The fabulous Chuck Wendig (www.terribleminds.com) proposed a flash writing contest where the challenge is to mash-up two different movies, books, video games, etc.
Since this was my first time at this, I sorta did it wrong. I really created more of a fan fiction “gmish” (Yiddish for mixture, peoples) that combines the characters and classic lines. But I thought it was really fun and it made a few people laugh, so here it is…
The Princess Bride Meets Die Hard
The Nakatomi building roof is not your normal roof. It is a green roof extraordinare, with a very large tree. The large tree has a knot in it. If you pray to the spirit of your father, holding a sapier, you may find your way to that particular knot and open the secret passage to the mysterious, hidden torture chamber beneath.
There, you will find Hans Gruber holding a gun to John McClane’s head and Count Rugen happily strapping a raging Wesley into the life-sucking machine.
Count Rugen looks at Hans with contempt, “I am infinitely more evil than you, Hans! I torture people. I don’t just kill them. I am scientist with deeply evil and somehow oddly academic experimental tendencies. You are just a brute!”
Fezzik pops in, “Yes?”
Rugen says, “What?”
Fezzik, “You called for the Brute Squad?
“You ARE the Brute Squad! Go away. Can’t you see I’m having a serious discussion here?”
Hans interrupts, “I am much more evil than you. I am stealing $600 million dollars, and killing people while doing it.”
Inigo pops up, “If you killed my father, prepare to die!”
Rugen waves him away. “You do not win, Hans. You are nothing compared to me. Look! I have 6 fingers on one hand! I am menacing. You are a small time thief!”
“I am an exceptional thief! And since I’m moving up to kidnapping, you should be more polite!”
Rugen chuffs. “Hans, bubbe, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here? You kill this guy. You get some money. You walk away. They think you are mostly dead so they don’t look for you. What then? A vacation home the overlooking the Cliffs of Insanity? What will you do to keep your wits about you?”
Hans, “Ah! That is how we shall solve this. A battle of wits.”
Wesley weakly whispers, “Hopefully this guy is smarter than the last one.”
Rugen replies, “A battle of wits? You mean you put your gun away and I put my machine on neutral and we try to kill each other as God intended? Skill against skill alone?
Hans says, “Yes, or we are at an impasse.”
“You are that smart then?”
“Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?”
Rugen looks at him askance. “Yes.”
“Morons, all of them.”
“I accept. To the death?” says Rugen.
“Since you like torture, how about to the pain?”” replies Hans.
“I don’t know what that means. Get on with it!” says an exasperated Rugen. “I have life to suck.”
“I will torture you with your most hated fears. I will spend eternity screeching “Humperdink, Humperdink, Humperdink” in your ears because I will leave your ears perfect. As you walk through the crowd unable to relieve yourself of this auditory hallucination, you will hear the children yelling, “God, what is that thing?”
Rugen looks puzzled. “I like Humperdink. He’s the only one that calls me Tyrone. And he loves to watch me work. He’d be here now except he has a wedding to plan, a bride to kidnap and a country to frame for it. He’s swamped.”
An ROUS scuttles past.
Hans flinches. “What is it about this place? Don’t you have any traps? Poison? Something to keep these infernal rats away?”
Rugen considers. “Poison, yes, we have that. It is odorless, tasteless and colorless. Not sure what it is called.”
Hans reflects for a moment. “Iocane. I’d bet my life on it.”
Humperdink leans into the torture chamber. “Rugen, don’t do this! Hans, this shit-head doesn’t know what kind of man you are, but I do!”
Both Rugen and Hans yell simultaneously, “Shut up, Humperdink, you pansy!”
Humperdink looks chastened. “As you wish.”
Wesley garners a little energy, “Hey! That is my line!”
Karl galumphs over, blond hair swinging. “Boss, why are you dragging this out?”
Hans glares at Karl. “I am more evil than Rugen. We both know this. If you had listened to me 20 pages ago, he’d be neutralized already.”
Karl huffs, “I don’t want neutral. I want dead.”
“Patience, Karl. You want him dead, he’ll be dead.”
Karl squints at Rugen, takes note of his extra finger. “It will take a miracle.”
Hans backhands Karl across the room, “Stop rushing me! You rush a miracle, man, you get rotten miracles.”
Valerie pops over and hands the injured Karl a chocolate pain reliever pill the size of a golf ball. She looks up, “The chocolate makes it go down easier.”
