Disclaimer-We own nothing you even vaguely recognize, including but not limited to JRR Tolkien's creations, the necromancy bells and the Abhorsen trilogy (who belong to Garth Nix), and the Keltiad to Patricia Kenneally-Morrison. Nor do we own the PPC, we just work there. The 'Sue and her story belong to LifeMistressGreenleaf, and frankly, we're glad they're not ours.

Chapter 10

"Urg. I'd forgotten how horrible the first couple chapters were." Myth grumbled.
Isabel nodded vehemently, staring at a trio of elves standing with blank expressions on their faces as the author moved on to describe a feast. "There're our victims - I mean, possible recruits."
"The two are interchangeable," Diana offered.

The 'Sue's Point of View:

Suddenly, three nondescript female elves, in very ornate dresses, ran out, thunked three of Mirkwood's representatives over the head from behind, and dragged them off into a building. They had to make two trips.
"Did you see that?" She asked Elrond.
"Did I see what?" Elrond replied, looking around.
"Nothing..."

back to our agents:

"I thought I said Gringath and Pulroth. These were the other ridiculously named elves!" Isabel muttered as she helped Diana drag Ling (the second-lightest of the elves) into the cover of a room.
"D'you think she saw us?" Myth grunted, as she shoved the most unhelpful Hlisolf in front of her and into Isabel, who sidestepped him neatly.

"I don't think she did, but we should be --" Isabel interrupted herself with a small "oof!" as she and Diana heaved Ling into the corner of the room. "-- cautious from now on, just in case."

"Yeah. Careful. We still have to get Sali-whatchimati-thingee." Diana said. "Who'd've thought there was such a thing as a stout elf?" And lo, they scampered out upon unwilling feet to lug the overweight elf into their sanctuary. "Stout and elf is like... salsa and popcorn. They just don't mix." Diana shook her head as she tugged on the oxymoronic elf's arm. Isabel coughed discreetly and looked away. She looked back at the other two to receive two very confused glances.
"I admit nothing." Isabel grabbed the elf's ankles to assist the lifting.

"I wonder…"grunt, "Why…" grunt, "the canon…" grunt, "made him this way?" Myth gasped and grunted as she grabbed the torso ( this was a very stupid thing for her to do, because if Isabel is holding his ankles, and Diana his wrists, then he sinks towards the ground, and guess who carries the most weight? Yup. She-who-is-currently-grunting-with-strain.)

"Huh." Diana said when they managed to get Salibalf into the same corner as the others, "He wasn't as heavy as he looked."
Myth glared at her from the stooped position she had assumed. "That's... enough... out of you..." she panted.

"Now-" Isabel began as Myth stretched and her back made a horrible popping noise, "how're we gonna move these guys around?"

Diana raised her hand. "I vote opening portals beneath them or something of the same type."

"Or we could use my backpack. Someone else is carrying it, though." Myth volunteered.
"I thought it was weightless." Isabel taunted.
"Nearly weightless." Myth corrected, "And even a nearly weightless bag weighs something with three elves in it. Especially one that isn't elf-sized."

"We could take turns carrying it, you guys." Diana half-smiled. "I think Isabel should take the first shift."
"What?" Confused, Isabel turned to Diana. "And why is that?"
"I dunno."

Isabel slapped her forehead and muttered an agreement. "But you take the next."
"Fair enough." Diana nodded. "Myth?"

"Not takin' it."

Isabel walked towards her partner very slowly. "You. Will. Take it. If you. Enjoy. Your. Bandolier. In one. Piece." She paused. "Well, one piece and many bell pouches. But my point still stands."

"You could try," Myth retorted. "You'd probably kill yourself, but you could try."

"I have my ways… you get a shift. You get third shift, but you get a shift, all right?"

"Maybe… do you know what any of the other bells do, anyway?"

"No. Your point?"

"My point is that you could summon the newly dead as rotting corpses, give the 'Sue a brain, or even make her speak properly! You have no idea what power could be unleashed! You could also die again. Or kill us ALL!"

Isabel thought for a moment, and nodded. "Okay… not doing that then. That place was cold."

Diana was looking at them both strangely. "She's carrying something that could kill us all? That's not good."

"Oh, don't worry, she's careful with it." Isabel paused thoughtfully. "Well, usually…"

"Hey, it was you who rang it." Myth retorted.

"Quit your yappin', we've got work to do!" Isabel cried. She looked around for the nearly-weightless bag, finally spotting it in Myth's hands. "Shall we dump these elves in and start moving?"

Myth nodded an affirmative, opened the bag, set it on the floor, and began stuffing Hlisolf (her preferred elf) into the opening. After she was finished, Isabel beckoned to Diana, and together the two managed to wrestle Ling into the bag.

