Mission Part 2
The agents acted instinctively, grabbing onto each other in a desperate attempt to keep from being separated. Diocletian’s fingers sunk into Ilraen’s leg, someone had Suicide by the hair, and Suicide’s grip on Nume’s collar tightened to nearly a stranglehold. The world heaved underneath them, splintering into thousands of shards. Gravity vanished, existence inverted, and for a moment the PPC agents hung suspended in null space, the glittering shards of Middle-earth vanishing into the darkness.
And then, just as suddenly as it was done, it was undone again. Physics reasserted itself, dumping the agents hard onto the stone floor of the council chamber. Sunlight washed over them, and the solemn voices of the council members murmured in the background, seemingly unaffected by... whatever it was... that had just occurred.
Ilraen disentangled himself first, gently massaging circulation back into his leg as he looked around, eyes wide. “What was that?” he whispered. “I have never felt anything like that before. It was terrible!”
“I....” Diocletian stopped to remove someone’s discarded shoe from her mouth. “I think that was... dang, I’ve only ever read about them. That must’ve been what I was sensing.” She squinted her eyes painfully, trying to get a look at the Words.
Upon the hush, all eyes were on them as Frodo nodded and very slowly pulled out the Ring of Power. He had a look of surprise as he felt no reluctance to hand it to Archir, though he did to show the council. Archir touched the ring and stiffened, alarming Elrond before the boy looked ever so daring and to all amazements of the council, he slipped the ring on his finger...
“Oh, Glaurung.” Diocletian swallowed. “That’s it.”
And nothing happened.
“Complete canon break. Complete canon break.” She shifted dazedly but didn’t make an attempt to crawl out of the pile. “An istar put on the Ring... and nothing happened.”
Nume groaned and attempted to drag himself off of Suicide, only to hiss as his left wrist informed him how much of an idiot he’d been moments ago. On top of it, he’d cracked his skull against the other man’s in the tumult and had the start of what promised to be an impressive headache. He tried to roll away instead, but Suicide still had a vice-like grip on his collar. He coughed reflexively. “Let go, damn it!”
The Scythian cracked one eye open, albeit reluctantly. Nume’s forehead had fetched him a pretty nasty crack on his left eye, which was now swelling shut. He would have a lovely shiner in a few hours, which, coupled with the bruised jaw, actually put him into negative points on Elf Realism. Slowly, with an audible cracking of joints, he unclenched his fingers from the fabric. “I’m gettin’ too old for this sh*t.”
Nume succeeded in flopping onto the ground, where he stayed for a minute with his forehead pressed against the cool flagstones. “f*ck me,” he mumbled almost inaudibly. “Did he really...? Only Bombadil could get away with that. Don’t they know what that could mean?”
“They made him Eru.” Diocletian’s jaw was hanging open. “Even I... a Maia, yes, but... I would never....”
There was a guttural growl from Suicide. He was still half-sprawled on the ground, but his fists were clenching again, and thanks to Nume’s awkward punch his teeth were reddened with his own blood. “I want to live,” he said in a low, flat voice. “I want to live long enough to see this little bastard burn.”
With a heave, he rose from the ground, flexing his creaking joints. His expression was calm, but then, it wasn’t a very put-together expression. He spat out some of the blood and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, his eyes murderous. “Dio. Up. We need to go steal some weapons.”
“Is that wise?” Ilraen said. He offered to assist his partner off the ground, but Nume shook him off. “Canon break or no, the parameters of the assignment specify—”
“Look, Ilraen, I like you. But the last time we had a would-be god on our plate, the only thing that saved me and my partner from being cooked alive was the real god—” Suicide stopped to wipe away more blood, and Diocletian took the opportunity to intervene. Climbing to her feet, she put her hand on Suicide’s arm and caught his eye. Silently, she shook her head, mouthing something that Ilraen didn’t quite understand. Suicide spat again but didn’t finish the sentence, instead falling into an unwilling silence.
Nume pushed himself up awkwardly on his right arm and reached for his hip flask. He jarred his heavily bruised left hand, swore, rebalanced, and pulled the flask out with the other hand, unscrewing the cap as quickly as possible and downing half the remaining contents in one go. As the edge of the headache faded, he turned a cold glare on the rest of the party, as though daring any of them to comment.
“All right,” he grated out, slightly hoarse from the combination of shouting and chugging Bleepka. “This thing is going down, and hard. But it’s still my god-damn mission, and we’re doing it right or not at all. No more bullsh*t, no more screwing around, and no tempting the Flowers to come up with something worse the next time by going off like a damn maverick.” This with an especial glare at Suicide.
The Scythian and Diocletian exchanged glances yet again. Nume was extremely serious, but neither of them could shake the feeling that he had temporarily morphed into a cigar-chewing black chief inspector who was giving them twenty-four hours to crack the case. Suicide opened his mouth again, and Diocletian once again jumped into the gap.
“All right then, but that means both of you need to stop f*cking around.” She aimed a glare right back at Nume. “You’ve been downright rude to us this whole time, and asserting your authority is only going to make yogurt-for-brains here more inclined to taunt you. How about everyone acts like a grownup? You can go back to wrestling later. Or just lay ’em out on the table and measure, if you’re that het up about it.”
Suicide stared at her for a moment, seemingly unsure of whether to grin or swear. Seeing Diocletian show her fangs like that was unusual in his experience. Nume was scandalized into speechlessness, so Ilraen answered.
“I agree. I think.” He wasn’t quite sure what her last line meant, but he pressed on. “We must work together to accomplish the Duty at any cost. Yes?”
“Fine, just as long as the only thing getting laid out is a charge list.” Nume eyed Diocletian with new and deep mistrust.
“Speaking of which... I think mine’s missing.” Diocletian looked around. “I must’ve lost it when the universe imploded.”
“I think that’s an acceptable excuse,” Suicide said. “Here, try this.” He rummaged in his satchel and produced a take-out menu from Wing Lo’s House of Meat. Diocletian took it and began to scribble down the charges she could remember.
Nume took the opportunity to inspect the damage he’d done to himself. His wrist didn’t hurt so much now, thanks to the Bleepka, but the swelling and stiffness were irksome. He had never hit anything that hard before. This, he decided, was probably why.
“Will you be all right?” Ilraen asked, peering more anxiously than Nume felt was strictly necessary. “I am sorry about this. I feel as though it is my fault you fought with Agent Suicide.”
“Yeah, well. Look, don’t just hover over me, all right? Do we have anything we can use as a wrap? This should probably be stabilized.”
They didn’t have anything in the bag, but a sash from Ilraen’s disguise proved handy. Ilraen was another matter; despite Nume’s direction, he’d never done anything medical, and worrying about hurting more than helping made him hesitant. After starting over a few times, Nume’s increasingly frustrated dictation and Ilraen’s proportionately apologetic responses couldn’t help but draw the attention of the other two.
Diocletian nudged Suicide. He ignored her. She nudged him again. He gave her a look. She mimed wrapping up an arm, which made him roll his eyes. She mouthed the name Dienekes, and he sighed and got up.
A large bronzed hand briskly inserted itself between Ilraen and the bandage. “Not like that,” Suicide said, plucking the sash out of the surprised Andalite’s hand. “A glancing punch like that wrenches the wrist. See the swelling? You need to immobilize it in order to prevent further damage.”
He tore the sash into strips. “Silk,” he added. “Good for bandages—soft, but tough.”
There are few things more irritating than being in close proximity with someone who was recently calling you some extremely unflattering things. It was hard for Nume to tell Suicide off, though, because he was taking advantage of the Sam Vimes Method of Acting Like You Know What You’re Doing So It’s Damned Hard for People to Tell You Off, No Matter How Much They’d Like To (copyright S. Vimes, Year of the Receding Pork Pie). Nume settled for scowling at him, which Suicide studiously ignored. With depressing efficiency he braced the arm, realigned the wrist, wrapped up the swollen joint and checked everything over. “Don’t use it,” he said straightforwardly. “At all, if you can help it. And next time, don’t keep your wrist so loose; no sense in punching someone if you’re going to tear the joint while you’re doing it.”
