Notes: Trigger warnings: Holocaust/KKK references, mild violence, hint of rape – all in the name of propaganda.

Additional Disclaimers: I don't own the Silm/BSG/Narnia/Harry Potter/LotR references (obviously), nor do I own the elements of the PPC and PPC/Multiverse history as used below.


Part III

"So the Mary Sues are planning something with their Cute Animal Friends," Erika Verena von Richtofen-Marlowe said, frowning as Charley Maytha moved several sparkly pieces forward on the map spread out in the centre of the wardroom. They'd moved together the tables to make space for their battle map, which was a map of IAHF complete with little figures of students and Sues (all lovingly crafted by Alik R. Parker in art class with SIM Feliciano).

"Yes; it's probably going to involve burning a part of the main building," Howard replied, moving a sparkly dragon-shaped piece towards the main building on the map. "I'm thinking it's either the library or the café, as those are some of the main hubs of student life at IAHF."

"I'm inclined to think it's the library," Sara Parker pointed out. Her boyfriend (and Lila's brother) Andy had been lost to the Sues; he had been knocked into a Character Replacement coma. As the barista-slash-bartender of the Café Foscarini, it was in his storeroom and on his turf that the Sues had first appeared.

"It's a logical choice," agreed R'lyeh. "But there's no time to counteract, no time to save the books or anything."

The Sparkle Police and the Suestapo had the place under constant surveillance. Many of the Nerds that had been captured or killed had been discovered in the vicinity of that most hallowed place of knowledge, with its extensive two storeys filled with more than two million books and its comfortable chairs by tall windows and roaring fireplaces. Those who escaped often lamented the loss of their access to the library, especially considering that many of them had read all the books they had checked out prior to the attack.

"Where's the Prez?" asked Boris suddenly, looking at Erika. Upon her graduation, the title of Prez of Nerd Group had been passed fully to her former co-Prez Fayane Tyme. Fayane now led an entire group-in-exile; she was scheduled to be at the wardroom meeting with the rest of them but was conspicuously absent.

"I hope she hasn't been caught," Erika mumbled. She had shadows under her eyes from worrying, from nights up late looking in the direction of the Staff Section – not to catch glimpses of Gilbert, Vash, or Tino, but to look for signs that her brother Erich may still be alive.

Whoever thought war was exciting or cute or anything other than depressing, stressful, and horrendous in general ought to be dumped into the middle of one. And many of the other students had realised that very quickly.

"What are our chances for retaliation?" Boris asked from his seat on the table with the tactical map. "Strike them before they can burn down our library?"

"Terrorism is a sign of weakness," R'lyeh pointed out.

"But we are weak, in case you haven't figured that out," Alexis snapped. "We've lost access to the supply plotholes, we've had to reduce the rations to the Underground, and the only students who get fed well are the Sparkle Police and those who don't strongly side either way." As if to demonstrate her point, Peter's stomach growled extremely loudly at that moment; he cringed and looked away.

"Guerrilla fighting is the best offensive we have; we know the abysses and tunnels better than most of the Sues," agreed Lila. Sara Parker next to her was twiddling one of the student pieces.

"Ha, mostly because we've fallen into all of them at some point," muttered the Canada fangirl. "But I agree. It worked for the Viet Cong; it could work for us."

"You and your Com-nom-nom-unism," snorted R'lyeh.

I don't see anything wrong with guerrilla warfare in this situation, Charley Maytha said, considering that the planes we managed to steal from the Staff hangars are running out of fuel and we have no idea where to get more. We can't fight from the skies for much longer, so why don't we fight in more familiar territory?

"As long as we can sustain ourselves according to just war doctrine, we should be fine," concluded Erika. "What's the status of sickbay?"

"Slowly dwindling supplies of morphine and Bleeprin, as always," Mary Crawford said immediately.

"Food supplies?"

"We're going to have to cut down on chocolate rations soon to only one square per Underground resident. Anyone who can't deal will have to go in disguise to the Cafeteria with the other students," declared Midori with a sad bugle call. It sounded vaguely like Taps.

"Just war doctrine?" Peter asked suddenly.

