Post by eggowaffles on Jul 5, 2005 2:28:23 GMT
I own none of these characters; they belong to the lamentably but firmly dead wordsmith, Alexandre Dumas.
Nyquil wanted to read my alternate ending to The Count of Monte Cristo, so here it is, turf wars and all. This was written for the entertainment of a friend of mine, so it’s a bit less than mature…
0o0
NARRATOR: It was while on the ponderous trek en route to his duel with young Albert that our hero, the illustrious Count of Monte Cristo, otherwise known as Edmond Dantés, had a Startling Revelation™.
EDMOND (*stops dead*): Sweet Virgin Mother above, I’m being a bloody idiot!
NARRATOR: It was with these nine insightful words that Edmond had came to realize his own imprudence; throwing away his life so rashly, and for a woman named after a car manufacturer! A woman, no less, who had betrayed him scarce six months after his imprisonment, and who had then proceeded to inform him that she valued the safety of her sniveling spawn above his own, and the puissant conceptual imagining she had created to mentally supplant him above his bona fide personage! This was Not To Be Borne! Edmond was finished with Mercédès! Quickly, he galloped home to…
EDMOND: Haydée…
NARRATOR: (the seventeen-year-old Grecian princess who he bought at a slave market and who has been living with him for a good fifty chapters but for whom he has only ever harbored vague paternal feelings…)
EDMOND: …wanna get it on? Wink wink, nudge nudge?
HAYDEE: Sorry, I’m saving myself for marriage.
EDMOND: Well, hell, that’s easily remedied!
(*wedding commences*)
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, on the Valentine/Morrel front…
MORREL: Let’s elope!
VALENTINE: But my grandfather…!
MORREL: He can live with us!
VALENTINE: But my fortune…!
MORREL: You’ve still got your grandfather’s fortune! And I’ll make enough to support the both of us until you come into that inheritance!
VALENTINE: But my parents…!
MORREL: Screw them; they were always bastardly to you, anyway.
NARRATOR: The argument continued on for a good twenty minutes along this vein, with Morrel being patiently persistent and Valentine sickeningly indecisive, as usual. Things took a decidedly unpleasant turn when the subject of satellite versus cable television cropped up, resulting in Morrel storming off with the statement that he’d only even wanted her for her money, anyhow, and some prolonged sanctimonious angsting on the part of Valentine. So much for that. On to our next set of lovebirds…
EUGENIE: You’re not really Italian, are you?
CAVALCANTI: Er, of course I am… er, ciao…
EUGENIE: Ciao is right! The wedding’s off. I’m leaving you.
CAVALCANTI: Why?!
EUGENIE: Look, this book is convoluted enough without a whole Túrin/Nienor subplot going on. We’re illicit half-siblings, okay?
CAVALCANTI: Wow…
EUGENIE: Yeah.
CAVALCANTI: Thanks for the heads-up.
EUGENIE: No problem. Oh, and just so that you know, the fact that you’re a marauding fugitive who once burned someone alive and is now existing under a pseudonym would have turned me off, anyway, even if we weren’t related.
NARRATOR: In light of these two failed relationships, some partner-swapping was naturally in order… Cavalcanti, who could smell money from a mile away, was quick to seduce the now-desperate Valentine, and Morrel and Haydée… wait a minute, I thought that Haydée was with Edmond?
HAYDEE: Are you kidding me? I murdered him for his money twenty minutes after the conclusion of the nuptial rites!
NARRATOR: Ri-ight, so what happens to Eugénie?
EUGENIE: I become caretaker to Valentine’s invalid grandfather Noirtier and serenade him with my sweet vocals from dawn until dusk until he pleads for an end to time itself… what else?
NOIRTIER: (*feverish blinking*)
NARRATOR: If it makes you happy, kid… at all events, Morrel and Haydée soon immigrated to Greece, where they tried and failed to reclaim her lost kingdom…
HAYDEE: The occupants of these premises are henceforth evicted on account of this being my rightful sovereign land!
