Chapter 2: KANON Institution and the Suethor's Pen

There are many worlds.

Some worlds are vastly different, as different as Luke Skywalker's world is from Harry Potter's. But many worlds are almost the same, except for the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) differences that have changed the course of that world's history, called by some parallel universes. Sometimes these parallel worlds overlap and things that should never have been allowed to escape their hemispheres find themselves suddenly in someone else's world, generally unasked for and unwanted. It has long been known that Mary Sues have a particular talent, perhaps their only talent, for this type of disruptive world-jumping by which they can escape their own Sue-worlds and invade the canon realms.

Of course, all worlds, parallel or otherwise, are connected in some way or another, rather like spokes on a wheel. If one knows the tricks and has the proper equipment, any world, and any parallel of that world, is open to them.

No one knows for sure who first discovered the Hub and the pathways between the worlds; despite the beliefs of many, it was not the founders of KI, for KI was founded in order to protect the worlds from the Sues who at that point already had discovered the way to escape their own deplorable lands and infest everyone else's.

The KANON Institution (Keepers of the Anti-sue National Otherworld Network) was built in this "Hub" of all the worlds, from whence the KANON agents, known generally as Sue-Slayers, could keep a watch on all the worlds and act immediately if they were jeopardized by the invasion of a Sue.

~o~o~o~

Hawk and Porter arrived back at KI at 6:27mw Hub-time. For as far as the eye could see, an endless plain of green grass stretched out to the north, south, and east, but directly to the west of the two Sue-Slayers, the grassland sloped upward into a single gigantic hill, on the very top of which was built KANON Institution.

For all practical purposes, KI was its own little town, rather like a large college campus. A black fence, similar in style to that which one might readily find in any British city, ran all the way around the hill top, enclosing the numerous buildings which included the University where new Sue-Slayers were trained and classes on Anti-Sue Education were taught, the dozens of departmental buildings where trained members kept tabs on the worlds, the warehouses where Sue-Slaying equipment was stored, and the laboratories where new and better equipment was developed, built, and tested. On the outskirts was the prison where any Sues who surrendered where kept, but for the most part the prison tended to be unused. Like Morweniel, most Sues did not have the sense to realize that they stood no chance against the armed agents of KI.

Hawk and Porter were greeted at the gate by the security guards. They passed on up the hill toward the very peak where the KI headquarters was located, a tall, square tower with over thirty stories. The Sue-Slayers walked up the elegant white marble steps to the automated front door which slid open before them as they entered.

Inside, they found themselves in a clean white hallway with florescent lights in the ceiling and doors opening off into various other rooms and hallways at regular intervals. On the walls were a variety of portraits, plaques, posters and announcements. To the right of the entryway hung a line of portraits and diplomas, listing all the KI presidents. The newest one, a tall, thin man with curly dark hair and the name Lance Morgan written underneath, hung at the top left-hand corner.

Porter stopped at the announcement board to read a notice about a Tolkien Department meeting in two days while Hawk started walking slowly down the hall, giving cursory glances at the various framed posters – a large blue one with a picture of a Sue surrounded by a red circle with a line through it and the words "Keeping worlds KANON since 238 BC"; a green one with a picture of a young girl writing at a desk while two smiling KI professors holding books stood on either side of her with the words "Don't become a Suethor – Learn the KANON way" along with information about the KI education programs; and a white and blue one with the KI crest on it: a shield with a crossed pen and Sue-Slayer crossbow and the words In Honore Auctoris in a waving banner above it.

She turned around as Porter caught up with her. "Another meeting?"

"Yeah, just a quick update before the Character Briefing it looks like."

They passed one of the HQ classrooms where Hawk could hear the drone of the teacher's voice: "As far as we know, Sues have existed for as long as we have written records. On the screen, you can see an example of a Greek vase dating from 656 BC that depicts the story of a woman who falls in love with Hercules, does almost all his labors for him, and dresses in a very skimpy lion skin…"

A young woman with blonde hair in a ponytail emerged from another room carrying a stack of papers and nearly bumped into Porter. "Oh excuse me, oh, hello Porter, and you too, Hawk," she said, steadying her wobbling pile of papers and smiling at both of them. "Did you just get back from Middle-earth?"