"Oh, right, concept in International Relations that we should be covering soon," Erika said quickly. She was teaching the Underground's IR class in lieu of Francis Bonnefois being, at the moment, so out of character that any female who dared to venture near his lair had to carry ten cans of mace and a tazer. "Just war doctrine says that war is morally legitimate in the name of justice. There are therefore certain reasons for starting and conducting wars, and both have to be legitimate reasons in order to maintain a just war. Some reasons to go to war would be: a just cause –"

"Like stopping a crazy dictator," added Sara.

"As a last resort –"

"When we've exhausted all peaceful means –"

"Something commanded by competent authority –"

"So it can't be conducted by an insane dictator –"

"Something with limited objectives and aims –"

"So no total annihilation –"

"And something with a reasonable hope for success," concluded Erika, "so it couldn't be conducted with good intentions in mind, but no resources to support them. It's immoral to fight a war in vain. There are other elements of just war doctrine that are also rather common sense, like proper discrimination between civilians and military to spare killing innocents, and the means of war being proportional to its goal."

"Right. Thanks." Peter looked back at the map. "In that case, then... if guerrilla warfare is our best chance, then I guess I'd be willing to help –"

At that moment, however, the door to the wardroom burst open and Fayane Tyme rushed in, hair and eyes wild.

"They're burning the library! The dragons are burning the library!"

The leaders of the student resistance – a coalition of the Lurker's Union, the League of Extraordinary Anglophiles, and the Nerd Group, amid others –rushed out of the wardroom and out of the Underground with several other students; they flashed their identification cards at the scanners at the stairwell and hurried up the stairs.

The new Sparklereign had introduced a system of identification cards and scanners in the dormitories to keep track of the movements of their students. Each card had a symbol placing the student into one of three categories, depending on their knowledge of the Canon. Those who put their knowledge of the Canon and history at four or less were labelled for special treatment and induction into the Sparkle Police; those who had the middle range from five to seven were treated like normal people to be brainwashed into Suvian ideology; those who rated eight and above were labelled as Nerds with a glasses symbol, forced to wear nerd glasses outside of the dorms, and generally labelled as enemies of the Sues.

But back to the students. Lila and Peter rushed to Lila's former room. Kagaya was there; she had barely greeted Lila before the other girl was rushing to the window, pulling up the shutters to look for the main building.

Sure enough, the wing that contained the library and its huge collection of priceless books was burning brightly in Urpley-Wilver flames, flames that danced across Lila's pale, shocked face. Peter took her hand, squeezing reassuringly as she turned from the sight, a hand clapped to her mouth.

Books are dangerous things, indeed. The fire raged into the night, and millions of priceless tomes were destroyed. The Nerds wept in their underground bunker, clinging onto each other for solace and strength. All they had left were the books they had checked out prior to the library's destruction.

The next morning, the Sues woke to find several dragon Cute Animal Friends killed, their Glittery blood seeping into the already-wilting grass.

From there, the Sparkly Regime cracked down.


"Who are you?" the dark figure snapped, gun aimed to shoot Jennifer at point-blank range. Jennifer squeaked in fright.

"Jennifer... Chang?"

"You look remarkably well-written for the Mirror-Jennifer," growled the figure.

"I'm not supposed to look like this?"

"You usually look more like a hag, no offence."

"I'm not sure whether to take it or not." Jennifer crossed her arms. "The better question is: who are you?"

"I don't have time to answer that now," snapped the figure. "Come along before they get you, too!"

And before Jennifer knew it, she was being tugged forward, onto the railing of the balcony. Thick piles of conveniently placed bushes lay below, but the figure seemed to be looking for something else. It straightened up after a moment, and turned to her.

"Jump," the figure commanded.

"What?" squawked Jennifer.

"Jump, now! Or would you like to deal with Mirror-Hugh and Mirror-Takara?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Jennifer groused, before squeezing her eyes shut and leaping off the railing.

Someone else quickly caught her; she opened her eyes to see another black-clad figure. This one had a more feminine silhouette; as she removed her helmet and visor dark skin and kinky black hair could be seen.

"Jennifer Chang, I presume?" sniffed the woman.