(*crickets*)
NARRATOR: … and Valentine and Cavalcanti wended their way down to Italy, where Cavalcanti was slain in a skirmish with the banditti gang headed by Luigi Vampa… no matter, however… Valentine and Luigi hit it off quite well, and they both have V’s in their names, which is quite nice and tidy, don’t you think?
VALENTINE: I think we should call your banditti crew the V-Gang! Isn’t that a superlatively witty moniker?
VAMPA (*sighs*): Whatever you say, dear…
NARRATOR: Of course, Morrel and Haydée were quick to establish their own league of banditti, which combated the aptly named V-Gang in massive turf wars all across Italy and Greece. Meanwhile, Albert and Franz… wait a moment, Albert and Franz?!
ALBERT: Oh, come on, you didn’t see that one coming? We lived together in Paris for six months, for God’s sake!
FRANZ: Not to mention our mutual and violent opposition to matrimony…
NARRATOR: Alright, alright, this is a progressive screenplay, anyway… Albert and Franz finally absconded together and, after wresting the secret of Edmond’s magical grotto from Bertuccio, dwelt together in decadent seclusion on the isle of Monte Cristo…
VAMPA: What? Do I hear tell of a slice of unclaimed territory?
HAYDEE: Leave off, it’s ours!
NARRATOR: … thus neatly setting everything up for a super sequel: THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO 2: BATTLEGROUND! So! Any questions?
ALBERT: What happens to my mother, anyway?
NARRATOR: Oh, Mercédès? She, er… gets run over by a steamroller for her supreme lack of sensitivity.
ALBERT: That sucks.
NARRATOR: Don’t worry, I’m sure she never even knew what hit her… anyway, that’s a wrap. See, all the loose ends tied up in less than a thousand words! But brevity is not necessarily Dumas’s strong suit…
DUMAS: I’m going to sue from the grave for this travesty!
EGGOS: Oh, give it a rest; I’ve done much worse by dear Tolkien.
TOLKIEN: Hmph…
Nyquil wanted to read my alternate ending to The Count of Monte Cristo, so here it is, turf wars and all. This was written for the entertainment of a friend of mine, so it’s a bit less than mature…
0o0
NARRATOR: It was while on the ponderous trek en route to his duel with young Albert that our hero, the illustrious Count of Monte Cristo, otherwise known as Edmond Dantés, had a Startling Revelation™.
EDMOND (*stops dead*): Sweet Virgin Mother above, I’m being a bloody idiot!
NARRATOR: It was with these nine insightful words that Edmond had came to realize his own imprudence; throwing away his life so rashly, and for a woman named after a car manufacturer! A woman, no less, who had betrayed him scarce six months after his imprisonment, and who had then proceeded to inform him that she valued the safety of her sniveling spawn above his own, and the puissant conceptual imagining she had created to mentally supplant him above his bona fide personage! This was Not To Be Borne! Edmond was finished with Mercédès! Quickly, he galloped home to…
EDMOND: Haydée…
NARRATOR: (the seventeen-year-old Grecian princess who he bought at a slave market and who has been living with him for a good fifty chapters but for whom he has only ever harbored vague paternal feelings…)
EDMOND: …wanna get it on? Wink wink, nudge nudge?
HAYDEE: Sorry, I’m saving myself for marriage.
EDMOND: Well, hell, that’s easily remedied!
(*wedding commences*)
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, on the Valentine/Morrel front…
MORREL: Let’s elope!
VALENTINE: But my grandfather…!
MORREL: He can live with us!
VALENTINE: But my fortune…!
MORREL: You’ve still got your grandfather’s fortune! And I’ll make enough to support the both of us until you come into that inheritance!
VALENTINE: But my parents…!
MORREL: Screw them; they were always bastardly to you, anyway.