"Hello, Veronica, yes, just a few minutes ago," Porter answered cheerily. "We haven't logged in yet."

"Well, come in," the secretary Veronica said, leaning back slightly to balance all the papers against her chest and hooking her chin over the top of them to keep them in place. "I just copied all the reports from Middle-earth for this week and was going to fax them over to the Tolkien Department. I'll send the list up to you guys' office if you'd like."

"Yes, that'll be fine," Hawk replied. They had entered the secretary office, the last room in the hall, and Veronica plopped the substantial pile onto her desk. Hawk leaned over and wrote her own name and Porter's in a neat print on a sheet and beside it wrote the number 44.

Veronica dropped into her seat and looked at the sheet, then shook her head. "Forty-four? That's a lot of Sues for one day."

Hawk raised an eyebrow. "You're telling me?"

Veronica pursed her lips in a small frown as she set the paper back down, then she looked back up. "Is it just me, or have the numbers been going up over the last few weeks?" She indicated the stack next to her. "That's one hundred and nineteen for this week alone, plus those forty-four. And that's just in the Tolkien department."

Porter gave Hawk a friendly pat on the shoulder. "We get our job done, don't we, Hawk?" he said, giving his colleague his lopsided grin.

Veronica watched as Porter dropped his hand from Hawk's shoulder, her slight frown deepening, then she swiveled around in her chair and picked up a note. "Oh, before you go," she said as the two turned toward the door, "Lance phoned down earlier to see if you were back yet. He said he'd like to see both of you in his office at 7:30 if you were back."

Porter pulled a mock doleful face as he looked at Hawk. "Oh dear, what do you suppose we've done wrong to earn a visit to the boss? Maybe we didn't save Legolas quite enough times today."

Hawk ignored him and glanced at her wrist, where in the Hub, the Sue-compass acted as a regular Hub-clock, as well. "Good, that should give us time to change, eat, and get our report for the day sent in." She glanced back up. "See you later, Veronica."

Veronica gave her a small smile and a small wave to Porter as they exited and made their way back down the hall.

~o~o~o~

Hawk changed her Middle-earth attire for a more modern set of clothes, exchanging her green tunic and leggings for black slacks and a blue and white polo shirt with the KI initials once again on the shoulder. She let down her hair and quickly brushed it – it had accumulated various sticks and leaves from Mirkwood – then whipped it back up into its regular bun. After swinging by the cafeteria and grabbing a salad and a glass of iced tea, she dropped off the daily report form for the Tolkien Department and headed back to the Marble Tower or just "the Tower" as most of the KI agents called it.

On the ground floor, she met up with Porter, who had also changed into a casual KI T-shirt with a cartoony graphic of a Sue-Slayer pointing a cannon at a Sue who was attacking a blonde elf: the winning design of the previous year for the annual Tolkien Department contest. He was munching on a cheeseburger and a large box of fries and humming something that seemed to be a mashed-up combination of "Ah Elbereth Gilthoniel" and "Danny Boy", as if he couldn't decide which he actually wanted to hum. Or maybe it was just the fact that his mouth was full of cheeseburger and fries.

Hawk plucked several fries from his box and popped them into her mouth. "You ready to head upstairs?"

Porter mumbled something and withdrew his box from her grasp, clutching it protectively against his chest. "Hands off," he pouted when his mouth was empty. "It was your choice to get your box of rabbit-food. All day I've been fighting my way through Mirkwood and tramping across the Shire and I'm not even going to tell you what that four-hour horse chase after the Éomer!Sue did to my rear end. I'm a hungry man, and I need my fries."

Hawk gave him an overly friendly shove to the shoulder that caused him to stagger side-ways. "And I did all those things plus riding an eagle after that Sue who could turn into a dragon. I think you could spare me one of your precious fries or two."

