PPC Mission 4: A Squire's Pain Pt. 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: She Sue’d us! She bloody well Sue’d us!
Agent Rose/Ross, by now well recovered from the horror that was their most recent mission, was lounging in their big, green chair, plotting. What they were plotting, exactly, was the elimination of their imminent new partner. The girl - that was all they knew about her. That she was a girl, and that she was a newbie - was scheduled to arrive at their RC any moment now.
“What if we -” What Ross was about to suggest, however, was never learned, since, at that moment, there was a knock on the door. Either someone was bothering them, in which case whoever it was would be in for a full dose of Ross Lecture, or their new partner had arrived, in which case the newb would have NO idea what she was in for.
Rose glared at the door for a moment, then levered herselves out of her chair, displacing her German Shepherd, Nemo, and went to open the door.
Ross stared down at a short, round, curly brown mass of girl. She wore the standard uniform jacket, and a long black skirt, and blinked up at Ross/Rose behind oval glasses. With that worried, shell-shocked look on her face - ‘The Newbie Look’ as Ross called it - she looked to Rose to be about thirteen.
“Hello?” Rose opened her mouth to ask, but never got the chance to speak.
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]
Rose looked from the girl 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.” The word - name? - was barely more than a whisper as the girl looked down at her feet before peaking back up at Rose/Ross. This only went to reinforce Rose’s initial impression that the girl was probably still in middle school. ‘I’d actually say more like eighteen, actually,’ murmured Ross, astutely surveying the girl’s appearance.
“Meip. Okay then. And you are my new partner, yes?” Rose shook her head, and stood aside, ushering the kid 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.”
The girl nodded, and went into the other room of the RC, the little closet-like feature that served as a bedroom.
Rose went to look at the console, and sighed. “Hey, kid, you know anything about Tamora Pierce? Tortallverse?” Rose took a peremptory look at the Words, and blanched as
A Squire’s Pain
By Phoenix Guardian of Fire
Scrolled across the screen.
“Phoenix Guardian of Fire…” murmured Ross, glaring at the screen. He knew that name. He knew that name well. “So. What’s she mangling this time?”
Rose scanned the words, and sighed as the girl came up behind her. “Protector of the Small,” said Ross, with another sigh. “Ever read it?”
The kid displayed an array of books in her arms, mutely.
Rose sighed. Well, at least her new partner wouldn’t be annoying and talk their ear off. “Let’s see, it appears to be set in the palace, so let’s go with Random Squires,” said Ross, dialing in the disguise.
“Sounds good to me,” said Rose, opening a portal into the fic, and turning to see a pair of wide brown eyes staring at her. “What, didn’t they show you portals in your training mission? Unless… is this supposed to be your training mission?”
When the girl shook her head, and then nodded, Rose closed her eyes, and counted ten.
“Okay,” said Ross, taking over. “This is the portal. It’s how you get to your Fic. It’s perfectly safe, see?” he asked, popping through the portal and then back into the RC. Uuugh. Badly defined palace room. Made of Generic Surface. “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?”
When the kid shook her head, Ross 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.”
As Meip, eyes still wide, stepped through the portal, Ross grabbed his Bag out from under the console, and followed.
Patting at his hair, Ross grinned, a wide smile that highlighted the fact that he now had a goatee. Ah. Long hair again. Perfect.
Looking around, Ross located Meip - It was easy, they were relatively alone - and his grin widened. “Damn. You make a hot guy,” he said, taking in the fact that the only things that had changed were her gender, and that she was in better shape. She was still short, and still had long brown curls, and still looked a little shell-shocked. However, she was now significantly less round, and, of course, male.
Ross! Chided Rose, silently, quietly laughing in the privacy of her own head. Are you TRYING to make the poor kid blush so hard she passes out? She demanded.
Yes, said Ross, with a snicker.
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 Ross, with a smirk. “It’s - get down!” he finished, pulling her 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.
“It?” demanded Rose. “What exactly is she accusing Tammy of owning? Her horrible plotline?”
“That’s just bad phrasing, dear…” soothed Ross, ‘forgetting’ that they had company.
“Still a charge, though, I think…” muttered his sister, sullenly.
“I’m on it,” replied Ross, pulling out his notepad and pen and scribbling it down.