The students filed into the Orientation Hall, eyes wide with trepidation at the giant screen behind the bright Bled podium. Hand-in-hand with Peter, Lila strode into the hall with head bowed, feet shuffling. The thick-rimmed nerd glasses she was forced to wear as a member of the Nerd Group threatened to slide off her nose.

"It's going to be all right, yo," Kira breathed as the Sparkly Police shepherded them all into their seats. Lila stared ahead, blinking away the tears that threatened to cloud her vision.

As the students took their seats, the Sparkly Police gathered into one cohesive block of military-straight lines. Together, they began to goose-step down the sides of the hall, past the podium. Out behind the screen stepped Imogene, dressed in her usual nauseating shades of fluorescent orange and pink. Her eyes scanned the lines of students with their heads bowed in deference, the ranks of the Sparkly Police with their heads turned to her in their march. She raised a hand, and the Sparkly Police promptly stopped marching, turned to face her, and saluted.

"Hail Imogene!" they cried in one voice, all hooves and wings and multicoloured eyes. Lila could see within their ranks the Eragon-loving, highly genderfluid (in fact, highly appearance-fluid) Kialandi amongst them, as well as the already-infamous half-rainbow Turtle-weed obrain and informant Scarlet Rokudo.

"Thank you, thank you my Legions of Evil," simpered Imogene, beaming at them in a way eerily reminiscent of Dolores Umbridge. "It's always so humbling to see such obedient little minions like yourselves hailing my greatness and my splendour. I'm deeply obliged to all of you."

She looked out at the masses, and her sugary-sweet expression slid considerably.

"I have heard some very unsettling news," she began, "about some very naughty students who killed their dragon protectors."

"Protectors? More like jail wardens," someone groused from next to Peter. He couldn't turn to look at the speaker, for fear of discipline from one of the riding crop-carrying Sues walking along the aisles.

Any vestiges of kindness slid off Imogene's face like butter on hot toast. "What was that?" she screeched.

The person shifted guiltily. Imogene glared at them, although from Peter's vantage point it really did feel as if she was glaring at him. He had a sudden urge to piss his pants.

"I said, my dear Miss Smith, what was that?"

"Nothing," Cody Smith replied smoothly.

"It sounded suspiciously like something, darling," cooed Imogene. Peter could almost feel it, the tingling sensation of Aura of Smooth. His stomach churned. He wanted to run away, yet he also wanted to run towards Imogene and tell her everything, yes – everything. He would follow her until the very –

Lila's fingers dug into Peter's wrist, and Peter winced at the pain. The spell broke.

"Ah, never you mind," sighed Imogene, with all the air of an American military commander who had decided that the information that could be obtained from an inmate of Guantanamo wasn't worth the effort it would take to waterboard him. "It's not what I'm here for, anyway. Before I go back to my darling Workbitch, I intend on reminding all of you who the real enemy is over here. The greatness of fanfiction writing has been spoiled and restricted by the vigilante and simply inquisitorial meddlers of the plot continuum – the so-called Protectors of such! And they are aided and abetted by the biggest crowd of losers ever to grace this Multiverse – the Nerds. Never forget that, my dears. The Nerds are those who restrict all fun. The Nerds prevent us from the recognition we truly deserve as special snowflakes. The Nerds enforce Canon rigidity and the utterly boring principles of history and grammar and research! The Nerds are bad, and they must go down!"

And with a wave of her hand, the screen behind Imogene's head lit up to show a Mary Sue, frolicking through a bright green forest surrounded by Cute Animal Friends and bubbles of Urpley-Wilver light.

Cut to a black panel with a scrollwork border – tacky silent film music was playing, after all, and the entire video appeared to be silent – and the words 'The innocent Mary Sue frolics in the flowers'.

Peter watched on as the Mary Sue, who looked desperately beautiful even on a screen, was suddenly attacked by a black-clad and hideous, orc-like figure wearing a thick set of glasses and a t-shirt that said 'CANON ONLY'.

Suddenly, the bad, ugly, and boring Nerd arrives to spoil her fun!

The Nerd onscreen – obviously male – started chasing the hapless Mary Sue. Suddenly, out of the random forest arrived another equally orc-like, equally ugly female Nerd with pointedly small and saggy breasts and a huge weight problem.

