Pierson: Yup! We shall nevurrr surrender!
Everyone else: Thanks a lot for the reviews, and fear not, this shall continue for a good while! And I always finish what I start, so don't worry about being left hanging.
Disclaimer: Repetition from the first chapter; I don't own them. Square(enix) owns the FFVIII characters. The new characters appearing will have their disclaimer at the bottom to avoid spoilers for this chapter… muhahahaha…
Chapter 3, Mary Sue is bleeding
Despite the fact that Squall probably fell headfirst into another heap of clichés upon waking up, we'll give him a short breather and take a look at Esthar instead. Oh look, there's a great crowd in front of the palace! Looks like Laguna is holding his speech! Shall we take a closer look?
… Bah, you don't have a choice anyway. Here we go!
"Soon we'll have managed to clean out all of the monsters from the Lunar Cry in the game, my fellow citizens," Laguna enthusiastically promised while cheers and plastic (no sharp objects around the president without permission) roses rained over him from the ecstatic crowd, "then we can start preparing for the next batches of them, which we all know that the fanfics will send upon us."
Boos and groans followed this one. Laguna sadly nodded.
"But look at the bright side," he said, smiling as he folded the papers against the table before him, "in the future, when the next generations of Children of Fate, all the kids of Squall and the other original heroes are going to save the world, they'll know us as the one who changed the saying 'it's raining cats and dogs' into 'it's raining iron giants and behemoths'!"
And the crowd roared with laughter.
Standing by the side of the stage, Kiros pressed a hand against his forehead and groaned.
"Man, he's stupid…" he muttered for no truly apparent reason, since the joke had been rather fair for once if not worthy of such praise that the Estharians seemed to think.
Ward silently nodded. As if he had a choice. Dr Odine just looked around worriedly.
"Now what are you involved in?" Kiros demanded as he noticed the scientist's acts.
"I am not yet zure," the good doctor sighed, "I rezieve zo very many tazkz and orderz from variouz veird conzpiratorz zat I forget about zem if zey do not zend me notificationz. I can't recall hearing from ziz nev zorzerer hovever."
He shook his head.
"Vhat vorriez me iz that whenever Laguna iz azzazzinated, zey aim for Ellone next. You knov zat makez me irritated."
"Ah yes, then I understand," Kiros nodded.
'Sad,' Ward signed.
Up on the podium on the middle of the scene, Laguna checked his watch.
"Will the tomato darts assassin please hurry up, you're five minutes late already," he finally spoke into the microphone in a concerned tone, "I don't want to complain but it's not like your kind to be late…"
"Sheez!" shouted a person who with ease came running through the crowd, pulling a black mask over his face, "can't a guy have lunch!? Fine, fine, I'm coming!"
Since it was for the plot, nobody tried to stop him either when he reached into a pocket and pulled out a few red vegetables. Nobody save from all the guards who unlike the assassin couldn't make it through the crowd no matter how they tried.
"Hyne, he's stupid!" Kiros snarled and broke into a dash together with Ward.
But as soon as they got up on the stage, their movements got caught in slow-motion mode and though everybody else moved normally, the two that tried to save their friend slooowly inched forwards with their mouths and eyes wide open in horror – and frustration.
Laguna moved in the same way as he tried to duck, though even slower than his pals.
Odine watched this with an intrigued look and took out a pen and notebook after a moment to record his sightings. He had never really managed to figure out what caused this flux in time and space, but it sure looked stupid and he'd like to know if it was possible to control. Such a device would save him a lot of time since it probably would shut up all those noisy docnappers and evil hiring calls if their bosses just got their hands on such a useful weapon.
The assassin calmly aimed as nobody was even close to being a bother to him. And threw.
Laguna fell, red liquid staining his beautiful and neat green suit. Immediately everybody could move normally again; the president hit the ground and his two advisors were by his side within a second while the assassin fled through the panicking crowd.
Pinching his nose with one hand while he tried to pull out the darts from the mess of rotten tomatoes on Laguna's chest, Kiros shook his head.
"This sibly has to be the stupidest ode yet," he sighed.
Silently, Ward dug out a handkerchief and tried to dry off the worst of the mess.
Laguna opened one of his eyes and groaned at the stank.
"This will get my drycleaner guy that car he wanted…" the president grumbled with a grimace.
Kiros and Ward exchanged glances, both just able to think about how stupid they thought their friend to be. Even if they really tried to think of something else for a change.
Meanwhile, Squall woke up. And looked up. And realized that he looked up into a pair of green eyes, round emeralds set in a face as beautiful and sculpted as a Greece statue – and just as alive. Red hair splashed down a pair of shoulders like a waterfall, spreading over the sleek and yet strong arms covered in the marine blue SeeD uniform.
"Sue…" the commander wheezed in horror as a cool hand came to his cheek.
"Sue?" a soft, singing voice questioned in confusion, "you must still be… dizzy, commander… my name is… Mariah."
"Mariah…" Squall murmured, trying to sit up.
