MSA headquarters
To Colonel Jar Christmas was the worst possible day of the year. The day when he had to rush all around the universe, into different Galaxies, and then back again in time for dinner. God forbid he ever not make it back in time, he might just be thrown out of his house. But then again it would be worst if he didn t get his job done at all, he shuddered to think what the head of MSA corps would do if she found out about something like that.
But, thankfully he had had his personal Portal Remote fixed before then and had been successfully able to attend to all of the school physicals. And he even got to have backed sweet potatoes when he got home Yum.
So, on the day after Christmas, he stood looking down at all the new recruits he had gathered the day before and scowled. He couldn t believe he had missed the first course of the day because of these sniveling brats stupid Jerry, bailing out and leaving him to something like this. Even if he knew he was just about to do the exact same thing.
Alright you snot nosed brats listen and listen well. This is the MSA Corps headquarters, Mary-Sue Assasination Corperation. Welcome.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as they just stared at the tall rigid man in front of them. Dressed in a blue and white suit with many badges and medals hanging from pockets and small name tag on his left breast, they successfully named him Colonel Caleb Jar.
Jar watched them for one more moment before continuing with his introduction speech.
"You all-"
"Um Excuse me..." a small voice interrupted him.
The mustachioed Colonel looked down sharply at one of the youngest ones there, right in the front row staring nervously up at him. From the chart he held in his hand he recognized her as Mia Riley. Only six and from the desolate planet of Girth in the Oraanden galaxy as was everyone else in the room beside himself.
"what?" he grumbled.
The girl shrank back a little. "Well? What s your question?"
"W-well I was j-j"
Colonel Jar sighed in impatience, but kept his mouth shut, he really hadn t even wanted to be here in the first place
"I-I jus' wanted to know where we are!" she quickly blurted out, "no one would tell us anything when we asked, they just laughed!"
"Do you have no common sense girl? Did your parents never teach you such things?!" he said. He stopped at the look on their faces, realizing that all of the young girls before him were orphans. Such is usually the case in the Oraanden Galaxy, which is where all of the girls in House 2 were from. He cursed, feeling slightly guilty and shifted uncomfortably.
He sighed and checked his watch; House 2 always took longer than the other section for this very reason, they always asked that same question. Damn the one who had signed him up for this.
"Never mind," he said, and watched many of the lowered heads glance back up at the change of subject, "Anyway, you are here to be trained. Mostly as assassins, but there is always the occasional cook or healer, depends on what your best suited for. Such things will be determined later after the MSA academy, then you ll be assigned to different sections. As of right now, since you are from the Oraanden Galaxy and lived on either the planet Girth itself or one of its moons, you are in House 2."
One of the older children raised there hands. Jar nodded to her and she slowly put her hand down looking around to make sure he had permitted her to speak and not someone else with there hand up.
"W-why specifically us?" she asked hesitantly. He recognized her as Shani. Seven and also from Girth, though she was born on the band of Girths moons called Furnir. They tended to be more human like in appearance than the full blooded Girthians...not that you could tell when she looked like a Mary-sue.
Jar sighed. Did all of them have stutters?
"I'm guessing that all of you have noticed the strange markings on your right arm, am I right?" Some of them nodded, and he continued. That is your one thing in common with all of the Assassins here at MSA Corps. It is born with certain individuals, naming them as a future Assassins. It is used mostly to communicate with either your section leaders, which would be me if you decide to become an assassin, or with any MSA Building." He stopped for a moment fingering his own right arm.
"They can also be used on missions, usually for disguising yourself in order to blend in with your surroundings. AKA, as a Mary-Sue."
That raised gasps from the small six person crowd, as even the young ones knew of the evil he spoke of. To think of ever being one was horrifying.
Jar held his hand up as whispers arose, "Now, don t worry you will not actually be a Mary-Sue, you will only look like one to other Mary-sues. It is only an illusion to make them seem like your on their side, to every one else you will look the same. The rest of the acting will be up to you."
Now looking down at there unusually pretty faces he sighed. Time to get to the hard part.
"There is one more thing, the reason why all of you have those marks on your arm is not a random thing." He took a deep breath. "Before I explain I want you to know this, your soul is not your own."
They all looked at each other at his cryptic words, a bit of fear in some and a bit of excitement in all of them.
