Chapter VI

Restitution

Chaos erupted in the hall. Many people decided that fleeing in terror was probably their best option, while others that had dozed off during the extravagant ceremony could not decide whether or not they should remain in their seats.

"Come on!" Scary yelled to Sporty. "We've got to fight this thing with Girl Power!" They leaped from their seats to deliver various punches and high kicks to the opposition.

Meanwhile, at the front of the now-destroyed aisle, Posh was stunned. "What… how… I…"

Oliver smiled. "Well, it was quite easy actually. Your husband-to-be fell for the old Dogs-Having-Sex trick, ran out into the street, and was subsequently hit by a truck, along with his teammates. We took the liberty of making a bunch of disguises, and came here to stop this disgusting display of money and greed. It was all Geri's idea, really. She got her buddy George to wire up some fireworks under the carpet in the middle of the aisle so that your bouncers wouldn't be a problem." He smiled. "Oh, by the way, we're technically married now."

"Augh!" Posh screamed, throwing her bouquet at Oliver and running down the aisle towards the front door.

"Going somewhere, bitch?" a familiar voice asked.

Posh turned to see Geri staring at her, her teeth clenched, and her eyes feral. "No… it can't be!" she yelled. "You're dead! I saw you die!"

"Boo," Geri said, then charged at Posh.

* * *

On the other end of the hall, Scary was engaged in combat with the girl she had thrown out only moments ago.
"You should have stayed outside, girl," Scary said. She reached into her purse and pulled out her custom-made metallic cocaine straw.

"Bring it on!" Ruth yelled.

"I've been waiting to stab someone with this baby ever since that Gulzar fucker screwed with me," Scary informed her.

Scary lunged forward with the straw, narrowly missing Ruth, who had sidestepped to avoid being impaled by the drug device. She brought down her hand hard on Scary's wrist, causing her to drop her precious straw. Ruth dropped, picked it up, and pointed it at Scary. "Now who's screwing with whom?" she asked, smiling.

Meanwhile, Sporty was ducking shots from a baseball bat wielded by a blonde musician she had hit on at the wrong time. "Look," she yelled, narrowly missing the bat, "I just wanted to test out a pick-up line with my new look!"

"Your new look makes Madonna look wholesome!" Fiona yelled back, and she landed a shot across Sporty's face, then another to her gut, sending her flying backwards.

Right behind her, Scary was calling Ruth a chicken. "You can't kill me!" she said. "You don't have the guts!" At that very moment, Scary lurched forward, hit in the back and moved by Sporty's momentum. She fell forward, impaling herself on her own straw, still held by Ruth. Sporty lost her balance and also fell, landing directly on top of Scary, sending the piece of the straw sticking through Scary's back into Sporty, impaling her as well.

Sporty coughed up blood, then smiled. "You know, Mel, this is how I always dreamed of going. Lying on top of you, feeling my heart beat against yours. Isn't it great?" She coughed again. "We're dying together. We must be soulmates." She wheezed once more, and was gone.

Scary hacked up a wad of blood herself. "Friggin'… dyke…" she managed to say before breathing her last.

Geri and Posh, near the front of the hall, were tearing into each other fiercely. Geri left bite marks over various places on Posh's face and neck, while Posh's sharp nails dug deeply into Geri's skin. Both girls were screaming various profanities at the top of their lungs, and tumbling over each other on the floor, tearing each other's clothes in the process. From where Oliver was standing, it looked like Geri was winning. Hmm, he thought to himself, now I think I see why Sporty enjoyed watching these so much. If only he had some popcorn…

Cloud, for his part, had simply stood around, watching the carnage. Many guests were attempting to fight back, and it almost looked like the wedding crashers were winning, until something unexpected happened.

"Halt!" a voice called from the castle doors. "Nobody move!" From outside, a group of men wearing army fatigues and helmets and carrying various firearms came strolling in.

"Oh crap," Cloud muttered to himself. "Who the hell are you?" he asked the lead man.

A young man with a handgun stepped forward. "Sergeant Jeremy, NATO forces!" Put down your weapons and surrender now, you Commie bastards!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Cloud said, holding his hands up in a non-aggressive manner. "NATO? Communists? What the hell are you talking about?"

The sergeant looked a little startled. "You're… you're Cubans, right? That's what our intelligence told us."

Cloud sighed. "No, we're not Cubans. Do we SOUND like Cubans?"

"You mean Castro isn't packing missiles here?" He lowered his gun.

"No, Castro's not packing missiles here! This is the United Kingdom! What the hell would Castro be doing with missiles here?" No response. "Don't you people have an embassy to blow up or something?"

