Mission #11, at last!
Hello, there, members of the Canon Protection Initiative and curious newcomers! Agents Mara and Isaiah have returned to wreak havoc on the annoying world of Mary Sues and bad writing. Enjoy--and if not, nitpick.
"'Tis bad luck for a woman to be onboard, says I, bad luck."
Of course, what Gibbs thought about the matter meant nothing; he knew for a fact that the lass was here to stay.
It seemed like forever that they'd been having this problem. It was the same old story, day in and day out, for the crew of the Black Pearl. An endless string of beauties had taken it upon themselves to climb aboard the ship, make themselves into crewmembers by hook or by crook, and promptly latch onto the normally sharp-witted Captain Jack Sparrow. Gibbs didn't know the last time he'd been able to sleep peacefully. Their odd eyes and manners kept hypnotizing everyone.
The morning had been all right, as far as piracy went. They'd been planning to take a respite in Tortuga, and the crew were busying themselves with getting the ship to the pleasure port as soon as they could. Not long into the journey, Gibbs began to suspect that the captain's mind had been meddled with.
*Tortuga by tomorrow night is the plan. let my men have fun at the tavern. ah yes, the Faithful Bride. hmmmm and maybe I'll see that nice young broad again. rum. yay.*
The "rum dot yay" had put Gibbs on his guard...not to mention the odd way that the captain began and ended his sentences with "star". Gibbs had hoped this would be a minor slip-up, but sadly, Jack Sparrow's condition continued to deteriorate.
After they had gotten off at Tortuga, Gibbs had been bewildered to see the crew chasing "women and whores". Before now, he could have sworn that whores generally were women, but somehow, that day, the word had excluded the fairer sex entirely. He had also been surprised to see bottles of free rum popping up out of nowhere, as if a magician had been tinkering with the drinks.
If Gibbs had been in any doubt as to the origin of these phenomena, he'd lost all uncertainty as the captain had suddenly lost all affection for his ship.
He said that the only true love of his life was the Pearl, yet deep down inside he knew he still had yet to find his one true love.
Gibbs' jaw had dropped. Where had that thought come from? It was bizarre. Jack loved his ship. He had spent ten years trying to rescue her. In fact, it was...
A wave of obliviousness had washed over Gibbs at the moment, and he had found himself rubbing his eyes. His head had felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Stubbornly, he had fought against it, but to no avail.
Loyally, first mate Gibbs turned and disappeared into the hull.
"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Gibbs had yelled involuntarily as a large force beyond his control had sucked him inside the skeleton of the ship. Trying frantically to escape-being caught between caulked planks does not do wonders for one's constitution-he had inexplicably found himself breathing fresh air. But how? He wasn't aboard ship; he was inside it!
With a loud popping noise, Gibbs had found himself outside the captain's quarters. He'd felt the sensation of impending doom worsen and had tried his hardest to keep from saying the damning words...
"Well, captain, sir, sorry to trouble you tonight but we've found a man in the water."
Gibbs' eyes had widened. Wait a minute. A man? A man in the water? Praise be, they were saved! He wouldn't be dismissed as useless by his captain's latest true love and soul mate...whoever she was. For a moment, he'd felt his spirits soar. Then...
When there, Jack saw a soaking wet, slightly bloodied figure lying on the ground, but he was suspicious of the gender of the individual.
Jack slowly bent down and placed a worn, calloused hand above the stranger's mouth. He felt a slight breath coming from the wet form and thus concluded the stranger had to be alive, it a little at all. Then, he turned slightly and looked at the figures chest, which was eerily more feminine then previously stated. *Hmmm. a female pirate?* He moved over to the pirates head, which had a bandanna wrapped around its hair and forehead, like Jacks own. *Definitely a female pirate. I mite have some use yet for her is she lives through tonight*
Hellfire. She was a woman after all.
Despairingly, he cast a gaze at the sky, wondering if a storm blowing them off course would be enough to deter the young lady. He doubted it. No force in the world could stop them once they had decided to manifest themselves. Who could change that now?
Females aboard this ship were really bad luck indeed.
_________________________________
"So, Isaiah," said Mara, who was disguised as a deckhand, "here's a statistic for you. Out of all of the Sues that we've reported in our mission logs, how many of them have met their death at our hands?"
It looked like a routine PPC mission so far. A mysterious-looking woman was hauled aboard, after first being mistaken for a man. Jack fell for her the second he saw her, and...well, everyone who'd ever read a romance novel could guess the rest. It wasn't quite bad enough to be remarkable-yet-so the agents were trying to stay awake through the snooze-inducing clichés until something really awful came up.
On PPC missions, awfulness was a constant companion.
"I've kept count of the number of Sues we've dealt with so far," Isaiah shrugged in reply, lowering the charge list away from his face. "We have twenty-five in the mission logs. We didn't kill Helen-of-Troy Sue, 'You,' or Rinj, so I'm guessing we've offed twenty-two." He went back to reviewing the current list, which at the moment sported phrases like "giving Jack Sparrow a mite" and "being so androgynous that the crew mistook you for a man, and at the same time being the epitome of feminine beauty".
"Nope. We have only offed six of those." Mara scanned the fic for further inaccuracies, making a note of an abused comma and the fact that Captain Jack Sparrow had just blushed. It was routine...which made it scary in a whole other way.
On the other side one of the men whispered to another, "Aye and I bet he'll be the one to keep the bed warm tonight, eh?" Then Gibbs gave him a stern look for talking that way of their captain.
"Yeah, it's such an insult to a promiscuous pirate to insinuate that he might be bedding someone." Isaiah looked sourly at Puritannical!Gibbs, and decided to take his mind off that image by pestering Mara about the statistics. "What do you mean, we've only offed six Mary Sues?"
"Directly," Mara amended, counting on her fingers. "Fatima/Pheonix/Sarah was actually beaten up by Helen of Troy and stampeded by thirsty tavern-goers, so she doesn't count. Jack Sap-arrow's demise, we had nothing do with-it was in-character Jack that arranged his death. The irate townspeople took care of the Shay Leigh Sues after we tarred and feathered them-except Ashlee, whom I shot, and Maggie, whom I forced under the punctuation downpour. Shmuckleigh was responsible for Shay Leigh's tragic end."
Isaiah snorted at the word tragic. "Well, okay, but what about the-oh, no, the PPCers smote her...or the six-oh, no, that was Old Man Willow. You've just missed a charge, by the way," he said to Mara, pointing to where the author was winking at the readers after having gratuitously written Jack Sparrow with his shirt open.
"So help me out, here."
"I have our Analysis Device and the Words out!"
Mara blew a wisp of hair out of her face. "We should find a way to strap the CAD to our forearms, or something...juggling PPC instruments is never fun. Hey, did she just-aaaagh!"
Both PPC agents clapped their hands over their ears and dove for cover. A barrage of exclamation points assaulted them.
"NOOO!!! Run, please, the mast, its on fire! Abandon ship men. OHH NOO!!"
When the insanity had passed, both Mara and Isaiah shook their heads.
"What was that?" Isaiah managed at last.
"That, my friend," said Mara, "was a Sue's worst nightmare."
"The original movie?"
"No."
"Critical thinking?"
"No."
"Ugliness?"
"I'm speaking literally," hissed Mara, out of breath and patience. "She's having a nightmare about when her ship-of which she was previously a captain-caught fire."
"I see. And this is the opening to 'Sea Soaked Part 2'. Tell me, Mara, why did the Suethor feel the need to divide up an already short chapter into two parts?"
"Because she doesn't have the literary skill, and certainly not the willpower, to write a competent story." Mara's expression darkened. "I should know. I e-mailed her with constructive criticism...and got back a hint that I was PMSing."
"It's so nice to know, in this day and age, that when an opinionated woman shares her thoughts, it's attributed to intelligence and not to hormones."
Mara merely grumbled and poised her pen for the next charge.
"By the way," said Isaiah, resuming their earlier conversation, "You can't say we didn't kill Salina Sue."
"That we did, and thoroughly. But since we left her patsy, Cat, to be finished off by our head of de...part...ment..." Mara's syllables were slowing as her eyes fixed on the Sue.
Isaiah balanced his reading glasses more firmly on his nose and read ahead. At first, he saw nothing.
"What?" he asked. "Typographical error? Misplaced modifier? Captain Jack Sap-arrow?" He waved his hand in front of his partner's eyes. "What's wrong, Mara?"
"Yes," said Mara, very quietly. "That is what's wrong."
"I don't-"
But then Isaiah looked harder at the Words, and understood perfectly: the Sue shared Mara's name.
At that moment, the exclamations started up again.