Porter grinned and held up a fry, twisting it into a circular shape with his thumb and forefinger. "My preciousss," he said before he ate it and they both dissolved in laughter.

It was still twenty minutes until they needed to be at Lance's office. They took the stairs up to the fourth floor, another long white hallway, but this one had large panels on the walls instead of posters and plaques. There was a glass door to their immediate right which they entered.

The huge room inside looked like a news reporter studio or a security guard room. The opposite wall was filled with hundreds of TV screens: a few of them were black, some of them were showing live feeds of forests, strange landscapes, or exotic buildings, but most displayed huge glowing maps, all of which had white blinking lights beneath them. In the upper right corner was the large map of Third Age Middle-earth, the crisp white outlines of the familiar forests, mountains, and countries radiating white.

A long black table with all sorts of technological equipment ran the length of the wall under the TV screens, and there were perhaps two dozen men and women in dark blue uniforms with the KI security patch on each shoulder monitoring the screens, some with headphones, some tapping information into flat screen computers, others chatting as they watched the maps. Others bustled in and out of backrooms, bringing out different pieces of equipment or taking them away.

"Hey! Hawk, Porter! How's Middle-earth? Or should I say 'How doth ye, puissant adventurers from the far, elf-infested lands of old?' My govannen!"

They turned to see a handsome, young man with shaggy dark red hair lounging in his swivel chair at the end of the table, his feet propped on an unoccupied neighboring seat and a pair of headphones draped around his neck. He was sipping a Coke and grinning mischievously at them while keeping one eye on his monitor screen where several windows were popped up and overlapping: maps like those on the large TV screens and various documents.

"It's mae govannen," Hawk said with her small, curt smile. "And you do realize that nobody there actually talks like that? You're a disgrace to your ancestry, you know that, right?"

He dismissed her comments with a wave of his hand. "My ancestry? Riiight. Because the Noldor set such high standards with killing each other and starting wars." He took another sip from his Coke and nodded to Porter. "Hey man, how's it going? How many Sues you take down today?"

"Hey Finn." Porter nodded to him. "The count was forty-four today, I think." He looked at Hawk for confirmation. "We're counting that Elladan!Sue that we drove back into her world, right?"

"I wasn't counting that one," Hawk said, pursing her lips. "She'll be back, you can count on that. But you're probably forgetting that Shapeshifter!Anthropomorphic!Shadowfax!Sue that I took out this morning."

Porter made a face. "Oh yeah." He scowled. "There's probably a reason I forgot that, Hawk. Thanks a lot for reminding me."

Finn grinned at their antics then grew more serious. He gave a low whistle and shook his head. "Forty-four's a lot, but things have been crazy in here today, man." He indicated his computer screen. "I'm still working on some of the Sue-files from this morning, there's been so many. We've been having red alerts, yellow alerts, you name it, all day long. We even had a couple agents that we lost contact with for hours in Hogwarts trying to take out an OOC!Evil!Hermione!Sue! that was trying to kidnap Draco." He rubbed his brow and sifted his fingers through his hair, revealing the pointed tips of his ears briefly. "You guys run into any trouble today?"

Hawk and Porter exchanged a look, then Porter shrugged. "I mean, we've been busy all week, but we've been taking them out easily enough. Except for that one that escaped back into her parallel world. And there was one yesterday that took five shots of the logic quarrels before she let go of Legolas…"

Finn shook his head. "Well, of course, you two are some of the best agents we've got on the field. But there have been all sorts of problems reported, especially from newbies. You know, Sues that just vanish or ones that have gotten away, and a lot of agents have been reporting Sues that have been crazy difficult to take down, I mean, even with the liquid logic. You know, we almost had a casualty this morning. It was a close thing, man."

