Chapter three -- Elfsong
~*~

[BEEP][BEEP][BEEP]

"Shut it, I'm busy with my sign," Kate snapped at the console. The shrill beeping died to a quiet [bip] noise, as if it had heard. "That's better. Anne, you want to get that?"

Anne glanced up from watching the printer spit out large numbers of brightly colored fliers. "Huh?"

"The alarm just went off. Go see who we have to kill this time, would you?"

Her partner shrugged and sat at the console, scanning the information. "Oh goodie, someone's reported a Sue for us; one Miranda Crystal-Bearer. She's very concerned about this." She read on. "Hmm... Oh, we'll have fun with her. Name is Nimoë, an apprentice of Galadriel or something... or that's what it sounds like... very weird. But at least I don't think she's related. No relation, no problem. ....oh, NO! A Legolust bunny! AGH!"

Kate grinned. "Oh, GOODIE. We finally get a run-of-the-mill Sue. Does she do the man-guise thing, too?"

"Yup. And joins the Fellowship -- AS USUAL." Anne scowled and got up to retrieve her backpack. "Oh, lookie! She gets thrown in a dungeon! But this one exists, so we can't charge her with it.... dang, she knows the books really well..."

"This'll be interesting, then. C'mon, let's go! What'll we be?"

"Orcs? Uruk-Hai?"

"Can't be Elves, huh? Darn. That would've been good." Kate stuffed her things into her backpack and grabbed her Analysis device. "Though... Y'know, we probably could get away with being Rohan-peoples again. After all, isn't she thrown in the dungeon THERE?"

Anne cackled. "Awright! More pictures of that cute guy I saw last time!" She nabbed her Polaroid and bounded towards the portal. "C'mon, the sooner we go, the sooner we get back for the party!"

"Is that the reason for your good mood?"

"Yup yup! Something about seeing people does that to me." She tapped a few keys to set their disguises and open the portal, which fizzed to life immediately. "Gee, that was quick. I think it's trying to get rid of us."

Kate sighed. "Let's just go and get this over with."

~*~

As the two portalled in, Boromir and a hooded Nimoë were standing in a small clearing in the woods. Boromir had a sardonic grin upon his face, and Nimoë appeared not to feel at ease with him

"No, Boromir. I do not regret it," she was saying softly, just barely loud enough for the assassins to hear. "Although sorely do I regret all of the time spent in study, when I might have found it of more use had I engaged in physical activity."

Boromir reached out his hand and turned her by the shoulder so that she was facing away from him. She watched out of the corner of her eye as his hands reached up towards her neck. Hastily she brought her own hands down out of his sight, afraid that he might notice their femininity. She quashed the sensation that he might be reaching out to strangle her, and was pleasantly relieved when his strong fingers began to work into the tight muscles of her neck, shoulders and back.

"The least that I can do is help ease the pain which you suffer. You have given up much to accompany us. But what is it that made you choose to come along on our journey? I think that the Lady of the Wood would not have sent you if you had objected. There must be some urgent need, known only to the Lady and to yourself."

Kate discreetly coughed something that sounded like "charge list".

A frisson of fear ran up Nimoë's spine and she forced herself not to shiver under his question and his touch. There was a current of tense laughter in her voice as she replied, "Is this not the most important quest of the age? Would not any Elf of good heart leap at the chance to render aid?"

"And just what sort of aid do you offer, Elf? I am afraid that I am not clear on that point." Boromir's voice was soft, yet feirce and demanding.

Rather desperately, Nimoë began to glance out from under her hood, hoping to see some other soul coming to speak with them, to distract this very imposing man from his pointed and uncomfortable questions. "Did not Lady Galadriel say? I am to offer you the aid of nature, in what little ways I can bend it."

Anne ducked behind a tree and muttered something under her breath. "Of course. Right in the middle of THIS. Kate, get a reading on him..."

"Way ahead of you." Her partner flicked her Analysis device at Boromir. Urgent, flashing letters came on the screen and startled her.

[88.45%! CHARACTER RUPTURE!]

"My turn, I guess..." Anne pointed her own device at Nimoë. It beeped shrilly, causing both of them to jump in surprise and pray that the Sue didn't hear.