"NOOO!!! ZEEDU NOO!!!" the woman cried out and grabbed Jacks arm. Her eyes shot open and she sat strait up, almost hitting Jack himself. Her head turned to face him and he found himself staring into two deep, endless, beautiful black orbs. He had never seen such pretty eyes.
"Wow," said Isaiah. "That's over-the-top, even for Suefic."
"A small comfort, though," conceded Mara as she watched the minutely described eyes. "I don't have black orbs, unless you count my pupils. And, totally off topic, what kind of a name is Zeedu?"
"I'd really rather not ponder the linguistic ramifications of that name," Isaiah replied. "Whoa, look out! Land ho!"
Sure enough, due to the misspelling of "straight", the Pearl briefly ran aground as the Caribbean narrowed into a small channel. The agents, remembering the last time they'd been shipwrecked, were quick to protect their charge lists from harm. Fortunately, a tense shift hit, jolting the ship free.
"And Jack Sparrow gets an introduction, at last.”
Captain Jack Sparrow? The infamous Captain Jack Sparrow? The on and only pirate she had always feared meeting, she thought he was an ugly, grotesque man who raped and killed all and gave no mercy.
“Where the blazes did she hear those rumors about Jack?" Isaiah wondered. "He's reputed for sacking a port without firing a shot!”
"And why does being ugly and grotesque have anything to do with raping and killing?" Mara contributed. "Actually, I take it back; I know the answer to that one. In Suefic, prettiness is good, and ugliness is evil."
"Oh, come on, Mara, it's not like that in every-"
But he didn't look the part of an infamous pirate, well he did, but he was younger, more handsome, very attractive.
"Am I a veteran, or am I a veteran?" Mara said smugly.
Isaiah merely pointed to the words. "I suppose you know that your namesake has the last name Avice. And her black eyes are meeting Jack's copper ones."
"Wha...?"
Jack's eyes, so often described in Suefic as khol-lined, coal-lined, sparking, chocolate orbs, turned shiny as they became copper-plated. The penny-eyed pirate stared, enchanted, at the Sue, who attempted a poetic moment.
*Suck beautiful eyes.* She thought.
That did it. Isaiah left the Sue to go suck on her beloved's eyeballs some more, while he arranged a portal over the Sue's sorrowful past. He knew that her boat had sunk, that it had done so tragically, and that any more details would cause him to vomit over the side of the ship from angst-sickness. Mara, however, stuck around, and was pleased to see that her suspicions were correct: the sinking of the ship was more funny than it was sickening.
"Her ship, named the Firebird, caught on fire?" she snickered. "Perhaps a renaming is in order." Just as Isaiah transported into the scene, his CAD heated up.
"Charge, two o'clock!" Mara rapped out.
Isaiah came back just in time to put his pen to parchment. "What? Where?"
"No need for all the fuss, luv." He said waving his hands in the air. "Captain Mara Avice, please follow me. I got meself a whole hull full. aye that rhymes, I be good at rhymes."
Isaiah's pen clattered to the deck. "Um? But? How...?" He stood still, temporarily frozen in place.
"Uh-oh." Mara began shaking her partner. "Shouldn't have sprung that on you, Agent." A few more hard shakes relieved Isaiah of his Stupidity Shock. He had seen many linguistic and grammatical atrocities in his time as an agent, but one thing he hadn't seen was someone mistaking an eye rhyme for a real rhyme.
"Has she never heard the word ‘hull’ spoken in her life?" Isaiah asked agitatedly. "And the fact that she makes Jack spout that idiocy is just...unfathomable. Gah!"
Mara was watching as the pirate captain replied in his famous, almost one breath sort of speech voices. The Words tried to make sense of this, first by making Jack speak all of his words in one breath, then by having many voices coming from the captain's throat. In the end, the universe gave up, and the result was an indescribable panting, babbling sound that made it appear as though Jack were having an epileptic fit. "Wow. This...this is bad."
"Almost as bad as Mizz Mara."
“Where…? Oh, I see.” Mara looked like she was ready to slay the Sue then and there. “In my totally unbiased opinion, this darling creature needs an extra special end, don’t you think?”
“But she already is extra special.” Isaiah got a rare mischievous look in his eyes. “Let’s give her an ordinary death.” The Canon Analysis Device’s reading grew from 34% to 67% Out of Character in between the two sentences, as Jack found himself mesmerized by the stunning beauty.
“An ordinary death, hm? Tall order, but not impossible.”
*I don' wanna be bothered right now. I'm just tired. even though she is perty. hey stop think bout her and her pertyness!!!*
“In fact,” continued Mara with a noticeable edge to her voice, “it’s looking more and more possible by the second. Ugh. I can’t tell if Jack’s accent is street teenager or southern.”
The narrative continued to praise the Sue, calling attention to the fact that even though the scurvy dogs that were Jack’s crew were doing terrifying things like winking at her, she, the brave heroine, was undaunted.
“Inflating the definition of courage to include braving winks. Toying with Jack’s accent, to the extent that we don’t know what kind of an accent it is,” Mara charged. “Compelling Jack to tell pirates to be ‘nice and kind’ to her, when I’m sure they have better things to do.”
“Dear me, Mizz Mara,” Isaiah mocked in a hoity-toity voice. “You seem to have dropped your handkerchief! Allow me to scrub it free of spots for you!”
“Ah’m Cap’n Jack Sparrow, savvy,” Mara joined in gamely. “Let me be offerin’ ya the cap’n’s bed fer the night. Leastaways, if’n ya don’t wanna share it, hyuck hyuck!” A short while later, “Look out-more exclamation points.”
The agents ducked into the hold as the punctuation rained down on them.
"Jack Sparrow!!! Ye told me that we was gonna have a talk! An' ye just can't be leaving me out 'ere! Imma Captain and ye know it and I deserve a bed too!" Mara screamed after him.
“Oh, no, surely not,” said Mara, shaking her head at the Sue. An unpleasant smile appeared on her face. “I must have misunderstood. See, I just thought I heard you, Sue, a woman without a ship or crew, scream out a demand for a private cabin after Captain Jack saved your life.”
Fortunately for the Sue, Jack Sparrow’s OOC reading dropped to 58% as he reminded her whose ship she was on. He slammed the door in her face, deaf to the Sue’s pleas, whining, and six exclamation points in a row.
Mara’s grin softened into a genuine smile. “That’s our Jack.”
“It’s her Jack, Mara.”
The dangerous grin was back. “Not for long.”
__________________________________________
Gibbs couldn’t put his finger on it, but he knew, instinctively, that something else had gone awry. It wasn’t the crew staring at the young woman like slack-jawed idiots-some of them were slack-jawed idiots, and anyway, women like her always had some male or other ogling them so they could pretend to be offended. No, it was something more basic than that.
Suddenly, with a flash, it came to him. Mizz Captain Mara Avice had supposed Jack’s crew never to have seen a woman pirate before. But this was completely and utterly wrong, for a reason that he couldn’t quite remem-
“Captain Sparrow. The Black Pearl is yours.”
Anamaria!
Of course. How in the world could he have forgotten? Anamaria had been with him throughout the better part of their adventure against Barbossa. She had captained the Interceptor admirably, not losing her head even though the odds were against her. She was tough, and a good leader, yet was willing to do the right thing and return the Pearl to its rightful owner. She was the only young woman crewmember who had put the Black Pearl first and herself second. And now…she had vanished from existence.
Gibbs didn’t need to ask why. It was plain as if it had been written in stone: Anamaria was a threat to that witch. She was a young woman, and not unattractive, but she was…made of sterner stuff, more complex, more real, somehow, than all of the shimmering warrior maids the Pearl had been graced with lately. As such, she might have been seen as getting in the way of a romance with the captain, even though Anamaria was the last woman in the world to lose her head in an affair.
Gibbs had to strain with all his might to hold on to the memory of his fellow pirate. The closer he got to Mara, the weaker the memory felt. Realizing this, Gibbs contented himself with fading into the background, a habit that many of the other crewmembers were beginning to share. It was better than being in her way as she leaned too far over the side of the ship and nearly fell overboard.
If she was a ship’s captain, why doesn’t she have sea legs? Gibbs wondered. And doesn’t she know that’s only a fool would-
Sparks of glitter flashed before his eyes, and he was forced to abandon that train of thought. He tried to make headway again when Jack grabbed the back of her shirt. For some reason, this made her shirt rip down the front. The glitter swarmed in front of his vision again, but a quickly-muffled “ARRR!” brought him back into focus.
“Sh!” whispered a female voice. “They’ll hear you.”
Gibbs was careful not to look overtly in the spot whence the scream had originated. He stole a glance that way, and was sure he was hallucinating. A young, blond man was biting his bottom lip, blushing furiously.