The sergeant looked extremely agitated. "Fuck!" he yelled, throwing his helmet on the ground. "We came all this way for nothing!"

Cloud had an idea. "Well, it's not a totally lost cause. How would you like to help stop another evil group from taking over the world?"

His eyes perked. "What? Who?"

"Spice Girls."

"What? Spice Girls? You've got to be kidding me."

"No, I'm serious." He pointed to Baby, who was still sitting in her seat, drooling and staring directly ahead, completely oblivious to any of the commotion and carnage. "Go ahead, shoot her a few times. I guarantee you'll enjoy it."

The sergeant stared at him for a moment, then fired into Baby's back a few times, sending her to the floor in a heap.

"Hey! That was fun!" he said.

"Told you," Cloud said. "Give us a hand with the immediate family, will you?"

The fighting resumed as Posh's family was forced to eat paper money at gunpoint while people cheered on.

Unfortunately, during the lull in combat, Posh had seized an opportunity. While Geri had been turned to watch the events at the front of the castle, Posh had reached one arm around her neck and begun to squeeze. "Let… go… bitch!" Geri managed to wheeze.

"I'll teach you to ruin my chance at leeching money off a Manchester United player!" Posh yelled, and squeezed even tighter.

Oliver shifted his attention back from the front of the castle to the catfight that was going on a few feet away from him. He chuckled at the fight, and then realized something. "Shit," he muttered to himself, "I forgot that she's on our side." He looked around for something -anything- he could use as a weapon. Spying a lit candle next to the chairs he and Posh had sat upon while exchanging vows, he darted for it, grabbed it, and ran for Posh.

The instant the candle touched her back, Posh's body burst into flames. Between artificial tanning solution, three layers of makeup, and the spray and gel used to hold her spiky hair in place, Posh was a walking fire hazard. She released Geri, stood up, and began screaming and flailing around. Oliver noted that she sounded quite a bit like the sound effects used to produce the noises of the xenomorphs in Aliens.

Still screaming, she ran past the fights in the front of the castle, and out the castle door. The legions of Spice Girl fans were still waiting outside, and began screaming -at first, for joy, then in horror- when Posh emerged from the building in flames. Running into the crowd of teenyboppers, she yelled for someone to put her out. However, the Spice fans gathered here were not exactly the world's smartest Spice fans, and they threw themselves at Posh, hoping to beat out the fire that was claiming one of their favorite singers. After the first few blows, Posh fell to her knees, still burning, still screaming. A few more original Spice Girl fans grabbed some bags of concrete that were nearby (to rebuild damaged sections of the castle, of course) and began beating the flames out with them. Posh fell to the ground flat on her stomach, and all Cloud and the others could see from inside the castle was a group of teenyboppers beating a bonfire with bags of cement, and all they could hear were the dull thuds of concrete mixture beating upon Posh's ever-burning corpse.

The fighting inside had ended, as the NATO forces had managed to round up stray wedding guests and force them to do humiliating things. Cloud sighed in relief. They had won. Their forces had won. Good taste had beaten materialism and greed.

From the other end, Geri ran towards Cloud, jumping for joy. "We did it!" she was yelling. "We took out that bitch!" She ran up to Cloud, yelled, "Thank you!" and kissed the startled man on the lips.

When she finally pulled away, he was dazed. "Holy crap," he managed to say before a bullet tore off a piece of Geri's head. Cloud looked over to see Magmos, one of his comrades, holding one of the NATO forces' smoking handguns. She walked up next to him and looked at Geri's body on the ground. "Umm… why did you do that?" he asked.

"Aw, Cloud, it had to be done," she replied. "I mean, she was the only one left. Now we really don't have to put up with anymore Spice Girls-related bullshit."

"Yeah," Cloud said begrudgingly, "I guess you're right."

"So," she said. "How long until we do this thing to Britney Spears?"

"Well," said Oliver, walking up to them, "why don't we discuss it over a couple of pints down the street?"

"Yeah, sounds good," Cloud said, taking one last glance at Geri. "Come on everyone!" he yelled to his group. "First round's on me!"

And with that, the Spice haters and NATO soldiers walked out of the castle and towards the street, confident that they had reestablished good taste in the world of music and matrimony.

"Cloud?" Oliver asked as the group walked to the bus stop.

"What?" Cloud replied.

"Just how the bloody hell did you get my number?"

THE END.

On to the List of Contest Winners.

Trademark and copyright 1999, CloudVader Productions. Do not reproduce without giving the author, Cloud Volpe, due credit.