Library: Episode 11
It was a day of celebration. The Intergalactic Librarian's association was having its annual conference on one of the planets in the Outda system, just far enough away for the Librarian to NOT be in the Library. The school had closed, ostensibly because it couldn't run successfully without its commander in chief, but really because Jareth wanted to revel in the goodness of life. He was decked out in his Avon suit, reorganizing his samples and applying his favorite shades of Gremlin Black Eye Liner and Crocodile's Breath Green Eye Shadow. Eric had opted to spend his day in the "InBetween," as he insisted on calling it in his truly oblique fashion, with his dearest love, Shelly. Giles was happily poring over one ancient tome or another, the TYs gathered around his feet, listening to his mutters, the official tribal scribes writing down the snatches of words and phrases for later addition to their holy texts. The fact that they were in an assortment of languages, not all of them entirely real, made little difference to the TYs, enamored as they were with their God. The ways of the God were strange, and it was not their place to question.
The cafeteria lady, once again freed from Jareth’s inquisition (it was a holiday, wasn’t it?), and Tuxedo Bob were once again chasing each other around the cafeteria. The marks of blaster fire would never go away, and the flying creamed corn was a Janitor’s worst nightmare. Fortunately, Pyla and Reea didn’t have to clean the cafeteria. It was a lost cause. Even the Librarian admitted that.
Martian Bob was reorganizing his collection of green paint, green thread, green beer, green eggs and ham, and all other things green. Kryton was trying to help. He was already three shades of green and Martian Bob was preparing the final layer of laquer. Xena was sharpening her pencils again.
The other staff members had opted to do the one thing they could all agree on: go to the movies. Hawkeye and Gabrielle were recruited for damage control. When the staff goes anywhere, there’s always damage, usually in large quantities and associated with guacamole. Connor and Ramirez, having only foggy memories of their run in with the staff of the Sleepy Hollow 25, suggested that be the destination and theater of choice. Naturally, Pyla and Reea wanted special company. Before they could go to the theater, they all had to pile into Pyla's Mackedelic, the only reliable means of transportation available to transport all of them, a daunting thought considering the driver. Reea opted to ride with Jeffrey to pick up their charges. Jeffrey could drive through black holes in that bus, and there was always the emergency exit if he got too frightening. Her black motorcycle parked in the aisle, pointing towards the exit, was reassurance enough to keep her onboard as he sped through the first black hole, and a moment later, they appeared, in the hallway outside Lestat's apartment.
Lestat was once again in his penthouse apartment, when he heard what sounded like a bus park outside his door. Now, seeing how he was on the umpteenth floor of a very fine skyscraping apartment building, a bus in the hallway was rather unusual. He gracefully got to his feet and gracefully sauntered over to his door. He gracefully opened his graceful door. All in all, he was feeling rather graceful that night. He walked (gracefully) up to the bus parked right outside his front door. He waited for the driver to open the door, and when it became apparent that the driver had no intention of doing so, Lestat opened the door himself. Or, rather, he ripped it open. Somehow, the poor (ungraceful) door managed to hang on to its hinges, but not much else.
Lestat looked up at the driver who had a map in front of his face, turning it this way and that. He was completely ignoring the blond (graceful) vampire at the door of the bus. Lestat cleared his throat. The bus driver ignored him some more. In an instant, Lestat had the map in his hands and was looking at the driver in (graceful) confusion. "Louis?"
"Heh?" Jeffery turned and looked behind him for this "Louis" fellow. His only passengers were a blond man dressed in some grey uniform encased in what looked to be a block of ice, and Reea, wielding a dangerous looking cast iron skillet. Neither one of them looked like a Louis to him. Jeffery shrugged, decided he didn't need a map, and closed the door. A black hole promptly opened up before the bus, and Jeffery floored it, sending Lestat flying to the back of the bus and hitting the back window, looking much like a Garfield stuffed toy. He even managed to do it gracefully.
At the Sleepy Hollow 25, Connor and Ramirez had a revelation of a magnitude not seen since the times of Moses XV. Tousai, the ticket seller, had a new sword and was wearing glasses, her eyes glowing a funny gold color, and Ari'na, the ticket taker, had her hair in odongo. However, that wasn't the revelation. There was a new movie showing in theater 17, something called "Blade." It sounded very in character for this particular establishment, what sort of idiot would call a movie "Blade" and then not include swords or sharp pointy things in it somewhere? Anyway, since the entire staff had seen "Sleepy Hollow" 206 times already, they opted for the new one, wondering what it was about besides sharp pointy things and if Reea, Jeffrey, and the bus full of guests would arrive soon.
