PPC, Az & Boston, Mission 3: Last of People of the Shadows Pt. 1
Author: tavingtonsbeauty
Rating: M
Obligatory linkage: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3792851/1/The_Last_of_People_of_the_Shadows
Sporked by: dawnbluewings , as Agents Az and Boston
Notes: Suishness, OOCness, obsession with Married Elf Sex, making up a new race of elves, Just Sort Of Blah.
Disclaimer: I do not Own the PPC. I do not own the character in this Fic, nor the Fic I have sporked. I own Az, Boston, Piper, and Farawen. That's about it. I was given Permission to write for the PPC in June of 2009.
After losing her Sanity to two minis and her seven-year-old daughter, Az had taken it upon herself to make sure that the remaining players were well fed, and had wandered over to the little kitchenette that had been set up near the Console. She had just finished making tuna sandwiches - or, in the case of the minis, quarter-tuna sandwiches - when she heard a hesitant knock on the door. Setting down the sandwiches in front of the small things currently vying to steal each others’ Sanity, Azrael opened the door, wondering who was calling on her little patch of headquarters.
The answer that awaited her was almost enough to make her lunge for the visitor’s throat.
She was perhaps sixteen years old, and skinny to the point of being skeletal. She had large, soft, brown eyes, and blonde hair, which, Az noted, was at least three feet shorter than it had been last time Az had seen her.
“What are you doing here?” demanded Az, glaring at the Mary Sue she had been forced to recruit from her last mission.
“Is… is this Response Centre Six-eighty-eight-point-five?” asked the girl, sounding for all the world like she hoped it was not.
“It is,” said Az, with a growing sense of trepidation. Surely not. Surely Upstairs wouldn’t be that sadistic…
“It’s… not yours, is it?” The edge of fear in the girl’s voice was so thick that Az felt her own anger slipping.
“It is,” Azrael reiterated. Looking at the girl’s face, she took a deep breath, and sighed. “Come on in.” She opened the door wider, letting the girl into her home, and waiting for the Console to shriek. As soon as the door was shut, it happened.
Rather, it sort of beeped. Az closed her eyes, went to the console, and hit the acknowledgement button.
Agents Azraelle and Boston -
You will be training the new recruit you came back with from your last fic. Think of it as an exercise in tolerance.
- M. du Sod.
Az closed her eyes, counted to ten, and turned to Chiara McLean. “I’m supposed to train you.” She hesitated, and then turned, holding out a hand to her daughter. “Fara, come here. This is Chiara. Apparently I’m supposed to train her. Chiara, this is Farawen. She’s the boss around here.”
There was a moment’s pause, and then Chiara was on one knee in front of Fara. “Hello, miss Farawen. If you please, I would prefer to be called ‘Piper’. The nice women I just spoke with said it was very important that I have my own name.”
“You’re a Sue,” said Fara, slightly accusatory.
“Guilty,” said the girl, smiling a little, before looking around the RC. “I’m trying to get better, though…” She spotted the two Minis, and frowned, worried. Then she noticed that Cadfaels was still holding a massive, multi-sided die, and smiling reassuringly at her. “You’re playing a game?” she asked, all of her worry and trepidation obvious in her voice.
“Yup!” Fara grabbed her hand, and pulled her, bodily, over to where the others sat. “Come play! It’s easy!”
Watching the Sue - No, Az corrected herself, the Former Sue - get pulled over to the others, Az winced as the girl’s shirt stretched across her shoulders and back, revealing a frame so devoid of fat that Az could count every rib.
A quick moment’s thought, and Az was back at the counter to her kitchenette, making another tuna sandwich. “Eat,” she said, setting it in front of the girl.
“Oh, no thank you, ma’am,” said Piper, looking up at Az, her eyes huge. “I ate before I went to visit the brother.”
Azrael did quick a quick calculation, and then frowned at the girl as Piper’s stomach grumbled, audibly. “That, miss Piper, was over six hours ago. You were sent here so that I could train you into a good Agent, and I can’t do that when you’re fainting from hunger.” A sudden realization made Az’s stomach turn in sympathy, and horror. “You are not at home anymore. You do not have to starve yourself in the vain hope of getting out of your marriage contract. Now eat.”