“Thank you, I’ll try to keep that in mind,” he answered without an ounce of sincerity. “Are we done here? I doubt if we can snatch Archir with all these potential defenders around, so we’ll have to find a way to get him alone somehow.”
“Wherever we do it, we should do it sooner rather than later,” Diocletian said worriedly. “I’d swear Gandalf and Aragorn are possessed; they look awful. And they can’t seem to leave that... thing alone. He’s in Elrond’s lap again!”
As if to emphasize the point, a bizarre word choice resulted in Elrond and Gandalf lying cuddled up on the pavement together for the inevitable debate over whether Archir should travel with the Fellowship or not. Elrond finally decreed that they would choose on the day of departure, and the council disbanded.
“Should we follow them?” Ilraen asked.
“Screw that,” Nume said. “This is a Stu in Middle-earth; we already know where and when he’s likely to do the most damage. Let’s just—”
He didn’t get the chance to finish. The fic, it seemed, was on to him. Inside a paragraph, the time went from the evening after the Council to two months of “endless fun and healing” later, when the Fellowship was to depart. Suicide and Diocletian, who had been standing, were tossed to the ground again, and Nume had to perform something like a breakdance to keep from landing on his left hand. Ilraen cringed at the renewed insult to his time sense, gritting his teeth and curling around his drawn-up knees.
“That’s it,” Nume said, jumping up as though the ground itself was out to get him. “I’m convinced: this god-damned thing is actually trying to kill us.”
Suicide made a complicated gesture. It might have been a sign of protection against the Evil Eye, and it might have been Suicide’s way of telling the fic that it had a questionable relationship with its family dog. Either way, the less-than-admiring sentiment behind it was clear.
Nume hauled Ilraen up, and the four agents made their way to where the Company of the Ring had gathered. For some reason, they all gave their lines from the movieverse version of the council, but with the author’s variations, and capped by the oddest of all from Archir.
"I wish to come, if only to prove my worth and to help. If not for that, then let me go to give you breath." A small voice came about. The many inhabitats gathered looked around wildly for the boy whose voice belonged.
"Here," Archir said softly, swarming into view right beside them all. He was smiling as innocently as he always did, this time a touch of plead in his eyes.
The Fellowship stopped breathing and turned blue in the face until Aragorn spoke after Archir, reminding the world that breath was needed for talking, therefore they must have it after all. Nothing could help the fact that Archir now appeared as a swarm of tiny insect-like versions of himself, nor the fact that his eyes turned “plead,” which manifested as a hreen-blello plaid.
While the agents gawked at the spectacle, Archir went on about how he’d learned some spells under Gandalf’s tutelage, culminating with:
"I can become invisible as well, since the ring does not want me," Archir said, pouting like always as he mentioned the rings hate of him. Gandalf knew this was because an Istari could not be influenced by the ring, and oddity in itself.
“Are you reading this?” Nume hissed. “Look!” He pointed at the line in question.
Ilraen blinked. “If istari cannot be influenced by the Ring in this world, why would Gandalf not simply take it and storm Barad-dûr himself?”
“Don’t say that!” Diocletian whispered fiercely. “Canon’s barely holding together as it is!” Indeed, the world flexed around them at Ilraen’s words. Rivendell had taken on an oddly frayed and washed-out look, and the secondary canons moved stiffly and jerkily, like animatronics in a Pirates of Middle-earth ride.
"I do not see why not," Elrond told them and Aragorn sighed, flating in defeat.
There was an audible creak as the world tried to figure out exactly what Aragorn was doing. Finally, it settled for the closest alternative, as Aragorn slowly deflated like a mylar balloon and then turned into a two-dimensional version of himself. Diocletian couldn’t stop herself from taking a picture: headaches and canon breaks may come and go, but bile fascination is eternal.
Suicide, meanwhile, meaningfully eyed a nearby robotic Elf’s spear. He seemed to be doing the mental calculations of how much effort it would take to lop about three feet off the shaft and turn it into a convenient projectile, something the Flowers had neglected to specifically forbid him from doing. Diocletian elbowed him again, and he reluctantly turned away, compensating himself with another mouthful of absinthe and a cold leftover pastry.
The world froze for a moment as they went thundering into the next chapter. From on high, the voice of the author boomed down:
Yes Harry has his memory of his old self... The good memories. He does not remember the terrible memories as much as the others. He is still humbled down by his childhood with the Dursleys, for his manners and behavior never faded from that torment.
“I have to admit,” Suicide said idly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his tunic. “I’ve never seen anyone do such a neat job of surgically removing every possible piece of character development. You almost have to admire it, in a way. Anybody can write hermaphroditic Snape rape, but it takes a real genius to turn a world completely on its ear like this.”
Chapter Four "Going South"
None of the agents commented on that. It was too obvious, even for them.
The landscape whizzed by as time, once again, sped up. The narrative whipped through several weeks’ worth of travel in a few short sentences, and the agents had the odd sensation of being inside a fast-forwarded movie. The mini Bormir came rocketing out of the story at high speed, almost knocking them over as it ran to hide behind Ilraen. The only thing not contributing any quickness was the small herd the Fellowship had with them in place of Bill the Pony: in the rough foothills of the Misty Mountains, nine uncanonical horses didn’t have it any easier than folk on foot.
Archir attempted a few dabs of Harry-like characterization, drawing parallels between his traveling mates and various Potterverse characters. It didn’t go over well, especially when he compared the normally stern and wary Ranger Aragorn to Molly Weasley. Diocletian heard a worrisome grinding of teeth when it was pronounced that Faramir had a great deal in common with Percy Weasley.
To her surprise, when she looked, it was Ilraen whose jaw was clenched, as well as his fists. “I am not sure whose character is being eroded more. What could possibly be gained by this comparison?”
“Faramir’s for sure. Percy didn’t have that much character to start with.” Nume folded his arms across his chest. “Look, this is idiotic. Like I was saying before, the next thing on the Gary Stu to-do list is to pop open Durin’s Doors, so instead of trying to follow the horrible pacing—not to mention the Nine Walkers mounted on horses, for Christ’s sake—let’s skip ahead. Ilraen, you still have the remote activator, right?”
“That I do!” With an unusual level of glee, he dug the device out of their bag. “First I will send Bormir and the others home... and now we can go.”
They portaled into chapter five, where the Fellowship stood around scratching their heads below the Gate of Moria. They were, of course, forced to turn the horses loose, making their inclusion one of the most utterly pointless things any of the agents had ever seen.
“Horsies!” Diocletian said instantly, drawing perplexed looks from her three fellow agents. She immediately trotted up to the nearest of them, a gray mare, and produced one of the stolen apples from her pack. The mare eyed her skeptically for a moment before deciding, hey, food was food, and devouring the apple in two bites.
Suicide, oddly enough, seemed affected by their presence too. “We’re not leaving them here,” he said firmly, stroking the mane of a bay gelding. “Good useful animals like these don’t deserve to get eaten by wargs or Watchers. Hey, Ilraen, open a portal to RC 2771a, would you?”
“You’re going to send them to Ithalond?” Dio said skeptically.
“He’s an Elf. Elves like horses.”
“He’s a traumatized Elf.”
“Trauma makes Elves not like horses?”
“Ilraen....” Dio rubbed her forehead, clearly getting a bit of a headache. “Could you please open a portal to send the horses to wherever you think is best in Headquarters? I’m sure there must be a stable or something.”
Ilraen, quite the efficient Andalite when given the chance, quickly opened the portal to the grassy courtyard where Alice the Meara lived. He may have murmured something under his breath about how pleased he was to do something that made sense, but everyone knew that Ilraen was very polite, so it couldn’t possibly have been true. The agents quickly herded the nine horses through the portal via a combination of shooing, halter-pulling, and blatant bribery with apples. Suicide stole a Sharpie from Dio and neatly wrote DIBS. —S on the neck of the bay, an act to which the horse clearly objected and which quickly got Suicide bitten.
While the agents dealt with the horses, the Fellowship gathered around the Doors of Durin and registered confusion at not being able to see them.
