Up Against The Sky

It was something of a surprise to discover that he could open a plothole into the Library Arcanium. Then again, Zero supposed it shouldn't have been—if the safeguards on the portals were coded to DNA, it would have been impossible to make the distinction. Save for some minor differences in appearance, for all that computers (and, in fact, most magical energies) knew, he was the Librarian. It kind of made him wonder if he could also pull cool tricks around the Library, like opening up rooms or levitating books.

On a whim he faced a nearby shelf and lifted his hand, not sure what else to do. Predictably, nothing happened. Maybe book-levitating had more to do with being a mage than being Librarian? Zero didn't feel like digging through his memories to find out. Coming here was a bad idea to begin with, for more reasons than just the risk of getting caught, but... curiosity is a powerful thing.

He strode lightly down the deserted corridor, half exploring for the sake of exploring and half wondering where Valerie's room was. Not that he wanted to snoop, of course. Just for future reference. Hell, the entire layout of the Library would be useful if he was able to just pop in like this, although he wasn't quite willing to go that far just yet. He still had his suspicions about a lot of things, primarily Runoa's intentions. It kinda seemed preposterous that she didn't know he could do this, so why had she never mentioned it?

There was a pop sound and a small draft across his skin, and Zero turned from idly staring at book titles and thinking to notice, whaddaya know, he did have company. Fantastic.

Hovering before him was a tiny, golden dragon with the bluest of blue eyes. She hissed warningly at him, and he took half a step back.

But before he could do anything else, she lunged, and their eyes locked, and—

__________________________________________________

The first thing he sees is the face of his creator, the face of Creation itself. Herself, he realizes after a moment. He registers a veritable mountain of tumbling brown waves and curls that perfectly framed a delicate, elfin face and sparkling emerald eyes, light, ethereal clothing that sways in the breeze, and the overall demeanor of a beautiful, enviromental, fun-loving yet health-conscious genki girl (as physically fit as any Mary Sue could expect to be, but otherwise entirely reliant on the powers her sketchpad enables her; deprive her of that and knocking her out would be simple). She looked like every starving artist wannabe's irrational fantasy of what a real Bohemian was supposed to look like, what they dreamed that they could someday be if they could only get out of this damn flat and get recognized, and for a moment all he can think of is how cliche the whole scenario is.

He has just literally been drawn to life by the combined result of a pre-teen girl's fantasy and a deal with the devil, and not even an original idea at that. The knockoff creation of an unrealistic cliche, who in turn was the pawn of an even bigger cliche, if one of the tyrannical kind.

The juxtaposition of such polarizing ideas might have struck him as funny, but his strict policy of always finding things to laugh about wouldn't come until later. Much later.

Creation looks upward at Runoa for approval (clingy and dependent, and constantly seeking external verification for her work, as artists tend to do), and after a long moment of examing him up and down, Runoa nods.

"Not precisely what I had in mind, but I suppose he'll do."

Creation practically sags in relief, and he sort of wonders what it is that these women imagine he'll "do" (a weapon is fine, a puzzle piece is fine, but this is how she'll make that bastard hurt—), until his thought process is interrupted as Runoa speaks once again to her subordinate.

"You may erase the other attempts. They're of no use to me."

A shiver passes through him, but it will be a long time before he understands why.

-o-

I'm holding onto white balloons
Up against a sky of doom.
Tell me you see them.

-o-

She has been following the girl for some time now, on and off, for years. She never does anything but watch, or occasionally pull some antics to amuse. The child is only nine, but the follower knows the girl can feel her presence, even see her sometimes, though what she sees varies considerably from day to day.

As the girl grows older and her abilities begin to develop, a rudimentary form of communication becomes possible. The follower sends out emotions for the girl to pick up and interpret, and the girl sends her images and ideas in turn.

The first day the girl begins to understand actual words in her mind, the follower asks her something she had been waiting many, many years to ask.

What is my name?

The girl is puzzled. "You know what your name is. You've just never told me it."

Yes. But what is my name?

The girl thinks. Considers. Mulls it over on and off for days and days. It is a good sign, the follower thinks, that she does not immediately dismiss the question. She understands that this is not something she is supposed to guess, but to remember. She understands this without ever having been told of the true significance of remembering, without ever having been taught the true nature of the world around her and her place in it. Yes, the follower thinks, It is a very good sign.

It is almost two weeks later before the girl returns with her answer.

"I don't know your name," she says, "but would it be alright if I just called you Ari?"

Ari sends the feeling of a smile, but inwardly, in her true self beyond the stars that is not this tiny projection to a child's mind, she is celebrating.

She has finally found the one to whom she owes her life.

-o-

'Cause what's inside of me
Is invisible to most,
Even in clear view.

-o-

The first day is primarily one of confusion. There were people around, but almost none of them spoke to him unless it was a cursory greeting or an order - and orders were always spoken very slowly and clearly, as if they were just as unsure of what to do with him as he was of them (a new element in their midst; where does he fit in their pitiful little hierarchy and what threat does he pose if the social order changes?) (what they don't understand is that nothing changes; stagnancy is part of the very definition of their being).

Passion leads him to a room in one of the below-ground floors. The walls are stone, and there is no door, only a number next to the doorframe.

The Sovereign catches him staring. "Hm?" he says, still sounding bored (easily driven to mental instability when bored, combined with high creativity; approach with caution, and cater to his whims whenever possible), "Oh, the number? Yeah, you were actually the first one Creation made for your job, but then she started making a bunch of different versions and put them all in rooms with numbers. You took so long to wake up, we all thought you were broken or something." Passion laughs a little. "Turns out she got it right the first time, because those other ones were way defective. Sorta like... this!"

Passion throws a sucker punch, and he reacts instantly, simultaneously sidestepping the blow and twisting Passion's arm behind his back and digging his fingers into a nerve bundle at the shoulder. Then his eyes bulge out slightly (caution, dammit, caution!) as Passion elbows him hard in the gut, harder than one would have thought possible with his slight physique, and twists out of his grip.

"See?" the Sovereign cheers, "None of the others could pull that off even after days and days of training." Passion grins broadly at him. "Patient Zero my ass. You're no zero, man, you'll fit in great here. Maybe we could play some games together, hey?"

He blinks once, then steps into the room marked with a "0", lays down on the bed, and waits until he hears retreating footsteps before closing his eyes.

The next morning, when he asks the others to refer to him as Zero, it raises a few eyebrows (who would want to be known as nothing?), but everyone complies. Most of them assume it is simply some kind of in-joke. They are half-right.

-o-

I'm sending out a signal to
The possibility of you,
'Cause right at this moment...

-o-

It has been years and years and lifetimes since the death of a friend, a very dear friend, and Ari is no longer sure what to do with herself. The war is over, though the scars on the land and the people remain. Keeping day-to-day affairs running smoothly takes up her time, but recovery is primarily a secretarial job, easily delegated to subordinates. More often than not she finds herself wondering what will come next.

Later, new intelligence comes in: the war has not ended, it has simply moved.

Many of those who are politicians by trade rather than soldiers panic. Others argue about the proper course of action. Is this evil truly their responsibility anymore? Might they be left to recover from their battle scars in peace, or is their fight not over yet? Do they have the right to give aide to a world so deep in the spiritual dark ages, or should they put forth the effort and finish what they started?

Ari does none of these things. She simply goes where she always goes for answers: home.

Eadoin meets her there, ever-willing to help. With his band of friends and their combined talents, it isn't long before they find what they're looking for.

"Domhain Dorcha," she breaths, and it's all she can do to keep the fear out of her voice. The dark world, the world the elders always spoke about in hushed, disquieted voices. The one they actually knew so little about, that was really full of such potential and light, hidden away beneath the surface. They would be easy pickings.

Easy pickings, but also firm and numerous allies, if the right messengers could be reached.

-o-

...I know you are connected to a part of me
That I don't even know myself.