Piper blinked up at the towering, imposing figure standing over her, looked down at the sandwich before her, and wolfed it down in three bites. “Happy?” she asked, handing the plate back up to Az.
“For now,” said Az, before fetching a glass of milk.
***
Three games and four glasses of milk later, the girl Piper was acting, if not like a normal teenager, then at least not like a rather small adult. Boston, having woken up and pulled himself back into his man form, had joined the game, and was now happily losing his last sanity to Cadfaels.
This, it would appear, was when the Ironic Overpower chose to strike, the frantic [BEEEEEEEEEEE----] from the console cut off by Boston’s doglike leap, and wince when his sore ribs connected with the console. “Az, is this canon?” he asked, frowning.
It was Fara who popped up under his arm, reading out loud. “She was the last of the race known by the last of the race known by the humans of Middle Earth as Shadows.” With that, Farawen sat down where she was, put her face into her hands, and wailed “Mommy, kill it!”
Boston looked down at the child currently sitting on his feet, and nodded. “I’ll take that as a no.” He hit the print button, and the console spewed off three copies of the fic. When he turned back to the console to program in disguises, Fara was already there, doing it for him. She was standing on tiptoe, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she twiddled various knobs and pressed buttons.
Az leaned over the console, reading the intel report, her lips moving slowly. “…” The elipses hovered over her head for a moment, before falling into her hair. She ruffled her hair, letting the three little dots fall to the ground, where Eldornna the Mini wandered over and picked them up, popping them into its mouth and chewing appreciatively.
“Lickrish…” the Mini muttered, humming.
“This is… How does she… She gets it all so wrong!” Az’s voice was soft, and filled with the sort of subtle horror that Boston had only heard in the memories he had been given from his previous life.
“Isn’t that normal?” asked Boston, frowning.
Az pinched the bridge of her nose. “Not like this. Not like this.” She shook her head, and picked up her daughter, hugging the girl tight. “She gets all the little things right. Like, things that take a lot of research. And yet… and yet, she is completely missing the big picture. There’s no need to justify Elven monogamy. That’s just the way it is.” Before Az could continue, the portal opened up in front of her, and a small hand on her back pushed her through.
“Just go kill it!” said Fara, shoving Boston and Piper through as well. With that, the portal closed, and Az had the common sense to stay down as the blackness around them coalesced.
Piper, on the other hand, did not have the experience to tell her that she shouldn’t stand up, and was struck upside the head by
The Last of People of the Shadows by tavingtonsbeauty
Rubbing at the side of her head, Piper stood again, only to be hit with
The Shadow
Ch 1 - Prologue
Green Eyes
“How can it be both chapter one and the prologue? These are two separate things,” griped Az, grabbing Piper and holding the girl forcefully to her, where she sat under the cover of a tree.
Piper gingerly felt at the lump that was forming on the side of her head, and winced. “I wish I had some of Cadfael’s headache cure,” she muttered, rubbing her fingers together in front of her face.
“Let me take a look at that,” said Az, turning the girl, with another deep twist in her stomach. This girl, this Piper, was so skinny that Az could count her ribs through her uniform jacket, and weighed just a little more than Fara did.
She would have to do something about that.
It surprised Az that she was having these sudden protective urges toward someone who, less than twelve hours earlier, she had been sent to kill. “You’re not bleeding, but you’re probably feeling a little nauseous?”
In answer, Piper bent sideways, and threw up what little she had eaten earlier. “I’m sorry,” she moaned, wiping at her mouth, before Az sat her up again, and pulled a tissue out of her pocket.
“Hush, you. None of that.” She carefully wiped at the girl’s streaming eyes, then handed her the tissue. “Look at me,” she ordered, and held up a finger, instructing the girl to follow it with her eyes.
With a nod, Az pulled out her bottle of bleeprin, and handed the girl two. “Take these. They’ll help. You’ll be fine.”
Meanwhile, a vaguely female shape ran past the three, and it had begun to rain.
