Review Reply: Thanks to Kelaiah, my only glares reviewer. Thanks for the very nice review! I was pretty certain about the spelling of Ascrod, but I had to look it up to be sure. And never fear, Triss will certainly be mentioned, but I didn't think of Deyna or Loamhedge…. I'll be sure to use them. I've never really had a crush on any character in the books…but umm…Keyla was pretty cool. narrows eyes This has something to do with "The Redwall Dating Game", doesn't it.
A/N: Just to clarify, I'm considering Chickenhound and Slagar different because of the huge personality change.
Disclaimer: ORCC, FORCC, CORRC, and SORCC, plus and other ORCC entities belong solely to me. I don't own any characters from the books.
The Misadventures of Martin's Sword
Part One: Of Trouble and Troubadours
Chapter One: Pink is a Very Manly Color
Slagar hummed along with the radio he had installed into the golf cart, tapping his left paw in time to the music. "Can't you at least drive with both paws on the wheel," snapped Methuselah. Slagar took his right paw of the wheel and started driving with his knee; Matthias switched the radio station to 67.2 CRCK, and turned the volume up.
Martin clapped his paws over his ears as rock music blared in the golf cart. "What is that horrible noise?" he yelled. Slagar and Matthias glanced back, then shared a wink.
"I'm sorry Martin," Matthias apologized contritely. "We can listen to something else if you'd like." He turned around, unable to keep a straight face any longer.
Slagar reached out with a shaking paw – he was still driving with his knee – and began adjusting the radio dial. "How about this, Martin?" he asked gently. Methuselah jerked up from where he had been slumping over in his seat. Whenever a large fox with half of a deformed face with a muffed voice tries to sound gentle, something's usually wrong. Usually being the operative word.
The radio now flashed the station name 67.2 CRAG. "CRAG?" Martin was bemused until the cheery voice of a middle-aged mouse boomed out of the radio.
"Good afternoon, gentle- and verminbeasts! We're live from the studio, and we're still taking callers about the latest breaking news out in the non-ORCC world." A boo track played. Then another voice bubbled from the radio.
"We have a caller on line two, Gonff. Hi there, what's your opinion on all this?" Martin's eye slowly began to twitch.
A heavy growl emanated from "line two". "Well, this just spells bad news for us, doesn't it? Thou realizes, if badgers are in the next," there was a shuddering sound from line two, "there'll be another generic villain like me. I could have been so interesting, thou knows? But no, the CORC decided to give me very little motivation. In fact, I can't even remember how the Walking Stone tied in with those two squirrels."
"Thanks, Gulo," the mousemaid host said. Martin appeared to have heard none of what Gulo the Savage had said.
"Rose!" he screamed. He didn't even bother to draw his sword, hurling himself bodily at the radio. Matthias and Slagar were laughing so hard that Slagar had to pull over to the shoulder of the road. Even Methuselah smiled slightly as the trio watched Martin battle with the radio. After an entire minute of fighting, Martin had only succeeded in turning the radio up louder. By now Matthias had fallen out of the golf cart from laughing. Slagar was fumbling with his hood, trying to get it off so he could breathe more easily.
Rose's sweet voice issued from the radio once again. Martin hissed at Slagar and Matthias, in such a violent manner both of them stopped laughing. Martin's eyes glazed over. "The weather here at the ORCC is sunny, with a high of eighty degrees today. A light breeze from the north, but that's to be expected. Those traveling east are advised that Clogg has had another birthday party and his current whereabouts are uncertain. All residents in that area are being advised by Badrang to check their wheelbarrows. Now over to the TORCCC."
Martin was mumbling things under his breath, blushing furiously. "Hi everybeast! This is Felldoh on the TORCCC, Traffic Over Redwall Canon Correction 'Copter. I'm covering the Salamandastron area today. Everything looks nice and smooth sailing for west-bounders at the interchange, but if you're eastbound, don't expect to get anywhere anytime soon.
"All lot of creatures are reacting to the rumor that the newest Redwall book will be called Eulalia. Most creatures are clearing out, not wanting to be evicted for a little while by the ORCC like last time. Especially since at least one badger lord is expected to need to be CCed by ORCC. I think we all remember what that was like last time, eh Rose?"
"Thanks Felldoh, we certainly do. Whatbeast was it, Gonff?" Methuselah finally couldn't take Martin's fevered gazing at the radio, hoping Rose would magically appear from it. He turned it off. Slagar and Matthias, who had gotten out of the golf cart in order to conceal their laughter from Martin, frowned at Methuselah.
"Come on, Methuselah," whined Slagar. "You're no fun. We were enjoying that." Methuselah wrinkled his muzzle. Then he poked out his tongue impudently.