[Nimoë. Elf female. Non-canon. Mary Sue.]

"Remind me to throttle Theo for installing that new alarm," Kate growled, stashing hers in her pocket. Anne followed suit and they both sat, watching as Legolas came into the scene. He seemed to be walking in a trance -- none of the canonical characters had noticed that his eyes were oddly unfocused. But then again, everyone looked that way when under the Spell of the Sue. Kate grimaced and halfway succeeded in suppressing a spontaneous yelp of pain.

"What is it?"

Kate quickly brought out her Analysis device, juggled it for a moment, and dropped it onto the ground and snarled. "It shorted! Look!" Sure enough, the small black hand-held electronic was spitting showers of sparks in varying directions, and a small stream of smoke was now coming from somewhere behind the screen.

Anne let out a low whistle. "Dude. Now Theo's going to throttle you if you don't get him first."

"Tell me about it. But we know all the people are out of character, right?"

"I'm pretty sure only Tolkien could have gotten the fellowship a hundred percent 'in character'."

"Good. That makes this a little easier."

The Legolas and Boromir were finished talking, so they led Nimoë back to their campsite. Anne and Kate were left to follow, wondering if their electronics-expert would kill or be killed upon return to headquarters. However, once everyone had reached the camp, Aragorn had finished loading the boats. Kate winced as her device accidenally zapped her with round of sparks.

"I'm starting to despise this thing," she growled, more to herself than her partner.

While everyone else took their boats to the water, the two assassins followed on foot along the shoreline, but made sure to stay out of sight from the Sue.

Anne sang softly to herself as they hurried through the woods. " 'Ten miles wide, once inch deep, An endless surface with nothing underneath...' Hey y'know, if we ever get a vacation, we should come here and go canoeing. Maybe we can find some non-Middle-Earthean rapids... 'Underneath her vast exterior, Her depth is proven to be inferior'--'"

"You think?" Kate grinned. "I used to love rafting when I lived in reality. And canoeing. Anything that involved water, actually. Who does that song that you're singing?"

"Solomon's Wish. They've got some great stuff out, but I can't seem to find a CD anywhere..."

"Cool. Hey, Do you think Theo will be at the party tonight? I still have to strangle him."

"No, but I heard the peole from the Department of Bad Slash saying that Upstairs never cleared the party. Heck, I'm not sure they even know..." She cackled madly, earning a wary glance in their direction from Nimoë. "Oops... oh well. I guess he will be, though, if he's not fixing anything."

By the time the fellowship had stopped, Anne and Kate were still back at the Argonath taking pictures.

"Are you DONE yet?" Kate asked drearily, perched on top of a tree branch.

Anne snapped one last shot of the giant stone monuments and sighed. "Yeah. Ooh, look! A LIZARD!"

Kate groaned. "Oh great. What are you going to do with a lizard?"

"Keep it, since you wouldn't let me keep Luke."

"Brother. Just leave the lizard and c'mon, they've already stopped!"

The two assassins portalled to the campsite just as Nimoë asked, "where is Boromir?" and Merry, "where is Frodo?"

Aragorn spoke, "We must find Frodo. If he were to come to harm, all our toil would be for naught. I will go to the top of the hill. The rest of you, stay near to one another, and see what you can find." Then he ran off up the hill.

Legolas looked at Nimoë with a peculiar expression on his face. "Nimrodel, you should stay close to me. If your training is in the more peaceful arts, you should remain with a fighter. Do not stray." Nimoë was relieved that she had an excuse now to stay close to someone with a weapon and the knowledge of how to wield it.

Anne scowled. "Nooo, you're just glad you get to stay buddy-buddy with Mr. Hot Elf-Pants."

Kate stared at her with a startled expression. "Mr. WHAT?"

A moment of silence and the Fellowship scrambling around for their lost members passed before Anne shrugged and weakly grinned. "You learn interesting things when you stay up late looking for Lord of the Rings message boards with entertaining conversations."

"I'll believe it."

"Ooh, if we portal now, we can get to the Uruk-Hai fight before they do! Front row seats, baby!" The assassin pumped her fist in the air excitedly.