“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…” Ross showed the girl Meip the notepad and his pen - poor, poor pen was still writing in a vaguely reddish, glittery tinge after the last incident - and the pair of charges he 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 Ross, 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…” his sister chastised, shaking her head.
“I’m not. I’m scanning ahead.” Ross 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…”
Quietly, in the privacy of her own head, Rose gave her brother a questioning look. ‘Whatever happened to making this one run screaming to FicPsych? Why are we giving her actual relevant training?’ she asked, looking at the girl as she watched the action with horrified fascination.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said Ross, slightly bemused. ‘I think… I think we’re getting to like this kid.’
‘What says that if she’s still not running away at the end of this Fic, we keep her?’
‘Agreed.’
“You’ve found out how to read the Words?” Ross asked, as the girl’s eyes unfocused a little.
“Meep.” It seemed to be all that the girl could say. Had she been cursed to only be able to make strange little meeping noises or something? And why had she suddenly ducked? Ah, well, what - Uuuugh…. The Point of View had shifted abruptly from Kel to Joren of Stone Mountain, and Rose was struggling not to vomit all over the fic.
“Charge….” Was all that Ross could growl, through gritted teeth. Point-of-View shifts always made the twins dizzy and nauseous… Which, considering how often the point of view shifted within their own body, was rather surprising. But, then, maybe it was because they were so used to smooth shifts of the mental point of view that these jarring, badly executed ones seemed even worse than they really were…
Rose shook her head, noticing that Meip had just pulled a pencil and notebook out of her bag. Good. Good to give the girl experience of writing a charge list. Whether she ended up staying with Rose and Ross or ended up going to some other partner - Her quick reflexes a moment before had shown at least Ross that this kid could have a rather nice life expectancy in the PPC - she would need to know how to write a charge list.
“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, before scanning the Words. Uh-oh.
Ross winced as Joren said
“I’m not Queenscove Mindelan, now open the damn door, you slut.”
And the dejected Queenscove Mindelan fluttered through the window to waddle up to Rose/Ross. “Hey there, girl,” said Ross, to the little Stormwing, who’s human bits looked like the child that many fanwriters wished Kel and Neal to have.
As Kel opened the door to Joren and exchanged what the author thought was banter, Ross smiled at her new partner 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.” Ross sighed.
Mindelan, you, what’s that?” He asked pointing to the knife.
“None of your business Stone.” Kel snapped.
Another wince from Ross as Joren turned into a moving statue, made of…
“Marble, looks like,” said Rose, shaking her head as Joren grabbed Kel by the wrist. “AAAUUGH!” she cried, 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…” Ross was holding his head, pained. “Charge her. All of that, charge.”
“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.
“Where was it ever written that knights couldn’t get depression?” Ross 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…”
Both Rose and Ross were too dizzy from the POV switch, and to occupied staring with horror at Kel’s ‘heft hearted smile’, which managed to manifest itself as Kel picking up a very large, heavy, bloody heart from the floor and smearing it on her face, to notice the upcoming Author’s Note. This, perhaps, is why Rose was startled as the meek little Meip grabbed her by the hand and jerked her downwards with surprising strength as the Author’s Note barreled overhead to embed itself in the wall and come scattering down around them all.
Rose stared at the rookie for a moment, before grinning at the girl. “Thanks,” she said, bracing herself for the chapter break. As the author disclaimed and gave the chapter a bad title, Ross took another look at the large ‘2’ that had landed next to his toe. It was looking decidedly sugary, and he hadn’t managed to get in breakfast before Meip had shown up…
“I hereby invoke Norton Juster,” he murmured, and, picking up the numeral, gave it a tentative nibble. “Not bad,” he said, surprised. “Kinda strawberry flavored.” Breaking off a bit of the flat, he offered it to Meip. “Here, try some. Promise it won’t kill you. Much.”
Ross grinned as Meip nibbled the numeral, and finished his portion thereof as the scene shifted to that of the squires’ dining hall of the palace. “Food! Excellent!” said Ross, pocketing a few more bits of author’s note - particularly a rather tempting looking exclamation point - and picked up a tray, getting a selection of the food on offer before sitting down at a table near Kel’s group.
“Ross, are you never not a teenage boy?” Rose demanded, with a grin.
