h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The bus suddenly disappeared, leaving a strangely familiar stupid dog gazing incredulously at the empty roadway.

"Ack!" said Merlin, as he hurried out of the way of the rapidly approaching bus. "How do I keep getting in front of these things??"

The bus came to a screetching halt (what it was screeching on, nobody knows, since this was Nowhere, after all) just before striking Arthur, who was still deep in thought. "Aha!" said Merlin. "I have an idea!"

A few minutes of tinkering later, and the Quartet, along with Biff and Tallulah and the busload of people were all materializing in a purple phone booth on the corner of High and ...

Low streets, on the Northwestern south side of Nowhere. "Does anyone have a map?" asked a blind mouse.

"No," said a rubber chicken. "But I have a...

Temporal Rift Creator/Accelerator! I can program it to take us anywhere, and . . ."
"No, that's too obvious. No way that They won't expect it."
"I have a map!" said the doctor from Chapter Two.
"Good, we have a map. Now, is everyone here?"

One by one, every single character ever mentioned in the story said that they were there.

"But where are we?" asked the bartender. "I mean, we are here, but there is no here where we are."

"No problem!" said Arthur. "With Merlin's powers, I can easily . . .

...create a new chapter and one which will make sense."
Whereupon a rather large elephant landed on him and, because there was nothing else he could do, he died.
Just then the phone box reappered and The Other Arthur stepped out.
"Well," he said,"couldn't be having with any of that, could I? I am, as you may remember The Other Arthur, the one from the future. And I apologise if I have created another paradox here but...

as you know I can't control Merlin's powers, so you really can't blame me!" And then he vanished back to the future.
"Annoying guy," Arthur said, rolling his eyes. "Now.. where were we?"

A few thousand of the sassy robots spoke out at once (they all did it at once because they were identical and had thought of the exact same thing at once). They said "Why don't we wait a few replies. Then someone will get bored and just write something that will cause the universe to reappear with all of us in it."
Sure enough, a researcher got bored and came up with some lame excuse involving too many weasels piling up in nowhere that allowed all of the people to return to the universe. All of the characters were still together when they reappeared but most were so disgusted by the researchers stupid weasel excuse that they left for other parts of the earth. The only ones that stayed together were...

Arthur, Famine, and that passerby from the start of chapter two who was singing 'Follow the Yellow Brick Road' forwards or something.

The trio decided to have some fun around the town, whatever town they were in. Unfortunately the passerby was killed terrible miniature golfing accident. So Arthur and Famine decided to try a less dangerous game. Arthur bought a chess board and they sat down to play the game. But within a few minutes Arthur realized that Famine was cheating. He had been moving his horses in U shapes. Arthur and Famine got into a huge argument over it and ended up beating the snotz outta eachother. But afterwards all was forgiven and they went to a local bar where...

Death was back at his old job of bartending. At the moment he was arm wrestling with Merlin over Merlin's bill. Merlin was using his magic powers, but Death was countering with his supernatural abilities. Death looked over Merlin's shoulder and said: "Hey, is that David Copperfield?" Merlin, who had always wanted to be able to do real showy magic like David Copperfield, looked over his shoulder. Death took advantage of his distraction to thump his arm to the bar. "There, now you need to pay your bill. That will be 42 zorkmids, please." When Merlin had turned around, he had seen Arthur and Famine in the doorway. He walked over to them now and asked Arthur for a loan. Arthur groaned and gave Merlin the 42 zorkmids, knowing that he would never see them again. He walked with Famine to the bar and ...

realized that he didn't really want to spend his life around charachters from Terry Pratchett's and Neil Gaiman's "Good Omens"... instead he went over to Peace, that noone actually had cared about, and tried to chat her up. This ended in a horribly drama, as Lucy came in, just in time to see them dancing tightly together.

