Hey guys! This was written for the Mediator Monthly Challenge in the Mediator forums. It's fairytale-based. I love comments, by the way... So without further ado...

Catch that Ogre!

"SWEET!" With my free hand, I pumped my fist victoriously, while still managing to manipulate the Nintendo Wii controller so as to dodge the giant ogre who wanted to eat my earwax. Well, technically, it wasn't my earwax. It was Cinderella's. But being the one controlling whether she was being turned into a mess of chiffon and tiara under a particularly raucous giant's foot, I think I deserved part of the identity.

"Take that, Jesse!" I flaunted the fact that all of Cinderella's limbs were attached to her body and functioning perfectly, whilst Prince Charming, Jesse's pseudo-self, agonizingly writhed on the ground, witnessing the ogre making a nutritious meal out of what used to be his leg.

Jesse's head drooped dejectedly, his mouth spewing incomprehensible Spanish mutterings that sounded suspiciously similar to wild cursing.

I giggled teasingly.

He sputtered, "Please. I just can't control this… this thing." He waved the Wii controller around helplessly. "If I was actually in there, I would have long since destroyed that ludicrous ogre."

Hearing Jesse say ogre with such conviction brought about a whole new round of insufferable snickering.

His face turned an odd shade of tomato red, before I swore I saw tremors of fury shaking through his poor head. I stroked his cheek. "Aww… do you not like losing, Jesse?"

I proceeded to kiss his cheek, whispering in his ear, "Don't worry. I win a lot. You should definitely get used to it."

Before he could retort out of instinct, I'd silenced him with my lips. When his hands had snaked under my shirt and we were just about at the point where we usually collapsed on the couch, a terrifyingly sugary voice interrupted.

"How sweet."

I jerked away from Jesse, yelping.

"Just because there aren't any people around, you can't assume you aren't being watched."

Jesse and I frantically looked around, searching for the voice.

"I always knew you two were on the dim-witted side."

Jesse threw the pillows off the couch, peering into the crevices of the cushions, beyond the years' worth of fermenting crumbs, to find the source.

"But really, Jesse. Is that as far as you've gotten with her? It wouldn't hurt you to get some ass once in a while, man. Maybe then you wouldn't be so uptight."

I screeched. Jesse turned around, eyes resembling saucers, "What is it, Susannah?" His voice is laced with panic.

"The window!" I jumped up and down, pointing with utter conviction at the two by two glass pane innocently perched on the wall, half covered by a flimsy shade.

He squinted at me dubiously. "What about the window, Susannah? Has it suddenly come alive?"

"YES!! Can you not hear it?"

"The window isn't talking to you, Susannah."

"You heard it just as well as I did. That's why you were scrutinizing crumbs that have been who knows where in Brad's pants for any signs of life."

"That wasn't the window, Susannah." His voice was a tad mocking.

I rose up, offended. "Oh, so now you deny the flat plane of glass on the wall is a window?"

Jesse threw the shade off the window, rapping it with his knuckles. This time, we both heard the hysterical laughter filling the room.

"I swear, you guys. Without me, you'd be a couple of useless vegetables. Though Suze would make quite a sexy carrot."

My fist was ready at my side to punch out whatever idiot thought he could call me a carrot (granted, a sexy carrot – but that didn't count for much, seeing as it was a carrot all the same) and get away with it.

That's when I saw him. Lips turned up, haunted with that mere shadow of a condescending smirk. And, God, did I punch.

"OW!" I held my knuckles and tried to control the tears springing up in my eyes. "Dammit!"

I looked at what my hand collided with and saw a plane of plastic, the screen of the TV. Paul's face was excruciatingly unharmed, leering at me from behind the screen.

I gaped incredulously. "Wha… you… huh? How—but—you…"

He raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Cat got your tongue?" he clicked his tongue sympathetically.

"I… you… what?" My eyes were vacant in incomprehension.

I ran over to Jesse, opening and closing my mouth like a rather demented fish, motioning frantically to the TV, inside of which Paul seems to be getting a kick out of our baffled mix of fear and confusion.

"And here I was, thinking you were at least sort of smart…" he shook his head.