Along comes a Nerdess! The Mary Sue is utterly doomed!

The camera panned in to zoom on the Sue's helpless, crying face (with only a single perfect tear) as the silhouettes of the Nerds loomed over her. The male Nerd, being obviously animalistic and primitive, immediately seized her hand and began kissing it while leering at her; the female Nerd sharpened a knife.

Alas, despite her cries for help and mercy, our poor Sue suffered great torment at the hands of the evil Nerds.

Cut to a grisly tableau of the Sue, now naked and very much dead, with a slit throat and the words 'Canon-raping slut' carved on her stomach. Some of the younger students in the audience started to squirm at the sight.

She will not be forgotten, however. Nor shall her death be forgiven.

The next scene showed a group of scantily-clad Mary Sues and Gary Stus, all lined up with pitchforks and burning torches. The fact that they all carried rainbow armbands with the symbol of the Sunflower Emperor or sparkly Urple hoods reminiscent of Ku Klux Klan robes was not lost on Peter (or any of the actual Nerds in the audience).

We will fight on and on to rid the world of such losers with no life, such shamers of creativity, such vigilante party-poopers!

Cut to scene of the Mary Sues and Gary Stus finding the Nerds and lynching them.

The time of the Mary Sue is here! We must take back the creativity that allowed us to write stories where our favourite stories went our way, where we can escape and attain our personal happily ever afters.

Cut to legions and legions of Urple-clad Sues and Stus, all marching under the banner of the Sunflower Emperor.

We mustn't let the sore-faced PPC and Nerds ruin our fun – it's our stories; we do what we want, and any attack they have on our perfect creations is an attack on us.

The flag of the Sunflower Emperor floated translucently over the legion of Sues and Stus, as some maudlin Taylor Swift ballad played in the background (specifically a line about attaining the perfect ending with the perfect boy) and the Sues and Stus looked up at their standard with their hands on their hearts and single, perfect tears in their eyes.

This is your story! Take it back! Death to the Nerds, those vile rats and worms of the fanfiction world!

The video faded to black with that, and everyone began to clap and cheer. The Nerds, however, were not cheering and in fact had faces far more suited to a funeral wake than a propaganda film screening.

Although in their case, it was highly justified.

"Wasn't that amazing? Wasn't that stupendous?" giggled Imogene from the podium as the screen was rolled away. "That masterpiece was a creation by our very own Anastasia Braginski, representative of St Petersburg!"

More applause as a girl with purple eyes and ash blonde hair peered out from the wings, beaming.

"Our dear Anna understands it so well, doesn't she? She knows how dangerous Nerds are to preserving our Suvian heritage. They will utterly destroy us if given the chance, so we will not let them take it! We must save the Sues! We must keep and protect the beauty and purity of the Suvian kind. It was a Mary Sue who was the first Tenth Walker, a Mary Sue who was the youngest lieutenant in Starfleet, a Mary Sue who ensnared one of the richest and hottest vampires in the world. Sues have contributed to every significant new plot and major change to fanfiction. Our glory will not be dimmed! The time of the Sues is here!"

"The time of the Sues is here!" echoed the students. Lila and Peter remained silent; so did the other Nerds.

"I know you have been discontented with being sent to this school, with having your writing derided. No more! A new age has dawned, where it will be your story and therefore a good story no matter what the Meddlers of the Plot Continuum say!"

There were cheers, even from the main student body. "Hail Imogene!" cried the Sparkle Police. Everyone (except the Nerds) saluted the sparkly dictator.

"Hail Imogene!" they cried, their voices as one, and Lila and Peter felt sinking senses of foreboding as they listened to the cries.


"I'd like to know who the hell you two are," Jennifer retorted, staggering away from her and crossing her arms.

"Long forgotten by Headquarters," replied the figure on the balcony. He – he'd removed his helmet; it was most likely a he – had olive skin, brown hair, dark eyes, and a rather constipated look about his face that made him look perpetually pissed at something, or someone.

Obviously trapped PPC Agents.

"Long-forgotten Agents from the PPC, am I right?" Jennifer asked, raising an eyebrow. "I thought only four PPC Agents had ever gone into the Mirror Multiverse."