“This is such a girls’ fandom,” the strange fellow said despairingly. He looked heavenward. “Why wasn’t I assigned to Star Trek?”
“Oh, like there’s no revealing clothing there,” a black-haired woman snapped. “Seven of Nine strutting about in-”
“She did not strut! Well, a little bit. But she was about more than her outfit and her eyes.”
This was a strange development. Not only was a new male personality aboard ship-who hadn’t claimed to be so-and-so’s long-lost son-but a woman had appeared on board who was not beautiful. This extraordinary phenomenon would have made Gibbs too curious not to gaze at the pair head-on, except that at that moment, Mizz Mara stole his attention away.
"A lil more and me an' the crew woulda had the pleasure of seein' yer goods." Captain Jack said slyly followed by a very mischievous grin.
"I ain't in no mind to show any of ye my 'goods' anytime soon, Jack Sparrow."
“HAH!” snorted the young man in response, face still slightly tinged red.
The pirate groaned. Was there no end to the absurdities? He knew as well as anyone that she’d be showing off her assets to the captain within the week…maybe within the day.
At the moment, Gibbs had bigger problems, however. He looked out to sea and saw a dangerous-looking ship approaching. Instinctively, he tried to catch the captain’s eye, but Jack, as usual, was talking about the ship to Mara.
"The Albtraum."
As soon as Jack said that, the crew took a step back. Then, they scurried to find weapons and some went to tie down the sails. They were preparing for a battle.
Why? Gibbs wanted to ask. Why would Jack want to prepare for a battle with what was quite possibly a better-armed ship? They sailed aboard the fastest ship in the Caribbean; if they retreated, they could outrun the Albatraum with little effort.
At that exact moment, Mara Avice chanced a disdainful glance at him. She then gave a slight smile, and Gibbs hastened away to tie down the sails, though why it was imperative to do so remained unclear. Her fathomless dark orbs looked like they were boring holes through his mind.
Perhaps they were.
_______________________________________
“Ooh, an Exposition Moment,” said Isaiah with false enthusiasm. “So, the Albatraum hails from Germany, and means ‘Nightmare’. I’m guessing the Barbossa-replacement is on his way.”
“At least they didn’t resurrect him from the dead,” Mara pointed out.
“No. But why would Jack know so much about a ship from Germany? Pirate ships don’t sail to Europe!”
“Eh, who knows and who cares?” returned Mara. “I’m sure that the author doesn’t.”
“How’s that?”
Smooch!
In the middle of the explanation, Jack abruptly stopped talking-perhaps even he was bored by the exposition-and planted a large kiss on the Mary Sue’s lips. It wasn’t a lovely moment to begin with, and it was made worse by one, little, seemingly insignificant technical error: the addition of one letter to one word.
With one quick motion her kissed her deeply…
“Holy-” Isaiah closed his mouth, unable to think up an appropriate interjection. The pirate captain lost his goatee and mustache, gained a dress, and shifted form into a lovely, slender woman of about forty. This disturbingly feminine Jack continued to kiss the Sue deeply, until the Sue yelled at “him” to stop, which fortunately put an end to the badly timed gender switch.
“Well, as fascinating as that was to see,” continued the male agent, “I guess we should be scurrying about like good little crewmembers. After all,” and he rolled his eyes, “we have to be loading the ‘canons’.”
“Aw, man!” groused Mara. “I should have asked Techno Dann for the Canon Cannon again.”
“Ordinary death, remember, Mara? ’Sides, we don’t want to have all the Sues go the way of the cannon and catapult. It wouldn’t be fun anymore.”
“You call this fun?” said Mara angrily, as she ducked a flying plank. This object landed, miraculously, right between the Pearl and the Albatraum, at which point the latter’s crew started boarding. Many crewmen were killed, and these belonged to a host of Jacks, which an absent apostrophe had created. Mara concluded that she must have hit her head, before looking over Isaiah’s shoulder at the Words and sighing.
Sparrow chose that moment to “lunge himself”, which as a phrase on its own made no sense. However, because there were now many Jacks, one Sparrow lunged at another, and both of them stumbled in the direction of the German pirates, beginning a duel with one of them.
The clones of Jack merged into his old self as he faced off against this new adversary.
He was being beaten quickly and looked upon his opponent.
“So, he’s been fighting this guy without looking at him? Gee, that might explain why Jack’s losing.” Isaiah raised an eyebrow as “Captain Merdoro Platt” slashed across Jack’s chest, whereupon Sparrow gave a melodramatic cry of anguish (as did the CAD). The Sue heard this scream and began banging on the door of Jack’s cabin, where she had been secured during the battle. Part of the Sue separated from her body as she seemingly forgot the distinction between “of” and “off”. What caused Isaiah more consternation was that the Sue was just now letting gravity take hold of her.
He shrugged after puzzling his wits about this. “I guess gravity let her slip by it before. We’ll have to add ‘floating in midair’ to the charge list retroactively.”
“On it.” Mara wrote down another accusation. Then another-the evil pirates, without ever having known Sue in their lives, described her as “Jack Sparrows ultimate treasure”. Next, they left out the “t” in “captain” and were thrown off their feet by a tense shift.
It was Mara’s goal that someday, she would succeed in compiling a neat and tidy charge list. Usually, unpleasant surprises in the form of canon ruptures, not to mention tense shifts, shipwrecks and unwieldy portals, kept her from carefully ticking off the crimes against canon. It was a minor goal, though; first and foremost was her objective to kill as many Sues as she could before going insane.
Especially if they shared her name.
The Sue Mara was currently wallowing in self-pity as she cried over Jack’s form. She could have told him how handsome he was, but she’d been too proud. Oh, woe was she. As she sobbed over the captain’s injured body, Jack awakened.
Mara hugged him now and sat back up, only to gaze down at his now pale and almost lifeless half opened eyes. "Hi there.*couch* luv.”
A couch fell from the sky and landed with a flump on top of the two lovers. Agent Mara, leaning forward as far as she could while staying in the shadows, attempted to hoist the piece of furniture off of the pair. Isaiah saw what she was doing and lent a hand.
They had barely tugged away the upholstered cushions when Merdoro Platt appeared, laughing evilly as he proclaimed that he was going to torture them. The chapter ended there, and the agents had the…privilege…to hear an author’s note just before “chappy” seven.
Note: THERE ARE SCEENES WHERE JACK GETS HURT. A LOT. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT JACK GETTING HURT TURN BACK NOW!! (yes, hadda add it for all u fans that think Jacky- poo should never ever ever get hurt or beaten.=^.^=)
“While the idea doesn’t appeal to me, personally,” admitted Mara, “I’ll allow that it’s probably much better than watching Sues steal his brain away.”
“Well, after all,” said Isaiah, “it’s not like Jack’s never been through pain before. He’s been branded, shot, tattooed, and scarred on his forearm in what I assume was some form of torture.”
The agents looked on, mildly interested as the Sue screamed “ruthlessly” and tried to break free of her captors. Although pleased that the Sue was gagged, they winced as Platt bound Jack and gave him several lashes. Platt told the man whipping Jack only to stop when Jack cried out in pain. Since Jack refused to cry out, he was flogged unconscious.
Mara was thrown into the cell and the door quickly locked. She started to cry because she couldn't get to her Jack.
“He is not…your…Jack!” said Agent Mara fiercely.
Isaiah smirked. “Getting a little possessive, aren’t we?”
To his surprise, Mara beamed back at him. “Nope. And you, are you getting a little disturbed?”
“Why should I be?” asked Isaiah.
“Oh, no reason,” said Mara composedly. “Just the Sue, turning Jack Sparrow into a woman again.”
There was a moment of absolute silence. Isaiah tried to look away from the shape-shifting captain; truly, he did. Like most monstrosities, however, this grisly metamorphosis was all but impossible to turn away from. It was fascinating, in an awful sort of way.
She looked at his still figure lying in the cell across from hers. She could tell her was barely breathing and she needed to get to him so badly, ooo so badly.
O no. Jack got hurt. :( not cool. Well, hopefully Mara can find a way to help him in the next few chapters.
“Don’t worry,” said Agent Mara solemnly. “I will. And now, dear partner, for ‘Confessions of Love.’”
Isaiah couldn’t suppress a shudder. “I assume that’s the name of the next chapter title. Oh, speaking of titles,” he said, browsing the Words, “I never looked at the name for this story. Ah, here it is. Even Villians Learn to Love. What is a villian, Mara?”
As if the answer were obvious, she replied, “Someone with lots of villi. You know-those things that line your small intestine.”
“Right,” said Isaiah dubiously. “And what charge does that constitute, exactly?”
