Chapter two -- For the Cause
~*~

[BEEP][BEEP][BEEP]

Anne swatted at the console in her sleep and growled sundry death threats to Mary Sues, but she eventually shook herself awake and scooted out of her sleeping bag. "Ugh. Get up, we've got another one..." She tossed the closest item at Kate, who had fallen asleep on the couch. Whatever she had thrown hit her partner in the side and produced a loud groan.

"Kill her without me, I'm still tired," she moaned.

"Oh right. I don't think Upstairs smiles on the idea of leaving a partner behind." Anne threw something else and hit Kate in the leg. "Get up. NOW."

Kate grumbled to herself. "Stupid Sues. Always when I'm trying to sleep..."

"That's because you're always sleeping. I've got a reading on this one... oh, NO..." Anne stared at the screen in disbelief. "Is there such a thing as New Middle-Earth?"

This caused Kate to fall off the couch with a startled cry. "WHA---AGH! Ow, my spinal cord... Is she CRAZY?"

"I know, she couldn't even call it 'Neo Middle-Earth' and be accused of being a G Gundam fan..." One of the two unrecognized items hit her in the back of the head. "OW! Hey, admit it -- it sounds better than 'New Middle-Earth', right?"

"Anything sounds better if it's not written by a Sue. How's the grammar?"

"Pretty close to horrific, but not quite terrifying."

Kate sighed. "As usual. Who is she?"

"Her name is Faith. And her sister is named Grace. How clever. Oh, but Grace dies in the beginning, along with the rest of the army she had once commanded."

"Y'know, there's a Grace in the X-Men department," Kate added thoughtfully. "She works with that weird guy who calls himself The Big Kahuna. What IS his name, anyway?"

"Josh, I think. May I finish?" Silence. "She has a ring; should we consider it an Item of Mary Sueness? I say to expect the worst." She stared for a moment and frowned. "Lookie lookie. She masquerades as a guy and everyone believes her... she's not very good at spelling... HEY! She's usurping Aragorn's part entirely!" Anne snarled a "CAUDEX!" at the console. It wasn't often that she shouted Latin at the Sues.

Her partner peered over her shoulder. "Who knows -- maybe she watched The Two Towers, We Were Soldiers, and Mulan all in the same night. What else..." Kate skimmed the report until her eyes suddenly went wide. "Anne.... please tell me I didn't just see what I thought I saw..."

"What?" Anne frowned at the screen and started to scan the words. "Hmm... Oh, that she has a machine gun in Middle-Earth? Incredibly dumb if you ask me..."

"No..." Kate started to laugh and eventually had to sit down to breathe. "Oh--oh my... look what she named it!"

"...MR. BANG-BANG?!? She named her machine gun Mr. Bang-bang?! WHAT KINDA SUE ARE WE DEALING WITH?!"

It was a moment before Kate had scrambled to her feet, still chuckling. "Y'know, she was probably a child genius or something..." She grinned.

Anne snickered. "Yeah, until she stubbed her toe and did brain damage." She stood and started to throw things into her backpack. "C'mon, let's hurry. I have to stop and get a CD from Susan. She'll probably want pictures, though, since we're going to Rohan... aren't we?"

"Think so. Will you see if we can borrow her Sara Groves CD while we're at it?"

"Sure... hey, toss me my wand, will you?" Anne caught the stick and carefully put it in a pocket.

"Do you have my Canon analyzery-thingy? ...oh wait, there it is."

"I'll get it. The Remote Activator is over there, anyway." Anne rose to retrieve the device from the desk and spotted a note underneath it, which she picked up and read it with a laugh. "Hey, Ben and Shawn in the Harry Potter department are having a party tomorrow night. Wanna go?"

Kate grinned broadly. "Alright! Do we need to bring anything? Chips, cokes, Frodo... oops, was that out loud?"

