"You're taller than I expected."

"I get that a lot."

"Miss Locks, you have been brought here because of a matter of Fiction City security-"

"Do you work out? You must work out."

"-the whole of Make-Believe Land is relying on you to-"

"You mind? We're having a conversation here."

"Ah, I do what I can, but, y'know, full time job, not much time to get down to the gym. What I really need is something to sink my claws into."

"And you're thinking you're going to do that on a bunch of Mary Sues?"

"What else are they good for, really?"

"That's a little harsh, isn't it?"

"This is war, Miss Locks."

Goldie Locks didn't like the plan then, and she sure didn't like the plan any more now.

There was a sign above the door that pretty much summed up the situation perfectly.

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.

Please Observe Formal Dress Code At All Times.

"Okay, so that Mary Sue you've got locked up in the basement like a lab rat is going to escape. You've got it all engineered so she'll be certain that she got out herself and wont suspect anything. I'm with you so far. I think you're asking for it, but I'm with you. And then you're going to send your agents in to follow her back to the hive, and your undercover man is going to befriend the True Sue, whereby he or she will be able to deflect the Sue's defences and the Society will be able to kill her before she kills you."

"You hit it on the head, blondie."

"Right. And me and the magic man over there were the best people you could come up with?"

The mutant cocked his head to the side, thinking. "It sounds pretty pathetic when you put it like that." He agreed. "And if we had more time we'd go in firing on all cylinders, but you two are, regrettably, the best we can come up with at short notice."

"Whoopee." She said, as Teddy Lupin's face grew stern. He shot her a shut up look. "And another thing."

"Yes?"

"Do I really have to wear this clown suit?"

The clown suit in question was really a multi-layered concoction of a gown made of the softest and shimmeriest materials that routinely changed colour depending on how she was standing, festooned with lace and ribbon and gauze up to the point that poor Goldie could hardly walk. Somehow it even managed to cling to curves she didn't have.

And the shoes! They were so high they gave her vertigo. She'd put them on an hour ago and the stiletto heels had punched twin holes through the dressing room floor and into the ceiling of the room below.

She had slipped them off again and tiptoed quietly from the room, hoping no one would notice.

"It looks good on you."

"I feel like I should be charging by the hour." Goldie said sourly.

Wolverine laughed uproariously while Teddy stood by his shoulder, looking more gangly and awkward than usual.

Goldie held up her hand. "One more question." She asked. "How do we get in? From what I've heard of the Fan Domain, they've got all these… Discrepancy Detectors and Fiction Fracturers and these outrageous toll booths for out-of-fandom tourists. Does the Society reimburse for traffic fines?"

"Only if you keep your ticket." Wolverine said. "And we have got a plan to get you and Magic Man into the Fan Domain." The door in front of the three of them slid open with a sigh.

"Genuine People Personality?" Goldie guessed.

"There's only so much work going around for GPP engineered robots since that unstable flux in the improbability meter caused the Known Universe to wobble to the left and looped out of existence the entire Douglas Adams galaxy. Funnily enough, the anomaly left the rest of the star system untouched."

"At odds of 1,300,2564,9657,559:1, against." Teddy deadpanned.

"Good morning, Marvin."

"Morning? Good? The only good morning is one that starts in the afternoon." The android sadly shook his head as he shuffled by. "A death to all mornings, I say."

"I'm a little like that myself before coffee." Goldie commented.

"Miss Locks, these people are the ones that enable us to resist and combat the Sues. These are the people who risk their lives to bring us up-to-date information about the activities of the True Sue. I'd like you to meet the folk of the Advanced Research and Scientific Exploration unit."

Goldie blinked, glancing up at the black, white and red coat of arms stencilled onto the opposite wall, underneath the rows and rows of computer terminals. ARSE.

"Methinks you need to fire someone in your acronym department." She said shrewdly.

"This stinks."

"You think you're having a hard time? I haven't been paid overtime since the Harry Potter lore reached capacity and I was listed in Top 20 Child Stars: Where Are they Now?"

"You were on the Top 20? Did they get nasty pictures of you falling out of nightclubs with questionable substances in your nostrils followed by a quickie Vegas wedding?"

He just gave her a look.

"Put these in." A set of contact lenses, blue and sparkly.

"What are they?"

"Level Two Anti-Sue filters."

"In English?"

"Slip them into your eye and they'll protect you from most of the abomination's psychic attack."

"Normal people's English?"

"They're contact lenses that will stop your head from going ker-flooey when you look at a Mary Sue."

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?"

"The people of A.R.S.E are responsible for the gathering of all know data on the Mary Sues."

"Really? How do they do that? Don't the Sues have people monitoring everyone who enters the Fan Domain? What about the glomping and the de-characterising and the Suificating?"

"Good questions all." The voice was female and British. Very posh sounding. Goldie turned around. "It wholly depends on your popularity among the erstwhile Sues. If you happen to have the luck of being a TDC, chances are you can go under the radar."

"What's a TDC?"

"Truly Despised Character." She said. "As you may have noticed, there are a few of us around."

"No, really? And I thought that public stoning on the lawn was just for show." There was a nametag on the woman's shirt, and Goldie squinted at it.

"Talbot? Bela Talbot? Hold on, I read the papers. I keep up with the news. You're supposed to be in Hell, your soul burning for all eternity!"

