Part 1: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

PART 4: GUYBRUSH KICKS BUTT

It was a short journey, and it ended with Guybrush standing alone on the pier of Melee Island, under a moonlit night as bright as before. "Well, that was certainly easier than the trip to Monkey Island™," he said, looking around for Herman and the ghost pirate. "I wonder where Toothrot's gone to now? Now I'll have to stop the wedding by myself!" He rushed along the pier.

LeChuck had appointed ghost pirates as guards throughout the town, and one of them saw Guybrush approaching. It stepped in his way.

"Yikes!" said Guybrush as he saw the pirate. It would have been hard not to see the pirate, given the huge rolls of ghost fat that nestled above its pants - fat that was even worse because it was transparent.

"Hey!" called the pirate in a deep, goofy voice. "Wait a second!"

Guybrush was not scared. "Can I interest you in some root beer, sir?" he said innocently.

"Root beer?" said the ghost pirate. It leaned forward as Guybrush took the seltzer bottle from his pocket and shook it. "Oh boy! I love root beer-"

A handful of it splashed onto his face, and ate swiftly into it like a very strong acid, or possibly some grog. The head and upper shoulders of the ghost pirate were blown away like vapours, leaving a pair of lost and forlorn legs, which ran away quickly.

Guybrush put away the bottle. "Cool!" he said, walked past the slimy residue of the ghost pirate and onto land.

The Scumm Bar was empty, but Guybrush ran past it anyway because he had to get to the church. He passed under the archway, and was stopped in the town square by another ghost pirate, this one looking more intelligent and wearing some kind of eyepatch. Guybrush decided, on the whim of the moment, to spare him if he could.

The grim spectre held out a hand and stopped Guybrush. "Excuse me," it said in a businesslike tone, "do you have an invitation to the wedding?"

"No, I'm a gatecrasher," said Guybrush. "Bye now."

He tried to brush past, but the ghost pirate stepped in his way. "Not so fast, buddy!" He sounded suspicious. "You don't look much like a ghost to me," he said, musing. "You're very pink..."

"I suffer from a rare pigmentation efficiency syndrome," explained Guybrush.

"You don't sound much like a ghost, either. Could you wail and moan or rattle some chains or something?"

Guybrush had a shot. "aaaAAAAOOOOoooo... er... my chains are at the cleaners being degreased."

"Well, OK," said the ghost. "But where's that dank, musty, beyond-the-grave ghost smell?"

"Oh, that! Just let me get my boots off..."

"No, never mind," said the ghost quickly. "If you're really a ghost, prove it. Pop your own head off."

Guybrush sighed. He'd tried, but now there was no other option left. "You mean the head on this root beer?" he asked slyly, reaching into his pocket and removing the bottle. He shook it and squirted the ghost pirate.

On contact the ghost pirate collapsed, like a smoke machine in reverse. It vanished into nothingness.

Guybrush was even more impressed. "This stuff's great!" he said. "Watch out, LeChuck! There's a new Sheriff in town, and his name-" Guybrush suddenly remembered something. "Hey, I better get to the church!"

He ran along the town square, under the arch (where the clock read ten), past the pirate shop, until the church finally came into view. Primary colours spilled out into the street from the stained glass windows, and sombre organ music could be heard. He pelted along the cobblestones, and into the church.

Candles lined the aisle and the pulpit, and shone with great light. There was no one in the pews - obviously LeChuck favoured low key affairs. The only occupants of the church stood at the front, a matched pair in front of the priest. LeChuck and Elaine! thought Guybrush desperately. Was he in time?

The priest began speaking again. He was finally getting to the end, and about time too. "If there be any man with reason that these two... er... people should not be united in blissful matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace."

Guybrush drew the deepest breath he'd ever took. "STOP THE WEDDING!!" he bugled.

The priest looked up. "Hey, who's that?"

LeChuck looked around.

Guybrush began to stride down the aisle, his face grim and set.

