Featuring Mary Sues, a section featuring YOU and shameless destruction and rape of the fourth wall.

--

A coach rolled into Sator Square. Not that that was unusual – coaches rolled through Sator Square all the time, dropping people off, picking people up, loitering, that sort of thing. This coach in particular was dropping off a final rider. The door swung open, and the rider stepped out.

She was beautiful. Her long brown hair spilled down her back like waves or molten chocolate, her violet eyes gleamed with life and probably magic and a faint smiled danced the tango on her lips. She was slender – her tight-cut blouse and jacket as well as her simple knee-length black skirt emphasized that aspect of her figure but didn't look too slutty – and she had curves in all the right places. She brushed her hair out of her eyes, revealing a platinum blonde streak that shone with an un-Discly orange when the sunlight caught it. She turned to the driver of the coach.

"Thank you, driver, I think I will walk from here." She treated him to a positively radiant smile, revealing perfect teeth. "How much is the charge?"

He tipped his hat. "Oh, no trouble miss. No charge for you."

She laughed. "You're much too kind. Have a lovely afternoon." She slung her Dolce and Gabbana purse higher over her should and walked off through the crowd, hips swinging and perfect ass accented by her skirt. Her black Jimmy Chou high heels clacked on the paving stones as she made her way to the Palace.

In the very same Palace, sitting behind a desk on the eighth floor, a dark-haired man looked up suddenly from his paperwork. "Drumknott?"

"Yes, m'lord?" The man's secretary, Rufus Drumknott, looked up from the filing cabinet he's been re-organizing.

"I've felt a disturbance in the Force."

"The Force, sir?"

"Yes. It's like a thousand authors crying out in pain, but they were suddenly silenced."

Drumknott's eyes narrowed. "You don't mean . . . ?"

The man took a ginger swallow of water. "Drumknott, I think we may have a situation on our hands."

"A situation, sir?" Drumknott closed the filing cabinet and grabbed his clipboard. "I would assume of the un-Dungeon Dimensions-y type?"

"Perhaps, Drumknott. I think we may have –" He bit his lips and paused, as though to steel himself for what was coming. "I think, Drumknott, that we may have a Sue."

"Ye gods."

--

And hour later, the young woman had made her way to the Patrician's Palace. She had merely had to wink at the guards to gain admission to the place because she was so hot. Now, after the exhausting climb up eight flights of stairs, she finally mounted the landing for the floor the Patrician's office was on. A light sheen of sweat sat on her forehead, but her make-up hadn't started to run yet. Nevertheless, she checked her make-up in her compact mirror and applied some more cream-shade foundation, a light pink blush, a very subtly blue eyeliner, and a streak of silver eye shadow. Then she made her way to the double doors leading to the Patrician's anteroom.

Drumknott knew she was coming before he heard the doors to the waiting room swing open. He and the Patrician had barricaded themselves in the Oblong Office. An assortment of filing cabinets, lamps and the Patrician's desk had been hastily pushed up against the doors, hopefully blocking them off for long enough. Vimes was scheduled for a 10:15 appointment – surely he'd get there five minutes early and realize something was amiss?

They heard her make a little 'hmm' noise. Drumknott turned to the Patrician, fearful. "What do we do, sir?"

"We wait, Drumknott. We wait." Vetinari had had the foresight to arm both his clerk and himself, just in case. Drumknott at first had been a little put-out at not getting the daggers, but the sword was pretty cool, he had to admit. "And if she comes in, just try to keep a clear head and –"

"My goodness you two spent some time blocking that door!" a cheerful voice came from behind them. Drumknott froze. Vetinari winced and then turned, trying to stay as cool and calm as he always did.

"Can I help you?" he asked slowly, raising an eyebrow and fixing her with the Stare.

"Yes, I think you can," the woman said, smiling and sitting down in the Patrician's chair, legs crossed so her bronze tan and perfectly shaven legs were highly visible. "You did hire me, after all. My name is Lorellith Starspire Rainicorn Moonsparklins. You can call me Layla."

Vetinari paused. Drumknott felt a strange feeling creeping over him – he was inexplicably falling in love with Lyla. He fought it, but he just wasn't strong enough. Judging by the strained tone Vetinari spoke in next, he was fighting it too. "I don't recall hiring anyone by your name. Or even anyone recently, for that matter."

She frowned. "Oh dear. Is that the case?" She flicked through a file in front of her. "Well, I may be of help."