She kept to give her as much cover as she could.
Az blinked. “She kept to what?” she asked, as Boston scribbled a note. “By the way, Piper, can you read?”
“I can,” said Piper, proudly. “Though, probably not right now.” She touched the side of her head again, still disbelieving that she wasn’t bleeding all over the place.
“That’s alright,” murmured Az. “Boston, get the charge for redundancy noted early, would you? I only see this getting worse as the fic goes on…”
She was the last of the race known by the last of the race known by the humans of Middle Earth as Shadows.
“…” Az shook her head, and laughed a little. “The last of the what now? D’you think she’s a Balrog?” At the blank stares of her companions, Az shook her head again. “Never mind…”
The narration boomed, and Az’s brow furrowed in a frown.
Her father had given his life to protect his wife and his child from the enemy. He had seen the doom ahead and had lost the will to live after being grievously hurt.
“That was… that was completely contradictory,” noted Boston, picking himself up off of the ground, and rubbing at his sore ribs. “Or, if nothing else, cowardly. Personally, if my Magelet were in danger…” He trailed off, and blinked several times, turning his face away. “Never mind.” The thoughts of his old life - no, he corrected himself, of Numair’s life - still hurt too much to think about. “If I had a wife and child, I would give my life to protect them. Not my useless, cowardly death.”
“It’s that attitude that landed us in the PPC, Boston, my friend.” Az picked herself up as well, and then helped Piper to her feet.
The child was the hope of their people.
“Piper!” said Az, turning to the girl with a manic grin. “What is that right there one of the signs of?”
Piper frowned, obviously trying to remember something. “Being a… Being a Mary Sue?” she guessed, obviously painfully unsure.
“Correct!” said Az, as a trio of wargs ran past after the focus of the Fic. Looking down at herself and seeing that her disguise had coalesced into that of a generic orc, Az’s grin twisted into a grim smirk. A quick whistle in a familiar pitch brought the wargs to a skidding halt, and the trio came back to Az, wagging their tails and lolling like puppies. “And this is one of the things that makes me ‘Suish!” said Az, triumphantly. “Go ahead, give them a pet. They’re quite sweet, really…” She ruffled the fur of the leader, and, burying her hands into his ruff, leapt up onto him. “I was written as a generic evil minion, but my author decided I would ride one of these beasties.”
Reluctantly, Boston followed Az’s lead, and swung himself up onto one of the wargs. “Huh. I… I guess this will work…”
Piper, after three attempts, hoisted herself up as well, looking more than a little bit frightened.
With a short series of clicks, Az lead the group after the woman who had run past, catching up with her at some ambiguous stream. Az knew what the stream was supposed to be, but there was nothing saying what it was.
“Bring her to me alive! The Great One wishes her alive!” Az shouted, playing along with the script of the fic. Her warg, tired and thirsty, walked to the edge of the water and lapped at it.
The woman-shaped thing, holding the rainbow bundle that was the baby Sue, screamed.
"Fear not." Came a voice around her. She looked behind her. There was a glowing light. She heard a great roar.
Az quickly backed out of the ford, having scanned ahead enough to know what was coming next. “Go on, now,” she said, getting off of her warg and giving it a pat on the rump. “Get out of here. I’m saving you from drowning in that flood.”
As the flood subsided, Az lead her companions back into the cover of the woods. It was barely a moment after she had gotten behind a tree when she heard a rather pitiful mewling sound.
“What... What is that?” asked Piper, looking with fear at the little creature that had just wandered up.
“That’s Rivendell Kinswoman,” said Az, shaking her head. “She’s a Mini-Balrog. Like Cadfaels and Eldornna.” She was about to elaborate further when the three of them were hit by a chapter break.
Piper, this time, was smart enough to stay down as the chapter heading whizzed overhead.
The Shadow
Ch 2
Rivendell
The trio found themselves in the woods outside Rivendell, watching a pair not far away, who were in turn watching a lone young woman interact with a stag.
“How does she get the little things right and miss the big picture entirely?” asked Az, once again, clutching at her head.
