Mister Stu

Chapter 6: The Final Return

Sirius had to admit, he was far too amused for description. All he had done so far is hold on to his weapons, and evil crony after evil crony were mowed down by them. Oh, sure, if any of them had been dark wizards, he would've been destroyed helplessly in a second or two - but given that most of the foes didn't even have as much as a knife, he was relatively safe. Plus, for some reason, the bad guys never attacked more than one at a time.

Sirius shot a glance over at Garith who looked to be having the time of his life, fighting off his opponents with gusto.

"Team up?" Sirius offered.

Garith took a few seconds to respond (he was in the middle of a very acrobatic and overly complicated fighting move.) "Sure, why not?"

They inched closer together to guard each other's back. And at first, everything seemed great - they had a much easier time (well, at least Garith did; Sirius never had to do much to begin with) as enemies could only come at them from one direction.

However, the one small flaw in Sirius' plan came to light. He'd enchanted his nunchuck to attack, not specific people, but anyone that came close to him.

"OW!" Garith said, clutching the back of his head where the wooden cylinder had hit. "Watch what you're doing!"

"I'm sorry," Sirius said, and then realized... he didn't have his wand with him - he couldn't undo the spell! He tried to edge back away from Garith, only to find the evil minions pressing towards him. He backpedaled a step and felt the nunchucks once again wheel around to whack Garith.

"Okay, that is it!" Garith turned about-face and swung his sword at Sirius.

"But, wait," Sirius said, but it was no use. His sword instinctively parried Garith's attack as he launched forward with another blow.

"I always knew it would come down to this," Garith said. "Mono-a-mono, man-to-man, a fight to the bloody death, where only one soul will..."

"Here it is," Dumbledore said gravely. It was hardly needed. Harry felt reasonably certain that he would've figured out that a giant glowing orb the size of a small muggle car that flashed a blinding neon orange every twelve seconds wasn't a normal denizen of the dungeons. "I can shut the portal, but I'll need assistance."

"What do we need to do?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore smiled kindly. "The assistance I'll need will have to come from older wizards."

"Oh," Harry said. "Well, let's get it up to the Great Hall, then." He raised his wand experimentally at the orb, but found that magic seemed to fizzle at its perimeter.

"You'll have to lift it by hand," Dumbledore said gently.

Harry groused as he walked over, prepared to be carrying a heavy burden, only to find the huge sphere weighed less than a pound. In fact, Harry wished it was heavier, because each time a slight gust of air came through the corridor, it pushed the sphere around like an oversized feather.

"Can you help?" Harry asked Dumbledore as the three students wrestled with the orb.

"No," Dumbledore said softly. "I'll be needed to guard you."

His comment soon made sense as they made their way along the passageways of the dungeon. For every few seconds, a figure appeared from nothingness along the corridor. And each time, Dumbledore was forced to make a snap judgment on whether the newcomer was good or evil, and quickly neutralize the ones that appeared malevolent.

The appearances grew more rapid, as did the flashing of the sphere.

"It's speeding up!" Harry cried, trying to hurry up the steps leading to the entryway.

Dumbledore shouted back, "It's close to fully opening. Quickly!"

However, as he said it, the headmaster's attention waned for that critical half second. A rotund egg-shaped man emerged and pointed an electric beam at the elder wizard. Dumbledore's body crumpled and withered under the onslaught.

"Dumbledore!" Movie-Harry called out.

"No!" Fanfiction-Harry yelled. "We have to keep going." They quickly ran as fast as they were able while not losing control of their exotic cargo. At one point, Harry could swear they were about to get pulverized by the same weapon that killed Dumbledore, only to see a blue flash seem to fly up, hit it, and spin away.

"Need some help?"

Harry looked over to see a man in red and blue spandex with a giant 'S' emblazoned on his chest. Ordinarily, Harry would deem someone dressing like that as the one needing help, but this was hardly a usual circumstance.

They were quickly joined by a couple wearing black leather, black sunglasses, and a huge arsenal of personal firearms - and the small posse finished the distance to their destination. The couple kicked open the door to the Great Hall, guns at the ready, only to be greeted by more surrealness.

The Gary-Stus were still going at it, but that was hardly the focus of attention. You couldn't look any direction without seeing someone - or something - completely out of place. A roundish hunter with a shotgun looked at the heavily armed pair of muggles and asked them to go "wabbit" hunting. A big pink puffball opened his mouth and sucked in three Slytherins before hopping on a giant star, which was chased by not only the same blue blur as before, but a second black blur. A woman with a seashell in her hair kept singing about where people walk while being sketched by a destitute blond-haired man.

Breaking Harry's attention, the sphere suddenly turned an ominous dark bluish-purple and floated up into the air. White tendrils erupted from the surface, which suddenly seemed to collapse in on itself. No longer did it have the appearance of a perfect sphere - it looked the full part of a vortex leading into chaos and disorder.

"Bwuahaha!"

The entire room, Hogwart denizens and visitors alike, looked over towards the booming voice.

"Somntoe!" several students wailed.

For the demoness "greatest sue" had broken through the wall of the room, surveying the collection with contempt.

"And now," she said, with complete and utter malice, "I shall break down all the barriers of reality, all the seperations from one world and the next. I shall throw all of you into chaos, into desolation, into oblivion. Despair, for the hour of your doom is at hand!"

"No it's not!"

Somntoe drew herself up to her full height, regarding the upstart that dared to contradict her.

