Daily Life
The common room was full of people lounging about on the chairs and chatting. Liz finished telling the story of yesterday's adventures to her mates. They were listening open mouthed when she described how Goneril had seized her from behind and pressed the knife against her throat.
"What did you do?" squealed Jessica excitedly. Jessica worked downstairs in the "Recovery" department. She'd never been down to Middle Earth and loved hearing stories of how the Mary-Sues were caught before they were delivered to her.
"I can guess" Tony said slowly, leaning back into a spongy armchair. He was another Warden telling similar stories of his adventures. Sean threw his notepad on the table in disgust as he sat on the floor.
"I can't figure out how to integrate those stupid field equations" he complained in his wonderful Irish accent. "Why do I still work with physics?" He noticed everyone was staring at him blankly in confusion, eventually realised he was interrupting and told Liz to carry on.
"Well..." Liz continued. "First I..."
A bleeping started up from her pocket. Liz buried for her newly-charged comlink amongst the accumulated rubbish and answered it.
"Hiya Liz, can you get up here quickly. New job approaching." Sarita called.
Liz agreed and stood up to leave.
"You can't go now!" Jessica cried, "I want to know what happened!" Tony laughed.
"She's got to go, you can't leave the Fellowship with that horror waiting over them! Do you want me to tell you about the Mary-Sue I caught yesterday?"
Liz left the common room quickly with a smile on her face. Jessica would be waiting for her when she returned.
Liz made her way over to Sarita and Dave in the Command centre. Sarita looked a lot calmer than the last time they'd seen her.
"Got your comlink?" was the first question Sarita asked. Liz grinned and held it out. Dave showed his as well.
"Did you survive the Boss' grilling?" Sarita continued, busy typing some data into the computer.
"Just about" Dave laughed. "Where are we heading now then?"
"Helms Deep" Sarita replied without looking up. "Target Legolas, Method... unknown. Good luck!"
The portal was in use when they arrived. They got changed quickly and waited as two Wardens appeared in view carrying a limp Mary-Sue.
"Everything OK?" Dave asked as the Wardens stepped off the platform. Jean pulled a face as she handed the Mary-Sue over to the "Recovery" department representative.
"She was after Gimli!" she said in disgust. "I feel quite sick!"
Liz pulled a face as she inserted her card and waited for the barrier to lift.
"Yuck!" she said.
They arrived in a dark passageway within the fortress. Dave pulled out his comlink.
"Hey Sarita, where is she?" he asked. There was a few seconds pause before Sarita's reply.
"She's with the women and children, she's arguing with someone, Éowyn I think. She wants to join Legolas."
"What a surprise" Liz sighed. "I expect she thinks she can defeat all 10,000 Orcs out there single handed as well."
They started down the corridor heading for the entrance to the glittering caves. The passageway became busier, men striding in all directions carrying swords, coats of mail, arrows.
"Can you hear something?" Dave said suddenly. Liz stopped and listened. A faint rhythmical thudding, steadily growing loader.
"The battle is about to begin." she cried. "We've got to be quick."
The men heard the thudding too and started to panic slightly, running up and down the corridors, making sure they were prepared to fight. Suddenly one man ran into Dave by accident. He apologised, then looked at Dave closely.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. "All men able to fight should be out on the walls." he turned to Liz. "And you should be down in the Glittering Caves with the Women and children."
Dave reached unconcerned to his belt and brought out his memory eraser. He erased the man's memory and turned to go. The man blinked a few times, started running and collided with Dave again.
"What are you doing here?" he asked again. "All men able to fight..."
Dave tutted in annoyance and activated the memory eraser again. The man blinked looked at him in surprise then started up again.
"What are you doing here..." Liz laughed.
"You'd better go" she said, "He's not going to give up. Just don't get yourself killed, I'll look for the Mary-Sue then collect you when I've found her." She paused as she saw the man's expression.
"I...uh..I mean to say that I'm... uh... just heading for the Glittering Caves" she corrected to pacify him.
The glittering caves were full of frightened women and snivelling children. The rhythmic thudding was much louder now, the cave walls vibrated, and the echoes passed around the walls. Liz stood on the steps near the cave entrance and let her eyes pass over the women, searching for the Mary-Sue, with no success. All the womens' hair was ratted and tangled. The Mary-Sue would have stood out with her immaculate hair, perfect - no matter what she'd been through.