Her partner hung her head and moaned. "You don't need any more sugar." She handed Anne the remote activator, which remotely activated them into the branches of a tree.

"Oof... owie." Anne righted herself on her branch and glanced around eagerly. "Yay, free show of butt-kicking!"

"Did you watch wrestling back in reality or something?" Kate asked, all the while trying to figure out why and how her shoe a branch above where the rest of her body had landed.

She shrugged again. "Only because it was on before CSI, and it never managed to end when it was supposed to. Hey, Aragorn's already fighting, look!"

Sure enough, hordes of Uruc-Hai had swarmed upon Aragorn, who was managing to keep his own in the battle. Anne started cheering, "HIT 'EM WITH THE CHAIR!" until Kate threatened to knock her from her branch, and the two glanced over to the top of the hill in time to see Legolas, Gimli, and Nimoë come up and over with a crashing halt.

More Uruk-Hai soldiers seemed to flood the forest as the fellowship started to fight. The two assassins watched as Nimoë happened to cut an enemy arm with her small sword, but was backed into a corner by two more. Legolas shot those two in the skull and immediately jumped in front of the other elf, protecting her from oncoming danger.

"To Legolas, the bravest of us all!" Anne exclaimed in a moment of over-zealousness and Mulan quotes. This also caused her to almost fall backwards out of the tree.

Kate grinned as Aragorn lopped the head off of a soldier. "Awesome! Are you getting pictures?"

"Oops, forgot!" She quickly brought out the Polaroid and began clicking away madly. "Whoo HOO! Awright, GO GIMLI!"

"Your voice carries. Did you know that she can probably hear you?"

"Sorry. I keep forgetting that I'm not inaudible."

A blast from horn of Gondor filled the air, and without hesitation the members of the Fellowship ran towards the sound. Kate and Anne, not wanting to see Boromir's ever-famous death scene, promptly decided to portal onwards in the plot.

"On the bright side, at least she doesn't have multiple flying potholes," Anne commented as they swung down from the tree.

Kate grunted as she hit the ground. "Ouch. That's true, and I'm kind of glad. Plotholes give me a headache sometimes."

"How's the charge list coming?"

"She's joined the Fellowship, she has magic, and she's a Sue. All in all, not too good. But we can get her for intentionally throwing herself in a dungeon just so that Legolas can play nurse for her."

"Hurt/comfort should be a torturing offence," Anne muttered. "Oh wait, it's a killing offence...!" An evil grin spread across her face until she looked up at the words, which caused the grin to contort into a look of disgust. "Oh, SICK... No wonder the Analysis device shorted -- listen to this: "Won't you open your eyes? I miss their color, like a cloud filled sky, with the sun filtering through. Will you not give me this one joy on a day filled with sorrow?" Oh my word, how chicky is that?"

"Don't tell me Legolas says that... PLEASE, don't tell me the Sue is a hopeless romantic..."

"Most Sues ARE hopeless romantics, I grant you; and that WAS Legolas speaking."

Kate looked as if she were about to vomit. "I asked you not to tell me that... can we charge her with almost making me sick to my stomach?"

Anne sighed and ignored the tail-end of the sentence. "I say we portal to Rohan, wait for Theoden and Wormtongue to throw her in the dungeon, and nab her while she's still bound." She pulled out the remote activator and opened another portal. "Gee, I just thought of something -- maybe that guy I saw last time was only in that other Sue's messed-up version of the canon..."

"Why do I put up with you?" Kate asked of the sky as she followed her partner through the portal.

They appeared in front of the stables in Rohan, much to Anne's joy. "Awright, horse pictures!"

"Even though Shadowfax isn't here?"

"...agh, stinky monkey. Oh well, I brought cards!" She dug around in her bag and produced her ever-faithful deck of cards. "So, what'cha want to play? Egyptian Rat Race? Spit? Blackjack? Poker?"

"I don't know how to play Poker. Or Blackjack, for that matter."

"Steve taught me once, but I forgot anyway. Blackjack is the same as Twenty-One -- I vote for Spit."

"Seconded and thirded; motion passed, Your Honor."

