A/N: This is the third installment of my series "the death of Mary Sue." This installment was written together by myself and Apollo Night. This is our first joined project and we hope you like it. I own Alex and Raven, Apollo owns Alice and Dexter
Alice was excited, in fact she was down right livid. After she was made to take 3 weeks off work due to a work related incident Mac was allowing her to get back into the field of Sue hunting. Though she was no longer partners with the human train that was Sandy, she was still psyched to be doing something besides sitting in the therapist offices having him ask "now how does that make you feel?" four thousand times.
She was waiting patiently in a room to meet her new partners. Dexter the tiger was currently sleeping soundly at her feet. Alice worked for an organization called the Sue Slayers United. They trained people to hunt and kill Mary Sues from different fandom's. The SSU was technically in its own "world" not in any specific canon, which meant there was no limit to what you would see around her. People who have been working here long enough no longer gave a second glance at the walking trees or screams that can from the lower parts of the building any more.
Just then Alice saw two women walk in, not missing a beat she jumped to her feet. Though it did little to improve her height, Alice stood at a whole 5'2" ( counting the top of her spiky black hair) she was so thin that she looked much like a nine year old boy. She looked very pixy like in general and didn't look like she would make much of a hunter to people who didn't know her that well. Though her skin was white, her eyes where shaped like she had some Asian blood in her family somewhere.
She smiled at the two new woman, "hey, I'm Alice."
"Call me Alex," one of the women shook her hand. She had long black hair and very pale skin. Her eyes were a reddish brown and her canine teeth were pointed. A witch-turned vampire, Alex was often changed into human form for many of her assignments. She was three inches taller than Alice at 5'5''. She wore tight black pants with a white shirt and vest, her high heeled boots had hidden daggers. She sniffed the air.
"Hmm, someone smells nice." She grinned evilly.
"Stop that you," the other woman smacked her lightly. "She just likes to freak people out."
Alice smiled wickedly back. "No worries. I think it's a complement. But I wouldn't eat me if I where you. You now what they say, Asian food never keeps you full for long. Eat me and you'll just be hungry again in an hour."
Alex chuckled.
I'm Raven," Alex's partner introduced herself. Persephone "Raven" Riddle was a reformed sue from Hogwarts. Her real name, ironically, was Helen Kelleher. Previously an emo-sue, she became disillusioned with the sue way of life and developed into a healthy character after an encounter with Alex. Currently the only sue to become a slayer, she was currently the SSU's greatest expert on the creatures they hunted. She had dark bushy hair and a square jaw, and as Alex had discovered, a strong coffee addiction. She was dressed more casually than Alex is a purple buttoned-up shirt with the sleeves rolled back and plain black pants and sneakers. She was taller than both of the other women at 5'7".
At her feet was a wolverine named Tassie, assigned to the pair after Alex's hound "Sirius" was killed in a battle against a sue at Hogwarts. All sue slayers had an animal as a form of protection against the animal companions of the sues. There was nothing quite like being gored form behind by a sparkly pink unicorn, and Alex had the scars to prove it. The same sue, a Queen sue named Celeste, had kidnapped Toby, the rookie Alex had been training
Tassie eyed Alice's tiger.
"Don't make me put you on a leash," she warned him. Tassie was infamous for starting fights with other animals. Tassie gave her a look that said "who, me? I wasn't going to do anything."
"Glad to see you've met," their cigar-smoking boss Agent Macintyre grinned. "You won't believe where I'm sending you three."
"I read the case file," Alex looked at him.
"I thought I'd bring Agent Morgan here up to speed," he turned to Alice. "How do you feel about Pirates?"
Alice's eyes widen as a smile that looks to big for her face creeps across it.
"Filthy, back stabbing, murderess, dogs of the sea? Love them!" She cried jumping up and down a few times. Dexter was just waking up and was looking lazily at the wolverine briefly thinking about eating it, he never liked to work with other animals to begin with. But the demised the thought knowing the one called Alex probably wouldn't have been too happy about that.
