PPC: Mission 1: An Agent's Pain, Part 1
Title: A Squire’s Pain.
Author: Brown Eyed Girl17
Rating: M
Obligatory linkage: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2413177/1/A_Squires_Pain
Mission by: dawnbluewings, as Agent Rose/Ross, and miss_meip, as Agent Meip.
Notes: This is Part 1, since it was too long to fit into one post. ;>w>
Meip blinked up at the tall, broad shouldered girl that had opened the door. The other female had short auburn hair and was wearing glasses too. Given the odds, Meip assumed that this was probably her new partner, Rose.
“Hello,” Rose said, and looked like she was about to say more when she was interrupted by a:
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]
Rose looked from Meip to the console, and closed her eyes. “I expect you’re my new partner? Well, come in. We get our first mission before I even know your name. What is your name?”
“Meip,” she replied, shyly gazing down at the vicinity of her feet, peering at the other girl out from under her lashes.
“Meip. Okay then. And you are my new partner, yes?” Rose shook her head, and stood aside, ushering Meip into the room. “Come on in. Through there’s the beds. Top bunk’s mine. There’s a drawer next to the beds in the wall, put your junk there. I’ll get the mission set up.”
Meip nodded, and disappeared into the tiny room that Rose had pointed out. She could easily carry everything she owned in her Bag, but she wanted to take out some of her books. They made the Bag really heavy.
The girl’s ears perked up when she heard Rose asked her a question from the other room. “Hey, kid, you know anything about Tamora Pierce? Tortallverse?”
Meip was feeling really shy, so she grabbed a stack of Tamora Pierce books so that she wouldn’t have to speak.
She walked back out into the main room of the RC and heard Rose sigh as she walked up behind the other girl. “Protector of the Small,” said Rose, with another sigh. “Ever read it?”
Meip blinked. Had Rose’s voice sounded different, or was it just her imagination?
In response to the other girl’s question she showed her the books in her arms, spines facing Rose, as answer. She had grabbed a miscellaneous array of books from all of Tamora Pierce’s series, including three Protector of the Small stories.
Rose sighed. Meip noted to herself that her new partner seemed to sigh an awful lot. “Let’s see, it appears to be set in the palace, so let’s go with Random Squires,” she said, her voice deeper again, and did something to the control panel.
“Sounds good to me,” said Rose, her voice back to it’s usual timbre, and did another thing to the panel, causing a shimmering blue, vaguely door like… thing… to appear in the air. The other girl turned around and Meip stared at her with wide eyes. “What, didn’t they show you portals in your training mission? Unless… is this supposed to be your training mission?”
Meip shook her head and nodded in turn, before she realized that she was still holding a stack of books in her arms. She hurriedly stuffed them into her Bag, and clasped her hands in front of her body, an embarrassed flush staining her cheeks.
“Okay,” said Rose, voice low again. “This is the portal. It’s how you get to your Fic. It’s perfectly safe, see?” she asked, popping through the portal and then back into the RC. “We go through the portal, and into the fic, and the Disguise Generator will outfit us with the disguises I just cued into the console. At this point, we’re going to be Random, Nameless Squires. And, as you know, since Kel was the first - and at this point only - female to openly train as a knight, we’ll both be male. Any questions?”
Meip shook her head, though she really wanted to ask why her voice kept changing octaves.
Rose smiled. “Good. Now get the hell through that portal so we can get this over with. We’ve been through one of this bint’s fics before. It was… special.”
Meip nodded, eyes still wide, and gingerly walked through the portal. She blinked at the very generic room she had arrived in, and then quickly stepped to the side so she wouldn’t get bowled over when Rose arrived. She glanced down at herself and goggled. Where are my breasts!? She thought bewilderedly, and peered down the neck of her shirt. Nope, nothing. She also noticed that she was wearing pants. She frowned for a moment, and then smothered a giggle as she wondered if she was now a boy everywhere.
Rose came through the portal shortly after and patted her suddenly long hair before grinning, showing off her new goatee. She looked around for a moment before her eyes alighted on Meip. “Damn. You make a hot guy,” she said, her now baritone voice fitting her body.
Meip blushed bright red to the roots of her hair and shyly tugged on the hem of her shirt, uttering the first words she had spoken since she’d introduced herself. “Meeeeep…” she whined, gazing very intently at the floor.
“Protest all you want,” said Rose, with a smirk. “It’s - get down!” she finished, pulling Meip to the floor as the author’s note started.
Disclaimer- I own nothing but the plot, it belongs to the amazing writer Tamora Pierce. Don’t sue me, I have no money at all, I have no job, no car, I am a lonely student without any cash to ease my suffering, Please don’t sue me.
Meip glared up at the offending words, which were zooming across the space where their heads would have been if Rose hadn’t pulled them down.
“It?” demanded Rose, her voice higher pitched again, about a tenor, Meip guessed. “What exactly is she accusing Tammy of owning? Her horrible plotline?”
“That’s just bad phrasing, dear…” soothed Rose, her voice low again.
“Still a charge, though, I think…” she muttered, sullenly. High.
“I’m on it,” replied Rose, pulling out her notepad and pen and scribbling it down. Low.
Meip stared at her partner, blinking several times in confusion. Rose was… talking to herself? The brown haired girl tilted her head slightly to one side, very confused. She’d talked to herself on plenty of occasions, but never when someone else was around.
“Okay, charge list. We write these. So that we can tell the Sue why we’re killing her. Because it’s more fun that way. And because we get in trouble if we don’t. Of course, sometimes we still get in trouble, even if we do…” Rose showed Meip the notepad and the pair of charges she had written down: Being written by Phoenix Guardian of Fire AKA Brown Eyed Girl17. Accusing a respectable author of owning the plot of this fic/badly phrasing something to appear that you are accusing a respectable author of owning the plot of this fic.
“Watch out, the fic’s about to actually start.” Ross flashed another grin at Meip as the words
Chapter one: I promise
Barreled overhead to imbed themselves in the wall.
"Meep?" the brown haired girl questioned, staring at the chapter words.
“Yeah, it just gets worse from here,” said Rose, dryly, as Keladry materialized at a window.
“Now, now, you don’t know that. Don’t judge all of an author’s work on one fic written four years ago…” Rose chastised herself, shaking her head.
“I’m not. I’m scanning ahead.” She pointed to the action as Keladry of Mindelan appeared at a window before they were thrown into a flashback - “By the way. Try to read ahead and figure out when a flashback or scene- or chapter break is coming. They’re easier to take sitting down.” - and watched as Kel somehow managed to cut her wrist while sharpening her knife.
“See, that, that is just an example of an author who has never once sharpened a knife in their life,” said Rose, patting her modified fencing sabre with parental pride. “Because that’s physically impossible. And if you somehow DID manage to cut yourself like that, it would be a deep, angled cut, not a wimpy emo cut like that…”
Meip made a small sound of agreement, trying - with only marginal success - to read the Words. She finally figured it out by peering over the edges of her glasses, which was quite the odd experience, considering the fact that it didn’t appear that she was wearing any. She could still feel them perched on her nose, and looking up over the edge of where her frames should be made everything blurry, she just couldn’t see them.
“You’ve found out how to read the Words?” Rose asked.
“Meep,” she said it with a nod as she scanned the Words. She saw something in the Words that made her squeak and duck, folding her arms over her head as Kel stood up and walked over to the door. If Author’s notes and chapter titles were dangerous, she was betting an abrupt point of view shift would be worse.
It was.
“Charge….” Was all that Rose could growl, through gritted teeth.
Meip was glad that she had ducked. She didn’t feel nearly as dizzy as Rose looked. The brown haired girl pulled small notebook and pencil out of her Bag and wrote down the previous charges Rose had mentioned, as well as one she had just noticed. ‘Goddesses.’ What other Goddess is she praying to?
“Charge. Lack of commas. Really, really. Sentences that are followed by ‘said’ should be ended with a comma, not a period.” Rose carefully straightened, and looked around, while Meip scribbled down the extra charge.
Meip looked up in time to see Rose wince as Joren said
“I’m not Queenscove Mindelan, now open the damn door, you slut.”
And a miniature… stromwing… flew in through the open window. Meip could only blink as the tiny immortal waddled up to Rose, who said, “Hey there, girl.” It was almost getting to the point that Meip wasn’t even noticing the odd voice changes her partner’s voice kept going through.
As Kel opened the door to Joren and exchanged what the author thought was banter, Rose smiled at Meip, adding “By the by. Charge. Creation of the Mini-Stormwing ‘Queenscove Mindelan’. She’ll be accompanying us back to HQ. Also: Charge. Excessively anachronistic speech. Charge. Failing at basic grammar. Charge. Leaving your knife lying on the floor covered in blood.” Rose sighed and Meip frantically tried to remember all of the charges and write them down.
Mindelan, you, what’s that?” He asked pointing to the knife.