I sputtered, utterly speechless. "Well… well… well maybe you should tell me why you're in my freaking television, Paul!"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh, you know. I was in the mood for a little… magic. A little adventure… and here I was! In the midst of Cinderella," he nodded towards Cinderella, motionless and looking bored now that my controller was thrown haphazardly across the sofa, "fat ogres and…" he wrinkles his nose, "Prince Charming? As Jesse? Oh God."

I scowled at him, Jesse echoing my annoyed face.

"You know what, Paul? You're being insufferable. If I was there, I'd have taken care of you by now."

Paul's eyes brightened. "Oh, please, come on in. I'd love to show de Silva what Prince Charming really looks like." He motions to himself smugly. Not a conceited pig at all, was he?

"Oh trust me Slater," Jesse spewed, "if I was in there, you'd be deader than my Great Aunt-"

"Close your eyes." Paul shrugged.

"What?"

"Just listen. If you really want to prove yourself… well, I suppose there's only one way, right?"

Jesse narrowed his eyes, before closing them tentatively.

"Imagine this… place. Imagine it as vividly as your mind is capable of. Imagine being here."

"Jesse…" I warned, not sure of what a good idea this was. Just as I was about to place my arm on his hand in an attempt to bind him to our own dimension, he was gone.

"Holy shit!" I jumped. "Jesse! Where are you?" I frenzied. "Oh shit, Paul, I'm gonna murder you so hard you die, mash every bit of your f-"

"You know… you're hot when you're mad."

I hurled to face the TV, ready to sit there and pummel through the plastic if that's what it took, and was greeted with a two-dimensional image of Jesse, morphed into a cartoon. His solid black hair flopped over unnaturally large eyes, and his skin was a creamy, even shade of tan.

At this point, even I was expecting at least a couple curses to come spilling out of my mouth.

Speech, though, was completely lost. It was hopeless. I was out of words.

"Join us, Suze?" Paul offered, sickly sweet. And hey – it wasn't as if I had a choice, okay? Leaving Paul and Jesse alone, three-dimensional or not, would result in bad, bad things. I knew that for a fact. So I closed my eyes, imagined the land where ogres roamed country sides and princesses were locked up in skyscraping towers guarded by dragons, where pigs could aspire to be architects and tiny girls could appear in flowers, where God was essentially a white stick with buttons on it; I opened my eyes.

And hell, there I was. My profile wasn't all too flattering, but I suppose nothing really is when you're a flat cartoon character in a fairytale land.

"Hey, you," I said, however disparagingly, towards Paul.

"Yes?" He asked pleasantly.

"Explain yourself! Explain… this!"

"… Come for a walk with me, okay? And yeah, Price Charming," insert disgusted look here, "can come."

I'd like to say we frolicked in the daisies and everything ended happily ever after, but it turns out not all fairytales end up like that. Because right as Paul opened his mouth, I was soaring through the sky.

Not in an I'm-high-on-the-spirit-of-Love way, either. In an I-really-am-flying-through-the-sky way. A scaly tail wrapped around my waist tightened maliciously, leaving me gasping for air. I clutched onto it from fear of otherwise being dropped onto whatever hypothermic lake we were flying above.

"Jesse!" I screamed, shrilly with oxygen-deprivation and terror.

The dot of black that was Jesse was running alongside the dot of yellow that was Paul, trying to keep up with the fifty ton dragon that had me in it's clutches.

The slimy red scales slathered a syrupy mess all over my arms and black t-shirt, and I hoped for dear life it wasn't getting on my hair.

"Argh!" I screamed, hopelessly punching at the dragon's rock-hard skin. "Let me go!"

As if it had heard me, I was dropped into a castle about six million stories high, intimidating and looming even from our height. The tower was steely iron, and it would probably reduce any respectable exterior designer to tears with its stoniness.

I banged against the thick glass window, seeing Jesse and Paul approaching the bottom. When I managed to kick open the window, their voices drifted up to me.

"Get her out, Slater! Tell me what to do!"

"Um… I don't know! Climb the wall!"

"Are you kidding? It's like metal! I couldn't get a step high on this!"

"Well… uh…"

The wig in the corner of the room caught my attention, and I threw it out the window excitedly, holding onto the roots.

"Shit! What was that! Something just landed on my head!"

"Nombre de dios! It's raining hair!"

"Hair!"

"Yeah!"