“Er-let’s skip that one and continue down to the part where Jack’s breathing slowly, yet in quick gasps.”
“Slowly and quickly at the same time. Beautiful. Just beautiful.”
“Know what’s even more beautiful, Isaiah?’
“What?”
“It’s going to be her turn soon.” Mara regarded her Sue namesake with the tiniest hint of a smile. “Watching her whipping will be a small consolation.”
“Bet she’ll be dramatic to the bitter end…yep.” It was quite possibly the only time Isaiah had been clutching his stomach with laughter as he saw someone whipped.
"I.CRACK.love..CRACK.Jack.CRACK.Spar.CRACK" Her last words were cut short by the crack of the whip and she felt her eyes roll back into her head and her world went black.
"NOO!!! How could you, noo!!!" Jack yelled as he struggled against his captor.
[Captain Jack Sparrow,] chimed in the Canon Analysis Device. [Canon. Male. Out of Character 87%. My exclamation point goodness!]
The agents blinked.
“Well,” said Mara finally, “I guess we’re not bored anymore. Every time we turn around, we-Ahhh!”
Isaiah yelped as well. They had just seen Captain Platt whip his face off with his fingers.
“Oh, oh, gross,” moaned Isaiah, scrunching his eyes shut as blood poured off the evil captain’s face. Platt seemed oblivious enough, which was just as well for him. “This Suethor plainly has a fetish for whipping.”
“As I shall soon have a fetish for Bleeprin.”
“Are you sure that shouldn’t be present tense, Mara?” Isaiah teased. In trying to take their minds off the instantaneous gore, they had also blocked out the world around them. When they were again aware of their surroundings, the DTE agents quickly hunkered down in the corners of their cell. They were in the brig, and although they were still dressed as pirates, Jack and the Sue (conveniently lying atop one another) were the brig’s only other occupants. They would have to be careful…
"Well, so do I, Jack, and it would be a lot more comfortable if ye got me." Mara growled from her position under the pirate captain.
“ Bwahaha-mph!”
“Hee hee-sorry.”
…And that was going to be difficult.
___________________________________
Gibbs had managed to keep hidden after the inevitable defeat of the Pearl. He was now sneaking quietly towards his captain, hoping to free him and get the wheels in Jack’s brain working properly again.
His hope of success was faint. After all, she was with him. As he peered into the dimly lit brig, he saw both of them with whip stripes across their backs. Mara Avice lay supine, and Jack was pressing her bloodied back against the deck as he kissed her passionately. Gibbs was astonished to see their fevered kisses and caresses. Land’s sake, they should hardly be able to move!
As if reading his mind, a voice from the shadows whispered, “Wasn’t she…just whipped?”
“Yes,” was the equally quiet reply.
“So, how is she not feeling that? The pain, I mean. It’s got to be excruciating.”
“I think the author forgot about it.”
“But-she can’t-and it’s not-”
“For the last time, Isaiah, don’t try to make sense of it. It’ll only hurt your head.”
"I am no lady, Jack Sparrow, I am a pirate, and I don' want ye callin' me a stupid pathetic lady!" She yelled at him and stood up.
“What’s wrong with being a lady?” asked the woman’s voice rhetorically. “You don’t have to be a fiery lass to be a strong character.”
“No more!” cried Gibbs as he burst into the room. “I’ve had it, I tell ye! I’ll stand for no more stowaways on this ship, and…”
Mara took time away from kissing Jack and trained her velvety orbs on Gibbs. “You were saying?” she asked sweetly.
Gibbs faltered, but steadied himself as he looked toward the shadows, where he was sure those two were hiding. “I was saying,” he said through gritted teeth, “that I want ye off this-whoa!”
“What-what did she do?” whispered the male voice as Gibbs was hurled through space.
“I don’t believe it. She sucked him into the hull!”
A few moments of stifling darkness, pain, and then…pop!
Gibbs was pulled free, only to come face-to-face with two of the oddest-dressed folk he’d ever seen. They couldn’t be more than twenty, and sported backpacks and astonished expressions.
“How in the world were you able to see us?” demanded the blond boy.
Gibbs shrugged. “Happened after you shouted something.”
The young woman nudged her companion hard in the side. “I told you that you needed to be quieter,” she said. “You’re lucky he found us. Otherwise, he’d have contaminated the continuum!”
A million questions pressed on Gibbs, but instead of asking one-or all-of them, he simply folded his arms across his chest and waited for an explanation.
Fortunately, these young people seemed polite enough.
“Hi,” said the woman. “I’m Mara. Agent Mara. Sorry we’re late. Mr. Gibbs, would you mind helping us kill her off?”
Gibbs stared in shock. “Ye-ye want to get rid of her?” he asked in disbelief.
“Wouldn’t you?” the young man retorted.
“Aye, but everyone else seems to worship the wench.”
“She’s a witch of the most potent kind,” the woman explained. "She needs to be dealt with, and swiftly.”
“She fries anyone who gets near her!”
“Not us.” The woman smiled. “She can’t see us until we want her to. Ready, Isaiah?”
“Just say the word.” Then, Isaiah whispered into Gibbs’ ear. A fiendish smile crossed the pirate’s face.
“Aye, that’ll do quite nicely.”
“It should,” said Isaiah. “It was the OFUCI-Gibbs’ idea to begin with.”
_________________________________
Mara Avice and Jack were finished with their lovemaking. It was in the midst of a battle, but they didn’t care. Jack was relaxing in Mara’s arms; on his face was the look of a sublimely happy minion who’d pleased his master. Mara was about to say something when a board with a piece of paper attached to it connected with her head.
“Ow!”
Mary Sue, it read, you are hereby charged with blatant and gross interference with the personalities of Captain Jack Sparrow and Mr. Gibbs, tossing Anamaria down a plothole, having a stupidly-named ship, screaming at a man who’d just saved your life, giving Jack Sparrow a mite, being so androgynous that the crew mistook you for a man, and at the same time being the epitome of feminine beauty, equating beauty with goodness, having artfully torn clothes, overly-described eyes, and far too much temper. Your technical errors include the substitution of “whip” for “wipe”, “off” for “of”, “Mizz” for “Miss”, “couch” for “cough”, and “strait” for “straight”, as well as believing that “hull” and “full” rhyme, giving Jack copper eyes which you then suck, giving Jack famous, almost one breath sort of speech voices, throwing Gibbs into the hull, having unnecessary chapter divisions, and turning Jack into a woman-twice.
!!!! !! !!? !!! ! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!!!! !! !! !! !! !! !! ! !! !! ! ! !! ! !! !! !! ! !! !! ! !!! ?? ?? ?? ??
This is all of the end punctuation that you have abused in your story. For this and other crimes, you are receiving the image below.
Signed,
MARA
and Isaiah
At the bottom of the paper was a black spot.
Mara Avice, being a pirate, knew that it was a death threat, and ran. Hot on her heels was Gibbs. She ran and ran, with Gibbs steering the chase calmly towards-
A portal of light flashed in front of her, and she went right through it before she could stop.
Gibbs, knowing the plan, stopped short of the surreal doorway and shook hands with the agents.
“Best day I’ve had in a while,” he said. His forehead creased. “Ye won’t be stayin’, though, will ye? I mean, ye don’t…”
“Oh, no, we wouldn’t dream of it. We don’t belong here,” nodded Mara. “We’ll leave it as if we’d never been.”
That came as a considerable relief.
“Where’d ye send her?” asked Gibbs.
The pair glanced at one another. “Oh, nowhere,” said Isaiah casually. “Just a fun little place called the Reality Room.”
“It means,” said Mara, “simply this: she will be stripped of all of her supernatural abilities, including her seeming immunity to pain.” She shook her head, feigning sadness. “Such a pity. She might have withstood a realistic harsh whipping, but with her wounds re-opened and aggravated by such a passionate tryst with the captain, I rather doubt she’ll survive.”
“In a way, it’s an ordinary death. Here, mate.” The young man handed him a card. “If you are ever in trouble again, don’t hesitate to call. By the way,” and this was to his partner. “That’s seven we’ve taken care of personally.”
“Ah, but with Mr. Gibbs helping-”
“We can at least split the credit!”
Arguing, the two disappeared through the doorway, except for one arm, which waved good-bye with some sort of shiny, pen-sized device.
It had been awhile since he had learned his letters, but Gibbs made out most of what the card said.
__________________________
Protectors of the Plot continuum
Department of Technical Errors
Pirates of the Caribbean verse
Uncommon comma
P.S. In order to remove any extra-continuum influence,
your short-term memory has been
altered as of reading this.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
__________________________________
FLASH!