“None of your business Stone.” Kel snapped.
Meip’s mouth hung slightly open as Joren turned into a statue.
“Marble, looks like,” Rose commented, shaking her head as Joren grabbed Kel by the wrist. “AAAUUGH!” she cried - making Meip flinch - as
He noticed Kel winced
“There are two ways to do that. ‘He noticed THAT Kel winced’ or ‘He noticed Kel WINCE.’ Not this way, no precious, not this way…” Rose was holding her head, looking pained. “Charge her. All of that, charge.”
Meip wrote down the charges, silently thinking to herself that there were three ways that the author could have done it, not just two. The ‘He noticed’ part could have been italicized as being Kel’s thoughts and an ellipses added to the end, which could have been explained as why she winced, but… Meh.
“No Kel, I didn’t. Not like this anyway.” Joren explained, a new odd feeling twisted in his chest. His heart ached for making her feel this way. She choked back a sob.
“Okay, just charge her with General Cruelty to the English Language, and we can stop marking grammatical and language charges. It doesn’t look like this is going to get any AAAARG!” Rose finished, as the Point-of-View flopped quickly from Joren to Kel and back to Joren. Meip was glad she was still sitting down.
“Where was it ever written that knights couldn’t get depression?” Rose asked as
“Kel, I want you to stop, a knight shouldn’t feel depressed. Promise you won’t ever do this again?” Joren raised one eyebrow waiting for her answer.
Happened. “Not, of course, that being emo and whiny counts as depression…”
Squinting at the Words, Meip had to wonder what in the world a ‘heft hearted smile’ looked like, not really wanting to look at Kel and find out. She marked it down as a charge.
The brown haired girl hunkered down a little bit more when she noticed the upcoming Author’s Note, but Rose didn’t seem to be paying attention. Meip waited a second, unsure if she should try and help or not. Rose was the senior partner, surely she knew what she was doing, right?
Apparently not. Meip grabbed Rose’s hand and yanked her to the ground before the impending Author’s Note could decapitate her partner. She was just in time as the A/N shot by overhead and slammed into the wall, showering the pair with letters and numbers.
Rose stared at the rookie for a moment, before grinning at the girl. “Thanks,” she said, visibly bracing herself for the chapter break. Meip tentatively smiled back at the other girl, who seemed to be staring at a “2” that had fallen near her leg.
“I hereby invoke Norton Juster,” Rose murmured, and, picking up the numeral, gave it a tentative nibble. “Not bad,” she said, surprised. “Kinda strawberry flavored.” Breaking off a bit of the flat, she offered it to Meip. “Here, try some. Promise it won’t kill you. Much.”
She gave the numeral a dubious look, but she hesitantly took the offered bit, and after a bit of glancing between it, and her partner, she finally tried it. Rose was right! It wasn’t that bad, not something she would regularly eat, but not bad.
Meip finished off her piece as the scene shifted to that of the squires’ dining hall of the palace.
“Food! Excellent!” said Rose, pocketing a few more bits of author’s note and picked up a tray, getting a selection of the food on offer before sitting down at a table near Kel’s group.
Meip also grabbed a tray of food - being a boy made her hungry - and sat down just in time to hear:
“Ross, are you never not a teenage boy?” Rose demanded, with a grin, her voice higher pitched again.
“Nope,” she replied, shaking her head - voice low again - and turned to look at Meip.
“Mwah?” the brown haired newbie questioned meekly, blinking confusedly at her partner. Why had Rose just called herself Ross?
Rose said, “Oh, that’s just Ross. Don’t worry, he’s harmless. Unless you’re a Sue, of course. But, nothing for you to worry about, now is there? He won’t even kill you in your sleep. Much.” She sounded as if she was joking, until -
“Ross O---, at your service, miss Meip,” Ross apparently said, giving her a slightly predatory smile and bowing a little to her. “Twin brother, partner, and alternate personality of Rose O---. And my sister is entirely correct. I won’t kill you in your sleep. Much.”
Meip looked a bit dazzled by this revelation, but then a small smile graced her lips and she cast her eyes downwards at the table, glancing at the twins out of the corners of her eyes. She wanted to ask them so many questions! But… It would be rude, and she was still too shy around the pair.
Meip saw one of the twins wink at her, before they sighed and pointed at Kel. “Charge. Swapping Kel and Neal’s eating habits. Also charge her for anachronistic speech.” Rose said.
The girl wrote it down, and a small note to remind herself which twin had which voice, just in case. Then she took a bite of her generic looking food. The only recognizable things were the vegetables, and that was because they were green, and vegetable shaped.
“Oh don’t be picky, Rosie darling,” said Ross after a moment of them picking at their food, and then he began tanking down the pseudofood like there was no tomorrow. “Whoop, time for us to get up and follow her. That mangled bit of speech was our cue.” He hopped up, grabbed Meip by the arm, and pulled the younger girl along with him after Kel and Joren.
“OH SWEET MERCIFUL MORRIGAN WHAT DID THE SUETHOR DO?” Ross demanded, turning around to avoid the sight of Kel sweating blood.
Meip watched with a sort of horrified fascination as Kel bled from all of her pores. It was gross, but she’d watched worse horror movies in her time. Not that she’d chosen to watch said movies, but nonetheless, she’d still seen worse.
Luckily, for both the twins and herself, she wasn’t so distracted that she missed the upcoming Author’s Note. She ducked, pulling Rose/Ross down with her. She was good at ducking.
Meip noticed the grateful look that the twins sent her way, and she couldn’t help but blush.
“CHARGE. Causing Kel to sweat blood. Charge. In-text author’s note. Charge. Causing a closet cutter to cut in public.” Ross reached up and wriggled a parenthesis out of the wall, nibbling on it. “Oooh, this one’s more chocolaty. Here, try it. It’ll take your mind off of… that.” He waved helplessly to the suethor throwing Kel even MORE out of character with
“You what?” Kel asked, wiping away her tears. She never usually cried but that’s what she did now, cried and cut.
And gave Joren waangst in the form of
“When I was younger my Father beat me, and my mother criticized me. So when I got older I began cutting. I eventually stopped with a lot of help on Paxton’s part.” Joren said absently as is reliving the whole event over again.
Meip dutifully wrote down the charges, and after a quick glance at the words, she winced and took a big bite out of the parenthesis that Ross had given her. It was just… BAD…
One of the twins sighed, and snagged a passing quotation mark and broke it in half, passing the tadpole-like bits to Meip, who ate them with in an absent minded way. It was like watching a really, really, really bad soap opera.
Rose started singing under her breath, “You’re perfect! - You’re perfect! - So we’re perfect together… born to be for ever…”
The twins shook their head, with a grin. “You know, Rosie darling, the comparison is inaccurate. Though, this pair is to wangst everything that pair is to ditz…”
Meip wasn’t paying attention to the twins antics, she was too absorbed in imagining ways, painful ways, to teach the author grammar. “It’s YOU ARE…” she muttered darkly, and doodled an author wrath being crushed under a YOU ARE shaped anvil.
Meip squeaked as Rose/Ross suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her onto her feet and around the corner, before squawking “You CAN speak!” in a slightly strained whisper. “You really can speak! Here I was thinking that maybe you had been cursed or something, and you go and SPEAK!”
She giggled. She couldn’t help it; the look on the twins face was just so shocked. “Of course I can speak, I just didn’t see the need to!” she exclaimed with a small blush on her face.
“Ah,” said Ross with a laugh of his own. “You’re like me, then.” With that he pulled her back around the corner, where Meip saw quite a strange sight. There were now two Jorens standing where Keladry and the aforementioned squire had been standing. Then one of them said, “Keladry of Mindelan.” And that Joren morphed into a strange parody of what Keladry should look like. This new Keladry was decidedly more busty, and blonde.
“What has the Suethor done this time?” asked Ross, sounding rather appalled, and pulled his CAD out of his bag and waiving it at the pair of Canons.
Meip peeped around Rose/Ross as she studied the CAD. She’d read about them in the manual. “Made it abundantly clear why Kel was stupid enough to cut in public?” she suggested in response to what she was guessing was a rhetorical question. Her confidence in speaking was experiencing sudden leaps and bounds as she became more comfortable with her new partners.
The CAD made a dull whine as several words moved across the screen.
[Keladry of Mindelan. Uncanon. Replacement Sue. Burn it.]
Ross winced at the readout, and showed it to Meip. “See that? That means we get to have fun later.” A wave at Joren proved that they would get to have double the fun, as he appeared to be a Gary Stu. “This is the CAD, by the way. I’ve welded mine on Mute. Otherwise it would be screaming right now and - oh, bugger!” very quickly, he pointed it at himself, and waived the curl of smoke that had begun to rise from his CAD away.
Ross blinked at his CAD’s readout screen.
[Ross O---. PPC Agent. OOC 003.14159265%.]