-o-

His dreams are immediate and profound—

a narrow cliff jutting out over the sea against a setting sun, and planted blade-first at the tip of cliff is hoshikuzu, adrian's pendant dangling and swaying off the crossguard in the wind while the pages of the codex of index, which is leaning against the blade, flutter back and forth 

standing in darkness and his eyes widen as the darkness lashes and twines around him, threatening to drag him deeper as he struggles vainly against it, his hand reaches out in desperation and a hand reaches down, grasping his tightly and the darkness recedes

the healer leans forwards and gently blows on the sphere in her hands and it flares with light, growing larger and the librarian mimics her actions and he watches with a surprised, happy smile on his face as the two spheres grow in size and launch into the sky, dancing and spinning around one another as their combined light drives the darkness away

—and he has no idea what to make of them. So he simply watches, and takes every new piece of information like a puzzle piece and coolly analyzes them with a mind programmed to do exactly that. Zero rebuilds the idea of the person he was based on and wonders if being like him should be a goal of his.

Even after months of consideration—

a bubbling laugh that is both horrifying and joyful in all the worst ways, there has been so much, too much for memory to hold, and when he breaks, as all know he will someday, the explosion will be a truly spectacular sight to behold for as long as he lets you live to see it

—he is still not certain. And the more he sees, the less certain he is.

Then again, you could never have said Zero to be sure of anything that wasn't a total impulse. If he wants to do something, he does it, and if Runoa or Creation or practically anyone else wants him to do something, he does that too. And that strikes Zero as being altogether too similar to how Adrian functions in relation to the Powers That Be, and look where that got him. Did he never once just do something he wanted to do? (or worse, was everything exactly what he wanted, death and all?)

Zero doesn't know what he wants, but there is a curious freedom in ambivalence that he decides he likes.

-o-

The changes in me
Are likely to be like the weather:
Stormy and clear,
Strength into fear, bound together.

-o-

It is the No-thing that holds the Every-thing, the dragon teaches her. The All and the Parts, the Beginning and End, all wrapped together in a pure, shining singularity. That is the nature of the Soul.

Ari's wanderings go on for years, sometimes in the dragon's company, but most often not. Like the elders of Ari's homeland, the dragon is very set in his ways in addition to being very, very old, and he prefers not to travel very far from his cliffside cavern home. Ari is always saddened to have to part with her new friend and mentor, but each time they meet again is a new joy. (This too, is one of his lessons, as she will realize in the years to come.)

"To travel a circle is to traverse the same ground over and over," Ari intones softly, almost as though thinking aloud the experiences that led her to finally understand this lesson, like so many lessons before it (and her elders would be proud, for what else is an adolescent journey for?). "To travel a circle wisely is to traverse the same ground for the first time."

And when you realize at last that you have circled back to the starting point, the dragon prompts her, you understand...

In only a few short years, Ari has circled the globe. She has come to love this world, with all its expanses, all its variety, and always more to learn or explore or understand. Even with the chosen ones missing and a war brewing, she cannot help but feel a sense of childlike giddiness and wonder, in such contrast to the solemnity of her youth. But she is still a youth yet, she knows, and though introspection and exploration were two very different paths to wisdom, both were paths indeed. If she had wanted to, she could have learned everything she needed to without moving at all. The power, the memory, the experience was always with her. It merely needed to be brought to the surface, just as the elders always said.

Ari's eyes light up. "You understand that your only destination is where you have already been!"

The dragon smiles at her. And always were.

-o-

But I'll break my silence
If I believe that you and me
Could ever be more than just
What's been behind us.

-o-

He meets Death only once. It is a very short meeting (if bone and sinew grow continually from nothing, then nothing is what he shall be, and zero told him so), punctuated by harsh words, sucker punches, and one brief, hastily bitten off scream in the voice of the man they were both imitating. Acknowledgement, Zero thinks angrily, is what marks the difference between them. Acknowledgement of truth and lies, of grounded fact and baseless desire, and the strength of character to understand what your place in the world is. This will shape Zero's personality and outlook far more than either of them initially realize.

He meets the legendary Willowe Foxblade only twice, and the second time is because she asks to see him personally. She tells him what she knows of the man she killed (as his killer, she likely knows him better than anyone, better than even his lover), and he tells her of his dreams, a little. Before she leaves for the Real World, she warns him of the dangers of complacency, warns him with a kind of desperation in her soul (he looks like him, acts like him, and maybe it would all be worth it if she could save just one more), so he nods, and she smiles her very last smile.

A misused comment at Order quickly earns him an enemy, and Zero learns to keep interactions with Sovereigns to a minimum after that. Passion and Harmony are kind, Wisdom and Elegance seem to find him entertaining, and Creation looks upon him with a kind of prideful ownership, similarly to how a craftsman may look upon a fine table she has made. When Zero thinks about it, he understands, and does not hold it against her, but it does grind against him sometimes.

Runoa visits Zero daily, to ask him questions or for demonstrations of what he's learned that day. Eventually he points out that he has not technically "learned" a single thing since he got here; everything he knows is merely something he has remembered. Remembered from Adrian? she asks. Remembered from me, he replies, not sure why she hasn't yet picked up on something so obvious. She asks him if there is yet more to remember. He says he doesn't know, but that he would be disappointed if there wasn't.

(it is interesting, he thinks, to watch the expressions that trail across her face as they converse: surprise, disagreement, the barest flicker of tightly-controlled malice, finally smoothing over into smugness and pride—

"Excellent work, Zero. You may just be exactly what I've been looking for."

—but it is not him that she has pride in.)

-o-

I tried and left.
I came and went.
I got rejected out again.
No one believes me.

-o-

Exploration is encouraged in all Eiran children. A boy called Eadoin is her most loyal partner in these endeavors - he is curious, like her, though not so bold as to directly defy the elders' edicts. (Not by himself, anyway.)

They are at their most dangerous during those precious few moments at the waterfall, as far down the chute as they could go before they risked falling into the ocean miles and miles below. It is freezing, nothing like the ensorcelled warmth of the valleys above them, but they reach as close as they dare to touch the rushing icy water. They have both been taught that this waterfall, which plummets from the bottommost tip of the Eire into Gaeya's northern ocean, is the endless fount of wisdom for those who choose to live below, giving life to the land and giving love and wonder to the people. But the water is hard and bitingly cold, and Ari can't help but wonder what would happen to a poor soul caught directly beneath the force of all of this "wisdom".

Not long afterward, she requests to go on her adolescent journey. The elders comply to her request as is custom, and outfit her with everything she will need, that she might return home safely.

Her adventure begins, as many do, on the night of a storm.

Many days later, when she is huddled in the cave that is the home of the dragon who rescued her and listening to his story, Ari will realize with all the subtlety of a roar that nothing will ever be the same.

-o-

I've worn a hundred faces
Of the character replacements and now
Nobody sees me.

-o-

He is hiding in one of the castle's service corridors, grinning at the fact that the heretofore unmentioned service corridors actually existed and became accessible as soon as he had need of them, almost as though they had been conjured into being just for him. Being a Stu, dangerous though it is, is actually quite fun, but only as long as there is some way to give his abilities direction; he wants none of the stagnant complacency that plagues all but the most insane in Runoa's castle (runoa herself knows this to be true).

He discovers a highly convenient hole in the wall that is camouflaged by a highly convenient portrait on the other side. It is difficult to see through it, but Zero can make out Creation scribbling furiously on her sketchpad, frequently crossing things out or even tearing out entire pages. He cannot see Runoa from this position, but it's not difficult to deduce who Creation is talking to.

"Why can't I find him?!" she finally shouts, moving over to the area of the room that Zero cannot clearly see. He hears a loud thwap sound and thinks that Creation has probably thrown her sketchbook to the ground, or against a wall. "He is my drawing!" the Sovereign screams (desperate and raving, beyond even her need for approval now, because runoa cannot give her what is already gone), "My creation! I should be able to find him anywhere and do whatever I like with him! Even erase him from existence if I want! So why can't I? What's blocking me?!?"

