Here they were, just walking along the corridor. Nothing to look at here, we're just two innocent civilians going for a stroll.
Goldie's hands were clasped neatly behind her back and Teddy was following a step behind, like he had learnt to do after seeing other OOC characters walking respectfully behind their Sue masters. Each time he saw a familiar face, or recognised a piece of Fiction that had been permanently torn away from their fandoms, he died a little inside.
Goldie glanced back as the wizard looked at his watch. It was gold and sparkly and had innumerable stars and moons floating around the face and she would have normally pinched it in a flash, even though she had no idea how to read the time off it.
Now she looked at it once and turned away, for the first time in her life suppressing her kleptomaniac urges. She told herself that it was probably a knock-off, and Teddy had already lost most of the value of the item by wearing it while working, meaning that the face and the band were cloudy and chipped.
"Where's Jack Bauer when you need him?" Goldie breathed. Teddy was frowning over his watch. It couldn't talk, unlike most wizarding things, but via the messages that popped up on the screen like ads for Viagra, it proceeded to tell him exactly how dead they both were.
Imminent annihilation: 24 hours.
Baby, you're screwed good.
"Damn thing." He growled, pulling it off his wrist and stuffing it in his pocket. Maybe it was her imagination, but Goldie was certain that it screamed.
"Are you sure about this?" She asked Teddy. "The time wasted in there with the True Sue could be time spent looking for the weapon and this Winchester dude."
"Maybe, but you aren't the field agent." He replied. "I might pick up on some things that you miss, and we could discover what is happening with the Mary Sues."
"You don't trust me?" Goldie frowned. "I saved your pasty English butt plenty enough, didn't I?" Not long ago she would have jumped up and down with glee for being called untrustworthy, but ever since she had been drafted to this secret mission for the Society, she suddenly cared whet people thought of her. It was strange.
She had to remind herself that it was only yesterday morning she had been a petty criminal nabbed off the street.
Teddy frowned back. "That's got nothing to do with it." He said sternly. "I'm the trained field agent and I-"
"Oh, don't give me that bullshit. If this turns into that 'my toy is bigger than your toy' macho crap, I'm totally gonna go medieval on your ass."
He scowled. "Why do you always have to be so – so –"
"Adorable?" Her smile was as sharp as a knife.
"Obdurate."
"You're obdurate." She snapped.
"Do you even know what that means?"
"It's a fancy word for 'stubborn' that stuck-up wiseasses like you use for the sole purpose of trying to win a lost argument by going 'do you even know what that means?'" She shot back, before thrusting a fist into the air. "She shoots, she scores!" Teddy sighed.
"I'm not ever going to win, am I?"
"No. Bloody. Way." Goldie said. "Besides, you stick out like a sore thumb."
"I do not!"
"You're a tall bloke with blue hair and a perchance for canines who regularly changes his appearance from one flamboyancy to the next. For the best undercover agent at the Society, so far I'm not impressed." She continued. "You're too smart to play dumb and not smart enough to shut the hell up and stand in the corner while the big kids do the work."
"So you're saying I should just let you do everything?"
"I'm saying you can just get out of my hair and let me do what you brought me here for!" Goldie rubbed at her temples. "I don't need this! Because of you people, I'm a freak. Because of you people, my life can't go back the way it used to be. My life is ruined!"
"You mean you liked being a thief?"
She spun around and grabbed hold of his shirt, hauling him down until they were nose-to-nose. She smiled dangerously. "Living on the edge, it's all it's cracked up to be. You should try it sometimes, Tinkerbell."
Teddy recognised her tone, and the way she had reverted to calling him every name under the sun but his own. He was aware of a group of Mary Sues looking at them and whispering to each other. "I've had quite enough of living on the edge, Miss Locks." He said coldly. "In fact, as soon as I have done my part in completing this mission, I am out of the Society, I am out of Fiction City. And I never want to see your face as long as I exist in the realms of impossibility."
"Then we finally agree on something." Goldie Locks agreed frostily. She released him and angrily spun forward, taking a step-
Into nowhere.
"Ahhh!"
Down, down, down. Advance, acute, extreme motion sickness. Like being in the front row of the theatre at the opening of Starwars XXXIV. Covering mouth with hand. "I'm gonna puke."
"No you're not!" Teddy retorted, alarmed.