"No, you idiot, you have to climb the hair! Haven't you ever heard of Rapunzul? God, deprived boy."

I felt Jesse's weight on the end of the wig, making it's way upwards, but then…

"Not so fast, darling," an evil voice rose from behind me, and I could just visualize the scheming witch before I saw her. Her eyes glinted maliciously, before she lunged at the window and snipped at the hair, cutting it straight through.

Her evil cackle filled the room, just as Jesse's yelp seared through the air.

And God, I so called the wand before she flicked it out of her pocket, pointing it at me with determination.

"Bye, sweets," she grinned, a mouth loaded with blackened teeth and sore gums. Evidently, there isn't any Crest in fairytale land.

With a poof of black, I'd materialized into a thorny bush, my left shoe gone. Just as I tried to tread my way across the mess of thorns, I got one stuck up my heel.

… That completely crushed any desire to want to step foot on them without my shoes.

Jesse and Paul appeared in the distance, apparently having stolen a horse, as they were riding in on it, it's golden mane blowing in the wind.

As soon as they slid off the horse, they eyed the bushes apprehensively. "I can't do it!" I cried helplessly.

"Look!" Paul nudged Jesse, aiming at a lone left shoe next to him. Jesse scooped it up and made to come towards me with it. Little schoolgirls popped up at every turn, whining insufferably.

"Sir, sir! It's my shoe!" They crooned sweetly, pulling Jesse into their spell.

"Oh, uh…" he muttered uncomfortably, making to hand it over.

"No, you freakingidiot! You have to put the shoe on HER!"

With that, Jesse snapped out of his reverie, took in my perilous state, and advanced towards me, wincing at the thorns. He was in arm's length, the shoe gleaming in his hand, the girls' pleas echoing like faraway shadows.

"Show me your foot," he ordered.

I sat down, obediently shoving my foot (which had magically transformed from my own size nine to a dainty arch) at him. Just as his hand was inches from my foot, the shoe perched precariously at an angle, the horribly familiar cackle filled the air with malice.

The shoe was snatched out of Jesse's hands, leaving both him and I dumbfounded. "Not so fast, you little rascals," she flashed her yellow teeth (whitening strips, dammit! Would whitening strips be SO HARD to get her grimy little hands on?).

This time, I was prepared for the wand. I was on full guard when she brandished it, but unfortunately, miming tae-kwan-do puts up no fight to evil magic. "Goodbye, darling…" she waved, the mole on her upper nose flashing weird colors that were most definitely not normal.

I was overwhelmed by the piney smell of a forest before I even recovered from my dizziness. I scrambled for footing, clutching the base of a thick trunk to straighten myself up. "God effing dammit… I can fight freaking ghosts, oh yeah, piece of cake, but a stupid witch who desperately needs a dentist and an appointment on What Not To Wear…oh no, she's just too sneaky for Suze Simon, dammit…"

Huffy, I brushed off my pants, only to find myself staring straight into the very hungry eyes of a wolf. I stared at him for a moment before my mouth dropped open. "You have got to be kidding me."

He smiled a cocky half smile, winking slyly. "Had dinner yet, hmm, my little girl?"

I eyed him warily. "No."

When he grinned this time, he bared all of his gleaming teeth. "Me neither. Where does your grandma live, honey?"

"Don't pull that on me, wolf boy. My grandma is tougher than you any day."

He laughed huskily. "A humorous one, eh? No matter. A little ground spices – paprika is actually surprisingly tasty, you know – and you'll be fine and dandy. Come along, then, pet."

I snorted.

"I said, come along then…" he prodded.

"Hmm, let's think," I pondered. "How about not?"

He growled, shaking his fur and advancing. My eyes widened. My legs kick-started suddenly, running for dear life. This, my friends, is why you never make fun of wolves. Because, see, they have sharp, deadly teeth, which, as much as I would love to have to chew up everybody who ever annoyed me, I don't.

Scattered bushels of straw began appearing at intervals along the path, thrown on the sides of the road. As I dodged them, nearing the end of the woods, the sound of exerted grunts that weren't mine reached earshot.

"Straw… light… pshaw…this stuff is like carrying bricks. I want a banana split."