"And now, we get to Salibalf. Sigh." Myth sighed.
"Why did you just say sigh?" Diana asked.
"Because... I've been inside this story to long. I NEED TO GET OUT!"

"We all do, we all do," Isabel patted Myth on the shoulder, panting slightly from the effort it took to carry Ling. "It's almost over, I promise."

"What about me?" Diana pouted. "I need comforting, too!"

Isabel reached over and patted her shoulder twice. "Let's get moving, darlings!"

Myth tossed Isabel the portal generator and the bag (which weighed about ten pounds now), then checked her bandolier to make sure Isabel hadn't made good on her threat. Isabel caught both tossed items with no grace, fumbled around with the generator until the correct coordinates were set, and pushed the button. The portal hung in the air, shimmering with a smug sort of light.

Myth stared at the portal for a few seconds after the other two leapt through. "I wonder how long it'll stay up?" she mused. The portal flickered. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" She yelped, and tumbled through. Once she appeared on the other side, the portal gave an annoyed-sounding burp and shut off. Isabel stared at the generator and thumped it. "I should get Makes-Things to look at that attitude problem..."

"Ya think?" Myth snapped, "I could've been stuck in limbo!"
"Like the game? That sounds horrible..." Myth couldn't figure out whether Diana was being deliberately obtuse, or just teasing. She glared anyway.

"Meh, I'll run it by him after this mission." Isabel said carelessly, completely ignoring the side-tracked pair. Then she paused. "Wait, are we putting Gringath and Pulroth in the bag as well?"

"Yup." Myth said. "Poor Di, she gets the heaviest load." whereupon Diana glared, and Myth and Isabel cackled evilly.

After they calmed down, Isabel looked around at the beauty of Lothlorien. She took a deep breath and sighed. "Such a wonderful place... why must it always be corrupted by horrors like Rubyflame?"

"Because it's so beautiful. They're drawn here like moths to a flame. Like a dog to dog food. Like flies to cow patties. Like Isabel to shiny objects that can kill-"
"That's enough!" Isabel interrupted Myth. "We get it." She looked around again, this time not looking at the trees but for the Sue. "So... where do we go?" Isabel might have been a top-notch assassin, but she was a hopeless navigator.

"Ummm... Thataway?" Diana pointed in a random direction.
"No." Myth said with authority. "Water-like sounds are coming from that way-" She pointed in the opposite direction, "So there we'll go."
"Water-like sounds?" Isabel queried.
"Well, the elves are trying to force her into a boat, so..."

"Force? She doesn't want to go with the elves? That's a new one."

"No, she doesn't want to get in the boat... why doesn't she just fly?"

"Sue logic isn't at the top of the intelligence list, remember."

"What I wouldn't give to be on Vulcan right now... in the original series, I mean. No bad grammar, no redundancies, nice, clean logic... in short, heaven."

"Sounds lovely, you two," Diana interrupted, "but there she goes." She pointed in the direction of Rubyflame.

"Oh, right. Grab the Elves!" Myth cried, a little louder than necessary. No one noticed in all the noise of the 'Sue protesting her entrance to the boat. They all charged towards their prey like extremely uncoordinated tigers. Which was, needless to say, full of such phrases as "Stop stepping on me!" "Stop getting in my way!", "There they are!", "And there they go..." And a loud "Sheka!" as Myth very nearly blundered into the be-winged monstrosity, who had decided that she was going to fly, after all. They eventually accomplished their task, though, and, with much cursing and general gnashing of teeth, they dragged their now-unconscious targets into a nearby copse of trees.

"Good thing these ones weren't weirdly deformed. For elves, anyway." Isabel said as she gave the elves the once-over.
"Improper grammar! My ears, my ears!" Myth clamped her hands over her ears and closed her eyes.
"Oh, grow up." Diana retorted, conveniently forgetting her earlier lapses.

"This story is starting to get to all of us." Isabel shook her head vigorously, as if to get rid of any and all bad-grammar nymphs residing between her ears. "I can't wait to get back to the response center."

"Can we just Portal to the 'Sues now?" Myth asked plaintively.

"Let's go get'em." Isabel punched a few random keys on the portal device and a shimmering oval appeared in the air with a slight 'pop'. The group dove through. Unfortunately, they forgot that the UBIM was draped over them. Myth tripped over the hem and brought Isabel down with her. Isabel grabbed Diana for support... and ended up being fallen on. They all ended up in an ungainly pile on top the bag full of unconscious captured Elves, who, of course, didn't give a damn as they couldn't feel a thing. The agents, however, were another story.
"Ow... OW... OW! MYTH THAT'S MY HAIR!"
"It's your own fault for wearing it so long!"
"Whoever belongs to that elbow kindly remove it from my kidney at once."

