Disclaimer: I do not own the Lord of the Rings. Is anyone really surprised?

The Greatest Battle of All


The Elves of Rivendell had long heard whispers of this most terrible evil from those within the other fan-fiction categories, but never before had they imagined it would specifically seek them out. With each new day, the dark cloud of misery, pain and suffering engulfed more of this most luscious of lands, and they were powerless to resist.

The girls known collectively as Mary Sue had arrived.

Elrond called his most trusted advisors to his side, and they debated long and hard on how best to address this terrifying new threat. After thirty days and nights had come to pass, the decision was made. An army would have to be formed; one so formidable that even the most determined of the awful creatures would surely be thwarted in her invasion attempt.

Once this decision had been communicated to the general population, there was a rush to enlist. No elf was willing to stand by and watch his homeland be destroyed with such wanton disregard for beauty, truth, geography and grammar. Each volunteer was armed with the most powerful weapons Elrond and his daughter Arwen could lay their hands on; every storeroom in the vicinity overflowed with dictionaries, computer spellcheck software and English to Elvish translators.

The elven warriors undertook extensive battle training in an attempt to understand the dastardly ways of the place known as "Modern Earth". They learned how to navigate the barren wasteland known as the Internet, the benefits of predictive text messaging, and how best to flame those who dared to criticise. Hours were devoted to learning the correct way to apply lipgloss - the battle cry of "pout then press together then blot!" was heard for miles around.

Elrond himself personally oversaw the creation of an elite fighting force; one hundred and fifty elves capable of spotting and then buying the cutest little blouse with Daddy's charge card in less than thirty seconds. Only those with the strongest will to survive could receive tuition in this most deadly of all the arts - weaker elves were lost forever, conquered instantly by the all-encompassing power of credit.

At last, they could prepare no more, and took their places in the front line, hearts thumping, nerves jangling. They did not have long to wait; Mary Sue was poised to attack.

At Peter Jackson's sign, the heavens opened, and the enemy descended from the sky in droves, flung into Middle Earth as a result of the most unlikely of occurrences, or simply dumped there by unspecified means (usually when either too much caffeine had been consumed or there simply was no plot of any description). Mary Sue was by no means an easy adversary. She had her own, even deadlier weapons - perfectly manicured nails, bubble gum, and the entire back catalogue of the Backstreet Boys. One squirt of her perfume was enough to take out three of the enemy, and she could deflect even the fiercest blows of the thesaurus-wielding troops with her own super- language, confusing the elves by replacing of "you" with "u" or "to" with "2".

For months, the sides were deadlocked. And then there came the conflict simply called the Greatest Battle of All.

It was a battle unlike any other ever seen before in either Middle Earth or Modern Earth. A story which would be passed down through the generations; a legend which required no embellishment on every retelling, for the simple truth was amazing enough to astound all who heard it.

Mary Sue struck the first blow. As the elves crouched ready to defend their home, she used her blatant disregard for Tolkien's geography to remove the most immediate threats. Many an elf from the elite fighting force was greatly disorientated when he turned the corner in Rivendell only to find himself suddenly transported to Mirkwood. There was little which could be done to return them to the fray quickly, for unlike Mary Sue they were constrained by the precise detail of the Professor. Stranded far from the fighting, they could only marvel at the cunning of these vile beings who had invaded their land.

Outraged by these acts of evil, the elves retaliated, calling on their wizard friends to shroud Rivendell in thick mist in an attempt to confuse their attackers. When that failed to deter the rapidly advancing army, it was replaced with its more dangerous cousin - the MST.

But Mary Sue would not be repelled so easily. She simply called on her own computer-literate magicians to deal with this threat to her supremacy. Her prayers were quickly answered and the MST swiftly obliterated, consigned to the annals of history.

Regrouping quickly in the face of such tenacity, the elves were forced to take more drastic action. Large effigies of the Prince of Mirkwood were created, and placed in situations of great peril. When Mary Sue inevitably succumbed to the lure of her beloved elf and tried to save him, she was instantly annihilated by a barrage of arrows from the warriors hidden high in the treetops around.

Finally, eager to bring the tiresome struggle to an end, the elves unleashed their ultimate weapon – Elrond's previously unknown daughters. These maidens, all of whom were beautiful beyond belief, undertook dangerous undercover work at their father's request, integrating seamlessly with those who threatened their home. They effortlessly won their trust, and in doing so discovered how Mary Sue could be destroyed. Her Achilles heel was revealed in all its glory.

Punctuation.

This word, with its astonishing four syllables, was whispered with awe by the warriors of Elrond's language army. "P-Day", as it would soon come to be known, was here at last.

With wicked smiles and a sense of impending victory, the elven archers drew back their bows again; but this time they fired not arrows but commas, apostrophes and question marks. The leader of the opposition was the first casualty - blinded by a quotation mark to each eye, she stumbled around for a moment before falling into a plot hole, never to be seen again. Sightings of her at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry remain unconfirmed to this day.

Recognising that she could not possibly triumph against such a grammatically-correct offensive, Mary Sue offered an unconditional surrender, and retreated quickly under a hail of full stops and exclamation marks. The War, it seemed, was won.

At least until the release of "The Two Towers".