The Library, Episode V
“I still think I should have just chopped her head off.” Connor was pouting again. Pyla shot him an evil look.
“She is my sister, Haggis-breath.” She continued tending to the nick in Reea’s neck and the sizable lump on the back of her head. “I never should have let you follow me back to the Library. The Librarian is going to kill me. Do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be to fix that sink?”
Ramirez, for one reason or another, was swinging in and out of the windows of the Library, repeatedly introducing himself to any young, female TY that happened to be in the area. Pyla shifted her evil glare to Ramirez.
“Will somebody please STOP HIM????” This wasn’t going well, and no one was even drugged. It wasn’t fair! They had NO control! It just wasn’t fair!! While Pyla’s attention was shifted away from her sister, a splinter group of TYs, who had begun calling themselves Meanies, carried Reea off into the as yet unexplored depths of the “Books on Tape” section. Which was just when Giles chose to emerge from under the incredible pile of beanie babies that had accumulated on his desk, tribute to the TYs’ demanding god.
“CATCH THEM!” he shouted, drawing the angry eyed Pyla’s attention back to her sister, or rather, lack thereof. He was also gesturing wildly, in the general direction of the audio section. Pyla and Reea, though they served as janitors of the Library, had never dared to venture into the audio section. That part of the Library was ruled by a fearsome creature known as the Grand Dust Bunny. It was rumored to have long claws and big feet. It’s footsteps could rattle the books on the far side of the Library right off their shelves. Pyla cringed at the thought that the Grand Dust Bunny might have carried off her sister. While they were growing up, they’d heard many horrific stories of the Grand Dust Bunny.
Ramirez, discovering an opportunity to do something chivalrous and dashing, ran off into the audio section after the disapeared Reea. Pyla groaned in dismay and almost overwhelming fear, then forced herself to follow him. Connor, seeing a possible way of catching Reea and beheading her took his own path through the shelves.
Deep in the Darkened Recesses of the Audio Section
The cobwebs hung down like thick vines, spiders scuttled underfoot, through what an unwise person would mistake as undergrowth and was actually piles of dust and tapes that had fallen down. Pyla had long since moved on from the “eww.. gross” phase to the “(yawn) are we there yet?” stage. She still hadn’t caught up with Ramirez, but she could hear him hacking through the bookshelves. She also still hadn’t caught up to or found Reea, and she couldn’t help but wonder where Connor was and what he was up to. Knowing him, he’d probably seduced one of the older TYs... Something about his immortality struck most women as irresistable.
Connor had found his way into the books on tape section and was gently pushing aside the heavy blankets of cobweb to see what was ahead of him. So far, he’d seen nothing but spiders bigger than his head and the occasional baby dust bunny. The latter seemed to like shoe leather... They’d sunk their exceptionally sharp teeth into his feet a few too many times for his liking, and the more he hacked them up, the more little teeth there were.
Reea awoke to an extremely unlikely and unprecedented sight. The Meanies were gathered around her, staring in wonder. Some of them were sewing something that looked suspiciously like her... with permed hair. She sat up and her head started reeling, a killer headache stabbing her in the forehead. Putting a hand on her forehead to steady herself and in a useless attempt to dull the pain, she felt curls. Her hair wasn’t supposed to be curled. Her hair was straight. Reea screamed and looked around for a mirror, finding a conveniently polished tape case to look at herself in. Her hair was curled. Very curled. Shirley Temple curled. She screamed louder.
Pyla heard her sister’s screaming and realized she’d been heading in the wrong direction. Ramirez, too busy hacking through things, didn’t notice and continued on his erroneous path and messy mission. Connor realized that Reea was on the other side of the bookshelf to his immediate left and started looking for an end. There was none to be seen, so he started hacking through it. Suddenly, the red jewel in the hilt of his sword popped loose, followed by his blade which neatly speared his foot. Connor yelped and passed out. Ramirez stopped to snicker, hearing Connor’s yelp. This would teach him to fight on holy ground and break his sword...
The Depths of Connor’s (extremely scary, twisted, and wierd) Subconscious
Connor was in a locker room full of steam. Two of the walls were lined with shower stalls. The other two were invisible because of all the steam from the showers. Suddenly, all the shower curtains were yanked aside, shower curtain rings flying. Several of them hit his foot, stirring up far more pain than was truly a reasonable response. One by one, to the strains of a truly melodramatic musical score, the occupants of the showers emerged, clothed only in towels. First to appear was the Kurgan, followed by Indiana Jones’ father, Ramirez, and that dude from The Rock. They began singing in astonishing harmony, like a barbershop quartet.
“You’re not fully cleeeeeaaaaannnnnnnn...” they held the last note for an obscenely long time.
Next to emerge were General Katana, Kane, and Kane’s two assistants. They were also clothed only in towels and began singing.
“You’re not fully cleeeeeaaaaannnnnnnn...” they also held the last note and word for far longer than was truly necessary.
Another group began to appear, this time Abraham Lincoln, Richard Simmons, and Roseane. They made a strange trio, and they were completely off key, Abraham Lincoln as bass, Roseanne as baritone, and Richard Simmons in a lovely (if disconcerting) Mariah Carrey-esque soprano.
“Until yoooouuuu’rrrrreeee....” this was becoming repetitive.
Yet another group emerged on the other side of the room. The energizer bunny, towel wrapped around its waist and drum, and a group of munchkins with bright shiny holographic blue “H”s on their foreheads showed up. The bunny was just beating on its drum as usual. The munchkins were singing about rimmers and zimmers.
