In Which Everything that Can Go Wrong, Goes Wrong.

(Or In Which We Wreak Havoc In Middle-earth)

by Mako-Shadows

Disclaimer: Don't own Middle-earth, Sauron wouldn't trade it for an A&W Onion Ring.

AN- We felt left out since everyone else had one, so we decided that the Fellowship really needed our company. Hopefully this will have a bit of originality.

Chapter One: Joining the Fellowship.

~*~*~*~

The sun was shining as the Council of Elrond gathered to talk about the weather. Just as they were getting down to business there came a loud scream followed by a shout that sounded something like. "Mako, I'm flying." Then of course came the crash. Two teenagers fell right into the middle of a secret council.

"No, you're falling." A brunette said standing up.

"No, I fell. By the way Mako we should have gone splat like a bug from the force of that landing." The other one said.

Mako looked around and saw that they had crashed a party, pretty literally. "Uh... Gauntlet?"

"What can't you see I'm busy here." Gauntlet said irritably while filching the Ring.

"Who are you?" Elrond asked.

"I'm Gauntlet and this is Mako." Gauntlet said introducing them.

The two were quite odd looking.

Gauntlet had scruffy black hair and dark eyes. Her clothes had obviously seen better days. One of her pant-legs was shorter than the other and was held in place below the knee by a belt. Her army boots had belts holding them on too. Her long-sleeved shirt was missing half a sleeve. Her gauntlets were belted to her forearms and her shoulder armour was nicked and scratched and her cloak hung limply from it. She was dressed in blacks and greys and held what looked like a square of metal in one hand.

Mako was brunette with matching eyes. She was also quite a bit neater than her sister. Not that that was hard. She was wearing a colourful poncho-like cloak that went to her waist, a purple tank top, and her green pants went to mid-calf. Over that she had a yellow oversized scarf-like thing around her waist, it slanted from her right knee up to the middle of her left thigh. In her hands she held a double ended halberd with green blades.

They were definitely odd, on dear old Terra and on Middle-earth.

"How did you get here?" Gandalf asked.

"We fell down after-" Mako started.

"Well it was like this ole buddy, ole pal. Here we were at a Halloween party when this weird guy came up to us. Not that that was surprising, it was Halloween after all. But this dude felt odd, different. He asked us if we wanted to go help some of his friends and the next thing we knew we were falling through the sky and crash landing here." Gauntlet said. "Bet your glad I made us get real armour and weapons for our costumes, eh?"

Mako sighed.

"Where are you from?" Elrond asked.

"Terra, perhaps you've heard of it?" Blank look from Elrond. "Or maybe not. Not much tourism around here, is there?"

"Anyway, what are you going to do with us?" Mako asked.

Elrond gave an order and soon two more chairs had joined the circle. The girls sat down and listened to the others discuss what was going to happen to the Ring. Gauntlet got bored and started to bargain with her hand.

"Where did the Ring go?!" Elrond almost shouted alarmed. Everyone looked at Boromir, who shrugged.

"Where is the Ring?" Aragorn demanded.

Mako looked at her sister who was still bargaining with her hand, she looked closer and saw that she was actually bargaining with a band of gold. Mako gave another long-suffering sigh.

"Err... Is this Ring perhaps a band of gold?" They nod. "And does it perhaps have some form of Elvish writing on it?" Nod. "And can it be used to take over the world per say?" They nod again. "Never seen it." Anime face-vaults.

"It's a deal, Sauron!" Gauntlet shouted jumping up. Everyone stars at Gauntlet.

"Put the Ring back." Elrond commanded pointing at the pedestal. The council held their collective breath as Gauntlet approached the pedestal. She sighed regretfully and put the Ring back muttering under her breath. Everyone exhaled with relief.

Now that the Ring was back everyone felt free to argue amongst themselves about it. Soon Frodo was volunteering to take the Ring to Mordor and throw it in some lava. (I guess they don't have any other volcanoes.) Mako sat in her seat and watched what was happening, Gauntlet was busy throwing pebbles at everyone. Soon the Fellowship was decided and before Elrond could say anything about Nine Companions Mako spoke up.

"Um... Mr. Elrond sir, what are you going to do with us?" She asked, glancing at her 'older' sister who was still happily throwing pebbles at everyone. Elrond looked thoughtful, and then alarmed.

"Oh... You don't have to worry about us Elrond, we'll just hang here for a while. At least until you can figure out a way for us to go home." Gauntlet said as one of her pebbles hit Elrond square in the middle of his forehead. "Lucky you have a tiara protecting you head." She said snickering.

"Mako, you and your sister will be going with the Fellowship." Elrond said glaring at Gauntlet who was currently trying to whistle innocently. Not having much luck with either the innocent or whistling part.

"We can't go." Gauntlet said firmly, "If we do you won't have your magic number of nine."