The group of beleaguered women heard groans and thumps, not necessarily in that order. They agents looked out from the UBIM to see two girls rubbing their heads and speaking with many question marks. Isabel's left eye twitched with every misplaced piece of punctuation.

"Mithran priests almighty... She didn't state something. My faith in probability has been shattered." Myth stared into space, murmuring many unintelligible words.

Isabel patted Myth on the shoulder absently, scanning the sky for the suddenly elusive Words. Once she found them, however, she wished she hadn't. "Good lord, the question marks! Did the quotation key on her keyboard commit suicide or something?"

"Who knows." Diana muttered, glaring at the other two 'Sues.
"You leftover piece of skrewt dung! You illegitimate daughter of a camel's left hind hoof and a donkey's tail! You filthy slime of a rotting algae's prodigal son!" Myth had not simply been staring off into space, because that would impede the speedy death of the 'Sue. She had been scanning the Words, and come across (or, rather, had not come across) the part of the story where Eowyn should have been, but was not. Her fellow agents were so shocked by her outburst that they failed to grab even the hem of her heavily embroidered elvish cloak as she threw off the UBIM and charged the 'Sue. Under the astounded gaze of her cohorts, Myth, who, to be honest, never seemed to be all that athletic, hurled herself into a straight tackle for Ruby… Megan… whatever. Unfortunately, though the tackle was straight, it was straight into Gandalf, who, it seemed, had no appreciation for the beautiful form, and was not at all happy about being tackled. Isabel smacked her forehead and strode forward, muttering about crazed partners. She pulled a strange-looking silver device from her pocket as she moved. When she reached Myth,who was on top ofa confused and angry Gandalf, she gave her partner one solid yank, and the dazed woman went flying away from the Maia, taking Isabel, who hadn't let go of her arm, with her.

"I think it's amazing, how she flies in and out of rages like that." Diana said perkily as she took the neuralizer (otherwise known as the flashy thingee) and zapped all of the canon characters. "I do, however, thank Eru that she didn't see or hear of 'Gandalf Greyham'."

"'Till now." Isabelmuttered from her positionatop of Myth's back. She looked down at her still-struggling partner and said, "Dahling, we simply must stop meeting like this. I'll start getting embarrassed." She patted Myth on the head and continued restraining her.

"Could you get off of me please? Dyrim is digging into my torso directly under my ribs."
"Depends. Will you behave?"
"Anything, and I do mean anything, to keep Ranna from being permanently embedded into my pelvis."

"All right, then." Isabel got off and Myth picked herself up, straightening the bandolier slung crosswise across her chest. She brushed off some excess dust and shot the Sue a patented "I Will Eat Your Spleen While You Watch" glare.
Diana sighed impatiently. She was tired of all this glare-throwing and partner-tackling and whatnot. "When can we actually kill the Sue?"

"NO!" Myth and Isabel shouted in unison. Isabel elaborated with, "Reincarnation equalsvery bad."

"Fine, then." Diana thought for a second to rephrase her question. "When can we get rid of her?"

"Now." Myth replied with an evil look at the 'Sue.

As they were having this wonderful conversation, the 'Sues were looking on in no small bit of confusion

"What are they?" Ashleigh asked tremulously.
"I do not know." Ruby... Megan... Whatever replied.
"My guess would be assassins who have been, like, hired to assassinate us, and who shall have, like, no remorse, and maybe even a tiny bit of, like, fun doing it." Elisha supplied.

The agents stared.

"Imperial mage students on a glorified stick." Myth whispered.

"She knows. How could she know?" Diana turned to Isabel as the voice of reason.

"It doesn't matter if they know." The woman retorted. "We toss the one into the void, where her hypothetical soul will be trapped forever, and we-" she gestured to herself and Myth, "kill the other two. Whadaya say, Myth?"

"Sounds good to me."

Ten minutes, two yards of rope, many, many hair ties, several bitten fingers, and a hard thwack in the stomach (which resulted in Megan throwing up all of her 'lamas' bread) later, the 'Sues were tossed through a shimmering portal and into three separate trees on the border of Lothlorien. After a brief scuffle over the charge list, Myth (who had beaten down all competition with well-timed snatches, dodges, and a few quick bites) began the reading of the charges.

"Megan, a.k.a. RubyFlame, mistress of fire, you are hereby charged with being a Mary-Sue, having an incredibly corny name, omitting proper punctuation, most especially question marks, quotation marks, and commas, joining the fellowship (nine, not ten, Lord Elrond tells me so) causing Elrond to flirt with you (have you no shame? The man's married! Leave him be!), creating Elementals in Middle-Earth, being an elemental reborn, possessing, at the very least, three cute animal friends, including a winged horse, a hawk, and a relatively normal horse, creating Imiladeris, boring us very near to the border between life and death by a) not describing yourself at all, and b) then describing your appearance in far too much detail. Causing a dress to bare your midriff…" here Isabel cut in.

