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Fan-Fiction: The Muppets' Mid-Age Crisis

theprawncracker

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As promised... a new chapter before the New Year. (I can't believe it happened either!) See the next post!
 

theprawncracker

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Chapter 26

Fozzie yawned and rubbed his eyes as he followed the path the rest of his traveling party was walking down. “You really don’t understand the concept of hibernation, huh Kermit?” the bear asked.

Kermit, atop his horse, looked back at the lagging bear. “Fozzie, it’s the middle of spring—bears hibernate in the winter,” said the Frog.

“Oh,” Fozzie said. “Well… then you must have forgotten that coffee hasn’t been invented yet.”

Link, reluctantly pulling the reins of his two horses behind him, nodded in agreement with the bear. “I’m with the bear whose name I never bothered to learn… It is way too early.”

“I don’t know why you guys are complaining,” Kermit said. “We woke up early so we would get there sooner. Besides, there’s no traffic this early in the morning.”

“There ain’t no traffic this early in history!” Jeff, Link’s brown horse, scoffed.

“Your knowledge of history is astounding,” Wayne, Link’s gray horse, said sarcastically.

“Hey, it could be worse,” Jeff retorted, “at least I’m not as dumb as that so-called horse over there,” he said, gesturing to Kermit’s horse. “At least I can talk!”

Kermit’s horse let out an annoyed noise and looked back, glaring at the other two horses. Kermit patted his horse’s head. “Don’t listen to those neigh-sayers, horse.”

“Ahh!” Fozzie shouted. “Neigh-sayers! That’s fun-ny!”

“Did ya mean to do that, boss?” Scooter asked the frog.

Kermit shrugged. “It made him stop complaining about how early it is, didn’t it?”

“Are we there yet?” Gonzo asked.

Scooter looked up at Kermit. “And how are you gonna make that stop?” the squire asked with a smirk.

Kermit scrunched up his face. “I’ll take suggestions.”

“How about ‘yes’?” Fozzie asked.

“Well we’d have to be there for the answer to be yes,” Kermit said.

“I think Fozzie’s right, chief!” Scooter said excitedly.

Kermit smirked. “How can you be so—”

The Frog turned around and was standing in front of a huge billboard with big, bold letters that read, “FILLED WITH MALICE?”

Kermit scratched his head. “‘Filled with malice’?” he asked. “What does that have to do with being there?”

Whoa!” Gonzo shouted. “Check this out!” The weirdo pointed ahead of him on the other side of the billboard.

Kermit and the others moved to see what the Duke was pointing at.

Directly behind the first billboard was another that read, “THEN FIND THE CHALICE!” and behind that one was another that said, “JEWELED CHALICE OF QUEEN FRANCIS IV .5 MILES AHEAD! EXIT 38 B!”

“What an unbelievable coincidence!” Gonzo said, waggling his eyelids up and down.

Kermit shrugged. “Whatever works!” He pointed forward. “Chalice, ho!”

<-> <-> <-> <-> <->

Many billboards (a brilliant marketing scheme, really) and about half a mile later, Kermit and the gang took the exit at 38 B and rode up to the entrance of a large cave with a hefty amount of signage advertising the chalice adorning the exterior walls.

“Huh,” Gonzo said, “you’d think with advertising like that, there’d be a line to get in this place!”

“Yeah! For that matter, why hasn’t someone already discovered the chalice and used it to win the princess?” Fozzie asked.

“That appears to be a pretty major hole in the plot,” Scooter said.

There’s bound to be a major hole in your paychecks if you don’t just ignore it and move on!

“The omniscient and check-signing narrator is right,” Kermit said. “Let’s just get that chalice!”

The weary travelers moved into the cave entrance and were immediately stopped by a rope blocking the entrance to the main cavern. To the left of the rope was a desk where something slept, loud snores exuding from it.

“Is it dead?” Link asked.

