2. Battle Without Honor or Humanity
This is the second part of the compiled, spliced, and edited log of the “2008 Mary Sue Invasion” role-play. It primarily follows Agents Murtagh, Titus, Kim, Ansela, and Risa as they respond to the Sub Rosa's message, before their arrival at the Tomb of the Unknown PPC Agent. The writing in this section comes from the following Boarders:
- Pigeonarmy (Agents Murtagh and Titus)
- ??? (Gilty Cin)
- Ansela (Agents Kim, Ansela, and Risa)
In a nondescript corridor in the Department of Floaters, Leonardo Ambrosia and Samantha Kay Shadowfax walked slowly down the hallway. The Stu was holding a rather large revolver, and the Sue was aiming a bow, arrow readied, at the ground. The grey hallways were very quiet, and their quiet footsteps echoed soundlessly.
Leonardo flicked his long golden hair out of his piercing blue eyes, and, smirking, said to Samantha, “Perhaps they got scared.”
Samantha giggled, making her large chest bounce. “Perhaps they’re all dead.”
BLAM. BLAM. BLAM. BLAM.
The Stu and the Sue collapsed to the ground, and Agent Murtagh, striding down the hallway, lowered his Magnums. “There’ll be no soundless echoes in this department,” he muttered. Agent Titus, running behind Murtagh, a loaded crossbow in his hands, nodded his head in agreement, and then turned to see there was nobody following them. Two gurgled screams later, Titus ran back up to Murtagh’s side.
“How many of these Sues got in?”
“God knows,” Murtagh replied tersely, taking out a particularly well-endowed Sue, who had turned the corner while plaiting her hair, without breaking stride. The Sue landed breasts-first on the floor, and amusingly bounced twice before ceasing to move. Titus stopped walking for a second, looking at the dead Sue. “Moonhopper breasts? They expect me to buy that?”
“It’s a Sue, Titus,” Murtagh replied, still striding down the corridor. “If you don’t buy that, you don’t belong here.”
Titus raised one eyebrow, and then ran to catch up with Murtagh. Catching up, the two rounded a corner, and, for the first time in two hours, twenty-four minutes and thirty-one seconds, Murtagh stopped walking.
So did the twenty-four Sues who were facing them, having just rounded the corner themselves. Murtagh turned to Titus. “Twelve Sues each, kid.”
Titus smiled and loaded his crossbow. “Let’s show them a party.”
Connecting to the overhead broadcast system had been no easy task, especially given the current level of alert.
But there’d been no way to resist an audience.
“Battle Without Honor or Humanity” began to play, over every speaker in HQ.
It’d be some time before anyone would notice it was set to loop. This would have to do with the fact no one in their right mind would listen to background music in the middle of a battle, but it was still there.
Gilty Cin moved on.
Titus, possessing something one would not classify as a right mind, was stabbing an elven Tenth Walker with a crossbow bolt when he noticed an unmistakable guitar riff was intruding on the brutal screams of a Sweeney Todd!Sue whose eye had just been blinded by Murtagh’s switchblade. He smiled. “Battle Without Honor or Humanity,” he said with a smile, and pulled out the crossbow bolt from the Sue’s intestines, plunging it into her neck. The Sue squealed as the stirring brass section of the piece began.
“How many more Sues?” Murtagh yelled as he shoved a Magnum barrel into a Sue’s mouth and pulled the trigger, sending glitter flying over the Sue’s peers.
Titus quickly did a headcount. “Nine... no, eight more Sues!” he shouted back, clubbing a Sue in front of him with the butt of his crossbow as her glittery brains splattered over the wall.
Murtagh looked over at him. “Jesus, kid, keep the blood splatter down!”
“Says the man who just shot a Sue in the throat!”
“Don’t make me turn this gun on you, kid!”
Titus, still smarting from the incident at Ravenholm, glowered at Murtagh, punching a Sue trying to sneak up behind him in the nose without turning around. The Sue crumpled to the ground, and Titus spun around and stabbed it in the heart to make sure it died.
