It was not, in the event, the Universal Laws of Comedy that caused the alarm to sound, but the simple fact that no assassins got off-time these days. Jay and Acacia had gotten more than most, owing to the fact that some idiot from the Department of Psychology had insisted on taking Acacia off for a while. He was beaned with a sandal, since you ask. Acacia now had one bare foot, because he had refused to give it back.

“It’s a Code Eighteen. Is that a fluke?”

Acacia blinked. The designations of the number codes was different between departments and sections, thus making life even more hellishly difficult, but in the Department of Mary Sues’ Lord of the Rings section, there were only nine defined ones—anything higher meant the number of members in the Fellowship when the Mary Sue/Sues was/were finished with it. “Are you sure you read it right?”

“Yes.” Jay peered at the screen again. “AAAAAAAGH!!!!” She hurled herself across the room, trailing exclamation marks.

“Is it that bad?”

Jay just whimpered.

“If you want, I can get you that guy from the Shrink Department. Although he’ll probably suspect an ambush.”

“Make it stoooooop.”

“Okay, let’s,” said Acacia mildly, picking up her bow. “What shall we be?”

“Anything. Anything at all; this is so out of canon it’s not canon anymore.”

Acacia headed over to look at Jay’s screen. “It’s that b—oh dear gods.”

“Let’s be Ents... or, or, or... or Maiar. Or Melkor! I can be Melkor, and you can be mini-Melkor. Or you can be Melkor and I can be Sauron. Or Ungoliant and Shelob!”

“I don’t think we can be specific, named characters, Jay.”

“Phoo.” Jay slumped. “We could be random Maiar, then... Lief the Green, Corvid the Plaid?”

Acacia covered her face with her hands. “Explain yourself.”

“You are no fun. Not at all. Oliphaunts?”

“Can they even talk?”

“Weeeell...” Jay pouted. “I don’t know why I bother. We could be mini-Balrogs.”

“Those aren’t canonical, they turned up in an author fic.” Acacia considered. “Random Maiar is the best idea of all the ones you’ve had, actually.”

“It’s not as if we’d be out of place.”

“Right.” Acacia winced, remembering the single sentence she’d seen on the screen. “I mean, an elf from the sky? How?”

“Fell? That’s a nice mental image.”

“Yes, but even elves splash if you drop them from high enough. Wasn’t it that half-elf, half-wizard we dropped off Orthanc? Gandalf’s and Galadriel’s daughter? She splatted.”

“Yes. But it’s STILL a nice mental image.”

“Even more so.” Acacia grinned.

“So. Random Maiar?”

“Sure.”

“Would you like to be Ole the Yeller or Lief the Green?”

“All Maiar aren’t wizards, you know,” Acacia said.

“But that’d be more FUN... oh, spoil it, why don’t you?” Jay tapped idly at the keys. “So, whose do you want to be?”

“This’ll be fun. Pity all these Sues are likely to spoil it.” Acacia considered. “Tulkas, possibly? No, Nienna.”

“Okay. I’m going to be Ulmo’s.”

“Fun.”

“What shall we look like?”

“We can decide that when we get there.” Acacia grinned.

“Hooray!” Jay coded a new setting into the console, and hopped through the portal.

Acacia picked up her gear and stepped through. It promptly fell to the ground when she lost her corporeal form.

“Whoops,” said a minor swirl of dust next to her.

“It’s fine, Jay, we can just incarnate.”

“Okay. Ahem. I am a Scotsman in a brightly colored tartan.” The swirl of dust became a Scotsman in a tartan of unspeakable color combination. “And I am holding my magic bagpipes.”

“And why do you look like that?” wondered Acacia, who now appeared to be an elf-maiden in a gray hooded cloak and was gathering her gear back up.

“Fun?” Jay sighed. “Fun, but noticeable.” She concentrated: the tartan muted and was covered by a cloak (which, should you look closely, was dull plaid), and the bagpipes became a walking staff (with a suspiciously plaid-like wood grain.)

Acacia picked up her gear, which was oddly easy to carry now. She looked around. “Rivendell again.”