“No, Link, unlike your brain cells, it does not appear to be dead,” Strangepork told the muscle-headed pig.

“Should we wake it up?” Fozzie asked, cautiously poking the arm of the thing with his finger.

“I think a better question might be can we wake it up,” Scooter said.

Gonzo looked around for inspiration (or whatever normal people would call Gonzo’s “inspiration”). He spotted Camilla and his eyes shot open. “I’ve got it!” he shouted. “Camilla, sweety nuggets, can you give us the old cock-a-doodle-do?”

“Brawk?” Camilla shrieked. “Bagawk baw brawk! Bawk bawk bawk baw!”

“What’d she say?” Kermit asked.

“She said that she’s not a rooster and she takes offense to someone calling her a man.” Gonzo said reluctantly. “Oh, sure, but calling me a pig is just fine!”

“What’s wrong with being a pig?” Link asked.

“Depends on the pig,” Dr. Strangepork said with a sigh.

Kermit shook his head. “Well we’ve got to wake him up somehow.”

“Did someone call for a musical alarm?”

The gang turned around and saw the Candlelight Mayhem perched at the entrance of the cave. “Salutations once again, froggy warrior,” Dr. Teeth said. “I think we might have just the kiss to awaken our little sleeping beauty from her oh-so sweet slumber.”

“Well… we’ve actually got what appears to be an old guy sleeping—do you have something for that?” Kermit asked.

“Like, that’s what he said,” Janice said with a giggle.

“Perfect!” Kermit said with a grin. “Then he’s all yours.”

“Right on,” Floyd said. “Animal, you’re up man!”

Animal’s eyebrow shot to the top of his head. “Ah! Wake-up-call!” the beast said with a heavy exhale. He pushed his drum set over to the desk and pulled drumsticks out of nowhere. He lunged forward and bit into a cymbal. “Tas-ty riff! Ah ha ha ha!” Animal said with a laugh.

With the speed of… something very fast (so I’m a lazy narrator—I’d like to see you get up this early to narrate this mess), Animal’s arms exploded into a fury of deafening drum beats. He wailed on the skins for a few moments before finally coming to a big (loud) finish. Animal breathed heavily as he finished. “Morning!” he shouted.

The sleeping thing on the desk stirred slightly, grumbling. It looked up, revealing the mustachioed and bespectacled face of an old man with a green nose in the center of his face. He smacked his lips together, yawned, and stretched. “Boy howdy—what a nap!” the old man said. “Eh… who are you?” he asked the frog and his friends.

Kermit tilted his head at the old man. “Erm… I’m Kermit the Frog, a brave and valiant knight, and these are my friends. We’re here to claim the jeweled chalice of Queen Francis IV.” The frog gulped slightly nervously. “And who are you?”

“Me? I’m Queen Francis’s housekeeper, Pops,” the old man said.

“But this place is a cave,” Fozzie said.

Pops shrugged. “So I’m not too good at my job—but the old queen still pays well!”

Still?” Scooter asked. “You mean… she’s not…?”

“Out playin’ bingo?” Pops asked. “Nah, only every other Friday!”

Kermit stroked his chin thoughtfully. “So you mean… Queen Francis is here?”

“Yup, in the back with her knittin’.” Pops nodded. “She just took ‘er tea in ‘er favorite cup just like she does every mornin’!”

“So where’s the jeweled chalice?” Kermit asked.

“Well I just told ya!” Pops said. “She’s drinkin’ her tea out of it now!”

Kermit exchanged glances with Scooter, who shrugged. “Erm, well, ya see… we kind of need that chalice for—”

Fozzie pushed forward and stopped Kermit. “Kermit, please, allow me,” the bear said. “Ya see, Kermit here needs that chalice so he can become king and marry the princess!”

“Not necessarily in that order,” Scooter added.

“We’ve been on this amazing journey—fighting dragons, liberating chickens, and dodging dopey pigs,” Fozzie continued.