"That is because Dwarf-doors are made to be hidden, only found with the right secret." Gimli said, finding the door somewhat.
There was another depressingly familiar groan and a gust of cold wind due to the canon’s difficulty deciding whether Gimli had actually found the door or not. Diocletian took two Tylenol and drew a little picture of a teenage author being eaten by the Luggage.
Nume gave a muffled shout as the gust blew a swath of material at him from the direction of the Doors. After a brief struggle in which Ilraen was nearly clouted on the ear in his attempt to help, Nume freed himself enough to examine the sheet.
It was a flannel blanket, and it bore the image of Fëanor, High King of the Noldor. Nume stared, afraid to look for the explanation.
“The emblems of Durin could be seen as brightly as the Tree of the High Elves and Star of the House of Flanor as they stood proudly in the arch,” Ilraen read, probably thinking he was being helpful, though the expression on his face indicated he was as much baffled at the misspelling as anyone else.
“Looks warm,” Diocletian said after a long moment, apparently struggling to find a comment that actually made sense. “And Eru bless us, at least it’s not sentient.” She eyed the flannel sheet. “Hopefully.”
Suicide just frowned. He wasn’t looking at the mysteriously soft and cozy High King; his eyes were focused on the sky. In the distance, a caped figure streaked between the clouds. “That’s not good.”
Diocletian followed the direction of his gaze. “Crebain from Dunland?”
“No; Captain Obvious.” Suicide shot an irritated glance towards the doors, where Legolas had just brightly concluded that Archir had said “friend” in Elvish. “Son of a whor*. I’m not even surprised any more.”
“Told you. Card-carrying Stu,” Nume pronounced, carefully folding the flannel blanket into the messenger bag and not looking at Suicide.
“Definitely a Stu,” Suicide added out loud. It was a general comment, and could’ve been addressed to anyone. Diocletian rolled her eyes and mouthed “therapy” at Ilraen.
Ilraen offered an uncertain half-smile in return, then co*cked his head in the direction of the continuing half-assed effort to remind everyone that Archir was Harry.
"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on woshi." Archir said lightly, making everyone pause to look at him.
"I show not your face but, your heart's desire?" Gandalf guessed, suddenly seeing what Archir said. Archir smiled brightly, nodding.
"It was a mirror that showed what you most desire out of anything in the world," Archir admitted to Gandalf in a whisper. The wizard "ahh"ed for a moment before they began to walk inside when Frodo cried out and they swung around to see a creature gripping onto Frodo's ankle, the sound of the water smashing against a tentacle.
“Double sonic improbability!” Diocletian yelped, still vainly trying to be professional. “The water can’t ‘smash’ against the tentacle, and there’s no way that the words of the Mirror of Erised would translate into—oof!” That was courtesy of her partner, who bodily hauled her off her feet and yanked her towards the Doors of Durin. Ilraen and Nume were already making tracks, nobody intending to get stuck outside the Doors with a rather irate Watcher in the Water. (Especially since it had developed a bit of a dislike for anything agent-like after they stopped bringing it treats.)
Despite the agents’ head start, though, they barely made it through the Doors ahead of the Fellowship: the desperate struggle for Frodo’s life against the tentacled monster had been truncated to a quick “Sam managed to rip his master from the squid.” They crammed themselves into a corner of the corpse-strewn hall as the Doors were slammed closed by the Watcher, plunging the scene into darkness.
"Weird creature," Archir stated.
The agents were too disgusted to reply.
Now that they were in Moria, Nume produced the DORKS and did a quick switch, turning them back into orcs. By the time the device (now masquerading as a heavily annotated copy of Return to the Valley of the Dolls) had been returned to the bag Ilraen carried, Gandalf and Archir had lighted their respective mystical sticks of wood and the Fellowship had vanished into the depths of Moria. And “vanished” was the accurate term: within a paragraph they had gotten to the guardroom with the three passages. The agents were left catching their breath in the entry hall.
With orcish night vision, Nume picked out Ilraen leaning heavily against the nearest wall in response to the latest time distortion. “On the bright side, this means it will be easy to follow them, even in here,” he remarked. “Also, there’s still some Bleepka left in the bottle in there. You better use it before you pass out or something.”
Ilraen started to nod, changed his mind when he saw actual stars (the constellation of Sagittarius, to be precise), and just dug the bottle out of the bag instead.
Nume scanned the Words and scowled. “Oh. So that’s where Aragorn’s verses went.” Archir had fallen asleep again and was enjoying prophetic dreams set to Tolkien’s poetry. The agent blinked away in disgust. “Are we all set?”
“I can go on now,” Ilraen confirmed. Nume thought the words were a bit forced, but looking at him revealed nothing in his current form.
The now-Orcish agents made sure to gather up their gear and headed deeper into the Mines. By this point, both time and space were in such bad shape that it only took them a few minutes to catch up to the Fellowship. Gandalf had chosen the path while Archir was asleep (this being an event not considered worthy of mention in the story itself) and the company was walking again. Archir was, of course, carried by Aragorn, who had gone into full Nanny Mode. Suicide nudged Diocletian, and she charged... actually, she just stabbed the takeout menu several times with her stub of pencil. The message was the same, though.
Another lurch of time distortion, and the company stopped for the night in an undefined chamber.
As they relaxed, Sam commented on the 'holes' that were made around the place. Gimli looked indignant and launched into a chant of long ago, about Durin. The words 'In Moria, in Khazad-dym' stuck to Archir's mind as he was laid in Boromir's lap this time, and it seemed Sam agreed, having echoed the sentence.
The agents braced themselves, waiting for the inevitable burst of flame as the latest of the many, many mini-Balrogs popped into existence. For a moment, there was nothing. Then there was a dull plop, and the mini appeared—glued, by the power of the Narrative, to the side of Archir’s head.
“...What do you know,” Dio said finally. “That is... that’s a new one on me.”
“New one on Archir, too,” Suicide added.
Diocletian grimaced. “Seriously? That one’s just horrible.”
“We might have to kill a Stu version of Eru. Kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel here.”
As if to emphasize the point, a bark of laughter from Nume startled the others. “Look at Frodo,” he answered their interrogative looks. “That’s a style that should have died and stayed dead back in my time.”
The others looked. Thanks to Archir nicknaming him “Fro,” the world had taken it upon itself to give the hobbit a beachball-sized poof of frizzy hair and the disco pants and shades to go with it. Boogieing didn’t seem too far out of the question either, but the Words dictated that it was time for another sleep instead. At least Frodo would have a soft cushion for his head.
Although the agents could have used a rest themselves, none of them wanted to risk it after what had happened in Bree, so they went ahead to the Chamber of Mazarbul. For the moment, the room appeared as it should have, with a light slanting downward from high in the eastern wall and lighting the face of Balin’s tomb, and a deep coat of dust on the floor. Unwilling to disturb the chamber, despite the speculative looks Suicide cast at the old weapons discarded around the doorway, the agents sat outside and occupied themselves with snacking on the last of the pilfered fruit from Rivendell.
Far too soon, the Fellowship caught up to them.
They stumbled across a wall that Gandalf discovered to be the record of the fate of Balin's folk.
“Yeah, because the pile of dead Dwarves wasn’t enough to clue them in,” Diocletian muttered sarcastically. The other agents, though, were more interested in what appeared to be the Wall of Mazarbul. Since it was given not much in the way of description, it appeared to be the entire Book of Mazarbul chiseled into a rather handsome piece of granite, complete with the trailing “they are coming” carved by what must have been a Dwarf extremely dedicated to stonework.
Nume leaned in with an arched eyebrow, giving every evidence of reading the wall. “The castle of... aaaaargh,” he groaned with a ghoulish grin. “He must have died while carving it.”
Ilraen blinked. “But if he were dying, he would not bother to carve ‘argh’. He would just say it.”
Nume’s grin fell away. “Damn it, Ilraen, I can’t tell if you’re paraphrasing or just clueless.”
It was Ilraen’s turn to show his teeth—even a disguise couldn’t teach someone who habitually had no mouth to grin properly, but the message was clear.
