"Every time you write a Mary Sue, God kills a Mary Sue author. Please, keep writing Mary Sues."

"Billy..."

Billy was floating in a sea of heather. ("Hi! I'm Heather!") He was back in his boy form and was no longer an assicorn, and that fact made him a little sad. There were fun things about being an assicorn, after all. You had hooves that were good for stomping, and a horn that was good for blowing and being loud and obnoxious, and how many people could claim they were an assicorn? Yes, Billy was quite content with the state of assicorn, but it seemed that all things had to end.

"Billy..."

Billy wondered why he was floating over a sea of Heathers. He would rather be floating over a sea of chocolate. Mmmm... chocolate. Pie was also good, although he had sort of given up on his cravings for pie in the last few chapters, but on the other hand, it was pie. Pie was good and yummy and had a flaky crust he could almost taste, and then it was filled with plump, overripe and oversugared chunks of apple, or cherries, or something else equally tasty. No! Back to the chocolate. Chocolate was better, because it came in all sorts of forms. There was chocolate syrup (which he could attest to the tastiness of, being that he had been chocolate syrup once), and chocolate bars and chocolate sailors (which were also tasty, but tended to make you sticky and immobile after a while from the continual tendency to eat oneself) and chocolate covered espresso beans (JAVA JAVA JAVA JAVA JAVA) and chocolate frosted sugar bombs and...

Mmmm. Chocolate.

There were other tasty things that could be eaten, too. There were hot dogs and nachos and pizza and potato chips and boogers and small, tenderized imps, and paint, and asbestos, and universes (although universes tended to give him gas) and...

Wait. Why was he on food? He was floating in a sea of Heathers. Going back to the food again, he decided to see if one of the Heathers was as tasty as pie. The Heather screamed and flailed and tried to get away, but Billy swallowed the Heather whole. He decided, after a bit of chewing and a moment of reflection, that Heathers were not as tasty as pie, but they were tastier than pi. Come to think of it, when had pi ever been tasty? Was it just a reflection of the nature of the pun? Or was there a tasty pi out there somewhere, waiting, longing for Billy to come and eat him?

"Billy, enough of that now. Seriously."

Billy drifted over the seas of Heather, who fled in terror before him, wondering if he could find a tasty pi. There had to be a way out of the sea and on the path of a tasty pi. It was the road of a long and lonely traveller, ever in search of the tasty pi, and though Billy was fatigued and in need of a tasty pie, he resolved to keep his spirit firm, to go on with determination and never give up until he had obtained the unimaginable, the unquenchable, the undistinguishable, the unremarkable, the unidentifiable, the underwritten, the undulating...

"Billy! Wake up already!"

Billy blinked, and then opened his eyes fully. The room in front of him was a plain white ceiling, and for some reason he felt like he was another character in another place in time that should be worrying about his abandonment issues with his mother. "You're finally awake, Billy," came a purring voice, a voice that was like slim, perfectly manicured fingers over a long, beautiful harp stolen from a fine museum. "I'm so glad I get to meet you at last."

"Who are you?" Billy asked, and as he sat up, he realized something was wrong, dreadfully wrong. He looked in the conveniently placed mirror next to his bed, and then screamed in horror.

The image wasn't him. Well, it was him, but not in the way he usually appeared, short and with a large nose. For one thing, his eyes were way too big, and they actually had color (they were blue). His beautiful, gloriously large nose had been reduced to nearly nothing. His hat had been removed to reveal his hair, which was no longer a little orange tuft on the top of his head, but fell in long, positively feminine lengths around his shoulders and down his back. His figure was no longer short and squat, but now tall, thin, and with an odd amount of curvature in the hips. "Wh-What's happened to me?" Billy gaped in horror, staring at himself in the mirror.

"I've made you beautiful," said the female voice that was like the very long metaphor previously used in the narration. "Isn't it wonderful?"

"Oh no," Billy gasped out, putting his long-fingered hand against the mirror. "I've turned into a bishounen."

"Of course you are," the voice continued, and Billy finally turned around to see who was strumming the strings of her voice.