~*~

Fourteen rounds of Spit later, neither had won and no Fellowship-type humanoid lifeforms had arrived. Anne anxiously shuffled her portion of the deck, which had grown considerably smaller in the past two rounds, and glanced around. "I hate waiting like this. It's so unnerving... sitting here in broad daylight, right where a Sue could see us and shoot us..."

"Oh, don't worry about it." Kate laid her cards in a five-row version of Solitaire and scowled at the large number of cards still in her own deck. "Who taught you this game, anyway?"

"Theo. And I taught it to Steve (you know, the guy from the Star Wars department), and he taught it to Susan, who taught it to Nicole, who tried to re-teach it to me. Rather odd how our circle of friends doesn't communicate card game origins, isn't it?"

Her partner raised an eyebrow at her. "Why should they?"

"Beats me. Ready? Ready ready? Ready ready--"

"People alert!" Kate quickly pointed out a group of horsemen entered the gate and helped Anne get the cards back into one deck. Nimoë was in line behind Eomer as they approached where the PPCs were hiding. A stablehand appeared and took the horses away after everyone had dismounted, not noticing Anne and Kate following the entire group into Theoden's Hall.

There was bickering and arguing for quite a few minutes between Wormtongue, Theoden, and Eomer, but finally it was decided that Nimoë should be bound, gagged, and thrown into the dungeon. So the guards did as told and left Anne and Kate finishing a round of Rummy in the shadows.

"Think we should follow yet?" Anne asked, picking up most of the "discard pile".

Kate scowled at her and shook her head. "Not yet. And I wanted those cards!"

"Too bad -- they're mine now. And..." she triumphantly put down three fours; the Queen, King, and Ace of Hearts; four sixes; discarded the Jack of Diamonds and laughed. "...I win! Let's go!"

"I'm starting to think you've marked your deck..."

~*~

"...is it time yet?"

"NOT YET. The same answer I gave you five minutes ago." Kate scowled and found Nimoë's discarded sword in a corner of the dungeon. "Do you want this one, since I got that Rambo-wanna-be last time?"

Anne shrugged. "Eh, sure. But can I use her own sword to kill her?"

"I like the cruel irony, but I'd suggest using arrows, if you can find some in less than ten minutes. It's more effective -- especially if you shoot her in the throat."

"Eeew, gore..." Anne dashed off without another word, and quickly returned with a bow and a quiver of arrows. "This should work. She's probably too weak to protest, anyway."

Nimoë heard the door open and watched two women enter. Vaguely she heard a mutter from one to the other as they knelt in front of her, lifting her to her feet.

One of women spoke in a cold tone. "Can you understand me?" Nimoë nodded. "Good. Kate, charge her."

The second stood before the elven maiden, arms crossed in a tired manner. "Okay... Nimoë, you are hereby charged with the crimes of interfering with the characters Galadriel, Eomer, Eowyn, Theoden, Grima Wormtongue, and everyone in the Fellowship; being Galadriel's apprentice, practicing non-Middle-Earthean magic, joining the Fellowship, taking a man's guise to do so, having yourself thrown into a dungeon and malnourished just so Legolas could nurse you back to health, and being a Mary Sue." She took a deep breath and grinned menacingly. "Any last words?"

Nimoë raised her eyes to the young woman and tried to speak, but all that came out was a croak.

"Good enough for me!" Anne raised an arrow to her ear and grimaced. "Oh... and, by the way, Boromir would NOT give you a backrub voluntarily." She shot the elf in the throat and watched her fall to the stone floor, dead. "Another job well done. And we'll make it back in time for the party!"

Kate gazed longingly at the sword. "I want to keep this."

"You already have one, remember?"

"Yeah, but that wasn't an ELF sword. This is lighter than the other one..."

"Bother." Anne pulled out her wand and hesitated. "Gee, I don't remember a good spell for making her explode... Oh well, there's always old faithful: Burning her corpse!"

Her partner sighed. "You've done that one recently. Let's feed her to a band of Orcs or something."

~*~

An hour later, a band of Orcs had finished a meal of Elf-flesh and two assassins had returned to their department in time to catch a teenage boy leaving their response center. He yelped and jumped backwards as they appeared in front of him, causing him to trip and fall on his rear end.