"That's not a dress, sweetie, that's a blouse and skirt."

"Creating four, count 'em, four mini-balrogs, most especially Gandalf Greyham, but also Erond, Boimir, and Balien. Also, using five minis already in existence…"

Isabel tuned out once she realized that Myth wanted the 'Sue to go through the agony of hearing, if not all, then the vast majority of the charge list. Five minutes later, Myth finished with,

"Finally, making two of us cry at different points-"

"Oh!" cried the 'Sue, "You were moved by my tale!"

"No. I was horrified at your stupidity. To continue; causing me to stub my toe numerous times, and completely ignoring Eowyn shield-arm, white lady of Rohan and Ithilien, whose boots, even were they covered in blood and muck, you are not fit to lick."

"Also, many, many redundancies, some of the worst being: 'You do and you know it, Beth retorted.Well...well... I heard you moaning over Frodo, I retorted back.', 'When I got home form school I did the usual,homework,chorse,etc.(What you usually do after school).', and 'It was like the first one except it had sleeves. It had Japanese style sleeves and the top part ended at the bottom of my chest.'" Diana tossed in her two cents.

"For these and a few other minor charges, you are sentenced to die and be dragged back as a dead Hand, after which you will be taken back to HQ so the Department of 'Sue Experimentation may observe you."

"You can do that?" Isabel asked dubiously.

"Umm… okay, you are sentenced to the Void for all eternity. After I gouge out your eyes for the aforementioned department."

"Why don't we just kill her?" Diana asked.

"Because she was reincarnated once, she could manage it again. And, I don't want my Lor traumatized." Myth stroked the hawk (whom she had aquired at some point during the general chaos)with undisguised affection, earning a gouged finger. The affection, it seemed, was entirely unreturned.

"Right. I'll charge the other two, shall I?" Diana turned back to the 'Sues. "Oy! Where'd the first one go?"

"Huh?" Myth blinked, then scowled. "The little… there she is!" she raced off after their escapee, Isabel in hot pursuit. Diana shook her head and turned back to the loose-ends.

"Now, where were we? Ah, yes…" she grinned as the 'Sues whimpered into their gags.

Myth, meanwhile, spotted her quarry and grinned a grin not unlike a fangirl who had somehow gotten into the staff section of OFUM, and was standing outside the room of her lust object. Somehow, the 'Sue had gotten rid of the ropes, and was going to make Myth work to catch her. Myth grinned even wider, threw herself towards the 'Sue in a magnificent rugby tackle… and, in the grand tradition of Myth's tackles, missed spectacularly. She scrambled back to her feet… and ran into a border guard of Lothlorien. Oops.

"Ummm… Mae govannen heledir..." Myth might have been able to slip past on her rudimentary elvish, had she not confused the sindarin hedir (sir) with heledir (kingfisher).

Isabel eyes only for RubyFlame. Completely (and stupidly, some might add) ignoring the guard, she ran past the guard and was within arms-reach of the girl when her charge was suddenly cut short by a sword being thrust in her way. Acting purely on instinct, she backpedaled to avoid getting cut, and landed flat on her rump.

"Haldir?"

Back with Diana…

"Where are those guys? These 'Sues are really beginning to irritate me…"

Back to our way-past-irritated assassins…

Isabel was faring rather badly. She and Myth had been separated, surrounded, and their lives spared for some reason unknown. Unfortunately, Isabel could understand nothing, and even the 'Sue looked bewildered, which meant they were speaking true Elvish, not the parenthesized gobbledygook Ruby… Megan… Whatever made them use. Myth was nodding every once and a while, but mostly blinking in confusion. No doubt the Elves were speaking too fast for her to pick up more than one word out of fifteen. On the upside, the 'Sue was also in custody (apparently she'd been gone long enough for most of the sue-fect to wear off). On the down side, they had left their bags of nifty gadget-like thingamabobs back with Diana, so no portals, no neuralizers, and nothing to amuse them as they waited.

Myth's A/N: Our very first cliff hanger! Sorta… Kinda… Maybe… Yeah, we were going to kill the 'Sue in this chapter, but it took seven pages in Microsoft Word to get this much done, so we'll do our darndest to kill her next time!

Isabel's A/N: We get ourselves into the damnedest of circumstances, huh... I guess its part of the job, eh? I know we keep promising Sue-slayage, and it will happen soon. I swear. Um. Yeah.