"Do you think she's plainclothes EPC?" whispered the woman. The man shrugged, and walked over to nudge two other forms by the fire. One of them was dressed like them; she appeared to be a young girl with mousy brown hair and a dreamy look in her green eyes; the other was –

"Workbitch?" gasped Jennifer.

"Not as you know him," the brunette woman replied cheerily. "I'm Agent Meringue!"

"Mer –"

"I don't think she's EPC in disguise, you guys. They suck at disguising themselves like normal people, much less OFU non-canon staff –"

"This is the Mirror of an OFU –"

"So? The Jennifer Chang we glimpsed earlier looks nothing like her, and we did get information from some of the Suvians on Mirror-Hugh and Mirror-Takara's mission –"

Jennifer rolled her eyes as the three PPC Agents started bickering amongst themselves. "Would you like me to prove that I'm not Suvian?" she demanded.

The three of them turned to her, raising their eyebrows. Jennifer sighed.

"There are only nine members of the Fellowship," she began. "There are only twelve functioning Cylon models and the thirteenth is not a girl but a man named Daniel. Harry Potter can only be taken in by one of Lily Potter's direct family because of her protective charm. Caspian the Tenth marries Ramandu's daughter. There is no Sebastian Moran in BBC Sherlock just yet. Francis Bonnefois is not a rapist who says 'honhonhon' all the time; Yao Wang should technically not say 'aru' because it's a rude Chinese stereotype from the Japanese; and Gilbert Beilschmidt's five metres is a fanon creation." She paused, heaving a giant breath. "Now is that enough to convince you I'm not Suvian, or will I have to list off more canonical facts?"

The three Agents looked at each other, before the darker woman sighed. "Benefit of the doubt, then. I'm Agent Baklava."

"Agent Jam," added the man.

"Are they your real names?" Jennifer asked.

"More or less," Baklava replied.

Jennifer frowned. "And you three were left here by the PPC?"

"Not here; we came here by ourselves, but by accident."

"So you just happened to stumble into the Mirror IAHF."

"Pretty much."

"Won't the denizens catch you?"

"Look around you," suggested Jam. Jennifer complied, noticing that she was standing, quite inexplicably, in the Cafeteria. Or at least a portion of the Cafeteria; she could see through a thin sheen of Glitter part of the bushes and walls of the Buttiful Castiel of Doom.

"What is this?" breathed the Asian Anglophile.

"A GlitterWall. Blocks out the Suefluence in places of high Glitter concentration like badfics and the Mirror Multiverse," replied Baklava simply, taking a seat next to the fire. "We were test-running it for Make-Things."

"Speaking of him, have you heard from him?" asked Meringue curiously, tilting her head to the side and peering owlishly at Jennifer.

Jennifer frowned. "I thought he died a long time ago," she mumbled, racking her brains for the information on the history of the PPC that she had read eons ago (or at least what felt like eons ago).

"2008. We were sent on our research trip with the GlitterWall around then, right before the Macrovirus Invasion and his presumed death," Agent Jam replied. "But rumours travel. There are people around here sympathetic to us – the White Cats, for example, serve as informants to the PPC on the movements of the Mirror Multiverse. They told us Makes-Things escaped death and reappeared last year."

"The Great Hiatus," snickered Meringue. "What a Sherlockian thing to do!"

"Shut it," Jam mumbled, going red about the ears.

Jennifer chuckled. "You said something about a research trip," she noted.

"Yeah. That's how we got into this mess, actually," Baklava answered, grimacing as she prodded the Workbitch-shaped lump lying next to Meringue. "We worked in the Department of Floaters and were roped into test-driving the GlitterWall's protective and camouflage capabilities while obtaining Suvian specimens for Scientists Lori Starrett and Bill Fallis in the Department of Mary Sue Experiments and Research–"

"Unfortunately that was years ago and all of our specimens that weren't portalled back at that time are now gone," agreed Meringue sadly. "We did keep body samples of them, though, and put tracers on the Airy Oohs and possession-spirits so that the spirit-catching Scientist teams could find them later. It was all good and productive until someone got us lost." At that, she glared pointedly at Jam.