The End
Continue to Mission 12
__________________________________
In interest of helping out Huinesoron with his List of the Slain, here are the following details about the Suefic:
Title: Even Villians Learn to Love
Suethor: Coventina Mor
"'Tis bad luck for a woman to be onboard, says I, bad luck."
Of course, what Gibbs thought about the matter meant nothing; he knew for a fact that the lass was here to stay.
It seemed like forever that they'd been having this problem. It was the same old story, day in and day out, for the crew of the Black Pearl. An endless string of beauties had taken it upon themselves to climb aboard the ship, make themselves into crewmembers by hook or by crook, and promptly latch onto the normally sharp-witted Captain Jack Sparrow. Gibbs didn't know the last time he'd been able to sleep peacefully. Their odd eyes and manners kept hypnotizing everyone.
The morning had been all right, as far as piracy went. They'd been planning to take a respite in Tortuga, and the crew were busying themselves with getting the ship to the pleasure port as soon as they could. Not long into the journey, Gibbs began to suspect that the captain's mind had been meddled with.
*Tortuga by tomorrow night is the plan. let my men have fun at the tavern. ah yes, the Faithful Bride. hmmmm and maybe I'll see that nice young broad again. rum. yay.*
The "rum dot yay" had put Gibbs on his guard...not to mention the odd way that the captain began and ended his sentences with "star". Gibbs had hoped this would be a minor slip-up, but sadly, Jack Sparrow's condition continued to deteriorate.
After they had gotten off at Tortuga, Gibbs had been bewildered to see the crew chasing "women and whores". Before now, he could have sworn that whores generally were women, but somehow, that day, the word had excluded the fairer sex entirely. He had also been surprised to see bottles of free rum popping up out of nowhere, as if a magician had been tinkering with the drinks.
If Gibbs had been in any doubt as to the origin of these phenomena, he'd lost all uncertainty as the captain had suddenly lost all affection for his ship.
He said that the only true love of his life was the Pearl, yet deep down inside he knew he still had yet to find his one true love.
Gibbs' jaw had dropped. Where had that thought come from? It was bizarre. Jack loved his ship. He had spent ten years trying to rescue her. In fact, it was...
A wave of obliviousness had washed over Gibbs at the moment, and he had found himself rubbing his eyes. His head had felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Stubbornly, he had fought against it, but to no avail.
Loyally, first mate Gibbs turned and disappeared into the hull.
"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Gibbs had yelled involuntarily as a large force beyond his control had sucked him inside the skeleton of the ship. Trying frantically to escape-being caught between caulked planks does not do wonders for one's constitution-he had inexplicably found himself breathing fresh air. But how? He wasn't aboard ship; he was inside it!
With a loud popping noise, Gibbs had found himself outside the captain's quarters. He'd felt the sensation of impending doom worsen and had tried his hardest to keep from saying the damning words...
"Well, captain, sir, sorry to trouble you tonight but we've found a man in the water."
Gibbs' eyes had widened. Wait a minute. A man? A man in the water? Praise be, they were saved! He wouldn't be dismissed as useless by his captain's latest true love and soul mate...whoever she was. For a moment, he'd felt his spirits soar. Then...
When there, Jack saw a soaking wet, slightly bloodied figure lying on the ground, but he was suspicious of the gender of the individual.
Jack slowly bent down and placed a worn, calloused hand above the stranger's mouth. He felt a slight breath coming from the wet form and thus concluded the stranger had to be alive, it a little at all. Then, he turned slightly and looked at the figures chest, which was eerily more feminine then previously stated. *Hmmm. a female pirate?* He moved over to the pirates head, which had a bandanna wrapped around its hair and forehead, like Jacks own. *Definitely a female pirate. I mite have some use yet for her is she lives through tonight*
Hellfire. She was a woman after all.
Despairingly, he cast a gaze at the sky, wondering if a storm blowing them off course would be enough to deter the young lady. He doubted it. No force in the world could stop them once they had decided to manifest themselves. Who could change that now?
Females aboard this ship were really bad luck indeed.
_________________________________
"So, Isaiah," said Mara, who was disguised as a deckhand, "here's a statistic for you. Out of all of the Sues that we've reported in our mission logs, how many of them have met their death at our hands?"
It looked like a routine PPC mission so far. A mysterious-looking woman was hauled aboard, after first being mistaken for a man. Jack fell for her the second he saw her, and...well, everyone who'd ever read a romance novel could guess the rest. It wasn't quite bad enough to be remarkable-yet-so the agents were trying to stay awake through the snooze-inducing clichés until something really awful came up.
On PPC missions, awfulness was a constant companion.
"I've kept count of the number of Sues we've dealt with so far," Isaiah shrugged in reply, lowering the charge list away from his face. "We have twenty-five in the mission logs. We didn't kill Helen-of-Troy Sue, 'You,' or Rinj, so I'm guessing we've offed twenty-two." He went back to reviewing the current list, which at the moment sported phrases like "giving Jack Sparrow a mite" and "being so androgynous that the crew mistook you for a man, and at the same time being the epitome of feminine beauty".
"Nope. We have only offed six of those." Mara scanned the fic for further inaccuracies, making a note of an abused comma and the fact that Captain Jack Sparrow had just blushed. It was routine...which made it scary in a whole other way.
On the other side one of the men whispered to another, "Aye and I bet he'll be the one to keep the bed warm tonight, eh?" Then Gibbs gave him a stern look for talking that way of their captain.
"Yeah, it's such an insult to a promiscuous pirate to insinuate that he might be bedding someone." Isaiah looked sourly at Puritannical!Gibbs, and decided to take his mind off that image by pestering Mara about the statistics. "What do you mean, we've only offed six Mary Sues?"
"Directly," Mara amended, counting on her fingers. "Fatima/Pheonix/Sarah was actually beaten up by Helen of Troy and stampeded by thirsty tavern-goers, so she doesn't count. Jack Sap-arrow's demise, we had nothing do with-it was in-character Jack that arranged his death. The irate townspeople took care of the Shay Leigh Sues after we tarred and feathered them-except Ashlee, whom I shot, and Maggie, whom I forced under the punctuation downpour. Shmuckleigh was responsible for Shay Leigh's tragic end."
Isaiah snorted at the word tragic. "Well, okay, but what about the-oh, no, the PPCers smote her...or the six-oh, no, that was Old Man Willow. You've just missed a charge, by the way," he said to Mara, pointing to where the author was winking at the readers after having gratuitously written Jack Sparrow with his shirt open.
"So help me out, here."
"I have our Analysis Device and the Words out!"
Mara blew a wisp of hair out of her face. "We should find a way to strap the CAD to our forearms, or something...juggling PPC instruments is never fun. Hey, did she just-aaaagh!"
Both PPC agents clapped their hands over their ears and dove for cover. A barrage of exclamation points assaulted them.
"NOOO!!! Run, please, the mast, its on fire! Abandon ship men. OHH NOO!!"
When the insanity had passed, both Mara and Isaiah shook their heads.
"What was that?" Isaiah managed at last.
"That, my friend," said Mara, "was a Sue's worst nightmare."
"The original movie?"
"No."
"Critical thinking?"
"No."
"Ugliness?"
"I'm speaking literally," hissed Mara, out of breath and patience. "She's having a nightmare about when her ship-of which she was previously a captain-caught fire."
"I see. And this is the opening to 'Sea Soaked Part 2'. Tell me, Mara, why did the Suethor feel the need to divide up an already short chapter into two parts?"
"Because she doesn't have the literary skill, and certainly not the willpower, to write a competent story." Mara's expression darkened. "I should know. I e-mailed her with constructive criticism...and got back a hint that I was PMSing."
"It's so nice to know, in this day and age, that when an opinionated woman shares her thoughts, it's attributed to intelligence and not to hormones."
Mara merely grumbled and poised her pen for the next charge.
"By the way," said Isaiah, resuming their earlier conversation, "You can't say we didn't kill Salina Sue."
"That we did, and thoroughly. But since we left her patsy, Cat, to be finished off by our head of de...part...ment..." Mara's syllables were slowing as her eyes fixed on the Sue.
Isaiah balanced his reading glasses more firmly on his nose and read ahead. At first, he saw nothing.
"What?" he asked. "Typographical error? Misplaced modifier? Captain Jack Sap-arrow?" He waved his hand in front of his partner's eyes. "What's wrong, Mara?"
"Yes," said Mara, very quietly. "That is what's wrong."
"I don't-"
But then Isaiah looked harder at the Words, and understood perfectly: the Sue shared Mara's name.
At that moment, the exclamations started up again.
"NOOO!!! ZEEDU NOO!!!" the woman cried out and grabbed Jacks arm. Her eyes shot open and she sat strait up, almost hitting Jack himself. Her head turned to face him and he found himself staring into two deep, endless, beautiful black orbs. He had never seen such pretty eyes.