“Nope,” said Ross, shaking his head, and turned to look at their new partner. Only then did he realize that both of them had spoken aloud.
“Mwah?” the newbie questioned meekly, blinking confusedly at her partner. It was the first time that the kid had used any word other than some variation of ‘meep’, but Ross was too busy inwardly cringing to notice.
Rose made a quicker recovery than her brother, and pasted on a big grin. “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 made it sound as though she were joking, until -
“Ross O---, at your service, miss Meip,” said Ross, 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.” Ross looked warily at the kid, hoping that she wouldn’t start screaming and mess up their mission, until, miraculously, the girl started to smile.
Ross returned it, with a wink, crowing on the inside. ‘Sweet, merciful Morrigan, we’ve finally found a partner who’s not scared of us!’ he cried, inside the confines of his own head.
‘Never let upstairs know this,’ his sister advised, before pointing at Kel with a sigh. “Charge. Swapping Kel and Neal’s eating habits. Also charge her for anachronistic speech.” Rose picked at the vegetables - it was the only thing that she could identify as being anything at all, and even then she wasn’t really sure - and watched out for when their target would get up and leave. This food was more unidentifiable than even the food in HQ. And if this was what the author thought vegetables were, then Rose felt about as interested in them as their Kel was.
“Oh don’t be picky, Rosie darling,” said Ross, and began tanking down the pseudofood like there was no tomorrow. He was hungry, and damn what his sister thought of the food here, it was… well, the suethor called it food, therefore it was, in fact, food. “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.
Ross gave his new partner a grateful look as she again pulled them down out of the way of another author’s note. “CHARGE. Causing Kel to sweat blood. Charge. In-text author’s note. Charge. Causing a closet cutter to cut in public.” He 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.
Ross sighed, and snagged a passing quotation mark, breaking it in half and handing one of the tadpole-like bits of punctuation to his new partner, and nibbling the other himself. If nothing else, nibbling on sugary words distracted him from the… well, the sugary words going on before him. It was only when he stopped paying attention to the sugar in his mouth that he realized that his sister was, in fact, paying attention to the fic, and, as soon as their mouth was free, began to sing under her breath. “You’re perfect! - You’re perfect! - So we’re perfect together… born to be for ever…”
The boy shook his head, with a grin. “You know, Rosie darling, the comparison is inaccurate. Though, this pair is to wangst everything that pair is to ditz…”
“It’s YOU ARE…” Ross almost missed the muttering of his new partner.
When he realized that those words had, in fact, come from the girl sitting next to them, he turned to her with a shocked expression, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her to her feet and back around the corner, out of sight of the blubbering couple, 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!”
The answer that he got was one of the more adorable diabolical giggles he had encountered in a while. “Of course I can speak, I just didn’t see the need to!” the newbie exclaimed, her face again going pink.
“Ah,” said Ross, with a laugh of his own. “You’re like me, then.” With that, he pulled her back around the corner to see… two identical Jorens, before the one standing where Kel had been a moment before said “Keladry of Mindelan.” In response to a question of identity, and slowly morphed back to Kel. Or, well, not quite Kel. This Kel seemed to be sporting breasts that were at least twice the size that they should have been. “What has the Suethor done this time?” asked Ross, and pulled his CAD out of his bag and waiving it at the pair of Canons.
“Made it abundantly clear why Kel was stupid enough to cut in public?” Meip suggested, in response to the rhetorical question.
Ross grinned, and focused his attention back on the Canons. Or, rather, UnCanons, he reflected, as the CAD made a dull whine that made him again glad that he had welded it mute.
[Keladry of Mindelan. Uncanon. Replacement Sue. Burn it.]
He winced at the readout, and showed it to his partner. “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, cheerfully, and then “No Kel! Come on, deck that bastard!” 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.
Another minute of watching Wretch-worthy dialogue - “Joren, if you love me you’ll understand why I’m not ready for this, let’s got to class now, we’ll be later if we don’t go now.” - and Rose edged away as sweat began pouring off of Joren, effectively ungluing the pair. A quick glance at the words, and Rose had sat down, tugging Meip after her. “Chapter’s about to end.”
A curious look at the Chapter-heading Author’s note made Rose blanch. “Oh no. No no no. Noooooo….”
“What’s the matter, Rosie?” asked Ross, familiar with that tone in his sister’s voice.
