Part 64
Two hours later, Robin returned with the supplies...only to discover that the pioneers were not in the TRL studio! He wandered around the building, looking for them, then heard screeching coming from behind a closed door. Back to silverchair stuff
"Dammit, Chris!" yelled Angie, sitting on the floor clutching her foot. "Be careful!"
"I'm sorry, Angie, I really am. Do you think your foot is broken?"
"Nah, just bruised. I'll be fine - you klutz," she grumbled. Chris dashed off to get some ice.
"What in the bloody hell is going on here?" Robin blurted.
"Wow, that was fast," dreamer noted. "We're moving some of the chairs from the old 120 Minutes set. I thought they'd add a nice touch."
"And you didn't leave a note on the TRL set?"
"No one thought you'd make it back this quickly," Kelnino grinned. She glanced at her watch. "Hey...wait a second, guys...Guess what?"
"What?" the pioneers asked.
"I'm not 15 anymore. Geez Louise," KelNino giggled.
"Then what are you? Crazy?" Robin said smugly. KelNino slapped him.
"No, you moron. I'm 16 now."
"Oh." Robin rubbed his cheek where KelNino slapped him. She rolled her eyes and took the decorating supplies from Robin. KelNino promptly began painting while the pioneers plastered rude bumper stickers all over the chairs.
"Good idea, KelNino..." dreamer said as she placed the last bumper sticker(which read: "Join the army. Travel to distant, exotic places. Meet new and exciting people...and kill them") on a set chair. "These chairs will be really cool. Let's see...we've got 1, 2, 3, 4...we've got 23 chairs. Is that enough?"
"Sure, and maybe we'll steal a few crappy New York park benches too. Those will be cool!" KelNino added.
"Absolutely! Be back in a few!" Heath dashed out the door to look for a crappy bus stop or park bench.
"There! All done!" KelNino finished the last of her mural, which was a scene of Chris Cornell lighting fire to rose bushes, each rose holding the bruised face of a popstar, while dreamer played on a stage in the distance. The other pioneers could be seen climbing trees, dancing, or playing Parcheesi.
"Wow...um...what a...uh...nice mural, Kelnino. (clearing throat) Very nice," Ada tried to compliment KelNino.
"Oh, thank you, Ada," KelNino pipped happily. "My idea behind it was to create a feeling of down home. You know, to remind our guests and viewers that we are still clean-cut good kids - despite our appearances."
"Really, Kelnino, it isn't as if any of us dresses like Marilyn Manson or anything like that," Nathaniel chuckled.
"True, but you've got to admit dreamer's starting to dress more and more like a dancer from The Rocky Horror Picture Show," she quipped.
"What's wrong with that?" dreamer asked. "The shoes have gotten us out of trouble more than once, in case you forgot."
"Nah, I didn't forget or anything," Kelnino said. "I just don't care 'cause it's my birthday!"
"Right, right," dreamer said, rolling her eyes.
"So what's next on the agenda?" Ash asked.
"Well, we're done redecorating, right?" rockstar asked.
"I guess we are," Kelnino said.
"Well, we go on at 3, so that gives us four hours to hit the cafeteria, search the wardrobe department for wearable stuff if we can find any, and go through hair and makeup," Ben said sensibly.
"You really know your way around live TV," Robin commented. "But do I have to wear makeup?"
"If you're going on camera, you do," Daniel reminded him. "MTV uses the harshest @%#$ing studio lights imaginable and you don't want to look translucent."
"Yeah...so, lunch anyone?" Junta interrupted.
The pioneers went down to the cafeteria. After managing to down some of the food the pioneers headed off to the wardrobe department.
"Wow! This'll look awesome on you, dreamer!" Ada said holding up a gothic looking black dress. "I wonder why TRL has it...?"
"But it doesn't match my shoes! How could you forget about them?" dreamer asked.
"Well, here's something!" Angie said sifting through a rack of glittery outfits. "It looks like something Britney may have worn, but it's the exact same color as your shoes."
"Well, with a little alteration I guess it could suit me," dreamer said as she grabbed the outfit and ran off into another room to fix it.
"Ooooh! You should wear this, Ada!" Melinda giggled with excitement as she found a very Ada-like shirt and some jeans.
"And you can wear this!" Ada answered holding up a pair of flared jeans and a crazy t-shirt.
"Sweet!" Melinda replied and they took off to change.
"What should I wear?" Rockstar asked.
"Well, here's a really punk-ish looking shirt and some ripped jeans," Angie replied, "And they had some neat makeup in the other room!" With that, Rockstar took the outfit and wandered off into the makeup room.
"I wanna wear this! And since it's my birthday I will!" Kelnino said with a giggle, grabbing an outfit and running out before anyone could see what she had.
"What about Daniel and Robin? There doesn't seem to be much cool guy stuff in here..." Junta added.
"I found something!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" exclaimed Robin.
"What is it?!?!" Daniel asked excitedly.
"A BANANA!!!!!!!!!!!!" Robin shrieked.
"Robin, Robin, Robin...what will we do with you?" Junta asked, shaking her head.
Well, after 20 minutes or so, all of the pioneers had managed to find outfits to wear. Everyone was all dressed and ready except dreamer and Kelnino. Everyone was anxious to see what dreamer had done to the outfit she had picked out, and what outfit Kelnino had picked out. Just when everyone was about to break down the door to the room they were changing in they came out wearing the oddest outfits imaginable. Kelnino was wearing a ripped-up pink ball gown stained with stage blood!