Down, down, down. Screaming suddenly lost it's novelty. Goldie folded her arms and started to whistle.
"Don't do that."
"Why not?"
"Just – don't."
And then there was land. Goldie barely had time to shout 'look!' before her and her companion were deposited on the unforgiving ground.
"Yow!" Teddy yelped, bending his arm back the other way. Goldie had squeezed her eyes shut, and had her hands over her ears. "Think of a happy place, think of a happy place, think of a happy place…" She opened her eyes a crack. "Are we alive?"
His expression stoic, the young wizard reached over and pinched her arm.
"Ow!" She swatted his hand away. "Okay! I get it!" She looked around herself. She couldn't see anything besides a great pit, a hole in the ground. Shading her eyes, she stared up at the pinpoint of light far above them. "What the hell did we just fall into?"
Teddy wordlessly pointed at a sign that was hung neatly on the rock face.
Danger Ahead.
Beware of Plothole.
"Huh." Goldie scratched her head. "I suppose I should have expected that."
"Lumos." The wizard muttered over his wand, and the two of them watched as the tip lit up and they could suddenly see again.
"Does that thing ever run out of batteries?" She asked curiously.
"I stick it on the recharger at night." He replied sarcastically. As Teddy shone the light around, Goldie realised that they weren't actually in a pit at all, but a great cavern.
"What now?"
He shrugged, and then shone the wand around himself in a wide arc. There were several offshoots leading out of the cavern, many dripping with ooze. "Well, we can't go up, so…"
"Eenie meenie miney mo?" Goldie pointed at the largest opening. "After you."
The little typo scrambled to follow the long-legged Englishman across the rocks. Soon she was completely out of breath, but Teddy seemed rapt about their situation. His eyes were bright as he rambled on. Goldie lent on her knees to get her breath back and listened to what he was saying.
"My godfather used to tell me stories about places like these. Sudden sinkholes in the very fabric of a story. A large one can cause the writing to loose it's integrity and structure and disintegrate in on itself. It's said that time and logic ceases to exist in one." He said. "There have even been whole civilizations that have vanished into plotholes, never to be seen again."
"You are such a liar."
"I swear on my grandmother's grave, should something horrendous happen to her." He grinned at her. "Come on, Goldie, this is fun."
"Fun, he says. When you've finished geeking out, care to share how we get back out of this plothole?" She asked. "I mean, when all these civilisations that have been lost over the years have never been seen or heard from again, how do we get back?"
His smile didn't falter. "Therein lies the problem."
"I hate you so much right now. I don't want to spend the last years of my life with a hyperactive wizard in a hole in the ground where no one will ever know what became of me,"
"Oh woe,"
"Believe me, no fun." Goldie said. "My mum was an elf, so I'm gonna have about five hundred more years on you."
"I wouldn't be so sure. Modern wizards have been known to live into the hundreds."
"Oh, fantastic." She said brightly. "So I can grow old with a man I'm pretty sure is an idiot. It'll be just like if we were married." She could tell by his look that he wasn't amused.
"Look," He began. "Just because you-"
Someone cleared their throat behind them in the darkness. A neat, little heh hem to get their attention. "Wand, wand, wand." Goldie said under her breath, and after a moment Teddy realised what she was on about and raised his weapon toward the source of the noise. There was a cloaked person standing there, it's arms folded, waiting patiently for Goldie Locks and Teddy Lupin to finish their game.
The person looked the two of them over, and what he saw didn't impress him that much. "Hi?" Goldie gave a little wave, knowing full well that their cover had probably been blown to smithereens.
The figure cocked his head to the side.
"Come with me if you want to live."
A good hour down the gurgler. The hands on Teddy's watch had not moved an inch, proving his theory about time being meaningless in the void of a plothole.
"Are we there yet?"
"We are not."
Goldie swore she could hear chanting.
When the Mysterious Robed Figure had appeared, it had been intimidating and a trifle exciting. Now it was just getting boring. And tiring. Despite Goldie's metamorphosis into a Mary Sue, her legs were still short, therefore she had to take three steps to every one of the Mysterious Robed Figure and Teddy the Beanstalk. That drove to make her a grouchy little Error.
"Look, buddy, could you at least tell us where you're taking us?"
"Somewhere where they will never find us." The Mysterious Robed Figure said. "A place cloaked in mystery, and shrouded in secrecy."