The loud smack of a slap to the face can be clearly heard, followed by pregnant silence.

"Because he is a Gary-Stu, you nitwit," Runoa finally says. "Of course he isn't going to react normally." (runoa herself knows this to be true, programmed the urge into him—)

Creation cannot keep a small whine out of her voice. "But he's mine," she says softly, almost accusingly (but never rebelliously). "He was made with my power, and I'm supposed to be able to unmake anything that's mine if I want to. You said—"

"I gave you your powers and I know their full extent," Runoa interrupts sharply. "Believe me when I say, Sovereign, that Zero is acting exactly the way I programmed him to."

(runoa herself knows this to be true, programmed the urge into him, understands him, and knows exactly what zero is seeking when zero himself does not, and yet does not tell creation this because—)

"...Yes, Lieutenant."

Zero backs away, turns, and starts running. As far away as he can.

-o-

The changes in me
Are likely to be like the weather:
...Cloudy at best.

-o-

It is after the third time they caught her peering through keyholes and sneaking into council meetings that they bestowed upon her a name: Ari.

The word itself has no meaning, but there is a similar name, Aari, that is supposedly the name of one of the Goddess' feline companions, one rumored to have an abnormally keen interest in the affairs of mortals.

Many, many years later, when she meets her namesake for the first time, Ari will be proud of the legacy she inherited. She will understand that the elders meant it as a symbol of elevation, of acknowledgement that she was destined for greater things than they, though her true destiny would turn out to be much smaller than they imagined - a critical but nonetheless minor role in the proceedings, and perhaps that's appropriate, for what curious cat draws attention to herself as she hunts for new places to explore?

Now, though, right at this moment, to Ari's wise but nevertheless childish mind, the name feels like a gesture of rejection. You are not one of us. You are otherworldly. Take your difficult questions elsewhere, child, for we refuse to answer them.

That night, when she returns to her dwelling, Ari chooses to sleep on the roof rather than in her bed. Under the stars, she dreams of cat whiskers and dragon wings, and worlds far beyond her own.

-o-

Angels lift me.
Are you with me?
I'm holding onto you
Like I'm holding onto white balloons...

-o-

He had not thought before he left that dodging Silri would be an issue - she never once paid him any mind at the castle, and he saw no reason for that to change - but apparently it is (insanity is not a good look for her, and he does not even agree with her quest or the one who assigned it anymore—), and it is more difficult than he originally thought. Calming her down is even moreso (—but he can't help but empathize in a way nonetheless), but worth it, even if the alliance is temporary by its very definition.

Neither of them has a side to be fully loyal to, so why not?

After their little rescue operation, they part ways. She attacks him twice more in subsequent weeks. Both times Zero has to remind her that he is not, in fact, Adrian, and both times it takes him pinning her to the ground before she would open her eyes and look at the clear difference in his. The second time, she slashes at his side anyway, and as she leaps away once again, Zero decides that he'll keep the scar.

He is therefore surprised when he does not hear from Silri at all after Adrian's return. In a way, he is surprised that he is surprised, because there is no confusion now. She was the only one who couldn't tell the difference, and perhaps it's for the best—

But then another portal opens, and another familiar girl steps into view (long brunette hair billowing in the breeze, and he can see why adrian felt attraction to her once, but she never made a move, never reciprocated in that way, and adrian moved on to other things), and Zero can't help the broad grin that appears on his face.

-o-

Carry me away!
I hope that you don't break.

-o-

The first thing she sees is the people of her homeland, this misty paradise in the sky. The other children of the Rite - actually a large group this year, all born of the largest and most diversely populated Beltanne festival to date, and all therefore special in ways not yet determined - play in the green meadows dotted here and there with stone fences and wildflowers, but she sits in a treetop by herself. She can hear a few adults below her, watching her, wondering to themselves why she is so introspective at such a young age (not even twenty, barely finished being a toddler). They whisper of strange events foretold in their Telling Pools, of dark times ahead in both the Land Below and in the opposite world. The Domhain Dorcha, they called it. She listens to them, and they continue to speak as though she is not there, and she wonders how to describe the feeling of frustration that wells in her heart.

Later, she will find a good word for it: hypocrisy.

The Eire is stagnant, lifeless, frozen in time as its people become more and more convinced that they have cultivated the perfect lifestyle. The wars and petty arguments of the different nations in the land below do not interest them; they are emissaries to the gods, come straight down from the Palace of Stars itself. They are not privy to the farcical yoke that binds surface-dwellers of Gaeya and those ridiculously short-lived, short-sighted excuses for humans of Domhain Dorcha alike. They are above. They are different. They are better.

Do something! she will cry one day, tears in her eyes as she cradles an egg that will never hatch. Our ancestors came down from the stars because they wanted to live in this world, within the bounds of time, where each moment can be experienced and cherished! What is there to experience if everything is beneath you? What is there to learn if you already know all?

(Three times she will make this plea. The first time, they will give her a name. The second time, they will give her a quest. The third time, they will listen, but by then, it is almost too late.)

She will throw the egg she holds at her elders, frustrated and heartbroken, in a display of impulsivity completely unknown to the peace of the Eire. But the shell is hollow, empty inside, and will shatter in the first hand that catches it.

Now, though, right at this moment, she sits in her treetop while a particularly strong wind blows, and is grateful for the sturdiness of her perch.

-o-

I hope that you don't break...
Don't break...

-o-

Nothing changes, while Everything stays the same. It is a dichotomy that is invisible to most; only one soul in a thousand could ever understand Nothing to be a proper noun on the same level as its opposite partner. Nothing exists. Nothing has form. Nothing is exactly what it needs to be in order for Everything to continue in the way it always has.

Yes, Valerie, I know who you are.

I remember you quite well, actually, although you don't remember me. 

And maybe that's for the best.

Though I've no doubt you could remember me if you tried.

I've always followed orders, but now I'm kind of at a loss.

I spent my life wandering, but with you I found purpose.

I'm not afraid of what the future holds, because

I can handle myself, don't worry,

but what about you? What will you do in the times to come?

but Runoa is more dangerous than any of you realize. No matter how much you prepare, you're not ready.

Runoa is practice compared to what's next. I've watched you prepare, but still I fear for the future.

Runoa's promise

Monika's visions

will happen, and there's nothing any of us can do to stop it.

So no matter what happens, 

I think

I know that

I want to help you.

I don't know why, but

Our previous connection makes it so that

we understand each other.

And that's all anyone ever needs.

__________________________________________________

The connection broke. Snapped, really, and the little dragon reeled back before regaining herself and regarding Zero with a glare and a soft hiss. Zero, for his part, almost wanted to apologize. The more he thought about it, the more he realized Ari's little intrusion was probably a test of some sort, and reacting instinctively when you have such highly exaggerated abilities and resilience is almost never what you'd call safe.

He noticed her trembling slightly, as though having difficulty concentrating, and his eyes widened. "Oh shit, I'm sorry!" he exclaimed. He hoped he hadn't done any permanent damage; that would not be good for his standing with Valerie. "I've never spent much time around people who weren't, like, level 8 or better, and they all shrug off whatever anyone does like it's nothing, accidental or otherwise. Shit, are you alright?"

Ari stretched and shook herself as a dog might - for a brief moment she was a dog, actually, before returning to her preferred fire-lizard form - and regarded the Stu with a critical eye.

Zero didn't move.

It would be difficult to explain what transpired between the two on that morning, in that place where "morning" has no more meaning than the one you give it. One who was the hero of another story, the other who didn't really expect his story to go much further than it had. Neither of them were active participants in the battle against perfection, though both had rejected it in their own way. Both understood the dangers of complacency better than most. And both had found themselves, either suddenly or over a period of years and years and lifetimes, in full and unwavering support of the one girl who understood that, in order to achieve true perfection, you didn't have to change a thing.