"Whatcha looking at me for? I didn't get anyone lost!" Jam exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

"We landed in a giant canyon of sorts," continued Meringue, rolling her eyes at Jam's denials. "It was dark, extremely dark, and there were sheer cliffs above us on both sides –"

"The Void Between the Verses?" asked Jennifer.

"Is that what you call it? It wasn't much of a canyon, to be honest – more like a long expanse of Generic Surface desert, ranging from our cliffs to theirs – and trekking across it would probably have killed us –"

Jennifer blinked. "It was more like a ravine when I got there," she admitted, shivering in spite of the cheery-looking fire.

"We tried to portal to the other side." Meringue fumbled in her pack, surfacing with a burnt-out Remote Activator. "We couldn't. We could only get partway through, and we had to walk the rest. Something prevented us; the very air was rife with tension and magic."

"I was pretty sure there was something trying to prevent us from crossing," added Jam.

"He thought it was the Girdle of Melian," snickered Baklava. Jam glowered at her.

"It certainly felt that way. We were almost killed by invisible arrows, invisible ropes –"

"We made it to the other side, though, so obviously those invisible guards failed," sniffed Baklava. "Our Remote Activator worked to get us onto the other side, before burning out into sparkly fire. And then we were surrounded by Agents from the Enforcers of the Plot Continuum."

Jennifer gulped. "And how did you escape them?"

"The last time PPC Agents were sent to the Mirror Multiverse, they were in the bodies of their Mirror counterparts and were therefore only recognisable as non-Suvian when they started enunciating typos. We were immediately detected as foreign, and somehow able to bypass their defences. They were all rather surprised by that, and were debating over whether or not to take us in as prisoners or guinea pigs. We then caught sight of some other people signalling for us to come to them from the sides, and as the EPC Agents bickered, those other people raised a gun of some sort and shot one of the Agents. In the mêlée that followed, we escaped."

"But those other people chased us," added Jam. "They found us setting up the GlitterWall and told us that they were the White Cats, and that they would take us to their leader, the Bracket Fungus. They were EPC traitors who recognised us as PPC Agents, and sympathised with our plight."

"I thought it was nigh impossible for the Mirror and Prime Multiverses to contact each other outside of…" Jennifer looked around her, shrugging. "Of what's, well, happening right now."


Anastasia Braginski was found dead the next morning with the shape of a nuke carved into her stomach; she appeared to have been bludgeoned to death. There were no signs of who perpetrated the attack, and although fingers naturally pointed to the Nerds (and with good reason, too), no one came forth to claim responsibility.

Imogene thus had five random students rounded up and shot by firing squad. Cody Smith, Emma Northridge, George Rowland, Chad Gluesbane, and Kamila Camila Camille had their pictures added to the memorial wall. Five more martyrs of the Imogene Sparklereign.

After that, someone submitted a confession from Flannery May the Oni student – but those who knew Flannery could easily have attested that she was innocent and that the confession was a gross fake. However, the Mary Sues wouldn't have known, and some of the Sues in the new administration were so stupid that they probably couldn't tell the difference between Gollum and a House Elf even if one of them (Gollum) bit their fingers off.

Erich von Richtofen-Marlowe and Samantha Marie Pappas were discovered the day after Flannery was taken to the Staff Section (now derisively dubbed the Ministry of Love by the Underground). They were let back into the dorms with stories of how they had escaped the Sues, but the real story was obviously much more different.

"Why did you do it?" Samantha asked Erich the night of their return; they were sitting in the hallway outside her room. Erich shook his head, looking out the windows at the Staff Section. He'd spent the afternoon being tailed by his sister Erika at all times, as if she was scared that if she let him round the corner without her she would lose him again. He'd finally wrested himself free of her constant surveillance, and Samantha was there to take up the slack.

"I don't want to discuss it," Erich muttered.

"Why not? I'll tell on you. I will."

"No."

"Try me." Samantha glared.

"I can't let you do that." Erich glared back, but the anger in his eyes flashed only momentarily before flickering into resignation and sadness. "You can't give me away. You're in it, too."

"I –"

"They'll take you away again if I don't, Samantha," Erich snapped, his entire face turning ashen at the very words tumbling out of his mouth. "I... I can't let that happen to you, what they did to me."