"There's always a loophole, sweetie." She said. "I was written without a soul."

"Neat."

"Miss Talbot is the head of the Tactical Assistance Retrieval Team." Wolverine said. "Her and her squad go behind enemy lines almost daily to retrieve information on the True Sue's attack plans."

"Attack plans?" Goldie squeaked. "No one told me anything about an attack! How? When? Where?"

"According to information gathered," Bela Talbot said. "Approximately 48 hours from now the True Sue and her supporters will storm the gates of Fiction City. We have reason to believe that the Sue has been developing something, some sort of weapon that will give her the upper hand over the Society, but all our agents have been neutralised before reaching Ground Zero."

"And what am I supposed to do? Hold her coat?"

"You get yourself in. Get yourself close to the Sue."

"And then what? I'm an Error, not a mutant, or a magician, or an ARSE technician." Goldie said. "How do I stop a war?"

"You don't." Wolverine said. "That's where your secondary mission kicks in. Once you have gained the True Sue's trust, you and Lupin will explore the Sue's complex and locate Dean Winchester. He's been in the Sue's complex for four months now; he's bound to have seen the weapon and picked up on a few things. Once you find the weapon, sabotage it some way and get word back to the Society. We'll take it from there."

"But what if he's been de-characterised?"

Bela pressed a small device into her hand. It was maybe an inch round, and it looked like a brass button.

"What's this? Some sort of hight tech characterisation ray? A mind probe?"

"It's a novelty hand-held shock button."

"Oh."

"It will deliver an electrical spark to the area of the brain that is made dormant during the process of De-Characterisation, and should cause the 'real' Dean Winchester to wake up without any of the Mary Sues realising that he's no longer their man-whore." Bela finished. "You see that adhesive side? It will stick to your hand and assume the colour and shape of your palm. Totally invisible if you don't know it's there."

"I don't like this plan."

"Bela, tell the kids how you're gonna get them into the Fan Domain." Wolverine instructed.

There were ancient sewer structures running underneath the whole of Make-Believe Land, remnants from the olden days when Fiction City and the Fan Domain stood harmoniously side by side. The passages had been mystically sealed by a powerful witch called Willow Rosenberg many years ago when the first of the fighting began to break out.

"This is where we must leave you. Good luck."

Wait! Goldie wanted to scream out. What do I do now?

Teddy began to change as she watched, and Goldie was suddenly extremely glad that she didn't have lunch. His face elongated and grew hairy, his arms stretched to reach the ground. His yellow fangs were sharp and pointed.

"Wow." She said. "I knew you could change shape and all, but I didn't know you could do animals as well."

"Neither did I." Teddy said with some surprise. It was strange to hear Teddy's clipped, upper-middle-class British vowels coming out of the seven foot, shaggy werewolf. "I was actually trying to change into my Uncle Milton. There's probably some explanation. Probably minor Sueification." He looked at his hairy hands.

"Or it could be genetic."

"Or it could be that." He said. "Come on, Locks."

"Right behind you, Chewbacca."

They had emerged into artificial sunlight. Goldie held up a hand to shield her eyes. After she had adjusted, she stared around herself in wonder. "It's beautiful." She gasped.

"Keep it together." Teddy growled low to her. "The outside is just an illusion. We need you lucid so we can locate the weapon and this Dean Winchester."

"Do you have to ruin everything for me?" Goldie hissed back. "This morning I was just an ordinary ex-con. I haven't been as far as the River MacGuffin."

Teddy sighed.

Goldie hefted her skirts and began to make her way to the centre of the Fan Domain, Teddy in his wolf form lumbering along beside her. Everyone they passed was so beautiful, but thankfully none of them looked at the dwarf and the werewolf.

"I didn't ask before." She said. "What's a minor Suification?"

"Well, it's when abilities you never naturally had before suddenly manifest themselves. Some Mary Sue somewhere probably thought since my father is a werewolf, I would therefore possess the ability to shape shift into one myself. As I get closer to the Sues' centre of power, established rules are gradually swapped for the Fandom rules."

"Oh my God, how do you manage to stay sane?"

"It's a stretch at times." Teddy answered. "Look." He pointed with one dangerous-looking claw. "The palace of the True Sue."

Goldie looked up at the whirring contraptions and the cold steel of the building. Sharp edges reached to the sky, piercing the clouds. The palace was the only blemish on an otherwise flawless landscape. "Teddy?"

"Strange." The Englishman said. "Normally the palace is cloaked in an illusion and shielded to avoid detection-"

"Teddy!" Goldie screamed as she was grabbed from behind and hoisted off the ground. "Teddy!" She shouted out again as two big, burly, and very attractive men jumped forward, cattle prods in hand.

Teddy roared out as two separate jolts of electricity ached up his body. With his massive paws, he hit out at his attackers, but more kept coming at him, until he was driven under the weight of numbers. Within minutes, he had changed back into his true form, and was still. Too still.

"Teddy? Lupin, look at me!" Goldie demanded. But there was no reaction. The wizard was out cold.

"You know what to do with them." The voice was female and high and honeyed. "When the De-Characterisation has been completed, the She who Must Be Obeyed wishes to see them both. Tonight Fiction City will crumble under the might that is Mary Sue!"

There rose a great cheer around them, but Goldie Locks ignored it. "Oh no." She said.

They were waiting for us.

We've been betrayed.