I burst through the darkness and on into an empty field with a small makeshift pile of straw stacked into a hut in the middle. A small pink blur with a springy tail circled it, dissatisfied and grumbling.

I craned my neck to see the wolf advancing closer and closer by the second, and took the chance to shout, "Hey! Look! It's a pig! In a straw hut! How easy would it be to just huff and puff as hard as you can and have a nice little pig dinner, eh? I've heard pigs tongue tastes way better than human tongue…. And we don't even have tails, man! The tails are the best part!"

He slowed down, eyes darting from me, to the pudgy pink pig, and back at me, before baring his teeth one last time and dashing towards the straw hut.

I breathed a sigh of relief, sending all my telepathic love to the poor little pink pig that was stupid enough to build a house out of straw, and then bolted out of there, in case the wolf had a sudden change of mind.

I ran straight into Jesse, who had Paul at his tail.

"Oh my God," I breathed into his chest. "Let's get out of here."

He nodded in absolute agreement.

This time I smelt the repulsively strong perfume before she appeared, fuming. "You filthy little… why… I don't believe it!" She focused her glare on Jesse.

"You," she seethed. This time, I didn't even see the wand before it smelt like someone had a little accident and the woods were filled with mucky green fog.

"Jesse? Jesse!"

I felt an arm on mine, and I groped at it, trying to figure out whose it was.

"Whoa man, Suze, if you want to touch there, you've just got to tell me…"

I shoved him away from me with a sudden bolt. "Paul! Where's Jesse?"

I heard Jesse's strangled shout in the distance, and grabbing Paul's arm, I followed its source, up until Jesse's head appeared, bobbing in a lake. He gurgled for air, before letting out a last scream and descending beneath the surface of the water.

I ran faster than I'd ever run before to skid up to the lake surface, scanning it for any signs of Jesse. It was eerily calm and undisturbed. The panic that surged through me was absolutely undulated. "Paul…" I moaned, feeling sick.

"Um, Suze?" he sounded amused, and I wanted to slap him straight across his smug face.

"What, Paul?" I spat scathingly.

"I think I found Jesse…"

I was over there faster than I could blink. "Where? Where, Paul?"

He nodded towards our feet, where a sluggish pile of frogs was piled, one top of the other. "Oh my God."

Paul's girly giggle burst through his lips with unbelievable vitality.

Suppressing my shock at the sound coming out of him, I kneeled down beside the frogs, holding in the bodily fluid that was threatening to come spilling out all over them.

I moaned again, clutching my stomach. "Frogs? Of all the freaking animals, frogs! I could kiss a cow! I could even kiss a snake! But a frog? What the hell?"

Paul shrugged, "Okay, Suze, but you know, we can just leave now, leave Jesse here… you never have to see him again."

Bracing myself with utter determination, I lowered myself.

I counted down mentally – one… two… three… smooch…

I recoiled immediately, holding my stomach. I was sure my face was a deathly shade of green by down. The frog hadn't done anything.

"Oops," Paul laughed, "must have been the wrong frog."

I kissed them all – every single one. I put my lips on the disgusting slime that covered eight entire frogs, before I finally got the one that began shuddering and rapidly growing larger, until it had transformed into a fully grown Jesse.

"Oh thank God," I muttered, about to lean into him, before I realized he was covered in frog slime. "Eugh. Let's just get out of here, okay?"

He nodded, still looking slightly queasy. Together, we held our hands and desperately imagined my basement, with the Bradley-infected cushions and high-tech sound system.

We were back again – granted, I was borderline-puking on the spot and Jesse was covered in a sticky goop that smelt like frogs, but we were back.

Hearing footsteps thundering down the stairs, I pulled Jesse behind the couch with me. Brad jumped into the room, grabbing the Wii controller thrown on the floor.

"Huh, weird…" Brad mused, "Who's that? Suze unlocked a new character…"

I could hear Paul's pain-induced grunting as I realized who the new character I'd unlocked was – and it was all I could do to not clap my hands gleefully.

Brad laughed barbarically as he let his guerilla instincts take hold and torture Paul's fairytale self, while Jesse and I snuck away and up the stairs.

"You," I murmured, "are going to take a shower, pronto, so I can kiss you."

"Yes ma'am," Jesse grinned.

All right, I corrected myself mentally: maybe fairytales do always end happily.