As the epic piece of music wound down, Titus and Murtagh moved to the centre of the hallway, and, back to back, began firing off their weapons at the Sues. The Sues went down quickly, and the two Agents stepped away from each other. “Hm,” Murtagh quipped.
Titus, picking up a sword from the dead elf and a lightsaber from a Jedi!Sue, turned to Murtagh. “Where to now, oh mighty smiter?”
Murtagh turned to Titus and grabbed the lightsaber from him, tucking it under his belt. “Cafeteria?”
“Thought you’d never asked,” Titus replied with a creepy smile stretched across his face. “What’s on the menu today, anyway?”
“Sue.”
“Hey, what you doing?” Agent Kim ducked behind a piece of rubble, hoping that the block of Generic Surface would be thick enough to stop the spray of bullets directed at her. “I’m PPC, an Assassin like you. Well, maybe not like you like you, since you’re Floaters, but I’m still PPC. Why you trying to kill me? I thought we were friends, ’Sela.”
Ansela continued firing, pausing only long enough to replace the clip of her assault rifle. With a sigh, Kim dipped her hand into the left knee pocket of her combat trousers. “I didn’t want to have to use this on you, but you’re giving me no choice.”
Kim was a recruit from the Stargate SG-1 continuum, a Tok’ra who had done nothing wrong except to get mixed-up with a Mary Sue. As a Tok’ra, a snake-like symbiotic creature attached to the brain stem and upper spine of a willing human host, she was capable of using the full range of Goa’uld technology, including the combination energy blast/shield device that fitted over the hand and wrist and looked like a pretty, if rather gaudy, piece of jewellery. It was this that she kept in her pocket, and was now fitted over her hand, red jewel glowing in her palm. In her other hand she held a zat, the snake-like energy weapon that stunned with one shot and killed with two.
“Ansela, Risa, I’m giving you one last chance to back down.” Neither Agent showed any sign of listening to her words. “We’re doing this the hard way then.”
She stood up in one graceful motion, golden energy shimmering around her as the bullets were stopped by her shield. Quickly, before either Floater could react, she fired off two shots. The blue energy bolts whined through the air, and Ansela and Risa both dropped to the floor with streams of electricity running over their bodies.
“Very good, Assassin. I did not expect to run into one such as you.” Kim turned, coming face to face with a gothic looking Sue. “I sense that the other mind inside of you will not permit me to take control of you. Therefore you shall die.”
The Sue lunged as her blood-red nails turned into sharp talons and her fangs elongated into small daggers. The effect looked rather painful to Kim, who barely dodged the lightning-quick attack. She continued to duck and weave, not having any weapons that would be useful against a Suvian vampire, which were typically immune to energy and projectile weaponry.
Suddenly the Sue stopped, a confused look on her face. Slowly, as if someone had turned the speed down on the world, she split in two from head to toe. As the Sue’s body body quite literally fell apart, Kim saw Agent Risa standing behind her, bloody sword in hand.
“I do not appreciate being used as a pawn for your plans. Mary Sue, you are charged with aggravating PPC Agents, using mind-control on PPC Agents, attempting to kill PPC Agents, being impossibly beautiful, being able to walk on ten-inch heels without falling over and being a Mary Sue. I would offer you last words, but you are already dead. Are you uninjured, Agent Jowitt?”
“It’s Kim, you idiot, and I’m fine. How’d you recover from the zatting so quick?”
“Dunno. Maybe it’s like in ‘Seth’. People under the influence of Nish’tar didn’t stay down long after they were zatted, if they went down at all.” Ansela grinned ferally, a strange glint in her eye. “I think we should find somewhere to broadcast this from. ’A mild electrical shock may be useful in freeing Agents from Suvian mind control’, or something like that.”
“For once you have managed to devise a viable plan of action, Ansela,” Risa sheathed her sword, having cleaned it using the dead Sue’s impractical dress. “Will you remain with us, Agent Jowitt? I fear that we have no weapons capable of delivering the necessary electrical shock to any other possessed Agents that we meet.”
