The next day the wind shifted west, and we all know what that means.
Meanwhile, the lands below the Mountain with Zero Friends filled with forces upon forces, racking up more friend requests in a matter of hours than the mountain had ever known. Worried about appearing desperate, the mountain played it coy, leaving all requests pending, so nobody was quite sure of who was friends with whom.
Then Bain at last arrived, come to the aid of the Little People, brother in arms to Sorkinshield and cousin in genetics because of a drunken and regret-filled night Bain’s granduncle had with Sorkinshield’s oldest aunt.
Bard the Batman would not let Bain pass round the eastern bend; east was one of the four directions, and goodness knows you have to remember them all. Billy marched forth with Bard to speak with Bain to see if there could be a peace that might prevent the need for any sequels.
“From whence come you?” asked the Batman in his deep bass, grim as ever.
“I am Bain, son of Inane, son of Pain,” said Bain, son of Inane, son of Pain. He spoke grimly, with a pitch deep enough to ruin a baby’s whole day. “We are hastening to my kinsmen in the mountain, who have sent word of a casting call for a gritty thriller set on the stage of a sports news show. Why do you stand here as though you wish to kill me so?” It was the polite thing to say in such a situation, though it really meant, “Why do you stand here?”
“We stand here defending morality,” said the Batman, more grimly and deeply than ever before.
“Is that so?” said Bain, one-upping the Batman in the grim lowering of his voice.
“It is so,” said the Batman, going down the grimmest of octaves. Up by the mountain, Doc was having more aneurysms than usual.
“So?” reiterated Bain, flexing his grim vocal cords as wide as they could vibrate, struggling to utter the word.
“So,” the Batman echoed, grunting with grimness so low that none could be sure he had even said it. Dead birds began falling from the sky.
“Hhhgrh,” countered Bain, going grimmer and deeper than any in Widdle Wearth had ever gone before.
“Hrhhghh,” went the Batman, his voice cracking with a grimness so deep it set fire to most of the Little People’s hair.
And so it came to pass that neither could produce another audible sound. The two great leaders had no choice but to stare each other down with their tongues hanging out and their mouths open wide.
There was no getting around it. A fight was at hand—and at the YOLO’s climax! Due to the definition of the word “climax”!
Each side prepared their forces, making sure to give their warriors one final lesson on how to miss with all their arrows until the very last one.
Yet just as the CG effects were about to get nifty, a swirling darkness overcame the sky above.
“Halt!” cried Dumbledalf. “Brooms swarm the sky.”
Elves and Little People alike stopped in their tracks and watched with great confusion.
“Those are just bats,” said Bard the Batman, grimly relieved. “I was wondering where I’d left them. Alas! They bring word of a Moblin attack. They come upon wargis to possibly avenge the possible death of Tony Moblin.”
“Come, everyone!” said Dumbledalf. “A Wizarding Tournament! I am a wizard!” He laughed heartily, then grew incredibly sad. “Do come now, or we shall all die immediately.”
And so the Batman and Bain and Billy and everybody else I haven’t bothered to describe in proper detail gathered round, and hence were drawn the lines in the Battle of the Five Armies. It was the Moblins and the wargis on one side, and then also the Elves and the Little People and the Humans. Five-ish armies. Close enough.
And so at once all five forces charged forth into battle.
“Halt!” Dumbledalf cried, and all five forces promptly stopped.
“What is it now?” asked the Batman.
“We have company.”
It was not a lie! It was true! Out from around the Ravens’ locker room marched five more armies, each of them boasting another king.
Billy looked upon them, exhausted by the growing number of enemies he’d need to keep an eye on. He wasn’t equipped to count more than five of anything except food, which he counted in units of A Lot of Food. “But who could they be?” asked the wobbit. “I thought everyone was already here.”
“Name yourselves,” yelled Dumbledalf in the entirely wrong direction. “I, for one, am a wizard! A uniwizard!”
He giggled, then cried, then turned his hat backward and insisted on being called Lil-D.
The five kings approached, pushing and shoving their way to the front. Due to a lack of desirable cable options in Wobbottabad, Billy did not have HBO, and therefore did not recognize the five advancing kings. Of course, as you have likely guessed by now, they were the five final contestants in the highly competitive Game of Musical Chairs.
“I am Lord Joyfree Bloodbathian,” said the douchiest, “Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.”
“I am Lord Standin Bloodbathian,” said the grumpiest, “Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.”
“I am Lord Manly Bloodbathian,” said the most effeminate, “Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.”
“I am Lord Heartthrob Starcrossed,” said the one who seemed least likely to die, “King of the North.”
“I am Bailing Theonboy,” said the one who would be having no grandchildren anytime soon, “King of the North and Iron Islands.”