"Ha ha. Let's go get the CDs and we'll be ready." Anne trudged out of their headquarters and towards the Legend of Zelda department. "Just remember, don't pay attention."

"I'll never get used to that."

It wasn't long before they reached the right door and entered to find two teenagers, one an ash-blond-haired girl and the other a brown-haired boy, sitting on the floor playing cards. As Anne and Kate entered, the girl looked up and grinned. "Eez you! And you!" She exclaimed excitedly.

"Hey, Susan!" Anne broke into her own grin. "Where'd you put my dcTalk CD? And Kate wants to borrow Sara Groves, too."

"It's over here, let me get it. Der, no playing until I get back."

Her partner, Derin, gave her an almost innocent look. "But I can't, it's still your turn!" He gave her an evil grin as he finished his sentence.

"That's never stopped you before," she replied dryly, raising an eyebrow at him. "Here your CD, Anne... and here's Sara Groves, Kate. Are you two going on another mission?"

Kate shrugged. "Yeah, we've got a Sue trying to take over Middle-Earth again. How's it going for you?"

"We just got back," Derin muttered sourly. "But I'm not giving any details for fear you may pass out."

Anne blinked. "Was it that bad?"

Susan groaned and adjusted her glasses with her middle finger. "Ugh, 'bad' isn't the word. It involved bombs in pants, throwing Zelda off a cliff, and Ruto belly-dancing... terrifying stuff. Oh, and did you know that Link has a multi-dimensional rift in his tunic?"

"...no, but that's better than some theories I've heard. Thanks for the CDs -- we've gotta get to Rohan. I'll bring you pictures of the horses!"

"OOH! Please do!" Susan clapped eagerly and jumped up and down in place. "Horsies!"

Anne and Kate hastily left and returned to their headquarters to access the portal. Once they stepped through, they found themselves in a wide field ("Why does Middle-Earth have so many darned wide fields?" Anne demanded of the sky) with dead orc and human bodies strewn every which-a-way. The Sue, clad in black and covered in splotches of blood, was sitting on a rock fifty yards away cleaning her machine gun. In the distance, they could see Eomer and his small army talking to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli.

Anne dug out her Canon Analysis Device and waved it at the obvious Sue.

[Faith. Human female. Non-canon. Mary Sue.]

"Well, it's official -- she's not a Marty Sam yet." Kate flicked her Character Analysis Device at Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Eomer.

[Aragorn. Human male. Canon. Out of Character 49.98%.]

[Legolas. Elf male. Canon. Out of Character 20.48%.]

[Gimli. Dwarf male. Canon. Out of Character 45.83%.]

[Eomer. Human male. Canon. Out of Character 49.97%.]

"Not good, both Aragorn and Eomer are borderlining character rupture." She stopped scanning characters and concentrated on the words for a while.

"How bad is it?" Anne asked after a while, since she had been busying herself with finding any nearby un-orcish sword.

The color drained from Kate's face as she read. "Oh, NO... not only does she spell Sauron 'Souron' and Saruman 'Souruman', but she shoots Wormtongue in the head... and before the battle of Helms Deep, she gets EVERYONE to sing 'We Will Rock You'! We have to kill her! PLEASE! SPARE ME!"

"Shh, she'll hear," Anne hissed. "And we'll nab her soon enough, don't worry. How 'bout when she falls off the cliff? Gee, she DID only see the movies. Otherwise she'd know that Aragorn's little swan-dive never happened in the book. Darn her. Oooh, sword!"

"Get me one, too," her partner said, still looking at the words.

The Sue had moved over to the large group of men, horses, one elf and one dwarf to holler at Eomer. Anne rolled her eyes and noticed two horses tied to nearby trees, calmly eating grass as if nothing was going on. "Lookie! The canon likes us!" She ran to the horses, let one of them sniff her hand, and mounted after the horse had accepted her.
Kate followed suit and found a saddleback full of food by her leg. "Not only does it like us, it's feeding us, too!" She dug into the bag and started munching on a chunk of bread. "Mmm, this is better than that bread at the non-existent inn from last time."