Suicide contented himself with a golf clap.
In defiance of the agents’ increasingly desperate attempts to keep their sanity, Archir stood in front of the Wall of Mazarbaaargh and, being as special as he was, had clairvoyant visions of what had happened to the Dwarves who made their last stand. The mini-Balrog Flui quickly spawned, sneezing small puffs of flame. (“Misspelling a name that consists of four letters,” Diocletian charged on what little space the takeout menu had left.)
Then, with an odd lurch, the danger was upon them. There was a boom—or rather, a Boom—and the sound of running feet. The Fellowship drew together, instinctively protecting the Ringbearer and their sickeningly precious cargo. The agents pulled aside, tucking themselves into the crevices that lined the chamber and bracing themselves for the inevitable roll and thunder of drums. “Drums, drums in the deep,” Diocletian murmured, biting her lip.
But there were no drums. Instead, accompanied by the racing feet and the guttural howl of goblins, there was an odd shuffling and a wet smacking noise. The agents exchanged puzzled glances. The Fellowship quailed as the sounds grew louder.
“What in the....” Suicide detached himself from the wall and, curiosity getting the better of him, hurried across the chamber towards the door. He stuck his head out as quickly as possible, then withdrew it like a startled turtle seconds before Boromir slammed it closed. He didn’t retreat back to their little niches, though; instead, he stood still against the wall next to the door, eyes wide and a confused expression on his face.
Then, moving slowly, brows furrowed, he shuffled back across the chamber towards the other three.
“‘A hord’,” he said, “‘was being blown’.”
Nume squeezed his eyes shut in denial. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t have heard that properly.” He couldn’t shut his ears, though. The noise outside wasn’t going anywhere.
Ilraen shot a cautionary look at Suicide. Although not entirely clear on the euphemism being invoked, Nume’s face was enough to give him a hint as to its nature.
Suicide wandered back to his niche and leaned stiffly against the wall, resting his forehead against the cool stone. Behind them, the Fellowship were preparing for battle, but he didn’t seem to notice. It was almost as if he didn’t know how to process what he had just seen.
“Huh,” he said finally. “Let me put it this way. Did Tolkien ever one-hundred-percent confirm that goblins actually wear pants?”
“I believe the Professor was polite enough not to discuss such things,” Nume muttered stridently in response. Then, in an alarming reversal of tone and demeanor, “Hey, gang! What say we get a move-on? Places to go, people to kill; an agent’s work is never done!” He struck out deliberately for the open eastern door, jolting into a run as “there was a mighty blow upon the [western] door and it began to open. A large toe less foot peaked into the room, silence now adorning them all.”
Diocletian tried to get a picture of the lovely paper bows and boutonnieres now adorning the members of the Fellowship, all printed with “Silence Please,” but the foot was making a determined entrance into the room and yes, the leg it was attached to was definitely not wearing pants. The remaining agents simultaneously decided that the other door might be the best prospect.
As they ran, the world jolted and froze, transitioning into the next chapter. An author’s note thundered down from on high.
billy jean - I find that rude that you think I don't read my own story. As I've said I lose train of thought very easily, I have no beta, and at least I have some grammar in me unlike some writers today. If you can't see past the grammar mistakes that a 15 year old kid like me can make, don't bother reading because it'll keep happening until I either finish High school or find a beta to look this over for me. I'm still in school and learning how to form a scene so until then, yeah I know I suck at this.
“Too... easy...” Suicide panted as they ran.
Now that I could finally reply to that, you wouldn't believe how irritated I have been about all these people on my back about that. Yes I rush my scenes. It's my habit and my style. At least it still makes enough sense, right?
That was what was known in popular Internet vernacular as an “oh exploitable,” but the agents weren’t taking the bait. Nobody wanted to be there when the goblins and their blown hords came through: there were some sights that Man Was Not Meant to See, and that was about six of them. They didn’t stop, author’s notes or no author’s notes, until they had reached the bottom of the stairs outside the chamber.
The Fellowship wasn’t long in catching up. As they passed, the agents could see that, surprise surprise, Archir was back in Aragorn’s arms, but something seemed a little off about him. As Gandalf’s voice drifted back to them, the reason became abundantly clear.
"Very relieved am I to know you are very much undead mellon-nin." Gandalf softly said, frowning as he saw Archir's hidden pain.
It was downright bizarre. The disturbingly cute Archir had completely changed: now he was practically skeletal, flesh and ridiculously fancy green robes replaced by bone and a ragged shroud. A chilling blue light shone from his eyes, and... Diocletian squinted. Were those gold rings on his fingers?
“That looks... familiar,” she said cautiously. Her pencil was poised over the menu; she wasn’t quite sure what to write.
“But....” Ilraen screwed up his face in horror. “Can that be right?”
Nume grimaced at the Words. “Archir took the blow meant for Frodo and got himself uncanonically poisoned. Damn showboating Stu. The undead thing is a bit over the top, though. I mean—” he snickered in spite of himself “—zombie apocalypse in Middle-earth? And Gandalf is awfully happy about it.”
“Wight apocalypse, you mean,” Diocletian said. The pencil was moving again, but tentatively. “He just turned into a barrow-wight. That’s a little... well, it’s not what I thought the universe would do when it said ‘undead’, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe it’s what Middle-earth thought was most appropriate for him?” Suicide suggested dryly. “He’s such a little parasite anyway, it’s practically perfect. No wonder Gandalf’s happy: he always did seem to have a good sense of humor.”
“I don’t have a canon analysis device,” Diocletian said thoughtfully, “and it’s a good thing, because it likely would’ve blown itself up to end the agony. But if I did have a hypothetical one that could withstand this kind of thing, I’d say that it might be registering some kind of possible attempt by canon-Gandalf to fight back. Do you think this means that’s really him, and not a copy?”
“I’m not risking our CAD now,” Nume said. “It’s borrowed, and I wouldn’t trust it as far as I could spit. I’d say all the canons are themselves, though. They’re basically doing everything they’re supposed to do, and they still have their proper names. Archir, on the other hand, I’m fairly confident is not Harry Potter in any way, shape, or form. But if he’s a wight, how do we kill him? ‘Aim for the head’ doesn’t quite apply.”
Suicide frowned. Then one eyebrow rose, slowly, followed by the corners of his mouth. “I might have an idea about that.”
That got a skeptical expression from Nume. “I’m afraid to ask, but go ahead.”
“Our target does tend to gravitate towards normally-impressive warriors,” Suicide pointed out, crossing his arms. “All the most powerful—Gandalf, Legolas, Aragorn—fawn over him and talk about how precious he is, and he plays to that.” He flopped down on the ground, brushed his long hair over his shoulders, and immediately became dewy-eyed. “Such a wondrous, blessed little thing... I can’t imagine how he suffers on such a dark and dangerous Quest....”
Nume recoiled in not-entirely-affected horror. “I shouldn’t have asked. Thank you, that’s a disturbingly accurate rendition. Stop it.”
“Awwww,” Diocletian said, smiling a little worrisomely. She crouched down next to Suicide and planted a kiss on top of the Scythian’s head. “You’ll be such a great father one day, you big psycho, you.”
Suicide merely let his lip wobble a little as he gazed down at an imaginary child. “This is no place for one born of love, even though his power may one day save us all! If only there were a way to... you know, I’m staring at my lap here, and it’s kind of awkward after that Moria thing. And Dio, pray to Na’an I never have children, because one of ’em’s gonna wind up killing me in a fight over a fifteen-year-old prostitute. So are we going to do this or not?”
“I believe we can skip ahead to Lothlórien,” said Ilraen, who was quietly reading along with the Words and trying not to focus on his headache, which stubbornly refused to go away and had taken on an eyeball-stabbing aspect. “Archir does not prevent Gandalf from falling, so there is no major charge to record. Gandalf is made to speak an extra line, however: ‘Do not lose hope’.”
Nume rolled his eyes at the sappiness. “I prefer ‘Fly, you fools’. Go on and make the portal if you’re going to—but if we’re going to Lórien, or even ‘Lurien’, we’re being Elves again. I’ll not have us sullying that wood with these forms.”