“Huh. It’s never done that before… And apparently I’m a little Out Of Character…” Ross stared in consternation at his CAD, until his sister began giggling. “Ross? You’re OOC Pi percent…”
Meip started giggling too. “It’s probably all that punctuation you’ve been eating!” she said, with a mischievous little glint in her eyes.
“Probably,” said Ross, sounding quite cheerful, before his eyes widened as he stared at the two Uncanons. “No Kel! Come on, deck that bastard!” he yelled, as
“Well Keladry you’re in luck because I think I am falling in love with you.” He whispered before he kissed her passionately on the lips.
Was perpetrated.
“Ross, she’s not going to punch him, she’s a Sue,” his sister reminded him, gently, shaking her head. A moment later, Rose cocked her head to the side, frowning, as the two UnCanons appeared to be glued together. “What…” she began, and took a quick look at the Words. “Oh. Oh, pasted.” Rose giggled nervously, looking at the glued-together teens.
Meip chewed her lip silently as she watched the Words, instead of the “interaction” between the Sue and Stu. Actually watching the horrible action taking place was making her feel faintly nauseous. Reading it wasn’t quite as bad, though the editor in her wanted to remove all the bad spelling and grammatical errors.
Scribbling down charges, and forcibly ignoring a heavily sweating Joren distracted Meip, and thus she didn’t notice the upcoming chapter break until Rose/Ross pulled her to the ground. The newbie sent a grateful look in the twins’ direction.
Meip saw Rose/Ross take a glace at the Chapter Heading and Author’s Note and blanch. “Oh no. No no no. Noooooo….” Rose moaned.
“What’s the matter, Rosie?” asked Ross.
Rose simply pointed wordlessly at the author’s note.
Hey everybody, I’m back! Yeah me! I want to thank you all for reviewing, and I am glad some of you actually like this piece of crap I wrote… now onward to the story… by the way this chapter will be a song chapter…
“I’m guessing that’s bad?” Meip asked the twins tentatively, as music started playing in the background.
“You’ll see,” said Ross, and began fumbling around in his bag for something.
As the first strains of mournful piano music began, Rose went from pale and white to the approximate color of a beetroot. “She did not… No! She is not defiling Concrete Angel! No! I won’t stand for it!”
“Rosie dear, calm. Calm. I know, but calm…” Ross said soothingly. “Bwuh?” he demanded, suddenly, as a shrill, painful voice sang over the last few words of the first verse, changing them to something not only nonsensical, but musically unpleasant. “Charge. Mangling the ONLY country song we like. Using a song about child abuse, incorrectly, to further the Wangst of this fic.”
It’s a pretty song, except for the nyeh bits. Meip reflected as she wrote down the charges. “What’s a nankeen mask?” she questioned, her pencil hovering over the charge page.
“I think… I think nankeen is a fabric, but…” Ross scratched his head, watching as Kel’s face suddenly looked like it was made out of yellowish homespun fabric. “That word… I do not think it means what the Suethor thinks it means…” He closed his eyes to avoid the greatest of the Flashback Nausea, and opened them as a ‘court lady’ ‘commited’ something. “Oh, look, she’s insulting Kel…” Ross sighed, and levered himself to his feet, following Kel as the squire put on what looked like a Kabuki Mask, and walked out of the room, angsting, and back to her own room.
but as she walked into her room she saw the silver blade, calling to her saying “Pick me up!” and “I can stop the pain”.
“I need that!” said Ross, eyeing the knife, which Kel then picked up and set back down again. With a triumphant grin, he darted out and grabbed it, putting the kbifem into his bag.
Looking at the knife still in Ross’ hand - which was still trying to get Kel’s attention - and then at his bag, Meip had to ask, “Did you just manifest a kbifem?”
Ross frowned, cocked his head to one side, and pulled the kbifem back out of his bag. It looked about like a bowie knife, except that there was a knickle-guard on the hilt, shaped like a fancy capital B, and a slice of metal taken out of the blade, in the shape of a capital M in the same curly font. “Huh. I guess I did manefest a kbifem. I wonder what it does. And how that happened…”
He turned back to the action, and then closed his eyes as the action sped up and then slowed down. Looking askance at a passing “thy”, Ross stabbed at it with the kbifem, and grinned when the offending word turned into the reasonable “they”. “Cool.”
Meip looked askance at Ross. “You just “manefested” a kbifem with a knickle guard,” she said slowly. “I think all that punctuation has infected you with Suethorness.”
“Gah! No! I am not a Stu, nor a Suethor!” protested Ross, shaking his head, and grabbed his own little utility knife out of his bag, pricking his finger.
Meip could see glitter oozing out along with the blood.
“I’ve been Stu’d!” he cried, sitting back down, hard, and putting his head into his hands.
Meip plopped down next to Ross and enfolded the other Agent in a hug, ignoring Sue!Kel cutting in the corner. “I’m sure HQ will know how to fix it,” she said hopefully, trying to sound confident.
Ross looked at her with wide eyes, and gulped. “My pen. I need my pen and my notebook. I have to record this. I have to be scientific about it. Figure out what happens like this.” He reached into his bag, located the pen and notebook, and began frantically scribbling.
Ate Suethor punctuation.
Within half an hour, began exhibiting Suethor spelling.
When pricked, blood contaminated with glitter.
Ross frowned as his hair fell into his eyes, and reached up to brush it away.
Hair color changed to Stu Red. Lenth perhaps also effected.
Unsure if ‘effect’ or ‘affect’ is the correct word.
Spelling still being aff- eff- causing problems.
Word choice Stuish.
Meip read all this over his shoulder. “Your eyes are looking odd too,” she told him.
“Odd?” demanded Ross, sounding panicked. “What do you mean, odd?”
“They keep changing color. They seem to like switching between deep violet, piercing green, with the odd demonic red thrown in every once in a while.”
Ross had to refrain from wailing. “No! No! I refuse! I refuse to be a Stu! I am not a Gary Stu!”
He was knocked out of his denial by the sound of the Suethor screechily substituting “Angle” for “Angel”. He watched, amused, as Kel began to cut again, and, at the line She had to cut harder, faster, any thing to numb the pain she felt inside. Began to cheer. “Yes! Go Sue!Kel! Kill yourself for us!”
“If you become even more Stu-like, will I have to assassinate you?” Meip questioned, trying to make her face look serious.
Ross got very serious, suddenly. “Actually, quite possibly. At the very least, you may have to subdue me and drag me back to medical or FicPsych. Man, I just got OUT of FicPsych, I don’t want to do back… Anyway, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it. For now, let’s concentrate on getting this over and done with. And by the way? Charge her for turning an Agent of the PPC into a Gary Stu.”
“Meep.”
Ross laughed, and turned his attention back to the angsting Sue as the flashback finally made its way back to the present, and levered himself to his feet as Kel ran from the room, late for class. He followed her, pulling Meip along after him, only to hide as Joren and Kel got into an argument in the middle of the corridor.
“I want to check your arm, to make sure you haven’t been, you know, harming yourself.”
“Okay, that’s stupid,” said Ross, philosophically. “For starters, if she really wanted to hide this, she would do it somewhere else. Like, say, the thighs. It hurts more on the thighs, and is easier to hide. Charge her for being stupid about places to cut.” He sighed as Kel panicked, told Joren to leave her alone, and ran off to class. At least, Meip thought that was what Kel had said, because the author had left out a quotation mark, and things had gotten sticky.
He slipped into the classroom after Kel, and stood in back, frowning at the Words. “You know, having a heart of stone would kill her… Maybe we should just enforce reality on her…”
“When do we get to kill her?” Meip asked as she rummaged around in her Bag for a new pencil. The one she had been using was out of lead. She had inserted her arm up to the shoulder when her fingers brushed against something fuzzy. “Meh?” Meip placed the Bag down on the ground and crouched down next to it before placing her upper body inside the opening. She fumbled around for a second until she found the flashlight. She flipped the switch and peered around the dim interior until she saw the familiar glint of cat eyes. “What are you doing in here?” she questioned the feline as she picked up the black, orange and white calico kitten.
Meip extracted herself and the kitten from the Bag, and placed the calico in her lap. “This is Hallow,” she told Rose/Ross as she stroked the kitten’s back.
“Well hello there, little girl,” said Ross, softly. “She’s certainly pretty… May I?” he asked, reaching out a hand, ready to stroke the kitten. “And we get to kill her… Chapter six, I think. Once the Suethor adds in the Prophesy,” he added, scanning the Words. “Careful, the end of this chapter is coming up."
“Meep,” she answered with an affirmative nod as Hallow purred loudly and rubbed her head up against Ross’ outstretched hand.
Ross smiled, and stroked the kitty.
Ross sighed as Kel Angsted, and then winced. “Charge. That. That. Whatever THAT is…” he gestured helplessly at where Kel had managed to turn the lower half of her body into… “A concrete angle…” he muttered, shaking his head, and began to laugh. “Charge for lack of spelling causing ridiculous predicaments.”