"Don't talk to be about bread," Anne moaned, but looked up and saw that Eomer's group was leaving. "Ack! Do we follow them?"

Kate frowned. "They're not heading back to Roham, so I'd say no. Even though I sorta want to anyway..." she broke into a sheepish grin.

"I thought you were a Frodo fan..."

"Yeah, but Eomer's cool, too!"

"You have something about hair." Anne pulled out her camera, a Polaroid that had been left in their department when she'd first arrived (with a note that read: 'Use this wisely and often! --Jay'), and snapped a quick picture of Aragorn. "Let's ride to Rohan, then! I still have to get Susan her pictures before everyone else arrives tomorrow."

Kate raised an eyebrow. "Why don't we use the portally-thingy?"

"Because then we can't use the horses we found! And repeat after me: Remote Activator."

"Fine, Remote Activator. I still say it's a portally-thingy."

~*~

Anne read the words as she slowed her horse to a walk. "Geez, she has such interesting wording sometimes. 'I have no idea how long I sat on that rock for'? What was the rule -- prepositions couldn't go on the end of a sentence?"

Kate shrugged. "Something like that. Ask Lee in the Star Trek: TNG department when we get back, she should know."

"Oh good, we can stop in and see Erin, then! She said she's been missing us lately."

"Considering that she practically lived in our department before Nemisis came out in theaters... I could see how that could be possible. And what is it with authors and movies, huh? There's always a flood of fanfics after a new movie!" Kate fished around in the saddlebag for more bread. "Dang, last piece. I prefer this stuff to the rations Upstairs gives us."

Anne snickered. "Yeah, that stuff tastes like cardboard. Or communion wafers, at least. Those things are gross..."

"Someone called the stuff they used to take for communion 'Hobbit Hardtack and Elvish Wine', remember?"

"Grape juice in general is nasty. Oh look, we're here!" Anne pulled out the ever-faithful Polaroid and quickly took pictures of the flag that was magesticly fluttering in the wind. "I always liked that flag, you know. HORSIE!" More clicking as they entered the city gates. "Ooh, he's pretty cute, too..."

Kate stared at her for a minute. "You're weird."

"And you're slow if you're just now noticing. Let's go find somewhere to sit and play cards until the Sue gets here."

~*~

Once they found a sitting place on the stairs of the Great Hall (they weren't concerned about being seen -- after all, they were sill invisible unless pointed out by a Sue), seven games of Rummy passed before Anne started to get impatient.

"When are they gonna get here, anyway?" She moaned as she dealt hands for an eighth game.

Kate shrugged and looked at her cards. "Beats me. OOH! Good hand; you're dealing again! Did you get all the pictures you needed for Susan?"

"Yeah, I think fourteen should be enough." She grinned, then frowned as she scanned the words. "Hey, have you heard of the 'Language of the Followers of Isengard'? Spelled I-S-E-N-G-U-A-R-D, by the way. 'Nother charge."

Kate thought for a moment. "I haven't, actually. I didn't know orcs were smart enough to form their own language."

"Probably not -- that's what disturbs me. Should that be a charge, too?"

"Making orcs smarter than they are or disturbing you?"

"...both!" She grinned and glanced up in time to see Aragorn's crowd coming in the gate. Gandalf had joined them, with Faith hunched over Shadowfax's neck. Anne snapped a picture of Shadowfax and made a mental note to sneak into the stables later for more. "C'mon, let's get her gun so she can't shoot Wormtongue. He still has to live for a while longer."

They snuck into the Great Hall and waited for the group to come in with Faith, which (to their surprise) was not as long a wait as they had predicted. Once Aragorn laid the Sue on a bench, Anne and Kate casually stood from their crouched position in the corner, walked over to where Faith was sleeping, picked her up, and carried her out into another room. Anne made sure to nab the gun, soon to be known as Mr. Bang-bang, from where he/it was laying on the floor and stash it in her backpack.

