A/N: Have another chapter! Also, I didn't know it, but this story was nominated on the Lion's Call (a fantastic website!) for a 2013 Lion Award for fan-fiction in four different categories. I'm rather proud that it got voted into "Funniest Fic" and "Most (Intentionally) Outrageous Mary Sue/Gary Stu," as well as "Best Original Character." I'm so proud of our story, Donovan! Thanks so much to whoever nominated or voted for this story!
Now. On to business. Who guessed where they would find themselves correctly? Pretty sure one of my lovely fantastic reviewers was close, if not right on.
Enjoy!
Chapter 10: In Which Everyone's Dreams Come True
Well actually, the blackness only lasted for about ten seconds, and then there was a sputtering and a crackling noise and Donovan's sight sort of exploded as bright sunlight bombarded her. She squeaked and put her hands over her eyes (letting go of Susan's arm) and waited until the tears stopped coming before she looked up and around.
There was an exclamation of surprise and then something almost tackled her. When Donovan opened her eyes she saw that it was Lucy, fair-haired and smiling like it was Christmas.
"You're alive!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Edmund! Eustace! Caspian! They've come back!"
She pulled back, still smiling, and then caught sight of Susan, who was on her knees on the deck (apparently they were back aboard the Dawn Treader), looking decidedly sick and even more confused than ever. Lucy's face went through a whole myriad of emotions before settling on bewilderedly happy. She wrapped herself around Susan and said, "You're here! You're back! And it's you!"
Susan looked confused. "Lucy? Why wouldn't it be—"
"Oh, Donovan!" Lucy interrupted, turning back to the Canon Keeper, suddenly almost in tears. "You wouldn't believe it—there was lightening, and then you and Connor were gone and only she was left (and I know it isn't really Susan—everything's wrong about her) and the other one was here too, and it's been ghastly. The boys aren't themselves anymore, and I've hardly known what to do. If it hadn't been for Reepicheep and Eustace…"
"The other one?" Donovan replied, frowning. She turned to Connor, her mind suddenly very full with questions (such as, "How did you get the STARDD working again?" and "What island were we on?" and "Why did you look like you'd seen a ghost?") only to freeze at the look of horror that was now plastered across his face.
He was staring behind her, at someone or something. She whirled and saw that it was a girl, about her own height, with long golden hair (that curled attractively around her temples and shoulders) and eyes like two amethyst jewels.
"You," Connor breathed, his face as grim as Donovan had ever seen it. "You're the Mary Sue."
Batting her eyelashes once or twice, the girl gave a dazzling smile and replied, "Thought you'd 'preciate the originality, Connie."
If the situation hadn't felt so tense, Donovan would've burst out laughing at the horrified look and blush that spread across Connor's face. Connie?
"You know this Sue, Conn?" she asked, trying not to mentally make it "Connie" (and failing miserably).
"Yeah," he said. "We go way back. I should've known. You screwed with the STARDDs in that other fic too—the Edmund/Jill it's taken me so long to recover from. But why—"
"Why enter the story myself?" The Mary Sue gave a little laugh and dimpled. "Oh, rlly, Connie. You didn't think it was going to liek, stay Jillmund forever, did you? And didn't that Jill seem…I don't know. A little too…pretty for the usual Jillmund story? Maybe even like someone had…I dunno…replaced Jill?"
Donovan was concerned by the fact that Connor flinched every time she said "Jillmund." Well. She was flinching too. What an awful term—even for such an abomination.
"You sneaky little—" Connor bit his tongue and simply glared for fear he should misspeak (goodness knows Canon Keepers know how to hold their tongues). "And Susan? This whole lackadaisical affair?"
The girl glared. "It was meant to be a normal Suspian story until you liek, forced me to come join in and—ahem—self-insert myself as an OC who Edmund falls for. Not that we minded, did we Eddy?"
Connor and Donovan turned as one to see Edmund and Caspian standing behind them, both looking rather grim (if a little blank and darker-haired than usual). Something was definitely wrong. When they turned to look back at the Sue, movie-Susan was standing beside her, looking quite horribly triumphant.
There were a lot of things about this situation Donovan didn't understand. She cleared her throat and said, "Erm…you do know that we have all the basic Canon Keeper tools and weapons and that we will not hesitate to stun you and your movie-Susan and take you back to our world if you don't cooperate?"
"Oh," said the Sue, feigning fear. "Don't shoot me with your water-logged stun gun. Or spray me with your diluted de-OOC-ifying spray." A slightly evil smirk flashed across her face (a smirk!—what kind of story was this?). "You're in a pretty pickle, my dears. Oh, Connie, and I'd have thought you'd have learned from last time."