"What did they do to you?"

"They..." Erich blinked rapidly and looked away. "Just know that you're better off with things like this, Samantha."

"I..." Samantha felt the tears well up in her own eyes. She wanted to reach out to him, to the boy who had saved her life – yet at the look in her eyes Erich von Richtofen-Marlowe seemed to wilt, seemed to edge away from her as if he didn't want her touching him.

That wasn't very heartening, either. Samantha retreated away from him, blinking away her tears, and diverted her attention to the windows looking out at the new Ministry of Love.

Outside, in the half-light, four figures were escorted to the Wasignton and shot.


"That Void is there for a Reason," Jam pointed out. "There are protections on both sides of the Void, I'm sure, and we were recognised by the Prime half and almost rejected by the Mirror half. But like Beren stumbling into Doriath through the Girdle of Melian –"

"Oh god, this is worse than him relating our stuff to Conan Doyle," groaned Baklava.

"Shut up." Jam crossed his arms. "We came through great peril at great need, with a little sprinkle of fate."

"Bullshit," grumbled Baklava.

"Shush! Speaking!" Meringue huffed. "In any case, the White Cats contact the PPC through badfics; they go in and leave notes for their PPC contacts, who are usually purposefully assigned to those fics so they can collect the information. It's risky, but it's the only common ground they have."

"Okay, and how did youget here?" asked Jennifer, still wondering why the Workbitch-shaped lump hadn't moved.

"We've been on the run from the EPC, genius," Baklava snorted. "We more or less moved from verse to verse in this distorted Mirror Multiverse, and this has been our longest tenure. Most likely because there has been so much muddling from Sues in the Prime Multiverse that the EPC doesn't bother with it anymore, so it was a good place to settle down. But we move camp constantly; a Sue by any other Multiverse is still as Glittery."

"Satow – Mirror-Hugh – said that this place was created by the Chronotransporter," Jennifer noted.

"Lies," Jam said immediately. "Mirror-IAHF has existed since the founding of the school. It, like Mirror-OFUM and Mirror-HFA, takes goodfic writers and turn them into badfic writers."

"Then what was all that BS about Agnes Hill creating the Mirror-IAHF?"

"Propaganda from the brainwashing camp that Mirror-IAHF has become, to suit the purposes of Imogene Fraser." Jam crossed his arms. "Agnes Hill was the first Prime Multiverse Mary Sue Defective to discover the Mirror Multiverse; Imogene was the subsequent Mary Sue coloniser."

"Imogene sympathised with the EPC, of course, and sought to help the Sunflower Emperor expand into the Prime Multiverse under the stipulation that she would get free rein over Mirror-IAHF as well as Prime-IAHF when it was conquered –"

"Conquered!" Jennifer paled, scrambling away from the Agents, the fire, the prone form of Not-Workbitch. "Oh god, no! I have to go back!"

"We can't help you with that," Jam said, shrugging.

"But it's my home! The Mary Sues are going to take over my –"

"Yes. Yes, we know. And we're sorry."

"Fat lot of help that's going to be, you lot being sorry for me while –"

"Imogene Fraser has to be stopped first," Meringue said abruptly. "She has perverted the very fabric of Mirror-IAHF into something that suits her rule, something that will allow the tainted side of the Prime Multiverse to take over the rest. It wasn't Mirror-Hugh and Mirror-Takara who killed Agnes Hill. We saw it. It was Imogene."


"Look at this!" hissed Stanley, dragging Peter by the hand to the entrance to the Cafeteria, where the newest edition of the Bled Chronicles was posted. Since Shinbun's bewitchment, the paper had disseminated nothing but lies.

"Nerds responsible for the killing of four students?" Peter demanded, frowning as he read the headlines. Stanley's eyes were wide; Peter read the captions of the pictures with dryness in his throat.

"Gloria Barber, Sean Tanaka, Brently Loserdoodle, and Morgan LeFine have all been found dead this morning by the Wasignton, obviously the work of the Nerd Group trying to slaughter untrustworthy, undesirable students within the ranks!"

"Two creepers and two students who shouldn't even be at IAHF. Clever," breathed Boris from next to Peter.