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…
The title of the chapter - “A Broken heart that the world forgot” - sounded disconcertingly familiar to Rose, who immediately began to wrack her brain to figure out where she knew that phrase from.
“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 in his bag for the earplugs that the twins kept for this occasion, completely ignoring the disclaimer. Most likely this would be some whiny emo teen-band or something like that, and he didn’t feel like listening to it. Maybe some Nightwish or Summoning would drown it out…
As the first strains of mournful piano music began, Rose went from pale and white to the approximate color of a beetroot as she realized why that line had sounded so familiar. “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 abandoned his search for earphones, and frowned as the sad lilting lyrics of the one country song that the twins liked began to fill the Fic. “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.”
“What’s a nankeen mask?” Meip 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 asked, “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.
He saw glitter.
“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 boy in a hug. “I’m sure HQ will know how to fix it,” she said hopefully.
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, only then noticing that the color had changed to a very bright red color.
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.
“Your eyes are looking odd too,” Meip told him.
“Odd?” demanded Ross, 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, he thought that was what Kel had said, because the author had left out a quotation mark, and things had gotten sticky.
Ross 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 something.
Ross was about to answer when the girl made a little “Meh?” noise, set down her bag, and crawled inside it.
“Oh, you have a Bag?” he asked, mostly to himself.
He watched in interest as she rummaged around, said something too muffled to hear, and came out holding a calico kitten. “This is Hallow,” the girl announced, petting the kitten.
“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,” the younger Agent answered with an affirmative nod as Hallow purred loudly and rubbed her head up against Ross’ outstretched hand.
Ross smiled, and stroked the kitty. He liked cats. He liked cats a lot…
Very carefully, he ignored the Suethor once again screeching ‘Angle’ over ‘Angel’, and concentrated on the kitten before him. He 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.”
He winced again as the end of chapter came, and the author’s name - he hated that name. It was… so stupid - clattered by overhead. He expected the disclaimer to come next, but instead came a series of whiny, high-pitched messages to those who had commented. “Ow,” he 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 shared a relieved sigh with Ross that it had reverted back to its natural rusty brown color - for now. “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.
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: She Sue’d us! She bloody well Sue’d us!
Agent Rose/Ross, by now well recovered from the horror that was their most recent mission, was lounging in their big, green chair, plotting. What they were plotting, exactly, was the elimination of their imminent new partner. The girl - that was all they knew about her. That she was a girl, and that she was a newbie - was scheduled to arrive at their RC any moment now.
“What if we -” What Ross was about to suggest, however, was never learned, since, at that moment, there was a knock on the door. Either someone was bothering them, in which case whoever it was would be in for a full dose of Ross Lecture, or their new partner had arrived, in which case the newb would have NO idea what she was in for.
Rose glared at the door for a moment, then levered herselves out of her chair, displacing her German Shepherd, Nemo, and went to open the door.
Ross stared down at a short, round, curly brown mass of girl. She wore the standard uniform jacket, and a long black skirt, and blinked up at Ross/Rose behind oval glasses. With that worried, shell-shocked look on her face - ‘The Newbie Look’ as Ross called it - she looked to Rose to be about thirteen.
“Hello?” Rose opened her mouth to ask, but never got the chance to speak.
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]
Rose looked from the girl 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.” The word - name? - was barely more than a whisper as the girl looked down at her feet before peaking back up at Rose/Ross. This only went to reinforce Rose’s initial impression that the girl was probably still in middle school. ‘I’d actually say more like eighteen, actually,’ murmured Ross, astutely surveying the girl’s appearance.
“Meip. Okay then. And you are my new partner, yes?” Rose shook her head, and stood aside, ushering the kid 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.”
The girl nodded, and went into the other room of the RC, the little closet-like feature that served as a bedroom.
Rose went to look at the console, and sighed. “Hey, kid, you know anything about Tamora Pierce? Tortallverse?” Rose took a peremptory look at the Words, and blanched as
A Squire’s Pain
By Phoenix Guardian of Fire
Scrolled across the screen.
“Phoenix Guardian of Fire…” murmured Ross, glaring at the screen. He knew that name. He knew that name well. “So. What’s she mangling this time?”