“Hey!” Link shouted. “I resemble that remark!”

“And we’ve done it all so Kermit can find his true love!” Fozzie said with a sincere smile.

I did it for the money…” Link mumbled. Scooter socked Link in the arm to shut him up.

Pops let out a weak sniffle. “All of this in the name of true love?” The old man raised his glasses and wiped his eye. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard!”

Kermit tilted his head sideways then looked over at Fozzie. “Good job, Fozzie.”

Fozzie scratched behind his ear. “I can’t believe that actually worked,” he said.

Pops hoisted himself up from the desk and pulled up the rope blocking the entrance. “C’mon, I’ll take you to see the Queen,” he said.

“Well, that was easy, huh, Gonzo?” Scooter said to the weirdo as they all walked forward.

Gonzo shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. But I was thinking we’d have to resort to an inordinate amount of fantasy violence!”

Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Scooter, and Camilla made their way past the rope Pops was holding. As Link and Strangepork approached, Pops held out his hand. “Whoa, whoa! not you, fella,” the Queen’s housekeeper told the pigs. “You weren’t in it for true love,” Pops said with a stern nod. “And besides… the Queen hates pigs.”

Pops stepped to the other side of the rope and latched it back on, beginning his walk down the cave.

Dr. Strangepork folded his arms and huffed. “Well! I’d never!” he snorted.

“You’d never what?” Link asked.

Strangepork sighed. “Never mind.”

Link stared at Strangepork. “You’d never mind what?”

<-> <-> <-> <-> <->

Uncle Deadly clenched his fist around a glass bottle labeled with a skull and cross bones. He growled and with a quick turn of his body, hurled the bottle against a wall of his tower, smashing it into a million pieces, the liquid inside burning a hole through the stone.

The dark wizard’s shoulders heaved up and down as his breath rapidly escaped his throat. “BOBO!” he screeched.

The rotund bear shot up from the corner. “Yessir?”

“Bring me the others!” the wizard hissed. “Stand against the wall—all of you!”

Bobo gulped. “Do we have to?”

Deadly’s head whipped around and fire burned in his eyes (the heat was on). “See what happens if you don’t!”

That was enough to convince Bobo. The bear darted around the castle, picked up Crazy Harry, Andy, and Randy and shoved them, and himself, against the castle wall. “Ready when you are, boss!”

Uncle Deadly cracked his scaly blue knuckles. He grabbed a hefty book from the table and flipped rapidly through the pages. He paused quickly, surveyed the text on the page, and tore it out. The wizard rolled up his sleeves. “This may sting a bit.”

“Bring me Kermit the Frog!” Uncle Deadly shouted. Suddenly, under his breath, Deadly began to mutter a garbled incantation that is incredibly difficult to spell and pronounce (just trust me on this one). As he chanted, sparks of blue lightning crackled between the tips of his claws. Uncle Deadly clenched his fists and jolts of the neon blue sparks danced across the back of his dark blue, scaly hand.

Crazy Harry shot Bobo a worried look (think about that, folks), and Bobo looked to Andy and Randy, who were ramming their heads together. Bobo sighed and decided to simply cross his fingers and gulp audibly.

Deadly grinned an evil grin—a grin so evil, it made dairy curdle and toenails curl (gross). He let out a yell of the final verse of the enchantment—“JASONSEGEL!”—and lightning burst from his hands in a shock. (Get it?) The blue jolts engulfed Bobo, Crazy Harry, Andy, and Randy and in a flash, they disappeared.

As the smoke cleared and the sparks dissipated, Uncle Deadly looked down at his hands, still crackling slightly. “Hmm…” he hummed quizzically, “I can’t believe that actually worked.”
 

TogetherAgain

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WELL then!

That's quite a sizzlin' finish to that there chapter. I... am not entirely certain what Uncle Deadly DID with all the sparkly blue lightning... but I'm worried.