“Of course. The Fellowship should just be setting out, and then...” the Scotsman shuddered; “they meet.”

“This was a good idea,” said Acacia unconcernedly. “I mean, nine of them?”

“Niiiiine. They’ve already disrupted canon most exceedingly—we have to wait until they disrupt it more. Stupid rules.”

Acacia gave the Words a brief glance. (Jay was lucky that it was brief. She might have noticed specifics and become unlivable-with otherwise.) “Do you know she skips out everything between Rivendell and Lórien?”

“WHAT?”

“Every single thing. And when they arrive, I think Gandalf’s still around.”

“Bother. Bother, BOTHER.” Jay stamped her foot. “That’s not RIGHT! The whole plot hinges on him becoming the White!”

“When was the last time Mary Sues cared about the plot?”

Under the shadows of her plaid hood, Jay’s face twisted into a snarl.

“GANDALF LIVES!” she screamed to the world at large. “MERRY AND PIPPIN ARE RESCUED! GOLLUM HELPS GET RID OF THE RING!”

“Jay... it’s okay...”

“It’s all right. I’m just throwing up spoilers to ruin the endings of the movies for them.”

“Yes, and what if they hear you?” There was a reasonable and placating note in her voice that hadn’t been there before; apparently her new form was rubbing off on her. And it was, Jay considered, an improvement.

“You’re right,” Jay admitted.

“Of course I’m right.” She had not, however, stopped being Acacia.

“Just keep repeating that to yourself.” Jay grinned. “Uh-oh. Pain ahead. Want to watch?”

“Would I be left out?”

“Muahah.”

**

As the nine members of the fellowship set off they were stopped.

An in-text author’s note thundered through the assassins’ heads. (a/n none of them have a girlfriend or anything so repeat this to yourself there is no such thing as Arwen). Acacia winced.

An elf stood before them.

Her hair was, for some reason, gray and she had yellowish/greenish eyes.

The fellowship could tell she was important because her ears were somehow tipped with gold.

She wore a brown dress (kinda like the one jasmine wears in Aladdin) with a piece of gold rope as a belt.

The authoresses wished to strangle the Suvian for the heinous crime of writing multiple sentence-long paragraphs in a single tailor passage.

In her hand she held a staff similiar to the one Gandalf holds. Two braids hung slightly in front of her face yet the rest of her hair was down and slightly brushed her shoulders.

“I am Deminica.” she plainly stated.

“I hope we are not going to have all this ‘stated’ stuff again,” murmured Acacia.

“Nope, only twice.”

“Oh, good.”

“It would wise of you to take me and my sisterhood along with you.” Deminica said.

“Why would this be a wise thing to do?” Gandalf asked with doubt.

“For we are strong and wise. We know more about the land than any of you we could be of great assitance.” Deminica explained.

“... Assitance?”

“Two words: spell check,” said Acacia.

“No thank you, girls aren’t strong enough for this.” Boromir interjected.

Acacia made a strangled sort of noise in the back of her throat.

“There, there...”

“I’d be interested to see just what gave these authors that idea,” Acacia spat. “It’s not like there are any scenes where he’s even near anyone female, except for Galadriel.”

“And the assorted females at the Council, who he had no problem with,” Jay agreed.

“Have it your way but, with out us you only have five good warriors.” Deminica replied.

“What do you mean?” Aragorn asked.

“Well, your hobbits are weak compared to ours.” Deminica said.

“Sure, Mary, that’s right, insult the hobbits...” said Acacia sourly.

“What kind of creatures are in your sisterhood?” Pippin asked. “One human, one dwarf, two hobbits which don’t come from the Shire, and five elves.” Deminica replied.

Boromir and Gimli pushed her out of the way. “We don’t have time for you!” Boromir said as he charged onward.

There was a sickening jolt.

**

“Oooowie...” Jay shook her head. “Where are we?”

Acacia glanced at the Words. “Loth Lorien, it seems. That was one hell of a Temporal/Spatial Distortion.”

“I remember a bit of PLOT going in between there...”

“Yes. And characterization. And really long descriptive bits. And apparent character death...”

Some ten yards away, a pageant was about to begin.