Rose scanned the words, and sighed as the girl came up behind her. “Protector of the Small,” said Ross, with another sigh. “Ever read it?”
The kid displayed an array of books in her arms, mutely.
Rose sighed. Well, at least her new partner wouldn’t be annoying and talk their ear off. “Let’s see, it appears to be set in the palace, so let’s go with Random Squires,” said Ross, dialing in the disguise.
“Sounds good to me,” said Rose, opening a portal into the fic, and turning to see a pair of wide brown eyes staring at her. “What, didn’t they show you portals in your training mission? Unless… is this supposed to be your training mission?”
When the girl shook her head, and then nodded, Rose closed her eyes, and counted ten.
“Okay,” said Ross, taking over. “This is the portal. It’s how you get to your Fic. It’s perfectly safe, see?” he asked, popping through the portal and then back into the RC. Uuugh. Badly defined palace room. Made of Generic Surface. “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?”
When the kid shook her head, Ross 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.”
As Meip, eyes still wide, stepped through the portal, Ross grabbed his Bag out from under the console, and followed.
Patting at his hair, Ross grinned, a wide smile that highlighted the fact that he now had a goatee. Ah. Long hair again. Perfect.
Looking around, Ross located Meip - It was easy, they were relatively alone - and his grin widened. “Damn. You make a hot guy,” he said, taking in the fact that the only things that had changed were her gender, and that she was in better shape. She was still short, and still had long brown curls, and still looked a little shell-shocked. However, she was now significantly less round, and, of course, male.
Ross! Chided Rose, silently, quietly laughing in the privacy of her own head. Are you TRYING to make the poor kid blush so hard she passes out? She demanded.
Yes, said Ross, with a snicker.
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 Ross, with a smirk. “It’s - get down!” he finished, pulling her 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.
“It?” demanded Rose. “What exactly is she accusing Tammy of owning? Her horrible plotline?”
“That’s just bad phrasing, dear…” soothed Ross, ‘forgetting’ that they had company.
“Still a charge, though, I think…” muttered his sister, sullenly.
“I’m on it,” replied Ross, pulling out his notepad and pen and scribbling it down.
“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…” Ross showed the girl Meip the notepad and his pen - poor, poor pen was still writing in a vaguely reddish, glittery tinge after the last incident - and the pair of charges he 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 Ross, 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…” his sister chastised, shaking her head.
“I’m not. I’m scanning ahead.” Ross 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…”
Quietly, in the privacy of her own head, Rose gave her brother a questioning look. ‘Whatever happened to making this one run screaming to FicPsych? Why are we giving her actual relevant training?’ she asked, looking at the girl as she watched the action with horrified fascination.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said Ross, slightly bemused. ‘I think… I think we’re getting to like this kid.’
‘What says that if she’s still not running away at the end of this Fic, we keep her?’
‘Agreed.’
“You’ve found out how to read the Words?” Ross asked, as the girl’s eyes unfocused a little.
“Meep.” It seemed to be all that the girl could say. Had she been cursed to only be able to make strange little meeping noises or something? And why had she suddenly ducked? Ah, well, what - Uuuugh…. The Point of View had shifted abruptly from Kel to Joren of Stone Mountain, and Rose was struggling not to vomit all over the fic.
“Charge….” Was all that Ross could growl, through gritted teeth. Point-of-View shifts always made the twins dizzy and nauseous… Which, considering how often the point of view shifted within their own body, was rather surprising. But, then, maybe it was because they were so used to smooth shifts of the mental point of view that these jarring, badly executed ones seemed even worse than they really were…
Rose shook her head, noticing that Meip had just pulled a pencil and notebook out of her bag. Good. Good to give the girl experience of writing a charge list. Whether she ended up staying with Rose and Ross or ended up going to some other partner - Her quick reflexes a moment before had shown at least Ross that this kid could have a rather nice life expectancy in the PPC - she would need to know how to write a charge list.
“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, before scanning the Words. Uh-oh.
Ross winced as Joren said
“I’m not Queenscove Mindelan, now open the damn door, you slut.”
And the dejected Queenscove Mindelan fluttered through the window to waddle up to Rose/Ross. “Hey there, girl,” said Ross, to the little Stormwing, who’s human bits looked like the child that many fanwriters wished Kel and Neal to have.