He popped up a window on his monitor that showed an extremely pale woman who was somehow incongruously gorgeously beautiful and revolting at the same time. "We had a Crossover fiasco about nine-thirty this morning. Bella Swan got into Panem somehow and was trying to turn Finnick Odair into a vampire. We had no notice, like a couple minutes, and our guys barely got there in time. And then apparently she freaking wouldn't die, man. Like, they shot her full of bolts and she just run off. And she nearly took out Fred Jackson in the process." He shook his head again. "Seriously, you'd think the Sues who have got their own freaking canon Sue-worlds could do us a favor and stay there. It has been a crazy day. Heck, it's been a crazy week."

Hawk frowned. "I wonder if they're up to something or if it's just a regular flux." She looked at Porter thoughtfully. "I wonder if Lance will have any information about it."

Porter was frowning slightly too, glancing between Hawk and Finn. "Yeah, it sounds bad."

Finn shrugged. "Well, Middle-earth has always been crazy – that's why we've got you stationed there – but-"

Whatever the elf was about to say, it was cut off by a high-pitched beeping that sent the room into a flurry of activity. The light underneath one of the maps began blinking a furious red. Another red light appeared on the map itself, pulsing dangerously and slowly moving. Finn whirled his chair back around to his computer, pulling down a microphone and pulling his headphones up over his ears. He spoke into the mic as he tapped at the keyboard so rapidly that his fingers were a blur, and Hawk and Porter could hear his voice blaring through the hall outside. "Red alert. Repeat. We have a red alert in Alagaesia. We have a Sue heading to intercept Eragon and Murtagh at Gil'ead. Red alert. You have ten minutes at the most. Agents assigned to Alagaesia need to report immediately at Gil'ead."

He flipped off the mic and lifted the headphones briefly from his ears, giving Hawk and Porter a mournful look. "They just don't give us a break, do they? Hey sorry, but I gotta take care of this."

Porter gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder. "No worries, Finn. We should be heading up to the office anyway."

They slipped out of the security room, the high-pitched beeping still ringing in their ears. At the end of the hall by the elevator, they glanced out the tall glass panels that made up the wall and saw the activity and flashing lights in the Minor Fantasy Department to the left of the Tolkien Department at the bottom of the hill from the Tower. Hawk watched several agents in the courtyard disappear with a ripple as they pressed their medallions.

Porter nudged her arm. "It's five till. Let's see what Lance wants from us."

~o~o~o~

They rode the elevator up to the top floor. Here the floor was carpeted in dark blue and there were only two doors: Lance's secretary to the right and the president's own office to the left. Hawk knocked on the door to the left.

"Come in," came the elegant voice tinted with the slightest Welsh accent.

The Sue-Slayers entered the office: a tasteful apartment that showed signs of Italian Baroque influence in the intricate, weaving design of the floorboards and window sills, and in the swirling pattern of the azure blue wallpaper. Glass shelves were placed artistically throughout the room, some bearing books, others displaying stranger objects: a huge, blood-red talon, an extremely advanced laser blaster, a silk magenta scarf, a silver branch with a single golden apple hanging from the end. In one corner, a suit of 12th century English armor, complete with an impressive broadsword, guarded the room.

The president was sitting at his mahogany desk with several documents spread out in front of him, but he stood up and came around to greet them. "Hello, Hawk, Porter. Please sit down. I need to discuss something with the both of you."

All three of them sat. Lance stared out the wide window that made up most of one wall of his office for several seconds as if gathering his thoughts, his grey eyes flickering out over the tops of the buildings and out toward the green flatlands of the Hub. Hawk and Porter waited patiently. Lancelot Morgan, though he had been named after his most famous ancestor, shared neither the renowned Arthurian knight's rash disposition nor his weakness for Sues.

Finally, he glanced down at the papers in front of him, frowning slightly, and shifted a few of the documents aside to reveal a handwritten letter. He met the inquiring gaze of his two agents. "How was the field today? Busy?"

Hawk nodded slowly. "We took out Forty-four, and we had one escape. We've had a busy week. But we've heard we haven't been getting the worst of it?" She ended the sentence with an inflection that indicated her curiosity with the situation.