The bus screeched to a halt outside Louis's place, where Armand had chosen to visit. The most human vampire of them all has many friends, Armand is one of them. The two vampires, for reasons unknown, apparently suffering from a severe lack of the instinct for self-preservation, chose to investigate. They were abducted by a skillet wielding Reea and dragged into their own private seats on the big yellow school bus before it roared off.
"A job well done, Jeffrey... Is there anyone you'd like to bring with us?" Reea laid her precious skillet (now guaranteed to provide endless hours of purple swirly fun!) in her lap, sitting in her seat just behind Jeffrey's.
"Naaaaaaah... the Monkeys wouldn't want to come anyway."
Reea decided this was not a time to ask about monkeys, or anything else for that matter, and turned around to keep an eye on her charges. "Lestat, get away from that motorcycle if you value your coiffeur!"
Tousai had been gypped. Those horrible people who thought they were too good for the best movie of all time (Sleepy Hollow) had paid her with mannequin pieces! This was unacceptable, she thought, finding a whet stone to make sure her sword was as sharp as possible, carefully shutting off the ring of spikes at the hilt before they removed her hand. Ari'na would enjoy dealing with this.
The bus roared up in a cloud of space dust and the passengers spewed out the door in a muddled heap, anywhere but in that bus! Once his allotted destinations had been taken care of, Jeffrey had decided it was time for fun. Swerving through the space time continuum was not Reea's idea of fun, and Armand, Lestat, and Louis all seemed to agree that this was one experience they would pass on next time. Better to eat Brussels sprouts than go through that again. Not that they'd ever been in any real trouble, Jeffrey thought. He may have been a bit out of his gourd, but he liked living. It would have been difficult to kill his passengers and survive, so he hadn't really been trying. He shrugged as the bus roared away with it's cloud of space dust, leaving his passengers to the tender mercies of the staff of the Sleepy Hollow 25, now showing Sleepy Hollow and Blade.
"Ari'na, there is a problem." Tousai appeared unexpectedly behind her co-worker and soul-sibling. "We have been cheated of our proper tribute."
"Someone got a ticket without paying the proper price, did they..." Ari'na smiled nastily. "We'll have to fix that, won't we?" She cooed at her... swordfish? It seemed Tousai wasn't the only one getting a change in armament.
Finding the ticket window unattended, Reea and the Vampires just walked on in, figuring they'd find Pyla and the Staff in the one movie theater that seemed, well, interesting. The security cameras whirred as they walked past, recording all for the temperamental eye of Tousai.
Pyla threw a handful of popcorn at the back of Spike's head and cackled insanely when he turned his baleful glare on her. The Highlanders were comparing the fighting moves on screen to the moves they *thought* they used when they fought. What they thought and what was the truth were completely separate, of course, but that didn't stop them.
"Hey, I could do that!"
"No you couldn't, the kitana doesn't work that way, you'd break it again."
"Oh, hush, Haggis. I said I could do that, not that I could do that with my current sword."
"You mean MY current sword, I should think."
Connor grumbled under his breath and glared at the back of the seat in front of him. Ramirez, victorious, tossed another handful of M&Ms down his throat and returned to watching the movie. This theory about Vampires and living forever was quite fascinating. Completely implausible, of course, if it lived forever it was immortal, and only the Immortals were immortal, but fascinating nonetheless.
Ari’na was in the security room, staring in disbelief at what the security cameras were showing her. There were intruders! How dare they! She drew her swordfish and ran out the door. This was not tolerable. Her weapon, Guppy, agreed, waving his sharpened nose around excitedly.
“Heloooooo...? Any body hooooooome?” Reea had never seen a movie theater with an echo before. She’d also never seen a movie theater with a spooky theme song... made her wonder what that shadow around the corner was.
Pyla was getting tired of waiting. Sure, the fight scenes were cool, and yeah, it was fun watching the immortal day walker guy, but she wanted the sword. If she couldn’t have Louis, she wanted that sword. Those were the more comprehensible thoughts running through her head immediately before she lunged at the screen. And into the movie. Blade looked at her like she had three heads and he wasn’t sure whether to dice her, slice her, use a UV lamp on her, or run for his life. He was quite obviously leaning towards the final option. Pyla looked around.