“I thought we left you in Rivendell!” said a very shocked Gimli. “You did but, you didn’t even meet my sisterhood before turning me down.” answered Deminica.

“Line break? Liiiiiine break... oh, LINE break?”

Acacia laughed. “And we’re about to be introduced to her ‘sisterhood’ in the truly horrendous ‘And this is such-and-such, and this is so-and-so’ style.”

“And wearing a garland of bright spring grays and browns is—” Jay snickered, and started to hum “Le Freak.”

“First I’d like you to meet Arond.” Deminica said, as a slender blonde elf in a green skirt with a orange top with green sleeves crept out from behind a tree.

As she did her blue eyes shimmered.

“She is a woodland elf.” Deminica stated.

“Even I have more fashion sense than that,” said Acacia, who was trying not to burst into hysterical fits of laughter at the sight of the dress.

“I should have kept the green, purple, and orange tartan.”

Acacia began singing quietly. “Alas, my love, I feel like dirt, you’ve sewn green sleeves to my orange shirt, and love, you’ve done me worse than that, you’ve made me go out and wear it...”

“Purple shirt. I didn’t know you knew that song!”

“Yes, but the Sue’s shirt is orange.”

Next came “Mianatis,” the only human, then Galami, the only dwarf, wearing a corset/shirt and an excessive amount of jewelry. As promised, there were two hobbits, Shirlia and Carenada.

“Now this next elf is from the sky,” Deminica chattered on.

An elf walked out. she had a crown on top of her mid-length brown hair.

Jay mimed something falling from a great height and splatting.

“Too bad she does not appear splatted,” said Acacia wistfully.

The sky elf’s dress was long and white with gold around the edges.

She wore a golden medallion around her waist.

When Frodo looked into her blue eyes he was convinced he was in love.

Then he blurted out “Are you a Princess?”.

“No” she replied simply.

“This is Adromeda.”

“... Shall we feed them to the spiders? Shall we give them to the orcs? Shall we feed them to the dragons? On chopsticks, or on forks?” Jay wondered.

“I’m not sure. But we should definitely ask Adromeda what she thinks she’s doing with a medallion around her waist, and a name that sounds like a constellation with a head cold.”

“This is Lanalei”

A golden haired elf stepped out from the shadows.

She was wearing shirt that had a dark green section crossing while covering most of the light green section.

The skirt she wore matched.

She had her hair braided into two braids that were mid-length. Then from nowhere a gorgeous elf appeared.

“Oh, this is Kylina.”

Kylina had black hair which was pulled up tightly in a bun with the exception of some curls which hung to her shoulders all around her head.

She had ice blue eyes.

She was wearing a blue gown with a black full length coat/dress thing which had a string criss-crossing across her chest to give her dress a medival look.

“So, even the author’s not sure what this one’s wearing?” Acacia snorted derisively.

“It’s like an optical illusion,” her partner said delightedly. “Look, if you move your head this way, it’s a coat. From this angle, it’s a dress.”

Aragorn had never seen anyone as beautiful before in his life.

“So what do you think of my sisterhood now?” Deminica asked slyly.

“I think you are a troupe of fluffy shallow bitches with no distinct personalities, the combined IQ of a raisin, and worse grammar than Gollum, who could at least fit more than one sentence into a paragraph,” said Acacia.

The fellowship stood there dumbstruck. “Well...what do you think?” Deminica asked again.

“Can they do anything besides look pretty?” asked Boromir.

Acacia quietly applauded.

“Of course we can!” Kylina said angrily.

“The readers are supposed to remember which one Kylina is? I wouldn’t, if I couldn’t see the Words...” Jay shook her head.

“See, this is why you should learn to write well before using more than two or three main characters,” said Acacia.

“It makes my head hurt.” Jay’s eyes narrowed under the traditionally pointy and broad-brimmed hat (plaid, of course) that she’d taken as part of her disguise. “What’s the first major break in canon? Besides them?”

“Causing Arwen to vanish from existence? Keeping Gandalf around? Upstaging Gollum by using worse grammar than he does?”

“Yes. But it’s at a consistent level of unreality. Bother.”