Mac smiled making his bushy moustache twitch a little.
"Great! I'll be sending you to "Pirates of the Caribbean" in about that hour. I'm a bit busy at the moment so I'll have to leave it up to you, I'll leave you three alone so you can brief Agent Morgan and get to know one anther. Kay will come to get you when we're ready." Though before he left he took Alex by the arm and dragged her out of ear shot of the others.
"Agent Arganough, I know how... you tend to get sometimes and it would be nice if you could just tone it down a little. You see something happen to Agent Morgan, she saw something in her last mission that should never be seen by any Sue Slayer or other wise. And I need you to keep I eye on her in case she.... has a relapse."
"Hear you loud and clear captain," she assured him, almost sarcastically, wondering what horrors Alice had witnessed. It must have horrific if Mac was asking nicely rather than gruffly ordering them around as usual. She watched Mac leave the room and then grimaced.
"Now to be morphed into a human again, don't start anything without me," she left the room in the direction of the science wing.
"While she's doing that, we'll go pick out our gear," Raven told Alice. "We'll need to dress appropriately for the era, but also for our jobs. And that's when we'll pick out our weapons and after that we'll receive the aliases and cover we'll be assuming for the mission. Personally I wish they could make up Privateers, they were paid by the crown to do pirate stuff to the enemies in war time, but that would take too much string pulling. I'd settle for mercenaries."
Alice nodded, "I may have been out of work for a long time but it wasn't THAT long," she rolled her eyes.
Raven shrugged.
"Mac said you where a rookie when you had your…accident. He didn't say how much training you'd had."
" nuff to know how not to make a moron of myself, or get myself killed at lest," said Alice. Raven wasn't to sure but she thought she saw Alice's eye twitch at the word "accident".
Raven steered Alice toward the armoury. It was its own wing at the SSU headquarters, full of many weapons. She found her way towards the Pirate section.
"Take your pick," Raven told her. "Usually they're pretty good about weapons, as long as the weapon doesn't defy the laws of the universe you're allowed to have it."
She picked up what looked like a thick wooden club.
"Wooden baton with a lead core, they can stop swords if you know how to use them properly."
Swords were a weapon made to kill, but batons could kill or merely stun depending on how they were used. It was a weapon she liked.
"I know Alex likes knives, since they're allowed into most worlds."
Alice gave all the weapons a good look over. "I usually like the lighter weapons myself. Daggers are always fun to have but my heart will always belong to the ones that go off with a bang," she said with a grin that almost made Raven re-think about Alice's sanity.
She picked out a Cutlass first, then a few pistols knowing they only took one shot each, then her eyes light up as she picked up an old iron hand grenade. "Did you know that pirates had some of the first hand grenades?" she chuckled lightly like she just told a joke and not sharing a fact about a deadly weapon.
But before Raven can answer her question Alice let out a, rather loud, scream of delight "oh hell yeah!" Alice cried as she picked up a Blunderbuss. "These babies got the power of a one person canon! God I love Pirates!"
Before long Alice's arms where so full of weapons that she even made Raven hold a couple.
"Sorry about this. I'm such a weapons freak I forget I'm probably not going to use half this stuff some times," the small hunter said smiling up at Raven apologetically.
Raven shrugged and shifted her arm a little so she could hold the weapons more comfortably. "You never know. I know Alex wants to do an acid bath this time."
"Acid bath? Sweet! I can totally get into something like that!" Alice said happily still looking over the weapons.
She picked up two pistols. "Normally I don't like using guns that you have to reload after every shot, but it always pays to have a long range weapon on you. I just wish I could have one of those rapid-fire crossbows Hugh Jackman used in Van Helsing."
"God that would be cool," Alice nodded in argument.
"Arg matey," Alex's growl signalled her arrival. She was human once again, her hair done in lots of tiny braids and held back with a red bandana.
"Speaking of Van Helsing," Raven said dryly. "You look like Princess Anna." She referred to Alex's costume. "You do realize black clothes fade quickly? Despite what the sues think, "Inky black flowing skirts" don't stay that way for long. Usually black clothes go grey or brown over time."