Drumknott could hardly recall now why they'd had to be so wary of Layla. She was charming and beautiful. He was falling for her, hard. He smiled sweetly and looked to his employer, who apparently was trying very hard not to smile.

"You see," Layla went on, "I'm a very gifted witch – I trained under both Granny Weatherwax of Lancre and her evil sister, Lilith(1) so that both my talents in the dark arts and the light arts could be maximized. I also trained under the wizards in Fourecks for five years, since I am also a wizard. I can also bend the elements to my will and this streak in my hair changes color depending on what my mood is." She smiled and licked her lips. "How's that sound?"

Vetinari had lost. He grinned lopsidedly and nodded. "S'brilliant."

"You're not like any woman I've ever met," Drumknott said faintly.

Layla smiled. "Thanks Drumknott." She stood and made her way over to Vetinari, where she started playing with his tie.

"You look so hot today," she said softly. "Do me."

"Okay."

She laughed and then pushed him back a step. "But don't you have a meeting with Commander Vimes right now?"

Vetinari groaned. "Why do you do this to me? We should get married. It would be fun and stuff."

She laughed again. "No, because I'm a party girl and a bitch, but don't get me wrong, I'm smarter than I look. Maybe one day you will win me over."

"Oh. Okay."

She turned him toward the secret passage she'd managed to enter through. "Go have fun with the Commander, Drumknott and I are going to spend some time together."

"Okay."

--

(1) I don't actually know Granny's sister's name.

--

Commander Vimes was, as usual, in a foul mood. He was getting angrier by the second, too, because not only was Vetinari's clerk strangely absent, but because the man had also apparently either locked or barricaded the door to his office. Vimes chewed his cigar with anger. He jumped when one of the doors banged open behind him.

"Commander!" Vimes spun around to see Vetinari looking flustered, worried and disheveled – altogether out of character for the man. "Vimes, quick, follow me. I can't stay here too much longer."

Vimes scowled. "You haven't been on the arsenic again, have you?"

"No. Trust me, just follow me." Vimes, still highly suspicious, followed Vetinari out of the room. They made their way down one flight of stairs, and started through the seventh floor corridor where many of the clerks lived. The Vetinari pulled him into a broom closet.

"The hell?!"

"Listen Vimes, I'm not sure I have much time." Vetinari reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a very deadly-looking dagger. "We have a . . . problem. I need you to do me a favor." He handed Vimes the dagger.

Vimes gaped at the dagger. "Your lordship are you absolutely sure you haven't been exposed to arsenic in the last 24 hours?"

"No, it's worse," Vetinari muttered, with a slight grimace. "Vimes, have you ever heard of a – of a Mary Sue?"

Vimes paled visibly, even in the dim light of the closet. "No."

Vetinari nodded. "I'm afraid so. She arrived in the city this morning, as far as I've been able to find out. She's already got to me, it's too late." He nodded to Vimes. "Vimes, you know what you have to do. Just please don't be messy about it – I'd prefer to be buried in these clothes, if you don't mind."

Vimes blinked. "Listen, sir, this is bad news but I'm not going to kill you because of a Mary Sue. I mean, aren't there other ways of dealing with this?"

"I'm afraid not," Vetinari answered, shaking his head. "There's no way to get rid of them once they've invaded. You kill one, three more will spring up in its place. Vimes, you have to kill me. I'll go grab an axe quickly if you'd feel more comfortable with that."

Vimes scowled. "Sir, with all due respect, you need to snap out of it."

Vetinari scowled. "Listen, Vimes, it's all well and good for you – you have your wife and you haven't actually had to . . . deal with the situation. Yet. But there's nothing to be done about her. So you have to kill me." He thought for a moment. "The best spot would probably be somewhere in my back, since they lay you down in the coffin anyway."

Vimes sighed. "Your lordship, this is completely irrational. Ye gods, I can't believe I'm actually having to tell you that."

Vetinari grabbed Vimes by the chain mail and shook him. "Vimes, I absolutely refuse to become her . . . husband or whatever. I don't even know what that relationship is. I would say love slave, but I'm not sure that's entirely true." He let the Commander of the Watch go, and Vimes blinked.

"Did you just assault me?"

"I've had my people look into these . . . Mary-Sues," Vetinari went on, ignoring any physical assault that may or may not have occurred. "I'm sure you read the report about it in the Times. Vimes, these . . . women, for lack of a better word, are completely unlike anything else. They can't be killed, for one thing, apparently because they all have some super special powers or something. They're immune to things like, um, well like me."

"You mean blatant despotism, tyranny, and rampant intimidation?"