"That must be hard to find when you're drunk."
"It has been surrounded by riddles and myth for centuries, a place lost to the world and found again in time for the rising against the True Sue. We are going to the Lost City."
Teddy gasped. "Not the Lost City?"
"Be kind to the newbie. What's the lost city?" Goldie asked. "You'd have to be pretty careless to lose a whole city, I reckon."
"Do you remember how I was telling you about how there were whole civilisations that got swallowed up by Plotholes?" Teddy said. "Well, the Lost City was the first. No one ever found out what happened to it. One day it just didn't exist anymore."
"Hence, lost." Goldie said.
"We were punished for our stupidity." The Mysterious Robed Figure said. "Our city simply could not handle that much contradiction and irrational perfection, so therefore we were sent hurtling to our doom down the pit and given an eternity to realise our mistakes so that we may help others to rise against the tyranny and take back their normality."
And Goldie realised. "This Lost City? You're all Mary Sues, weren't you? You're rebelling against the True Sue."
"Once a Mary Sue was just another character." He said. "A necessary evil. Once there were no Mary Sues, just really annoying characters that were otherwise therefore needed to advance the plot. But now, here they are, corrupting plot, twisting characters, violating the very heart and soul of Fiction. The Sue occupation must end." The Mysterious Robed Figure pushed his hood back over his head.
He was a she.
"Livida?" Goldie gasped, looking up at the Mary Sue.
Livida looked at them both plainly. She lookked Goldie and Teddy up and down.
"I know what you are." Livida said. "Or rather, what you are not. We need you, both of you. The True Sue attacks tonight, and she must be stopped. The tyranny of Sue ends, and her army must be destroyed."
"You do realise you're talking about killing your own people?" There was mild horror in Teddy's voice.
"They are not my people." Livida flared at once. "My people belong to a little fandom out west, one so small that neither of you have probably heard of it. I want to go back there, Teddy Lupin. I want to sink back into obscurity. I want to do things the hard way. I want a challenge of practising over and over again before I get something right, and I want to feel that satisfaction. I want to meet the right guy who likes the me inside instead of being dazzled by my… assets."
"Livida, you know there's no way to revert a Sueification back to an original state, right?" Goldie asked guardedly.
"There is a way." The woman said, but did not embellish further. A tiny bubble of hope surfaced in Goldie's chest.
Teddy was puzzled. "I don't understand." He said.
"Wouldn't be the first time." Goldie muttered.
"-If you are the… Resistance, why haven't anyone at the Society heard of you? We could have joined forces, and attacked together."
"If Goldie Locks had not been converted, would you have ever trusted a Mary Sue?"
He looked uncomfortable and glanced down at the ground. "No, I suppose not." He confessed.
"He's got a point, though." Goldie spoke up. "How come we haven't even heard rumours? I mean, you lot get tourists and things going through the Fan Domain every summer."
Livida met her eyes squarely. "You would have never believed us." She said.
"Livida, do you know anything about a weapon the True Sue is developing?" Goldie asked. "A weapon that could be dangerous to the whole of Fiction?"
The Anti-Mary Sue shook her head helplessly. "I have heard of it, but you probably know more than me." She confessed. "The True Sue holds her power by keeping all of her subjects carefully under control by not letting them know more than they need to." There was more than a little bitterness in her voice.
"What do you actually do? Being a resistance and everything."
Livida shrugged. "About what you'd expect. We try to save a few Cannon characters from OOC before smuggling them away. We sabotage Sueifications and recruit those people into the League." She replied. "He advised the War Council that drawing attention to ourselves by doing much more would probably be a bad idea until we have finalised our plans of attack."
"Who's he?" Teddy asked curiously.
"One we rescued from the OOC." Livida said proudly. "He set aside his hate for all things Mary Sue to help us in our struggle against the Ultimate Evil, and is now one of the most influential people on the War Council."
"Sounds like a neat bloke. Who is he?"
"A man called Dean Winchester."
"Welcome to the Lost City of Atlantias."
"Atlantis?"
"Atlantias. With an 'A'."
The door was labelled WC.
"We've come the back way, of course."
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
"They're waiting for you." Livida said. "They've been waiting for this for a long time."
Goldie glanced at Teddy. "Follow the yellow brick road."