"You!" said LeChuck angrily, and started toward him. They met.

"I've come to stop you from marrying Governor Marley," said Guybrush, steel in his voice. "Take this, you vaporous voodoo vermin!"

"Take what? Are you trying to bribe me?"

Behind LeChuck, a rope was let down from down the rafters. Following it down came Elaine Marley. She landed on the carpeted aisle, tugged the rope, which disappeared into the rafters again, and looked at Guybrush.

"Governor!" cried Guybrush.

LeChuck turned and saw Elaine. He very nearly jumped into the air. "Governor!"

"Governor?" asked the priest from the pulpit, who was now completely confused.

"What's going on?" asked LeChuck.

"Oh, Guybrush, you mad fool!" said Elaine. "I'm impressed you came to save me, but it really wasn't necessary. I had everything well in hand. Unfortunately, your arrival has made it necessary for me to tip my hand early."

"...how...but..." said LeChuck in a weak, utterly mystified voice.

"How did you escape?" asked Guybrush, likewise unsure.

"Oh, that bit was easy," said Elaine. "LeChuck is a bozo."

"Hey!"

"-and lots of his crew members were friends of mine when they were alive."

"I thought LeChuck was going to marry you," said Guybrush.

"Yes, so did I!" said LeChuck.

"Yes, so did he! But I arranged for a little surprise when it came time to kiss the bride."

That was what was troubling Guybrush - who was the figure in the white dress and veil who still stood before the priest, back turned to them. "If you're here," he asked, "then who's that in the dress?"

They all looked at the figure, who turned to face them. The veil and dress hid everything. The figure made kissy motions to LeChuck, and then the dress fell away to reveal two monkeys, one standing on the other's shoulders, and holding a bottle of anti ghost root beer.

"What?" said Guybrush. The monkeys started bouncing around energetically.

"Don't scare them!" said Elaine. "They have my ghost zapping root beer bottle!"

"Oh, I'll get it," said Guybrush confidently. He walked over, causing the monkeys to shriek and run for cover. They disappeared into the vestry.

The priest put his hands over his eyes. He hoped the Scumm Bar was still open, because he needed a drink.

"Ooops," said Guybrush.

"Nice going, Guybrush," said Elaine sarcastically. "Now I've got to chase them down to get my root beer back." She followed the chimps out of the church.

"...but..." called out an uncertain Guybrush behind her. The rescue was not going as well as he'd hoped. "...I....er...hey..."

LeChuck, now that Elaine had gone, turned to Guybrush, and the light of anger in his eyes was terrible to see. "You dared to come here and confront me!" he roared. "I can't believe your audacity!"

"Well, I can't believe your stupidity!" countered Guybrush, to whom insults had become the primary mode of conversation. "I had to stop you from marrying the Governor."

"I'll marry her yet!" said LeChuck fiercely. "How do you plan to stop me?"

"I'll douse you with my sticky seltzer bottle," said Guybrush. Maybe this rescue could work out, after all. He took out the bottle and started to shake it. "You'll never menace decent, tangible pirates again, you billowing bag of... of... of something that begins with 'b'!"

Looking directly into the venomous barrels of the bottle, LeChuck began to lose a little of his nerve. "Uhh..." he began in a more reasonable tone of voice, "now hold on a minute there, friend - I was only kidding, you know? We can settle this like gentlemen..." He trailed off as he realised Guybrush was having problems with the bottle.

Guybrush tried and tried again, but the damned thing just wouldn't squirt. "Oh no," he blurted out despairingly, "it's jammed!"

There was a pause, in which LeChuck digested this new piece of information, and Guybrush had time to realise the incredible stupidity in the very utterance of that last sentence.

LeChuck's left fist began to wind up. It was Guybrush's turn to be reasonable - "Er, say now," he began slowly, a little put off by the steadily increasing angular momentum of LeChuck's hand, now whirling at an incredible rate. In accordance with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, it seemed to be gaining mass as it accelerated.