Then came a monstrous pile-up of oompaloompas. “Until yoooouuuu’rrrrreeee....” Roger Rabbit was next, and he slid out of his shower stall on his knees, his ears slicked back like some stereotypical lounge singer.
“ZEISTfully clean!” they all finished on the same note and same word.
Connor abruptly woke up screaming and discovered the cause of the pain in his foot. He removed the blade and resumed screaming.
Pyla rounded a bend, one of the very few, in the shelving and saw her sister, surrounded by the Meanies. The Meanies were dressed in classic biker gear, no, not leathers, the short, biker shorts, tight,outrageously colored shirts, helmets, and aerodynamic super-dee-duper cool looking sunglasses. They were holding cans of E-Z Cheese, aimed at Reea. The apparent leader of the Meanies was dropping small, beanie duplicates of Reea on the original. The original, for one reason or another, had been given a perm. Reea didn’t look good in a perm. Of course, she would look much worse in a perm and E-Z Cheese.
Suddenly, Pyla, for no apparent reason, found her mind drifting to the collection of weapons on her bedroom wall. Darth Maul’s lightsaber had finally found its way out of the closet of doom, otherwise known as the abyss of hell, and was mounted next to Ghengis Khan’s favorite axe. Conan’s sword had a place of honor, over in the far corner where it couldn’t be seen, and the Richard Simmon’s wig, her most deadly possession, was stuck to the ceiling. She also found herself suddenly realizing that there was a spot on her wall just the right size for Ramirez’s sword... or was it Connor’s now? And did it really matter? The sword would fit no matter who it belonged to. Besides, was this really the time to be analyzing the ownership and subsequent placement of a weapon, a sharp weapon with a really super-dee-duper ivory carved handle, that she was planning on stealing? Or would her time be better spent rescuing her sister from the growing pile of Reea dolls and the imminent spray of E-Z Cheese? Or should she wait for the E-Z Cheese to be applied before swooping to the rescue?
While Pyla was thus occupied, Ramirez was bounding over bookshelves. Bounding had always been his favorite sport, he’d lettered in it in high school, and now his bounding prowess had come to good use. Somehow in his boundings he had come across a loop of rope and had put it over his shoulder. It was ridiculously thick, and had Jedi Master prints AAAAaaaalll over it. He suspected, from what Pyla had told him of her earlier exploits, that this was the very rope she had used in her attempts to restrain Qui-Gon. If it could hold him, it would work for what Ramirez had planned. Assuming, of course, Ramirez had anything actually planned and wasn’t just playing it by ear as usual. Ramirez glanced down from his most recent landing area and saw Connor, screaming at the top of his lungs. There was a considerable amount of blood around one of Connor’s feet, and a broken blade lying about 20 feet away. A small, red plastic gem was lying near him. Connor glared up at him.
“This is your fault, Haggis. I’m going to get you for this!”
“I’m sure you will, Mcleod, but I doubt this is a lesson you’ll soon forget. Never, ever, break your teacher’s sword. Oh, and fights on holy ground are frowned upon heavily.”
“IT’S NOT MY FAULT!!” Connor screached. Ramirez rolled his eyes.
“Sure, sure, that’s what they all say. But ‘they’ don’t all destroy the blade on my sword!”
“But it’s not! I didn’t start the fight! I was just defending myself! You’re the one who said not to loose my head!”
“I didn’t say you could preserve your pitiful excuse for a life at the price of my precious sword!”
“Considering the screach that Iheard before I passed out and was assaulted by munchkins, oompaloompas, and Roger Rabbit, is this really the time for this conversation?”
Ramirez considered this for a moment, then looked at Connor, perplexed curiousity written across his features in black magic marker. It looked rather interesting on his forehead, and there were some streaks of purple wax in his eyebrows, implying that someone had tried to write it in purple crayon. “Munchkins?” He raised an eyebrow. “When did you get acosted by a gang of munchkins?”
Connor groaned. “Don’t ask. I’m still trying to figure out why Roseanne was singing baritone.” Ramirez shrugged and figured he really didn’t want to know. The Library seemed to do strange things to one’s mind. Then again, so does thinking about the Highlander timeline(s), and we’re not talking about the series. So lets just go on to the next event, shall we?
Ramirez jumped off the bookshelf, loop of rope still wrapped around his shoulder, and nearly landed on Pyla, lost in thought. Apparently, it was unfamiliar territory. He swung in, sort of, and knocked the Reea beanies off the Reea original. The Meanies growled and squirted him with E-Z Cheese. Pyla, smelling her favorite snack food, leapt into action, picking up her unconscious, half suffocated sister and grabbing Ramirez and dragging him along behind her. When she got the chance, she was going to have to scrape off the cheese and save it. She was also going to have to swipe that nifty cool blade at his side. She frowned, noticing that the pretty little red gem had gone missing. She shrugged, nearly dropping her sister. The design on the dragon was better, so she could live without a pretty little nifty cool red gem. Even if she did like rubies... it was probably plastic anyway.
Seeing a chance to distract him from his nifty cool, super-dee-duper, must have sword, she dropped Reea on him and snagged the slightly cheese encrusted sword. She grinned. Weapon and a snack. Good deal! In the distant reaches of the galaxy, a black bird began flying towards the Library, and a deep, resonating, weasely voice said: You have done well, Grasshopper. Soon will come the day when you will snatch the Lo Mein from my hand. Then I will move on to MuShu. Pyla looked around, mildly confused, but not yet truly concerned, wondering where the voice was coming from and why it was talking about Americanized Chinese food. Ramirez just shrugged and wondered when Connor had snuck up behind him and snatched his sword again.