NARRATOR: The argument continued on for a good twenty minutes along this vein, with Morrel being patiently persistent and Valentine sickeningly indecisive, as usual. Things took a decidedly unpleasant turn when the subject of satellite versus cable television cropped up, resulting in Morrel storming off with the statement that he’d only even wanted her for her money, anyhow, and some prolonged sanctimonious angsting on the part of Valentine. So much for that. On to our next set of lovebirds…
EUGENIE: You’re not really Italian, are you?
CAVALCANTI: Er, of course I am… er, ciao…
EUGENIE: Ciao is right! The wedding’s off. I’m leaving you.
CAVALCANTI: Why?!
EUGENIE: Look, this book is convoluted enough without a whole Túrin/Nienor subplot going on. We’re illicit half-siblings, okay?
CAVALCANTI: Wow…
EUGENIE: Yeah.
CAVALCANTI: Thanks for the heads-up.
EUGENIE: No problem. Oh, and just so that you know, the fact that you’re a marauding fugitive who once burned someone alive and is now existing under a pseudonym would have turned me off, anyway, even if we weren’t related.
NARRATOR: In light of these two failed relationships, some partner-swapping was naturally in order… Cavalcanti, who could smell money from a mile away, was quick to seduce the now-desperate Valentine, and Morrel and Haydée… wait a minute, I thought that Haydée was with Edmond?
HAYDEE: Are you kidding me? I murdered him for his money twenty minutes after the conclusion of the nuptial rites!
NARRATOR: Ri-ight, so what happens to Eugénie?
EUGENIE: I become caretaker to Valentine’s invalid grandfather Noirtier and serenade him with my sweet vocals from dawn until dusk until he pleads for an end to time itself… what else?
NOIRTIER: (*feverish blinking*)
NARRATOR: If it makes you happy, kid… at all events, Morrel and Haydée soon immigrated to Greece, where they tried and failed to reclaim her lost kingdom…
HAYDEE: The occupants of these premises are henceforth evicted on account of this being my rightful sovereign land!
(*crickets*)
NARRATOR: … and Valentine and Cavalcanti wended their way down to Italy, where Cavalcanti was slain in a skirmish with the banditti gang headed by Luigi Vampa… no matter, however… Valentine and Luigi hit it off quite well, and they both have V’s in their names, which is quite nice and tidy, don’t you think?
VALENTINE: I think we should call your banditti crew the V-Gang! Isn’t that a superlatively witty moniker?
VAMPA (*sighs*): Whatever you say, dear…
NARRATOR: Of course, Morrel and Haydée were quick to establish their own league of banditti, which combated the aptly named V-Gang in massive turf wars all across Italy and Greece. Meanwhile, Albert and Franz… wait a moment, Albert and Franz?!
ALBERT: Oh, come on, you didn’t see that one coming? We lived together in Paris for six months, for God’s sake!
FRANZ: Not to mention our mutual and violent opposition to matrimony…
NARRATOR: Alright, alright, this is a progressive screenplay, anyway… Albert and Franz finally absconded together and, after wresting the secret of Edmond’s magical grotto from Bertuccio, dwelt together in decadent seclusion on the isle of Monte Cristo…
VAMPA: What? Do I hear tell of a slice of unclaimed territory?
HAYDEE: Leave off, it’s ours!
NARRATOR: … thus neatly setting everything up for a super sequel: THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO 2: BATTLEGROUND! So! Any questions?
ALBERT: What happens to my mother, anyway?
NARRATOR: Oh, Mercédès? She, er… gets run over by a steamroller for her supreme lack of sensitivity.
ALBERT: That sucks.
NARRATOR: Don’t worry, I’m sure she never even knew what hit her… anyway, that’s a wrap. See, all the loose ends tied up in less than a thousand words! But brevity is not necessarily Dumas’s strong suit…
DUMAS: I’m going to sue from the grave for this travesty!
EGGOS: Oh, give it a rest; I’ve done much worse by dear Tolkien.
TOLKIEN: Hmph…
