The Crazili Obsessed: Korren isn't offended in the least. Rano has always been more popular with the ladies...the only thing that bothers him is that Rano has a terrible habit of gloating. (Korren: Wipe that smile off yer wee ugly face, Larkspur, or so 'elp me...) Now Korren, be nice. Hem, anyway, all shall be explained...eventually...and I'm glad you like Snowflower.

Paths Crossing: Yes, all the purple is starting to make me angry too. Don't worry, a lot - and I do mean A LOT - of Sues are somehow eliminated in this chapter. But I can't say any more about it until later, sorry.

Jarrtail: Thank you for all of the reviews, and for your alter ego. And yes, you shall hear the full story about Moira sometime, but probably not in this story. I'm glad you liked my descriptions.

Kelaiah: The blue dress is going to make an appearance soon...though, it probably won't be what you expect. And yes, Noonvale's safe. About the "dog" thing, though: in Redwall, Methuselah references a dog, although it's a town dog, so it was probably one of those mistakes BJ made before he figured out the series. I think the comment was in the realm of Sister May saying she could lay a horse out flat: the Redwallers may think the animals don't exist, but the words convey the image they want to get across. And that made absolutely no sense at all...darn it.

Lilac: Sorry if I threw you off. Korren and Rano never really got to interact on your site, so I'm still working out their relationship. I'll try to make it less confusing...

storiewriter: Thank you for the first review. I'm glad you liked my last update...here's the next one you were thirsting for. Hope you and Oreramar like it...for reasons which shall become apparent soon...

Chapter Twenty

"Flock o' birds comin' this way from the east! Dunno what their species is, but they look purple!"

The warning came too late for the Sentinels to retaliate. The birds, which Mattia's keen eyes identified as sparrows, were only half a league away and gaining quickly. The Squirrel Brothers had just enough time to bark a few orders to their archers before the true nature of their enemies hit them.

Before they came in range of the arrows, the Sues began to sing. It was not one of the Sparra war-songs, which the birds would chant up in the roof spaces every time they got in a violent mood. No, this song was strange and otherworldly, and the sparrows sang in beautiful, unforgettable voices that immediately branded themselves on a creature's mind.

Oh what a beautiful morning!
Oh what a beautiful day!
I've got a beautiful feeling,
Everything's going my way!

The hares, being the first to hear the song at that distance, were thus the first to feel its full effects. Mattia sat clumsily down on the ground, holding her head; Quirky's eyelids flickered, and then his face broke out into a big silly smile, as he began to sing and dance while Isaac gaped at him in helpless horror. Lilac resisted the longest, her whole body twitching, as her mind fought to overcome the influence that was taking over.

Ravenblade the warrior officer shook his leader's shoulder. "Lilac, Lilac, what's wrong?"

The hare shuddered. "Purdy music…help! No…me likes der purdy music…NO!" Lilac dropped her rapier and dropped to her knees, smashing her paws over her long ears. "Cover your ears!" she bellowed. "Cover your ears!"

Those who had not already succumbed to the treacherous song immediately obeyed, some of them releasing their weapons to do so. Most creatures kneeled as well, to let the birds fly over their heads.

The otters, however, had one advantage over the enemy. Their ears could clamp shut without any aid whatsoever, which prevented them from getting water in their ears when swimming. For a situation like this, that ability meant they could block the song from their ears without relinquishing their weapons.

"Mossfloweeeeeer!" cried Falcir the Silent, using this capability to his advantage as he rushed into the oncoming birds with his sword spinning.

Riana, the ottermaid officer from the Highlands, quickly followed suit. "Hawaaaaay the Braaaaaaw!" The remaining otters charged behind her, yelling their battle cries as they fought to defend their friends.

The Sues, however, did not panic. They kept singing their song, and dodged away from the warriors' weapons. Landing at random intervals within the ranks, the birds would engage in battle with the Sentinels, and then take off again when they started losing the fight or when they had managed to overcome a few of the defenders' minds. Soon, Sentinel was fighting Sentinel once again, and the slippery sparrows were still avoiding death.