Lucy ran to the couple and pried them apart. She ranted and raved at Peace, who calmly looked at her with a serene look on her face. Arthur went to the bar and sat with Famine and Merlin to wait out the storm. Eventually, Lucy calmed down and sat talking with Peace. Outside, at that moment, Arnold, the tame T. Rex, bent down and peered in the Bar's window. A drunk at the bar looked up to see a huge eye filling the window. He stumbled out of the bar, muttering something about having had quite enough now. Arnold spied his former playmates and grinned as only a T. Rex can. Since he had last seen them, he had learned Morse Code and was now confident that he could communicate with them and let them know they had nothing to fear. He leaned over on his right foot and started stamping out his message with is right foot, his little arms flailing. Unfortunately, he was standing above a subway tunnel and after a few dots and dashes, the ceiling of the tunnel caved in and he fell out of site. "Damn", he thought "guess I need some other way of communicating".

Meanwhile, back in the bar ...

Arthur said, "That's what you get for saying that you two were the best at seven card mau!"
"But we never said that!" said Death and Merlin simultaneously.
"We've never even heard of this game before! Who's ever heard of a game where you can't . . ."
But before Merlin could say anything more, . . .

Arnold popped his head back out of the subway tunnel and peered into the bar... "Hmm..." he thought, "Perhaps I should just try -talking- to them..."

"Hi guys!" he said aloud (which was quite loud, more of a roar, actually, which caused windows within the entire town to vibrate dangerously). "Oops," he whispered (which was more akin to the volume of actual talking), "Can I play?"

"NO!!! Arnold, don't do it! This game is the most annoyingly evil game I've ever played" Death and Famine simultaneously said.
"Oh, it isn't evil. Almost, but not quite. Still, I wouldn't want Arnold to get angry at me, so . . ."

Ten minutes later, Arnold stared at his hand as Arthur had one, once again. "That game doesn't make sense." he said.

(BTW, Mau is a real game, but I can't tell you how to play it. Sorry!)

Arnold got so upset that he he didn't understand that he began jumping up and down and roaring rather loudly when he found himself lifted up into the air and out of the bar by Bruce the Spider (who is a god dontchaknow)
"Sorry," said Bruce,"but a complaint was lodged about over-sized dinosaurs roaming around. Zeus told me I had to put a stop to it."
"Oh," said Arnold,"that's ok then."
"I tell you what," said Bruce,"to keep us both entertained on the way to see him I'll recite the entire works of Shakespeare stating with the Comedy of Errors..."
And off they went...

Back in the bar the poorly introduced card game (where did that game come from, it seemed like they were suddenly playing it) had ended and the bar was clearing out. Famine and Peace temporarily left the story to shack up whereas Arthur, Lucy, Merlin, and Death were back together. They left but first Death had to call his voicemail service to figure out when his next soultaking job was. The group needed a new hotel to stay at so they headed towards the south end of the town where...

The head desk clerk was a mauve weasle in a green dress...

"!doar kcrib eht wolloF" He yelled to them in E-major. Merlin and Arthur looked at eachother suspiciously.... where had they heard that before?
Lucy was still upset for Arthur flirting with someone else, and she realised she'd had enough! So while Merlin and Arthur looked at eachother, Lucy went over to a guy in the other side of the room....

Don't you mean "!daor kcrib wolley eht wolloF?" said Merlin to the weasel. Meanwhile Lucy was chatting up the guy who looked suspiciously like Bill Gates. "I fully intend to control the universe" said the guy. At that point Arthur saw Lucy and ran over in a rage. "Why are you talking to that nerd?" yelled Arthur. "Cos he's rich and powerful" said Lucy. "Yeah, but apart from that, what's he got?" said Arthur. "Good point" said Lucy "but at least you noticed" at which point they returned to Merlin. PossiblyBill carried on talking as he had not noticed that Lucy had gone, so Merlin turned him into a paperclip. The universe smiled a little. "Now," said Merlin "let's ...

..let's go to our room and see if someone will set up a problem for us to solve that won't be killed in the next post. They all trooped up to the room that they were sharing (since they had become so accustomed to being together). Lucy flicked on the TV while Death went to catch a nap in the bedroom. Arthur and Merlin busied themselves in the kitchen making lunch. Suddenly Lucy cried out: "Come here, quick. Look what's on the news! We have to do something."