“Whoa... cool... I’ve abducted movie characters before, but this is the first time I’ve been one...” Her gaze fell on the sword and lit up. “POINTY SHINY PRETTY THING TO CHOP WITH! GINSUUUUUU!” Blade took one look at the look in her eyes and turned tail and ran. She gave chase, hair whipping behind her in a floaty sort of way, camera following the black leather garbed half vampire and his purple sparkly combat booted pursuer.
Just as Pyla’s hand fell on the hilt of the sword, still clutched in Blade’s hand, Ramirez grabbed her ankle and pulled her out of the movie. Unfortunately, she had a good grip on the sword and it came with her. Her grip was surpassed only by the grip of Blade on his blade. He came with it. The three immortals fell in a heap at the base of the screen. Connor was laughing his head off and rolling in the aisles, sounding like someone had used a machine gun instead of a diaphragm when he was put together.
Reea ran around naked, calling for her true love, Lex Luthor. Her sudden infatuation with the villain in so many comic books might have had something to do with buying a soda at the confession stand (Bless me Father for I am sin). Louis was beginning to think the soda had been spiked, but he was too busy brooding handsomely to share the information. Angel’s “brood” radar went off and he came flying in through a window.
“Sir, I challenge you to a Brood off!” He said, righting his top hat. He was wearing a tuxedo with a cape. Right on Angel’s heals came Buffy, outfitted in true Sailor Moon fashion, her hair up in odongo, the pony tails were just a little short. They barely came to her ears. Ari’na, still sitting in the security room waving Guppy around, was not pleased.
Louis looked up, startled out of his brooding, and said, in a very quiet voice that sounded suspiciously like Jeffrey in a saner moment, “I don’t want to compete. I know I’ll win. The competition would be a waste of my time.” Naturally, Angel took offense.
Spike chose that moment to exit the movie, in search of the others. Reea streaked by, calling for Lex to wait, not to leave for the mother ship without her. Spike’s eyes just about popped out of his skull trying to follow the fleeing Reea, nearly giving himself whiplash from turning his head so quickly. “Umm... where did her bleedin’ clothes go?”
Pyla came out, wondering where her stalking partner had disappeared to, only to find herself staring at her caped stalkee.
“Umm... ok... Tuxedo Angel and Sailor Buffy... alright...” The aforementioned Tuxedo Angel and Sailor Buffy looked at her. Angel recognized her and hid behind his companion, whispering.
“That’s her! That’s the one that was using my head as a paintbrush and guacamole as paint! I’m telling you, that’s her!” Spike’s head whipped back around, almost falling off his neck, and up at Tuxedo Angel, who didn’t quite fit behind Sailor Buffy. Sailor Buffy was trying valiantly and failing miserably in her attempts not to laugh.
“Guacamole?” she giggled. “So that’s why your hair was such an unholy shade of green. I thought Spike had been dying it again.”
“That too.”
Pyla grinned, the memory of her time tormenting Angel a very pleasant one... for her. Obviously her torture subject had a slightly different perspective on the matter. Unknown to the non-movie watching theater-goers, Deacon Frost had jumped out of the screen, bashed Connor and Ramirez’s (still both laughing helplessly at the time) heads together, and come looking for his audience. They continued to laugh. Blade gave chase, only to find that he couldn’t leave the theater. Such things, apparently, were reserved for La Magra and actual denizens of this dimension. Blade, being none of the above, was stranded.. without his sword.
“Every suck head in four dimensions is out in the lobby and I can’t kill any of ‘em... this sucks. This really, really sucks.”
Frost was in shock. This was not what he’d expected. Movie theaters with curtains were not normal, not that anything else about this theater was. There were other vampires here, two of them insanely weak, three of them almost as strong as he was. There was a Slayer, he recognized a wooden stake when he saw one, and two human looking creatures, one with floaty blonde hair, watching the caped vampire with an unholy grin, the other with indigo hair, streaking around, screaming for someone named Lex to wait for her. While he watched the streaker (she was worth watching), she ran headfirst into the curtains and started spinning a la the Tazmanian Devil. When she finally stopped spinning, she had forgotten about Lex and was wearing a ball gown that would have looked appropriate in the pre-Civil War South and looked completely out of place in this time. Whatever time it is.
“Oooo.... nice dresss..... OOO! Nice Hair!” Reea’s newly un-glassy-eyed gaze had fallen on... Armand. Armand ran. He’d tempted death before, but this... this was too much, even for him. Lestat grabbed Louis by the wrists and danced up a wall with his reticent companion. Pyla watched, jealous. She wanted to dance with Louis. He looked like he’d be excellent at the waltz. Lestat, reaching the apex of the high, peaked (you thought it was going to be vaulted, didn’t you? Well Nyeh!) cieling, let go of Louis’s wrists. Poor Louis plumetted to the floor with a rather spectacular if unceremonious crash. He groaned something about needing the mother of all band-aids. Pyla rushed to his side, shooting evil glares at Lestat for injuring her beloved.