One large bird, a lavender-feathered creature with a deep bass voice, landed right in front of Mavren. The big hedgehog glared at the Sue, placing himself right between the beast and the three treasures he cherished most: his wife, his best friend's family, and the Tapestry.

The Sue Sparra smiled, and simply added more force to the song, aided by a squadron of his best fighters who seemed to pop out of nowhere.

Oh what a beautiful morning…

The hedgehog gritted his teeth, and took a tighter grip on the Sword. Sending a swift prayer to Martin the Warrior, he willed his limbs to move forward, even though the Sue-song was telling him to stand still.

Oh what a beautiful day…

For the first time that morning, the sparrows developed something akin to panic in their jewel-encrusted eyes, as they watched the hedgehog fight their influence with sheer willpower. They sang the song louder, and all around them, some beasts succumbed to the song despite their efforts to prevent it, and started to sing with them.

I've got a beautiful feeling…

By now, Mavren hardly even heard the song. His warrior spirit was aroused. Everything he could see was red; his ears were filled with the rush of his own blood pumping through his arteries, and the sound of a strong voice saying the same thing over and over again. The warrior of the voice…the warrior of the voice…the warrior of the voice…

EVERYTHING'S GOING MY WAY!

"Not this time," snarled the hedgehog. With a mighty heave, he swung the blade toward the lead singer, who ducked, but immediately stopped singing. All obstacles to the complete use of his mental faculties now eliminated, the hedgehog roared out his answer to the Sue-song.

"REDWAAAAAAAAAAAALL!"

The sparrows scattered a few feet away, and, timidly, tried to start up the song again, but Mavren didn't let them. "REEEEEEDWAAAAAAAAAAALL!"

"MOSSFLOWEEEEEEEEER!" cried Lilac, catching onto the scheme and snatching up her rapier. She ran toward the nearest Sue, yelling incoherently as she slashed it with her blade. "MOSSFLOWEEEEEEEEER!" she shouted again, taking only a moment to draw breath. It was working. She couldn't hear the song over the sound of her own voice.

"GAWTRYYYYYYYYBE!" yelled the Squirrel Brothers, even Curltail, who broke a ten-season run of not speaking as he did so. Nocking arrows to their bowstrings, the brothers sent a volley into the swirling flock of birds, encouraging the rest of the archers to do the same. None of the shafts made a direct kill, unfortunately, but on occasion a sparrow took an arrow to the knee or to the wing and fell to the ground.

These unlucky birds were set upon by those bearing melee weapons, and by an angry fox-wolf who was not averse to tearing out entrails with her bare claws. Lilac, Strongpaw, Treebreeze, and the rest of the Sentinel Officers seemed to be everywhere at once, shouting orders and battle cries almost in the same breath.

"EULALIAAAAAAAA!" yelled Isaac, as he rushed over to where Quirky was still trying to dance to the sparrow's now-feeble song.

"Come on, Quirks," he said, shaking the hare roughly. "Wake up!" Finally, out of desperation, he grabbed the hare's shirt with his left paw, the other paw being used to hold his broadsword. Hefting his friend two feet into the air, the young badger then proceeded to throw him back to the ground, hoping to jolt the hare back into consciousness.

"Der pretty…eh…wot?" Quirky blinked, and, seeing the chaos that raged around them, stared in confusion back at Isaac.

The badger did not mince words. "Find the Recorder twins, they've run off. Look after them, will you?" And, with another battle cry, Isaac dived into a group of sparrows who scattered with angry (but beautiful!) squawks.

"Heh, easier said than done, laddie buck," Quirky muttered, wondering why the blazes Isaac hadn't gone after the twins himself. One look at the young badger's bloodshot eyes would have provided his answer, but the hare had not noticed that detail.