Ilraen handed him the DORKS, and while Nume switched their disguises, Ilraen opened the way to the Naith of Lórien.
Even the influence of the Stu couldn’t completely dim the Golden Wood, and the agents felt an odd sense of peace steal over them as they appeared amidst the trees. Here, the bark was ivory-white rather than silvery, but the beauty of Lórien was as unmistakable as ever. The four, now Elves deep in an Elvish wood, relaxed.
The peace lasted about a quarter of a second. The Fellowship, Haldir, and of course, Archir were all gathered not too far away. Haldir seemed to be in the process of distributing blindfolds. It was all wonderfully canonical. But....
"Please do not blind the Istari child though," Haldir said to his brother. Archir, in the arms of the elf, wriggled as he saw his companions become blindfolded. Haldir held him more securely, Archir lying on his back in his arms, tucked under the elf's chin.
Ilraen frowned. “That is simply unfair. I notice he does not really protest, either.”
Beside him, Nume squinted at the Stu-creature and snapped his fingers. “Damn it, he looks normal again. Well, you know what I mean. He couldn’t even do something entertaining like turn into a zombie. Waste of a good malapropism.”
“True,” Diocletian said hopefully. “But maybe we should try head-shotting him anyway. You know, to be on the safe side.”
Nume raised an eyebrow at her. “With what? Unless you’ve got an inflatable rifle or something they didn’t take from you.”
“I was planning on improvising. The undead are a genuine public safety threat, you know.”
“Mm, true. Desperate times, et cetera.”
During the banter, the party set off, and the agents trailed them gingerly. The ground seemed to flee away under their feet with each step, and Nume ended up half-carrying his partner as day and night flickered by. Finally, they came to Caras Galadhon and made the long climb up to the talan of the Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel. Once there, they had a break from walking through the relentless time distortion, but not from ridiculous typographical errors. Due to a particularly odd one, the Lord and Lady briefly appeared to be seated on a Catholic elementary school before it turned into a pair of sparkly thrones.
“Well, that’s hardly better,” Nume remarked. “They’re just described as chairs in the book.” Then, as the two rose, “And since when is Galadriel shorter than Celeborn? ‘Very tall they were, and the Lady no less tall than the Lord’; that’s what Tolkien wrote.”
In the sensitive state the canon was in, the enormous mallorn quivered at the agent’s words, and Galadriel seemed to straighten up as though she’d been slouching.
Diocletian had actually run out of room on the takeout menu, and was now writing the charges on her arm in Sharpie. “Shrinking... Galadriel,” she carefully wrote a few inches below her elbow.
Suicide patted her awkwardly on the head, attempting to reassure his partner with his usual lack of finesse. Fortunately for him, he was looking at her instead of the Words, so he had no idea what was coming next.
As Galadriel looked into Archir’s eyes, a flashback appeared with a distinctive click-clack to show them what was going on in his mind, like an old projection:
Privet Drive and being five years old, Vernon Dursley towering over him with his belt, about to bring it forth upon his back. Petunia slamming a frying pan into Harry's head, giving him a concussion. Burning a meal at age eight and Vernon forcing Harry’s small hand onto the heated stove. The pain. All of it. The hurt. The fear.
“Oh, balls,” Diocletian said.
Part of being a PPC agent was learning to live with, teach, survive, and occasionally manage your partner. Partnerships didn’t last unless they could deal with each other, and Dio had done her share of gently steering Suicide around the various obstacles that modern(ish) life and the craziness of the fics had placed in their paths. Coming from the time and place he did, and considering the patricide in his background, he had some issues about the depiction and treatment of families.
Now his jaw was set, and there was a gentle grinding noise that told her the Medical Department would have to send him to the dentist again. They really hated it when they had to do that.
Nume opened his mouth to make a comment, about either the fic or Suicide’s reaction to it; the multiverse would never know, because he was distracted by movement at the corner of his eye. When he looked, he saw Ilraen rifling determinedly through their bag with a steely look in his eyes.
“Ilraen, what are you doing?”
The red-haired elf ignored him. A second later, Nume caught the glint of metal and glass that could only belong to his syringe. “Oh, hell! Grab him! We haven’t read the charges!” He gestured uselessly with his wrapped-up hand as Ilraen staggered toward Archir.
Diocletian let out a colorful Black Speech curse and took off after Ilraen, running as fast as she could. Ilraen had the advantage of height and distance, but his brain was just keeping it together enough to let him stand on two legs, and Diocletian managed to reach him. With a yelp, she tackled him at the very edge of the talan, landing hard on top of him and trying to pin the thrashing agent. “Down, horsie!” she yelped, hanging on for dear life.
“He’s defiling the character of the Dursleys!” Ilraen raved, doing his utmost to dislodge Diocletian without losing his grip on the syringe. “And using uncanonical child abuse as a cheap excuse for drama and speshulness! He goes too far!”
“Su, help me!”
Suicide didn’t budge. “Damn, the kid’s got moxie. This his first psychotic episode?” he added to Nume. He tucked his hands into his belt, affecting a calm demeanor, but there was still a hard look in his eyes. Archir was whimpering and being cuddled by Lady Galadriel herself, completely unaware of the homicidal foursome lurking not far away.
“Mm, more or less,” Nume answered. “The incident of reading the journal might count, but we’d been locked in the RC for two weeks at that point. Then there was the failfest of last mission, but it really did look like a character replacement, so... yeah, first completely unmitigated loss of sanity. All this over the Dursleys, I ask you.”
“First one’s always toughest, but Dio’s sitting on him pretty hard now. Oughtta watch out during future meltdowns, though; looks like this one’s a flailer.”
“At least he isn’t a Draenei this time. Still, this is becoming problematic. Uh, you want to stop them falling off the very high talan?”
“Might be a good idea.” Suicide broke into a jog-trot, but stopped only a moment later. “C’mon along, would you? I’m gonna show you how to restrain a thrashing psychopath. If you keep working with this kid, I think it’s gonna be a skill you’ll need.”
Nume loped along after him. “Make sure you grab his wrist. You do not want to get jabbed with that needle. I hear cells instantaneously dehydrating is very painful.”
“Don’t tempt me. I actually want to live long enough to finish this job, for once.” Suicide grabbed Diocletian by her shoulders and pulled her off of the frothing Ilraen, who immediately tried to roll away. The Scythian quickly stamped down on his wrist, breaking his hold on the syringe. “See, Nume? It’s all about leverage. You want to remove the weapon from the equation as quickly as possible, of course, but remember that the entire body is a weapon—wow, those teeth hurt—as he is now demonstrating. You’ve got two feet, so use ’em.” A second foot, planted on the back of Ilraen’s neck, pinioned him. “You may now restrain the rest of the body in whatsoever manner you choose. I usually just impale them at this point, but I kinda get the impression that’s not your bag. Sitting’s a good choice.”
Having recovered the needle, Nume folded his arms and looked down his nose at the proceedings. “If you’re done, I did want him still functional. Can he breathe?”
Ilraen gurgled something that might have been a response and slapped the floor.
“Technically,” Suicide said. “His brain’ll start shutting down in a minute or two.” At Nume’s aghast expression, he relented slightly and lessened the pressure on Ilraen’s neck. “Relax, I wasn’t gonna kill him. It’s all about pressure on the—what was it, Dio? Those things in your neck? The ones that sounded like the English word for a woman’s—”
“Cervical vertebrae,” Diocletian interrupted. “Okay, Su, you can let him up now.” She was red-faced and gasping for breath herself, something else that made it even harder to take her as an Elf. “You know, this is weird. We shouldn’t be able to do this kind of stuff! We’re twenty-five feet away and the Stu didn’t even blink!”
Indeed, Archir appeared not to have noticed any of it. Galadriel was still cuddling him and rubbing circles on his back, which was admittedly something that would’ve distracted anybody, but the thrashing homicidal maniac normally would’ve attracted some attention.