"At least they gave me a tan, it's hard to chase sues if your skin is blistering."
Raven winced. "I know, the sues with pale skin always act surprised when they start to bubble like a Barbie doll in a microwave."
"But it is fun to watch," the smaller hunter added not even looking up.
Alex turned to the weapons before this revolting conversation could continue and started rifling through them, choosing a sword, some daggers and a few hand grenades. Then she looked closely at Raven.
"Is it just me, or has your hair gone more brown?"
"Probably," Raven replied. "They're still working on draining the rest of the sue energy out of me, they've said from now on if I want black hair I've got to dye it like everyone else. Did you get our covers?"
Alex nodded and pulled out three envelopes, handing one to Raven and Alice each.
"I remember the old days when we didn't even need back stories, but too often cannon character became suspicious when the slayers started contradicting each other and making up crap on the spot. I also remember when they used to let us create our own characters, but now they make them for us. They say letting us do it ourselves leads us into the kind of wish-fulfilment you see with sues."
"That's true," Raven agreed. "But I hope they don't use them same writer for each one, otherwise they'd run out of ideas and everything would kinda end up the same."
"It's not too important seeing as how we're just supposed to pop in and out. We're not even supposed to talk to the Cannon characters if we can avoid it. We are like the ninjas, assassins in the darkness." Alex finished lamely.
Alice rolled her eyes. She really didn't much care either way. She wasn't here long enough to know about the making your own stories part and as long as it wasn't a Sue back ground she didn't much care who wrote it.
Raven raised an eyebrow at Alex and she coughed, then opened her envelope.
"Oh joy. I'm a twenty-five year old pirate." It was hard to tell if she was being sarcastic or not. "I was a street urchin, the illegitimate child of a prostitute and a pirate. I started off as a pickpocket before working my way into piracy. And there's some more crap here about how I disguised myself as a boy to serve on board a merchant ship, ship was taken over by pirates," Alex skimmed.
"And said pirate captain turned out to be my blood father though neither of us was aware of it at the time. Instead of feeding me to his lust-starved crew, he took me in and raised me like a daughter, something about being impressed by my battle skills and tough attitude." Alex made a face. "Sounds like sueish back-story to me, but whatever. What about you Raven?"
Raven read her "Character". "I'm eighteen, my father was a pirate-hunter working with the Navy. It turns out his brother was a pirate and he was hung under Cutler Beckett's law of "guilty by association." I fled, and I met up with you, and you decided not to kill me and let me join your crew. What about you Alice?" Raven asked.
Before Alice could read it she put down her arm full of weaponry on a near by table and open the envelope.
" I'm sixteen--WHAT!?! That's bullshit!! Just because of my size they think they can make me younger! I'm twenty-one damnit!! I can drink and have sex with who ever the hell I want!!" Alice ranted as her face turned red. In all truth the other hunters thought she was around 16 too and just hadn't hit puberty yet, but they weren't planning on saying that out loud any time soon. After taking a few deep breaths like her therapist taught her to do she began to read again.
"I'm the daughter of Anne Dieu-le-Veut- huh, at lest they did some back ground check with me. Blah, blah, blah, grew up on coast, blah, blah wanted to be on the open seas, blah. Anyway it goes on to say I went off on my own to make a name for myself and hooked up with you guys after a bar fight in Tortuga. Not to shady I guess, besides for the 16 part," Alice hissed the word 16 like it was a curse.
She turned to Raven, "you ready to change too? If I'm lucky they'll make me taller!" she jumped up and down compliantly forgetting about the fit she threw over being 16.
"I'm ready," Raven nodded. "And I'm sure we can convince them to make you taller."
They made their way to the science labs. There stood a large tube that looked vaguely like the teleported machine in the 1986 version of The Fly. A woman sat at a computer panel and looked up.
"Alex said you might be coming. What changes would you like to make? You're not a vampire like Alex, so I don't think you'd need to change species."