"Now what?" Kate asked as they somewhat accidentally tossed Faith onto the floor. The Sue grunted in her sleep but didn't wake. "Anne, careful! We don't want to knock her out yet!"

Her partner frowned. "Darn, I wanted to... oh well. I'll settle for watching you shoot her in the head with her own machine gun."

"Why do I have to use the gun? Cruel irony?"

The assassin broke into a British accent. "Yeesss, you catch on straight away!"

Kate raised an eyebrow at her again. "Are we channeling Master of Disguise for a reason?"

"Ooommmmmm..." Anne began to chant, "I'm going to be a master of disguise! I'm going to be a master of disguise!" and dance a la Pistachio until Kate cuffed her over the head.

"Quit, you'll wake her. That'll be worse than knocking her unconscious."

"If you say so... Hey, let's take her gun, get pictures of Shadowfax, and portal to the Warg ambush! I like the Wargs!"

"You're SO weird."

~*~

As they finished another photo-taking spree (and Anne found that Shadowfax didn't mind being the center of attention), they opened a "portally-doorway-thingy", according to Kate, only to step through and find themselves in YET ANOTHER wide field.

"See, this is my point. Either Tolkien or Jackson had to have some sort of crazed idea to put all these stupid fields everywhere!" Anne complained, sitting on top of a rock. "What's wrong with woods!"

Kate shrugged and scanned the horizon. "Because all the woods seen in the movies either have giant spiders, spear-happy elves, or Celeborn who sounds too high for his own good. Hey, there are your Wargs, Anne."

"OOH!" *click*click* "Oooh, MORE!" *click*click*click*

"Remind me again of how we were partnered together."

"I think Upstairs wanted to make sure I didn't have any more magic mishaps with that wand of mine. Where were you before now, anyway?"

Kate blinked, thinking. "...I was in Star Wars department for a while, but they took away my lightsaber because I refused to take the Lightsaber Safety Awareness training class... then I begged them to take me out of Bad Slash. THAT was a learning experience, let me tell you..."

"Please don't, I'd rather not lose my lunch. But what kind of Slash did you handle?"

"Mostly the original Star Trek and sometimes X-Men, but since The Fellowship of the Ring came out in theaters, they had to move me here. I lost fourteen pounds over the period of ten fics because I couldn't stomach most of the couplings."

Anne shuddered. "I just worked in Harry Potter before now. I'm glad I didn't have to handle Slash, though -- just Sues. LOTS of Sues. It's something about rather adorable eleven-year-olds that catches the female eye."

Kate laughed and glanced around again. "Is that why Shawn and Ben are in there?"

"Yeah. I almost lost it when someone wrote a Wood Sue. Whoo, something about that accent..."

"...you're drooling."

"Scottish accent! I can't help it sometimes..."

"Ooh, now I remember why I liked the first two movies so much..."

A large crowd of people had come around a bend and were now starting to make their way towards the assassins. Anne ducked behind a rock and motioned for Kate to follow. "Idea. We watch the battle for a bit, just to see the competition between Legolas and Gimli, and portal to wherever the Sue washes to shore."

"Sounds good," Kate agreed. "But first, do you think a proper description of the enemy forces would be 'mutant orcs riding on wolves that looked like Britney Spears with rabies'?"

"...gag me with a pitchfork and toss me over the cliff before I have to stand more of her descriptions."

"My thoughts exactly. Oh look, here they come!"

In no time, the good guys spotted a scout and were ambushed by countless Warg-riders. Anne and Kate watched the fight breathlessly, applauding for Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli whenever they slayed a creature. But eventually, Faith saw Aragorn about to fall off the cliff, pushed him out of the way, and tumbled down into the water.