Suicide glanced up at the Words and shook his head. “He’s busy,” he said bluntly. “Haven’t you noticed? Every time we’ve made a disruption, he’s been busy nestling up against some incredibly powerful canon. He’s... feeding, or something.”
“...Su, that’s weirdly insightful. Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, brilliant,” Nume interjected. “Now seriously, get off my partner before I grant your wish and stick you with this thing.” He waved the syringe before slipping it back into its case with the assurance that it would not be needed.
“Of all the ways to go....” Suicide shifted his feet and hoisted the red-faced Ilraen off the ground. “You’re gonna be lightheaded for a minute or two while the blood goes back to your head, okay? Don’t go leaning over any railings.”
Nume deigned to let Ilraen lean on him again while he recovered his equilibrium. “Let’s portal. I don’t need any more proof that this thing is frelled beyond recall. The Fellowship leaves in a few days, and it looks like they’re not taking Archir with them. It’ll be the perfect time to grab him. The activator’s in the bag; one of you’ll have to set it. I can’t do anything with Ilraen hanging on me.”
“I’m not sure,” Dio said. “We’re not supposed to—” Then she saw Suicide reaching for the RA, and hastily swiped it before he could get it. Her partner gave her an exasperated look. “Thank Eru,” she continued, ignoring said look. “I’m running out of arm space for this damn charge list.”
The exhausted agents tumbled out of the portal towards the middle of chapter eight, where Aragorn and the Fellowship were reluctantly bidding Archir adieu and telling him he couldn’t accompany them any further. They all parted with tears in their eyes, though if the agents’ eyes weren’t deceiving them, some of the tears looked distinctly forced. Gimli practically danced a jig as the boats rounded a bend in the river, passing out of sight.
Haldir comforted the sobbing Archir and put him to bed, kissing his forehead and in general fawning over the little bundle of joy. (“Woobifying Haldir,” Diocletian wrote, rolling up her trouser leg and awkwardly scrawling it on her shin.) Then, at long last, Archir was alone and asleep, and the agents made their move.
Three of the four lurked at the base of the tree where Archir’s flet was while Suicide climbed up alone. He’d scrubbed dirt into his palms and face, and a quick reconfiguration of the DORKS had turned him into a Ranger version of himself, with added stubble for maximum scruffiness. Sighing deeply, and trying to shake the feeling that he was about to be caught by Dateline NBC, Suicide knelt next to the “bassinett” and began to speak.
“It’s not fair,” he said, pitching his voice lower than usual and putting a wobble in it. Archir twitched on his cot. “We are in a war... a war that may very well sweep across the entire world and claim our lives. And yet, a child is here—a child who may well hold the key to saving us, yet would lose himself to do so....” He stifled some heavily dramatic sobs with his hands. Below, he could hear the distinctive call of the Lothlórien Gagging Diocletian.
Archir awoke, blinking eyelashes that were entirely too long and lush for something not featured in an X-rated anime. There was an eerie glint in his eyes as he caught sight of the Scythian Ranger. “Don’t be sad,” he said, simpering at the kneeling Suicide. “I’m not afraid, so why should you be?”
“My friends are afraid,” Suicide said, standing and gazing dramatically out the window. “We have long heard prophecies of the Star Child of Light, the one who would bring the key to our salvation, but they do not believe it.... We are only Dúnedain, and we are not privileged to look upon such great and pure beings as istari....”
Below, Diocletian was sorely regretting teaching her partner to read: evidently, he had found her Barbara Cartland novels, and been taking full advantage of them, too. But it seemed to do the trick: Archir slipped out of bed and cuddled up to Suicide.
“I will go with you and show them that they should not be afraid.” He slipped his hand into Suicide’s. “I’ll help them! They don’t need to be scared any more.”
“You would do that for us?” Suicide gasped, wondering if Na’an would honor his prayers for insulin and booze. “You are truly the Star Child, indeed! Please, let us go in haste, so that they may learn what has come among us!”
The two of them headed for the stairs. The minute they reached the top step, though, Archir immediately stopped and looked expectantly at Suicide. With a sigh, the Scythian picked up the simpering OC and hurried down the steps, trying to ignore the fact that Archir was apparently sniffing his neck. A cold feeling crept down his spine. It’s for the job. It’s for the job. It’s for the job. Na’an, if you could add an extra fifth of Glenfiddich to that order....
At the sound of footsteps, the other three agents retreated into the shadows, moving further away from the flets and from any Elvish ears. Suicide followed, Archir still wrapped lamprey-like around his neck.
At last, the Scythian emerged into a small clearing. The branches of the trees intertwined overhead, leaving only a small path of clear moonlight in the center, and it was there that Suicide gratefully dropped the clinging Stu.
“Archir the Emerald,” a slightly hoarse female voice said. “Alias Harry Potter and the Little Istar that Could. You are hereby charged as a Gary Stu by the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. Stand and hear your charges.”
Archir blinked his wide, pretty eyes in innocent confusion. “What?”
“You are charged,” the female voice continued, “with usurping the role of a canon character, to wit, Harry Potter; with replacing said canon character via a combination of infantilization, character corruption, and saccharinity; with perpetrating distortions of space, to wit, having Gandalf exist in two places at once; with perpetrating distortions of time, to wit, everything....” There was a rustle of paper. “Committing no less than forty-seven counts of aggravated creepification, making everybody fawn over you... um... giving the people in the Prancing Pony spots, stopping to work off the damages of the Black Riders’ attack despite it being the stupidest possible thing to do at that moment, putting the safety of yourself over the safety of the frickin’ Quest of the Ring, with controlling and degrading moo shu pork with hot curry—no, wait, hang on a sec....”
“After all that fuss about getting just the right charges?” said a quicker, more sarcastic male voice, followed by a sigh. “Addendum: you are further charged with making a fuss over common names, nonsensical naming, asynchronous anatomy, unnatural illumination, mangling the canonical timeline, horribly misquoting passages from the book despite clearly having a full knowledge of it, various geographical aberrations, multiple counts of bizarre descriptions, malapropisms, ridiculous nicknames, and other proofs of having a very weak grip on the English language indeed; and let’s not leave out setting yourself up as Eru by being able to put on the One Ring with absolutely no effect whatsoever, apart, of course, from completely shattering the canon.
“As if that weren’t enough, you also went on to join the Fellowship of the Ring, mount the Fellowship on horses—which is completely asinine since you knew full well they’d only lose them at Moria anyway—to cause the existence of a flannel Fëanor, open the Doors of Durin, cause Frodo to sprout a ’fro, cause unspeakable things to happen in Moria, turn yourself undead, woobify Haldir, and cause my normally polite and level-headed partner to turn into a raving maniac, forcing us to subdue him to a degree such that I think he’s actually passed out under that tree now....” The male voice faded and there was a pause and a shuffling of feet. Then it came back. “Yup. Ahem. I know damn well I’m leaving charges out, but that’s all the important ones.”
“Oh, and for making me lose my notebook when the universe exploded,” the first voice added. “And for making me write all this extra stuff on myself. I’m going to be finding charges for weeks.”
“You forgot ‘mass goblin sex’,” said the voice of the Ranger who had brought Archir there.
“I said ‘unspeakable things in Moria’,” the second voice snapped. “Unspeakable, as in should not be spoken of ever again.”
“Sheesh. Cranky much?”
In the ring of moonlight, the istar trembled, his lip quivering. His eyes had reached a point of dewiness normally only possible in Disney universes. He reached for his wand, but he had left it on the flet—and unlike Harry Potter, Archir didn’t have the presence of mind to try any of that wandless magic he was supposed to know. Especially not when there was nobody there to adore him.
Then, unexpectedly, the first voice spoke again. “I... I don’t know about this, Su,” it said uncertainly. “He’s just a kid. I mean, look at him. Do you think we can salvage—?”
“No, he isn’t,” the gray-haired Dúnadan interrupted. He reemerged into the light and grabbed Archir by the collar. “It’s not a kid. It never was. Taking on an innocent form while sucking all the strength and backbone out of the strongest warriors in the Fellowship?”
“Put... me... down,” Archir said angrily, clenching his small fists.