As Kel opened the door to Joren and exchanged what the author thought was banter, Ross smiled at her new partner 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.” Ross sighed.
Mindelan, you, what’s that?” He asked pointing to the knife.
“None of your business Stone.” Kel snapped.
Another wince from Ross as Joren turned into a moving statue, made of…
“Marble, looks like,” said Rose, shaking her head as Joren grabbed Kel by the wrist. “AAAUUGH!” she cried, 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…” Ross was holding his head, pained. “Charge her. All of that, charge.”
“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.
“Where was it ever written that knights couldn’t get depression?” Ross 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…”
Both Rose and Ross were too dizzy from the POV switch, and to occupied staring with horror at Kel’s ‘heft hearted smile’, which managed to manifest itself as Kel picking up a very large, heavy, bloody heart from the floor and smearing it on her face, to notice the upcoming Author’s Note. This, perhaps, is why Rose was startled as the meek little Meip grabbed her by the hand and jerked her downwards with surprising strength as the Author’s Note barreled overhead to embed itself in the wall and come scattering down around them all.
Rose stared at the rookie for a moment, before grinning at the girl. “Thanks,” she said, bracing herself for the chapter break. As the author disclaimed and gave the chapter a bad title, Ross took another look at the large ‘2’ that had landed next to his toe. It was looking decidedly sugary, and he hadn’t managed to get in breakfast before Meip had shown up…
“I hereby invoke Norton Juster,” he murmured, and, picking up the numeral, gave it a tentative nibble. “Not bad,” he said, surprised. “Kinda strawberry flavored.” Breaking off a bit of the flat, he offered it to Meip. “Here, try some. Promise it won’t kill you. Much.”
Ross grinned as Meip nibbled the numeral, and finished his portion thereof as the scene shifted to that of the squires’ dining hall of the palace. “Food! Excellent!” said Ross, pocketing a few more bits of author’s note - particularly a rather tempting looking exclamation point - and picked up a tray, getting a selection of the food on offer before sitting down at a table near Kel’s group.
“Ross, are you never not a teenage boy?” Rose demanded, with a grin.
“Nope,” said Ross, shaking his head, and turned to look at their new partner. Only then did he realize that both of them had spoken aloud.
“Mwah?” the newbie questioned meekly, blinking confusedly at her partner. It was the first time that the kid had used any word other than some variation of ‘meep’, but Ross was too busy inwardly cringing to notice.
Rose made a quicker recovery than her brother, and pasted on a big grin. “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 made it sound as though she were joking, until -
“Ross O---, at your service, miss Meip,” said Ross, 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.” Ross looked warily at the kid, hoping that she wouldn’t start screaming and mess up their mission, until, miraculously, the girl started to smile.
Ross returned it, with a wink, crowing on the inside. ‘Sweet, merciful Morrigan, we’ve finally found a partner who’s not scared of us!’ he cried, inside the confines of his own head.
‘Never let upstairs know this,’ his sister advised, before pointing at Kel with a sigh. “Charge. Swapping Kel and Neal’s eating habits. Also charge her for anachronistic speech.” Rose picked at the vegetables - it was the only thing that she could identify as being anything at all, and even then she wasn’t really sure - and watched out for when their target would get up and leave. This food was more unidentifiable than even the food in HQ. And if this was what the author thought vegetables were, then Rose felt about as interested in them as their Kel was.
“Oh don’t be picky, Rosie darling,” said Ross, and began tanking down the pseudofood like there was no tomorrow. He was hungry, and damn what his sister thought of the food here, it was… well, the suethor called it food, therefore it was, in fact, food. “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.
Ross gave his new partner a grateful look as she again pulled them down out of the way of another author’s note. “CHARGE. Causing Kel to sweat blood. Charge. In-text author’s note. Charge. Causing a closet cutter to cut in public.” He 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.
Ross sighed, and snagged a passing quotation mark, breaking it in half and handing one of the tadpole-like bits of punctuation to his new partner, and nibbling the other himself. If nothing else, nibbling on sugary words distracted him from the… well, the sugary words going on before him. It was only when he stopped paying attention to the sugar in his mouth that he realized that his sister was, in fact, paying attention to the fic, and, as soon as their mouth was free, began to sing under her breath. “You’re perfect! - You’re perfect! - So we’re perfect together… born to be for ever…”
The boy shook his head, with a grin. “You know, Rosie darling, the comparison is inaccurate. Though, this pair is to wangst everything that pair is to ditz…”
“It’s YOU ARE…” Ross almost missed the muttering of his new partner.
