'Ok, we've got a lot of scenes to do today so we're going to start straight away with the first fight scene... so we need everyone focussed... Cleo, Doc you're onstage, facing stage right but... Don't block each other. Go at a diagonal... Doc, a little bit this way and.. . Perfect!' Stand exactly there, like that, in character. And the 6 main protagonists enter stage left and...
'FIVE VILLAGERS!' Hypno and Beef added excitedly
'Four side villains.'
'3!'
'Dumb!'
'Men!'
'2 Christmas Vexes!'
'And Etho dressed as a Christmas Tree!'
Pause.
'Glad you've all been practicing... Right, start the scene until I say to stop and we'll start blocking the fight.'
Cleo raised her hand.
'You said blocking was bad...'
'Oh, it's a different meaning... To work it out bit by bit.'
'Sure... HEY! Where are you going?' The group onstage froze suddenly.
'Step out of the way or help us.' Wels replied, brandishing his sword at Cleo.
'Help you? With what?'
'We have come to rescue the toys beyond this wall.'
'Well we've been spent here to stop you from stealing the toys, haven't we, Doc?'
'What? No we haven't. I mean...' Doc looked down at his script. 'Yes we're here to stop you.'
'Let us past or we'll fight you!'
'Rendolf, seriously.' Pearlie intervened. 'This isn't our fight to be fought. We've helped Bells get here, and now we can go off on our real quest.'
'I'd like to see you try...' Cleo stepped towards the group. 'I'll break your legs!'
'What are legs?' Bazza chose this moment to ask.
'Can anything really be broken?' Added Casper the Friendly Ghost
'We're the Three Dumb Men!'
'Casper the Friendly Ghost!'
'Bazza!'
'And General Melchett (from Blackadder).'
'I think they forgot their scripts again...' Grian laughed.
'Get away or we will kill you!' Rendolf continued the scene by saying.
'What is kill?' Followed swiftly by Tango declaring.
'The ancient spirits of Skidoodler declare that you shall die!'
'Now, pause! This is where the fight begins!' Joe walked closer to the stage. 'Right, Ren, you run at Doc, who pulls out a trident and tries to stab back... Doc, do you have a trident?'
'Yeah?'
'Try to stab Ren with it... NO DON'T THROW IT!'
Renthedog was impaled by DocM77 using trident
'What?'
'Great... now we need to wait for him to come back.'
'You said hit him!'
'Not kill him!' In the audience, Grian was cracking up with laughter, until Ren returned.
'Let's continue this scene for real now.' He beamed, jumping onto the stage. Joe took a deep breath and continued.
'Right. Doc, don't murder Ren, just pretend to hit him. And Ren, you knock the trident out the way... great! Doc, 'stab' again, then Ren step back, then Doc you go...'
'Ok.' Not for the first time, Doc misunderstood massively and left the stage. (Genuinely happened in a play i did)
'No! Not that way!'
So Doc returned to the stage and went off the other side.
'Doc, come back onstage.'
'I'm so confused right now... you say go, and now you tell me to come back, what am I supposed to do?'
'Go and hit Ren again... that's it. Don't go offstage. I didn't mean go offstage... and then Pearl, you join in... at the same time, Wels, Cleo, you attack each other... swords out and just take it in turns to hit each others swords.'
'What do we do?'
'Yell deep, useless facts and... be your characters.'
'War is but a social construct!' Impulse started strong with.
'What is war?'
'Fight! With extra fighting!'
'What is fighting?'
'It is but an invention of the mind, the self-invented battles of the brain made reality with swords and blood and... help me out guys...'
'No, no. This is good.' Tango stopped being in character to say.
'And death is but your... brain... being overcome... by the constant conflict of life!'
'AAAAAAAAAAH!' Yelled Rendolf, getting too far into the self-invented battles of the brain made reality with swords and blood as Doc stabbed him. 'YOU FOUL KNAVE!'
'I can't see this part in the script!' Replied the creeper. 'But I was told to fight you!'
'Pearl, Wels, land one final hit, and then Doc and Cleo you go.'
'If it's the final hit, then why do I keep going?'
'This time it's go offstage!'
Without even waiting for Rendolf to attempt to murder him back, Doc walked offstage, followed by Cleo.
'Uhhh... next scene!'
'Jimmy's scene.' Grian smirked from the audience and Scar gave a Scar-ish laugh.
'Toy scene... All the toys start onstage. And then our protagonists come on.'
'What's a protogranist?' Scar asked innocently. As had become the norm when he missaid something, Grian laughed.
'Does that count?' Cub asked. Grian nodded back.
'That definitely counts.'
'Cub, what are you doing?'
'Nothing.'
'I can't trust you when you say that!'
'Scar, Scar it's ok. Just sit down and watch the scene Jimmy should be in.'
So he did, as Ren and the other 'protogranists' entered the stage.'
'Phew, that fight with those two was tough!' Pearlie gasped.
'I know, I've not fought that hard for millennia...' Tango replied.
'How old are you three?
'What is old?' Replied Zedaph, fitting with his new scheme of lines.
'By the power of the Christmas God, we're free!' Said a very unenthusiastic Xisuma
'Oh, thank you almighty ones!' Replied False with some, but not much more energy.
'We're not sure we're too almighty...' Pearlie replied.
'If gods are... special... eternal beings... are we gods?' Impulse improvised
'Oh definitely!' Tango grinned back
'Those horrible Christmas Vexes trapped us here!' Gem added
'We're hunting for them now they stole the Christmas God!' Rendolf replied
'Horrified. The Christmas God has been stolen?' Iskall, unsure what the bracketted word starting his line meant, decided to say the stage direction too.
'No! It's the end of the world!' Jevin spoke monotonously
'Are all of you alright?' Wels rose the acting level by asking, before it was quickly dropped by Mumbo missing his only line. With a sigh, the knight just continued. 'Thank you for helping me.'
'No problem. Anything to stop those Christmas Vexes!' Rendolf smiled back, before Pearlie sighed and shot back
'Rendolf, we don't have time to stand around talking to these toys!'
'We just saved their life!'
'And we need to keep going!'
'Onwards to the fort of the Vexes!' Tango yelled after a pause.
'What is onwards!' Asked Zedaph, following, then Impulse's 'Wait for me!'
'Are you sure you'll be alright here?' Bells turned back to the toys.
'Dont worry about us... Now we're free we can do anything!' xB said with decent confidence
'Wels! Come on!' Called Pearlie
'Coming!'