“What do you mean?” asked Boston, frowning at his partner.
“Those boys,” explained Az. “The older one is Elladan, according to the script, and the younger one is Estel. Who is Aragorn. You remember Aragorn? Only younger. And it astounds me that anyone who would know who Elladan is and that Aragorn was raised as a son in the house of Elrond would write something like this. What, normal Elves weren’t good enough for you so you had to make up your own, speshul elves?”
As the description of the Sue commenced, Az burst out laughing. “She… that… it… Hahaha…”
The Sue, which Elladan had identified as Serenia, had long, turquoise hair that foamed over her shoulders and down her back…
“Like… like a water… like a waterfall…” said Az, through her giggles. The worst, or perhaps best on the stand of comedy, was what Serenia was wearing.
“What… what is that?” asked Piper, frowning.
“Issasnuggie!” said Az, holding her stomach. “A camouflage snuggie!”
“What is a snuggie?” This time it was Boston who spoke.
“It’s a… A thing. For lounging in. And being warm…” Az finished, lamely, with a shrug.
“Can I have it?” asked Piper, turning her head to one side. “Once we kill her like you were going to kill me?”
Azrael winced. “I don’t see why not,” she said, shrugging.
While Elladan played romance police with Estel, Az checked over Piper once more. It was a concussion, but a light one. She would be fine, in a week or two, as long as Az could keep her from getting hit in the head any more.
And then Serenia-Sue’s arms turned into sticks.
“Aaauugh!” cried Piper, her eyes going wide and horrified. “What… what just happened?”
Az examined the Words. “Those are her ‘willow thin arms’,” she observed, with a scowl. “Oh no, no, she did not!” said Az, lunging toward the Sue.
“What didn’t she?” asked Boston, grabbing her around the waist and sitting her on his lap, arms locked firmly around her.
“She… he… Estel… twig…”
This time it was Piper who squinted to see the Words. “Is Estel the sort of person who would snap a twig under his foot?” she asked, with a worried frown, pointing out a paragraph.
Estel moved closer. His foot stood on a twig. It snapped beneath his weight.
Az’s answering growl and struggle were all that the others needed to see. “Charging for lobotomizing characters again?” asked Boston.
“And practically crippling him!” shrieked Az, flailing.
“Erm, ma’am?” asked Piper, “Where did she go?”
“Where did who go?” asked Az, suddenly snapped out of her rage.
“Serenia,” said Piper, gesturing to where the Sue had been.
Az looked around, from where the girl had been, to where Elladan and Estel were still standing, chatting. While the pair of them chatted about who she was - "She was brought here to be raised by Lord Elrond as you were." - Az cast her eyes about, unsure about how she felt about the Sue wandering around loose. She finally spotted the Sue at the same moment that Elladan did, standing above the boys, on the brink of a hitherto unmentioned waterfall. It was, in fact, the sudden appearance of the waterfall that had made Az notice the girl…
And then the Sue grew roots.
“Betraying her true roots?” asked Boston, shaking his head.
A beep from Az’s backpack was the Fic Location Follower, warning them that it had just stopped them from being dragged across time and space. Az surveyed the Words, and sat down again. “Okay. We have a little while before we have to be in Rivendell. Boston, what do you have charged sofar?”
Boston looked at his notebook, sighing. “Having bad title grammar, Concussing an Agent of the PPC, Not realizing that chapter one and the prologue are two different entities, Consistently leaving out words, Redundancy, Making up a new race of Elves because the normal Elves weren’t Speshul enough, The genocide of this new race of Elves, Being the last of them, Being the last hope of them, Creation of the Mini-Balrog Rivendell Kinswoman, Having hair like a waterfall, Having “Willow thin arms”, Lobotomizing characters, Crippling Estel, and Growing roots.”