Rugen looks at Hans. “This is getting ridiculous. We don’t have that much time. Didn’t you set the roof to blow?
Hans looks up. “Good point! We’d better get on with it.”
Rugen eyes Hans up and down. “Okay then. First question: What sports team is on the grandson’s pajamas?”
Hans looks around frantically. “I don’t know! That is not fair.”
Rugen replies, “Life isn’t fair. Anyone who says differently is selling you something.”
“Fine,” says Hans. “My turn.”
He thinks for a moment. His eyes go narrow. He looks at his walkie-talkie. He fondles his walkie-talkie. Just for fun, he hits buttons on his walkie-talkie and murmurs into it in German. When he is satisfied, he says, “What is Holly Genaro’s real last name?”
Rugen replies immediately, “McClane, numb-nuts. Everyone knows that.”
Hans manages to look very Teutonic, constipated and like he has to go to the bathroom urgently, all at once.
Rugen says, “I am ahead by 1. I will ask you a second question.”
Rugen walks around the torture chamber, humming for a moment. He absently flips the switch on the life-sucking machine and Wesley cries in pain. Rugen looks delighted. “Now, how does that feel? And remember, this is for posterity.”
Wesley moans.
McClane jumps up trying to rescue Wesley. He knocks several glass beakers over and steps on them with his bare feet. They start to bleed and he drags his bloody foot across the floor, leaving an obvious blood trail for anyone who wants to follow. He fails miserably to rescue Wesley.
Hans puts his hand on McClane’s shoulder and pushes him down to the floor.
“Continue, Rugen!”
“What is the Dread Pirate Robert’s ship’s name?”
Hans thinks. “This is tricky but I know my ships, planes, helicopters and other modes of transportation. Ah-ha! I HAVE it! The Queen’s Pride.”
Rugen looks impressed.
Hans says, “Now we are even. I shall ask you another question, and if you know it, I shall be very put out.”
Hans mumbles to himself. He consults his computer expert, Theo. “Theo, can you help me break this man?”
Theo replies, “You didn’t bring me along for my sparkling personality.” Theo steps forward, looks out the torture room window (what torture room has a window?) and says, “All right, listen up guys, there are four assholes coming in the rear in a standard two-by-two cover formation.”
Rugen and Hans jump to look through the glass. “What! How?” exclaims Rugen.
John laughs, holding his bleeding foot, “It is the police, dickheads. My good friend, Sgt Al, otherwise known as “the black guy they put in everything when they can’t find another actor,” called the FBI!”
They all look out the window except Wesley, who is still sobbing because he had one year of his life sucked away.
Down below is Fezzik with four white horses. Inigo is with him, plus the mustachioed leader of the Brute Squad and a random pirate from the Dread Pirate Robert’s ship.
Buttercups runs in. “Wesley! I love you.”
“Fine time to say that, dear,” says Wesley as tears continue to stream down his face. “It is too late for me!”
“Inconceivable!” cries Buttercup, running over to him, her sleeves flailing in a non-existent wind.
“I am absolutely certain that you do not know what that words means,” mutters Vizzini, from the side hall.
Rugen looks at Hans. “You know, Hans. You seem like a pretty smart guy. Maybe torture isn’t the way to go. Maybe money is. Or, as we say in Guiider, Tweasure!”
Hans rubs his chin. “Are you proposing a partnership? A kind of…mawwiage?”
“I am. But lay off the mawwiage stuff.”
John leans one hand up to stop then, his white t-shirt stained in a manly manner with sweat, blood and gunsmoke. He runs his other hand through what remains of his hair and says, “You can’t! You still don’t know which of you is the most evil. How will we finish this without a final, explosive ending? I still have the detonators!”
Outside, Richard Thornberg is eagerly reporting live from the Guilder Torture Room.
Fezzik waits with his white horses. The random pirate taps his foot impatiently. The mustachioed man smooths his mustache.
Holly Genaro is in the back corner trying to help a pregnant woman find a bathroom.
Inigo is practicing grasping his heart.
Buttercup is kissing the useless Wesley all over his face.
Hans and Rugen hold hands. They climb out the window and sail magically, gently down and land with complete accuracy on the white horses, somehow without hurting their boy bits.
“We’re outta here! Yippee-ki-yay, motherfuckers!”
