Tyreen to the Rescue!

After more time wallowing his self-imposed exile of fast food and soft drink and burritos, Dundee found himself drinking a milk shake in a filthy Mexican McDonald's. As he sipped it, the portly Frenchman Petain watched him, chewing on a Quarter Pounder with cheese, ketchup running down his greasy chin...


Groggy must have dozen off, for he woke up to a familiar voice: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." He then felt someone kicking his foot. Groggy looked up and saw, dressed in shoddy civilian clothing, his old nemesis, Captain Tim Tyreen O'Brien.


"What are you doing here?" Groggy asked groggily. He absently scratched his week's worth of beard stubble which bristled on his indecisive face.


"We're here to rescue you," the Captain replied. "We've spent all night looking for you."

"Why?"

"So I can kill you myself..." Tyreen said simply.

"Makes sense," Groggy conceded.

"So, let's get out of here," Tyreen said.

As he said this, Potts came in with Cullen, completely drunk. They came up behind Petain and smashed a sledgehammer into his skull, flattening it. Cullen stupidly laid a burger wrapper over his skull and Potts and Cullen shrieked with drunken delight.

Tyreen smirked as Cullen and Potts carried the fat Froggy out with the wrapper on his head. "There goes our little watch dog!" he said proudly. "Now, let's get out of here!"

Dundee regarded a despoiled bag of old, greasy French fries. "I eat, Ben, did you know that?" he said. "That is the secret to my great success - I eat!" He popped the old cold fries into his mouth and looked at an ugly, hideous Mexican girl smiling at him.

"But I don't eat enough..." he trailed off, spitting the mushy fries all over the table. He turned his gaze from the hideous sight to his adversary. "What about you, Captain Tim Tyreen O'Brien? Don't you ever have any doubts about who you are?"

"I've been three men already, Groggy," Tim said. "That's enough for one lifetime."

Groggy began counting them off on his finger. "College student..."

"Journalism major..." Tyreen added.

"And Sergio Leone Web Board renegade," Groggy concluded. "I don't like any of 'em."

"Well isn't THAT a coincidence..." Tyreen acidly replied. "Come along, Major," he said, straightening himself up. "I have orders appropriate to your character... to bring you out the back door."

Tyreen suddenly sucker-punched the Major in the jaw. As he fell to the dirty floor of the McDonald's, he let out a maniac shriek which echoed through the still Mexican air... as if the Foley artist was injecting PCP directly into his heart.

This gave the signal. A group of grungy-looking Mexicans suddenly sprung up, revealing - GASP! - them to be troopers from Dundee's command. They included the gun crew, manning Lieutenant Joe's tiny howitzer. They fired a shot, which missed the French barracks completely and took out a Starbucks...

"Ah HA!" Tyreen screamed. "Lieutenant Starbuck will be a general before he's thirty!" He said as another shot was fired. Sounds of gunfire exploded outside, but as Tyreen celebrated the groggy Groggy punched him in the face, flattening him.

The firing outside became general. "Major..." Tyreen said impatiently, before slugging him in the jaw again.

Cullen ran over to the two. "We have to go!" he shouted.

"Leave me alone, all of you!" Groggy whined.

The firing continued. A French soldier ran in, only to fall, with a knife blade plunging through his chest. Dave looked around. "Well aren't you fellas coming?" he shouted.

"Come on, get OFF it!" Tyreen said, kicking Groggy.

Outside, Tom fell, a bullet in his brain.

"For God's sake, Tim, let me BE!" Groggy whined.

Tyreen stood up straight, regarding his adversary with contempt.

"Why not, Major?" he sneered. "You're not worth killing, anyhow..." He exited in disgust.

Outside, the firing had become general, and Tyreen's troopers were retreating. Tom's body was rapidly descended upon by vultures.

Tyreen mounted a horse, thoughts streaming through his head. What will you do now, old boy? he asked himself. You're commanding officer is sucking left-over French fries in some hellhole burger joint. What's our next move?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Groggy mounting a horse and defiantly facing him.

"Until the Apache is taken or destroyed!" he said, as a raucous filled the air.

The two rode off, back towards the command, with a renewed sense of purpose, their problems and personal conflict unresolved.

* * *

As the commanding officers slinked away under cover of dark, Cullen, Jed Potts, and Dave were covering the retreat. Well... unwillingly, because they kinda got trapped in the bar when the shit came down and about two hundred Froggies rushed into the McDonald's. It looked like curtains for the lot, until a friendly-looking face stepped in between them.

"These aren't the men you're looking for," she said to Captain Rolland, the French officer present. "They're just tourists who got caught up in the middle of the fighting."

It was kind of hard to take that a guy in a Union army uniform, a half-breed Indian in a white doeskin shirt with one arm carrying a sawed-off shotgun, and a maniacal guy holding a knife dripping blood were tourists, but Michelle said it so persuasively that Captain Froggy Pants ordered his men to disperse.

"Thanks, Michelle," Jed said after the French soldiers departed. "Dunno what we'd do with you."

Michelle was all-business for once. "Get going," she snapped impatiently. "I can stall 'em until you get away. Don't wait for me - I'll be back ASAP."

"Love you, girl," Cullen said. Michelle grimaced at him.

Cullen and Jed exited. Dave had already gone.

Jed looked around frantically.

"What's wrong?" Cullen asked.

"Uh... WHERE THE FUCK ARE OUR HORSES!?!" came the reply.