Az nodded. “Okay. Add in Being so Speshul that Sauron wants her alive, Drowning Wargs, Missing the big picture entirely, Wearing a camouflage snuggie, Being raised as a child of Elrond, and Being able to teleport. That should cover this section…” She fiddled with the Remote Activator, and pulled up a portal into Rivendell proper, gesturing the others through. “Come on. Let’s get this over with…”
Part Two
Rating: M
Obligatory linkage: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3792851/1/The_Last_of_People_of_the_Shadows
Sporked by: dawnbluewings , as Agents Az and Boston
Notes: Suishness, OOCness, obsession with Married Elf Sex, making up a new race of elves, Just Sort Of Blah.
Disclaimer: I do not Own the PPC. I do not own the character in this Fic, nor the Fic I have sporked. I own Az, Boston, Piper, and Farawen. That's about it. I was given Permission to write for the PPC in June of 2009.
After losing her Sanity to two minis and her seven-year-old daughter, Az had taken it upon herself to make sure that the remaining players were well fed, and had wandered over to the little kitchenette that had been set up near the Console. She had just finished making tuna sandwiches - or, in the case of the minis, quarter-tuna sandwiches - when she heard a hesitant knock on the door. Setting down the sandwiches in front of the small things currently vying to steal each others’ Sanity, Azrael opened the door, wondering who was calling on her little patch of headquarters.
The answer that awaited her was almost enough to make her lunge for the visitor’s throat.
She was perhaps sixteen years old, and skinny to the point of being skeletal. She had large, soft, brown eyes, and blonde hair, which, Az noted, was at least three feet shorter than it had been last time Az had seen her.
“What are you doing here?” demanded Az, glaring at the Mary Sue she had been forced to recruit from her last mission.
“Is… is this Response Centre Six-eighty-eight-point-five?” asked the girl, sounding for all the world like she hoped it was not.
“It is,” said Az, with a growing sense of trepidation. Surely not. Surely Upstairs wouldn’t be that sadistic…
“It’s… not yours, is it?” The edge of fear in the girl’s voice was so thick that Az felt her own anger slipping.
“It is,” Azrael reiterated. Looking at the girl’s face, she took a deep breath, and sighed. “Come on in.” She opened the door wider, letting the girl into her home, and waiting for the Console to shriek. As soon as the door was shut, it happened.
Rather, it sort of beeped. Az closed her eyes, went to the console, and hit the acknowledgement button.
Agents Azraelle and Boston -
You will be training the new recruit you came back with from your last fic. Think of it as an exercise in tolerance.
- M. du Sod.
Az closed her eyes, counted to ten, and turned to Chiara McLean. “I’m supposed to train you.” She hesitated, and then turned, holding out a hand to her daughter. “Fara, come here. This is Chiara. Apparently I’m supposed to train her. Chiara, this is Farawen. She’s the boss around here.”
There was a moment’s pause, and then Chiara was on one knee in front of Fara. “Hello, miss Farawen. If you please, I would prefer to be called ‘Piper’. The nice women I just spoke with said it was very important that I have my own name.”
“You’re a Sue,” said Fara, slightly accusatory.
“Guilty,” said the girl, smiling a little, before looking around the RC. “I’m trying to get better, though…” She spotted the two Minis, and frowned, worried. Then she noticed that Cadfaels was still holding a massive, multi-sided die, and smiling reassuringly at her. “You’re playing a game?” she asked, all of her worry and trepidation obvious in her voice.
“Yup!” Fara grabbed her hand, and pulled her, bodily, over to where the others sat. “Come play! It’s easy!”
Watching the Sue - No, Az corrected herself, the Former Sue - get pulled over to the others, Az winced as the girl’s shirt stretched across her shoulders and back, revealing a frame so devoid of fat that Az could count every rib.
A quick moment’s thought, and Az was back at the counter to her kitchenette, making another tuna sandwich. “Eat,” she said, setting it in front of the girl.
“Oh, no thank you, ma’am,” said Piper, looking up at Az, her eyes huge. “I ate before I went to visit the brother.”
Azrael did quick a quick calculation, and then frowned at the girl as Piper’s stomach grumbled, audibly. “That, miss Piper, was over six hours ago. You were sent here so that I could train you into a good Agent, and I can’t do that when you’re fainting from hunger.” A sudden realization made Az’s stomach turn in sympathy, and horror. “You are not at home anymore. You do not have to starve yourself in the vain hope of getting out of your marriage contract. Now eat.”