Alice raised her hand, "I'm not really human, I mean I am just not a normal human,"
"Alrightly," the woman told her. "I'll just program the standard Homo Sapian DNA into the machine.
"Sweet,"
"We both need a tan," Raven told her. "You know, sun gets hot on the open water. Plus Alice would like to be a few inches taller, it'd make her image of a bloodthirsty pirate a bit more believable."
"Alright, what height would you like to be? I have to warn you, I'd have to change you back once your mission is over."
" I know they told me that the first time, no matter how many times I threatened them," she sighed deeply and looked like she was thinking. "Make me around 5'5', and make my hair longer and turn it more brownish black. Since my Mom's Anne Dieu-le-Veut now I guess I can't be half-Korean any more, that should cover it."
The lady put something into the computer and nodded.
"All right, step into the scanner and you'll be all good."
Without missing a bet Alice hopped into the tube like thing and there was a sound like a machine starting up and then there was a bright flash of light. Alice stepped out with a toothy smile on her now tan rougher looking face. Her brown hair was now pulled up into a sloppy ponytail with a few wild strands falling out of it. She was now wearing loose baggy brown paints and a white shirt with a cracked leather vest with a red sash tied around her waist.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again. I. Love. Pirates!" Alice cried in joy pulling on her new selves.
Then it was Raven's turn.
"Here it goes." She stepped into the tube and was greeted by the flash of light. When she stepped out, she was also tanned and her wild dark hair was covered with a leather hat. She wore a white billowy shirt with a brown bodice and plain brown pants and boots.
She shrugged.
"The pirate wardrobe is pretty restricted to mostly browns and blacks," the woman operating the machine apologized.
"Whatever," Raven stuffed her baton into the belt. "Our mission statement says that Alex's crew was killed in a storm, the two of us survived and we met you in Tortuga." She told Alice. "We will be given a boat small enough for three of us to operate by ourselves. Holy moley," Raven grinned. "Why do I suddenly know everything about sailing?"
"Shit, me too! That weird! I can't even work the microwave in the lunch room!" Alice cried out.
"You don't know everything," the operator told her. "Just what you need to know for your mission. Mac has appointed Alex your captain, though you'll all have to agree on a name for the boat."
"Alex and her ego..." Raven muttered. "She's going to be insufferable. But I guess she is the most experienced slayer. Damn it, that's why they gave her the character who was experienced as a pirate, to put her in an authority position."
It was then that Raven realized that she really had no idea how long Alex had been a slayer, but she was really only new to it herself.
"We can't forget the sue scanners," Raven reminded herself. "Though I'm still only getting the hang of reading the damn things. Does Dexter need to go through? Tassie can probably stay as he is."
"Yeah he does. I don't think any of us want to be in a tiny boat with a tiger. A HUNGRY tiger, he still bites me when I don't feed him," Alice through a dirty look at Dexter who was napping in the corner. "Lazy thing," Alice muttered as she got him up and into the scanner.
In a flash Dexter was turned into a shaggy orange tabby cat. He trotted over to Alice and gave a cut meow before walking out the door.
"Hey I'll be right back I left my stuff in the weapon room," Alice said pointing over her shoulder.
As she ran out she pasted Alex who was walking into the room.
"Mac's busy with another team getting ready to go and purge Twilight of all the human/vampire hybrid sues. I don't envy the one who has to go after Victoria/Charlie's love child."
"What?" Raven snorted. "That's fucked up, even for Twilight. Stephanie Myer said that female vampires can't have kids."
Alex shrugged. "Sue slaying 101, you can't expect logic from them. Anyway, like he said, we'll get a call from Kay once the portal is ready."
Something buzzed in a pouch at her waist.
"There he is now, where's Alice?"
"Here," Alice called from right behind her.
Alex and Raven jumped, they didn't even hear Alice come from behind her. Which was weird for Alex, she always heard people sneak up on her.
She somehow managed to fit all her weapons onto her, the Blunderbuss strapped to her back with a new leather sash around her shoulder and waist with a few pistols and the grenade in it too. The Cutlass tucked into the one around her waist with even more pistols and two daggers in her in her boots. Needless to say the cute pixie looking girl they first meet was gone. Dexter was at her feet ready to go with her.