"Need I remind you we were going to an ORCC meeting?"
"Fine," Slagar huffed. Plopping back down into the driver's seat, he took the car out of neutral. Matthias clambered back into the passenger seat, having to thrust Martin out of the way to do so. Martin, still dazed, sat in his seat, muttering all the way to the meeting building.
Slagar drove up to the perimeter, stopping in front of a gate that blocked their path. Four beeps later, the gate lifted. Slagar parked, wiping a security pass through a parking meter. It beeped pleasantly at the group. It took both Methuselah and Matthias to support Martin into the lobby of the meeting building. Slagar walked up to a computer terminal at the front desk. Depositing a lovesick Martin into a chair, Matthias and Methuselah joined Slagar.
"What should we do with him, mates?" Matthias asked. All three looked over at Martin, who seemed to be trying to compose a love poem, based on his red face and trembling whiskers. The fact that he was holding a locket with a painting of Rose and was clasping his other paw across his heart was also a rather significant clue.
"Might as well take him with us." Slagar shrugged. "He doesn't seem like he'll do any harm." Methuselah look inclined to disagree, because Slagar had suggested the idea, but Matthias was already hauling Martin up the stairs. Slagar and Methuselah went to his side, and aided him in dragging the mouse warrior upwards. They reached the top of the staircase. Picking Martin up, Slagar carried him over to a small closet. Matthias entered the nearest room, and returned with a radio. Turning it to 67.2 CRAG, all three of them left a Martin that was serenely hugging the radio.
Methuselah locked the door as a precaution. The trio padded up two more flights of stairs to the main ORCC room. One wall was lined with TV's, all set to all the news stations in the ORCC world. Two other walls had large scrolling computer images blown up on them.
Matthias immediately rushed over to the head of ORCC. The pair was having an intense debate, while Slagar strolled over to where Cluny stood in front of the wall of TV's. He looked up as Slagar touched his shoulder. "What's wrong Cluny?" Slagar asked his one-time Chief. "I've never seen you this quiet."
Cluny used his infamous tail to point at the TV screen in question. A squirrelmaid on screen was busy hacking through the crowd indiscriminately with a shiny sword. Nobeast died, everyone in the ORCC world had already died, so it didn't matter that heads, limbs, and vital organs were being cut out. The ORCCers could still feel pain, however, as a defense mechanism to make sure creatures weren't injuring themselves without knowing it.
Slagar narrowed his eyes, squinting at the insane squirrelmaid running around on screen. "PORCCs have been dispatched to the scene, but the media's already got good coverage. Felldoh's flying the TORCCC over there now. He'll give us a live feed when he gets there."
The head of ORCC banged a gavel on the table. Everybeast present turned to face Mariel. "Please take a seat, everybeast," she said politely, gesturing to the rolling chairs surrounding the large wooden table in the center of the room. Cluny and Matthias sat on either side of Mariel. Leading down the table on Cluny's side were Slagar, Badrang, and Bane. And on Matthias's side sat Constance and Lady Amber, with an empty seat between the badger and squirrel. Opposite Mariel was Methuselah.
"Now, as I'm sure you all are becoming aware, we have the worst type of bad canon running around the ORCC world. The generic warrior with unmatchable fighting skills with no training. But this is worse than usual." Mariel tapped a few buttons on the laptop sitting in front of her. The TV screen Cluny and Slagar had been looking at enlarged, overriding the scrolling computer screens. The squirrelmaid was still attacking ORCCers relentlessly.
A green bar appeared at the bottom of the enlarged screen as Mariel turned up the volume. Over the panicked and annoyed yells and screams of the ORCCers, Slagar and Bane, with their well-developed senses of hearing, heard the squirrelmaid shouting something like "Kurda". This name was invariably followed by threats of pain, torture, and death.
Mariel looked expectantly up at the two foxes. They groaned and shook their heads. "She's the first female to ever carry Martin's sword." Bane reminded the group. "There's no possible way of stopping her. If we try anything, she'll call it sexism. Plus, since she's a generic warrior, she wouldn't listen to us anyway. She'd just attack us with her 'unmatchable skill'."
Lady Amber shrugged. "Can't we just contain her? She has not skill, other than that of a warrior, so have Slagar and Bane use their spying operations to drug her or something, and bring her into custody." While Lady Amber was speaking, Matthias shared a look with Slagar and Methuselah, Slagar shared a look with Matthias and Methuselah, and Methuselah shared a look with Matthias. Slagar and Matthias nodded to Methuselah. After Lady Amber had spoken her piece, Methuselah spoke:
"Matthias and myself may have a solution to our problems."