Acacia shrugged. “We could use a particularly bad character rupture.”

“Yes. It’s so.” Jay nodded sagely. “However, we will first have to suffer through the ‘fighting contest’. I’m afraid Boromir is thrown over quite easily.”

Acacia hissed. “Isn’t that a character rupture in and of itself?”

“Of course. And a fair place to nail them...”

“Sounds good to me.”

Jay drummed her fingers idly against her staff. “We should probably wait until the horrific shift from third to first person, though.”

Acacia groaned. “I’d say no, but I know Upstairs hates us skipping out charges...”

“I’ve a way to pass the night, actually. We can distract ourselves.”

“Really...”

Behind them, the two fellowships were arguing—mostly about how to best prove the excellence of the Sues. (This was couched as a challenge to see if they were worthy to journey with the Fellowship.)

After awhile of thinking they finally came up with an idea.

“We could have fights but not to the death just until one surrenders.” Arond finally said.

Everybody agreed.

“What wonderful dialogue.”

“Okay, Deminica and I decided who would fight who. First fight is Boromir and Mianatis.” announced Gandalf.

“...” Jay had no words. She opened her mouth, and nothing came out.

Acacia just glared venomously.

“I feel like I’m at a wrestling match,” Jay finally groaned. “There should be a bell.”

“You could use your magical bagpipes.”

“Do I want to play into their fantasies? No. No, I do not.”

Each combatant was given a sword and was told to fight.

“Did they somehow miss the fact he’s already got a sword?” Acacia demanded.

“He’s got a sword! I’ve got a sword! It’s the Third Age, and we’re all barbarians!”

Boromir raised his sword and charged.

Mianatis raised her sword slowly and flipped over the charging Boromir.

Acacia’s expression looked quite out of place on her current delicate face. The effect was vaguely disturbing.

“This is PATHETIC,” Jay said morbidly.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” said Acacia nastily.

They kept hitting swords until Mianatis finally hit Boromir’s sword out of his hands.

“Surrender now or this sword will accidentally cut your throat.” Mianatis whispered to Boromir.

Boromir surrendered.

Jay patted Acacia quietly on the back.

And the fights kept getting more inane. Arond, fist-fighting Legolas, tripped and knocked them both out. None of the hobbits would fight, the dwarves just puffed out their chests and announced that ALL dwarves were great warriors so there was no need to fight, and after about an hour, Aragorn walked away from his fight. (As he confessed to Frodo, he did not want to lose, but did not want to beat Kylina.)

“How very pathetic” was a frequently-expressed sentiment.

After the debacle was over, Aragorn and Frodo sat down to have a heart to heart. They were interrupted by the return of Lanalei and Adromeda, having “only killed ten” orcs. When the two females disappeared “to change,” Frodo and Aragorn went back to the conversation.

Once Adromeda and Lanalei were inside Aragorn burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Frodo asked.

“It’s so obvious that you like Adromeda.” Aragorn said.

“I do not.” Frodo said blushing.

“Sure whatever you want to think.”

“ Well...You like Kylina.”

“No I don’t even know her.”

“I think that’s why you walked away from the fight.”

“It was not.”

“You do like her but you just haven’t realized it.”

Acacia looked revolted. “This isn’t even sappy. Sappy implies there’s some sort of emotion, albeit way too much. This, this is like my little sister’s friends talking about boys.”

“Bother.” Jay stood up, and patted down her long robes (really, do I need to say what color they are?). “Come along. It’s time for a reality check.”

“Sure there’s enough reality left in the account?”

“Deposit slip, then?”

“Okay.”

“Do you have anything that clangs?”

“Not really.”

“Rings? Makes a loud noise?”

“You make a loud noise...”

“Wait! I have it!” Jay ignored her completely and dug in her bag, producing her Character Analysis Device. “We unmute these babies, and all will be good...”

Acacia laughed. “Oh, yes.” She dug out her own Analysis Device. “Say when.”

**

“Maybe I do like her but if she joins us on our quest there’s nothing I can do.” Aragorn thought to himself as Frodo got up to leave. He was then distracted by an eerie wailing.