Ari moved faster than the eye could blink, gliding past Zero's ear before vanishing. But it was not with the pop of displaced air that accompanied travel between. It was a relatively slow fade-out, visible and almost frightening if you didn't know she was vanishing from this world on purpose. The fire-lizard form, for all its versatility and astonishing parallels with her own abilities, was still nothing more than a guise, after all. Ari had places to be, things to prepare before time was up.

Zero gasped as she passed, eyes widening in astonishment as two words entered his mind, words laced with feelings of approval, understanding, and perhaps the beginnings of trust.

-o-

Don't break.

Insert Unexpected Frienemy Here (part 2 of 2)

Adrian paced across the floor of the Monitor Room as Ben fiddled furiously with one of the computers' settings. Nearby, Tash leaned against the wall, nearly bouncing with impatience, while Cristoph bore his usual mask of impassivity as he glanced at the iPhone still in his hands for what had to be the hundredth time.

"If we can't communicate with them, why did she ask for orders?" the ninja asked.

"Not 'orders'," Adrian said tightly, "Order. It's the name of one of Runoa's Sovereigns, and her right-hand man at that." He scowled. "Dammit, if their whole group got flattened once, then what chance does-"

His worried muttering was interrupted by Ben slamming his hands down in frustration and shoving himself away from the desk. "It's no use guys. I've been messing with this thing ever since the mission feed cut out, but it just does not want to cooperate..."

"Where are the techies when you need them?" Adrian muttered. "I must have paged Charis, like, twenty minutes ago."

At that, Ben snickered slightly. "Ah, Adrian..." he said awkwardly, "It's Friday. You're not gonna get ahold of her on a Friday night."

Adrian turned toward the agent and tilted his head. "What are you talking about?"

"She... uh... She likes to meet with Pete on Friday nights around this time. To, uh... you know... hang out together."

Tash made a sound halfway between a growl of frustration and a groan. "I'll go get her, you big babies, and I don't care if they're shacked up when I get there. We've got work to do."

-o-

The clearing had broken out into chaos.

Jasmine flitted through the treetops, dropping down to the earth to deliver tiny but critical jabs in the largest of the creatures, only to leap back upward to safety as the branches practically bent protectively to enshroud her. The trees of the Hills were secretive, but they also evil when they saw it, and did their best to aid the ones who opposed such unnatural, otherworldly beings as the creatures the gray-haired man from before had summoned.

She did not deny the rush of satisfaction that each jab against them brought her. Though the monsters were not Grey Guards, they reminded her of them enough that she could summon up her old rage against them when she fought.

This is for my mother! she thought viciously, ripping her dagger out of a Usurped's eye socket with a spray of something purpleish that might have been blood.

This is for my father! Though Jasmine knew now that her father was alive, everything the man had gone through in the elapsing time - losing his family, his home, his very identity - was surely something for his daughter to avenge, even now. Jasmine landed lightly on the back of an enormous Usurped, drove her knife into the tough hide of its back at what she hoped was its spine, and darted away.

This is for my sist- She stopped, briefly wide-eyed before scowling. Thinking of the illusion that was her "sister" Faith was a habit that was easy to fall into, and harder to get out of than it should have been for the length of time she had even been aware of the deception. Still, the painful memory fueled the fire in Jasmine's heart. A giant humanoid Usurped came crashing down as its Achilles tendon was cut, crushing its brethren beneath it.

But then it got back up again. And so did another, and another.

"There seems to be no end to these creatures," she heard Barda huff as he wrenched himself out of the grip of a Usurped that appeared to be nothing but a pair of enormously muscled arms. "How can we defeat them if they refuse to stay down?"

Jasmine glanced at the four women nearby who were also defending themselves from the hoard, though only two of them seemed to have any experience in fighting, and one of them, the tallest one with the wavey yellow hair, was not fighting at all, only desperately avoiding more damage. Monika leaped out of the way as one of the Usurped's axe-like arms sank deep into the tree behind her, and Jasmine cringed as she heard the tree scream in pain.

"You!" the wild girl shouted, heading towards the Society group. "Tell me what is going on! You said you could help us, but that man and his creatures came here looking for you and your friends! What have you brought upon us? What-"

"Jasmine!" She halted as she felt Lief's hand close around hers. She turned. "Jasmine, we cannot waste time arguing," said the young king. "We must work together if we are to make it out of this."

Behind them, Barda slashed at a great, lumbering Usurped, which staggered away momentarily before returning for more. Suddenly, the creature was thrown skyward by a blast of light emenating from Ezra's palm, but when it landed, scorched and smoldering, it was still moving.

Jasmine scowled at Lief. He was right, and she knew it, and she was almost angry with him for that. Almost. "Fine," she said sharply, though not as venomously as before. "What do you suggest?"

-o-

Under any other circumstances, Valerie might have been thrilled to ride aboard something as closely resembling a dragon as the giant Usurped that Order had summoned. As it was, from her position of being slung face-down over the neck of the creature like a bag of grain, the panoramic landscape of the whole of Deltora below her was more terrifying than awe-inspiring, and so very, very far down...

They flew west, into the rapidly setting sun, and though she refused to close her eyes against the stinging wind, Valerie clung to the Usurped with all her might.

-o-

One of the creatures raised an arm that was long and sharp as a sword, and Barda instinctively stepped in front of Lief, wondering what the hell that reckless boy had gotten him into this time and half-heartedly cursing the fact that he loved the young king like a brother. He blocked the blow successfully, but even Barda was forced to stagger under the thing's sheer weight, and he wondered how long they could keep this up.

Jasmine, Lief, and two of the strangers - the taller of the two blondes, and the one with unnaturally red-colored hair - conversed rapidly, while Barda and the other two strangers did their best to keep the hoard from coming too close. Half of the words the strangers used were completely unfamiliar to Barda, and as a guard, he had to be at least familiar with all common vernaculars spoken in Deltora.

"They'll definitely know something's wrong by now," Danielle was saying. "I'm not sure exactly where my iPhone landed, but it was somewhere in the Library, so it's really only a matter of time before a leader finds out why the Deltora fandom is locked."

"Doesn't change the fact that it's locked though," Monika replied grimly. "Even if they know something's wrong, there's no way anyone could get to us. I wouldn't anticipate a rescue."

Ari hissed angrily from her new position perched on a low-hanging branch, and it wasn't difficult to tell why. She had probably been trying frantically to teleport to the Library, and was furious with herself for not being able to, and for being similarly unable to rush to Valerie's aid herself. With Order's threat hanging over their heads, all anyone could do was hope she would be alright until some sort of plan could be made...

Lief frowned. "I am not sure that I understand, but are you saying you are trapped here?"

"Pretty much," said Danielle.

Jasmine looked at Monika. It was really more of a glare than a look, but only because glaring was the wild girl's default expression when Lief wasn't present. Lief was present, as it happened (and Monika smiled internally when she realized he was even holding her hand), but it was sort of a crisis, so the force of Jasmine's glare was only somewhat softened.

"You told me when we first met that you and your group had come here to stop a dangerous enemy to Deltora," said Jasmine. "Is this what you came to stop?"

Monika blinked briefly in surprise, but quickly understood. Of course they don't remember Camillia. Why would they?

"Yes," Ezra answered from where she was grappling in midair with a smallish winged Usurped, causing both girls to turn their heads. Ezra managed to free herself and throw the creature downward, but, predictably, it rose right up again. "Normally, though, our targets are not so numerous, nor so stubbornly determined to never stay the fuck down!"

Danielle gripped her staff tightly. "I'm going to go help," she said.

Monika nodded in reply. "Be careful." To Jasmine and Lief, the blonde said, "Normally we would have a lot of back-up to deal with even one of these creatures, but we did not expect to encounter Order when we came here. We're not equipped to handle this..."

"Order," Lief said. "That is the man from before who summoned the monsters and kidnapped your friend. And, if I understand you correctly, he is also somehow preventing you from calling for help from others like you?"

"That is right."

"Then can you not somehow stop him instead of wasting energy fighting his minions?"