A flash of smooth blonde locks caught her eye. She hurried down the steps and followed the figure around the pillar. The hair was beautiful, surely too beautiful to have survived fleeing from her homeland and preparing for battle.
Liz reached out a hand and tapped the woman on the back. She spun around, a child in her arms. It was Éowyn. Liz sighed in exasperation.
"Have you seen a girl with perfect hair? She'd be obsessed about Legolas." Liz asked
Éowyn's expression darkened.
"She refused to stay," she replied "When I insisted, she pushed me hard against the cave wall, and terrified this poor child. You're welcome to her. She went to find him." Éowyn turned to return the child to its mother.
Liz sped up the stairs two at a time. She didn't have much time.
Liz ducked through the doorway outside and let out a gasp as the freezing rain soaked through her uniform. She tried to make her way towards the front of the battlements where Legolas should be. She couldn't see a Mary-Sue anywhere. The battle had already begun.
Liz shook her loose hair out of her eyes, the rain was fast turning it into wet rat-tails, she couldn't see anyone she recognised. She tried to force her way past two burly soldiers. They pushed her back and ordered her to return to the Glittering Caves.
Lightening lit up the sky for a second revealing the sheets of pouring rain and the masses of Orcs spread as far as the eye could see. Liz caught her breath, afraid. She was lucky. All she had to do was contact Sarita and she'd be lifted out of there. These men had no such choice, many of them were going to die. They needed all the fighters they had. They didn't need a Mary-Sue getting in the way.
Liz dove under the men's arms and managed to force her way through towards Aragorn. He was shouting orders to his men, sending waves of arrows down to the Orcs below.
Liz waited till he'd finished one set of orders and yanked his arm.
"Have you seen Legolas?" she asked. Aragorn's face grew dark.
"Not another woman!" he yelled. "Get below, you stupid girl." Liz ducked as an arrow flew past her head. Aragorn shoved her out of the way.
"I haven't seen him" he replied. "He's probably fighting somewhere, now get out before you get killed."
Liz moved along the battlements searching desperately. A hand reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder. It took Liz a couple of seconds to blink the rain water out of her eyes and recognise Dave under the helmet.
"Any luck?" he hissed. Liz shook her head,
"I can't find her or Legolas anywhere." she replied. Dave thought for a second
"Maybe they're together" he said. "Perhaps she kidnapped him? Ask Sarita."
Liz fumbled for her comlink and hoped the rain wouldn't cause it to stop working.
Back at base, Sarita's eyes moved over the long list of numbers moving over the computer screens.
"You're right" she replied into the mouthpiece. "She has kidnapped him, they're in a small room downstairs, I'll direct you. You'd better hurry up, he's supposed to save Aragorn's life in a few minutes. If he's not there, Aragorn will be killed and the entire plot and story continuum will disintegrate." Sarita took a deep breath to calm herself down.
"OK," she continued. "Start by heading down the nearest staircase."
Liz hurried along the corridor, her heart beating uncomfortably.
"Turn left here" Sarita's voice came from the comlink. Liz turned and broke into a run, her wet feet making squeaking noises on the stone floor.
"Stop. She's on your right, about 3 meters away." Sarita instructed. Liz skidded to a
halt and gazed desperately around the stone corridor, the darkness broken only by a flickering torch. She quickly found the wooden door to the room, it was firmly closed. Liz listened for a few seconds, was she imagining it, or was that a muffled, cry for help. She took the burning torch down off the wall and kicked the door down.
It crashed noisily to the floor, Liz jumped over the wreckage and stormed in, brandishing the torch dangerously, hoping she wouldn't see anything too horrific.
Legolas was tied firmly to a chair, his mouth gagged, his eyes wide with fear. The Mary-Sue leapt up off his lap and flew wildly at Liz, practically breathing flames. Liz stood calm and unperturbed. She reached into her belt, brought out a stunner and fired.
The Mary-Sue collapsed unconscious to the floor. Liz walked over to Legolas who was absolutely petrified.
"What did she do to you?" Liz whispered as she started to untie the bonds. "Actually, forget that, I don't want to know." she corrected herself. "I expect you want to forget it too." she asked. Legolas just stared at her blankly, fear still obvious on his face.
Liz finished untying him and erased his memory. He blinked a few times and stared characteristically into space.
"We really should stop erasing your memory," Liz muttered to herself. "I'm sure it's affecting you permanently." Legolas finally realised something was wrong.