"And I picked up a scanner too, hope that's okay," she handed it to Alex. "I don't have any room to put this," she said with a cheeky smile.
"No problem. Kay's calling, the portal's ready."
Alex, Raven and Alice found themselves in front of a star-gate style portal. Alex was wondering if they had any slayers from that world that had inspired the design. Kay was waiting for them.
"Here, you'll need this," he handed something to Alex that looked like a small capsule.
"Instant boat, just add water," she read in a suspicious tone.
"Coooool!! Now all they have to do is make one for hot guys and we're set," Alice said reading over Alex's shoulder now she was tall enough.
Alex smirked.
"Now that's something I'd pay for."
" hell I'd kill for that," Alice chuckled.
Raven would have done a face-palm if she could get away with it. It seemed Alex and Alice where getting along like a house on fire. She wouldn't be surprised if this was some kind of test too see how well they worked together, hell she wouldn't be shocked if Mac was thinking of teaming the duo on a permanent basis. He usually had about fifty different reasons for doing things and he had been bugging her about taking a teaching position, or working in Sue rehab. He told her they could use her unique knowledge and experience, but she also knew he didn't want an ex-sue doing field work. Didn't want to risk her changing back to the girl she used to be. She'd heard the whispers in the lunch room, many of the slayers didn't think she belonged there, liked the idea of her as a field agent even less. She knew for a fact Agent Pitrofski had a bet going on to see how long it would be before she stabbed them in the back. Pushing her into an admin job was a solution that would keep everyone happy. She would be making herself useful without rocking the boat.
Then Kay handed her a small silver stick-like object.
"It's a neuralizor," he told her after she stared at it dumbly for a few seconds.
"A what?" she replied feeling like a dumbass.
"Those mind-wipe things from Men in Black?" Alex asked as a way of replying to Raven's question without condescending her.
"You guessed right," Kay looked at Alice. "No playing around with it."
" Oh I accidently erase Dean Winchester's mind one time and no one will let me forget it." Alice whined, crossing her arms.
The Alex remembered when she came back from her assignment in Middle Earth, and Kay said the Winchesters were having a hard time with sues. Was Alice the one he had sent?
"And let me guess, it's only to be used in extreme circumstances. Like if a cannon character has a bad experience or something." Raven caught on.
Alice frowned, she remembered those things from the Winchester mission they wait on. Though Sandy told her it was only a prototype and not to us it to much in case it did some kind of damage. (Though she found that out the hard way.) Alice didn't know they where handing them out now. (god she hoped they worked out the kinks.... poor Dean.) Was she really out of work that long?
"I don't remember using these before," Alex narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
"It's just a little something the boys in the lab cooked up. They're pretty new. We think they've managed to work out most of the kinks, but only use the direst circumstances. The last thing we want is poor Will waking up with no memory of the last two weeks. Jack would chalk it up to the rum, but it's not normal for someone sane."
Alice coughed into her hand and looked away with a "I know nothing" look.
"We'll be careful, Dad," Alex rolled her eyes. Tassie sniffed her boots and lifted his leg like he was getting ready to pee. Alex nudged him away with her foot.
Alice burst out laughing.... well pointing and laughing, at Alex.
Kay gave a thumbs up to a geeky-looking guy with a laptop computer. He pressed a few buttons and then the empty portal-frame became a blue swirling vortex.
Tassie's fur stood on end and he hissed like an angry cat. Dexter shot Tassie a dirty look and scoff, a cat like scoff, at how jumpy the newbie was.
"Cut-through pirates, evil queen Sue's and a hostage situation? This is going to be fun!" cheered Alice as they stepped through the gate.
Kay sighed.
"Be careful girls…"
"Ye-ha!" Alex shrieked and jumped in after her. Raven made a face and picked up a struggling and growling Tassie. She took a deep breathe and followed through the vortex.
"…and good luck."