"Every Mary-Sue has a second half of sorts, the person who shares their face, there soul, sometimes even their race."
"Does that mean that for every Mary-Sue there's another one?" Mia asked, startled.
"Yes...and no." he said, ignoring the rude way she had burst out. "The soul at birth does not take any responsibility for the future person; it is entirely pure until their actions stray to evil. 'The mark' as the MSA call it, protects your soul from the evils that would befall you if had been a Mary-sue."
"You mean that we share a soul with some Mary-Sue out there? That we will become one of them?" asked Shani, everyone else seemed too shocked to ask questions.
"no, you are who you are, but as long as she shares your soul there is always a time limit to your life." He told them seriously, not blinking even once as his cold black eyes stared them down.
"Half of a soul can not live longer than 20 or so years without being re-linked with it's other half, unless of course you're a Mary-Sue."
Fear now laced all of there eyes as they shivered in the cold of the air-conditioned room. He did not say anything more on that subject, and blatenly ignored their questioning eyes.
"Next thing to talk about is your appearance, since you all have the same face as some Mary-Sue or other it is likely that you d draw attention to yourself when on missions or even when walking around base. Therefore all new personnel are required to change their appearance to an extent. Any change in appearance will stay with you forever until you decide to change it back, however, know that when you walk out of those rooms you will look as you should have looked when you were born."
They all looked at each other at his noticeable change in tone, from serious to slightly bored and carefree. But nonetheless began to follow him as he stepped down from the raised podium and walked along the bare white walls. The heavy sound of his steel-toed boots resounded throughout the large high-ceiling room.
"Now, if you d just follow me out these doors you ll be taken to some dressing rooms and the ladies there will see to it that you are properly taken care of. Good day."
"w-wait!" called out Mia running up to him and grabbing his blue uniform in her small hand.
Jar looked down at her with a small glare, not even fully turning towards her.
"I-I just wanted to know does this mean that we re, or have been, Mary-Sues our whole life?" she looked up with fear in her eyes, hoping she wouldn t hear a yes escape his mouth.
To her surprise he smiled down at her, his grin coming out as more like a grimace than anything on his horribly scarred face. Most would recoil, but as she looked at the man, all she felt was warmth.
"You're not Mary-Sues." He said, spitting out the word like a vicious poison. "You're MSA."
And with that he walked through the doubled mahogany doors and disappeared.
The girls shuffled through the door looking in all directions for the man who had brought them here. But as soon as they had entered the small narrow hallway to join Mia, six identical woman came out of six different doors, three on each side of the hallway.
They all turned towards the children with smiles, their Chinese formal dresses and wide flared sleeves exactly the same. They quickly bowed to them and said all at the same time:
"Welcome to MSA s dress and design center, we will be your hosts." With that they quickly, single file, ushered one of the girls each through a different door.
****
Mia barely had time to think before she was shoved into a chair with weird little suction cups on it. Everything that happened next was a blur of scissors and sprackling magic...she felt as if the suction cups on the chair were litterly pulling her skin off. It was painful but she held up through it without out right crying...sort of.
When the pain stopped, and Mia was turned toward the mirror, she cautiously stared at her reflection, seeing someone she had never seen before. Glee quickly overcame her as she looked at the regular and ordinary girl in the mirror, sitting in a chair with a black smock covering her upper body, locks of once blonde almost silver hair littering it. She smiled up at the woman behind her, smiling back through the reflection.
Fingering the short mousy brown hair that barely reached down to her chin her grin widened, but it had changed from the usual eye blinding smile, into a slightly crooked one with bland colored lips, a far cry from there once lush red color. And it would stay that way, forever ordinary, never again the face that was some Mary-Sues , only her own.
Her eye color hadn t changed much, she noticed, but her eyelashes were no longer long and beautiful like before. Now there was only full but not that attention grabbing eyes, though still large and electric blue.
She laughed, and it felt good to her ears to hear a slightly squeaky child s voice instead of the annoying chiming bells. She spun the chair, still laughing in joy and her arms spread out wide as a flurry of silvery blonde flew up around her and slowly drifted down to the ground. It was like seeing the snow she had always longed to see on her home planet, and it brought another laugh of joy from her throat.
"I can t believe that s me! I m so-so"
Her host behind her interrupted her amazement though when she placed a hand on the still spinning chair. She smiled at the child but didn t speak, only grabbed her hand and tugged her towards a dressing room.