Meip saw Ross wince at the end of the Chapter, and then the author’s voice started whining overhead, commenting to all of her reviewers. “Ow,” Ross said, plugging his ears and giving Meip a woeful grin. “I’m feeling a little bleen around the edges. I’m afraid I might not make it to the end of this fic…”
An ellipses appeared above Meip’s head as she stared at Ross and hung suspended there for a moment before clattering down to land in her curls. She narrowed her eyes at him, and pulled a generic book out of her bag. After weighing it in one hand she changed her grip and whacked him across the head. “Bad Angsty!Stu!” she reprimanded Ross, and gave him a whack across the other side of his head for good measure.
“She’s right, Ross,” commented his sister, wresting control of the body, “that was Angst. Now, just let me at that foul creature and I’ll show her oh crap, I’ve got it too, don’t I?” She sighed, and shook her hair. “And here I thought I might have been safe from the Suethor influence…”
“It probably affected you as well because you share a body, and it was the body that ate the punctuation. Or- ” Meip continued in a considering tone of voice. “-It might have affected you anyway because you’re twins and share a connection.” She blushed and looked away for a second, her hands now busy petting Hallow once again.
“Meh, you’re right, of course,” said Rose, with a wan grin at Meip. “Oh well. There’s nothing that can be done about it right now. We have the Duty, and we can’t get out of here until that bitch and her twu wuv are dead. You might want to keep that Generic Book handy, though. That did seem to help, a lot…” She shook her head, and examined the end of the ponytail that her hair had been stuffed into, and heaved a very relieved sounding sigh. “Please don’t,” muttered Ross, as the Vox Dei of the Disclaimer announced
I may slip in my own character in this chap, I’m still deciding….
“Meep…” Meip whispered despondently.
Kel woke up with the headache from hell. I guess I deserve this after treating Joren like that yesterday… Kel thought, wincing as she sat up. Maybe I should let him help, but keep it strictly professional, no emotional attachments involved.
“What?” demanded Ross, his voice emitting somewhere above and outside of the dark area Meip had found herself in as the scene shifted. “How the hell does she deserve to have a hangover - er, a headache - for brushing off the assface?”
“Author justification?” Meip asked, her voice muffled as she realized that she had somehow ended up IN Kel’s wardrobe, while it sounded like Rose/Ross had managed to land atop of it. “It’s dark in here…” she muttered as she attempted to find her way out of the enclosed space.
“Kel you up yet?” Neal yelled through the door. “I’ve been knocking for fifteen minutes!”
Ross opened up the wardrobe door and pulled Meip out, saying, “I have never, ever, heard Nealan of Queenscove fail at language like that…”
“Meep,” Meip agreed. After a quick glance at the Words, the newbie agent covered her eyes and whined. She really didn’t want to see how the words “come on it” manifested.
“Oh. My. Tolkien,” Meip heard Ross mutter. “I didn’t sign up for Bad Slash because I don’t have the stomach for that…”
As Neal finished his business and walked into the room, Ross shook his head. “If he’s just been knocking for fifteen minutes, why hasn’t he just come in?” Ross demanded. “And didn’t Kel lock her door every night?”
Meip ever so slowly peeked out from behind her fingers, and when she saw that it was semi safe, uncovered the rest of her face. “Mwah,” Meip said neutrally.
“Charge for Slandering the Good Name of Kel, as well as Neal,” said Rose, deadpan, as it was disclosed that Kel and Neal always waited till the last minute to do anything.
Rose shook her head again, frowning. “Lack of commas, grammatical aberrations, making Neal an oblivious cad…” She was muttering to herself, eyes unfocused and looking at the Words, until - “Neal Bashing. Charge her for Neal Bashing,” she said, pushing Meip down so as to avoid the ballistic author’s note apologizing for Neal Bashing. “If you’re going to have to apologize for something, don’t do it at all,” Rose muttered, letting Meip back up.
Meip dutifully wrote down the charges. “How is the sparkly punctuation of doom affecting you now?” she asked quietly. “Any worse?”
Rose turned to Meip, putting on a brave face. “I fear, sweet child, that I am flagging. Please, if I cannot continue, go on without me! Save yourself, and save this fic! Continue that noble Cause on my behalf if I -” She was cut off by a Generic Book to the face as Meip tried to slam the Sue out of her.
“Bad,” she said with a small frown. “No. Bad agent.”
Rose shook her head, wrinkled her nose a little, and gave Meip a grin. “Thanks. I needed that… So. Back to business!” Rose turned back to the action just in time for Kel to say “Neal he found out, originally I wasn’t intending to enlighten anyone to my preference to incise (slit open) my wrist.”
“Aieeeeeee,” moaned Ross. “Thesaurus Rape and an Explanatory In-Text Author’s Note?” he shook his head, hard, and then winced, as “Oh,” Neal said. (A/N I am proud of myself! Thanks to my thesaurus I have written something intelligent! OH somebody tell my mother I’m not a stupid 8th grader who knows nothing!) happened.
After a long, tortuous, and pain filled experience on Meip’s part, -- which she did her best to tune out, less she have need of a ten pound tub of bleeprin -- she suddenly found herself sitting in the middle of the street as the scene shifted. “Where the hell is “Cours”? Meip demanded and she pulled herself to her feet.
“Coming up the street right now,” said Rose, holding out a hand to the Mini as it waddled toward her. “Hey there honey-woney!” she cooed, scooping up the little bundle of razor blades.
“Hey Neal do you think Joren would like this?” Kel asked holding up a pair of Yamani steel Sais. (Sais are those things Elektra fights with you know the knife looking things. One is referred to as a Sai. Sai is pronounced like sigh, and Sais is pronounced like sighs.)
“Yeah he loves weapons and shit like that you know” Neal commented.
“Neal thank you I really don’t know what I’d do without you,” Kel laughed as she gave the man at the shop 3 gold nobles for the Sais.
“Live everyday wondering why it’s not worth living without Nealan of Queenscove.” Neal teased.
Rose groaned. “In-text author’s notes. Cutting off the tails of her poor, poor commas and turning them into periods. Making Neal swear like that. Complete and utter lack of any coherent punctuation… Referencing a bad movie in your fic to explain something…” After shaking his head to clear the glitter out of his eyes, Ross continued. “See, were this MY author’s note, I would make it a footnote, or have one of the characters say it, and explain the history of the Sai, how it was originally a farming tool, Etc… But no. She has to have it in an in-text author’s note. One that HURTS. Because of the STUPID. And OH GODS I’VE GOT THE CAPSRAPE DISEASE…” Ross hurriedly clamped a hand over his mouth, and looked at Meip with pleading eyes. “HELP?!>!”
“Ross,” whispered his sister, “How the hell did you just pronounce a Greater Than?”
That was something that Meip also wanted to know the answer to, but she went ahead and hit Ross over the head with the generic book first. “Your making my book go all floppy,” she said sadly, and then gasped, slapping one hand over her mouth and whining low in her throat. Seems like Ross wasn’t the only one affected by the Suethor punctuation.
Rose gave Meip a look, and then snatched the book out of her hands, and hit the owner with it. “It’s ‘you’re’. ‘You. Are’.” The older Agent glared at the newbie, and handed her back her book.
“We’re going to need more books,” Meip commented as she stuffed the generic book into her Bag.
Rose startled at the introduction of another character, and whipped out her CAD, pointing it at the new young man.
Rose sighed, looking relieved, and showed the CAD to Meip.
[Domitan of Masbolle. OOC 12.3%. Ohthankgod.]
Meip sighed in relief as well.
“Okay, I think we can safely skip ahead a little - OH SWEET MERCIFUL TOLKIEN!” Ross cried, then winced. “Alright. Two problems. I’ve still got capsrape disease, and she’s just mentioned herself her Personal Character.” Ross shook his head, and came back up as Rose. “Kasidy? Kasidy? That’s not even a Yamani name… It’s… structured wrong. Yamani is based on Japanese, and… that’s not how it’s done. Not at ALL….” A frown crossed Rose’s face. “There were four periods in that ellipses, weren’t there?”
“Yes, yes there were,” Meip responded.
“Uuuugh. Anyway. Charge her for inserting a non-canonical best friend for Kel, since we have never, ever heard that name in book, with a stupid, non-Yamani name. Also…” Rose scanned the words a little further, and sighed. “Charge her for modern slang, and then I think it’s safe for us to skip the ball and go straight to where Joren gets given the gift from Kel.”
Meip, of course, wrote down the charges, absentmindedly hushing Hallow as the kitten whined for attention from the depths of her Bag where the calico had taken refuge from the disorientating changes. “How do we skip something? Is there, like a… a fast forward button or something?” she asked innocently. “Or do we just go somewhere else during the meantime?”
“Oh, we just dial in the coordinates in the RA, making use of the plotholes. Like this, see?” Ross did so, showing the new agent how, and then stepped through the portal with Meip following behind.