Elrond cast desperately about for some reason to stick them with the Fellowship. He was rather fond of Rivendell and was sure that given a chance Gauntlet would destroy it 'accidentally' and her sister would probably help given the least bit of encouragement.

"The Hobbits are so small that two of them can be counted as one, so you see it's perfectly alright if you join the Fellowship. In fact I command you to join the Fellowship. With- I mean without you Middle-earth will be doomed."

Mako not wanting to stay in Rivendell kicked her sister in the shin, just to give her a friendly little hint about what she wanted to do. Gauntlet got the point and a bruise.

"Somehow I don't believe you but I guess we can go along anyway. Maybe when we see Sauron, I can convince him that his half of the deal isn't too hard to uphold." Gauntlet said. "Do you really think that it's a good id-" Kick in the shin. "Err... never mind."

Elrond breathed an ill-concealed sigh of relief. The next few days were filled with activity, everyone was getting ready for the Fellowship's departure. Elladan and Elrohir had promptly taken the two girls under their wing and the two had proven that they were very good at corrupting people. Rivendell didn't know a moment's peace, especially when the two younger Hobbits decided that they wanted to help. Finally it was time for the Fellowship to depart. Elrond was fervently hoping that Elladan and Elrohir would 'grow up' after the Fellowship left.

~*~*~*~

Elrond was giving his speech while the Fellowship stood waiting to depart. It seemed to drag on forever. Maybe Elves don't feel the need to keep things short since they live for millions of years, Mako thought looking over at her sister who was snoring softly. Mako just shook her head and wondered how anyone could sleep standing up. (Not an easy skill to learn, trust me.)

Gauntlet, who had woke up at the exact end of Elrond's speech, snickered when Frodo asked which way Mordor was. The two girls followed the rest of the Fellowship and waved good-bye to Elladan and Elrohir as they left Rivendell. The Fellowship obviously wasn't very talkative as the trudged mile after mile towards Mordor.

Mako was soon bored, Gauntlet wasn't being very good company as she insisted on traipsing off into the forest to 'investigate' or 'scouting' ahead. The Gondorian, Boromir was his name, didn't look to interested in talking to anyone right now, and the other man Aragorn, was trying in vain to get her sister to listen to him, so that ruled them out. The elf's hands kept twitching like he wanted to strangle something, probably Gauntlet or the dwarf, but it might be best not to give him any opportunities, she was after all very fond of her neck. The dwarf was grumbling, and she didn't feel like listening to a tirade about how that elf shouldn't have come. Gandalf was busy glowering and thinking uncomplimentary things about Elrond. Hmm... I wonder why? was silent sarcastic observation. That left only the Hobbits, Frodo didn't really trust either her or her sister because of the whole Ring incident, but she got along just fine with Merry and Pippin. Mako walked over to them determined to make friends with Frodo and Sam since they were going to be travelling together and all. She decided she better start the conversation out on a neutral tone.

"So, when do you think we'll be eating?" She asked innocently. This immediately led to complaints over how infrequently the Bigfolk ate, which in turn led to a humorous and exaggerated retelling of Aragorn throwing apples at Pippin. This in turn led to more humorous stories from the Hobbits' childhood, Mako also told them about a few of her and Gauntlet's various 'adventures.' It was an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon and it made the walking seem easier.

~*~*~*~

They camped that night in a grove of maple trees. Around the fire that night everyone seemed a bit preoccupied and caught up in their own thoughts.

"Gauntlet, where do you suppose we are?" Mako asked, watching as her sister's face took on a 'scholarly' look. No matter how much she liked to misbehave or have adventures her first love was always learning, something Mako never really understood, why would you want to learn about why something happened or how it worked, when you could be out having adventures and fun?

"Well Mako, there are several explanations, which would you like to hear?" She asked.

Mako looked around the fire, the others looked surprised and perplexed at the change in her sister's attitude. "How about all of them." She suggested.

"Alright, ask me if you need to me to explain something a bit better. Remember you asked for this. We're on earth, or a very similar parallel earth. The constellations are the same, so are there positions relative to our position. I recognised a lot of the flora and fauna, there are a few things that I didn't recognise but that could be just a variation of something we have on earth. The only thing that says this isn't the earth we know, besides the fact that elves and dwarves and what not exist here, is the geological formations. It could be that when Pangea split that the tectonic plates shifted in other directions that of our earth.

Another explanation has to deal with different levels or planes of the earth. Ancient Native American tribes near Central America believed that there were five, I think, different planes of being. Our world was the topmost layer, so this one might be the second outmost one. It's like something in Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne.

The last explanation is somewhat exotic. Some scientists believe that civilisation turns in a circle, once it reaches a certain point, the top of the circle if you will, it falls back down, the people reverting to an earlier an earlier form of existence, like going from an ancient Rome-like society back to caveman days, which would be the bottom of the circle. It has little evidence to support it, but let's say that is it true. If it was we could be in a period of earth's past of which there is no documentation or evidence that survived to present day.