"Wow," said Isaiah. "That's over-the-top, even for Suefic."
"A small comfort, though," conceded Mara as she watched the minutely described eyes. "I don't have black orbs, unless you count my pupils. And, totally off topic, what kind of a name is Zeedu?"
"I'd really rather not ponder the linguistic ramifications of that name," Isaiah replied. "Whoa, look out! Land ho!"
Sure enough, due to the misspelling of "straight", the Pearl briefly ran aground as the Caribbean narrowed into a small channel. The agents, remembering the last time they'd been shipwrecked, were quick to protect their charge lists from harm. Fortunately, a tense shift hit, jolting the ship free.
"And Jack Sparrow gets an introduction, at last.”
Captain Jack Sparrow? The infamous Captain Jack Sparrow? The on and only pirate she had always feared meeting, she thought he was an ugly, grotesque man who raped and killed all and gave no mercy.
“Where the blazes did she hear those rumors about Jack?" Isaiah wondered. "He's reputed for sacking a port without firing a shot!”
"And why does being ugly and grotesque have anything to do with raping and killing?" Mara contributed. "Actually, I take it back; I know the answer to that one. In Suefic, prettiness is good, and ugliness is evil."
"Oh, come on, Mara, it's not like that in every-"
But he didn't look the part of an infamous pirate, well he did, but he was younger, more handsome, very attractive.
"Am I a veteran, or am I a veteran?" Mara said smugly.
Isaiah merely pointed to the words. "I suppose you know that your namesake has the last name Avice. And her black eyes are meeting Jack's copper ones."
"Wha...?"
Jack's eyes, so often described in Suefic as khol-lined, coal-lined, sparking, chocolate orbs, turned shiny as they became copper-plated. The penny-eyed pirate stared, enchanted, at the Sue, who attempted a poetic moment.
*Suck beautiful eyes.* She thought.
That did it. Isaiah left the Sue to go suck on her beloved's eyeballs some more, while he arranged a portal over the Sue's sorrowful past. He knew that her boat had sunk, that it had done so tragically, and that any more details would cause him to vomit over the side of the ship from angst-sickness. Mara, however, stuck around, and was pleased to see that her suspicions were correct: the sinking of the ship was more funny than it was sickening.
"Her ship, named the Firebird, caught on fire?" she snickered. "Perhaps a renaming is in order." Just as Isaiah transported into the scene, his CAD heated up.
"Charge, two o'clock!" Mara rapped out.
Isaiah came back just in time to put his pen to parchment. "What? Where?"
"No need for all the fuss, luv." He said waving his hands in the air. "Captain Mara Avice, please follow me. I got meself a whole hull full. aye that rhymes, I be good at rhymes."
Isaiah's pen clattered to the deck. "Um? But? How...?" He stood still, temporarily frozen in place.
"Uh-oh." Mara began shaking her partner. "Shouldn't have sprung that on you, Agent." A few more hard shakes relieved Isaiah of his Stupidity Shock. He had seen many linguistic and grammatical atrocities in his time as an agent, but one thing he hadn't seen was someone mistaking an eye rhyme for a real rhyme.
"Has she never heard the word ‘hull’ spoken in her life?" Isaiah asked agitatedly. "And the fact that she makes Jack spout that idiocy is just...unfathomable. Gah!"
Mara was watching as the pirate captain replied in his famous, almost one breath sort of speech voices. The Words tried to make sense of this, first by making Jack speak all of his words in one breath, then by having many voices coming from the captain's throat. In the end, the universe gave up, and the result was an indescribable panting, babbling sound that made it appear as though Jack were having an epileptic fit. "Wow. This...this is bad."
"Almost as bad as Mizz Mara."
“Where…? Oh, I see.” Mara looked like she was ready to slay the Sue then and there. “In my totally unbiased opinion, this darling creature needs an extra special end, don’t you think?”
“But she already is extra special.” Isaiah got a rare mischievous look in his eyes. “Let’s give her an ordinary death.” The Canon Analysis Device’s reading grew from 34% to 67% Out of Character in between the two sentences, as Jack found himself mesmerized by the stunning beauty.
“An ordinary death, hm? Tall order, but not impossible.”
*I don' wanna be bothered right now. I'm just tired. even though she is perty. hey stop think bout her and her pertyness!!!*
“In fact,” continued Mara with a noticeable edge to her voice, “it’s looking more and more possible by the second. Ugh. I can’t tell if Jack’s accent is street teenager or southern.”
The narrative continued to praise the Sue, calling attention to the fact that even though the scurvy dogs that were Jack’s crew were doing terrifying things like winking at her, she, the brave heroine, was undaunted.
“Inflating the definition of courage to include braving winks. Toying with Jack’s accent, to the extent that we don’t know what kind of an accent it is,” Mara charged. “Compelling Jack to tell pirates to be ‘nice and kind’ to her, when I’m sure they have better things to do.”
“Dear me, Mizz Mara,” Isaiah mocked in a hoity-toity voice. “You seem to have dropped your handkerchief! Allow me to scrub it free of spots for you!”
“Ah’m Cap’n Jack Sparrow, savvy,” Mara joined in gamely. “Let me be offerin’ ya the cap’n’s bed fer the night. Leastaways, if’n ya don’t wanna share it, hyuck hyuck!” A short while later, “Look out-more exclamation points.”
The agents ducked into the hold as the punctuation rained down on them.
"Jack Sparrow!!! Ye told me that we was gonna have a talk! An' ye just can't be leaving me out 'ere! Imma Captain and ye know it and I deserve a bed too!" Mara screamed after him.
“Oh, no, surely not,” said Mara, shaking her head at the Sue. An unpleasant smile appeared on her face. “I must have misunderstood. See, I just thought I heard you, Sue, a woman without a ship or crew, scream out a demand for a private cabin after Captain Jack saved your life.”
Fortunately for the Sue, Jack Sparrow’s OOC reading dropped to 58% as he reminded her whose ship she was on. He slammed the door in her face, deaf to the Sue’s pleas, whining, and six exclamation points in a row.
Mara’s grin softened into a genuine smile. “That’s our Jack.”
“It’s her Jack, Mara.”
The dangerous grin was back. “Not for long.”
__________________________________________
Gibbs couldn’t put his finger on it, but he knew, instinctively, that something else had gone awry. It wasn’t the crew staring at the young woman like slack-jawed idiots-some of them were slack-jawed idiots, and anyway, women like her always had some male or other ogling them so they could pretend to be offended. No, it was something more basic than that.
Suddenly, with a flash, it came to him. Mizz Captain Mara Avice had supposed Jack’s crew never to have seen a woman pirate before. But this was completely and utterly wrong, for a reason that he couldn’t quite remem-
“Captain Sparrow. The Black Pearl is yours.”
Anamaria!
Of course. How in the world could he have forgotten? Anamaria had been with him throughout the better part of their adventure against Barbossa. She had captained the Interceptor admirably, not losing her head even though the odds were against her. She was tough, and a good leader, yet was willing to do the right thing and return the Pearl to its rightful owner. She was the only young woman crewmember who had put the Black Pearl first and herself second. And now…she had vanished from existence.
Gibbs didn’t need to ask why. It was plain as if it had been written in stone: Anamaria was a threat to that witch. She was a young woman, and not unattractive, but she was…made of sterner stuff, more complex, more real, somehow, than all of the shimmering warrior maids the Pearl had been graced with lately. As such, she might have been seen as getting in the way of a romance with the captain, even though Anamaria was the last woman in the world to lose her head in an affair.
Gibbs had to strain with all his might to hold on to the memory of his fellow pirate. The closer he got to Mara, the weaker the memory felt. Realizing this, Gibbs contented himself with fading into the background, a habit that many of the other crewmembers were beginning to share. It was better than being in her way as she leaned too far over the side of the ship and nearly fell overboard.
If she was a ship’s captain, why doesn’t she have sea legs? Gibbs wondered. And doesn’t she know that’s only a fool would-
Sparks of glitter flashed before his eyes, and he was forced to abandon that train of thought. He tried to make headway again when Jack grabbed the back of her shirt. For some reason, this made her shirt rip down the front. The glitter swarmed in front of his vision again, but a quickly-muffled “ARRR!” brought him back into focus.
“Sh!” whispered a female voice. “They’ll hear you.”
Gibbs was careful not to look overtly in the spot whence the scream had originated. He stole a glance that way, and was sure he was hallucinating. A young, blond man was biting his bottom lip, blushing furiously.
“This is such a girls’ fandom,” the strange fellow said despairingly. He looked heavenward. “Why wasn’t I assigned to Star Trek?”