"Yes, like that." Vetinari paused. "I actually think I would be insulted by that, by the way, were I not concerned with this whole other thing."

"Then don't worry about it." Vimes paused. "Where do they come from?"

Vetinari shrugged. "Something to do with L-space, as far as my people have been able to figure. You know the whole theory about how we're all living in someone else's book, which just sits on a shelf somewhere else in the L-space?" Vimes nodded slowly. Vetinari figured he probably didn't really understand, but he went on anyway. "Well presumably someone somewhere reads these books(2). And some of these people get it into their minds to write their own stories about the people in the books.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you words and symbols have power," Vetinari continued, nodding quickly to the scar on the inside of Vimes' wrist – the ever-present eyeball with a tail on. "So these stories that these people write come true, in some universe, somewhere. Thankfully we don't have to deal with everything in our personal universe – we'd never get anything done. But we get our share. And Mary-Sues are one of those things."

Vimes frowned for a minute and then said slowly "So this Mary Sue, she's been written into a story, probably involving you, by someone else somewhere in another universe who's reading about us?"

"Yes."

"Is someone reading about us right now?"

Vetinari points to the back of the broom closet, where you are, semi-transparent, sitting on an upturned bucket, the faint glow of your computer screen casting an eerie light over the scene.

Vimes sighed. "Twist, breaking the fourth wall – really necessary in this fic?"

You shut up Vimes; I do what I want.

Vetinari nodded. "It's true. Anyway, so you see, we can't really kill this Mary Sue unless whoever created her, you know, writes about us killing her."

Vimes thought for a moment. "But wouldn't that mean I can't kill you unless the mysterious author writes about me killing you?"

"Aha! Excellent observation, your Grace, but not quite right. You see, because I am currently not under the Mary Sue's power, and am, I assure you, completely in control of my own mind, that means we're off-screen. So if I were to die, the author would have no control over that."

Vimes' forehead wrinkled. "Sir, call me out on this if I'm wrong, but there are mountain-sized holes in that logic."

"Don't worry about it. We may, as we are speaking now, be in a fanfiction somewhere. So any holes in my logic are totally at the fault of the author of that fanfiction." Vetinari shrugged. "Since it's Twist, I can almost fully assure you there are more logical fallacies and plot holes than you can shake a stick at."

"I never understood that phrase."

"Me neither; I'm not sure anyone does." Vetinari gestured to the dagger with somewhat more urgency. "Now hurry up and kill me while we're still in Twist's fanfiction."

"She'll never let you die."

"Yes she will, I paid for her grad school."

"How?"

"Don't worry about it." Vetinari rolled his eyes. "Listen, if you're going to be a huge woman about this, just hold the damn thing out and I'll jump on it."

". . . That's what she said?"

Vetinari blinked and raised his eyebrows. "I'm impressed. You're way better at that than Lord Downey."

"I do what I can." Vimes threw the dagger down. "Listen, Vetinari, can't we actually just write our own fanfiction? About us? And kill the Mary Sue in that fanfiction?"

"Don't be stupid." Vetinari pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil. By the dim light cast by the fourth-wall-breaking fan invasion's laptop, he scribbled 'A unicorn appeared in the broom closet and shit a rainbow.' He handed the paper to Vimes, who looked around.

"Well, you're right – no unicorn." The Commander looked back to the paper. "Is this honestly the first thing you thought about? I mean, ye gods, who thinks of stuff like that?"

"Don't worry about it." Vetinari paused. "Wait, Vimes."

"What?"

"I have an idea." Vetinari started pacing back and forth. "We can't write fanfiction about ourselves, true enough, right?" He snapped his fingers once or twice. "But, presumably, if we're the subjects of a book and therefore able to be subjects of fanfictions, then maybe the author of the Mary Sue is in a book too." He paused. "Am I making sense?"

"You stopped making sense about two pages ago but go ahead, you're on a roll."

"Right." Vetinari stopped by your semi-translucent form. "Give me your laptop." He held out his hand imperiously. You looked up.

"Wait, are you Lord Vetinari? The ghost of Lord Vetinari? Why are you in my house?"

"It's an unnecessarily long and convoluted story. Most of it's flowery language to fluff up the word count. Now give me your laptop."

"No!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's mine."

"That's an appalling reason for anything."

You frowned. "I guess so." Reluctantly you handed your laptop over to what you perceive as the ghostly form of the ruler of the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork, who was for no apparent reason standing in your living room/computer lab/depraved sex den (circle whichever is appropriate).