It was rather louder than “eerie” things tended to be. Actually, it was outright deafening and not very eerie at all.

Two strangers appeared from out of the wood, and his hand went to his sword hilt. He eyed them warily: one elf-maid, clad in gray, eyes hooded, and a man of middle age, seemingly clad entirely in a crossed-bars pattern. Even the threads of his salt-and-pepper beard seemed to follow the pattern...

Aragorn blinked.

“Oh, his betrothed has a first name, they spell it A-R-W-E-N,” caroled the man. Aragorn stared.

The elf joined in, to a tune that Aragorn, had he been from a very different world, might have recognized as an Oscar Mayer jingle.

When the tune concluded, the old man started anew: “Who’s tripping down the streets of Riv’ndell? Everyone knows it’s Arwen...”

“Who are you, and why have you come from the forest?” Aragorn interrupted.

“And Arwen has stormy eyes... that flash in the face of Sues... Ah. Erm.”

“It doesn’t matter,” interrupted the gray-clad one. “And we’ve come from the forest to sing that rather strange song, what did you think it was for? It was her—his idea,” she added.

“What has this to do with me?”

“Think hard. I’m sure you’ll get it,” said the man.

Aragorn fixed them with an odd look, just for a moment. Then, “Undomiel!”

The elf grinned. “Exactly.”

“How did I forget?” He looked near to panic.

“Mary Sues.”

Aragorn looked puzzled. “What?” He sighed. “No matter. I must speak with Gandalf—”

The elf fidgeted where she stood in a rather un-elf-like way, muttering something in which, if you had good hearing, you might make out the phrase “really damn depressing job.”

“You can’t,” the man said more clearly.

“Why? For they have—”

“No. This was a stupid idea of mine in the first place.” He shook his head. “Before the night ends, you will be free, my lord.” The two faded away into the darkness.

**

“So, I assume that means we get to kill them now?” said Acacia hopefully.

“Not quite yet. The Horrific Tense Shift isn’t for another hour or so...” Jay drew a deep breath. “Fortunately, I traded a flask of orc-draught off a couple of other agents, and found this.” She handed Acacia a scroll.

Acacia took it as if it was about to explode, always a wise move when dealing with assassins’ property. “What is it, then?”

“The Mary Sue Drinking Game.”

Acacia laughed. “I like it.”

**

“... Causes a hush to fall over the room when entering, one drink. Pass the flask—”

Acacia did so. “Per Sue, or total?”

“You do want to be able to stand up at the end of this, is so?”

Acacia nodded. “True.”

Jay took a gulp out of the flask, wincing. She’d been thinking of using Ent-draught, but she was quite tall enough already. Given these Sues, she’d have wound up knocking her head on ceilings.

Acacia leaned over and looked at the scroll. “Nope, no faint romantic scars. Ah. Slender and graceful, one drink.”

“... Still is the priestess of an ancient and mysterious religion,” Jay read as Acacia drank. “I think Deminica’s supposed to be an Istar. Does that count?”

“She never says it. Anyway, I think she’s an elf. I doubt the author knows what Istari are. But she seems to have an unspecified aura of power and mysticism, unless that’s just her gold-tipped ears.”

“It says she has a staff ‘similiar’ to Gandalf’s, but if I don’t have to drink for it, hooray. The aura of mysticism, yes.” Jay took the flask back.

They already had the best part of the large flask inside them. To drink the liquor of the orcs was to get a homicidal surge of adrenaline—a good thing, really, in this profession.

“I don’t think anything under Plot Lines applies yet,” said Acacia, “and may I just say I’m grateful for that small mercy.”

“Older than Gandalf. Considering they probably think he’s about 80...”

“Yeah. ‘Is good enough to beat Duncan in a swordfight’, which changed to be canon-appropriate would certainly apply to what’s-her-name-who-gives-the-human-female-race-and-gender-a-bad-name...”

“Miss flipped over Boromir? Bottoms up!”

“The good thing,” said Acacia, “about working in this fandom, is you don’t get Mary Sues trying to get the guys to sleep together.”

“Yep. Although some slash is quite admirable. Notice, it’s the ‘bad slash’ department, but not the ‘bad Mary Sue’ department.”