“Oh, like there’s no revealing clothing there,” a black-haired woman snapped. “Seven of Nine strutting about in-”
“She did not strut! Well, a little bit. But she was about more than her outfit and her eyes.”
This was a strange development. Not only was a new male personality aboard ship-who hadn’t claimed to be so-and-so’s long-lost son-but a woman had appeared on board who was not beautiful. This extraordinary phenomenon would have made Gibbs too curious not to gaze at the pair head-on, except that at that moment, Mizz Mara stole his attention away.
"A lil more and me an' the crew woulda had the pleasure of seein' yer goods." Captain Jack said slyly followed by a very mischievous grin.
"I ain't in no mind to show any of ye my 'goods' anytime soon, Jack Sparrow."
“HAH!” snorted the young man in response, face still slightly tinged red.
The pirate groaned. Was there no end to the absurdities? He knew as well as anyone that she’d be showing off her assets to the captain within the week…maybe within the day.
At the moment, Gibbs had bigger problems, however. He looked out to sea and saw a dangerous-looking ship approaching. Instinctively, he tried to catch the captain’s eye, but Jack, as usual, was talking about the ship to Mara.
"The Albtraum."
As soon as Jack said that, the crew took a step back. Then, they scurried to find weapons and some went to tie down the sails. They were preparing for a battle.
Why? Gibbs wanted to ask. Why would Jack want to prepare for a battle with what was quite possibly a better-armed ship? They sailed aboard the fastest ship in the Caribbean; if they retreated, they could outrun the Albatraum with little effort.
At that exact moment, Mara Avice chanced a disdainful glance at him. She then gave a slight smile, and Gibbs hastened away to tie down the sails, though why it was imperative to do so remained unclear. Her fathomless dark orbs looked like they were boring holes through his mind.
Perhaps they were.
_______________________________________
“Ooh, an Exposition Moment,” said Isaiah with false enthusiasm. “So, the Albatraum hails from Germany, and means ‘Nightmare’. I’m guessing the Barbossa-replacement is on his way.”
“At least they didn’t resurrect him from the dead,” Mara pointed out.
“No. But why would Jack know so much about a ship from Germany? Pirate ships don’t sail to Europe!”
“Eh, who knows and who cares?” returned Mara. “I’m sure that the author doesn’t.”
“How’s that?”
Smooch!
In the middle of the explanation, Jack abruptly stopped talking-perhaps even he was bored by the exposition-and planted a large kiss on the Mary Sue’s lips. It wasn’t a lovely moment to begin with, and it was made worse by one, little, seemingly insignificant technical error: the addition of one letter to one word.
With one quick motion her kissed her deeply…
“Holy-” Isaiah closed his mouth, unable to think up an appropriate interjection. The pirate captain lost his goatee and mustache, gained a dress, and shifted form into a lovely, slender woman of about forty. This disturbingly feminine Jack continued to kiss the Sue deeply, until the Sue yelled at “him” to stop, which fortunately put an end to the badly timed gender switch.
“Well, as fascinating as that was to see,” continued the male agent, “I guess we should be scurrying about like good little crewmembers. After all,” and he rolled his eyes, “we have to be loading the ‘canons’.”
“Aw, man!” groused Mara. “I should have asked Techno Dann for the Canon Cannon again.”
“Ordinary death, remember, Mara? ’Sides, we don’t want to have all the Sues go the way of the cannon and catapult. It wouldn’t be fun anymore.”
“You call this fun?” said Mara angrily, as she ducked a flying plank. This object landed, miraculously, right between the Pearl and the Albatraum, at which point the latter’s crew started boarding. Many crewmen were killed, and these belonged to a host of Jacks, which an absent apostrophe had created. Mara concluded that she must have hit her head, before looking over Isaiah’s shoulder at the Words and sighing.
Sparrow chose that moment to “lunge himself”, which as a phrase on its own made no sense. However, because there were now many Jacks, one Sparrow lunged at another, and both of them stumbled in the direction of the German pirates, beginning a duel with one of them.
The clones of Jack merged into his old self as he faced off against this new adversary.
He was being beaten quickly and looked upon his opponent.
“So, he’s been fighting this guy without looking at him? Gee, that might explain why Jack’s losing.” Isaiah raised an eyebrow as “Captain Merdoro Platt” slashed across Jack’s chest, whereupon Sparrow gave a melodramatic cry of anguish (as did the CAD). The Sue heard this scream and began banging on the door of Jack’s cabin, where she had been secured during the battle. Part of the Sue separated from her body as she seemingly forgot the distinction between “of” and “off”. What caused Isaiah more consternation was that the Sue was just now letting gravity take hold of her.
He shrugged after puzzling his wits about this. “I guess gravity let her slip by it before. We’ll have to add ‘floating in midair’ to the charge list retroactively.”
“On it.” Mara wrote down another accusation. Then another-the evil pirates, without ever having known Sue in their lives, described her as “Jack Sparrows ultimate treasure”. Next, they left out the “t” in “captain” and were thrown off their feet by a tense shift.
It was Mara’s goal that someday, she would succeed in compiling a neat and tidy charge list. Usually, unpleasant surprises in the form of canon ruptures, not to mention tense shifts, shipwrecks and unwieldy portals, kept her from carefully ticking off the crimes against canon. It was a minor goal, though; first and foremost was her objective to kill as many Sues as she could before going insane.
Especially if they shared her name.
The Sue Mara was currently wallowing in self-pity as she cried over Jack’s form. She could have told him how handsome he was, but she’d been too proud. Oh, woe was she. As she sobbed over the captain’s injured body, Jack awakened.
Mara hugged him now and sat back up, only to gaze down at his now pale and almost lifeless half opened eyes. "Hi there.*couch* luv.”
A couch fell from the sky and landed with a flump on top of the two lovers. Agent Mara, leaning forward as far as she could while staying in the shadows, attempted to hoist the piece of furniture off of the pair. Isaiah saw what she was doing and lent a hand.
They had barely tugged away the upholstered cushions when Merdoro Platt appeared, laughing evilly as he proclaimed that he was going to torture them. The chapter ended there, and the agents had the…privilege…to hear an author’s note just before “chappy” seven.
Note: THERE ARE SCEENES WHERE JACK GETS HURT. A LOT. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT JACK GETTING HURT TURN BACK NOW!! (yes, hadda add it for all u fans that think Jacky- poo should never ever ever get hurt or beaten.=^.^=)
“While the idea doesn’t appeal to me, personally,” admitted Mara, “I’ll allow that it’s probably much better than watching Sues steal his brain away.”
“Well, after all,” said Isaiah, “it’s not like Jack’s never been through pain before. He’s been branded, shot, tattooed, and scarred on his forearm in what I assume was some form of torture.”
The agents looked on, mildly interested as the Sue screamed “ruthlessly” and tried to break free of her captors. Although pleased that the Sue was gagged, they winced as Platt bound Jack and gave him several lashes. Platt told the man whipping Jack only to stop when Jack cried out in pain. Since Jack refused to cry out, he was flogged unconscious.
Mara was thrown into the cell and the door quickly locked. She started to cry because she couldn't get to her Jack.
“He is not…your…Jack!” said Agent Mara fiercely.
Isaiah smirked. “Getting a little possessive, aren’t we?”
To his surprise, Mara beamed back at him. “Nope. And you, are you getting a little disturbed?”
“Why should I be?” asked Isaiah.
“Oh, no reason,” said Mara composedly. “Just the Sue, turning Jack Sparrow into a woman again.”
There was a moment of absolute silence. Isaiah tried to look away from the shape-shifting captain; truly, he did. Like most monstrosities, however, this grisly metamorphosis was all but impossible to turn away from. It was fascinating, in an awful sort of way.
She looked at his still figure lying in the cell across from hers. She could tell her was barely breathing and she needed to get to him so badly, ooo so badly.
O no. Jack got hurt. :( not cool. Well, hopefully Mara can find a way to help him in the next few chapters.
“Don’t worry,” said Agent Mara solemnly. “I will. And now, dear partner, for ‘Confessions of Love.’”
Isaiah couldn’t suppress a shudder. “I assume that’s the name of the next chapter title. Oh, speaking of titles,” he said, browsing the Words, “I never looked at the name for this story. Ah, here it is. Even Villians Learn to Love. What is a villian, Mara?”
As if the answer were obvious, she replied, “Someone with lots of villi. You know-those things that line your small intestine.”
“Right,” said Isaiah dubiously. “And what charge does that constitute, exactly?”
“Er-let’s skip that one and continue down to the part where Jack’s breathing slowly, yet in quick gasps.”