When he realized that those words had, in fact, come from the girl sitting next to them, he turned to her with a shocked expression, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her to her feet and back around the corner, out of sight of the blubbering couple, 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!”
The answer that he got was one of the more adorable diabolical giggles he had encountered in a while. “Of course I can speak, I just didn’t see the need to!” the newbie exclaimed, her face again going pink.
“Ah,” said Ross, with a laugh of his own. “You’re like me, then.” With that, he pulled her back around the corner to see… two identical Jorens, before the one standing where Kel had been a moment before said “Keladry of Mindelan.” In response to a question of identity, and slowly morphed back to Kel. Or, well, not quite Kel. This Kel seemed to be sporting breasts that were at least twice the size that they should have been. “What has the Suethor done this time?” asked Ross, and pulled his CAD out of his bag and waiving it at the pair of Canons.
“Made it abundantly clear why Kel was stupid enough to cut in public?” Meip suggested, in response to the rhetorical question.
Ross grinned, and focused his attention back on the Canons. Or, rather, UnCanons, he reflected, as the CAD made a dull whine that made him again glad that he had welded it mute.
[Keladry of Mindelan. Uncanon. Replacement Sue. Burn it.]
He winced at the readout, and showed it to his partner. “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, cheerfully, and then “No Kel! Come on, deck that bastard!” 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.
Another minute of watching Wretch-worthy dialogue - “Joren, if you love me you’ll understand why I’m not ready for this, let’s got to class now, we’ll be later if we don’t go now.” - and Rose edged away as sweat began pouring off of Joren, effectively ungluing the pair. A quick glance at the words, and Rose had sat down, tugging Meip after her. “Chapter’s about to end.”
A curious look at the Chapter-heading Author’s note made Rose blanch. “Oh no. No no no. Noooooo….”
“What’s the matter, Rosie?” asked Ross, familiar with that tone in his sister’s voice.
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…
The title of the chapter - “A Broken heart that the world forgot” - sounded disconcertingly familiar to Rose, who immediately began to wrack her brain to figure out where she knew that phrase from.
“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 in his bag for the earplugs that the twins kept for this occasion, completely ignoring the disclaimer. Most likely this would be some whiny emo teen-band or something like that, and he didn’t feel like listening to it. Maybe some Nightwish or Summoning would drown it out…
As the first strains of mournful piano music began, Rose went from pale and white to the approximate color of a beetroot as she realized why that line had sounded so familiar. “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 abandoned his search for earphones, and frowned as the sad lilting lyrics of the one country song that the twins liked began to fill the Fic. “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.”
“What’s a nankeen mask?” Meip 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 asked, “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.
He saw glitter.
“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 boy in a hug. “I’m sure HQ will know how to fix it,” she said hopefully.
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, only then noticing that the color had changed to a very bright red color.
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.
“Your eyes are looking odd too,” Meip told him.
“Odd?” demanded Ross, 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, he thought that was what Kel had said, because the author had left out a quotation mark, and things had gotten sticky.
Ross 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 something.
Ross was about to answer when the girl made a little “Meh?” noise, set down her bag, and crawled inside it.
“Oh, you have a Bag?” he asked, mostly to himself.
He watched in interest as she rummaged around, said something too muffled to hear, and came out holding a calico kitten. “This is Hallow,” the girl announced, petting the kitten.
“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,” the younger Agent answered with an affirmative nod as Hallow purred loudly and rubbed her head up against Ross’ outstretched hand.
Ross smiled, and stroked the kitty. He liked cats. He liked cats a lot…
Very carefully, he ignored the Suethor once again screeching ‘Angle’ over ‘Angel’, and concentrated on the kitten before him. He 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.”
He winced again as the end of chapter came, and the author’s name - he hated that name. It was… so stupid - clattered by overhead. He expected the disclaimer to come next, but instead came a series of whiny, high-pitched messages to those who had commented. “Ow,” he 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 shared a relieved sigh with Ross that it had reverted back to its natural rusty brown color - for now. “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.