Lance nodded. "You've heard correctly. I feared the situation might get rocky, and this is only the beginning. The Sues are attacking us and the worlds we protect in force, and I fear they will continue banding together, as much as Sues are capable of such a thing, until we make our move."

"This isn't one of the normal fluxes then, like, when they make a new movie back on Earth?" Porter asked.

"No," Lance said, shaking his head. "That is simply the way of life – the waxing and waning of Suethors is only to be expected since they are creatures bound to popular culture which itself waxes and wanes astoundingly as the years pass. No, this is something much deeper, much darker, and something much more dangerous."

He ran his fingers over the KANON crest printed on one of the documents in front of him. "I presume you know the story of Orinthia and Eledhil."

Both Hawk and Porter nodded. The story was taught in all basic training classes and any Sue-Slayer who paid enough attention to pass the classes and graduate into the program knew the story. Hawk and Porter, being the Senior Agents for Middle-earth, knew the story even better than most.

Orinthia and Eledhil were two KI agents from long ago, exactly how long ago was difficult to determine, seeing as how Hub-time had its own unique rules that translated differently in each world. Orinthia was a human from the parallel world to Earth from which the tales of Greek mythology had come, a beauty who had demi-god blood and was a relative of Perseus. Eledhil was a Sindarin elf from First Age Middle-earth who had lived in Doriath before he had been recruited and come to the Hub. They had been assigned together and their field had been Eledhil's home turf: Middle-earth, one of the oldest of all the worlds.

Together, they had been unstoppable. Orinthia, with her own semi-divine blood, exquisite beauty, and famous relative, had an affinity with the Sues they hunted; she could predict them easier than most and therefore find the most effective ways of taking them out. Eledhil had designed the first of the now-famous KI crossbows that could penetrate the Sues' insubstantial, reason-defying bodies, and he had used his own weapon with deadly force. For the first time in KI history, the agents of KANON took the upper hand, and with the new technology and cunning that their two best Slayers provided, it seemed that the golden age of KANON Institution was just around the corner.

Eventually, Eledhil became the seventh president of KANON Institution, chosen for his level-headedness, the advances he had made in KI, and his total commitment to the extermination of Sues. During the following years, KI fought its way into more and more worlds and established its presence, becoming a name of dread to Sues and Suethors alike.

Eledhil continued his partnership with Orinthia, but unbeknownst to him or anyone else, Orinthia had become jealous. She had hoped to become president herself and believed that it was only by her own skills that Eledhil had become so successful. Because of her similarities with Sues and ability to understand their minds, the very qualities that made her so deadly and indispensable, she had always been an outsider at KI and had never been fully accepted the way Eledhil had, he being from one of the first and most honored worlds in which KI had ever had a presence. That had never sat well with Orinthia. She began distancing herself from her former partner, going alone secretly on her missions to Middle-earth when he was occupied with the duties of president, even though that was strictly forbidden. She grew dark, bitter, and angry, convincing herself that Eledhil had abandoned her, used her, and stolen her rightful position. And so she waited.

The Sues began to grow in number again, despite the efforts of KI, and Eledhil began to worry that there was something more afoot than the simple flux of Sues that always occurred every so often. His agents began bringing in troubling news. The Sues were stronger than they had been, more resistant to Eledhil's weapons, and they were breaking back into some of the worlds where KI's presence was only unsteadily established. He began sending out his best agents to get to the heart of this new occurrence, and the news they brought back was grim.

It was rumored that a weapon had been created by a Suethor, an extraordinary weapon that was strengthening the Sues and weakening the forces of KI simultaneously. It was a pen, ordinary enough to look at, but containing all the dark powers of the Suethors. With it, nearly unlimited power could be unleashed; all one had to do was write what they wished and it would be so. It defied logic and all reason and good sense. It created Sues with unimaginable powers. It could control, not only the Sues it created, but all the Sues in existence, banding them together, and it could even bend the minds of the canon characters themselves to its will. But what Eledhil didn't know was that it could even have an effect on the Sue-Slayers themselves.