Monika shook her head and tried to suppress the shudder that ran through her. Judging by Lief's face, she was not terribly successful at it. "We tried stop him once before, and it did not go well... Valerie looked after each of us personally, but we were still in the Med Ward for days..." She ran a hand through her hair and left it there, fighting the panic welling in her chest. "I mean... maybe if Ezra and Terrie were both at the absolute top of their game, we might be able to chase him out, but we didn't come prepared for this! We have nothing on us except what's standard protocol for a much less dangerous opponent! Valerie... Valerie might be at least able to defend herself if she had the motivation... oh god I hope she has the motivation, please don't let her be dead by now..."

Lief thought for a long moment. "...What if you were able to reach help?" he finally said. "Would we stand more of a chance then?

"Kree could send a message," Jasmine offered.

It took a moment for Monika to gather her thoughts enough to remember that Kree was the name of the blackbird that was never very far from Jasmine. The blonde agent shook her head. "Kree could not reach my allies. They are... too far away. They can only be reached by... a special device," she explained haltingly.

This got Barda's attention from his fight several yards away from them. With a grunt of effort, he knocked the Usurped backwards and slammed his blade home. The creature continued twitching, but didn't get up, and Barda took the opportunity to focus on the plan-making. "What sort of device?" he asked breathlessly.

"It it not something you have the means to repair..." Monika began.

"No," the guard interrupted irritably, "I mean did you have it on your person the whole time? Did Order never touch it?"

"Well, no-"

"That suggests he used some sort of magic to interfere with it, does it not?"

Lief's eyes widened as he realized what his friend had figured out. "And that means that if Order's concentration was interrupted, even for a moment..."

"We might be able to break through." Monika furrowed her brows in thought. She wasn't sure if natural Gary-Stu abilities, even freakishly enhanced abilities like those of a Sovereign, counted as "magic" of any sort, but it was possible. Valerie had called it ontological inertia, which was the tendency stuff had to continue being stuff. But this rule almost never applied to anything magical or in any way supernatural, energy being as volatile and fickle as it was. But... Suergy counted as a type of energy, didn't it? It certainly wouldn't have such a ridiculous portmanteau, otherwise...

Well then that means... But no, Danielle got that last message through before it closed off, so they'll be ready, trying to hack through... Yes, this could work!

Except...

"She won't do it," Monika realized. The others looked at her questioningly, so she elaborated, "Valerie. She won't attack Order, not even to save herself. Even with Seiryu, she can't bring herself to seriously harm another. She is literally not capable of it, even if it means her death. The only way she can even come close to hurting someone is in defense of someone else, not herself."

Lief and Jasmine both looked surprised at this news, though the latter also made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a choke. Barda, however, looked thoughtful.

"Then... perhaps we should give her someone to protect," he said softly.

"...What about the Usurped?" Monika replied after a very, very long pause, during which a variety of emotions had flitted across her face, too rapidly to interpret. "Order would not have left them here if he wanted interruptions."

Barda gestured briefly. "Look around. There are dozens of them, but only a few of them at a time actively attack us. If the rest of us are enough of a distraction, one person may be able to slip away..."

Monika looked between the three characters, and her three friends defending them. Of course, Barda was perfectly correct. The phenomenon of Conservation Of Ninjutsu was actually pretty common, if Aster's ramblings bashing the realistic merit of the few shounen anime series she had seen was any indication. Not to mention that Usurped were powered by the same terrible storytelling as Sues and Stus anyway, so the fact that it was happening now did make sense. Monika just never once in her life thought she'd ever be in a situation where it would apply.

It bolstered her hopes, frankly. If they could pull on that law of fiction, they might just have a chance.

"Right," she said quickly. "I'll go. I'll be able to reach Valerie fastest, and I'm useless to you here."

Barda looked the blonde up and down, and saw that she was very tall, but quite lanky, and without a lot of muscle definition. Add that to the fact that she was only armed with the lightweight bow strapped to her back, and he was inclined to agree with the girl's self-assessment. "Very well," he said, "but move swiftly. Even if these creatures were ordinary humans, I would not like the odds we face."

Monika nodded tersely. Barda gave her directions on the quickest route, and she turned on her heel and fled southward, towards the Great Road West.

A familiar tightness filled Lief's heart as he watched her go, although that probably had more to do with the fact that he could also feel Barda's stern gaze shift to him, as though daring Lief to volunteer to leave the fight as well. Of course, it was anyone's guess which direction was safer for him - dozens upon dozens of of inhumanly strong creatures that were monsters in appearance on one side, and one unimaginably powerful man that was a monster in spirit on the other - but that was not even close the the point of Lief's indecision.

As predicted, a handful of Usurped noticed the blonde's passing, and began lumbering after her. Jasmine aimed a ferocious smile at Lief as she expertly spun her dagger in one hand and jumped into the creature's path, green eyes flashing and her long, tangled raven hair flying about her face as she moved.

One thing, at least, was eternally certain: Lief would not ever leave Jasmine's side.

"This is hardly the time for daydreaming, Lief!" Barda growled as he blocked another hit. "Move!"

The young king blinked, then raised his sword and did as he was told, an idea forming in his mind.

The dragons were not at his beck and call, he knew. He was no more their king than he was king of the Granous, or the Capricons. The seven dragons allied themselves with him out of mutual respect—respect for Lief and for Doran's last wishes—and because Lief was the bearer of the great gems that connected them to their territory and gave them strength. They did as he asked when it was in their best interest, and in the best interest of the land, and nothing more...

But he had to try.

Help them, please! he cried with his mind, clutching the Belt tightly. These creatures intend to destroy everything, and if we cannot stop them here, they will march on the world and lay waste to whatever is in their path! These strangers came here to stop them, but they cannot do it alone. Please, if you are near, give them your aid. Help them fight what threatens us...

Under Lief's desperate fingers, the diamond seemed to grow a little brighter...

-o-

The journey took less than twenty minutes at the breakneck speed of flight, though it seemed to Valerie both like it took hours, and that it ended all too soon. Rather than land, the winged Usurped hovered in midair, rising up and down with each wingbeat to keep airborne. Order shoved Valerie off the creature's shoulders to the ground, and the healer landed in a heap, jolting her spine in a manner that left her winded and wincing in pain.

Order looked down at her in disdain before leaping gracefully to the ground several feet away from her. "With your friends you fight poorly; without them you fight not at all." He dismissed the Usurped with a wave of his hand, and with a great gust of wind from its mighty wings, it took off into the distance, back towards the Os-Mine Hills. "Rise, healer of the Society," said the Sovereign, "for this is where we will fight. As you can see, I have chosen a location that will give you the advantage, in an attempt to even the odds a little bit."

Still fighting to draw breath, and becoming increasingly aware of the cramps that had developed in her arms and back during their flight, Valerie attempted to look around. When she realized where they were, her eyes widened in near-panic. She now understood why the giant winged Usurped had not landed.

Save for the trails and patches of pale green grass that dotted the landscape, the field they were in was comprised primarily of brilliant, emerald-green leaves as broad as palm branches, dotted here and there with tiny purple blossoms. Valerie and Order were each standing in one of the grass areas - Valerie on a path that led in two directions before forking at the northern end, and Order on a roughly spherical patch about five feet in diameter. Valerie's hand was actually resting on the edge of one of the leaves nearest the grass path, and when she realized this, she yanked her hand back with a barely-suppressed shriek. The leaf twitched in reaction, but otherwise did not move.

A gripper field. He took me to a goddamn gripper field! Gripper, she knew, was the colloquial name for a carnivorous weed that bred like a plague all across Deltora's southwest, covetting deep earth and ruining good farmland. Stepping on their broad green leaves triggered the plant to open the deep, gaping "throat" that the leaves concealed, which was lined with hollow, fang-like thorns that shredded the flesh of whatever fell in. Even if you managed to pull your limb free from the tearing, sucking hollow, the thorns injected blood-thinners into the bite... and with gashes and gouges as severe as even a single gripper bite would leave, you'd be unconscious in minutes, and dead within a few hours.