Piper blinked up at the towering, imposing figure standing over her, looked down at the sandwich before her, and wolfed it down in three bites. “Happy?” she asked, handing the plate back up to Az.
“For now,” said Az, before fetching a glass of milk.
***
Three games and four glasses of milk later, the girl Piper was acting, if not like a normal teenager, then at least not like a rather small adult. Boston, having woken up and pulled himself back into his man form, had joined the game, and was now happily losing his last sanity to Cadfaels.
This, it would appear, was when the Ironic Overpower chose to strike, the frantic [BEEEEEEEEEEE----] from the console cut off by Boston’s doglike leap, and wince when his sore ribs connected with the console. “Az, is this canon?” he asked, frowning.
It was Fara who popped up under his arm, reading out loud. “She was the last of the race known by the last of the race known by the humans of Middle Earth as Shadows.” With that, Farawen sat down where she was, put her face into her hands, and wailed “Mommy, kill it!”
Boston looked down at the child currently sitting on his feet, and nodded. “I’ll take that as a no.” He hit the print button, and the console spewed off three copies of the fic. When he turned back to the console to program in disguises, Fara was already there, doing it for him. She was standing on tiptoe, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she twiddled various knobs and pressed buttons.
Az leaned over the console, reading the intel report, her lips moving slowly. “…” The elipses hovered over her head for a moment, before falling into her hair. She ruffled her hair, letting the three little dots fall to the ground, where Eldornna the Mini wandered over and picked them up, popping them into its mouth and chewing appreciatively.
“Lickrish…” the Mini muttered, humming.
“This is… How does she… She gets it all so wrong!” Az’s voice was soft, and filled with the sort of subtle horror that Boston had only heard in the memories he had been given from his previous life.
“Isn’t that normal?” asked Boston, frowning.
Az pinched the bridge of her nose. “Not like this. Not like this.” She shook her head, and picked up her daughter, hugging the girl tight. “She gets all the little things right. Like, things that take a lot of research. And yet… and yet, she is completely missing the big picture. There’s no need to justify Elven monogamy. That’s just the way it is.” Before Az could continue, the portal opened up in front of her, and a small hand on her back pushed her through.
“Just go kill it!” said Fara, shoving Boston and Piper through as well. With that, the portal closed, and Az had the common sense to stay down as the blackness around them coalesced.
Piper, on the other hand, did not have the experience to tell her that she shouldn’t stand up, and was struck upside the head by
The Last of People of the Shadows by tavingtonsbeauty
Rubbing at the side of her head, Piper stood again, only to be hit with
The Shadow
Ch 1 - Prologue
Green Eyes
“How can it be both chapter one and the prologue? These are two separate things,” griped Az, grabbing Piper and holding the girl forcefully to her, where she sat under the cover of a tree.
Piper gingerly felt at the lump that was forming on the side of her head, and winced. “I wish I had some of Cadfael’s headache cure,” she muttered, rubbing her fingers together in front of her face.
“Let me take a look at that,” said Az, turning the girl, with another deep twist in her stomach. This girl, this Piper, was so skinny that Az could count her ribs through her uniform jacket, and weighed just a little more than Fara did.
She would have to do something about that.
It surprised Az that she was having these sudden protective urges toward someone who, less than twelve hours earlier, she had been sent to kill. “You’re not bleeding, but you’re probably feeling a little nauseous?”
In answer, Piper bent sideways, and threw up what little she had eaten earlier. “I’m sorry,” she moaned, wiping at her mouth, before Az sat her up again, and pulled a tissue out of her pocket.
“Hush, you. None of that.” She carefully wiped at the girl’s streaming eyes, then handed her the tissue. “Look at me,” she ordered, and held up a finger, instructing the girl to follow it with her eyes.
With a nod, Az pulled out her bottle of bleeprin, and handed the girl two. “Take these. They’ll help. You’ll be fine.”
Meanwhile, a vaguely female shape ran past the three, and it had begun to rain.
She kept to give her as much cover as she could.