“Slowly and quickly at the same time. Beautiful. Just beautiful.”
“Know what’s even more beautiful, Isaiah?’
“What?”
“It’s going to be her turn soon.” Mara regarded her Sue namesake with the tiniest hint of a smile. “Watching her whipping will be a small consolation.”
“Bet she’ll be dramatic to the bitter end…yep.” It was quite possibly the only time Isaiah had been clutching his stomach with laughter as he saw someone whipped.
"I.CRACK.love..CRACK.Jack.CRACK.Spar.CRACK" Her last words were cut short by the crack of the whip and she felt her eyes roll back into her head and her world went black.
"NOO!!! How could you, noo!!!" Jack yelled as he struggled against his captor.
[Captain Jack Sparrow,] chimed in the Canon Analysis Device. [Canon. Male. Out of Character 87%. My exclamation point goodness!]
The agents blinked.
“Well,” said Mara finally, “I guess we’re not bored anymore. Every time we turn around, we-Ahhh!”
Isaiah yelped as well. They had just seen Captain Platt whip his face off with his fingers.
“Oh, oh, gross,” moaned Isaiah, scrunching his eyes shut as blood poured off the evil captain’s face. Platt seemed oblivious enough, which was just as well for him. “This Suethor plainly has a fetish for whipping.”
“As I shall soon have a fetish for Bleeprin.”
“Are you sure that shouldn’t be present tense, Mara?” Isaiah teased. In trying to take their minds off the instantaneous gore, they had also blocked out the world around them. When they were again aware of their surroundings, the DTE agents quickly hunkered down in the corners of their cell. They were in the brig, and although they were still dressed as pirates, Jack and the Sue (conveniently lying atop one another) were the brig’s only other occupants. They would have to be careful…
"Well, so do I, Jack, and it would be a lot more comfortable if ye got me." Mara growled from her position under the pirate captain.
“ Bwahaha-mph!”
“Hee hee-sorry.”
…And that was going to be difficult.
___________________________________
Gibbs had managed to keep hidden after the inevitable defeat of the Pearl. He was now sneaking quietly towards his captain, hoping to free him and get the wheels in Jack’s brain working properly again.
His hope of success was faint. After all, she was with him. As he peered into the dimly lit brig, he saw both of them with whip stripes across their backs. Mara Avice lay supine, and Jack was pressing her bloodied back against the deck as he kissed her passionately. Gibbs was astonished to see their fevered kisses and caresses. Land’s sake, they should hardly be able to move!
As if reading his mind, a voice from the shadows whispered, “Wasn’t she…just whipped?”
“Yes,” was the equally quiet reply.
“So, how is she not feeling that? The pain, I mean. It’s got to be excruciating.”
“I think the author forgot about it.”
“But-she can’t-and it’s not-”
“For the last time, Isaiah, don’t try to make sense of it. It’ll only hurt your head.”
"I am no lady, Jack Sparrow, I am a pirate, and I don' want ye callin' me a stupid pathetic lady!" She yelled at him and stood up.
“What’s wrong with being a lady?” asked the woman’s voice rhetorically. “You don’t have to be a fiery lass to be a strong character.”
“No more!” cried Gibbs as he burst into the room. “I’ve had it, I tell ye! I’ll stand for no more stowaways on this ship, and…”
Mara took time away from kissing Jack and trained her velvety orbs on Gibbs. “You were saying?” she asked sweetly.
Gibbs faltered, but steadied himself as he looked toward the shadows, where he was sure those two were hiding. “I was saying,” he said through gritted teeth, “that I want ye off this-whoa!”
“What-what did she do?” whispered the male voice as Gibbs was hurled through space.
“I don’t believe it. She sucked him into the hull!”
A few moments of stifling darkness, pain, and then…pop!
Gibbs was pulled free, only to come face-to-face with two of the oddest-dressed folk he’d ever seen. They couldn’t be more than twenty, and sported backpacks and astonished expressions.
“How in the world were you able to see us?” demanded the blond boy.
Gibbs shrugged. “Happened after you shouted something.”
The young woman nudged her companion hard in the side. “I told you that you needed to be quieter,” she said. “You’re lucky he found us. Otherwise, he’d have contaminated the continuum!”
A million questions pressed on Gibbs, but instead of asking one-or all-of them, he simply folded his arms across his chest and waited for an explanation.
Fortunately, these young people seemed polite enough.
“Hi,” said the woman. “I’m Mara. Agent Mara. Sorry we’re late. Mr. Gibbs, would you mind helping us kill her off?”
Gibbs stared in shock. “Ye-ye want to get rid of her?” he asked in disbelief.
“Wouldn’t you?” the young man retorted.
“Aye, but everyone else seems to worship the wench.”
“She’s a witch of the most potent kind,” the woman explained. "She needs to be dealt with, and swiftly.”
“She fries anyone who gets near her!”
“Not us.” The woman smiled. “She can’t see us until we want her to. Ready, Isaiah?”
“Just say the word.” Then, Isaiah whispered into Gibbs’ ear. A fiendish smile crossed the pirate’s face.
“Aye, that’ll do quite nicely.”
“It should,” said Isaiah. “It was the OFUCI-Gibbs’ idea to begin with.”
_________________________________
Mara Avice and Jack were finished with their lovemaking. It was in the midst of a battle, but they didn’t care. Jack was relaxing in Mara’s arms; on his face was the look of a sublimely happy minion who’d pleased his master. Mara was about to say something when a board with a piece of paper attached to it connected with her head.
“Ow!”
Mary Sue, it read, you are hereby charged with blatant and gross interference with the personalities of Captain Jack Sparrow and Mr. Gibbs, tossing Anamaria down a plothole, having a stupidly-named ship, screaming at a man who’d just saved your life, giving Jack Sparrow a mite, being so androgynous that the crew mistook you for a man, and at the same time being the epitome of feminine beauty, equating beauty with goodness, having artfully torn clothes, overly-described eyes, and far too much temper. Your technical errors include the substitution of “whip” for “wipe”, “off” for “of”, “Mizz” for “Miss”, “couch” for “cough”, and “strait” for “straight”, as well as believing that “hull” and “full” rhyme, giving Jack copper eyes which you then suck, giving Jack famous, almost one breath sort of speech voices, throwing Gibbs into the hull, having unnecessary chapter divisions, and turning Jack into a woman-twice.
!!!! !! !!? !!! ! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!!!! !! !! !! !! !! !! ! !! !! ! ! !! ! !! !! !! ! !! !! ! !!! ?? ?? ?? ??
This is all of the end punctuation that you have abused in your story. For this and other crimes, you are receiving the image below.
Signed,
MARA
and Isaiah
At the bottom of the paper was a black spot.
Mara Avice, being a pirate, knew that it was a death threat, and ran. Hot on her heels was Gibbs. She ran and ran, with Gibbs steering the chase calmly towards-
A portal of light flashed in front of her, and she went right through it before she could stop.
Gibbs, knowing the plan, stopped short of the surreal doorway and shook hands with the agents.
“Best day I’ve had in a while,” he said. His forehead creased. “Ye won’t be stayin’, though, will ye? I mean, ye don’t…”
“Oh, no, we wouldn’t dream of it. We don’t belong here,” nodded Mara. “We’ll leave it as if we’d never been.”
That came as a considerable relief.
“Where’d ye send her?” asked Gibbs.
The pair glanced at one another. “Oh, nowhere,” said Isaiah casually. “Just a fun little place called the Reality Room.”
“It means,” said Mara, “simply this: she will be stripped of all of her supernatural abilities, including her seeming immunity to pain.” She shook her head, feigning sadness. “Such a pity. She might have withstood a realistic harsh whipping, but with her wounds re-opened and aggravated by such a passionate tryst with the captain, I rather doubt she’ll survive.”
“In a way, it’s an ordinary death. Here, mate.” The young man handed him a card. “If you are ever in trouble again, don’t hesitate to call. By the way,” and this was to his partner. “That’s seven we’ve taken care of personally.”
“Ah, but with Mr. Gibbs helping-”
“We can at least split the credit!”
Arguing, the two disappeared through the doorway, except for one arm, which waved good-bye with some sort of shiny, pen-sized device.
It had been awhile since he had learned his letters, but Gibbs made out most of what the card said.
__________________________
Protectors of the Plot continuum
Department of Technical Errors
Pirates of the Caribbean verse
Uncommon comma
P.S. In order to remove any extra-continuum influence,
your short-term memory has been
altered as of reading this.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
__________________________________
FLASH!
The End
Continue to Mission 12
__________________________________
In interest of helping out Huinesoron with his List of the Slain, here are the following details about the Suefic:
Title: Even Villians Learn to Love
Suethor: Coventina Mor