“What I was saying was that the slash here doesn’t have matchmaker Sues. Even in the bad slash the canonicals are pretty well on their own.” She looked at the scroll again. “Unaccountably adored by absolutely everyone, two drinks... does that apply, or not? Not everyone likes them.”

“Thank the Lady for Gimli.”

“And Boromir, agreed. Looks strangely ageless in a ‘just pushing 21’ kind of way... well, most of them are elves, so...”

“I don’t know whether to be glad or disappointed that I’ve got another flask in my pack.”

“Neither do I. Came from the Lost City of Atlantis or other mysterious lost civilization—does the sky count?”

“I do believe it does.”

**

“So how long is it now till the person shift?” Acacia wanted to know.

Jay didn’t turn her head to answer. “Why don’t you check yourself?”

“Because if I’m impatient and frustrated, everyone else should be, too.”

“Can’t sleep either? Perhaps there’s a case for orc-draught being based on Starbucks coffee...”

“Tastes very similar.”

“Adrenaline surge, heart rate speeding up, insomnia...” Jay nodded, and went rummaging in her pack for her notepad.

And things—changed.

First a lack-of-disclaimer and author’s note, being undifferentiated from the rest of the text, thundered through the assassins’ heads.

I’m not writing a disclaimer if it means that much to you read the previous chapters

A/N for this part it’s going to be told by Kylina so when it says I it’s Kylina.

“And that’ll be the person change,” said Acacia. “Shall we go?”

“Yes. Let us, by all means, stop them before the godawful fight scene.” Jay gave up the search for her notepad and rose creakily to her feet.

Acacia grabbed her bow. It really said a lot that, while in what for the sake of sanity shall be called the body of a supernatural-demigoddess-angel-type-thing, she still felt the need to carry and use a plain (really big) weapon.

Jay pulled out her own, although looking wistfully at her plaid staff. It wouldn’t do to use Suelike powers... but all the same, she willed a plaid fletching onto her arrows. “Who first?”

“Whichever ones are going to be participating in the godsawful fight scene?”

“Allrightythen.”

Inside, Deminica had woken Kylina and Arond to tell them they’d be tested in the morning. Suddenly insomniac, they decided to go on a walk.

**

We walked to outside of Loth Lorien.

There were five orcs standing in front of us and we were unarmed.

There was no way to out run them because two more came from behind us.

I was so scared.

“It hurts...” Jay held a hand to her head.

Acacia just shoved past the pair of orcs and started reciting the charges.

“Kylina and—” she checked the Words— “Arond, it is my duty to inform you that you have been charged with... both of you are charged with bad grammar, interfering with the characters of the entire Fellowship of the Ring, spending way too many sentence-long paragraphs on your clothes and not one on the Golden Wood, calling it Loth Lorien, and being Mary Sues. Kylina, in addition, is charged with not knowing what the hell she’s wearing, with causing Arwen to vanish from existence, and with precipitating a jarring switch from third to first person. Arond is charged with wearing horrible clashing colors even I know better than to wear and causing everyone to think it’s beautiful.”

“(Lust object) save me!” It was bizarre. The Sues exclaimed this in unison, only differing in who was inserted as “lust object.”

On cue, Aragorn materialized out of thin air and said “Leave them alone.”

“Sing with me, Strider... Who’s tripping down the streets of Rivendell—?”

The Ranger’s eyes widened, and he took a step backward.

“Come ON, Acacia...”

She notched an arrow, and promptly sent it through Kylina’s throat.

Corresponding so blatantly with different members of the Fellowship really had not been a good idea. With eight Sues left around, Aragorn would otherwise have stayed out of character.

Arond looked horrified. “Aragorn why didn’t you save her!! She loved you you know!” He was too busy looking revolted to answer.

The elf looked around. “Legolas where are you!”

Once again on cue, Legolas turned up in a nearby tree. How he got there was left unsaid by the Words.

“Frightening.” Jay looked hopefully at Acacia. “Can I do the ‘magical bubble that weapons bounce off of’? Please?”