The gray-haired man smirked at him. “No.”
“I said put me down!” the child screamed in a very un-childlike voice. For a moment, the strained canon trembled, and the agents felt something ripple past them in the darkness.
“The power of Tolkien compels you!” Suicide shouted, giving Archir a good shake. “The power of Tolkien compels you! Show us your true form!”
Archir flailed, trying one last tack. “I’m just a child!” he squeaked, his eyes filling with tears. “Don’t you feel sorry for me?”
“Nope.”
“Not remotely.” The owner of the second voice, every inch the tall and wrathful Noldo in that moment, stepped out of the shadows with a copy of The Silmarillion thrust out in front of him. “In the name of Eru Ilúvatar, Manwë, Varda, and all the Valar, reveal yourself!”
The form of the “Istari child” wavered. With nobody to fawn over him or cuddle him, with nobody to comfort him about his OMG so HORRIBLE past with the mean, mean Dursleys, he was quickly running out of power. His skin rippled, and cracks of red light appeared in the childish façade, burning Suicide’s hands. The Scythian cursed, but didn’t let go, and the cracks widened.
With an explosion of red light, Suicide was thrown head over heels and sent crashing into the trees at the edge of the clearing. The fake childlike form peeled away, and a mass of darkness came boiling out, forming in midair into a strange hunched shape with protruding teeth and a shadowy, skeletal body. Glowing ice-blue eyes surveyed the horrified agents as it landed again in the midst of the clearing, and it bared its teeth in a mirthless grin.
“What in the....” Diocletian stopped, dumbfounded.
Nume took a step back, staggered by the blast. “A wraith! It’s got to have a glitter level over seven hundred!”
“It’s not a wraith, it’s practically a vampire! Fic vampire. Fic incubus. Ficubus?” Diocletian backed away slowly, trying to look at Suicide and keep an eye on the monster at the same time. “Nuuuume...” she said worriedly. “No weapons, Nume, remember? Nume?”
“sh*t.” The apparition seemed to make a decision and swooped toward the dark-haired agent. “sh*tsh*tf*ckandtit*!” Nume lobbed the book at it, but since he was using his right hand he was wildly off-target and only just managed to dodge, tumbling hard to the ground and rolling away with a grunt. The wraith banked and headed back toward Suicide, who had struck one of the trees headfirst and slumped at its base, unmoving.
Seeing it heading towards her partner, Diocletian let out a high-pitched, panicky war cry and dived towards the thing. “The power of Tolkien comp—ooof!” One shadowy limb thudded hard into her gut, knocking her wind out. Diocletian collapsed like a house of cards, wheezing and clutching her stomach.
In desperation, Nume lurched painfully back to his feet and shouted at the ficubus. “Hey!” He threw a stick at it, again missing embarrassingly even for someone using his off-hand—there was a reason he didn’t carry any real weapons, after all. The wraith hissed, almost as though it were laughing. Nume kept after it, intending to tackle the damn thing if he had to. “Let’s see how you feel about the local pantheon. ‘There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones’—”
The shadowy apparition didn’t like it much. It turned and slammed Nume back to the ground, leering down at him as though considering a snack before dinner. Nume looked death in the face and quoted canon at it. “‘And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was’—oh Jesus—!” At the last second he closed his eyes.
There was an odd pounding, and a swish, and the air was rent with an eldritch scream. It seemed to say, “I will use flamers to cook my omelett!” and then it was gone.
After a moment of definitely not being dead, Nume cracked his eyes open and raised his head. There was no sign of the ficubus; instead, a startlingly blue Ilraen dropped to all four knees beside him. The Andalite panted heavily and his eyes were bloodshot and not quite focused, but he was there, and the ficubus was not.
<I realized I was the only one of us who is armed.> He touched his tail-blade as though surprised it was still there. <I am so sorry—I should have been here sooner. If I had not—>
Nume let his head fall back to the ground. “Damn it, Ilraen. You just saved my ass. Shut up with the guilt.” Ilraen shut up, so Nume pushed himself upright and called out to the others. “You guys alive?”
Diocletian was on her hands and knees, still wheezing. “Andalites like human food, right?” she managed. “Come by our RC sometime. I swear to Eru that we will feed you into unconsciousness.”
With an effort, she got to her feet and stumbled to the edge of the clearing, where the crumpled form of her partner lay. His eyes were open now, staring up at the sky, but he didn’t move: for a moment, Diocletian feared the worst. Then the eyes flicked towards her. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Diocletian said, wondering where this was going.
“Nice night.”
“It is, isn’t it? Is that a new head wound?”
“Oh, this old thing? No, I’ve had it for a while. The concussion is new, though.” Suicide’s eyes crossed briefly. “I think I can hear colors.”
Diocletian was about to pat her battered partner on the head, but changed her mind and switched to the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Dr. Fitzgerald has pills for that. C’mon, up you get.”
“That was something, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Sure explains why the universe thought he was a barrow-wight.” She hitched an arm under Suicide’s shoulders and heaved, trying to pull him up. That didn’t go so well.
“...Maybe it’s just me,” Suicide observed calmly as he fought his third losing battle with gravity, “but has the world not changed back yet? Everything still feels thin and stretched. Like bullsh*t scraped over too much board.”
“Er—something like that, I suppose,” Diocletian hazarded, rearranging her grip on Suicide and finally managing to get him upright. “There’s still a lot of noncanon stuff hanging around, and I bet at least one of the canons will need neuralyzing.” With some effort, she managed to haul her dazed partner back to where Nume and Ilraen were now standing. Suicide’s eyes bugged out at the sight of the Andalite.
“Dio, is there a blue—”
“Yes.”
“Damn. I thought this concussion was about to get entertaining.”
“In reference to the bullsh*t,” Nume said, “first of all, we’ve had enough horrible paraphrasing for one mission, thanks. Second... I concur.” He took a moment to scrub at his face. “I’ll hazard that the Fellowship still thinks Archir’s hanging around in Lothlórien. We’ll have to disabuse them of that notion.”
“And we still have Bad End to take care of,” Diocletian added, glancing at the Words. “It looks like there might be an extra Lonely Mountain to take care of, too, though if we’re lucky an error made so close to the time of the ficubus’ death will have reversed itself naturally. Drink your absinthe, Su, you’ll feel fine in a couple of minutes.”
“That actually strikes me as a terrible idea for someone whose brain is already not firing on all cylinders. But then again, if anyone believed that, alcohol wouldn’t be nearly so popular. Ilraen, where’s our bag?”
<I left it in the trees. It is safe.>
“Good.” Nume strode away and came back after a minute with the bag over his shoulder, the DORKS (a tangle of Christmas lights) in hand. “Here you go.” He switched Ilraen back to his elven guise and put the device (prrrp—a stapler) away, then squinted at the Words. They were hazy and faded out in places, but still very much there. “It looks like... damn, this is uncomfortable... it looks like Gandalf turns up a few days later—on Shadowfax, for some screwy reason. We might be able to grab him first.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Diocletian said as Suicide finished the flask. “I swear that Ar—” The world gave another groan, and she coughed. “—that the ficubus was feeding on him right from the start. I’m not surprised he didn’t fall into shadow; it hadn’t finished zombifying him yet. I say we just throw a bag over his head.”
Nume raised an eyebrow. “Got a bag?”
Diocletian turned her equipment rucksack upside-down and dumped it onto the ground. “There. Bag. Let’s go grab him and get out of here.”
The tall agent stared down at the alarming amount of uncanon littering the ground and very nearly had a facial tic, but he shrugged it off and managed to dial up a portal one-handed. “Fine. We’ll grab. You two"—he gestured at Ilraen and Suicide— “stay here and don’t die. Too much paperwork.”
Nume and Diocletian jumped ahead a few days, to when “a white angelic king of all horses ... Lord of horses and chief of Meras” bore Gandalf into Lothlórien.
“Gwaihir was out of the office on holiday, apparently,” Nume said. “I got the mini. Have fun with pedo!Gandalf.”
Diocletian frowned at him, double-checked the Sue-tracking bracelet on her ankle (now masquerading as a strip of colored leather) and then shinnied up a nearby tree.