Author: Brown Eyed Girl17
Rating: M
Obligatory linkage: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2413177/1/A_Squires_Pain
Mission by: dawnbluewings, as Agent Rose/Ross, and miss_meip, as Agent Meip.
Notes: This is Part 1, since it was too long to fit into one post. ;>w>
Meip blinked up at the tall, broad shouldered girl that had opened the door. The other female had short auburn hair and was wearing glasses too. Given the odds, Meip assumed that this was probably her new partner, Rose.
“Hello,” Rose said, and looked like she was about to say more when she was interrupted by a:
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]
Rose looked from Meip to the console, and closed her eyes. “I expect you’re my new partner? Well, come in. We get our first mission before I even know your name. What is your name?”
“Meip,” she replied, shyly gazing down at the vicinity of her feet, peering at the other girl out from under her lashes.
“Meip. Okay then. And you are my new partner, yes?” Rose shook her head, and stood aside, ushering Meip into the room. “Come on in. Through there’s the beds. Top bunk’s mine. There’s a drawer next to the beds in the wall, put your junk there. I’ll get the mission set up.”
Meip nodded, and disappeared into the tiny room that Rose had pointed out. She could easily carry everything she owned in her Bag, but she wanted to take out some of her books. They made the Bag really heavy.
The girl’s ears perked up when she heard Rose asked her a question from the other room. “Hey, kid, you know anything about Tamora Pierce? Tortallverse?”
Meip was feeling really shy, so she grabbed a stack of Tamora Pierce books so that she wouldn’t have to speak.
She walked back out into the main room of the RC and heard Rose sigh as she walked up behind the other girl. “Protector of the Small,” said Rose, with another sigh. “Ever read it?”
Meip blinked. Had Rose’s voice sounded different, or was it just her imagination?
In response to the other girl’s question she showed her the books in her arms, spines facing Rose, as answer. She had grabbed a miscellaneous array of books from all of Tamora Pierce’s series, including three Protector of the Small stories.
Rose sighed. Meip noted to herself that her new partner seemed to sigh an awful lot. “Let’s see, it appears to be set in the palace, so let’s go with Random Squires,” she said, her voice deeper again, and did something to the control panel.
“Sounds good to me,” said Rose, her voice back to it’s usual timbre, and did another thing to the panel, causing a shimmering blue, vaguely door like… thing… to appear in the air. The other girl turned around and Meip stared at her with wide eyes. “What, didn’t they show you portals in your training mission? Unless… is this supposed to be your training mission?”
Meip shook her head and nodded in turn, before she realized that she was still holding a stack of books in her arms. She hurriedly stuffed them into her Bag, and clasped her hands in front of her body, an embarrassed flush staining her cheeks.
“Okay,” said Rose, voice low again. “This is the portal. It’s how you get to your Fic. It’s perfectly safe, see?” she asked, popping through the portal and then back into the RC. “We go through the portal, and into the fic, and the Disguise Generator will outfit us with the disguises I just cued into the console. At this point, we’re going to be Random, Nameless Squires. And, as you know, since Kel was the first - and at this point only - female to openly train as a knight, we’ll both be male. Any questions?”
Meip shook her head, though she really wanted to ask why her voice kept changing octaves.
Rose smiled. “Good. Now get the hell through that portal so we can get this over with. We’ve been through one of this bint’s fics before. It was… special.”
Meip nodded, eyes still wide, and gingerly walked through the portal. She blinked at the very generic room she had arrived in, and then quickly stepped to the side so she wouldn’t get bowled over when Rose arrived. She glanced down at herself and goggled. Where are my breasts!? She thought bewilderedly, and peered down the neck of her shirt. Nope, nothing. She also noticed that she was wearing pants. She frowned for a moment, and then smothered a giggle as she wondered if she was now a boy everywhere.
Rose came through the portal shortly after and patted her suddenly long hair before grinning, showing off her new goatee. She looked around for a moment before her eyes alighted on Meip. “Damn. You make a hot guy,” she said, her now baritone voice fitting her body.
Meip blushed bright red to the roots of her hair and shyly tugged on the hem of her shirt, uttering the first words she had spoken since she’d introduced herself. “Meeeeep…” she whined, gazing very intently at the floor.
“Protest all you want,” said Rose, with a smirk. “It’s - get down!” she finished, pulling Meip to the floor as the author’s note started.
Disclaimer- I own nothing but the plot, it belongs to the amazing writer Tamora Pierce. Don’t sue me, I have no money at all, I have no job, no car, I am a lonely student without any cash to ease my suffering, Please don’t sue me.
Meip glared up at the offending words, which were zooming across the space where their heads would have been if Rose hadn’t pulled them down.
“It?” demanded Rose, her voice higher pitched again, about a tenor, Meip guessed. “What exactly is she accusing Tammy of owning? Her horrible plotline?”
“That’s just bad phrasing, dear…” soothed Rose, her voice low again.
“Still a charge, though, I think…” she muttered, sullenly. High.
“I’m on it,” replied Rose, pulling out her notepad and pen and scribbling it down. Low.
Meip stared at her partner, blinking several times in confusion. Rose was… talking to herself? The brown haired girl tilted her head slightly to one side, very confused. She’d talked to herself on plenty of occasions, but never when someone else was around.
“Okay, charge list. We write these. So that we can tell the Sue why we’re killing her. Because it’s more fun that way. And because we get in trouble if we don’t. Of course, sometimes we still get in trouble, even if we do…” Rose showed Meip the notepad and the pair of charges she had written down: Being written by Phoenix Guardian of Fire AKA Brown Eyed Girl17. Accusing a respectable author of owning the plot of this fic/badly phrasing something to appear that you are accusing a respectable author of owning the plot of this fic.
“Watch out, the fic’s about to actually start.” Ross flashed another grin at Meip as the words
Chapter one: I promise
Barreled overhead to imbed themselves in the wall.
"Meep?" the brown haired girl questioned, staring at the chapter words.
“Yeah, it just gets worse from here,” said Rose, dryly, as Keladry materialized at a window.
“Now, now, you don’t know that. Don’t judge all of an author’s work on one fic written four years ago…” Rose chastised herself, shaking her head.
“I’m not. I’m scanning ahead.” She pointed to the action as Keladry of Mindelan appeared at a window before they were thrown into a flashback - “By the way. Try to read ahead and figure out when a flashback or scene- or chapter break is coming. They’re easier to take sitting down.” - and watched as Kel somehow managed to cut her wrist while sharpening her knife.
“See, that, that is just an example of an author who has never once sharpened a knife in their life,” said Rose, patting her modified fencing sabre with parental pride. “Because that’s physically impossible. And if you somehow DID manage to cut yourself like that, it would be a deep, angled cut, not a wimpy emo cut like that…”
Meip made a small sound of agreement, trying - with only marginal success - to read the Words. She finally figured it out by peering over the edges of her glasses, which was quite the odd experience, considering the fact that it didn’t appear that she was wearing any. She could still feel them perched on her nose, and looking up over the edge of where her frames should be made everything blurry, she just couldn’t see them.
“You’ve found out how to read the Words?” Rose asked.
“Meep,” she said it with a nod as she scanned the Words. She saw something in the Words that made her squeak and duck, folding her arms over her head as Kel stood up and walked over to the door. If Author’s notes and chapter titles were dangerous, she was betting an abrupt point of view shift would be worse.
It was.
“Charge….” Was all that Rose could growl, through gritted teeth.
Meip was glad that she had ducked. She didn’t feel nearly as dizzy as Rose looked. The brown haired girl pulled small notebook and pencil out of her Bag and wrote down the previous charges Rose had mentioned, as well as one she had just noticed. ‘Goddesses.’ What other Goddess is she praying to?
“Charge. Lack of commas. Really, really. Sentences that are followed by ‘said’ should be ended with a comma, not a period.” Rose carefully straightened, and looked around, while Meip scribbled down the extra charge.
Meip looked up in time to see Rose wince as Joren said
“I’m not Queenscove Mindelan, now open the damn door, you slut.”
And a miniature… stromwing… flew in through the open window. Meip could only blink as the tiny immortal waddled up to Rose, who said, “Hey there, girl.” It was almost getting to the point that Meip wasn’t even noticing the odd voice changes her partner’s voice kept going through.
As Kel opened the door to Joren and exchanged what the author thought was banter, Rose smiled at Meip, adding “By the by. Charge. Creation of the Mini-Stormwing ‘Queenscove Mindelan’. She’ll be accompanying us back to HQ. Also: Charge. Excessively anachronistic speech. Charge. Failing at basic grammar. Charge. Leaving your knife lying on the floor covered in blood.” Rose sighed and Meip frantically tried to remember all of the charges and write them down.
Mindelan, you, what’s that?” He asked pointing to the knife.
“None of your business Stone.” Kel snapped.