Also... Queenie's still alive? Eh? <scratches head> De plot thickens, hokay. And... I love Pops. And the Candlelight Mayhem. And TRUUUUUE LOOOOOOOVE! Awwww. And HA! to the pigs. Actually... HA! to a lot more than just the pigs, but... yeah. This is happy-making.

MORE PLEASE! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
 

ZeppoAndFriends

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He let out a yell of the final verse of the enchantment—“JASONSEGEL!"—and lightning burst from his hands in a shock. (Get it?)
I GET IT! (Okay, not really :embarrassed:)

Also, Queen Francis IV is alive? I wonder who she's going to be.

And, what dastardly thing is Deadly doing this time around?

And, are you actually paying them?

And, why can't Kermit's horse talk?

And, why did my hamster run away?

So many questions unanswered! I can't wait for the next chapter (just like always :coy:)!
 

Muppetfan44

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Very nice update!

are you sure fozzie didn't say "to blathe..." haha; love the princess bride reference and that Kermit is doing this for true love :smile:

road signs and paycheck-holed threats are a great way to move a story along, haha; loved it!

Exicted to see who the queen will be and what Robin, Princess Piggy, Sweetums and the rest of the crew are up to.

Great update and happy new year!
 

The Count

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Thank ju Prawn for da brief respite from all da spammer-banning okay.

Lots of good schtuff here.
Nice to see Pops get a cameo.
Kinda think I know who Queenie's gonna be, but I'll wait to find out if my guess is right.
Huh? Wha d'ya mean you were surprised that worked Uncle D? Haven't you always had that blue lightning shooting power in all these fics?
Oh, and about that final magic word to finish the spell... Bless you. You did sneeze...

Again, god schtick all around and me hope more gets posted soon. And happy New Year to you and yours. :batty: :excited: :shifty:
 

bingboingcutie

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WHAT a great CHAPTER!

Almost EVERY SINGLE LINE I was laughing out loud--seriously! Hilarious billboards in the Mid Ages! Gee, poor Scooter, having to live with that every day--I guess that is what Kermit lives with, too. But I love :wink: agreeing with :embarrassed:---just like in the Muppet Show days! (I am a BIG fan of :wink:!)

And I have to say this: anything that comes out of Link's mouth is simply hilarious! You write for him well; even when the joke seems over, he just says something even FUNNIER!

Have you ever considered writing for the Muppets sometime? You would be SOO good. And now I just can't stand the wait! I need more! Need more! (chews on seat cushion) AAA-HAA-HAA-HAA-HAA!

...so will you please write more?

thank you....
 

theprawncracker

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WHAT a great CHAPTER!

Almost EVERY SINGLE LINE I was laughing out loud--seriously! Hilarious billboards in the Mid Ages! Gee, poor Scooter, having to live with that every day--I guess that is what Kermit lives with, too. But I love :wink: agreeing with :embarrassed:---just like in the Muppet Show days! (I am a BIG fan of !)

And I have to say this: anything that comes out of Link's mouth is simply hilarious! You write for him well; even when the joke seems over, he just says something even FUNNIER!

Have you ever considered writing for the Muppets sometime? You would be SOO good. And now I just can't stand the wait! I need more! Need more! (chews on seat cushion) AAA-HAA-HAA-HAA-HAA!

...so will you please write more?

thank you....
Thank you, thank you, thank you! :big_grin: Your support means a ton, bingboing! All the compliments mean the world--and this is exactly why I started writing fan-fic... to make readers like you happy and to make you laugh!

I have indeed considered writing for the Muppets... numerous times. It's my dream! Still hoping it comes to fruition someday.

This story is always buzzing about my head! If I can find the time, I'll surely write more!
 

ilovemusic

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Okay mister theprawncracker, you can create the muppet mindset. You can write a great fanfic. So what can´t you do?
The fanfic is great! Love it, and it's very nice to write a new song for the electric mayhem! Love this really!:smile::smile::smile:
 
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