Connor turned to Caspian and Edmund, gritting his teeth. "Your majesties, listen to me. Whatever she's told you—whatever's happened, it's not true and it's wrong. Please tell me you haven't already—"
"Are you calling my beloved a liar?" Edmund roared, ripping his sword from his sheath. (Donovan knew right then that it was not going to go well.)
"They're trying to take me back," movie-Susan moaned, drawing Caspian's blank gaze. "My love—you cannot let them take me back!"
There was a slight noise as the previously unnoticed book-Susan stood slowly, leaning heavily on Lucy.
"Ridiculous," she said, in a cold, quiet voice. "Utterly ridiculous. All of you. And as for you—Edmund, Caspian, can't you see she isn't me?"
"Lucy," said Edmund quietly. "Get away from them—come here now."
"No," Lucy snapped. Her eyes were round and frightened. "They're right—the other Susan is all wrong and that other girl is a witch—or something worse."
"Lucy!" Caspian and Edmund and movie-Susan snapped. Lucy buried her face in her real sister's skirt.
"Gentlemen." Connor held up his hands and tried to sound rational. "I think we're being a bit too hasty about all this. How about we all put our swords down and start discussing this like grown-ups and not like angsty teenagers in love."
"I have a better idea," said Caspian coldly, drawing his own sword. "How about you and your friend and that girl pretending to be my love step away from Lucy, follow us without any trouble, and shut up about Queen Susan and Princess Mariana Susanna."
"Caspian!" Connor exclaimed, shaking his head. "This is not you! Look at me—remember the Lone Islands? What we talked about, about trusting Aslan? Well—"
To everyone's surprise (except perhaps the Mary Sue's), Caspian lunged forward and shoved Connor against the wooden wall that was the side of the cabin, bashing his head into the wood. Donovan cried out and leapt after him, catching him as he stumbled backwards. There was blood, and that was enough.
"Fine," Donovan exclaimed, glaring first at Caspian and then at the smirking Sue. "We'll go quietly. But I'm warning you—and I don't care how clichéd this sounds—you're making a big mistake."
They were escorted quickly, at sword-point, to Drinian's cabin (the poor captain hardly blinked upon seeing them captive—apparently the Sue had bewitched the whole crew) where they were locked in and left in silence in the dim light. Book-Susan (we shall hence-forth refer to her as simply Susan, and let the imposter be always named as such) was loath to let Lucy be torn away from her, and looked as though she might cry for a few moments after the door had been shut, but after a while she simply undid her knot of hair and began to work through it with her fingers, looking at the windows of the cabin very pensively.
Donovan found an emergency flashlight in her belt (finding it strangely ironic that this utterly useless piece of equipment should be waterproof instead of the other, more important devices) and shined it around.
Upon closer inspection, Connor's head had not been bashed too badly. He had a cut on the right part of his forehead which was annoying, because at first the blood dripped into his eye, and besides, that part of the head is very tender and it hurt a great deal. But after allowing Donovan to exclaim over it for a minute or so, he recovered sufficiently to look sulky and snarl something nasty about that rotten Sue and how he was going to have revenge. At that point, Donovan decided he was likely alright, but she still kept him from leaping up and pacing about the room and insisted he stay sitting at least until the bleeding stopped. So, still scowling, he yanked out the STARDD and began fiddling with the corroded wires in the light of the very small flashlight, muttering to himself.
And Donovan did his pacing for him. "Do you have any idea where we are?" she asked (mostly herself—neither of the others were really listening). "I mean, after the Sea Serpent? After Dragon Island? Earlier? After?"
As expected, nobody answered. And then there was a scratching sound from the floor, and Susan squeaked a little in surprise.
It wasn't coming from the floor. It was coming from a grate that apparently led down into the hold. Donovan crawled over and pulled it up, and who should crawl into the room but Reepicheep!
"My lady," the Mouse said, sweeping a very graceful bow and then following it with a sneeze. Apparently wherever he'd come from was rather dusty.
"Reep!" Donovan exclaimed. "Thank the Lion. What in the world is happening on this ship?"
"Achoo!" Another sneeze came from below, in the hold. "Reep, did you make it alright?!"
"Is that…Eustace?" Donovan asked, leaning over to look in. The Pevensies' cousin blinked up at her and then smiled a little.
"I can't stay—they'll be looking for me, but I wanted to be sure and…apologize. For calling you Nazis."
Stifling a snicker, Donovan nodded. "Thanks. You've changed, Scrubb."
He nodded. "Sorry—got to go now."
Donovan turned back to Reepicheep.
The Talking Mouse wrinkled his nose and said, "It may be against my honor to speak ill of a lady, but that…that girl is no friend of Narnia! Never have I been so bewildered, so furious…and the way they treat Queen Lucy!"