Meip’s mouth hung slightly open as Joren turned into a statue.
“Marble, looks like,” Rose commented, shaking her head as Joren grabbed Kel by the wrist. “AAAUUGH!” she cried - making Meip flinch - as
He noticed Kel winced
“There are two ways to do that. ‘He noticed THAT Kel winced’ or ‘He noticed Kel WINCE.’ Not this way, no precious, not this way…” Rose was holding her head, looking pained. “Charge her. All of that, charge.”
Meip wrote down the charges, silently thinking to herself that there were three ways that the author could have done it, not just two. The ‘He noticed’ part could have been italicized as being Kel’s thoughts and an ellipses added to the end, which could have been explained as why she winced, but… Meh.
“No Kel, I didn’t. Not like this anyway.” Joren explained, a new odd feeling twisted in his chest. His heart ached for making her feel this way. She choked back a sob.
“Okay, just charge her with General Cruelty to the English Language, and we can stop marking grammatical and language charges. It doesn’t look like this is going to get any AAAARG!” Rose finished, as the Point-of-View flopped quickly from Joren to Kel and back to Joren. Meip was glad she was still sitting down.
“Where was it ever written that knights couldn’t get depression?” Rose asked as
“Kel, I want you to stop, a knight shouldn’t feel depressed. Promise you won’t ever do this again?” Joren raised one eyebrow waiting for her answer.
Happened. “Not, of course, that being emo and whiny counts as depression…”
Squinting at the Words, Meip had to wonder what in the world a ‘heft hearted smile’ looked like, not really wanting to look at Kel and find out. She marked it down as a charge.
The brown haired girl hunkered down a little bit more when she noticed the upcoming Author’s Note, but Rose didn’t seem to be paying attention. Meip waited a second, unsure if she should try and help or not. Rose was the senior partner, surely she knew what she was doing, right?
Apparently not. Meip grabbed Rose’s hand and yanked her to the ground before the impending Author’s Note could decapitate her partner. She was just in time as the A/N shot by overhead and slammed into the wall, showering the pair with letters and numbers.
Rose stared at the rookie for a moment, before grinning at the girl. “Thanks,” she said, visibly bracing herself for the chapter break. Meip tentatively smiled back at the other girl, who seemed to be staring at a “2” that had fallen near her leg.
“I hereby invoke Norton Juster,” Rose murmured, and, picking up the numeral, gave it a tentative nibble. “Not bad,” she said, surprised. “Kinda strawberry flavored.” Breaking off a bit of the flat, she offered it to Meip. “Here, try some. Promise it won’t kill you. Much.”
She gave the numeral a dubious look, but she hesitantly took the offered bit, and after a bit of glancing between it, and her partner, she finally tried it. Rose was right! It wasn’t that bad, not something she would regularly eat, but not bad.
Meip finished off her piece as the scene shifted to that of the squires’ dining hall of the palace.
“Food! Excellent!” said Rose, pocketing a few more bits of author’s note and picked up a tray, getting a selection of the food on offer before sitting down at a table near Kel’s group.
Meip also grabbed a tray of food - being a boy made her hungry - and sat down just in time to hear:
“Ross, are you never not a teenage boy?” Rose demanded, with a grin, her voice higher pitched again.
“Nope,” she replied, shaking her head - voice low again - and turned to look at Meip.
“Mwah?” the brown haired newbie questioned meekly, blinking confusedly at her partner. Why had Rose just called herself Ross?
Rose said, “Oh, that’s just Ross. Don’t worry, he’s harmless. Unless you’re a Sue, of course. But, nothing for you to worry about, now is there? He won’t even kill you in your sleep. Much.” She sounded as if she was joking, until -
“Ross O---, at your service, miss Meip,” Ross apparently said, giving her a slightly predatory smile and bowing a little to her. “Twin brother, partner, and alternate personality of Rose O---. And my sister is entirely correct. I won’t kill you in your sleep. Much.”
Meip looked a bit dazzled by this revelation, but then a small smile graced her lips and she cast her eyes downwards at the table, glancing at the twins out of the corners of her eyes. She wanted to ask them so many questions! But… It would be rude, and she was still too shy around the pair.
Meip saw one of the twins wink at her, before they sighed and pointed at Kel. “Charge. Swapping Kel and Neal’s eating habits. Also charge her for anachronistic speech.” Rose said.
The girl wrote it down, and a small note to remind herself which twin had which voice, just in case. Then she took a bite of her generic looking food. The only recognizable things were the vegetables, and that was because they were green, and vegetable shaped.
“Oh don’t be picky, Rosie darling,” said Ross after a moment of them picking at their food, and then he began tanking down the pseudofood like there was no tomorrow. “Whoop, time for us to get up and follow her. That mangled bit of speech was our cue.” He hopped up, grabbed Meip by the arm, and pulled the younger girl along with him after Kel and Joren.
“OH SWEET MERCIFUL MORRIGAN WHAT DID THE SUETHOR DO?” Ross demanded, turning around to avoid the sight of Kel sweating blood.
Meip watched with a sort of horrified fascination as Kel bled from all of her pores. It was gross, but she’d watched worse horror movies in her time. Not that she’d chosen to watch said movies, but nonetheless, she’d still seen worse.
Luckily, for both the twins and herself, she wasn’t so distracted that she missed the upcoming Author’s Note. She ducked, pulling Rose/Ross down with her. She was good at ducking.
Meip noticed the grateful look that the twins sent her way, and she couldn’t help but blush.
“CHARGE. Causing Kel to sweat blood. Charge. In-text author’s note. Charge. Causing a closet cutter to cut in public.” Ross reached up and wriggled a parenthesis out of the wall, nibbling on it. “Oooh, this one’s more chocolaty. Here, try it. It’ll take your mind off of… that.” He waved helplessly to the suethor throwing Kel even MORE out of character with
“You what?” Kel asked, wiping away her tears. She never usually cried but that’s what she did now, cried and cut.
And gave Joren waangst in the form of
“When I was younger my Father beat me, and my mother criticized me. So when I got older I began cutting. I eventually stopped with a lot of help on Paxton’s part.” Joren said absently as is reliving the whole event over again.
Meip dutifully wrote down the charges, and after a quick glance at the words, she winced and took a big bite out of the parenthesis that Ross had given her. It was just… BAD…
One of the twins sighed, and snagged a passing quotation mark and broke it in half, passing the tadpole-like bits to Meip, who ate them with in an absent minded way. It was like watching a really, really, really bad soap opera.
Rose started singing under her breath, “You’re perfect! - You’re perfect! - So we’re perfect together… born to be for ever…”
The twins shook their head, with a grin. “You know, Rosie darling, the comparison is inaccurate. Though, this pair is to wangst everything that pair is to ditz…”
Meip wasn’t paying attention to the twins antics, she was too absorbed in imagining ways, painful ways, to teach the author grammar. “It’s YOU ARE…” she muttered darkly, and doodled an author wrath being crushed under a YOU ARE shaped anvil.
Meip squeaked as Rose/Ross suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her onto her feet and around the corner, before squawking “You CAN speak!” in a slightly strained whisper. “You really can speak! Here I was thinking that maybe you had been cursed or something, and you go and SPEAK!”
She giggled. She couldn’t help it; the look on the twins face was just so shocked. “Of course I can speak, I just didn’t see the need to!” she exclaimed with a small blush on her face.
“Ah,” said Ross with a laugh of his own. “You’re like me, then.” With that he pulled her back around the corner, where Meip saw quite a strange sight. There were now two Jorens standing where Keladry and the aforementioned squire had been standing. Then one of them said, “Keladry of Mindelan.” And that Joren morphed into a strange parody of what Keladry should look like. This new Keladry was decidedly more busty, and blonde.
“What has the Suethor done this time?” asked Ross, sounding rather appalled, and pulled his CAD out of his bag and waiving it at the pair of Canons.
Meip peeped around Rose/Ross as she studied the CAD. She’d read about them in the manual. “Made it abundantly clear why Kel was stupid enough to cut in public?” she suggested in response to what she was guessing was a rhetorical question. Her confidence in speaking was experiencing sudden leaps and bounds as she became more comfortable with her new partners.
The CAD made a dull whine as several words moved across the screen.
[Keladry of Mindelan. Uncanon. Replacement Sue. Burn it.]
Ross winced at the readout, and showed it to Meip. “See that? That means we get to have fun later.” A wave at Joren proved that they would get to have double the fun, as he appeared to be a Gary Stu. “This is the CAD, by the way. I’ve welded mine on Mute. Otherwise it would be screaming right now and - oh, bugger!” very quickly, he pointed it at himself, and waived the curl of smoke that had begun to rise from his CAD away.
Ross blinked at his CAD’s readout screen.
[Ross O---. PPC Agent. OOC 003.14159265%.]
