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[FRODO is walking towards the Cracks of Doom, having just incinerated GOLLUM
and five NAZGUL with a flick of his bushy toe. He is using levitation to tow
SAM, who is completely paralyzed except for his mouth.]
FRODO: "But you see, Sam, the progression is inevitable. From Frodo Baggins..."
[we see him in an outlandish greenish-gold traveling outfit with a normal-size
Ring on his finger] "...to Master Underhill..." [suddenly changes to heroic
brown outfit with cape and mithril shirt and a Ring the size of a doughnut on
a chain] "...to Dark Frodo." [suddenly changes to gray and black orc-rags and
a Ring the size of a toilet seat around his midriff] "As inevitable as the tides
of the sea, or of death. I can't stop it. I don't have the power, or the will."
SAM: "No, Mr. Frodo, no! Together, we'll work this out! It doesn't have to be
this way!"
FRODO: "Yes, it does. You but seek to delay the denouement of a fate long scripted.
An admirable ploy, but it has failed."
*****
[Scene changes to the elven flagship, five times as big as the Titanic, floating
on the Anduin. HALDIR watches the screens while GALADRIEL sits in a throne and
PROFESSOR GANDALF sits in his wheelchair.]
HALDIR: I'm detecting a power signature from Mordor! It's unlike anything I've
seen before...off the scale! Discharging!
[A bolt of raw energy leaps outward from the Ephel Duath and blasts the elven
fleet, turning several ships into charred kindling.]
Sound effect: ZZZRRAKK!
HALDIR (shouting): Majesty, we've been hit! All sectors reporting damage!
GALADRIEL: It's the Frodo Effect! I knew it! Call all of Elvendom! Call the
Valar! They must burn all of Mordor -- burn all of Middle-Earth, if they have
to! Dark Frodo must be destroyed, or Ea is doomed!
PROFESSOR GANDALF (reaching out with his magical mental powers to the other
CIRTH-MEN -- all exhausted in the previous thirty pages of pulse-pounding battle,
some fallen, and some almost certainly dead, but this gaping plot problem is
lightly passed over): My children, my charges...get up! Attack Dark Frodo, for
the sake of the world! For the sake of all that is!
[ARAGORN hears the call, staggers up, and extends his adamantium Narsil-claws.]
ARAGORN: I hear ya, Professor...on my way...
[EOWYN summons a strangely horse-shaped cloud to lift her into the air.]
EOWYN: Frodo, what have you done? I pray we're not too late!
[BOROMIR swims to shore and switches to his shining ithildin-armored form, glad
that for once he has remembered not to do so until his feet touch bottom.]
BOROMIR: Frodo! Frodo, dearest comrade! I know ze power of ze sink you bear!
Can ve brink ourselfs to destroy it and ze sink you heff become? I don't know
-- but ve heff no choice!
[Back on the elven flagship, GALADRIEL is aware of PROFESSOR GANDALF's machinations,
and speaks to him mind to mind.]
GALADRIEL: Do you imagine they will succeed? An admirable ploy, but it will
fail -- and I will do what I must!
*****
[FRODO holds his smoking hands in front of him, horrified by the force he has
just unwittingly unleashed. He stops at the brink of the Cracks of Doom. At
his summons, a machine of unimaginable monstrosity lurches upward from the depths
and aims itself at him.]
FRODO: Sooner or later, Sam, I will lose all control, and the evil that will
follow staggers the imagination...yet I can see it clearly. I can't let that
happen. I have to purge this power from existence before it consumes the cosmos.
SAM (straining hopelessly to unleash his garden-hothouse-lamp eye beams against
the machine): Don't you do it, Mr. Frodo!
FRODO: I love you, Sam!
[The machine disintegrates FRODO with a bolt of raw energy, colored slightly
differently from the one that hit the elven ships to aid our comprehension.]
SAM: FRODO!
FRODO: SAM!
SAM: FRODO!!
FRODO: SAM!!
[The remaining CIRTH-MEN, NAZGUL, ELFJAMMERS, GONDORAN and EASTERLING ARMIES,
and SAURON arrive in time to see SAM cradling a pile of ash. They kneel around
him, overcome with emotion, in a tableau that will later be enshrined forever
in a foil-embossed poster by Byrne and Austin.]
SAM: I love you, Frodo...
[Far away, in the legendary "blue area" of Middle-Earth, THE WATCHER, better
known as ULMO, ruminates.]
ULMO: Humanity! I will never tire of watching them! A blighted race, it's said...and
yet, in the face of certain disaster, they exhibit sacrifice that would shame
the Valar themselves! There have always been forces like the Ring, trying to
tempt and corrupt them into betraying their true destiny...but in the face of
love and courage, those attempts are doomed to defeat! All admirable ploys --
but they've failed!!
[Stay tuned until next month, when the CIRTH-MEN will do a lot of crying and
looking at sunsets and being attacked by GRIMA THE WENDIGO on their way home.
Excelsior!]