“Sure, safety in numbers and all that,” Kim deactivated her zat, returning it to its ’coiled’ state. “Let’s go.”
. . .
“DIE! KILL ’EM ALL!” Ansela screamed as she charged at a group of Sues that she spotted at the other end of the corridor. Risa and Kim shrugged and followed, wondering how Ansela had managed to get sugar-high. A couple of the Sues turned round to see who was yelling, but most of them seemed to be concentrating on something else.
“GIVE ME FREEDOM OR GIVE ME DEATH! UP THE PPC!” Ansela swung twice, her black lightsaber making quick work of the two well-endowed Sues. “YOUR PATHETIC POWERS ARE NO MA... oh, hi. How ya doin’?”
Murtagh and Titus stood, mouths agape, at the woman with crazy brown hair who, seconds before, had been screaming catchphrases and hacking down Sues.
“How ya doin’?” she asked, her head tilted to one side.
“As good as you can be with homicidal Sues roaming the halls,” Murtagh replied snarkily.
“And you are?” Titus asked the girl.
“Agent Ansela, Department of Floaters,” she said with a mock bass voice, snapping to attention and saluting the two agents. “And they’re Kim and Risa,” she added, gesturing to two bewildered agents behind her.
“We’ve got no time for games, lady,” Murtagh said tersely, and he pushed past Ansela and her two companions. He got twenty metres before noticing Titus wasn’t following. He turned around to face his partner, who was standing, arms crossed, next to Ansela. “Come on, kid,” he ordered, “We’ve got Sues to kill.”
“We could do with the back-up, Murtagh,” Titus retorted, “And she’s already shown us she can fight.” Titus turned to Ansela. “My name’s Agent Titus, and that’s Murtagh. Wanna help us harvest some Sue?”
“Gladly,” Ansela replied.
“Murtagh?”
“Oh, fine. But if they get possessed by Sues or anything like that, don’t expect me to do anything to stop them from ki... duck.” All the Agents ducked as Murtagh pulled out a Magnum and blew away a Sue who was running, sword raised, towards Ansela. After three shots to the heart, throat and stomach, Murtagh gestured at them to stand up again. “Now, where were we? Oh yes, if they get possessed by Sues, don’t expect me to stop them killing you.”
“Fine,” Titus shrugged. “You good with that, ladies?”
Agents Kim and Risa shrugged, and Ansela said darkly, “For the PPC.”
“Excellent,” Titus replied. “Let’s to it, shall we?”
“To the cafeteria,” Murtagh added ominously, and the Agents ran off.
As they departed, Titus observed, “Is ‘Battle Without Honor or Humanity’ on a loop? I swear I’ve heard it nine times already...”
ALL AGENTS TO THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN PPC AGENT! Sues are massing for a last attack! GET YOUR BUTTS DOWN HERE NOW!
Murtagh, Titus, Kim, Ansela and Risa stopped in their tracks, and, in unison, said, “Did you hear that?”
There was an awkward silence, and they eyed each other. “That was weird,” they said, once again in unison.
“We should really st...”
“DR. OCTAGONAPUSS, RA...” The agents eyed each other. They were going to stop speaking in unison right now.
“Where’d that come from?” Titus wondered.
“It said go to the Tomb of the Unknown PPC Agent,” Kim added.
Risa stopped herself from making a sarcastic remark and said, “We should split up. If we go in the groups we were in before, there’s a higher chance of agents getting to the Tomb quicker.”
“Right,” Murtagh said, and, exchanging quick goodbyes with the female agents, grabbed Titus and ran in the opposite direction. Titus became angry, ripped his arm from Murtagh’s grasp, and ran along beside him, loading his crossbow. “I can run myself, thank you very much.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, kid,” Murtagh retorted. “So, in which direction is this Tomb...”
“WE’RE NOT LETTING THEM GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE!”
“Found it!” Titus quipped.