Eledhil knew that if KI was to survive, this Suethor's Pen must be destroyed, or at the very least, taken from the hands of the Suethors where it could wreak such damage. This was a mission of such great importance than no one doubted who should undertake it. Eledhil and Orinthia, the greatest Sue-Slayers in KI history, set out to destroy the Suethor's Pen.

Perilous was their journey, but in the end, they found the Suethor and the Pen she wielded. With her Pen, she had written herself into a corrupted, parallel world of Middle-earth (generally called Middle Earth) that was eating away at the canon world, overrunning it with Sues, kidnapping the characters, and undermining the very existence of Middle-earth itself.

They found her living in Isinguard, the result of the tower that she had stolen from Saruman and made "improvements" upon – namely, moving it onto a sunny beach of Middle Earth, growing flowers and ivy in the windows and walls, and doing a complete inside makeover so that it looked like a mash-up of a Victorian palace and a romanticized Medieval castle. But Suethors are not Sues that can be killed with a mere dose of logic, and this living, breathing Self-Insert had grown powerful and arrogant with the rule of her Pen. Together, the Sue-Slayers battled against her and when Eledhil finally distracted her by killing her favorite pet unicorn, at last Orinthia was able to overcome the Suethor and capture her Pen.

But Orinthia would not give up the Pen.

For the Pen was Power. With it, anything was possible. And Orinthia had the innate weakness of Sues, being part one herself, for her mother had been a Sue: a daughter of a god who had fallen in love with an angst-ridden hero and had then proceeded to abandon her child when she forgot all about Perseus and decided that Theseus was instead the hottest hero around.

Orinthia claimed the Pen as her own and gave herself all the powers she had always longed for, succumbing finally to the temptation of her blood and the evil Pen. As she transformed into a full Sue before Eledhil's horrified eyes, she finally revealed to him her jealousy and anger and her last and deepest secret: that she had fallen desperately in love with him. She invited him to join her, marry her, use the power of the Pen, and together from KANON Institution, they would rule every world.

Eledhil refused, telling her that she had betrayed everything they had fought so hard for together, and begged her to give him the Pen so that it might be destroyed once and for all. But Orinthia would not listen and as she turned the power of the Pen against him to force him to do her will, he seized the Pen and leapt from the window of the Suethor's tower, straight into the sea. Eledhil's body was found the next day washed up on the shore, but the Pen was lost. Robbed of the Pen, Orinthia the Sue fled before the agents of KI could capture her, and neither she nor the Pen were ever seen again.

Such was the story of Orinthia and Eledhil as taught in the KI classes, mainly as a warning to all potential Sue-Slayers that anyone could become a Sue and to always beware their alluring and dangerous powers. Being OCs in the worlds they entered themselves, it was a temptation dangling before every KI agent to accept the powers of the Sues.

Lance nodded, having already assumed that Hawk and Porter would be familiar with the tale. "The Suethor's Pen," he said quietly. "The most dangerous weapon of our enemies. It was long lost, buried beneath the sea of Middle Earth, but the presidents of KI have never forgotten it. While it exists, the Suethors have greater power over all the worlds and the Sues they send into the realms we protect are stronger. It has been the ambition of every president to recover that Pen and finish what Eledhil was not able to do: destroying it.

"However, our enemies have not been idle either. Middle Earth, the Sue version of the world you know and love so well, is the heart of our enemies' land. As Middle-earth is one of the oldest of the canon worlds, so Middle Earth is one of the oldest of the Sue-worlds. Never have any of our agents, since Orinthia and Eledhil, managed to face the full strength of the Sues and dare to enter Middle Earth itself. You yourself are more than familiar with what occurs when Middle Earth overlaps and brushes against Middle-earth and the chaos that it wreaks. Imagine facing the Sues on their own turf, in a realm that defies everything that defines our own worlds: logic, reason, and propriety."

"Doesn't sound like a stroll through the Shire," Porter said with a grimace.

