Duffano came into the room, dragging her feet. Going to the desk, she poured herself into one of the seats.
Stephano burst through the wall, spraying Duffano and the readers with drywall and plaster. "HALLO!" she yelled. Turning to the gaping hole in the wall, she waved her magic wand and it repaired itself.
"Oh god," Duffano said, seeing the wand. "Who the hell gave you that?"
Stephano smiled. "Not telling." Noting her partner's state, she asked, "Hey, are you feeling all right?"
Duffano shook her head. "I only got four hours of sleep. I had to sleep downstairs on the couch since we're repainting my room. And the couch is right next to the TV, and I'm scared of blank TVs at night since I saw 'The Ring', so I was watching TV until like 1, but then I couldn't sleep without the TV on, so I had to figure out a system. And I was woken up at seven. It sucked."
Stephano looked vaguely sympathetic. "Poor you," she said sadly. Snapping out of her sympathy she waved her wand and the keyboard slid over to her. "Let's get cracking then. Do you want to disclaim it, or should I?" But Duffano had fallen asleep at the desk. Stephano shrugged. "Guess I'm on my own today."
The readers looked at each other, slightly worried. Stephano noticed. "Oh, relax," she chided. "I'm not going to get too bizarre. Here's the disclaimer."
Disclaimer: And then, the flying disco ball bounced into the doghouse. A knight ran in after it, wielding a flag. He ran to it with a vicious yell, and attempted to stab the ball. His flag bounced off. Throwing down the flag, he ran back out. When he came back in he was carrying a portable missile system. He aimed at the disco ball, and fired. The disco ball exploded in a ball of sparkles. The sparkles formed the words "The story is hereby disclaimed by Lordy Duffano, Stephano, and all of their subsidiaries. The plot and characters are not owned by the authors."
Chapter 6
"Look, Frodo, it's my old gun! Sting!"
"Bilbo, why did you name your gun?"
Bilbo paused. "Shut up, Frodo," he said finally, rummaging through the locker. Frodo rolled his eyes. "OOOH! Here's a useful thing, Frodo!"
Frodo plastered a fake expression of interest on his face. "What is it, Bilbo?" he asked.
"My old flak vest!" Bilbo said, hauling out the bulletproof vest. "It's so light!"
He handed it to Frodo, who was immediately dragged to the floor with the weight of it. "This is light?" Frodo asked in a strangled voice.
"You should've seen the other ones they had. Oh yes, and Sting has radar attached to it. So you can see where the enemy is," Bilbo said. He pressed a button on the gun, and a tiny screen popped up.
"Wow… um… useful…" Frodo said.
Stephano yawned. "I'm bored. Let's liven things up." She whacked the computer with her magic wand.
And then she was sucked into Microsoft Word.
"Well," she said. "This is an unexpected consequence of my actions." She looked around. "Well this is weird. I'm inside a program. Odd. Wonder what I can do."
Stephano went over to the typing cursor, and was knocked over by it as it zoomed across the screen. "Wow! It's typing everything I do. COOL!"
She scratched her nose.
She waved her magic wand around.
"HEY! I wonder what I can do with this in here!" she yelled, delighted at her idea. She stabbed the blinking cursor with her magic wand. It turned blue. "YAY! COLORS!" she yelled. She stabbed it again.
Purple.
Stab. Yellow.
Stab. Orange.
Stab. Magenta.
Stab. Chartreuse.
Stab. Puce.
"YAY! I LOVE PUCE!"
Stab. Pink. With flowers sprouting from it.
Stephano stared at the cursor monstrosity before her. The readers watched from the other side of the screen. Stephano looked over to them. "I think we're screwed."
To which one of the readers replied, "Nope. You're in the computer with the virus."
"OH SHIT!" Stephano screamed. "HELP ME!"
The readers did nothing, and just watched as the cursor glowed more brightly pink.
Stephano backed away from it, her wand out in front of her protectively. She ran over to the font color selector and hit it with her wand. "HELP ME!" she yelled at it. But it turned pink.
"AHH! NOT MORE PINK!"
Stephano stepped on the scroll up button, and scrolled to the last mentioning of Frodo. She whacked his name repeatedly with her wand until Frodo materialized next to her. "SAVE ME!" she screamed at him.
"From what? And where am I?"
"FROM THAT!" Stephano pointed at the monstrous pink cursor, now trailing rose petals, doves, and gamboling kittens.
"What the hell is that?" Frodo asked.
"A Mary-Sue cursor," Stephano told him. "I can't let it touch me. It might turn me into a Mary Sue!"
"Why is that bad?"
"Because then I'd probably rip off your clothes and have unprotected sex with you."
"WHAT?"
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT! IT'S THE GODDAMN MARY SUES! AND THAT STUPID CURSOR!"
'That stupid cursor' suddenly jumped on top of Frodo, and devoured him.
"NO! FRODO!" Stephano yelled. Then she hit the cursor with her wand again. "YOU STUPID CURSOR! THAT WAS MY MAIN CHARACTER!"
Some Tolkien purists appeared in Word as well. "THAT WAS TOLKIEN'S MAIN CHARACTER YOU PLAGARIST!"
"AHHH! Not you too!" Stephano screamed. She tried to fend them off with her wand, but they just turned into fan girls. She backed away from the fan girls. "This day cannot get any worse," she muttered.