"Where am I?" he asked. Liz smiled
"You're in the fortress of Helms Deep. Your friends are fighting a battle upstairs, You had better go join them, Aragorn needs you to save his life in..." Liz glanced at her watch "...5 minutes time. You'd better hurry." Legolas didn't need telling twice, he leapt out of the room and along the corridor.
"What will they think of me for deserting them!" he cried as he ran up the corridor.
"They'd pity you, if they knew what you'd been through" Liz said under her breath as she turned her attention back to the Mary-Sue.
Dave appeared at the door, removing his helmet.
"I saw Legolas return" he explained. "I decided it was safe to desert the army. Do you know how difficult that was? The contract we signed said that we are not allowed to affect the paths of LOTR characters. I had to stand there and deliberately miss the Orcs in case one of them does something major later on in the plot continuum. That didn't stop them firing at me though, What a nightmare!"
He collapsed next to the Mary-Sue.
"Sometimes I wish I had a safer job" he complained.
"No you don't" Liz replied as she contacted Sarita. "You'd be bored doing anything else." Dave grinned
"You know me too well," he said as the room started to glow.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Four hours later they were trekking through Fangorn Forest. The Mary-Sue they were tracking was a reoccurrer, extremely unusual. Normally they emerged from the "Recovery" Department totally changed, some even became reasonably normal people. Few people knew what went on down there, but Mary-Sue's went in, and no Mary-Sue's came out. Liz was suspicious that the calculations didn't quite add up. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know what happened the ex-Mary-Sue's that never emerged.
The forest was stuffy and airless, Dave loosened his collar.
"This Mary-Sue must be quite desperate" he commented. "Why else would she follow Legolas in here?"
"They're all desperate." Liz replied. "and they're almost all dangerous."
Suddenly, Liz felt something grasping her around her waist. She looked down to see knobbled brown fingers squeezing her body as she was lifted off the ground. She let out a cry of surprise and terror until she was held face to face with a pair of deep, penetrating eyes.
"Hrum, Hoom... Not another one" came an old, deep voice. "Already had one in my forest today." He tightened his grip and Liz gasped in pain.
"Treebeard, stop. Please." The Ent stopped at once in surprise.
"How do you know my name" he asked suspiciously.
"I just do." Liz replied. "I'm a friend. Don't hurt me." Treebeard stopped squeezing, but still held her tightly.
"Who are you?" he asked at last.
"I'm Liz" she said skipping over the details, "You've already had 'one' what today?" Treebeard gave a grunt of disgust.
"One of those stupid girls running around, messing everything up." His voice rose in anger.
"I'm not a Mary-Sue" Liz cried indignantly. "We're looking for the one you saw earlier, we want to take her away, make her leave you in peace. Do you know where she is?" Treebeard started humming awkwardly under his breath.
"Hrum, hoom... yes." he said at last.
"Where?" asked Liz and Dave in unison.
Treebeard looked down and lifted his foot.....
It took several minutes for Liz to stop being sick after she saw the remains of the Mary-Sue's body.
"Have we still got to take it home?" she asked Dave desperately, her fingers stroking the pendant Arwen gave her for comfort.
"Yep" Dave replied after checking back at base.
"But it's revolting" she shuddered. She glared up at Treebeard who had the grace to look sorry.
"Next time you see a Mary-Sue, wait for us to remove it. Don't squish it! I don't care what you do to Orcs, we don't have to take them home." Liz glanced at the body in disgust.
"I always said don't be hasty" Treebeard sighed. "But she was so annoying..."
The representative from the "Recovery" department was waiting with a plastic sack at the portal. Dave helped her manoeuvre the body into the sack. Liz ran for the sink.
A few minutes later she stormed angrily towards Sarita.
"How come?" she exclaimed. "How come you can read enough detail into those stupid code-y things to direct me to the room Legolas is in, but you conveniently 'forget' to warn me that this Mary-Sue has been squished by Treebeard."
Sarita glared at Liz.
"It's not my fault. How can I do everything at once. Here." She stood up and pushed Liz down onto her revolving chair. She removed the headpiece and placed the earpiece in Liz's ear and arranged the microphone by Liz's mouth.
"You do it, if you're so clever!" she cried.
Liz listened to the babble of different voices asking different questions for a few moments. She looked up at the list of coded data that didn't make any sense to her. She removed the headpiece reluctantly.