Lance gave a faint smile and a nod. "No indeed. Anyway, you can see why our agents for thousands of years have been unable to reclaim the Pen. But our greatest fear was that one day a Suethor would discover the Pen and use it against us."

Porter's usually cheerful face turned sallow. "Is that what's happening? Has the Pen been claimed by another Suethor?"

Hawk gave Porter a sharp jab in his ribs and a meaningful glare.

Lance didn't seem to mind the interruption, however. "No," he said, setting both the Sue-Slayers at ease. "No, the Pen has not be captured by the Suethors yet."

He slid open a drawer in the front of his desk and without further ceremony, he drew out an ordinary-looking, gold-colored fountain pen and laid it on the desk in front of him.

"That's not…" Porter gasped. "Is it..."

"Yes," said Lance Morgan. "This is the Suethor's Pen."

Hawk reached out slowly and picked it up. It was light, smooth between her fingers, but nothing spectacular. At least, not at first. As the warmth of her fingers heated the smooth golden surface, faint lines began to appear, running down its length. She recognized the general, inane swirls and long strokes of the lines immediately, although she saw just as quickly that they were not the real letters of any known alphabet. "Pseudo-elvish," she said, and just then, she felt a faint tremor run down her hand and arm and with it, a faint tickling at the back of her mind: the urge to set the pen against paper and write something with it. She set it down.

Porter watched as the "letters" faded. "One Pen to rule them all," he said, raising his eyebrow slightly. "Let me guess, the name of the Suethor who created it was Sauroniel."

"Actually, the name of the Suethor who created it – if it was truly created by a mere Suethor – has been lost in the passage of time, if Eledhil ever knew her name in the first place," Lance said, gently turning the Pen over with the tip of his finger. "But you are right. Suethors are not known for their creative capacities, and whoever created the Pen certainly felt no qualms about reusing as many details from the history of the Ring as possible. However, luckily for us, this particular detail may turn out to be in our favor."

He leaned back in his chair, pressing the tips of his long fingers together and gazing intently at his agents. "Eledhil sought to destroy the Pen, and that is what our task must be. Without the Pen, the Suethors will be greatly weakened. However, the Pen can only be destroyed in one manner and one place."

"Oh, oh," said Porter, "I think I've got it this time. The Suethor's fireplace?"

"Exactly," said Lance with the tiniest hint of a smile. "Or at least, that is clearly what Eledhil believed in the records that he left us."

He held up the handwritten document that he had been fingering when they first sat down. "This is a report from one of Eledhil's spies who brought him news of the Pen. It speaks of a huge fireplace on the topmost floor of Isinguard in the heart of Middle Earth and from the records of the time, it is clear that this fireplace was Eledhil's target. Knowing what we know of Suethor's inability to create realistic details of their own and the fact that Eledhil was aiming for this fireplace on his quest, I think it is safe to conclude that the Suethor's fireplace is the only way to destroy the Pen."

"Fantastic. Hearth of Doom. Got it," said Porter, earning another glare from Hawk.

"May I ask how the Pen came to be in our hands?" Hawk said after a few seconds of silence. "Have our agents been able to penetrate that deeply into Middle Earth already?"

"No," Lance replied. "It was believed that the Pen was lost in the depths of the sea of Middle Earth, but for some time, I had doubted that this was the case. Sues, of course, are capable of unbelievable feats, and I believed that if it was truly on the bottom of a Sue-ocean, that long ago a mermaid-Sue or a Sue with a pet sea serpent would have recovered it. Since this was clearly not the case, I came to the conclusion that it was no longer in Middle Earth.

"I have clandestinely been working on the project during all my years at KI, but it was only recently that I began to discover leads. You may remember five years back when that Sylvan sword with Pseudo-elvish was discovered in Narnia?"

Hawk and Porter both nodded. There had been quite a to-do over it, as it was clearly the work of a Sue though no Sue had been discovered on the premises. It had been decided that it was some leftover debris from a past Crossover LOTR/Narnia Sue invasion, the Pseudo-elvish Sue-sword was incinerated, and the incident had been filed away and forgotten.