The five kings walked to the fore, coming face-to-face with the other five kings, who were all understandably annoyed because they’d already ordered their “I Survived the Battle of Five Armies and All I Got Was This Lousy Shirt” shirts.
Billy raised his hand. When no one called on him, he did not speak.
“What brings you to our battle?” asked the Batman. “We were just about to begin, and anyway, we’ve reached maximum capacity.”
“How dare you speak so grimly to the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms!” said the first three in unison.
The original five leaders glanced at each other, confounded.
“How many kingdoms do we have, exactly?” asked Billy at last, speaking the thought on everyone’s mind.
“You, uhh . . . babes . . . darlin’ babies . . . donwehave four? Got fork kingdoms . . . forkins . . . ,” wagered the Elvisking.
“Okay,” said Billy. “So we have the Elven Lands, Jerkwood, the Mountain with Zero Friends, and the Mountains Whose Peaks Are Concealed by Gathering Precipitation Around Their Summits.”
“Impossible,” argued Bard. “I am the rightful heir to Fail, land of my fathers, so that’s at least five.”
“And surely the North has been unaccounted for,” Bain pointed out. “Do you think those ten million bats came from my house? They did not come from my house.”
“And Rake-town, of course,” put in Nixon, who had been inexplicably reelected in a landslide. “So perhaps it is in fact seven.”
“Then it is fourteen,” corrected Heatthrob Starcrossed. “Your seven and our seven.”
“What do you mean?” asked Dumbledalf, coincidentally at a suitable moment.
Joyfree Bloodbathian was quickly growing bored. He hadn’t killed any prostitutes in this scene. “Is this not the North?”
“Of course it is the North,” said Richard Nixon.
“Ain’tno notnorth . . .” added the Elvisking.
“Then we are in the right place. The North is one of our kingdoms.”
“But the North is one of our kingdoms,” asserted Bain.
“Well, then,” said Heartthrob Starcrossed. “It appears we all have a kingdom in common. I will live for a long, long time.”
“So it is thirteen kingdoms in all, then,” said Billy, “six to the each of us and one in common. But what are the lot of you even fighting for?”
“The Pointy Chair, of course,” said Standin Bloodbathian.
The shoulders of the original five leaders were growing sore from all the shrugging. Never before had they heard of any pointy chair, not even in the songs of lore, or the Top 40 songs of catchy, topical lore.
“And just what is the Pointy Chair?” asked Richard Nixon, activating a tape recorder in his suit.
“You know,” said Joyfree. “The Pointy Chair. The chair everyone wants to sit in.”
“Sounds uncomfortable,” admitted Billy.
The kings of the Other Seven Kingdoms eyed each other.
“But . . . no,” said Standin. “The Pointy Chair is, like, the best chair. I mean, literally the best.”
“Sounds like it hurts,” said Billy. Generations later, the songs would sing of his fierceness and courage, but really he was just calling it like he saw it.
“You don’t understand,” cut in Joyfree. “It’s a chair built from the swords of all the kings who died from sitting on it. It’s awesome.”
“Oh,” said the Batman. “That does sound kind of awesome,” he muttered grimly.
“I’m in,” said Bain. “Let’s go to war for that.”
Richard Nixon could not believe what he was hearing. “But what of the Oscars and Golden Globes piled up in the Mountain with Zero Friends?”
“You don’t get to zero friends without making a few enemies,” shouted Sorkinshield from the mountain’s front gate. He was beginning to fear they had forgotten he might have something important to say.
“Forget about some trophies to put above your fireplace,” said Manly Bloodbathian. “Imagine looking at that fireplace from the comfort of your Pointy Chair.”
“I like him the best,” whispered Dumbledalf to one of his own freckles.
It appeared then that there was nothing left to discuss. The Pointy Chair was worth dying for.
“So we’re all in agreement,” said Billy. “The Battle of Five Armies shall hereby be the Battle of Ten Armies.”
“The Battle of Five Armies?” cried Joyfree. “This is the War of Five Kings! If you very well must, we shall make it the War of Ten Kings.”
“Now just a minute,” interjected Bain. “I signed up for a battle, not a war—”
“Halt!” screeched Dumbledalf.
“Now what?” rang a chorus of self-important, inbred male voices.
But lo and behold, their question was answered on the horizon, marching in from the south—the one direction that everybody had forgotten about. Yet another five rulers—and you’ll never believe this—with another five armies.
“Name yourselves,” ordered Dumbledalf. “My name is Wizard.”
“I am J. R. R. Toking,” said the oldest. “And I am your creator.”
“I am G. R. R. Marauding,” said the one most likely to die before finishing his incredibly ambitious book series. “Also your creator.”
“I am J. K. Rousing,” said the most effeminate. “And I am somehow wrapped up in this.”