Vetinari grabbed the laptop and Vimes' eyebrows rose as he watched the thing emit a corona of octarine sparks for a second and become real, solid. The spectral version of you frowned deeper. "Don't hurt it. And don't delete my lolcat file."

"Quiet," Vetinari snapped. He propped the computer up on a shelf and started typing. It was slow going, because computers hadn't been invented in the Discworld yet and thus, typing wasn't really something he had to deal with on a day-to-day basis. But he hunted and pecked his way along at what I'm sure seemed like a blazing speed.

Vimes watched with mild fascination, idly wondering if this was really happening or if Vetinari had just got into some kind of hallucinogenic substance. Gods knew stranger things had happened. After about five minutes, however, the Patrician hit a key with an air of triumph. Then, apparently as an afterthought, he typed a bit more and hit the key again.

A unicorn appeared in the closet. And it shit a rainbow.

"Ye gods," Vimes yelled, jumping backwards into a coat rack in an attempt to get away from the thing. "It worked!"

Vetinari nodded, looking cautiously pleased. "The unicorn worked, anyway. There's only one way to tell if everything else did."

"Which is?"

"Vimes," Vetinari said slowly, laying one hand on the Commander's shoulder and one on the doorknob, "we have to come out of the closet."

--

(2) Except for The Brothers Karamazov. No one has, to modern date, ever actually read that book expect for Mr. John Borstein, who wrote the SparkNotes for it. And even he skipped some bits.

--

Upstairs, Drumknott was fondling breasts for the first time in his life. Layla's, in fact. They were round, like perfect cantaloupes, and felt like deliciously overripe Valencian oranges. He leaned in to kiss her and his tongue explored the damp, stalagmite-deficient cave that was her mouth. Their tongues frolicked in carefree joy for a minute. Layla unzipped his pants and pushed them down around his ankles, and he pulled her skirt up to her midsection.

"I love you so much, Layla," he moaned like a breeze through the trees.

"You're better than a day at the spa," Layla gasped. Drumknott slid his undershorts down and leaned in.

"Are you sure you feel comfortable with this?" he asked roughly, wrapping his fingers up in her hair. "I mean, you might get pregnant."

"I can always have an abortion. I'm free for one tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh, okay."

Layla slid down in the bed to Drumknott's hips. With great earnest, she kissed the tip of his penis. He poked her lips gently with it, his throbbing organ asking timidly for permission to enter her facial cavern. She opened her strawberry-rainbow lipgloss-coated lips to take him into her mouth. Drumknott whimpered, arching his back.

"Stop right there!" The door to one of the secret passages slammed open into the wall. Bits of lock and other mechanisms made a spraining sound and flew out of the door, scattering across the room. Vetinari stood there, trying his very best not to look horrified. Vimes was standing behind him, managing to look horrified enough for the two of them.

Layla hardly jumped when the door opened. Instead, she smiled thinly. The streak in her hair turned a dangerous shade of red. "Why Havelock. And Commander Vimes too, what a surprise."

"I'm surprised, all right," Vimes said distantly.

Layla slid back up and rolled onto her side. Drumknott groaned and slumped his shoulders in sexual frustration, which was depressingly routine for him. Layla cupped her breasts and raised an eyebrow at the Patrician. "You want to join us, Havvie-kins?"

Vetinari actually sneered. "No. No, Layla, I do not want to join you in perverse sexual acts that may or may not include my head clerk. Pull your pants up, Drumknott."

"Yes, I know you – wait, what?" Layla blinked. "Did you just say no?"

"Unless I am very much mistaken, yes I did refuse your offer." As Vetinari spoke, Drumknott's eyes cleared and lost their distant look. Slowly, he took stock of his condition. He looked to Vetinari and Vimes, mouth open. His penis instantly went flaccid and appeared to try to retreat into his body cavity like a dog who's done its business on the carpet and knows it's in deep trouble, not that anyone was paying attention to it.

Layla stuttered for a moment before gathering her thoughts enough to form a coherent sentence. "But – But . . . I mean, that's impossible!" She hastily got to her feet and stomped the floor. "This has never happened before!" She yelled, as Drumknott struggled around on the floor to pull his pants back up.

Vetinari scoffed. "Probably because you've never run up against someone who thinks to use your own weapons against you."

"What weapons?" she shrieked. "And why isn't my hair changing to a fiery red or deepest black?"

"Vetinari wrote a fanfiction about your author giving up on your story," Vimes explained rather bluntly. Vetinari rolled his eyes.