“Sure,” said Acacia in an “indulgent parent” tone.

“Legolas they are going to hurt me,” Arond screamed.

He shot an arrow. It bounced.

“Hurrah,” cried Jay, holding her staff aloft.

“Do you want Arond, or should I?” asked Acacia.

“I’m doing the bubble.”

“Fine by me.” Acacia shot Arond, and then stepped forward to pick up the bodies. “What shall we do with them? Or should we decide after we kill the rest?”

“After we kill the rest, I think.”

Acacia nodded. “Where are the rest?”

“Going back to sleep, I imagine. If we weren’t in the middle of the woods, I’d suggest torching their huts.”

“Only you can prevent forest fires...”

“Hugh, and ONLY Hugh can prevent florist friars,” Jay said, waving her staff dramatically.

Acacia gave her an odd look.

**

“I don’t want to slit their throats,” Jay whispered. “It’ll get all over our clothing.”

Acacia looked at her lopsidedly. “It’ll be gone when we leave the canon, you know.”

“Don’t remind me. I’m having fun.” Jay’s shoulders drooped. “Besides, it may just wind up on our uniforms...”

Acacia shrugged. “Anyway, how do you want to do it?”

“Strangling? Force-feed them poison?”

“It’s an attractive suggestion...”

“Which one—oh. Never mind.”

“Both,” Acacia replied anyway.

“Okay. There are seven left, and they room in pairs. Logically...” Jay closed her eyes and thought. “We take a pair at a time, I strangle, you poison, and no alarms shall be sounded.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Acacia, opening her pack and rummaging through it. “Which pair do we get first?”

“It doesn’t mention what pairs they sleep in, only that Deminica gets a room to herself.”

Acacia rolled her eyes. “So, shall we find out what pairs they sleep in?”

“Okay. This one.” Jay pointed to a hut at random.

**

From hut to hut they crept. The night was disturbed once or twice by a sort of “urk—”, but otherwise—

“—all is well,” Jay said, dusting her hands. “Just Damned-inica to go...”

Acacia, having just finished off Mianatis, was in a better mood than she had been since arriving in the fic. (This is known as “job satisfaction.”) “Who gets her?”

“I don’t care one way or ano—”

A strident voice rang out from behind them. “STOP FOUL FIENDS.”

Jay rolled her eyes. “She’s awaaaaake.”

“Who but a Sue would ever talk like that?” Acacia asked rhetorically, wincing a little at the all-caps sentence.

Jay turned to face Deminica, radiating an aura of boredom. “Have you been listening as we charged your friends, or do we have to go over it again?”

“What have you been doing, to my friends?!”

“I take that as a no,” Acacia said unhelpfully. “In that case, you’re charged with,” she made a show of not remembering immediately, “oh, yes, bad grammar, interfering with the characters of the entire Fellowship of the Ring, spending way too many sentence-long paragraphs on your clothes and not one on the Golden Wood, calling it Loth Lorien, and being a Mary Sue, also keeping Gandalf alive, having metal on your ears in a way that defies all logic, and... is there anything else, Jay...?”

“Not really. Any last words?”

“Who ARE you? You’ll pay for what you’ve done—”

“Oh, I forgot, there IS an extra charge. You act psychic.”

“Who are you?!” Deminica slammed her staff into the ground. “Answer me!”

“You don’t actually need to know that,” Acacia informed her sweetly, “but because I’m so nice, I’ll tell you we’re assassins.”

“We’re Istari assassins,” Jay chimed in.

“Speak for your—”

“Hah, foul Istari! I am an elf-wizardess, and you can’t stand against me.”

Jay shot a glance at Acacia. “This is pathetic.”

“Quite so.”

Acacia had had a lot of practice lately, so perhaps it wasn’t surprising how quickly she could have her bow ready.

“I know Jay already asked you this, but do you have any last words?”

“Your arrows will bounce.”

“What a waste of last words.” Jay extended her own staff, breaking the rather pretty bubble Deminica had raised.

There are only so many ways this can be said, and the authors are running out of them. Acacia fired, Deminica died, the canon eased back into place.

“So, now we have nine dead Mary Sues to deal with. What shall we do with them?”