He found that his arms and back seemed to be glued to the floor however, and his head appeared to be stuck on the intruder's lap. Inside, he was screaming like a banshee and trying to escape the bind, while his body however wouldn't obey.
"Are you feeling… better?" Mariah asked, with enough dramatic, sensual pauses to drive a man insane, and not with passion I tell ya.
"Yes… I think I'll… lay here for a while, if you don't mind…" Squall mumbled through his teeth. It sounded more like a forced squeaking though.
"Of course not," Mariah "shyly" smiled while she "tentatively" stroke the poor commander's "aching" forehead.
'Mariah…' Squall thought, unwillingly, 'passed the last SeeD exam with flying colors, modest and loved by all, able to make even the student uniforms look like ball dresses… danced with me, Zell, Irvine and Seifer… however that worked… on the graduation ball… turned down all the other men there… excellent cook, knows sewing, lovely singing voice, has a tame baby blue dragon… her GF, "Archangel" is her sister, she's the daughter of Ifrit… somebody help me!!'
Mariah watched the pained expression on Squall's face with concern; he was trying to break free and she could feel it. Smiling, she moved her alabaster hand to his cheek again.
"You look sad," she gently said, "is it because… of Rinoa?"
Squall used all he ever had learnt about torture and battles to try stopping his tongue from delivering the sappy reply that the Sue was trying to drive out of him.
'Hmm…' Mariah thought, her warm eyes turning colder with determination, 'a slippery one you are… but you will be mine! MINE!'
"She doesn't deserve you after that," she instructed, "it was cruel and egoistical."
"Ghhyeee…" Squall groaned, wishing he could smash himself in the face.
"Yes, it's horrible!" a sudden voice said from behind, "to think, getting kidnapped by a bunch of slime balls and a bishie, how could she?! Is there anything more egoistic?"
Mariah turned her head with a gasp, enraged at the heresy of disturbing her first romantic moment with Squall. The commander, on the other hand, slumped on the floor in relief.
"Who are you?!" Mariah demanded from the random, female student who casually leaned her arm on the back of the commander's chair.
The young, indistinct woman stretched a little and cracked her neck, then took out a note block from a backpack she was carrying, flipped a couple of pages and cleared her throat with her fist against her lips.
"Mariah Ifritdaughter, it is my duty to inform you that you are charged with messing with the Final Fantasy VIII characters, mainly Squall, Irvine, Seifer and Zell, turning the SeeD commander into a babbling vegetable, making idiotic pauses when you speak, not having a grip of reality as seen in your statements about Rinoa, making your sister a GF, being the daughter of a GF, and being a Mary Sue. Hit her, Tyler."
"That sounded a bit too weird…" a random male student commented as he merrily slammed the flat side of Mariah's gunblade into her back head.
The Mariah Sue fell with glazed emerald eyes.
"Okay," the guy said, scratching his head, "now what about her GF sister?"
The woman looked at Squall, who was getting to his feet with a relieved sigh.
"Say," she said, "I don't recall it being said here, so just checking… Bahamut isn't the god of GFs, is he?"
Squall raised his eyebrows, then decided against arguing with the strange couple and thought for a moment. He owed them one, after all.
"I don't think so," he finally said, "just the king of dragons as I understand."
Tyler and his partner in crime exchanged glances.
"Well, I guess we head to the Final Fantasy IV moon then… that might work. Hafta get that thing out of her head to kill them both," the latter finally said.
"Isn't that against regulations?"
"Whatever. We have an excuse."
"True. Oh…"
Tyler reached for his backpack and pulled out what looked like a pen with a small red lamp on. He held it up to Squall.
"Good thing we finally got a pair of these," the peculiar savior smiled, "look at this for a second, commander."
Squall did so.
"Thanks, you two," he honestly said just before the white light flashed and erased all his memories of the Mariah Sue and the two agents from the fabled Protectors of the Plot Continuum.
Since the scene was reset a la Men in Black, the commander awoke from the vision to find himself on the floor, sighed, rubbed his temples and worked his way back up in his chair.
'Why, why, great Hyne why are they all dead set on making me their knight?' he mourned and rested his face in his hands as he leaned on his desk.
From afar he heard a choir of high-pitched, teen girls' voices screaming:
"Just look at yourself in the mirror, you hot hunk!"
Squall locked the door and barricaded it with all the furniture in the room apart from his desk.
Then he went back to reading reports. And had to dig his way past an armchair and mini coffee machine later when he wanted to file them.
New disclaimer:
The Protectors of the Plot Continuum belong to their original creators Jay and Acacia (I love you guys!), though Tyler and his partner, Kirsten, belong to Pierson as he's the creator of the "Department of Mary Sues: Final Fantasy Continuum".
I'd give you a link so that you could see the original works of Jay and Acacia, as well as Tyler and Kirsten mauling FF-Sues, but I've noticed before that the script on ff.net eats links. But you can find Pierson's tales in the fanfic archive of RPGClassics (misc. crossovers) and as for the original PPC, just run a Google search. They're really easy to find :)