Guybrush swallowed. "Let's not be hasty..." was all he had time to get out before the fist, now completely lost in a circular whirl, caught him on the point of the chin. From a standing start Guybrush was hurled upward with rocket velocity, right through the church roof. Dust and broken timber rained down.

LeChuck leaped, and with the help that being a weightless ghost provides, followed Guybrush into the night air.

The priest looked at the hole in his roof, then started along the aisle toward the Scumm Bar. He'd be needing a lot more than one drink tonight.

Guybrush flew. Above the mountain, where the lookout peered myopically for ships. Above the cloud level, and into the very regions where the air grew thin and cold. Fortunately, he didn't spend much time there, for he was soon falling back to earth with an ever increasing impact speed.

Following him came LeChuck, gliding fearlessly through the night breezes, rocketed by hellish forces beyond the grave.

Near the Sword Master's house, Guybrush hit the top branches of a tall pine tree. He hit the branches below them, and the branches below them, neatly shearing away one side of the tree.

The impact slowed him down just enough so that he didn't die or lose consciousness when he fell in a thick patch of bracken. Guybrush tried to stagger to his feet. He looked upward.

Above him he saw LeChuck descending from above, arms outstretched, like the onset of a blue doom. LeChuck landed by him, and instantly started winding his fist up once more. Guybrush tried to back away, but he couldn't even get up properly.

A second time Guybrush was struck, this time with more lateral velocity, becoming an ice-blue sinewave arcing across the dark dimensions. Following him on his curved trajectory came LeChuck, growling fiercely.

Guybrush looked downward madly and saw he was crossing water. Ahead, the coastline was drawing near. Like a guided missile, he was heading toward the only sign of habitation along it - a bright set of lights strung around a concrete plaza and pier.

Realising his destination, Guybrush started to scream.

Stan, taking stock of his stock, looked upward sharply and saw a wailing, white and pink object hurtling toward his Saleyard. With a final scream, it crashlanded in the Grog Machine. Miscellaneous coins and a bottle of root beer spilled out of the slot.

Stan walked over to the Grog Machine. "Good to see you, son!" he said to the recumbent Guybrush, still trapped in the garish red box and in no condition to respond. "How's the ship? If you're interested in trading up, I can give you a fair price for it."

Beside Stan, the transparent blue body of LeChuck materialised from above, followed by his still unsatisfied head. Stan sized up the newcomer.

"Howdy, pardner!" he said jovially to LeChuck.

LeChuck sized up Stan, and started to whirl his fist in a threatening manner.

Stan liked this fellow - he waved his arms even more than he did! "You know," he said in a friendly tone to LeChuck, "just by looking at you, I can tell you're a man of the world. A man with an eye for quality."

LeChuck's fist was approaching particle accelerator velocities.

"A man who knows a good deal when he-"

Stan sailed into the stratosphere, and was gone in a flash. LeChuck watched him go, then started bashing the Grog Machine, succeeding in drenching Guybrush in grog and root beer.

The metal casing of the Grog Machine was not giving way - it was obviously built of stronger stuff than Stan's ships. Frustrated, LeChuck pounded it harder, started kicking it, and soon the machine was being bent into all sorts of awkward angles, with Guybrush in the middle getting severely bruised.

LeChuck reached a ghost arm up the main slot of the machine, grasped around until finding a clump of Guybrush's hair, and pulled him out onto the cobblestones. He stood and glared down at Guybrush's prone form, waiting for him to get up.

Guybrush spread his arms, getting leverage to push himself up, and his left hand brushed the bottle of root beer. As he got to his feet he slipped his hand over it, almost without thinking.

LeChuck's fist began to whirl. Before Guybrush could be struck, however, he noticed the label on the root beer. Guybrush started shaking the bottle wildly.

The pressure of the carbonated root beer burst the cap off. A spray of root beer was ejected from the neck of the bottle, all over LeChuck.