Quirky looked about, huffing in frustration. He had dropped his own sword when he had started dancing, and from the looks of things he wasn't going to get it back. However, he did find Gale and Robin, who were looking for any promising sticks or stones which they could use as weapons. Quirky put himself between the young mice and the main body of the battle, searching frantically for an idea.

"MOSSFLOWEEEEEEER!"

Mattia the Dart provided that idea. She was in a similar situation; not trusting the accuracy of her darts in the confusion, she had decided upon a more mobile form of fighting. Calmly, she waited until a sparrow flew just close enough for her to reach. Then, she leaped powerfully at it, grabbing it and bringing it to the ground. Within a heartbeat, she stabbed the sparrow with one of her darts…Quirky could not see whether it was a lethal dart or a sleep-inducing one, but it certainly made the bird go limp.

Taking a page out of her book, the younger hare waited. He was in luck…Milfoil and Kenzie dispersed a nearby cluster of Sues, causing a few birds to flee in his direction. Bunching up his leg muscles, Quirky hurled his body into the air. "EULALIAAAAAA!" He came back down with what looked like flustered mass of heliotrope feathers. However, he was at a loss with what to do with it.

Gale and Robin weren't. The two young mice jumped on the Sue's back and began pummeling it with the rocks they had gathered.

The battle raged on for about half an hour, although it felt a lot longer than that. The Sues just seemed to have no limit to their army…which was understandable, because the Sparraking ruled over thousands of sparrows, not just in Redwall, but in the entire surrounding area. There was no running from them, because the enemy could fly; there was no hiding from them, because, thanks to the newly flattened foothills, there was nowhere to hide. And fighting them was beginning to look like a plan for failure as well…despite their most valiant efforts, the guileful Sues had managed to pry the best warriors away from their treasured artifact.

One troupe of twenty sparrows had gathered around the Tapestry, hoping to lift it. However, they had overlooked one slight detail…namely, the young hogwife who was doggedly sitting on the fabric to prevent them from taking it.

"Get her off!" shouted the deputy in charge of the mission. The group then proceeded to pounce on her, extending their claws in preparation for the kill.

They met with a painful surprise. Taking great care not to fold up too tightly, for her unborn child's sake, Lily nevertheless became a nearly impenetrable ball of needle-sharp spines. Had the enemies been any other type of bird, they might have injured her. As it was, the sparrows' relatively short beaks and claws couldn't get to her skin before other, pain-feeling parts of their bodies were pricked by her long quills.

Treebreeze Swiftarrow came quickly to Lily's help. The brown squirrelmaid had a dirk in one paw and a small crossbow in the other, firing arrows at the birds that were far away from the hogwife and slashing at the ones closer in. She was joined by Darkfur, who, from a distance, shot down whatever Sues he could to prevent Treebreeze from becoming overwhelmed.

Matthew and Primrose also did their part, kicking at the birds and throwing what rocks they could find in this impossibly soft soil, trying to get them away from the Tapestry. Wren, however, was detained, hiding her little sister behind her back as a particularly ridiculous-looking sparrow advanced on them.

"Be not scared, young one," cooed the bird, its smooth, purple feathers shimmering with an iridescent green color.

Lark was entranced by what now seemed to her to be the prettiest bird she had ever seen. She peeked out from behind Wren's dress, and her sister looked down for just a moment to push her back.

That was all the time the sparrow needed. Flying swiftly at the elder mousemaid, it raked its claws down the left side of her face and pushed her aside. Taking Lark by the shoulders, it lifted her into the air – something no normal sparrow should have been strong enough to do alone, even given the Dibbun's smallness – and flew high, as if intending to drop her. Wren, already enveloped in the transformation into a Sue, could do little more than watch helplessly.

As the purple fog took over her mind, the last thing Wren remembered was the harsh cry of a great bird of prey.