"Well," said Lance, "I began to think: when a Sue-world overlaps with a canon world, there is obviously a passage through which Sues may enter. And if a Sue may enter, perhaps sometimes objects from her world also fall through accidently. I began to believe that this was what had happened with the Suethor's Pen."

He gave a dismissive flick of his hand. "To cut a very long story short, I was right. Mostly, in any case. It turns out that the Pen was not actually in a world; it was in one of the spokes between the worlds, which explains why it had remained out of the Suethors clutches for so long. Again, to cut the story short, we were able to recover it. As you can see."

He tapped the Pen again. "The fact that it was between the worlds instead of in any particular world also explains why the Sues and Suethors have had no particular power for the past centuries. But now that it is once again free, now that it has returned to the worlds, its power is already strengthening the Sues. In the hands of a Suethor, this Pen could spell destruction for KI… literally. And the eyes of every Suethor will be turning toward this Pen and the power over the canon worlds that it would provide them; until it is destroyed, every Sue and evil creature that our enemies can devise will try to take it from us. It must be destroyed, and as quickly as possible."

Hawk's eyes were fixed on that small, shining sliver of gold on the desk. "What do you want from us, President?"

Lance nodded in approval. "You have a Character Briefing coming up soon, don't you?"

A nod from Hawk and Porter confirmed this. Lance continued. "Middle-earth will be the first target of our enemies, I fear. It is the world closest and most closely bound already to Middle Earth. And it is from Middle-earth that we must make our strike. The characters must be warned of this danger."

He picked up the Pen briefly and a shiver ran through him. He set it down. "Also, they must be the ones to bear this Pen into Middle Earth and destroy it in the Suethor's tower."

Hawk's eyebrows drew together in a fierce frown and she leaned forward instinctively. "I don't mean to disagree with you, President, but aren't we the ones who are supposed to be protecting them? I would feel ashamed to hand them a deadly Sue-weapon and send them off into the heart of the Sues' realm. That is why we exist, because they are vulnerable and helpless before the Sues-"

"And that is why they won't be going alone," Lance interrupted her with a frown of his own. "Of course, they will be accompanied and protected. In fact, I was hoping that you two would do the job. You are the Senior Tolkien Department Agents, and quite frankly, you two are the best we have in the field at the moment.

"But no, it must be the characters, or a character rather, who carries the Pen. Think of the story of Orinthia and Eledhil. Orinthia held the Pen for only seconds before it transformed her into a Sue. Of course, she had Sue-blood, but mark my words; it will have a stronger effect on those not native to the world, those who are OCs by nature. I cannot guess how long this mission may take, but I do not think that even you could resist the temptation to use the Pen forever. The characters may be weaker to the threat of the Sues, but I think you will find their strength to resist the Pen itself is stronger than you anticipate."

He stood and walked to the window, linking his hands behind him as he stared down into the Institution courtyard where the shadows were lengthening as evening drew near. "I would choose a few, if I were you, one to bear the Pen and companions for him – or her – as well as yourselves to accompany them as protectors."

He turned and a faint smile flickered across his lean, handsome face. "It will be up to you, of course. But the number nine does seem lucky to me."

He winked at Porter. "If it works for the Suethors, why not for us?"

Hawk stood up as well, squaring her shoulders with a grim look of satisfaction. "If it rids the worlds of Sues, or weakens them beyond repair, then you can count on us, President."

Lance nodded, his smile matching hers. "I knew I could, Hawk."


A/N: The books, movies, and fandoms other than The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion referenced in this chapter include Star Wars, the Harry Potter series, Greek mythology, the Twilight series, the Hunger Games trilogy, and The Inheritance Cycle, the legends of King Arthur, and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Also, the Latin motto on the KI crest says "In the Author's Honor" or "In Honor of the Author." As always, thanks for reading! - SG