"Why are you doing this?" Valerie asked in a small, terrified voice.

Order scowled. "The very fact that you ask such a ridiculous question is proof that you do not belong. So why are you still here?" The question was punctuated by a swift forward punch at the air, and suddenly the path of grass to Valerie's right was bisected by a deep gouge in the earth. She glanced at the gouge, then at Order.

Just like with Camillia, she thought frantically. How is he doing that?

"You cannot even dodge my warning shots!" Order shouted across the barrier of grippers that divided them. "Are you so incompetent? Or do you simply refuse? Do you want to die?"

Valerie swallowed and said nothing. She couldn't move.

The Sovereign scowled at her. "Death by my hand would be a fitting end for one so foolish. This is something I can accept."

The healer blinked suddenly and frowned. Something he can -

Without another word, Order leapt into the air, spanning the gap between them easily, and Valerie scrambled away to the left in order to barely avoid the smashing kick the Sovereign landed. Without waiting for the dust to settle, Valerie stood up and sprinted down the grass path, making sure to keep the setting sun at her right. South - the road would be south, and she had to get to the road.

Behind her, she could hear Order laughing.

-o-

"The road connecting Tora to Del is your best chance to reach them in time," Barda had told her. "Toran magic speeds travel down that way, keeping the connection between east and west strong."

Monika ran as fast as her legs would carry her. Ari wheeled in the air behind her, flitting through between occasionally to keep up. Monika felt like she was flying herself - the magic of this road was truly something else, allowing her to cover hours and hours of travel in a matter of minutes - but there was no time to enjoy it. Even with something of a plan in place, she couldn't help but feel like she was running to her doom, images from their last big fight at the Eizenburn Mansion running through her mind. Order terrified her - he hit where it hurt and didn't stop, almost as though he liked seeing his victms beg. But he had taken Valerie, and no one else was available, so what choice did she have?

Suddenly, Ari appeared, wings flared, right in front of her, and Monika wheeled her arms in an attempt to not fall crashing over as she skidded to a stop. She looked around, observing the trees lining the road and what looked like an enormous field beyond them, but little else. "Is this the place?" she whispered to Ari. "Is this where they went?"

Rather than answer, the little dragon glided silently through the narrow tree barrier and landed on one of the trunks on the far side. Monika followed as quietly as she could and searched her eyes over the direction Ari indicated, squinting against the uncomfortable angle of the sun.

There was a small tremor in the ground that made her jump slightly, accompanied by a spray of dirt and a brief scream in a familiar voice. And only a few seconds later, she could see a figure with long brown hair pelting down the hillside directly towards her. She didn't look hurt - yet.

They were right, Monika thought triumphantly. We're only a few minutes behind them!

In the distance, coming up just behind Valerie, another figure that could only be Order chased after the healer - at a much more leisurely pace, though it could be called "chasing" nonetheless. And Monika realized again that she had no idea what she could possibly do to help that wouldn't be considered "interfering".

"Well... now what?" she said, more to herself than anyone.

To her surprise, someone answered.

"Now you sit tight and let me do what I do best."

Monika looked up at the sound of the voice. Perched  in a fork of the very same tree she sheltered behind was a boy, perhaps in his early twenties, with a silky mop of light brown hair, lavender eyes that sort of looked pinkish if she tilted her head right, and a pair of slim blades strapped across his back.

"Who are you?" the blonde asked with a frown.

Zero grinned down at her. "I'm the guy who's gonna save the day with a dramatic rescue of the distressing damsel. And ain't that just the biggest cliche you've ever heard of?"

-o-


Valerie nearly tripped as her mind was suddenly bombarded with images.

Wha-? Ari-

Do whatever you can to make his concentration slip! It might unlock the fandom so we could get help.

The healer blinked in surprise. How do you figure he's causing it mentally?

Wild guess, but it's the best we have.

Valerie stopped running briefly and chanced a glance backward. Order looked as though he were walking, not running, but the speed at which he was apparently travelling disagreed. The overall effect was actually quite eerie, and the healer did her best to keep her breathing steady.

But what about-

There others will be fine for now. Conservation Of Ninjutsu is in effect.

Oh thank god!

Steeling herself, Valerie took a few deep breaths, then whipped around and released four arrows in succession. At this distance, and oweing partially to the trembling of her hands, only one of the shots made contact, but Order didn't even try to bat it away. The bolt fizzled away on contact, doing no damage at all.

Shit! Now what?

"Well now," she heard Order say snidely. "Finally willing to fight me, are you?"

The goal is to surprise him, Ari said. So do something surprising!

Like what?!

Valerie scoured the area for something, anything she could use. But there were nothing but carniverous plants in every direction, and the treeline was still a good distance away. Even if she could get there before Order caught up with her - and she had no doubt in her mind that Order could catch her any time he wanted - what refuge would it offer? None.

For a split second, she felt a tickle of moving air at the back of her neck, and something very deep and instinctual screamed at her to move!, so she did, just in time to hear a faint sonic boom pass mere inches away from her right shoulder. She stared at the gash in the earth that Order's attack created, the grippers in its path sliced nearly in half and leaking clear fluid, but still straining upward, searching for food...

Without thinking, Valerie spun around and fired twice. The first energy arrow, Order batted away with ease. The second landed at the Sovereign's feet, leaving a much bigger hole that he nearly stumbled into, but caught himself and leapt lightly over it onto the next patch of pale grass.

"This irritates me," Order said as he dusted off a shoulder, and Valerie wondered if she was actually somehow getting to him before he continued, "At the mansion, your arrows at least stung a bit. Now it is as though they are nothing but a breeze."

Valerie gulped, but as the Sovereign was no longer moving towards her, she lifted her arms again and readied another arrow. Seiryu worked by using her own body as a conduit for the ambient emotional energies she naturally absorbed. Order, as uptight as he was, barely felt emotions at all, and the stray hints of superiority or annoyance he did let off did not make for powerful arrows. With little other choice, Valerie shut her eyes, this time concentrating with all her might on gathering every stray emotion within range.

Her eyes opened wide as she came across something familiar.

Wait a minute, what-?

A flurry of energy shots landed on Order and exploded on contact in a bright violet light, and they didn't come from Valerie's bow.

The healer's jaw hung loose for a moment. "You have got to be kidding me."

"Hey guys!" came a cheerful voice. "Sorry I'm late. Traffic was a nightmare."

Zero sauntered in - really, sauntered was the only word for it, with his hips canted and a smirk playing about the corners of his mouth - and hefted one blade onto his shoulder. "But seriously, a party like this, with some of my absolute faaaavorite people in the world-" (Order twitched.) "-and nobody thought to invite me?"

Valerie groaned, caught between relief and an intense urge to bang her head against the nearest wall. "Oh my god, can you be any more of a cliche??"

The clone grinned and bowed slightly. "Tis my job, miss! Not that we all haven't indulged ourselves at some point or another. Speaking of which, please don't say 'I had it under control'. I always hate it when the rescue-ee says that." It seemed he was being deliberately catty. Order's red-faced expression was bordering on apoplectic.

Valerie rolled her eyes. "Do I look like a liar to you?"

"Point. Whoa look out!" Another invisible blade of destruction had surged toward the empath out of Order's outstretched fist; Zero had picked Valerie up and pulled her out of the way just in time.

"What did I say about interference, you little traitor!" Order screeched, drawing his fist back for another attack, this time aimed at Zero himself. Zero scowled briefly and closed the distance between himself and the Sovereign in the blink of an eye.

"Hey now," he said with a fierce smirk as he knocked Order's knife of air aside, "Clearly you know I was watching, so don't pretend like I didn't hear you. You clearly said 'If any of you Society folk interferes'." Zero held out his arms in a look-at-me gesture. "Do I look like Society folk to you?"

"You are clearly no ally of mine!" Order snarled.

"You don't have allies," Zero said evenly. "Just superiors and subordinates. Forgive me if I don't want to be either."