Az blinked. “She kept to what?” she asked, as Boston scribbled a note. “By the way, Piper, can you read?”
“I can,” said Piper, proudly. “Though, probably not right now.” She touched the side of her head again, still disbelieving that she wasn’t bleeding all over the place.
“That’s alright,” murmured Az. “Boston, get the charge for redundancy noted early, would you? I only see this getting worse as the fic goes on…”
She was the last of the race known by the last of the race known by the humans of Middle Earth as Shadows.
“…” Az shook her head, and laughed a little. “The last of the what now? D’you think she’s a Balrog?” At the blank stares of her companions, Az shook her head again. “Never mind…”
The narration boomed, and Az’s brow furrowed in a frown.
Her father had given his life to protect his wife and his child from the enemy. He had seen the doom ahead and had lost the will to live after being grievously hurt.
“That was… that was completely contradictory,” noted Boston, picking himself up off of the ground, and rubbing at his sore ribs. “Or, if nothing else, cowardly. Personally, if my Magelet were in danger…” He trailed off, and blinked several times, turning his face away. “Never mind.” The thoughts of his old life - no, he corrected himself, of Numair’s life - still hurt too much to think about. “If I had a wife and child, I would give my life to protect them. Not my useless, cowardly death.”
“It’s that attitude that landed us in the PPC, Boston, my friend.” Az picked herself up as well, and then helped Piper to her feet.
The child was the hope of their people.
“Piper!” said Az, turning to the girl with a manic grin. “What is that right there one of the signs of?”
Piper frowned, obviously trying to remember something. “Being a… Being a Mary Sue?” she guessed, obviously painfully unsure.
“Correct!” said Az, as a trio of wargs ran past after the focus of the Fic. Looking down at herself and seeing that her disguise had coalesced into that of a generic orc, Az’s grin twisted into a grim smirk. A quick whistle in a familiar pitch brought the wargs to a skidding halt, and the trio came back to Az, wagging their tails and lolling like puppies. “And this is one of the things that makes me ‘Suish!” said Az, triumphantly. “Go ahead, give them a pet. They’re quite sweet, really…” She ruffled the fur of the leader, and, burying her hands into his ruff, leapt up onto him. “I was written as a generic evil minion, but my author decided I would ride one of these beasties.”
Reluctantly, Boston followed Az’s lead, and swung himself up onto one of the wargs. “Huh. I… I guess this will work…”
Piper, after three attempts, hoisted herself up as well, looking more than a little bit frightened.
With a short series of clicks, Az lead the group after the woman who had run past, catching up with her at some ambiguous stream. Az knew what the stream was supposed to be, but there was nothing saying what it was.
“Bring her to me alive! The Great One wishes her alive!” Az shouted, playing along with the script of the fic. Her warg, tired and thirsty, walked to the edge of the water and lapped at it.
The woman-shaped thing, holding the rainbow bundle that was the baby Sue, screamed.
"Fear not." Came a voice around her. She looked behind her. There was a glowing light. She heard a great roar.
Az quickly backed out of the ford, having scanned ahead enough to know what was coming next. “Go on, now,” she said, getting off of her warg and giving it a pat on the rump. “Get out of here. I’m saving you from drowning in that flood.”
As the flood subsided, Az lead her companions back into the cover of the woods. It was barely a moment after she had gotten behind a tree when she heard a rather pitiful mewling sound.
“What... What is that?” asked Piper, looking with fear at the little creature that had just wandered up.
“That’s Rivendell Kinswoman,” said Az, shaking her head. “She’s a Mini-Balrog. Like Cadfaels and Eldornna.” She was about to elaborate further when the three of them were hit by a chapter break.
Piper, this time, was smart enough to stay down as the chapter heading whizzed overhead.
The Shadow
Ch 2
Rivendell
The trio found themselves in the woods outside Rivendell, watching a pair not far away, who were in turn watching a lone young woman interact with a stag.
“How does she get the little things right and miss the big picture entirely?” asked Az, once again, clutching at her head.
“What do you mean?” asked Boston, frowning at his partner.