"Sorry." She muttered "I couldn't do this job, I don't appreciate everything you do."
Sarita smiled and pushed Liz out of the seat, placing the headpiece back on her own head.
"No problem, Just let me get on with it!" she said as she replied to a request from the earpiece. Liz turned and headed back towards the common room.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Dave hurried along the corridor towards the Girls dormitories. He knew Liz was in room 19, but the numbering didn't seem to make any sense. Finally he found the correct number and rapped on the closed door. There was no answer. He banged again.
Inside room 19, Liz was dreaming of the Battle of Helms Deep. She became aware of the thudding noise echoing through the torch lit corridors, becoming louder and louder. Suddenly she woke up. The thudding was real, someone was at the door calling her name. She reached for her alarm clock to look at the time. 3:24am.
"Liz" Sarita's muffled voice came from the bunk below. "If you don't answer that door right now, I'm going to kill you."
"And me" came Jean from the bunk opposite.
"I'm killing the person at the door." Jessica had to be different.
Liz draped her legs over the edge of the bed and slid to the floor. She picked her way past various piles of scattered clothes and eventually got to the door. She wrenched it open and Dave nearly fell inside.
"What are you doing!" Liz exclaimed. "It's twenty past three in the morning. What do you want?"
"We're needed right now" he replied breathlessly. "Didn't you know we were on night duty tonight and tomorrow?" Liz groaned and ran her fingers through her tousled hair.
"Give me 5 minutes" she sighed closing the door in his face.
It was strange seeing someone else in Sarita's chair. Ben introduced himself as Liz stumbled yawning towards him.
"I get the easy job." he laughed. "Mary-Sue's are not that common at night, most are too busy catching up on their beauty sleep to try and force a way into Middle Earth. Still, there are a few exceptions."
It was strange arriving in broad daylight, knowing you left home at night. Liz yawned again as she struggled up the hill.
"Stupid Mary-Sue's" she muttered under her breath.
"They're not that bad, they give you a job" Ben's voice came from the comlink.
"You heard me?" Liz answered in surprise.
"Yep, I can always hear you when the comlink is switched on. Remember that Sarita has about 5 conversations to deal with at once. You have my undivided attention" he finished.
"Enough of the flattery, leave her alone." Dave sounded a little annoyed. "Just tell us where this stupid girl is."
"Right" Ben studied the moving data screens. "Hmmm..It's a bit complicated" he commented. "There's a lot of Orcs around. I think she's... ah yes, she's about 500 meters away on your right. She's heading towards you."
Dave and Liz changed direction and started crashing through the undergrowth. The Mary-Sue was easy to find. She was striding through the woods purposely, her clothes resembled a warrior but her waist length ebony hair was flowing in the gentle breeze, a jewel encrusted sword was by her side.
Dave distracted her, bending on one knee and taking her hand. The Mary-Sue stood there as if she had seen men do this many times before. Quick as a flash, Dave grabbed her other hand and Liz clamped them together in the handcuffs.
The Mary-Sue gave out a howl of rage and tried to get herself free.
"Release me at once!" she screamed, "Or I'll set Legolas on you." Liz laughed.
"You'll have to come up with a better threat than that!" The Mary-Sue froze, staring into the bushes. A slow smile crept over her face.
"How about... Orcs" she said nastily.
"Orcs?" Dave asked looking around. To his horror he saw the bushes moving and Orcs started pouring into the clearing. Their spears pointing towards them and white fangs gleaming in the sunlight. Most were marked with the white hand of Saruman. Liz pulled up her comlink in panic.
"Ben, get us out of here" she cried. The Orcs were edging closer, the snarling getting louder.
"Ben, quick!" she cried again.
"I'm trying!" Ben struggled with the controls trying to pick out the figures of Dave, Liz and the Mary-Sue. "Stop moving, I can't lock on!"
"What do you mean, 'Stop moving?'" Liz was incredulous. "Do you just expect us to freeze and allow the Uruk-hai to murder us? Get us out of here. Now!"
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The Treebeard bit is probably my favourite Mary-Sue. I loved writing that bit so much! Pity it couldn't last any longer! I also liked the kidnapping of Legolas when he was most needed...
Oh bother it, Let's just say I enjoyed writing it all!
Interesting theory about night-time Mary-Sues. I suppose only the most desperate and dangerous would bother to come at night!