The battle took a sharp turn in the Sentinels' favor when everybeast heard that same screech. Lilac's ears twitched in recognition, and she looked up in surprise to behold a massive, splendid golden eagle tear into the ranks of the flying sparrows. The smaller birds paused in alarm, unsure from whence this angry predator had come. The Tapestry was soon safe; the eagle scattered the troupe of sparrows assaulting it like so many ninepins.

The Sparraking, seeing this disturbance, strutted out into the open, glaring banefully at the eagle. "Why dost thou do this, eagle fierce? 'Tisn't my people ye wantest, but me!"

The raptor's neck feathers ruffled in consternation. "Irakra, friend, don't you remember me?"

"I be no friend of thine! Have at thou, coward!" And, with that, the lavender-colored bird charged with a roar.

The eagle retreated in consternation, not wanting to attack the sparrow because of the inevitable outcome of a fight to the death. However, as both birds took to the skies, the sparrow worried the bigger bird, until there was no choice left but to fight. The combatants twisted and turned, dropped and glided, pecked and batted each other with their wings. One moment, they flew so high that they were momentarily out of sight…then, they swooped amidst the battle on the ground.

All eyes turned to the fight between the eagle and the sparrow or to the remaining skirmishes between Sue and Sentinel. With almost everybeast's attention occupied, only a very few noticed the landbeasts who had followed the great bird.

Lark was the first to notice, when the sparrow that had captured her quite inexplicably burst into flames. She fell, screaming, to what she thought would be her death, but somebeast caught her before she hit the ground. When the Dibbun dared to open her eyes again, she saw that her rescuer was a gray-furred ferret, who wore a pair of spectacles in severe disrepair.

The ferret was breathing heavily, as if he had just stopped after a long run – which, in fact, he had. Upon seeing that the mousemaid was uninjured, though, he managed to wink broadly at her. "Gotcha."

Then there were Kenzie and Milfoil, who were beset by five sparrows who had surrounded them. They had managed to give as good as they got, slashing three sparrows up pretty nicely, but, regrettably, not fatally. The birds were now closing in on them in a whirlwind of purple feathers.

Snap-hiss!

"What the…?"

One body fell to the ground, a cauterized hole between its shoulders where its head used to be. Another two met a quieter end, as two twin short swords pierced through their backs. Kenzie and Milfoil finished off the last two simply, with slit throats, and then stood still, staring at the creatures in front of them.

One, an ottermaid, paid them no heed, glaring at her companion. "I thought I told you no lightsaber!"

"Lightsaber?" replied the other, a gray-furred squirrelmaid, innocently turning her weapon off and putting it behind her back. "What lightsaber?"

It was then that Kenzie found her voice again. "How did you get here? When did you…?"

A particularly loud scream from the direction of the battle cut her off, and the four maids turned quickly to see what had happened. The battleground was deathly still, totally devoid of any noise for the first time in what seemed like years. And, for some reason…there weren't any Sues! In their place were normal, brown-feathered, fierce-looking sparrows and normal, cut-up, tired-looking Sentinels, who looked as if they had never been changed. All of them were blinking in confusion, wondering why in Dark Forest's name they were fighting their friends and allies.

"How on earth…?" murmured Milfoil, but the other squirrelmaid pointed grimly to the center of the battleground.

The eagle's magnificent form was bent over a pitiful, blood-stained bundle of feathers that could have been pure white, once. Tears flowed unabashedly from the large bird's amber eyes.

"My poor friend," he murmured, his voice choked. "Forgive me."

And finally - finally - the mysterious "scientists" make an appearance. Aelin, Kalyn, and Jarrtail do not belong to me...they belong to the famous Oreramar, storiewriter, and Jarrtail, respectively. More on them soon...

The Suesong is "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" from the musical Oklahoma. It is random...very, very random...but it seemed to be just perfect for songfic Sues, who'll sing anything at all if it's pretty, regardless of whether or not it fits with the subject matter. Plus, my inner Broadway geek is very pleased with this metaphorical chocolate bar.