“Huh. It’s never done that before… And apparently I’m a little Out Of Character…” Ross stared in consternation at his CAD, until his sister began giggling. “Ross? You’re OOC Pi percent…”
Meip started giggling too. “It’s probably all that punctuation you’ve been eating!” she said, with a mischievous little glint in her eyes.
“Probably,” said Ross, sounding quite cheerful, before his eyes widened as he stared at the two Uncanons. “No Kel! Come on, deck that bastard!” he yelled, as
“Well Keladry you’re in luck because I think I am falling in love with you.” He whispered before he kissed her passionately on the lips.
Was perpetrated.
“Ross, she’s not going to punch him, she’s a Sue,” his sister reminded him, gently, shaking her head. A moment later, Rose cocked her head to the side, frowning, as the two UnCanons appeared to be glued together. “What…” she began, and took a quick look at the Words. “Oh. Oh, pasted.” Rose giggled nervously, looking at the glued-together teens.
Meip chewed her lip silently as she watched the Words, instead of the “interaction” between the Sue and Stu. Actually watching the horrible action taking place was making her feel faintly nauseous. Reading it wasn’t quite as bad, though the editor in her wanted to remove all the bad spelling and grammatical errors.
Scribbling down charges, and forcibly ignoring a heavily sweating Joren distracted Meip, and thus she didn’t notice the upcoming chapter break until Rose/Ross pulled her to the ground. The newbie sent a grateful look in the twins’ direction.
Meip saw Rose/Ross take a glace at the Chapter Heading and Author’s Note and blanch. “Oh no. No no no. Noooooo….” Rose moaned.
“What’s the matter, Rosie?” asked Ross.
Rose simply pointed wordlessly at the author’s note.
Hey everybody, I’m back! Yeah me! I want to thank you all for reviewing, and I am glad some of you actually like this piece of crap I wrote… now onward to the story… by the way this chapter will be a song chapter…
“I’m guessing that’s bad?” Meip asked the twins tentatively, as music started playing in the background.
“You’ll see,” said Ross, and began fumbling around in his bag for something.
As the first strains of mournful piano music began, Rose went from pale and white to the approximate color of a beetroot. “She did not… No! She is not defiling Concrete Angel! No! I won’t stand for it!”
“Rosie dear, calm. Calm. I know, but calm…” Ross said soothingly. “Bwuh?” he demanded, suddenly, as a shrill, painful voice sang over the last few words of the first verse, changing them to something not only nonsensical, but musically unpleasant. “Charge. Mangling the ONLY country song we like. Using a song about child abuse, incorrectly, to further the Wangst of this fic.”
It’s a pretty song, except for the nyeh bits. Meip reflected as she wrote down the charges. “What’s a nankeen mask?” she questioned, her pencil hovering over the charge page.
“I think… I think nankeen is a fabric, but…” Ross scratched his head, watching as Kel’s face suddenly looked like it was made out of yellowish homespun fabric. “That word… I do not think it means what the Suethor thinks it means…” He closed his eyes to avoid the greatest of the Flashback Nausea, and opened them as a ‘court lady’ ‘commited’ something. “Oh, look, she’s insulting Kel…” Ross sighed, and levered himself to his feet, following Kel as the squire put on what looked like a Kabuki Mask, and walked out of the room, angsting, and back to her own room.
but as she walked into her room she saw the silver blade, calling to her saying “Pick me up!” and “I can stop the pain”.
“I need that!” said Ross, eyeing the knife, which Kel then picked up and set back down again. With a triumphant grin, he darted out and grabbed it, putting the kbifem into his bag.
Looking at the knife still in Ross’ hand - which was still trying to get Kel’s attention - and then at his bag, Meip had to ask, “Did you just manifest a kbifem?”
Ross frowned, cocked his head to one side, and pulled the kbifem back out of his bag. It looked about like a bowie knife, except that there was a knickle-guard on the hilt, shaped like a fancy capital B, and a slice of metal taken out of the blade, in the shape of a capital M in the same curly font. “Huh. I guess I did manefest a kbifem. I wonder what it does. And how that happened…”
He turned back to the action, and then closed his eyes as the action sped up and then slowed down. Looking askance at a passing “thy”, Ross stabbed at it with the kbifem, and grinned when the offending word turned into the reasonable “they”. “Cool.”
Meip looked askance at Ross. “You just “manefested” a kbifem with a knickle guard,” she said slowly. “I think all that punctuation has infected you with Suethorness.”
“Gah! No! I am not a Stu, nor a Suethor!” protested Ross, shaking his head, and grabbed his own little utility knife out of his bag, pricking his finger.
Meip could see glitter oozing out along with the blood.
“I’ve been Stu’d!” he cried, sitting back down, hard, and putting his head into his hands.
Meip plopped down next to Ross and enfolded the other Agent in a hug, ignoring Sue!Kel cutting in the corner. “I’m sure HQ will know how to fix it,” she said hopefully, trying to sound confident.
Ross looked at her with wide eyes, and gulped. “My pen. I need my pen and my notebook. I have to record this. I have to be scientific about it. Figure out what happens like this.” He reached into his bag, located the pen and notebook, and began frantically scribbling.
Ate Suethor punctuation.
Within half an hour, began exhibiting Suethor spelling.
When pricked, blood contaminated with glitter.
Ross frowned as his hair fell into his eyes, and reached up to brush it away.
Hair color changed to Stu Red. Lenth perhaps also effected.
Unsure if ‘effect’ or ‘affect’ is the correct word.
Spelling still being aff- eff- causing problems.
Word choice Stuish.
Meip read all this over his shoulder. “Your eyes are looking odd too,” she told him.
“Odd?” demanded Ross, sounding panicked. “What do you mean, odd?”
“They keep changing color. They seem to like switching between deep violet, piercing green, with the odd demonic red thrown in every once in a while.”
Ross had to refrain from wailing. “No! No! I refuse! I refuse to be a Stu! I am not a Gary Stu!”
He was knocked out of his denial by the sound of the Suethor screechily substituting “Angle” for “Angel”. He watched, amused, as Kel began to cut again, and, at the line She had to cut harder, faster, any thing to numb the pain she felt inside. Began to cheer. “Yes! Go Sue!Kel! Kill yourself for us!”
“If you become even more Stu-like, will I have to assassinate you?” Meip questioned, trying to make her face look serious.
Ross got very serious, suddenly. “Actually, quite possibly. At the very least, you may have to subdue me and drag me back to medical or FicPsych. Man, I just got OUT of FicPsych, I don’t want to do back… Anyway, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it. For now, let’s concentrate on getting this over and done with. And by the way? Charge her for turning an Agent of the PPC into a Gary Stu.”
“Meep.”
Ross laughed, and turned his attention back to the angsting Sue as the flashback finally made its way back to the present, and levered himself to his feet as Kel ran from the room, late for class. He followed her, pulling Meip along after him, only to hide as Joren and Kel got into an argument in the middle of the corridor.
“I want to check your arm, to make sure you haven’t been, you know, harming yourself.”
“Okay, that’s stupid,” said Ross, philosophically. “For starters, if she really wanted to hide this, she would do it somewhere else. Like, say, the thighs. It hurts more on the thighs, and is easier to hide. Charge her for being stupid about places to cut.” He sighed as Kel panicked, told Joren to leave her alone, and ran off to class. At least, Meip thought that was what Kel had said, because the author had left out a quotation mark, and things had gotten sticky.
He slipped into the classroom after Kel, and stood in back, frowning at the Words. “You know, having a heart of stone would kill her… Maybe we should just enforce reality on her…”
“When do we get to kill her?” Meip asked as she rummaged around in her Bag for a new pencil. The one she had been using was out of lead. She had inserted her arm up to the shoulder when her fingers brushed against something fuzzy. “Meh?” Meip placed the Bag down on the ground and crouched down next to it before placing her upper body inside the opening. She fumbled around for a second until she found the flashlight. She flipped the switch and peered around the dim interior until she saw the familiar glint of cat eyes. “What are you doing in here?” she questioned the feline as she picked up the black, orange and white calico kitten.
Meip extracted herself and the kitten from the Bag, and placed the calico in her lap. “This is Hallow,” she told Rose/Ross as she stroked the kitten’s back.
“Well hello there, little girl,” said Ross, softly. “She’s certainly pretty… May I?” he asked, reaching out a hand, ready to stroke the kitten. “And we get to kill her… Chapter six, I think. Once the Suethor adds in the Prophesy,” he added, scanning the Words. “Careful, the end of this chapter is coming up."
“Meep,” she answered with an affirmative nod as Hallow purred loudly and rubbed her head up against Ross’ outstretched hand.
Ross smiled, and stroked the kitty.
Ross sighed as Kel Angsted, and then winced. “Charge. That. That. Whatever THAT is…” he gestured helplessly at where Kel had managed to turn the lower half of her body into… “A concrete angle…” he muttered, shaking his head, and began to laugh. “Charge for lack of spelling causing ridiculous predicaments.”