The girl in front of him was beautiful by any standard in any time, with the perfect amount of weight (largely concentrated in her breasts) and some curvature to her hips but not too much. Her skin was a beautiful pale color, flawless and silky smooth to the touch from an excess of body lotions and specialty store shower gels. Her hair, long and blonde, reached down nearly to the floor, and held a slight wave so that it didn't appear actually wavy or perfectly straight, but with just the right amount of volume. Like Billy, her eyes were too large, and they were a startling gold color, or were they blue? No, now they seemed to be green. Billy shook his head, causing his long, luxurious and lavish locks with far too much alliteration to shake about. But enough about him, back to the girl; she wore a sparkling white dress that shone more than Irwin's cousin Reddy, and seemed to have gold and silver threads woven in, but Billy couldn't be sure because that might be too much detail for a non-high definition television show. "Who are you?" Billy asked in awe.

"My name," she said, placing a delicate hand on her chest, "is Princess Mariah Callista Amethyst Star Hope Faith Charity Sakura Eowyn of the world, the third. It's a pleasure to meet you, Billy of Endsville, Billy the Great and Marvelous."

"Uh, okay," he said with a tilt of his head. "So you're Princess Whatsit Whodunit Thingamajigger Banana Fanna fo Fanna Rama Lama Ding Dong the third?"

"Princess Mariah Callista Amethyst Star Hope Faith Charity Sakura Eowyn of the world, the third," she repeated sweetly.

"Right. I think I'm going to call you Jill," he said firmly.

"I'd really rather you call me Princess Mariah Callista Amethyst Star Hope Faith Charity Sakura Eowyn of the world, the third."

"You're doing that just for the word count now, aren't you?" Billy gave her a look.

She avoided his gaze. "...Possibly."

"Okay, Princess Jill," Billy said, standing up and nearly falling over at the new perspective things seemed to take when you were more than 120 pixels off the ground. "What have you done to me? Did you kidnap me?"

"I did not," she said sweetly. "I saved you from that terrible warp in space and time. Don't you remember?" Her eyes grew perfectly wide. "After the pack of lawyers and yaoi fangirls..."

"There were lawyers AND yaoi fangirls?" Billy shuddered. "So why did you bring me here?"

"To make you beautiful," she said with a wave of her elegantly shaped hand. "So you can live here with me forever and ever. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

"Will there be pie?" he asked hopefully. "And chocolate? I don't want another Heather."

"There will be lots of good things to eat," she reassured, "and baths for plenty of gratuitous shower scenes, and massage therapists to ease the tension in your smooth, broad shoulders."

"I don't know about this," Billy said slowly. "This sounds like it should be on Adult Swim."

"Don't insinuate such a thing!" Princess Jill snapped, pointing a finger at him. "Adult Swim doesn't appreciate REAL quality! All they care about are poorly drawn skits with jokes that are about as funny as an All Your Base are Belong to Us reference."

"YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO ESCAPE MAKE YOUR TIME," yelled an obligatory cameo.

"You shut up, I'm ranting here," Princess Jill continued. "As I was saying, they don't appreciate anime. Do you know what happens to our glorious, well-written plotlines and beautiful works of art? Banished to the far reaches of the five AM slot! I ask you, is that fair?"

"Well-written plotlines? Do you mean like Shin-chan?" Billy asked. "I met him once. He was kind of cool."

"Well... that's an exception." Princess Jill folded her arms. "My point stands that Cartoon Network doesn't know what they're missing. You and I are going to go to a REAL network. Like QVC."

"Um, I don't think QVC shows anime."

"You're missing the point!" Princess Jill said with a stamp of her perfectly shaped, lotus-like foot, delicately wrapped in high heels that would put Eris's to shame. "The point is that they suck and I'm right. Now you and I are going to be happy and save the world on occasion and have lots of magically appearing children from the future. We'll have daring adventures and hot, steamy romance where we have to fade to black just to get anything on screen, and madcap hilarity with driving lessons, and absolutely nothing that will become a meme on the internet. It'll be fun!"

Billy looked at her for a long moment. "I think this sounds like too much commitment," he said. "I'm a free man, you can't tie me down. I gotta be able to move with the wind and go where I gotta go and do what I wanna do, whatever the weather. And search for tasty pi."

"Don't talk nonsense, Billy," Princess Jill said with a sweet smile, but this time it held a bit of an edge to it. "You're mine. I won't let anyone else have you," she purred, running her fingers through his hair.