"Reepicheep," Donovan said quickly, glancing at the door and hoping nobody could hear the enraged squeaking. "We're here to help—at least, we hope so. What island or…or thing happened last. Where are you on the quest?"
"We have just set sail from the Isle of a strange and foolish people," the Mouse replied, twitching his whiskers. "I have not time to tell you the whole story now, but they call themselves—"
"Dufflepuds, yes?" Donovan turned to Connor and said, "'ey—we're on to Dark Island next."
"Oh, lovely," came the sarcastic reply. "As if this wasn't nightmare enough!"
"Dark Island?" Reepicheep sneezed again and added, "But how can you already know of it? It did not appear on the horizon until they had already discovered you and imprisoned you here in the captain's cabin."
"Great," Donovan moaned. "It's already here, practically. How close are we, Reep?"
"An hour?" the mouse replied. "Perhaps less? It took me longer than expected to find the crawlway to this room. Lady Donovan—I swore allegiance to follow my king, but something is not right here. Something is wrong—and my intuition tells me you know how to fix it."
"That's the hope, Reepicheep," the Canon Keeper replied. She turned to Connor. "Keep fiddling, MacGyver. I think I might just have a plan."
They felt rather than saw the darkness come over the ship. It was as though every hint of hope or joy or excitement had been snuffed out like a candle. The dim light was next to go—Connor closed his hands around the STARDD and gripped it tightly, hoping all his tweaking hadn't been in vain. The miniscule flashlight looked odd, and extraordinarily bright in the pitch blackness around them.
They would only get one shot at this. Both Canon Keepers had been in grim agreement on that point. As soon as the nightmares began to strike on deck, chaos would ensue. They would rush out and grab hold of movie-Susan and the Mary Sue and (with the Real Susan with them) would be transported back home with the last energy the STARDD could muster.
That is, if everything went as planned. There was currently not a solidified backup plan, but in the back of his mind, Connor was prepared to sacrifice himself if it meant getting Donovan back safely. Which was, of course, very noble of him, even more so because it was something Donovan would likely not at all appreciate.
They huddled together in the darkness, the four of them (Connor, Donovan, Susan, and Reepicheep). Minutes passed. Donovan had always rather disliked the dark, but it grew more oppressive as soon as the screams began.
Almost as soon as they heard the first, Donovan was on her feet, dragging Connor and Susan up with her.
"Come on!" she hissed. "It's now or never—while they're surprised."
Gritting his teeth and angling the flashlight forward, Connor grabbed the door handle and pushed against it as hard as he could. Astonishingly, it opened easily enough—the man Pittencream who'd been set to guard them was staring somewhere to the starboard of the ship with a pale, horrified look on his face.
They immediately set out to find the false Susan and the Sue. Donovan remembered from the book that Edmund and Caspian had been together on the deck (with Lucy up in the fighting top), and it seemed likely that the two imposters were with them. Together. That would be convenient.
She was climbing the ladder when she felt Connor freeze behind her. She turned to look at him and saw that he was staring with horror toward the starboard side, just as Pittencream had.
"Conn," she hissed. "Come on—it isn't real."
In the light of the flashlight, his face looked very, very pale and stricken—heartbroken, really. She wondered if this was a common nightmare, if he'd had it again and again, or if it was a new horror invented by the darkness just for him. What could it be to make him look like that?
"Mum?" he whispered in a very queer voice.
Donovan did not include that in the report.
She grabbed his shoulder, jerked him toward the ladder, and kept climbing. Susan was just behind her, seemingly unaffected by the ruckus around them. At the top of the ladder, Donovan expected to see false-Susan and the Mary Sue.
Instead, she saw a ghostly green figure, its six arms outstretched, its beak opened in croaking roar. The smell hit her like a wave of water, and she almost fell off the ladder, choking and gasping in disgust. The horror froze her blood, and for a moment, she faltered, ten years of nightmares all becoming alive in her memory once more. She was a child again, horrified at this pagan thing, this atrocity of a false god, and even more afraid that it was not just a thing in a story.
And then she felt Connor's hand squeeze her ankle from below, and felt a warm burst of courage, that quality which is prerequisite for becoming a Canon Keeper. With a growl of impatience with herself (of course she would see Tash), Donovan flung herself up onto the deck and walked right past the rasping monster. Holding her nose, of course, for she couldn't imagine the stench away.
She had taken the flashlight from Connor, and now she shined it around the deck. It only took a moment to find the two imposters. They stood by their respective beloveds and cringed away from the light, vague looks of terror in their eyes.
Donovan was struck by a thought.
"Connor," she whispered, fascinated, "I think we're their worst nightmare."
To be continued in one last installment, lovingly entitled, "In Which Mary Sue Wins and The Canon is Destroyed Forever"
...just kidding.