Meip saw Ross wince at the end of the Chapter, and then the author’s voice started whining overhead, commenting to all of her reviewers. “Ow,” Ross said, plugging his ears and giving Meip a woeful grin. “I’m feeling a little bleen around the edges. I’m afraid I might not make it to the end of this fic…”
An ellipses appeared above Meip’s head as she stared at Ross and hung suspended there for a moment before clattering down to land in her curls. She narrowed her eyes at him, and pulled a generic book out of her bag. After weighing it in one hand she changed her grip and whacked him across the head. “Bad Angsty!Stu!” she reprimanded Ross, and gave him a whack across the other side of his head for good measure.
“She’s right, Ross,” commented his sister, wresting control of the body, “that was Angst. Now, just let me at that foul creature and I’ll show her oh crap, I’ve got it too, don’t I?” She sighed, and shook her hair. “And here I thought I might have been safe from the Suethor influence…”
“It probably affected you as well because you share a body, and it was the body that ate the punctuation. Or- ” Meip continued in a considering tone of voice. “-It might have affected you anyway because you’re twins and share a connection.” She blushed and looked away for a second, her hands now busy petting Hallow once again.
“Meh, you’re right, of course,” said Rose, with a wan grin at Meip. “Oh well. There’s nothing that can be done about it right now. We have the Duty, and we can’t get out of here until that bitch and her twu wuv are dead. You might want to keep that Generic Book handy, though. That did seem to help, a lot…” She shook her head, and examined the end of the ponytail that her hair had been stuffed into, and heaved a very relieved sounding sigh. “Please don’t,” muttered Ross, as the Vox Dei of the Disclaimer announced
I may slip in my own character in this chap, I’m still deciding….
“Meep…” Meip whispered despondently.
Kel woke up with the headache from hell. I guess I deserve this after treating Joren like that yesterday… Kel thought, wincing as she sat up. Maybe I should let him help, but keep it strictly professional, no emotional attachments involved.
“What?” demanded Ross, his voice emitting somewhere above and outside of the dark area Meip had found herself in as the scene shifted. “How the hell does she deserve to have a hangover - er, a headache - for brushing off the assface?”
“Author justification?” Meip asked, her voice muffled as she realized that she had somehow ended up IN Kel’s wardrobe, while it sounded like Rose/Ross had managed to land atop of it. “It’s dark in here…” she muttered as she attempted to find her way out of the enclosed space.
“Kel you up yet?” Neal yelled through the door. “I’ve been knocking for fifteen minutes!”
Ross opened up the wardrobe door and pulled Meip out, saying, “I have never, ever, heard Nealan of Queenscove fail at language like that…”
“Meep,” Meip agreed. After a quick glance at the Words, the newbie agent covered her eyes and whined. She really didn’t want to see how the words “come on it” manifested.
“Oh. My. Tolkien,” Meip heard Ross mutter. “I didn’t sign up for Bad Slash because I don’t have the stomach for that…”
As Neal finished his business and walked into the room, Ross shook his head. “If he’s just been knocking for fifteen minutes, why hasn’t he just come in?” Ross demanded. “And didn’t Kel lock her door every night?”
Meip ever so slowly peeked out from behind her fingers, and when she saw that it was semi safe, uncovered the rest of her face. “Mwah,” Meip said neutrally.
“Charge for Slandering the Good Name of Kel, as well as Neal,” said Rose, deadpan, as it was disclosed that Kel and Neal always waited till the last minute to do anything.
Rose shook her head again, frowning. “Lack of commas, grammatical aberrations, making Neal an oblivious cad…” She was muttering to herself, eyes unfocused and looking at the Words, until - “Neal Bashing. Charge her for Neal Bashing,” she said, pushing Meip down so as to avoid the ballistic author’s note apologizing for Neal Bashing. “If you’re going to have to apologize for something, don’t do it at all,” Rose muttered, letting Meip back up.
Meip dutifully wrote down the charges. “How is the sparkly punctuation of doom affecting you now?” she asked quietly. “Any worse?”
Rose turned to Meip, putting on a brave face. “I fear, sweet child, that I am flagging. Please, if I cannot continue, go on without me! Save yourself, and save this fic! Continue that noble Cause on my behalf if I -” She was cut off by a Generic Book to the face as Meip tried to slam the Sue out of her.
“Bad,” she said with a small frown. “No. Bad agent.”
Rose shook her head, wrinkled her nose a little, and gave Meip a grin. “Thanks. I needed that… So. Back to business!” Rose turned back to the action just in time for Kel to say “Neal he found out, originally I wasn’t intending to enlighten anyone to my preference to incise (slit open) my wrist.”
“Aieeeeeee,” moaned Ross. “Thesaurus Rape and an Explanatory In-Text Author’s Note?” he shook his head, hard, and then winced, as “Oh,” Neal said. (A/N I am proud of myself! Thanks to my thesaurus I have written something intelligent! OH somebody tell my mother I’m not a stupid 8th grader who knows nothing!) happened.
After a long, tortuous, and pain filled experience on Meip’s part, -- which she did her best to tune out, less she have need of a ten pound tub of bleeprin -- she suddenly found herself sitting in the middle of the street as the scene shifted. “Where the hell is “Cours”? Meip demanded and she pulled herself to her feet.
“Coming up the street right now,” said Rose, holding out a hand to the Mini as it waddled toward her. “Hey there honey-woney!” she cooed, scooping up the little bundle of razor blades.
“Hey Neal do you think Joren would like this?” Kel asked holding up a pair of Yamani steel Sais. (Sais are those things Elektra fights with you know the knife looking things. One is referred to as a Sai. Sai is pronounced like sigh, and Sais is pronounced like sighs.)
“Yeah he loves weapons and shit like that you know” Neal commented.
“Neal thank you I really don’t know what I’d do without you,” Kel laughed as she gave the man at the shop 3 gold nobles for the Sais.
“Live everyday wondering why it’s not worth living without Nealan of Queenscove.” Neal teased.
Rose groaned. “In-text author’s notes. Cutting off the tails of her poor, poor commas and turning them into periods. Making Neal swear like that. Complete and utter lack of any coherent punctuation… Referencing a bad movie in your fic to explain something…” After shaking his head to clear the glitter out of his eyes, Ross continued. “See, were this MY author’s note, I would make it a footnote, or have one of the characters say it, and explain the history of the Sai, how it was originally a farming tool, Etc… But no. She has to have it in an in-text author’s note. One that HURTS. Because of the STUPID. And OH GODS I’VE GOT THE CAPSRAPE DISEASE…” Ross hurriedly clamped a hand over his mouth, and looked at Meip with pleading eyes. “HELP?!>!”
“Ross,” whispered his sister, “How the hell did you just pronounce a Greater Than?”
That was something that Meip also wanted to know the answer to, but she went ahead and hit Ross over the head with the generic book first. “Your making my book go all floppy,” she said sadly, and then gasped, slapping one hand over her mouth and whining low in her throat. Seems like Ross wasn’t the only one affected by the Suethor punctuation.
Rose gave Meip a look, and then snatched the book out of her hands, and hit the owner with it. “It’s ‘you’re’. ‘You. Are’.” The older Agent glared at the newbie, and handed her back her book.
“We’re going to need more books,” Meip commented as she stuffed the generic book into her Bag.
Rose startled at the introduction of another character, and whipped out her CAD, pointing it at the new young man.
Rose sighed, looking relieved, and showed the CAD to Meip.
[Domitan of Masbolle. OOC 12.3%. Ohthankgod.]
Meip sighed in relief as well.
“Okay, I think we can safely skip ahead a little - OH SWEET MERCIFUL TOLKIEN!” Ross cried, then winced. “Alright. Two problems. I’ve still got capsrape disease, and she’s just mentioned herself her Personal Character.” Ross shook his head, and came back up as Rose. “Kasidy? Kasidy? That’s not even a Yamani name… It’s… structured wrong. Yamani is based on Japanese, and… that’s not how it’s done. Not at ALL….” A frown crossed Rose’s face. “There were four periods in that ellipses, weren’t there?”
“Yes, yes there were,” Meip responded.
“Uuuugh. Anyway. Charge her for inserting a non-canonical best friend for Kel, since we have never, ever heard that name in book, with a stupid, non-Yamani name. Also…” Rose scanned the words a little further, and sighed. “Charge her for modern slang, and then I think it’s safe for us to skip the ball and go straight to where Joren gets given the gift from Kel.”
Meip, of course, wrote down the charges, absentmindedly hushing Hallow as the kitten whined for attention from the depths of her Bag where the calico had taken refuge from the disorientating changes. “How do we skip something? Is there, like a… a fast forward button or something?” she asked innocently. “Or do we just go somewhere else during the meantime?”
“Oh, we just dial in the coordinates in the RA, making use of the plotholes. Like this, see?” Ross did so, showing the new agent how, and then stepped through the portal with Meip following behind.