"Then you are my enemy!" Order charged forward, feinting with one fist and hooking with the other, followed by a low, sweeping kick. Zero dodged all three motions easily, avoiding the last one with an honestly quite impressive leap, springboarding off of Order's shoulder and landing gracefully behind him.

"God, those were obvious," he commented lazily. "Has it occurred to you that you might be more flexible if you took that enormous stick out of your ass?"

"You bastard delinquent!" He charged again, faster this time, and Zero once again dodged or parried every blow, though with slightly more effort, it seemed, and he was pushed backward once again. "I will take pleasure in destroying you!"

"Yes, because that gets you off. Or do you need orders from mommy to do that, too?" The twin rapier hilts on Zero's back were suddenly (already?) in his hands, their ends lighting up in a silent hum of violet energy edged with yellow as the ethereal blades sprang to life at his command.

The battle that ensued moved faster than the eye could perceive at times. This time it was Order who closed the distance between then, opening with a variety of punches and kicks that Zero either avoided or met with his swords. Zero took every opportunity to slash and stab, using spins and circular motions to give his blows more force - the back of which Order did not hesitate to exploit. Zero only just noticed the attack on his unguarded back in time, turning the motion into a ducking roll instead and scrambling out of the way and following up with a short-range energy blast from the tip of his weapon, which sent Order skidding a short distance away, just to the very edge of the grass patch.

Valerie, who had long-since perfected the art of invisibly ninja-ing away from practically anything and was doing just that, head low to the ground and completely unnoticed, risked a glance badkward. As she turned, a silver glint caught the corner of her eye, high in the air. When she looked again, there was only blue sky, slowly darkening as the sun went lower and lower.

The beginnings of realization hit her, but Valerie shook her head clear before her tumultous questions delayed her further, and ran for the road.

Ahead, she could just make out Monika's ashen face, frantically beckoning her through the trees.

Behind, a ferocious streak of silver flame bolted down from the clouds.

-o-

Charis was working frantically at her station. Phoenixia, who had since wandered in from a mission, was helping her.

The monitor blipped, a tiny break from the regular pattern of static. Phoenixia looked up.

"Did you see that?"

Charis looked up as well. "See what?"

It blipped again. Twice. "There!" Phoenixia pointed.

In tense silence, they watched. Once. Twice. Four times. Then twice again.

"You think there's a pattern?" Charis asked.

"Maybe. If we can predict just the right moment to hammer it at its weak point..."

-o-

Zero didn't consider himself to be an expert fighter, exactly. The moves just sort of came to him, especially when he had someone on-hand to impress. Just part of being a Stu, he supposed, but any idiot could see it was a useful trait. Especially when Order was in one of his hissy fits.

"DAMN YOU!" the Sovereign shouted again as he lunged forward to punch at the empty air where Zero's head used to be. Zero didn't bother responding, but didn't stop to roll his eyes either. That one actually came rather close.

The blast of sparkling silver flame came out of nowhere and disentigrated the ground beneath their feet. Both combatants leapt reflexively into the air, away from one another and into the vibrant green leaves of the gripper plants. Zero's eyes widened as he saw the carnivorous plants approaching from below and fired half a dozen energy blasts from the tip of his sword to sear the ground mere seconds before he landed. It was not enough to kill the grippers, but it did blast the earth about a foot deep, where their "stems" narrowed considerably and he could walk on the spaces between them in relative safety. Nevertheless, the sight of the scorched ground peppered in dozens of round red "throats" that were actively writhing in pain at the loss of their upper halves was not a reassuring sight.

Order lacked Zero's quick reflexes and landed just on the edge of the grass patch, but not quite close enough. His feet were both planted solidly, but his right arm, which he had put down out of habit for balance, had plunged up to the elbow into the maw of a gripper, which immediately set about sucking the limb down further and chewing the flesh to ribbons. A sheen of sweat appeared on Order's forehead as the pain hit, and with a shakey grunt he yanked the limb free. It was not a pretty sight.

Even worse was the glare he aimed at Valerie, already an acre away, just passing through the treeline onto the road with Ari on her shoulder and Monika at her side.

A deafening screech hit them, and for a moment Zero was sure the scream came from Order, judging by the look on his face alone. But the Sovereign too looked up for the source of the sound, and gaped in genuine surprise when he saw a blinding faceted silver-white shape dive out of the sun's glare, jaws blazing.

"Forta..." Valerie whispered in awe.

The dragon of the diamond was only the size of a large horse, scarcely out of its infancy, but it was a dragon all the same, and Deltoran dragons were very protective of their land from those they deemed hostile invaders.

Zero grinned evilly, and got the hell out of the way.

-o-

Forta screamed its fury. Glittering white flames scorched the ground clear of grass and grippers alike, and only a swift kick and a slicing gust saved Order from the same fate. The residual heat came off the razed earth in waves, and for the first time, the Sovereign looked afraid.

The dragon wheeled around in the sky and turned for another pass, this time much lower. Again the blinding fire poured out of Forta's maw, blackening the earth and creating veritable shockwaves of blasting heat that even the agents could feel pushing against their backs as they ran. Again Order just barely managed to shield himself, breathless and sweating bullets from the exertion and blood loss.

"Cowardly beast," Order murmered venomously as he struggled to remain upright. "Disrespecting the rules of engagement..."

Forta turned again and pumped its wings to take it well into the sky, directly above the Sovereign. It's juvenile wings shaded the already darkened battlefield.

"Come down here before I make you-" Order hissed up at it.

The dragon dived.

The Sovereign moved.

Forta was disturbingly silent as it hit the scorched earth and didn't get up again.

Instead, it was Valerie who cried out piteously as she, too, stumbled and fell, overloaded by the striking down of a fellow dragon.

-o-

Monika moved to catch her friend, struggling under her weight and looking backward in increasing panic at Order flashstepping their way, the trail of blood from his arm giving away his next position. The Adrian-lookalike from before barrelled into the Sovereign's side out of nowhere and rolled away before he could retaliate, though not quite quick enough. With a snarl, Order executed a strange series of sharp movements, and the cutting air from his left fist slammed Zero from behind, driving him right into his blood-soaked right fist.

Zero's eyes bulged as the blow connected, and as he rolled away, curled around his soft midsection, Monika couldn't tell if the blood on his clothes was Order's or his own. Then the Sovereign turned on them.

Ari shrieked a challenge, small wings flared. Monika held Valerie tightly, swallowed her terror, and pushed.

Order stumbled as the empathic barrage hit his mind, amplifying his pain and feeding him Monika's fear. Teeth bared, he closed the gap between them. Ari was suddenly the size of a bear, but he smacked her away just as easily as the much larger diamond dragon.

And then he was lifting Valerie up by the throat with murder in his eyes.

Monika screamed -

(stained-glass windows crashing)

(fangs dripping)

(bodies littering the cold marble floor)

Order's grip on her throat relaxed as his eyes went wide in reflexive panic, and Valerie greedily sucked in air. Monika winced at the exertion, but pressed on.

Again. 

(people watch in horror as those nearest to the windows are disembowled, slaughtered, even eaten. they try to get out of the building by any means necessary - making a mad dash for the doors, slicing themselves on broken glass in an attempt to climb out through the windows, trampling those too slow to get out of their way and leaving them to the slaughter in their place)

The Sovereign made a choked sound and gripped his head with his bloodied palm, doubling over -

Again!

(one of the creatures leaps toward a girl, someone i know from school, though only by face. she doesn't even have time to scream, though i swear she attempts it through what remains of her windpipe after it tears out her throat. the monster's jaw unhinges like a snake, grotesquely wide, impossibly wide, and it begins to feast. blood sprays as it does, proof that her heart still beat, and i know that, for just a moment, she was still alive as pieces of her vanished down its maw)

Valerie slipped out of his fingers into a pile of limp limbs on the ground, and a hoarse yell escaped his throat -

Once more...!