Gandalf rode slowly, a blank look in his eyes. There was a rustle of leaves, a muffled thud, an offended neigh from Shadowfax, and inexplicably, the sound of plates breaking. Diocletian and possessed!Gandalf ended up in a dusty heap on the forest floor, Diocletian’s rucksack over Gandalf’s head and Shadowfax’s hoof planted firmly on Diocletian’s solar plexus.
“Ow,” Diocletian said intelligently. “Um. I had a reason?”
Shadowfax gave her the stink-eye that only a thousand-pound animal with very large teeth can give, but after a moment’s consideration, reluctantly let her up. As she clambered to her feet the horse nosed worriedly at Gandalf, who hadn’t budged since landing in the dirt. Rubbing her bruised chest with one hand, Diocletian fished one final litmus strip out of her belt pouch and waved it carefully. The strip turned into a pumpkin.
“...Yeah,” she said. Gandalf still hadn’t budged, so she put her hands under his arms (silently apologizing to Eru as she did so) and hauled him to his feet just like she had Suicide. “I’m sorry, Mithrandir. We’ll get you fixed up right away.”
Meanwhile, Nume managed to herd the skittish mini-Balrog Meras through a portal to Headquarters. Only slightly winded, he jogged toward Diocletian and eyed her vapid captive. “Think our partners can keep an eye on him while we grab the others? I figure Aragorn and Elrond had better come along, too.”
“Yeah, I’m sure the alien and the concussed loon can watch the catatonic guy,” Diocletian said. She carefully towed Gandalf back towards Nume. “...That wasn’t meant to be as sarcastic as it sounded. Should they go to Fitzgerald or FicPsych?”
“They’re not hurt. It’ll have to be FicPsych. Hell, I might leave Ilraen there, too.” He quickly rerouted the portal back to the clearing.
“You’re not,” Diocletian said firmly. “We have to feed him first. C’mon, Mithrandir, through the big glowy door....”
The capture of Aragorn and Elrond went more or less along the same lines, although Diocletian nearly dropped a sword on her foot and Nume suffered a slight bruise when Aragorn fell on him. Soon both dazed and confused canons were herded through a portal to the clearing, where Ilraen kept an eye on things. Sadly for the canons, he was not having a difficult time. He had apparently found the opportunity to repack the contents of Diocletian’s duffel into Suicide’s backpack.
Diocletian patted her still-woozy partner on the head absentmindedly, as if for good luck, and glanced at the Words.
“Bad End?” she said to Nume.
“Bad End.” He scratched the back of his neck. “This is going to be really bad or really anticlimactic, I can’t tell.”
Opening one more portal, all four agents and three canons jumped (or were propelled) straight into the heart of the Shire. It was just turning evening, and the grass was cool and green underfoot, the sky tinged with violet, the hobbit hole....
“I’m gonna go with bad,” Diocletian said after a moment’s pause. “Big, big bad.”
Instead of Bag End, a bizarre thing had its head stuck out of a hole in the hillside. Its black fur was coated with grass clippings to help give it the appearance of the green hill, and its gigantic mouth was wide open, displaying a door-sized mouthful of interlocking sharp teeth. Some thoughtful party had crudely painted a green door onto the teeth; the drool rather spoiled the effect. From behind tasteful curtains, malevolent red eyes peered at them. It was indeed a bad.
“Huh,” Suicide said.
“That’s big,” Ilraen added.
“That’s really big,” Nume finished. He was disappointed to note that nobody recognized the quote.
Suicide co*cked his head, looking at him out of his good eye. “That’s no moon?”
“‘That’s a budong’. They did that joke, actually, yes.”
Diocletian, recognizing a word that Suicide could not possibly leave alone no matter how concussed he was, hastily intervened. “Does Headquarters have a wrangling department?” she said, carefully approaching Bad End on the balls of her feet. The curtain-eyelids flickered, and she stopped. “Eyes looking a bit glazed there, big fella.... Anyone have a working CAD?”
“Electromagnetic candy,” Nume mumbled to himself, pulling the borrowed Canon Analysis Device out of the messenger bag. He had chosen it for its tough-looking chassis, and indeed it looked to have been reinforced with spot-welding in places. It would have to do. He pointed it at the bad.
It hissed and fizzed a bit, and Nume got ready to drop it and run, but finally it produced a message. [Bad End, Hobbiton. / Uncanon for sure, my friend. / To sum up, hell no.] And it went black.
“Well, that’s not helpful.” Nume slapped it against his thigh, to absolutely no response. “A CAD that does haiku? Really lame haiku? God damn it, DoSAT.”
“We have to get this thing out of here,” Diocletian said. There was a guttural rumble from Bad End. “Nonviolently,” she added hastily. The hill subsided somewhat as the bad relaxed again. “Nume, do you still have that book?”
“Yeah.” With determination, he tucked the CAD away and brought forth The Silmarillion, and stalked toward the bad. “Begone, creature of foul writing! Leave this canon place and trouble it no more!”
The bad looked like it was about to protest—as much as a furry version of a sand worm can protest—but Nume had been through a lot in the last twelve hours or so and it knew it wasn’t going to win this one. With a guttural rumble it squeezed forward, emerging from the hill in a shower of earth. The canon flickered as it withdrew, and Bag End phased into existence, filling in the gap left by the bad’s removal. It sneezed, spraying the PPC agents with dust, and regarded them balefully with its glowing red eyes.
“They are going to love you at Headquarters,” Diocletian said happily, eyeing its three-foot-long teeth. “We finally have an extracanonical monster to feed Sues to! Too bad Jay Thorntree isn’t with us any more, she’d love you....” Getting an idea, she rounded on Suicide. “Can we keep him?”
“Sure, do whatever you want,” Suicide mumbled.
Diocletian frowned. “You’re just saying that because you’re brain-damaged.”
“Prolly. But you’ll have to take it up with Mithiriel too, remember?”
“...Never mind.” Diocletian sighed and turned back to the bad. “We’ll find you a home, big fella. Maybe Otik can use a friend? In the meantime, I think I’ve got... hang on....” After a moment’s rummaging in Suicide’s backpack, she produced a small plastic ziplock bag. “In you go.”
“Is that—?”
“Baggie of Holding. Don’t ask.” The bad shuffled into the baggie, which expanded to accommodate it and then shrank back to the size of a sandwich, contents included. Diocletian carefully tucked it into the backpack before continuing.
“That just leaves—” another glance at the Words “—the Wall of Mazarbaaargh? Hate to destroy it, but it’s not exactly the most practical of souvenirs. Even if it DOES have psychic powers.”
Suicide blinked sleepily, rubbing his good eye. “Do you think that talking wall thingy at the Official Fanfiction University of Middle-earth would like a friend? The watcha—the Witch-Wall?”
“Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Does this face kid? No, wait, don’t answer that. But what’s the worst that it could do?”
“I—”
“Don’t answer that either.”
Diocletian sighed. “Witch-Wall it is.” She glanced over at Nume, who’d been watching the whole bizarre exchange with a mixture of bemusem*nt, bafflement, and straight-up irritation. That particular expression was growing to be very familiar. “What next, chief?”
“Get your wall taken care of, then get back here so we can leave.” Frustrated by the limitations of being effectively one-handed, he shoved the RA at her rather more aggressively than necessary. Or he might just have misjudged the distance.
It only took a moment to portal to Moria and throw a quick transport field around the psychic wall. Then Diocletian opened another portal to one of OFUM’s bathrooms and stuck her head through—carefully, since even ex-Sues tended not to get the kindest reception at that particular institution. Fortunately, there was nobody in her area of vision but the Witch-Wall, who couldn’t have left if he wanted to. He was perusing an IKEA catalogue and seemed to be spending an awful lot of time staring at a luxurious full-color spread on stone-texture treatments.
“Brought you a friend!” Diocletian called out as the Wall of Mazarbaaargh phased into existence opposite him. Then she vanished, leaving the Witch-Wall staring at his new bathroom buddy.
“So... come here often?”