The Sue cursor turned to her, and advanced.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! IT'S WORSE! IT'S WORSE! DON'T TURN ME INTO A MARY SUE! PLEASE!" Stephano pleaded as she scrambled away from the cursor.
The cursor kept coming. Stephano threw her wand at it, but it merely swallowed it. "What to do, what to do?" Stephano muttered frantically, groping in her pockets for something, anything that could save her. The only thing she found was a can of Extreme Fluffy Mcnutter Gap Holder plot hole filler. "Oh this won't help," she said, about to toss it away.
But then she saw the inconveniently placed warning label. It read: Warning! Prolonged and excessive exposure to Extreme Fluffy Mcnutter Gap Holder may cause mutations. Use caution when using this product.
"Mutations… maybe, just maybe- AHHHHHHHHH!"
Stephano screamed because the cursor had crept up on her, and had now wrapped a tendril around her ankle. It pulled her towards its gaping, lipsticked maw. Desperately, Stephano chucked the plot hole filler into the cursor's mouth.
The cursor swallowed it, and was about to swallow our comedic relief author when it mutated.
It turned into an apple.
Stephano breathed a sigh of relief. "That was way too close. And now I'm hungry." She ate the apple.
Soft evil music began playing in the background.
"Why is that creepy music playing?" Stephano wondered aloud. She shrugged. "Oh well… the pit orchestra must be protesting a pay cut or something." She got up and went over to the screen. "WAKE UP DUFFANO!" she yelled, pounding on the glass. "Come rescue your friend from computer hell!"
Duffano twitched, and sat up. She wiped drool from her chin and stared at the computer screen. "Stephano?" she asked.
"Yes, it's me. Just get me out of here, please."
"Okay, um… how?"
"You figure it out! You're the smart one!"
Duffano got up and walked around the desk, studying the computer. Decisively, she hit the back of the computer. Stephano flew out of the screen and into her chair. "Thank you!" Stephano said enthusiastically. "You have no idea what I just went through."
Duffano came back around to the front of the computer, and read the transcript of Stephano's adventure. "Stephano!"
"What?" Stephano demanded. "You're not going to yell at me after I went through all of that, are you?"
"Of course I am! Where did you get that wand?"
"A girl, named Jillian. She had the prettiest chestnut brown hair, beautiful green eyes, and she was the loveliest- OH MY GOD!"
"She was a Mary Sue, Stephano!" Duffano yelled. "You bleeding idiot! You could have destroyed our story!"
"I'm sorry!" Stephano cried, bursting into tears. "I didn't mean to! I was just… bored!"
"Well, you're not writing anything else without me there to supervise you, got it?"
Stephano nodded glumly. Duffano settled back into her seat. "Now, I realized last night that we forgot the scene with Boromir and Aragorn with Narsil. Do you have any plot hole filler left? Or did you throw it all at the cursor?"
Stephano opened a drawer in their desk that was filled with Extreme Fluffy Mcnutter Gap Holder plot hole filler. She took out a can and handed it to Duffano.
Duffano tied a rope around her waist, and handed the other end to Stephano. "When I tell you to, pull me back out, okay?" Stephano nodded. "Okay, I'm going in." And she jumped into the computer.
Duffano jumped on the scroll button until she reached the point where the Aragorn/Boromir scene was supposed to be. A gaping hole was there. She dumped the plot hole filler there, and yelled, "All right, Stephano! Reel me back in!"
Stephano pulled her back out of the computer. Duffano slumped in her seat. "Whew. Now we should be able to fill that plot hole."
And so she began to write.
Aragorn was sitting in one of the top-secret rooms, cleaning his gun. No one really knew why he was there, or why he was cleaning his gun in that room, but people tended not to question Aragorn. He was a very good shot with that shotgun.
As Aragorn was cleaning his gun, the door opened, and another man walked in, dressed in a security uniform. "Oh!" the newcomer said uncomfortably. "I, er, didn't realize anyone was, erm, here…"
"Hi," Aragorn said.
"Hello," the man said, evidently relieved that Aragorn was not going to kill him or something. He crossed to a table in the corner. A doorknob lay on the table. He picked up the doorknob, and inspected it. "Wow… the doorknob that came out when Sauron tripped and went comatose just before going to prison."
Aragorn put his gun back together with a loud snap. The other man jumped, and dropped the doorknob with a clang. He glanced at the doorknob, glanced at Aragorn, who was currently checking if his cross hairs were still calibrated correctly, and exited the room quickly.
Aragorn rose, and went to the table. He picked the doorknob up, and placed it reverently on the table. It rolled off. "Damn," he said softly. He placed it on the table again, and positioned it so that it wouldn't roll off.
The door opened behind him. Arwen walked into the room, kicking the door closed behind her. "Why are you being antisocial?" she demanded.
"I just wanted to come see it again," he said defensively.
"Aragorn, you're not going to be stupid like Isildur. Especially since you know I'll kick your ass if you are."
"Yeah, but still… what if I screw up?"
"Oh stop being such a worry wart and come make out with me in random corners."
"That's all I have energy for, folks," Duffano said, leaning back. "And I'm not letting Stephano so much as breath on the computer from now on."
"Oh come on!"
"No, Stephano! Anyway, I know this was a little short. But you'll just have to suck it up and deal with it, won't you? Because we're the authors, and you are not. Ta!"