"Geez, why do you have to do that?" He growled as Anne helped him to his feet.

Kate shrugged. "We're assassins, Theo, it's our job to scare people before we kill them." She gave him a rather evil grin. Theo shuddered and handed Anne a replacement for the shorted Analysis Device.

"Hey, how did you know we needed one of these?" Anne asked.

He ran a hand through his short, dark brown hair. "I figured it was about time for a new one. I have four or five waiting in my workshop... I need the backup at the rate you guys break them." Kate snarled at him, and he jumped behind Anne for safety. "I was kidding! Anyway, I've got to get back and finish a safety lock for Steve's lightsaber if I want to make it to the party tonight."

As Theo turned to leave, Anne called after him. "Oh, by the way, how do I turn off the alarm on my Device?"

"Hit the mute button, genius."

The two assassins exchanged glances. "Wow..." Kate shook her head. "Simple, yet so blatantly obvious that neither of us would have guessed."

Anne bounded into their response center to retrieve her fliers for the Sue Museum. "Whoo-hoo! I'm ready, get your sign and we'll go! ...where is the party, anyway? Harry Potter Department?"

"Um..." her partner checked the note left by the HPD and nodded. "Yeah. Hey, are you going to change before we go?" She examined her own black uniform and stared at the Mary Sue Department emblem that had been sewen onto the left breast pocket; a small potted cactus. No one had asked why on earth a cactus was the Sue Department's insignia. "I want to."

"I might. I like my tee-shirts and holey jeans."

After the two had changed into real clothes and gathered their advertisements, they headed down the hallways towards the Harry Potter Department. It was a bit of a walk, since Kate kept paying attention to where they were going, but after a while they reached their destination. A large crowd of people had already arrived and had started playing loud music, much to Kate's annoyance and Anne's enjoyment ("Why doesn't anyone like classical or instrumental anymore?" She demanded of the ceiling).

Theo and another dark-haired teenage boy greeted them as they arrived. "Hey, what took you two so long?" The second boy asked, a grin coming onto his face.

"Hey, Steve! Kate had trouble with finding a shirt she wanted to wear," Anne replied with a roll of her eyes, which Kate did not see; she had already started weaving through the crowd, looking for other people that she knew.

A girl with thin-rimmed glasses came up behind Steve, grabbed his shoulders, and yelled loudly to startle him. "Ha! Gotcha!"

He groaned. "Anna, why do you have to do that?"

The girl grinned evilly (which was a normal and rather fitting look for her) and ran a hand through her dyed reddish-brown hair. "I'm Crazy Hellga, remember? I told you that when I first transfered to our department." Hellga gave Anne a cocky smile. "Didn't you hear? Steve and I working together now!"

Anne tried to smile as politely as she could; in truth, the girl annoyed her. "No, I didn't know that. What happened to Daniel?"

Steve scratched the back of his neck and gave a small laugh. "Um... he was transfered to the Baldur's Gate Department. Upstairs has been reassigning so many people nowadays, it's hard to keep a good partner..."

"Reassignments?" A male voice from behind caused Anne to jump and crash into Steve before he caught her. Derin, who had been standing behind Anne for the past few minutes, suppressed a snicker and earned a knock over the head from Susan.

"That wasn't nice, you little Imp," she scolded with a grin of her own as Anne stood and apologized to Steve.

Derin cackled for a moment, then turned back to the conversation. "What was that you were saying about Upstairs reassigning people?"

"They've been on a reassigning streak lately," a girl from behind Susan chimed in. "I've been through three partners in the past month so far!"

"What's your area?" Anne asked.

The girl smiled. "I'm sorry! I'm Kasia, in the Baldur's Gate Department. I just got a guy from Star Wars... we're still having trouble with the fact that he brought his lightsaber. I keep telling him that they're too outlandish for our area of the Continuum, but... oh well."

Steve laughed. "That's Daniel, all right. He was my partner for about a year; just make sure he doesn't break anything or cause canonical characters fatal injuries with his 'saber."

Two more guys came and joined the conversation. "Hey, how are y'all liking the party so far?" One asked, grinning and slapping high-fives with everyone.