"I said no," he protested. "Also, I want a haircut."

"I'm the only one that gets to say no, Billy. I am the main character now. I'm taking over this fic. You are not the main character any more. You can be the love interest, or the ugly, stupid villain who constantly gets defeated by me."

Billy considered. "I have a question."

"Yes, Billy?"

"Do the villains get pie?"

"No, Billy. They do not get pie, or chocolate, or anything good to eat. They are stupid and ugly and only get the bitter, terrible taste of defeat." Billy considered again, and after a moment, she sighed and asked, "What are you thinking of?"

"I don't think defeat would taste THAT bad," Billy said. "Put a bag of sugar on it and it should be fine."

"Oh, for crying out-It's a figure of speech, Billy! This show is mine now! No longer will it be called the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy! It will be the Adventures of Princess Mariah-"

"Jill."

"-Mariah Callista Amethyst Star Hope Faith Charity Sakura Eowyn of the world, the third! And there isn't anything you or anyone else can do to stop me!"

Suddenly, a giant robot broke into the room, crushing her under its foot. "I AM A ROBOT. I AM PROGRAMMED TO OBEY AND DESTROY," it declared cheerfully. "HOW DID I DO, MASTER MANDY?"

"That'll do, robot. That'll do." Mandy peered down at Billy, and then turned away in abject disgust. "By Tartakovsky's camera cuts, it's another thing I can't unsee. What the heck happened to you, Billy?"

"She made me pretty," Billy said with a tearful gaze.

"...I can see that. Well, we'll have to fix it."

"I don't think we can," he said, pointing to the robot's foot. "You sort of squished what was causing it."

"Then we'll have to find another one. But we'll have to be careful. Mary Sues are a tricky business. Get up here," she said, and the robot picked him up. "No. He sits on the other shoulder."

"A Mary Sue?" Billy echoed. "Her name was Jill."

"They're perfect characters, or so they think. In reality, they're perfectly obnoxious," Mandy told him. "They're the product of the sick, demented mind of a fangirl who decides she wants to marry a fictional character. In this case," she looked over at Billy, who had somehow managed to start drooling with his small mouth, "they must have been really desperate."

"I'M OBNOXIOUS!" he crowed, then sighed. "It's just not the same when you're tall. Where are we going to find another Mary Sue, Mandy?"

"Don't worry. We're going to go to the largest concentration of Mary Sues in the world. One of them is bound to be dumb enough to help us."

"Where's that, Mandy?"

"Fanfiction dot net."

The robot cheerfully tromped its way through cyberspace, coming to the ground that was known in some places as the Pit of Voles. Indeed, there were many voles lurking about, chattering at each other in loud, squeaky voices about how THEIR story was the best and it was everyone ELSE that didn't know what they were doing and how come no one gave them nice reviews? "I don't know about this," Billy said nervously as several of the voles began to look at him with hungry gazes. "I somehow get the impression this is a very bad place for me to be."

"Just keep your wits about you. If one of them tries to attack, do something disgusting," Mandy told him.

"Like what?"

"Just be yourself, really. Maybe it'll be better if you travel with your finger in your nose," she mused.

"Okay!" Billy agreed, then yelped as his long finger went up his tiny nose. "I think I poked my brain! Ooooo," he said as he did it again. "It's all squishy!"

"Don't do that," Mandy told him. "You might poke something important. Like your breathing."

"Don't worry, I won't do anthijflsjfujsoijfksnlnhvihxov purple blargh oxen pineapple poker playing cheesesteak basketball baka baka kawaii kawaii Oh, Nelson, don't hit me there!"

Mandy looked over at him, wide-eyed. "Don't do that again."

"Sorry."

The robot trampled through the various sections of the website, looking for a Mary Sue that would meet their qualifications: having the ability to turn Billy back to normal and being dumb enough to actually do it. "What about there?" he asked, pointing to the Twilight section.

"We already spoofed Twilight in the last chapter. Besides, I doubt the Mary Sues there have the ability to do anything other than be whiny and obnoxious. What's over there?"

"Um...Looks like Yu-Gi-Oh. What about there?"

"What are they going to do? Paper cut us to death?" Mandy rolled her eyes. "What's over there?"