LeChuck suddenly staggered. "Urk," he croaked, legs wobbling furiously. His whole body started to shiver. LeChuck gasped, and now giants beads of sweat rolled down his body, flying into the air as he shook. The shakes got wilder, and more liquid was thrown from his ghostly form.

"Aieeeeee!" screamed LeChuck. His body expanded like a balloon, began to stretch, and suddenly exploded straight into the sky, leaving behind a thin grey skeleton. The skeleton took a couple of staggery steps toward Guybrush, lost its balance, and fell onto the cobblestones, where it shattered and disappeared into nothing.

Instant replay:

Blimp-Cam™:

A lone seagull, at the moment a little bit lost, had the misfortune to be directly above LeChuck when he exploded. Caught by a sudden noise below, the seagull looked down to see a horrible grey face with staring red eyes shooting directly toward it. The face lost velocity as it came, until it came to a halt mere feet below the seagull, who was less than happy about this.

And then LeChuck exploded again.

Guybrush, looking up into the sky after LeChuck, watched as fireworks of every colour and description detonated in the night sky. Roman candles wheeled above the Melee Island™ lookout. Massive starbursts were seen above the Fettucini Brothers Circus. And amidst it all, Guybrush fancied he could just make out a small, dark, flapping, and extremely noisy object plummeting with great speed toward the earth.

"Hey," said a soft voice behind him.

"Yikes!" exclaimed Guybrush, and whirled to see Elaine standing behind him, looking concerned but relieved. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry," said Elaine.

Guybrush looked up into the starlit sky. "That's OK."

They both watched above as the fireworks grew ever more varied and splendorous. "You know," said Guybrush, "LeChuck was a deviant, obnoxious, slithery, creepy-crawly sort of guy, but I'll say this for him - he sure looks good exploding against the night sky."

"Yes, it's very romantic," agreed Elaine.

Guybrush was forgetting his bruises already. He hadn't felt this good inside in ages. Truly, this was, and would be, a night for fireworks.

Elaine looked at Guybrush. "Can I buy you a root beer?" she asked.

"Actually, I'm a bit sick of root beer," confessed Guybrush. "While I was in the machine over at Stan's - gosh, I hope Stan's okay."

Far away, as Guybrush uttered these very words, Stan was falling into the sea in front of the town pier. He would surely have drowned, but fortunately the mast which had fallen off the Sea Monkey was still here, sticking out of the water. Less fortunately, Stan landed directly on it.

Back at Stan's, the fireworks knew no end. Brighter and brighter they became, until they threatened to outdo the moon's light.

"I wish my crew could have been here to see this," said Guybrush.

His crew were not here to see this, partly because they were prisoners in the Cannibals guest hut on Monkey Island™, and had been for the past few hours.

"You know," began Otis for the umpteenth time, "I can't escape the feeling that Guybrush was somehow responsible for that big rock sinking the ship..."

"Yeah," agreed the Sword Master, who, like Otis, was overdressed for the tropical heat and really feeling it. "As soon as we find a way off this island we're going to have ourselves a little chat with Mr. Threepwood..."

Meathook, sitting down in the corner, nodded his head vehemently. "The little manservant."

"Let's get out of this hut, first," said Otis.

There was a pause.

"Any idea how?"

Back at Stan's, the fireworks had lessened in intensity. This was more than made up for, however, by the new, intricate and delicate patterns that weaved and interweaved through the air like enchanted dragons.

"At least I learned something from all this," said Guybrush.

"What's that?" asked Elaine, standing at his shoulder, the stars in her eyes.

"Never pay more than twenty bucks for a computer game," said Guybrush.

Elaine frowned.. "What's a computer game?."

"I don't know," said Guybrush, a little confused as to what he'd just said. "I don't know why I just said that."

In the warm night air, under a sky dappled with firework light, it didn't really seem to matter much.

THE END... for now