"Kelnino, what happened to you?" Junta shrieked.
"I found this cool dress inspired by the movie Carrie," she replied, "And I figured I'd shake up my image a little."
"What image?" Robin mumbled through a mouthful of banana. Junta just smacked him.
Suddenly, dreamer came out of the dressing room wearing what had once been the purple pop-tartish ensemble, but was now a faerie-style dress (think A Midsummer Night's Dream here) with shimmering wings. "I checked with an employee, and this has never been worn in the few years it's been in here, so there aren't any Britney contaminants to worry about. What do you think?"
"Hey! I wanna wear that!" Robin whined. "That's really prettyyyyyy!"
"Shut up, Robin." dreamer smoothed out a few wrinkles on her dress. "Is everybody done?"
"No" KelNino replied, "The future boys are still dressing-"
"Nope, here we are," Flash said as he, Saurus, and Redwing strolled into the room. Both Saurus and Redwing wore outfits of deep red. Flash was wearing a tight, black mesh long-sleeve shirt (revealing the massive brand/tattoo thing on his back) and black tech pants that hung dangerously low on his hips. He had braided his hair back flat against his head and tied each braid off with a rubber band and a safety pin.
"Whoa. Lookin' sexy there, Flash." Daniel winked.
"Shut up, Dan." dreamer was still smoothing out wrinkles (maybe she's obsessive compulsive?). "Flash, don't you think you should wear sunglasses?"
"Yeah, good fellow, your eyes give me the bloody willies," Robin whined again.
"Well, we are going to make a statement, aren't we? Thought I'd scare the wits off a few teenies. Besides, Wes Borland's eyes are scary..." Flash stared out through his freaky white eyes.
"For one, Wes Borland's eyes are fake, they're contacts. Your eyes are not fake, and they scare the hell out of everyone," KelNino noted, "And second, we're going to kill Wes Borland soon, so he doesn't count."
"No, no. Flash is right. Let's scare the tights off of some teenies!" dreamer threw a fist in the air.
"Hell yeah!" the pioneers chanted in agreement.
"Hey kids!" the cameraman interrupted (he still had sticky egg goo on him). "You just about ready?"
"Sure, just a second," Kelnino yelled. "Everyone's present and accounted for, right?"
"Hey, where's Jill?" Redwing asked.
"Rounding up our guest. She'll be back by the first commercial break," Ada explained.
"Well, we're all set then!" Junta grinned.
With five minutes to go before air time, the studio audience poured in and took their seats on the newly red velvet-lined bleachers. The Pioneers had really done a number to the place, making it look like a little shop of horrors, which wasn't a bad thing. Thanks to a little initiative, creativity, and some glue, the place was ready for action.
Meanwhile, backstage, Jill appeared, but without the guest. "Hi, guys!"
"Jill...where is our guest?" asked Melinda.
"What guest?"
"The guest? Don't tell me you lost the guest!!" shouted Kelnino.
"Was I supposed to find it?"
Soon, a full-fledged argument broke out amongst the pioneers. Then suddenly, a voice came from the entryway.
"Hey, am I late?" asked Ben.
"Man, where have you been?" asked Daniel. "We never even noticed you were gone!"
"Well, me and Chris just made another trip down to the cafeteria. We couldn't get enough of that strange American food. We definitely have to do a TON of touring in the US when our new album comes out!"
"That gives me the best idea!" shouted Kelnino. "Why don't we have silverchair as our guest? They're the ones that influenced us to start this whole crazy journey. And what better non-pop band to get these former teen boppers into? Plus they can promote their next CD! It'd be perfect!"
"Well, I like the idea!" replied Ada. "What about the rest of you?"
"Well, I HATE IT!" Heath shouted.
"That's just 'cause you're jealous" Daniel said, sticking his tonuge out.
"Yeah, stick the tongue back out and I'll rip it off!" Heath shouted back.
"Okay, that's enough!" dreamer said, stepping between them. "Does anyone *besides* Heath object to having Ben, Chris, and Daniel as our guests?"
There was silence for a few seconds, and dreamer concluded, "Well, I guess that settles that!"
Five minutes later...
"Hi, I'm dreamer."
"Hi, I'm Kelnino."
"We're from the Bathroom Pioneers, these are our bandmates, and you are watching Total Request Live! Today we'll be visited by silverchair, who are taking time out from recording their fourth album just to talk to us," dreamer grinned.
"But first, our #10 request today comes from - " Kelnino squinted at the Teleprompter - "Soundgarden? Cool. This is Jesus Christ Pose."
The kids outside stood in shock as number 10 ended and number 9, too, was not BSB, it was Nirvana's "Negative Creep." As the video came to an end and the show cut to the commercial break, it was strangely silent outside in Times Square...for all of ten seconds anyway. The pioneers went to the window...and one punk kid began to clap and yell...within seconds, the usual crowd of teenies began to do the same (once a sheep, always a sheep!).
"And we're back on TRL, bringing you today's top 10 videos, as voted by you guys, the viewers!" Angie grinned into the camera. "silverchair's going to be with us shortly, but let's continue to video #8..."
Of course, silverchair were standing in the entryway, watching videos and grinning about the whole thing, but why spoil the fans, the pioneers reasoned. Better to let 'em wait a bit.
The video began...