Mia nodded and immediately stood up, her short legs hitting the floor with a thump. Still smiling with a cheerfulness she hadn t felt before she rushed towards the room, only to be stopped by a now familiar gentle hand and lilting laugh. She was about to turn around towards the Host when she felt the hand secure her and then reach towards her neck. A moment later she felt the black smock flutter down around her to the floor.
She grinned with embarrassment at the Host.
"Oops" she laughed.
The Host once again said nothing except gesture towards the door. She got the hint and quickly ran towards the door, finding it to be locked she waited until the Host came over and slid a white card in between the door. As she pulled it out Mia noticed that it had three circles there that weren t there before, and one of them was glowing black. She reached out to touch one, but the Host pulled it back before her hand could reach it.
"It unlocks a new place from one door, a transporter as some would call it. This one leads to three different rooms."
She started, surprised to hear the Host finally speak, having only heard her speak once in the entire three hours she had been there. She looked towards the door in amazement, wondering it what the Host said was really true. It was the same door she had come through to get to this room, when she stepped through it again would it not be the same narrow hallway Colonel Jar had brought them to?
Her question was answered when the door oddly opened up by itself and the room she faced was certainly not a hallway.
In the center of the room stood the other five of the children she had came here with along with the other five Hosts. All sitting on either coaches or plush love chairs, a colorful throw rug depicting two white and black dragons facing of in a fiery battle of light and shadow lay in front of them.
"Mia! You look so different."
Mia blinked at the odd girl before her, and then slowly a smile crept its way up onto her face. Shani.
"I feel different. She said still grinning. And you say that I look different, what about you?"
Dark brown eyes stared out of a once stunningly beautiful face, no longer was there a piercing violet gaze or a fountain of golden curls. Now stood a regular young and messy seven year old, eyes bright and voice squeaky, hair still curly blonde but also frizzy.
She noticed a similar change in the others to, there faces happy that they would no longer have to endure the horror of sharing a face with a MS, a face that had never truly fit them.
Mia ran over to the other girl and wrapped her arms around her, her superior strength allowing her to lift the other extraordinarily light girl and spin her around. They laughed as they fell on the rug, the others joining in a second latter a tangle of limbs as they wrestled each other on the soft rug. Nearly ten minutes of nonstop tickling and laughing later, and they were all settled onto there backs, exhausted. They stared up at the wooden beams that held the vaulted ceiling up, the warmth of the fire at there feet spreading a lull over the now quiet room.
Mia seemed to feel something then for all of her companions, a bond one could say, like she understood every one of them to there very bones. Even those she had never met before.
She looked at Shani, and knew that she felt the same thing as she.
The peace, unfortunately, didn t last as all things never do and their Hosts hurried them up. Together they stood in a single row in front of them, and like before spoke together.
"Welcome to House 2. To the right there are the first, second, and third Quarters. And to the left fourth, fifth, and sixth."
At this they stopped and simultaneously took out a large and very full, waist pouch.
Mia looked at them oddly. Where the heck had those come from? She shook her head; there were certainly many things she had yet to uncover about MSA headquarters. Like how someone could have SIX identical children. That must have been seriously painful.
"These hold all of the necessary cards that you will need in order to get around MSA headquarters; you can use any door to get to any place. The only thing is, there isn t one to get back to this room, so you ll have to make your way here by foot. Or transport to your Quarters."
As they came up to them and handed each individual a pouch they also handed them a map. Which also came out of nowhere.
Mia took hers, un-zippering the pouch to see all of the cards neatly placed in individual pockets. They also had labels on them, she noticed. Kitchen, Dining hall, Grand hall, Training Grounds, Simulation room, Bathes, Armory, Lab, Academy they went on and on and on.
Mia stopped reading through them when the Hosts bowed again. She watched in awe as there figures twitched and then slowly melded together into one. She smiled at them bade them farewell.
"We hope you enjoy your House, and settle in well. Good day."
And then, turning around and sliding her card through the door, she quickly left to go do whatever she usually did. Mia saw a quick glance of a large high ceilinged room full of desks before she walked through and shut the door, and thought she must be a teacher.
She would probably be her teacher someday.
A/N: so, the first few chapters will be written pretty crappily, but please bare with it as they will get better after the second chapter. I wrote this first chapter a long time ago so its not very good...