"A pity she didn't hit any rocks on the way down," Anne muttered as she ducked an arrow and opened the portal.

~*~

A large sloppy thing nuzzled Faith's neck and she opened her eyes in shock to find a pair large light brown eyes staring into hers. "Shoo horsey.." she whispered -- until she noticed a stranger atop the horse, grinning madly at her.

"G'morning!" the person chirped.

Another, who had gone unnoticed by Faith, shook her head. "DemiVeemon impression, I presume?"

"How'd you guess?" The first laughed (more or less cackled, actually) and dismounted the horse. She glowered over Faith with an evil grin on her face. "Faith Cambell?"

"...yes?" the Sue replied.

"Is this yours?" The second pointed a very familiar machine gun barrel at Faith's head.

"Mr. Bang-bang! You--what are you?" She asked angrily. "Eil sidoor nablee famount!"

"Assassins. And save that 'Ill side-door nay-bleed flammant' for someone who cares." She scowled and nodded to the first person.

"Now shut up and let me charge you." Anne cleared her throat and began to recite: "Faith Cambell, you are charged with poor spelling (including the words/names 'Isengard', 'Saruman', and 'Sauron'), interacting with the characters-- well, mostly Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Eowyn, Eomer, and Gandalf... making orcs smarter than they are, creating 'New Middle-Earth', creating your own language that sounds terrible when spoken, and being a Mary-Sue. Any last words that aren't sentimental or heart-wrenching?"

Faith opened her mouth to say something, but Kate shot her before she could speak. The two hauled the corpse onto the back of the horse and, against Kate's wishes, led it through the portal into the Equipment room.

"Upstairs doesn't like it when we bring back canonical animals," she warned her partner, who was lovingly stroking the steed.

"Hey, she was going to name it if we hadn't killed her, so it counts as a Cute Animal Friend! Whoodagoodboyden?" Anne scratched the horse on the nose. He seemed to like being loved. "Can I keep him?"

"NO. 'Sides, what would you name him?"

She paused in thought, finally grinned and replied, "Luke!"

"...I've now decided that I ask no further questions, for fear that I probably don't want to know the answer. Take him to Susan -- she'll love you for it."

So She did. Anne casually rode Luke down the halls, which produced many strange looks from people who weren't used to her odd habits. Susan's squeal of joy could have been heard halfway to Middle-Earth. Kate was relaxing on the couch when Anne returned.

"Did she like it?"

Anne was holding her ear when she came in. "I don't know, I can't hardly hear anything anymore... Man, that girl has some vocals on her..."

Kate was idly fingering Mr. Bang-bang, deep in thought. "Y'know, we should start a museum of stuff we bring back from Sues. Maybe a petting zoo for the Cute Animal Friends or something."

"Oh, that'd be fun! Maybe we could even charge admission... and if we need, we can advertise at the party tomorrow night!"

They set to work making signs and fliers for the museum, hoping that Upstairs wouldn't mind a showcase of Sue artifacts...

Anne's note: Awright, another chapter finished! And we have our next mission lined up already, too! Things are going well. The Sue Museum should be interesting, but should we do it? Tell us in your review if you'd like to see something like that! And WE STILL NEED SUES TO SLAUGHTER! I have one requested, but that's only good for one chapter! I still want a Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings crossover, people! Preferably where we could go to Hogwarts... hee hee...

And yes, H.R. Fayyaz, these are real stories that other people have posted. We don't have enough creativity to make up Sues of our own and kill them. True, it's brutal, but flames from anyone will be laughed at and used to cremate Sues. See, we're still remotely creative... ^^;

Kate's note: YAY! I got my sword! And where are the Frodo fangirls, people?! I still need a Hobbit Hugger to kill! Heh heh. Fun. And yes, the Sue Museum WAS my idea. Amazing what chocolate and car rides can do to one's creativity, eh? And we kill Eomer fangirls, if any exist... and fanboys, too. Good luck finding them.