"Awesome Vimes, thanks, I have one dramatic line coming in the entire damn fanfiction, which is like the worst joke of a story ever written anyway, and you go and spoil it. Super. No pay for a week and a half."

"You can't do that."

Vetinari paused. "No I suppose I did delegate that power off to the city council a while ago. Oh well, thank gods I'm a tyrant, right?" He turned back to Layla. "Your author has abandoned you, dear girl. I almost feel bad for you."

Layla held her hands before her, as if holding an invisible glass ball. She started to chant. A remarkable amount of nothing happened. "Pikachu, I choose you!" Vetinari and Vimes merely raised their eyebrows.

"Was something supposed to happen there?" Drumknott asked from the floor, where he was having a tough time of getting his trousers re-zippered. Layla was looking at her hands, features frightened.

"My magic . . ."

"Was only made by possible by your author writing it so," Vetinari said smugly, reaching into his robe. "Without her, you're nothing greater than the basic features she gave you."

"But I'm supposed to be an intensely magical being thanks to my being half werewolf, half vampire, and thirteen sixteenths magical Hubwards fairy!"

Vetinari pulled forth a silver stake. God knows why he was carrying that around. "But your magic only worked when your author wrote about it working. No author, no magic." He pulled a dagger out of the robe too. "And anyway, being more than one-hundred percent of anything is idiotic."

"Yeah, I was going to ask about that," Vimes mumbled.

Drumknott raised a finger, pausing in his attempt to re-zipper the trousers. "Actually, it is possible in extremely –"

"Now is not the time, Drumknott," Vetinari cautioned, advancing on Layla.

"That's what she said two nights ago," the clerk grumbled.

Vetinari shook his head after looking mildly amused for the briefest of seconds and continued to move toward Layla. "We have here, my dear, a silver stake, infused with iron." He hefted it in his right hand. "Should about do it, I think." And without any further dialogue, thank God, he plunged it right into her chest cavity, where it first punctured the epidermis, then the pectoralis major, then it cracked her sternum and finally, pierced her aorta. He hammered it in a bit more with the handle of the dagger and stood back, looking pleased with his handiwork while blood sprayed all the fuck over the Oblong Office. Seriously, it was hella messy.

"If she's a vampire, shouldn't she turn to dust?" Vimes asked, moving closer but standing out of range of Layla, the still-living-for-now blood fountain.

"It'll happen eventually, I'm sure," Vetinari said lightly. "And even if she doesn't she's still got a bloody great stake in her heart, should finish her off pretty quickly."

"These pants are giving me quite a time of things," Drumknott grunted, getting to his feet somewhat awkwardly and still struggling with the zipper.

"Well, I'm not doing it for you," Vetinari said absently. "She is bleeding quite a lot, isn't she? I'm going to have to move things to the Rats' Chamber for a bit while they clean this room up and replace the carpets, I think."

"She's a good writher," Vimes critiqued, lighting a cigar and then putting his hands on his hips. "Some people just don't seem to have the knack for it, you know? They don't really jerk around as well as they could."

Vetinari nodded. Time passed, broken only by Layla's blood-muffled whimpers of 'Why don't you guys love me?' and Drumknott's zipper-induced grunting. After a period of time I don't feel like specifying, Layla finally went still. Seconds later her body and all of the blood vanished into thin air, as if they'd never existed. Vimes and Vetinari blinked.

"Well that'll save a lot of time," Vetinari said finally. "So I suppose that's settled. We'll have to keep an eye on the fan-created situations, obviously, but at least we know how to deal with everything now, to some extent."

Vimes nodded and tapped his cigar out into the ashtray that had managed to stick with the desk during its hurried migration across the room earlier in the day. "Sir, considering the circumstances, I'm wondering if we shouldn't just waive this morning's meeting?"

Vetinari pinched the bridge of his nose. "I suppose so, Commader. But only if you help me move all the furniture back. You too, Drumknott."

Drumknott had been suspiciously silent for the last few seconds. "I – I think I may need to lie down."

Vetinari looked up. "Why?"

Both Vimes' and the Patrician's mouths fell open when small, brightly-colored fireworks shot, apparently, out of thin air over Drumknott's head. A few bars from 'Hush-a-bye Baby' played from nowhere. Drumknott looked wretchedly down at his stomach, which looked ever-so-slightly bulged out in the lower abdominal region.

"I – I think I'm pregnant, sir."

--

EL FIN

OR IS IT? (Hint: no.)

DUN DUN DUN.