I have several other more exotic and less plausible explanations. One thing I do know Mako is that this isn't a dream, for one thing no dream could be this real and another thing in a dream you always look slightly different than in real life, more of how you would prefer to look than how you do. If this were a dream I'd be four inches taller, 5'11" instead of 5'7"."

Mako nodded, wondering if any of those explanations were true, would Gauntlet know how to get them home depending on which one was true. She liked it here and it was fun, but mum was probably real worried. They'd been gone a week already, and they had disappeared on Halloween, so the cops were probably looking for a pair of mutilated bodies. Not that they'd find any or any clue as to where they really were. No one would believe it if they did figure out where they were.

~*~*~*~

Aragorn got them up before daybreak the next day. By the time everyone had eaten and camp was broke the sun was peeking up in the east, casting it's warm glow over the surrounding countryside. Gauntlet hadn't said a word all morning, instead she did as she was told in silence, a worried look on her face. As they started out Gandalf asked her what was bugging her.

"Nothing." She lied.

"Then why do you look worried?" Gandalf asked.

"Because I am." She replied.

"Why don't you tell us what is bothering you." Gandalf suggested.

Gauntlet sighed but complied. "I'm worried about our mum. It's been a week since we arrived here and while we know that we're fine, our mother doesn't. We have no way of telling her we're fine, so she's probably worrying about us being kidnapped, dead, or worse."

"There is nothing you can do about that, so try not to worry." Gandalf told Mako and Gauntlet.

"Trying and succeeding are two different things." Mako said.

The morning passed slowly and in silence. Gauntlet soon pushed her worries to the back of her mind by asking questions about anything and everything. She bugged Legolas to teach her the Elven language, until he relented. She was still working on convincing Gimli to teach her Dwarvish. She asked Gandalf all sorts of questions, about history and magic and whatever caught her attention. She also asked Boromir, Aragorn and the Hobbits about various things. Aragorn was teaching her tracking and other Ranger skills. Mako listened in and learned a few things, but she didn't have the appetite for learning her sister did. Besides that who in their right mind was interested in the history of stonemasonry. After a few weeks of intense study Mako began to watch her sister in grim anticipation, after all it couldn't be too long before her sister's head exploded from all that knowledge. Mako also watched as Legolas slowly reached his wits end. Apparently he didn't want her sister to take his bow, or long knives off his hands. She soon developed a bruise on her ear from it being entirely too convenient for Legolas to grab.

Mako when she wasn't watching her sister get in trouble was getting into trouble herself. Well perhaps not all by herself, Merry and Pippin were helping her. Or rather she was helping Merry and Pippin get into trouble. How were they to know that Gandalf and Aragorn didn't appreciate Bill the pony's load mysteriously lightening in the middle of the night.

~*~*~*~

The Fellowship was resting on a hilltop near Caradhras. Mako and Gauntlet were watching Boromir teach Merry and Pippin sword fighting, well Mako was. Apparently the abundance of pebbles in the vicinity had proved far to tempting for her sister. Who was playing 'How many times can hit the elf before he gets mad.' So far she had hit Legolas three times, no make that four. Gauntlet excitedly turned towards her.

"Did you see that. A high score. Isn't that awesome." Gauntlet chittered excitedly.

"I'm really proud." Mako said in a monotonous voice as she watched Legolas sneak up behind her sister and grab her ear.

"Ouchies! Lego that hurts!" Gauntlet protested.

"Gauntlet... I think it's supposed to." Mako suggested.

"Lego, I'll be good. Let go of my ear. I know they're small but this really isn't the way to make them any bigger." Gauntlet said. Legolas let go when Gandalf 'suggested' he was acting like a child. As soon as his back was turned Gauntlet resumed her game.

Mako turned back to watching Boromir teach Merry and Pippin sword fighting, as her sister went back to throwing pebbles. Her sister may be really smart but some thing just didn't sink in. Boromir nicked Pippin and soon the three of them were on the ground tussling. Then Aragorn was brought down and forced to join the tussle. The next thing Gauntlet and Mako knew they were being told to hide.

"Spies of Saruman. The passage south is being lost." Gandalf shouted.

"Err... Gandalf are you sure they were spies? I was always under the impression that spies weren't supposed to seen." Mako asked. Gandalf glared at her, while she and Gauntlet high-fived.

"We must take the Pass of Caradhras." Gandalf said ignoring Mako.

~*~*~*~

End of Chapter

Will Gauntlet ever learn not to throw pebbles? Will Mako ever find out what her sister wanted to trade the Ring for?

AN- Well that's the first chapter. Hope you liked it. Read and Review.