"Dude, Garith," whispered Sirius, "maybe we should just lay low for this one..."

Before either of the contestants could do much more, though, Somntoe snapped a finger. That's all it took. Both Garith and Sirius flew backward, flying a third of the distance of the hall to collide nastily against the wall. Sirius got mildly lucky and only got knocked unconscious, but Garith hit the wall head first.

"Now, bow down mortals, so that I migh..."

However, she trailed off, and it was pretty obvious why. There was a student approaching her, their head held high in obvious challenge.

It was Ronald Weasley.

"I can defeat you," he said in a defiant voice.

Somntoe burst into uncontrolled laughter. She wasn't alone - this was Ron, after all. Pretty much everyone in the school found that idea humorous.

"You, a little boy, defeat the all-powerful and all-knowing Somntoe Anaya Namagirm?"

"Yes," Ron said, to the amazement of everyone around. "Are you too afraid to match me?"

Somntoe laughed again. "Fine, mortal, we'll have a bit of entertainment before the end of the universe."

"What are the stakes?"

Somntoe grinned. "Interesting. You intend to make a deal with the devil?"

"Yes," Ron stated. "I win, you put things right and never return. If you win, we all die, having been defeated by the greatest power in all of existence."

"Agreed."

At this, the entire hall groaned. Their fate depended on Ronald Weasley?

"We're doomed," Ginny whispered.

"No, we're not," Harry moaned, his eyes closed in exasperation. "Not if what I think's about to happen..."

Sure enough, piercing music began to play through the hall.

"Eye... of the tiger?" Ginny said, confused. "But that's what was playing when... oh, Merlin, please no."

Sure enough, Ron whipped out a chessboard. "It's just you and me, Somntoe, with the world at stake, on a eight by eight grid of death and destruction..."

Harry and Ginny were torn between perverse excitement and crushing boredom, watching as the red-haired geek and the monstrous demoness called out chess moves.

"Well," Harry said with nausea, "I guess I know now why we don't see too many Ron-centric action fics."

Ginny nodded, watching as Somntoe grew more and more dour while Ron's determined face grew more and more optimistic. Finally, a loud roar half-deafened the attendees, announcing the end of the game.

"I'm the hero, baby!" Ron called out, pumping his arms. "Just call me Mister Stu!"

"You have not seen the last of me! Some day, when the magic bound in our deal wears off, I will come back and kill you all!"

Harry knew that now was the time to act. The moment the door shut behind Somntoe, Harry shot an incantation-less spell at Ron, knocking him unconscious.

"Everyone here agree that Ron is a prat?"

"Yes!" came the vast reply.

"And that he'd be absolutely insufferable if he saved all of mankind?"

"Yes!"

Harry surveyed the people in the room. "Good. I've got a plan..."

"Ronald Weasley, wake up!"

Ron shook his head as he opened his eyes. "Huh... what?"

"I don't take kindly to my students napping in my class," McGonagall remanded him. "Five points from Gryffindor. And if I see you do it again, you'll get double homework. As I was saying, class is dismissed."

"Whoa, Harry, Hermione... something weird just happened."

Harry and Hermione, not trusting themselves, didn't say a word.

"I just... I just had this dream, except it wasn't a dream. It was about the Gary-Stu contest."

"Gary-Stu contest? You mean the thing over at Durmstrang?" Harry ventured.

"Durmstrang? It was moved over here!"

"What are you talking about? McGonagall said the final event was scheduled tonight at their quidditch pitch."

"Huh, wait... what?!"

"Ron, you were dreaming."

"But... I couldn't. I mean... you don't understand... what I saw covered days... weeks... I couldn't have dreamed it all up... could I?"

"Don't ask me. I was being bored to tears by eigenmutive transvectors."

"That's Transmutive Eigenvectors," Hermione corrected. "Honestly, you're almost as bad as Ron. At least you didn't fall asleep." With that, she gave a theatric gaze at her boyfriend.

"Huh..." Ron said, still shaking his head. "Well, I guess it's one way to get through Transfiguration."

Hermione and Harry shot each other a glance. "Thank god," Hermione mouthed, grateful that Ron had been shunted from turning into a monolithic Stu.

That is, until he started whistling Eye of the Tiger.

"What? Why is the story still going?"

Remus smiled at his bed-ridden companion. "There's one last thing to do, Padfoot."

"Oh?"

Remus pulled out a hardcover book, smiling at Sirius' groan at seeing it to be the 'Guide To Gary-Studom', hardback edition. "Final chapter," he instructed, handing his friend the tome.

Sirius groaned, but opened the book to the end. "What? 'Redemption'?"

"That's the last element of Gary Stus, Padfoot. You have to be redeemed."

"What do you mean?"

Remus sighed. "There are two aspects to Gary Sues. The first, and most obvious, is the unkempt bad-boy. You know, the black leather, the flowing hair, the devil-may-care attitude, the cutting wit, blah blah blah. But the second part involves a female character - typically the female character the author most identifies with - showing you so much love and tenderness that she breaks you of your questionable ways until all that's left is a model of purity and light. I mean, look what the fangirls to Snape in their fics - he practically turns into a teddy bear by the end. For lack of a better term, the final step is for a woman to tame you."

"Oh?" Sirius grinned. "Who on earth could possibly achieve do that to me?"

The door creaked open, admitting a middle-aged woman.

"No... you've got to be kidding me," Sirius moaned.

"Something the matter?" asked McGonagall.

Well, that's the end of this journey! Feel free to review.