"Undesirables for both sides, really," agreed Alexis from next to him. Together, all four of them entered the Cafeteria, Peter being shunted to the back of the queue forming for the food and kept there with the rest of the Nerds.

When Peter finally made it to the food, most of it – Austrian, with various tortes and cakes – was already gone. He took whatever he could and made his way to Stanley's table, but no sooner had he taken a seat did the doors to the Cafeteria swing open and a troupe of Suestapo officers march in.

"Hail Imogene!" they cried, and many students responded in kind. Peter gulped, tempted to take a seat or melt away into the ground, but obviously unable to do either.

The Suestapo produced several sheets of paper. "Today we implement new rules to punish the Nerds for what they have done to our school, for all the divisions they have wrought with their influence. Today we unite! Nerds are no longer allowed in the Cafeteria at all! Hail Imogene!"

Peter looked down at his food forlornly, and turned about to leave the Cafeteria. Stanley took his cakes; with a wink the other student wrapped them in napkins to smuggle out in his messenger bag.

"Wait!" one of the Suestapo cried, waving another set of papers. "We have arrest warrants for the following Nerds and other enemies of the Sparklereign: Franklin Mycroft Livingston, Lila Kirk, Alexis Cal, and R'lyeh."

Peter felt a bolt of ice shoot down his spine at hearing Lila's name.

"If any of you find them, there is a reward for turning them in. That will be all."

Peter quickly slipped out of the Cafeteria with the other Nerds, as the Suestapo moved to enforce their new policy of a Nerd-free Cafeteria. He rushed for the dorms, headed into the tunnels, and pelted straight into Lila as she walked by with Ursula and Kira.

"Oh god, gomen nasa – sorry, I'm... Lila, they've got an arrest –"

Lila grabbed him by the arms. "Peter, what are you talking about?" she demanded.

"They've got an arrest warrant out for you, and Alexis, and Franklin, and R'lyeh – we've got to warn them, and you've got to go even deeper underground –"

"Calm down, Peter," Lila soothed, shifting her grip from his arms to the sides of his face. "We're going to be all right."

She kissed his forehead; Peter bowed his head and wondered why he was so panicky while she, the one who was now officially on the run from the new regime, was so calm and strong.

"I don't want you to go. I don't want to lose you," he blubbered. "Not to them."

"They haven't figured out how to get at us in here," Lila reminded him. "We're going to be perfectly fine."

None of them noticed a figure sitting in the corner of the Undergound with bloodshot eyes and notes.


"It was… Imogene?"

"All of the people you have spoken to have fed you the lies that Imogene is trying to pervade – that her hands are clean of the blood of Agnes Hill. Imogene stabbed her, took control of the Chronotransporter, and tested out her brainwashing techniques on the Good OC Factory Realistically Ever After Ltd., perverting it into a Mary Sue Factory. She corrupted Mirror-Lilith, brainwashed most of the denizens of Mirror-IAHF, and had them create a bridge that would lead them into Prime Multiverse IAHF with the onset of the Merge."

"And the infiltration of the Prime Mary Sue Factories?"

"Mirror-Lilith is there to ensure the cooperation of the Prime Multiverse Factories, but Imogene intends on taking over the Factories anyway. Lebensraum, she calls it."

How fully, thought Jennifer, did you have to be brainwashed in order to believe you committed someone else's crime?

"I'm lost again," she admitted aloud. "Is there or isn't there a Merge? And what does the Bridge have to do with anything? IAHF's definitely going to be attacked, right? And what on earth are you lot doing here if you know about this link back home?"

Baklava rolled her eyes. "EPC Agents have been protecting the IAHF-Bridge for Imogene. Judging by your comment on the decreasing size of the Void, there will be some form of Merge between the two – but it is nowhere as devastating as you think it is. The gap will only shrink to accommodate the Bridge, through which the Mirror-IAHF makes its attack on Prime-IAHF."

"So we're stopping Imogene first," Meringue agreed. "We need to take her back to the Prime Multiverse to answer for her crimes, and we need to find this Chronotransporter, destroy it, and destroy all of the alternate timelines it's created."


Notes: I have a timeline available for anyone too confused by the events in this ongoing Multiverse plot arc. Contact me for further details.