"As do I," added Slagar. Mariel tipped her head slightly towards Slagar in acknowledgement of Methuselah's feud with him.
"What is this plan?" Mariel inquired, looking at Matthias, the most neutral out of the trio of himself, Slagar, and Methuselah.
"Umm," Matthias stalled. "We could show you?" Mariel glanced around at the rest of the CORCC. All of them nodded approvingly, except for Slagar and Methuselah who had their doubts about whether this was a good idea at the moment.
In any case, Matthias led the group out the door and down to the second floor. Slagar caught up, pawing Matthias the key. Before he could open it, Mariel had pressed her ear to the door. She cocked an eyebrow at Matthias, Methuselah, and Slagar. "Why do I hear 67.2 CRAG on in there?"
Matthias exhaled deeply, almost a sigh, but mainly to steady himself. Turning the key Slagar had given him in the lock of the closet door, he was about to slowly pull it open. Methuselah hastily grabbed Matthias's wrist. "One moment, Matthias," he instructed. Turning to Badrang, he said, "You may want to prepare to be tackled or something." Badrang looked bemused, but nodded.
Methuselah then indicated to Matthias to open the closet door. It swung slowly open. Martin was still hugging his radio protectively. Rose was again giving her news spiel, and Martin was humming comfortingly to himself. When he finally realized the entire CORCC was standing over him, he looked up. Martin's gaze flickered from one committee member to the next, until his eyes locked with Badrang's. As Methuselah had predicted, Martin leapt at Badrang, drawing his sword.
Badrang didn't really try to stop the Bloodwrathed mouse. He looked down rather disinterested, watching his pancreas and liver plop out on the floor. Even though Badrang was feeling some pain, it was more like discomfort, like somebeast was poking him repeatedly in the gut. While Martin continued to remove Badrang's internal organs, Lady Amber called the PORCCs on her cell phone.
By the time Martin was trying to cut out Badrang's stomach, the PORCCs had arrived. The lead PORCC showed Lady Amber his badge. "Police and Paramedic of Redwall Canon Correction." He put his badge away. "I believe you called ma'am? What can we do for you today?" Lady Amber indicated the Bloodwrathed Martin, who was now attempting to extricate Badrang's heart out of his ribs. Now that all the creatures were normally proportioned in the ORCC world, Martin was having very little success.
Before the PORCCs went to stop Martin, Mariel stopped them. "Don't take him into custody. Just put Badrang back together." The PORCCs nodded. The three hedgehogs among them, grabbed Martin's arms and took his sword. They pulled him back as two otters and a mouse began to heal Badrang.
Healing was different in the ORCC world then in any other. In any other world, Badrang would have already bled to death. In the world of ORCC, blood stayed confined to veins and arteries, unless those were specifically cut; in that case, the hearts of creatures in the ORCC world could produce more blood at a high rate until the creature was healed and stopped bleeding. In Badrang's case, his organs were also out of his body. PORCCs were trained in this area. Let's just suffice it to say Badrang did not enjoy having his organs replaced in his body.
While Badrang was making rather unpleasant sounds, Cluny's cell phone went off. Going a little way down the hallway, he answered it. The first thing Felldoh said when Cluny answered was, "Nice ring tone."
Cluny glowered. "Matthias must have changed it," he mumbled.
"So Matthias must think 'You're a Barbie girl, in a Barbie wooo-oooorld.'"
"Shut up Felldoh!" Felldoh chuckled but said no more on that particular subject.
"Anyways," Felldoh said, getting back to business, "tell Mariel I can hook the CORCC up with a live feed of the 'rampant maid'."
"Will do," Cluny snapped, still slightly irate about his altered ring tone. Walking back to the group, who had luckily not heard his embarrassing ring tone, he got Mariel's attention. "Felldoh has the live feed ready to go in the main meeting room."
Mariel called out to the group, "Felldoh has the live feed set up. Let's go see it." The CORCC, as one, glanced over to the hedgehogs holding Martin, and then looked to Mariel. "Better bring him too," she said. "He might be able to do something. But we can take him up ourselves." She bowed to the hedgehogs, who bowed back. Cluny and Constance took Martin, keeping him as far away from Badrang – who was still grimacing from the unpleasant experience of having his organs ripped out and put back – as possible.
Suddenly, Cluny's phone rang again. The piercing vocals of "Barbie Girl" rang down the hallway. Everybeast snickered, except Methuselah who wasn't snickering because Slagar was and Martin who wasn't snickering because Badrang was. Cluny glared at the CORCC and Martin, flipping the phone open. Cluny could hear Felldoh smiling on the other end of the line. "Couldn't help myself, Cluny," he said cheerfully. "I just had to hear that song again."