“He’s MINE! NO BRUISING LOUIS!” Lestat cackled and pirouhetted across the cieling. Pyla levitated up to the cieling and swatted him but good across the face with the hilt of her newly acquired sword. Lestat lost his balance and plumetted to the floor with a rather spectacular if unceremonious crash.
“Damn... that’s Louis’ line...” he groaned from his place in a rather uncomfortable looking heap on the floor. Tousai chose that moment to appear in the doorway to the area marked “Staff Only, Prosecutors will be Violated.” Her eyes widened upon seeing Lestat’s glorious coiffure... not to mention his delightful derierre. The glasses flew off her face and across the room as her eyes turned into pink hearts and began throbbing, still rivetted on Lestat. She fainted dead away as her sister in crime appeared behind her, letting her crash to the floor with a far less spectacular and equally unceremonious thud.
“Damn... this always happens when Tom Cruise’s characters come out of the movie screens.” Guppy waved his nose around, as if to say Tom Cruise should be beheaded for his crimes. Ari’na swatted the errant swordfish. Tom Cruise was too good looking to have one part of his body seperated from the others. He looked better whole. On Ari’na’s list of hot guys, he ranked right up there with the Headless Horseman and Jonny Depp.
Deacon Frost, still watching Reea and her miraculous Scarlett O’Hara-esque transformation, suddenly found in himself an almost irresistable urge to waltz. The violinists that stalked Angel everywhere began playing a fugue in their most annoying way. Ari’na stalked up to Angel and announced in a very loud voice that if he didn’t can the violinists, she was going to can him. Guppy waved his nose in excitement. Finally, some action for the sword fish. Frost, unheeding, twirled Reea across the room, deciding suddenly that a tango fit a fugue far better than a waltz anyway. Pyla, uncomplaining, bashed a few skulls and danced off with Louis, who didn’t dare complain but looked like he was seriously considering it. Spike, feeling contrary, scooped up Sailor Buffy and dipped her so low only a vampire’s strength saved them both from toppling to the floor. The sudden shift in her equilibrium dislodged the wooden spike (no relation) from her grasp and, confuzzled to an extreme, she danced off. Ramirez and Connor twirled past, humming along to the music. Lestat, having fully appreciated Tousai’s worshipful gaze and her resultant unconsciousness, scooped her up and pirrouhetted away with her. Unconscious dance partners are just sooooo compliant. Gabrielle and Hawkeye, who had been lurking a darkened corner with needle, thread, syringes, and massive amounts of ibuprofen at the ready, started bobbing their heads to the beat. Hawkeye’s stunned whisper of “maginificent” was heard as Gabrielle began to waltz off on her own. Hawkeye gave chase, caught her, and what had been a perfectly normal waltz turned into a meringue. Not the pie. The dance. Ari’na, having no interest in anyone else in the room, dug a tuxedo out of her own personal subspace pocket (hey, she can do that, it’s metafiction!), redressed Guppy accordingly, and danced away with the wildly wriggling sword fish... Which left Armand and Angel partner-less. They regarded each other with mutual distrust and distaste, before the spell of the music swept them away and Angel swept Armand off his feet and they cha-chaed away.
After watching this scene for a few horrified moments, the authors shouted in unison “EEEEEEEENOUGH! Everybody, BACK TO THE LIBRARY! NOOOOWWWWW!!” The characters, stunned out of their enchanted dancing, scrambled for the exits. Tousai and Ari’na watched in satisfaction as the everyone piled into the Mackedelic and roared off into the sunset. The theater was theirs once more... which is when they remembered they’d never gotten paid properly. The howl of rage echoed in the empty theater.
Back at the Library, the Librarian had returned from her conference to find new additions left right and center. That nice Picard man she’d met at the conference had told her to be careful of subspace rifts and the trouble they caused... she should have paid more attention to his speech on how to fix them. Oh well.
“PYLA! REEA! Get in here!” Sitting behind her desk in her throne-like chair, she glowered at the twins as they tumbled in through the deliberately narrow doorway.
“You two have some explaining to do. I expect a full written report within 24 hours as to your activities during my absence. And you will both get part time jobs at the Food Wookiee to pay for the gas bill.” The twins groaned. How was it their fun always ended this way?