“I am C. S. Losing,” said the one who had no business here. “And I created a thing similar to this which should be a part of the conversation.”
“I am T. H. Lampoon,” said the definitely best one. “And I just wanted to point out for the last time that you can order our magazine online, follow us on Twitter, or if you feel like it, both.”I
Behind them stood armies millions and millions strong, comprised of their most loyal followers gathered up from all the lands. Their ranks stretched on for countless miles, spanning the length of Jerkwood and the Forest of Metaphorical Importance and dropping off into the Vast Unknown. They were a noble race, descendants of literates, which certainly impressed Billy, who was a descendant of those who looked quizzically at microwave timers.
With all these armies, things were getting out of hand. Some warriors even went so far as to count themselves members of multiple armies, which—come on—was kind of a dick move. A dragon could claim itself a member of three of the armies, and a wizard, due to the magical laws of Widdle Wearth, had to pick his least favorite four. It was all quite confusing. One minute a lion was a literal lion, and the next he was presumed to be just a metaphorical lion.
“And what is it all of you want?” asked Richard Nixon.
“It is simple, really,” said J. R. R. Toking, drawing a long puff from his pipe. “We want our characters back.”
“What for?”
“To kill them,” explained G. R. R. Marauding.
“This whole ‘book’ or what have you is really butchering our masterfully crafted characters,” clarified J. K. Rousing. “So the least we can do is kill them now and spare them the humiliation of having to finish things up in some college humor magazine’s idea of a fantasy story.”
“Did you know I’m a devout Catholic?” asked C. S. Losing, feeling a little left out of the fun.II
“Look,” said Billy. All this talk about death reminded him of dead animals, which reminded him of eating dead animals. “We’ve already capped this at ten armies. I’m sorry, but you’ve come too late. I do not wish to be rude, but you must respect that there is no room left for you.”
“Nonsense,” scoffed J. R. R. Toking, and he proceeded to blow a smoke ring that wrapped itself around all existence. “I built these lands myself, using an incredibly unnecessary amount of words. If I say so, there is certainly room for us to fight on them.”
“So what shall we call this?” huffed the wobbit impatiently. “The Army Battle of the Fifteen Warring Kings?”
“Not so fast,” said J. K. Rousing. She raised a hand to the back of her head and whipped off her ponytail bun.
“She’s a woman!” every single person on the battlefield gasped in disbelief.
“This might go against my Catholic faith,” C. S. Losing let it be known, as if anyone cared what he had to say.
“Then it is settled once and for all!” Billy beckoned. “This shall henceforth be known as the Army Battle of the Fourteen Warring Kings and One Warring Queen, and we shall fight for copyright laws, Academy Awards, and pointy chairs. Can we all now be in agreement? Please?”
“Halt!” bellowed Dumbledalf. Many tossed down their murder weapons to the ground in anger. They followed his gaze toward the west. It had been so long since they’d thought about the west that they’d forgotten all about it, though a shrewd preteen reader would have remembered that west was the direction the wind was blowing, and everyone knew what that meant.
Twenty more armies crested the western hill, asking about this awesome chair they’d heard about. They brought word that they had sent invitations to all their friends and another sixteen armies were probably on their way and all the present armies should just sit tight. They argued some more about where everyone should begin on the battlefield, as it was becoming increasingly unclear where to have the artists draw the dotted lines. Sorkinshield insisted there be time for war speeches, and the Elvisking riled up even more emotions with a few chords from his baby grand piano. Once everybody showed up, they decided to cap the thing at fifty armies, because at least the round number would look nice on the participation trophies they’d all be getting afterward.
“Hal—”
“Shut up, Hitler!” cried everyone in unison, and Hitler went trudging home sadly, dragging his army of very nice paintings behind him. Now, once and for all, the fight could finally begin.
“Thank goodness,” said Billy. He slipped on his anklet and raised his fists, ready to start his first war battle.
To ensure there would be no pause to the festivities this time around, the Elvisking produced a bugle to signal the start of the slaughter. He played a dainty tune that put all into the proper mood, and turned to retreat to the safety of the traveling elven orchestra pit.
But, of course, he did not see Billy standing beside him, nervously wobbling in nauseatingly enhanced motion. The tip of the bugle’s horn struck Billy straight upon the forehead, and in due course did Billy strike the ground.
That was the last of the first war battle that Billy ever saw.
I http://www.harvardlampoon.com, http://twitter.com/harvardlampoon, http://www.linkedin.com/daLampoonOfficialxxx
II Getting left out of the fun is, debatably, the whole point of Catholicism.III
III Finally this cross makes sense. I still don’t have a clue what the other one is, though.IV
IV You could fit a lot of Jesuses on this thing. I’ve never even seen the next one before. Only one way to find out . . .V
V Whoa.