“Those boys,” explained Az. “The older one is Elladan, according to the script, and the younger one is Estel. Who is Aragorn. You remember Aragorn? Only younger. And it astounds me that anyone who would know who Elladan is and that Aragorn was raised as a son in the house of Elrond would write something like this. What, normal Elves weren’t good enough for you so you had to make up your own, speshul elves?”
As the description of the Sue commenced, Az burst out laughing. “She… that… it… Hahaha…”
The Sue, which Elladan had identified as Serenia, had long, turquoise hair that foamed over her shoulders and down her back…
“Like… like a water… like a waterfall…” said Az, through her giggles. The worst, or perhaps best on the stand of comedy, was what Serenia was wearing.
“What… what is that?” asked Piper, frowning.
“Issasnuggie!” said Az, holding her stomach. “A camouflage snuggie!”
“What is a snuggie?” This time it was Boston who spoke.
“It’s a… A thing. For lounging in. And being warm…” Az finished, lamely, with a shrug.
“Can I have it?” asked Piper, turning her head to one side. “Once we kill her like you were going to kill me?”
Azrael winced. “I don’t see why not,” she said, shrugging.
While Elladan played romance police with Estel, Az checked over Piper once more. It was a concussion, but a light one. She would be fine, in a week or two, as long as Az could keep her from getting hit in the head any more.
And then Serenia-Sue’s arms turned into sticks.
“Aaauugh!” cried Piper, her eyes going wide and horrified. “What… what just happened?”
Az examined the Words. “Those are her ‘willow thin arms’,” she observed, with a scowl. “Oh no, no, she did not!” said Az, lunging toward the Sue.
“What didn’t she?” asked Boston, grabbing her around the waist and sitting her on his lap, arms locked firmly around her.
“She… he… Estel… twig…”
This time it was Piper who squinted to see the Words. “Is Estel the sort of person who would snap a twig under his foot?” she asked, with a worried frown, pointing out a paragraph.
Estel moved closer. His foot stood on a twig. It snapped beneath his weight.
Az’s answering growl and struggle were all that the others needed to see. “Charging for lobotomizing characters again?” asked Boston.
“And practically crippling him!” shrieked Az, flailing.
“Erm, ma’am?” asked Piper, “Where did she go?”
“Where did who go?” asked Az, suddenly snapped out of her rage.
“Serenia,” said Piper, gesturing to where the Sue had been.
Az looked around, from where the girl had been, to where Elladan and Estel were still standing, chatting. While the pair of them chatted about who she was - "She was brought here to be raised by Lord Elrond as you were." - Az cast her eyes about, unsure about how she felt about the Sue wandering around loose. She finally spotted the Sue at the same moment that Elladan did, standing above the boys, on the brink of a hitherto unmentioned waterfall. It was, in fact, the sudden appearance of the waterfall that had made Az notice the girl…
And then the Sue grew roots.
“Betraying her true roots?” asked Boston, shaking his head.
A beep from Az’s backpack was the Fic Location Follower, warning them that it had just stopped them from being dragged across time and space. Az surveyed the Words, and sat down again. “Okay. We have a little while before we have to be in Rivendell. Boston, what do you have charged sofar?”
Boston looked at his notebook, sighing. “Having bad title grammar, Concussing an Agent of the PPC, Not realizing that chapter one and the prologue are two different entities, Consistently leaving out words, Redundancy, Making up a new race of Elves because the normal Elves weren’t Speshul enough, The genocide of this new race of Elves, Being the last of them, Being the last hope of them, Creation of the Mini-Balrog Rivendell Kinswoman, Having hair like a waterfall, Having “Willow thin arms”, Lobotomizing characters, Crippling Estel, and Growing roots.”
Az nodded. “Okay. Add in Being so Speshul that Sauron wants her alive, Drowning Wargs, Missing the big picture entirely, Wearing a camouflage snuggie, Being raised as a child of Elrond, and Being able to teleport. That should cover this section…” She fiddled with the Remote Activator, and pulled up a portal into Rivendell proper, gesturing the others through. “Come on. Let’s get this over with…”
Part Two