"The Beatles. They write fanfiction for a bunch of old British guys?" Billy echoed.

Mandy looked in horror at a few of the Mary Sues hidden away behind fake "PG-13" signs. "That's just wrong."

"Let's move on," Billy agreed, directing the robot to a new section. "Yu Yu Hakusho? What's that?"

"I don't know. Maybe it has promise," Mandy said, peering in.

Inside, they could see a large arena where two Mary Sues were duking it out, one blonde and pretty, one dark and gothic. "Yuusuke and Kurama are mine!" the blonde, Perpetua Chrysanthemum Bladeronde, screamed as she fired off energy blasts at the other girl. "Go sleep with Hiei!"

"Hiei's busy beating Kuwabara!" the gothic Raven Nevermore le Lestat shouted back, deflecting the blasts with black shields of her own. "Foolish she-dog, the hotties shall be mine!"

Billy and Mandy blinked, then looked at each other. "On second thought, let's not go to Yu Yu Hakusho," Billy said. "Tis a silly place."

"Well, what else is there?" Billy asked, looking around. "Ronin Warriors? What's that about?"

"Oh, I liked that one," Mandy commented, looking inside.

"Really? Why's that?" Billy asked.

"It's a show about a lot of prissy prettyboys getting the living daylights beat out of them," Mandy replied. "It was right up my alley. Saint Seiya is good, too."

"The eighties had issues," Billy said with a shake of his head. "Oh, look, it's Sailor Moon. Maybe they can help us. Hey, ladies!" Billy called out, waving to them. "Can you help us out?"

A short while later, they left the Sailor Moon section, and Billy was now a girl. "That wasn't what I had in mind," he said with a sulk.

"Well, really, what did you expect from the show that gave us incestual cousins in the dub?" Mandy pointed out. "Let's get away from anime. What have we got over this way?"

"Star Trek. Do you think it's safe here?" Billy asked.

Mandy frowned, then shook her head. "Their sues are old and dangerous. They've been around longer than most of these other sues. I doubt we can slip anything around them."

"Well, what about Star Wars? It's right next door."

"The Force doesn't really count as magical powers, Billy."

"It totally is! It's the power of the MIND!" Billy declared, waving a hand in front of Mandy.

She resisted the urge to smack him, then decided that was silly, and smacked him. "What's that huge section over there? It looks promising."

"Harry Potter," Billy said, squinting at the sign. "Oh, I remember him. He had the Chamberpot of Secrets!"

"Not quite, but close enough. This might be worth our while. Onward, robot," Mandy instructed, pointing ahead.

"But what if one of them tries to stop us? We're not in Cartoon Network anymore, Mandy."

"Don't worry. If anyone asks, say you're from a crossover." Mandy looked down at a sign in front of a Sue, reading the summary. "Tia, daughter of Voldemort..." She looked up and glared at the fourth wall. ...hey, that's not me!

"I don't think she looks very trustworthy," Billy said to Mandy.

"Yeah, let's skip over that one. Next?"

They passed through Angelas and Daisies, Rubys and Crystals, Ais, Sakuras and an Orenjii, and even a Robert and a Tifa Lockhart, but none of them seemed to fulfill their expectations. "This is a huge section," Billy said, crossing his arms over his ample assets. "How are we ever going to find the one that will work?"

"Holy..." Mandy pointed ahead of them. "I think we have a winner."

Ahead of them was a woman. She actually looked the same as every other sue in the section; blonde and perfectly proportioned, but this one was carrying a sixteen foot sword which didn't seem to actually follow the rules of reality in that it was magically not dragging in the ground. She was standing near a dragon who was gazing upon her lovingly and casting lots of powerful and forbidden magic without a wand simply to show that she could. Her name, according to the badly spelled story summary, was Lady Sarena Karasu Diamond Hope Tiger Lily Greenleaf-Nailo. "Are you sure about this?" Billy asked quietly. "She looks a little over the top."

"That's sort of the idea, Billy." Mandy steered the robot into Sarena's section of the internet, parking it nearby. "Hey, Sarena Karasu Diamond Hope Tiger Lily Greenleaf-Nailo. We come to worship and call upon your unimaginable skills."