"It's great, Ben." Anne glanced up at the two, since they towered over her easily by five or six inches. "Shawn, what CD is this?"

The second thought for a moment, then replied in his normal British accent. "I don't know... Is it one of yours?" He asked Ben, who shrugged.

"It sounds like Smash Mouth," Hellga offered helpfully.

"Beats me, Cainan from the Rurouni Kenshin Department probably put it in. I was going to go change it to Goo Goo Dolls or Relient K, anyway."

"Give me Luna Halo any day," Shawn muttered. "Go change it, mate, before I do."

Someone grabbed Anne in a hug from behind, and she spun around to see a girl slightly shorter than she, grinning and looking innocent. "Hey, Grace! How's the X-Men Department?"

Grace moaned. "Terrible, ever since X2 came out in theaters. You'd think people would run out of theories about Dr. Grey's reincarnation-ish reappearance after a while, but noooo. The weirdest one so far is where she possesses Storm, so she and Cyclops HAVE to make out..."

"That sounds like hell," Steve muttered. "I'm glad I just have Star Wars Sues to deal with -- at least there's always some way to kill them in the end."

"I know, I'd hate having to right the minds of two canonical characters," Anne agreed with a sigh. "...hey, has anyone seen where Kate went?"

As if on cue, Kate popped into the conversation with a tall, red-readed guy in tow.

Kasia stared for a moment and took a head-count. "This crowd keeps growing on us!"

"Tell me about it," Shawn mumbled. "I'm starting to miss my personal space..."

"Paul! WASSUP!" Ben, in his daily moment of overzealousness, went for a high-five from the latter. "How's the CSI Department?"

Paul grinned at everyone before answering. "Not too bad. But my brother---" he was suddenly interrupted by a wild eleven-year-old who jumped onto his back from behind. "Matt, get OFF," he groaned. "As you can see, my brother is a bit of a pain around large numbers of people."

The boy (and brother), Matt, sighed and dismounted, waving eagerly at the crowd. "Hey! Why are y'all over here when the food table's over THERE?"

Every male face in the small congrigated crowd of friends lit up at the mention of food. Anne, Grace, Kate, and Susan would have shared a sweatdrop moment had they been in an Anime continuum.

~*~

At the end of the party, Anne and Kate retired to their response center, the pile of fliers completely handed out. They collapsed on separate couches and shared a happy sigh.

"That was SO fun," Anne declared.

Kate laughed. "I know. I wonder if Upstairs knows that we were down there all night...?"

The console gave a long beep, which produced a loud groan from both assassins. Anne slowly stood to check their next assignment. "Let's see what we've got..." Another sigh escaped her as she pushed a couple of buttons and stopped to scan the readout. "OK, she's an elf... being forced to marry Legol---" she stopped midsentence and felt her jaw fall open in horror.

"What?" Kate sat up on her couch and raised an eyebrow. "How bad is it?"

All Anne could do was make a strangled squeaking noise before she fainted dead away.

Kate's note: Wow, the next one has to be BAD if Anne faints. I can only wait in horror... *cackles madly, then stops* Anyway, I want to apologize to Lyniss -- we had to kill her Sue, even though it was book based and well-written... No hard feelings, I hope. All the same, I still don't recommend reading "Elfsong" and its sequel, "Song of the Heart", because of... certain objectionable content concerning a bed. If only we could convince some of the Sue-writers to write with their own characters instead of someone else's... And by the way, many thank-you's to Miranda Crystal-Bearer for this fic!

Anne's note: YES, I FAINTED! Or I wanted to, at least, when I was reading over the next chapter's vict--I mean, fic. Trust me: it'll be rather interesting. And thanks to Miranda Crystal-Bearer for sending us this fic! And more thanks go to Hellga and Kasia for sending us fics... I promise, we're trying to get to them. And I have to say this every chapter: PLEASE SEND US SUES! We have yet to have a Frodo fangirl, and I wanna smack her upside the head when we do! Kate would like having a good round of stress relief, too, I'm sure...

Bleah. I didn't like this fic... too much Sue. But then again, what would we be doing here if there WASN'T a Sue, I ask you? Ah, well. All in a day's work, I guess.