“Wow. This calls for bulk disposal. Any hungry canonical monsters that you can think of?”

Acacia considered. “Not off the top of my head, no. We could just try the Watcher again, but Upstairs hates it if we feed too many to the same canon monster. Can’t have fat monsters, after all.”

“We could toss ’em on that funeral pyre the Rohirrim make...”

“Or we could have one of our own, I’ve got the flames with me...”

“... We’re in a FOREST. Golden the trees may be, but I bet they burn anyway. We could toss them in the sea.”

“I’d be reluctant to burn them anyway; I’m not sure what Deminica thought she was, but I’m worried she might explode. Water sounds fine; let them rot.”

“An offering to Ulmo!” Jay beamed. “Not that he probably cares.”

Acacia raised an eyebrow. “Riiight. So... shall we go?”

Jay nodded, and stared at the body. She tapped quickly at her remote activator for a moment, then opened the portal. “That’s out nice and deep—now we just have to lug them all through.” She frowned.

Acacia shrugged and wordlessly entered a hut, returning dragging Mianatis and Galami.

“Bother.”

Once all nine dead Mary Sues were gathered, Acacia looked dubiously at the portal. “Can we just toss them through, or... where’s it to?”

“Middle of the ocean. You want to step through? Be my guest.” Jay grinned. “I’m the old one. I should be getting senile.”

Acacia threw one of the dwarf’s way-too-numerous articles of jewelry at her.

“This is too tacky to keep as souvenir type stuff.”

“Ha ha.” Acacia picked up an elf, not paying much attention to which one, and tossed her through the shimmering portal. There was a distinct splashing sound.

“I was being serious.” Jay picked up the human and pushed her through.

It didn’t take long to get rid of all the bodies, and when it was done Jay closed the portal. Both assassins seemed reluctant to open another.

Jay voiced their mutual dissatisfaction first. “Don’t wanna leeeeeave.”

“I know.” Acacia sighed. “It’s nice here.”

“And we could actually fit in, looking like this.” Looking as if she’d rather not, Jay hit the home button, making the portal point back to HQ.

Acacia shrugged, and stepped through.

The response center looked too small, and too metallic. Jay flopped into a chair with a dramatic sigh. Acacia dropped her gear in a corner and elected to sprawl on the rug again, because the chairs were uncomfortable.

Jay realized with a start that they were both comfortable. She winced, waiting—

—and nothing happened. No beep. Acacia seemed oblivious.

After awhile, Acacia propped her head up on one hand. “I never thought I’d say this here, but... I’m bored.”

It was the perfect chance for a comical alarm, but Jay threw herself frantically into the breach. “LET’S HAVE A BARBECUE!”

Acacia started at the sudden loud noise, but just said “Okay...”

“Fabulous.” Jay flopped down again. Now, with something to stress over, free time was almost guaranteed.

And so was a nap.

END

---

[Jay’s A/N: So I’d been wanting to write about Corvid the Plaid for a while now. Sue me. (But, as Acacia once pointed out, you won’t get anything...) I really don’t have a great deal to say this time—this fic was just startlingly BAD. I’d venture to say it’s worse than “Mithril.” And trying to get Acy and I on the computer at the same time was hellish. Bother. Bugger. And all those other B words.

Keep well.]

[Acacia’s A/N: Nine Mary Sues. Nine of them! None of them with a distinct personality, all of them guilty of fashion plating, and worst of all, a case of Fill-In-Name The Misogynistic Bastard Syndrome. They want one just to have the Sues triumph over prejudice and so select one at random, I’ll swear they do...

Anyway.

PPC spinoffs not mentioned in Jay’s World’s Longest Author’s Note have been mentioned in the reviews, so because I am lazy, look for them there. Thank you to everyone who has written one, to all the many people who have mentioned Elrond Sues, and to all the reviewers; I particularly like Eep’s poem.]

[Jay’s OTHER A/N: Thanks for the Elrond Sues. *shudder* Time to torture me.]

[Editor’s Note, 11.17.2022: I tracked down “The Mary Sue Drinking Game” by Wombat. Enjoy!]