder, fluttering its little wings angelicly. "Think of the robot's needs. It's cruel to lead it on like this, Mandy! You have to let love go sometimes. Set him down gently."
Mandy stared at the shoulder angel, then turned to the other shoulder. "Who is that?" she asked her shoulder devil. "Have you seen her before?"
The shoulder devil shrugged. "Got me. Want me to dispose of her?" The devil cocked its pitchfork.
"Eeeeeee," the little shoulder angel squealed as it flew off, chased by the shoulder devil.
Mandy gave the robot a little pat on the shoulder. "Come on, robot. We have things to do."
Irwin blinked as he looked at his dad and his grandfather, the latter of which was upside down in the rubble, legs sticking out. "At least the robot is gone, yo."
"Well, it's a good thing we've got giant robot insurance," Irwin's dad sighed. "Someone hand me a phone."
Dracula popped out of the rubble. "Don't worry, Dracula already lined up a new builder! Dracula has everything under control."
"What new builder?" Irwin's dad asked. "It had better be someone good, we still have a word count quota to fill."
"Well, Dracula asked around and this one was willing to work for frozen yogurt," he said, pointing to the green, elephant-like creature pounding the wall behind them with a hammer.
Fred Fredburger proceeded to fill the rest of the chapter's word count quota. "FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER FRED FREDBURGER..."