"Well, all right," she agreed, "But only if you call me Lady Sarena Karasu Diamond Hope Tiger Lily Greenleaf-Nailo. It's a title passed down through generations of English nobility-"

"Sure, Lady Sarena. Look, we need-"

"Lady Sarena Karasu Diamond Hope Tiger Lily Greenleaf-Nailo," she corrected firmly. "Yes, you have to say the whole thing every time."

Mandy restrained a sigh, and wondered if this was another cheap plot to up the wordcount. "Lady Sarena Karasu Diamond Hope Tiger Lily Greenleaf-Nailo. Will you listen to our plea now?"

"Speak, and I shall grant your wish," she said with a wave of his arm.

"We need Billy changed back to normal," Mandy said, holding up a picture of Billy in all his large-nosed, short-legged, beady-eyed, American animated glory.

"Now why would I do that?" Sarena asked, looking at the picture. "He's hideous."

"No, wait! I wanna be an assicorn again!" Billy protested, doodling a rough sketch of a donkey with a trumpet on its head and holding it out. "It's awesome."

"That's even worse," Sarena said, making a face. "Why would I do that?"

"It's a challenge," Mandy told her. "We don't think any of the other Sues-er, ladies, can pull it off. You're our only hope," she said, then added silently, At least until we go to the next page.

"Hm. Well, I suppose I could do it if you tell that Tia girl about it. You know, that one daughter of Voldie's," she said, adjusting her ample bodice. "Show her how much better I am than her."

"You have my word, Lady Sarena Karasu Diamond Hope Tiger Lily Greenleaf-Nailo."

Sarena rolled up her sleeves, then held out a hand. "Regille! My sword."

The dragon stopped making adoring eyes at her long enough to hand her the oversized sword, and she pointed it at Billy. With a BAMF, Billy turned into a plate of flying yams. "Huh," Sarena said. "That's interesting."

"Wanna try again?" Mandy gave her a look.

"Assicorn," Sarena repeated to herself, and Billy turned into a picture frame with no picture inside. "Assicorn," she repeated with a frown, waving the sword again, and now Billy was a lamp with dangling beaded extensions. Sarena glared, shaking the sword furiously. "Assicorn! Assicorn! Assicorn!" In rapid succession, Billy became a shot of espresso, a flag of Dixie, a cell phone, a hand grenade with no pin, an incense diffuser, cheez-its and diet coke, Dayquil, an alarm clock, a bolt of lightning, a hole punch, a TV remote, a dreamcatcher, a telephone booth that had some guy run out in a panic, a spade, a pillow, a stapler, a bowl of macaroni and cheese, and the list kept going. "You know, maybe we should stop," Mandy said as Billy became a plate of tater tots.

"No, no, I'll have it in a moment," Sarena said. "I can do anything. Watch." She pointed, and Billy next became a ceiling fan, then a futon, a pair of pajamas, a pack of post-it notes, an empty pizza box which complained in Billy's voice, "I'm dizzy!" a large uncut diamond, a broken X-box controller, an envelope, a rather surreal version of Celine Dion who attempted to flee to Canada, a panda with a stick of bamboo that mumbled something about Atlanta, a pen, a peach (another one?), a robotic version of Jesus with a sword, an ice cube that quickly began to melt, an onion, the entire city of Glasgow, Scotland who stood up and cheered, and a skyscraper which crushed several other Sues in the nearby vicinity.

"No, seriously," Mandy said, watching as Billy ended up as a plate of buttermilk pancakes with a side of bacon. "We'll try someone else."

"It was getting annoying anyway," Sarena declared, tossing her sword over her shoulder. As it bonked Billy in his bacon, there was a yelp of "Ouch!" and then Billy was an assicorn, hooves clutching at his stomach.

Mandy sighed. "Rule of Funny. I should have known."

"Yaaaay, I'm an assicorn again!" Billy declared, prancing around. Then he paused. "Wait. I guess that's not really what we were aiming for, was it?"

"It's good enough for the moment. Let's get out of here and find the others," Mandy stated. "Oh, and robot?"

"YES, MY LITTLE SNUGGLEKINS?"

"Can the snugglekins. See that section over there?" She pointed to the one that read 'The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy'.

"I SEE IT, MY LITTLE SNUGGLEKINS."

"Nuke it. Then let's go."

"I HEAR AND OBEY."