(the screams of those i love echo around me, and i am outside, valerie pulling me by the hand into a vehicle. we are taken away, and they give chase. terrie screams as something lands hard on the roof, and the surrounding forest is set ablaze. the thick, viscous shadow in the driver's seat remains, and for once i stare into it as hard as i can. pain, pain, the shadow pushes back, snarls, cuts the wheel hard to the right, we flip, and -)

Those black eyes rolled back in his head as, for a fraction of a fraction of a second, Order blacked out.

-o-

"There it is! Now!"

-o-

Order snarled as he whipped around and immediately spotted a head of flaxen hair as its owner tumbled to the ground - still conscious, but barely, and bearing a look of abject terror in her glazed-over eyes. Valerie choked out her friend's name and tasted blood. Zero scrabbled to get his legs back under him. Ari flashed between both girls rapidly, trying anything to get them to move, to retreat. None was fast enough to intercept what happened next...

The Sovereign readied a fist and pointed it at the healer. "That's it! She dies!"

...save one.

"Librarian Art 6 - Shield of Silence!"

All sound rushed out of the world as Order's blow connected only with solid air, the shockwave creating a perfect semicircular outline of the shield. At its forefront stood Adrian the Librarian; the Library's computers had hacked their way back into the fandom at last, and he had flashstepped to their location just in time.

Other agents quickly followed suit, standing between Order and his targets. Rhia tapped the edge of a frying pan at least 18 inches across into one hand threateningly. Cristoph was just behind her, ninjato raised, while Michael mimicked his stance with his own broadsword, shadows pooling eagerly at his feet. Ben stood wide and loose, fingers itching to point nuclear winter at something. Tash alighted at Adrian's side, flaming wings of the phoenix spread, Nephethys held loosely in her hand.

"Are we done here?" she asked, quiet and casual and dangerous.

Order considered as he met her gaze, though she seemed to wobble sickeningly in his blurring vision. His head throbbed in time with his arm which, he realized, had been spraying blood all over the landscape and continued to relentlessly pump it out of his body with each passing moment. Weakness from the blood loss was catching up with him, and it was beginning to show. As though summoned by the realization, one of Order's knees buckled without warning; he held himself upright, but only barely.

Tash nodded. "I think we're done," she said, and lifted Nephethys high. "Jurai-ken-"

Order was gone, plotholed away, before the strike hit.

-o-

The diamond dragon, it turned out, had razed more of the ground than suspected, and the number of plants it actually landed on were few. Those grippers that remained found the beast far too broad and tough to properly bite into. Forta bled a great deal whilst unconscious, but was not seriously hurt, and flew away without much difficulty once it realized the evil in its land was gone.

Valerie simply lay down for a long time, eyes closed, putting her mind and emotions back in order and trying not to cry from relief.

Adrian leaned down to offer her a hand. "Well done," he said as he pulled her shakily upright.

Valerie closed her eyes. Praise was the last thing she deserved. "It was Monika," she said hoarsely, rubbing her bruised throat. "She's the one who took him down."

"What?" came a shaky voice. The blonde in question had awakened, and shaking just a bit in obvious relief. "All I did was get here in time, and then..." She trailed off, eyes unfocused, before snapping upright again. "But you're safe, right? We won?"

Valerie and Adrian exchanged a glance, and the healer sagged against his shoulder. "Just..." she said finally, "You deserve the credit for this one. It couldn't have happened without you."

Michael opened up a plothole. "We'd better get to the others and finish the cleanup," he said.

One by one, the leaders and agents stepped through. As Valerie was about to follow suit, she remembered something, and glanced around hurriedly.

But of course, Zero was already gone.

-o-

Enough agents were dispatched through the newly opened plotholes to dispatch the remaining Usurped in the Os-Mine Hills, though not without considerable difficulty. It took three Scene Transitions, a Plot Device, and a blast from the Canon Cannon to get rid of most of them.

The dragon of the topaz had handily eaten the rest.

Camillia Anastasia Jessica Zara Chipatatwe'e Jenkins-Walnut was found - still in three pieces - and placed in a body bag for transport out of the fandom.

"Who is that?" Lief asked, eying the parody sue with a curious expression.

It took a long while before the healer answered. "Just someone who got caught in the crossfire of someone else's war," she answered finally. To Adrian, she added in a soft voice, "Someone should contact Camillia's author and tell him what happened."

The Librarian nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

Valerie nodded, looking away, then turned back around. "Oh! Lief, before I go, I wanted to ask you something. Marilen is your heir because she is your nearest relative on your father's side, right?"

"Yes," the king replied. It was common knowledge, after all.

"Okay. But did you ever consider the full implications of the Tale of the Masked Ones, from Josef's book?" Lief tilted his head, so Valerie continued, "If Bede is decended from Ballum, as Josef suspected, and Ballum was the brother of Adin's great-great-grandson, then would that not make Bede your nearest cousin instead of Marilen?"

The positively dumbstruck look on the king's face told the healer that he had not considered that at all. Valerie couldn't help but snicker as she opened a plothole.

"Just something to think about," she said with a grin, and stepped through.

-o-

Back at the Library, Monika was practically bent double laughing. "Is that really true?" she asked between breaths.

Valerie chuckled. "It might be that Lief's choice of an heir is taken into account. Goodness knows Bede would make a terrible king, even if he isn't a prissy ladykiller anymore. But it was never even addressed in canon, and I just wanted to bring it up. It would've been bizarre if Lief had died in the underworld in series two, and the Belt never shone for Marilen no matter how long she wore it." The healer stretched upward and yawned. "But he has kids in the end, so it's all moot point now, I guess."

Terrie rolled her eyes with a smile. "You think about things waaaay too much, Val," she said, and stepped out of the monitor room, probably off to her own rooms to take a nap. One by one, the others followed, until only Valerie and Monika were left in the room.

"So..." Monika said after a long pause. "You gonna tell me who that guy was?"

Valerie bit her lip. "...No," she said softly.

Monika nodded. "Okay then. I get it."

Valerie closed her eyes tightly. "Please understand, Mon, it's not a matter of-"

The blonde took her friend's shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile. "No, seriously, it's alright if you don't want to. He helped us, and that should be good enough."

"I will tell you someday," said the empath firmly. "I promise."

Monika smiled. "I know."

-o-

Some time later...

"You're sure about this?" Adrian asked soberly. "You don't know if he'll come after you again. He caused a big enough mess here; maybe Runoa'll rein him in. Hell, maybe he'll go back to hunting Silri for a while. That's possible, isn't it?"

Valerie did not smile. "The nature of chaos is multiple things happening at once," she said. "Order... isn't capable of that."

The Librarian regarded her with a critical eye. "Good to know you appreciate the gravity of what you're asking," he quipped, with an expression Valerie supposed was meant to be forbidding. She did her best anyway to pretend she didn't know exactly what he was feeling and why. "So I'm going to be equally serious when I say: I don't need my best healer putting herself in the line of fire. That is not a tactically sound choice to make."

"I sort of think I don't really have a choice this time," Valerie said, without expression.

"No," he agreed softly. "You don't."

Insert Unexpected Frienemy Here (part 1 of 2)

The robotic dummy popped in front of them quiet unexpectedly.

"Whhhat... is thy name?" it asked in a raspy and bizarrely shrill voice.

The two girls before it exchanged confused glances. They had walked this hallway many times before, as it was the shortest path from the bedrooms to the briefing room (they had been summoned there for an assignment), but there had never been anything like this there before. A little confused, but nonetheless compliant, the blonde girl took a tentative step forward and said, "I'm Stacey, and she's Danielle. Is there something you wanted from us?" It was possible this was a lifeform from one of the stories after all. It had been known to happen.

Either that or Adrian had been quicker in setting up new traps around his cookie stashes than any of them expected.

The dummy ignored her. "Whhhat... is thy quest?" it rasped at them.

Stacey glanced at the redhead behind her with a shrug, and Danielle simply looked bemused. Our quest? she thought. That's what we're going to the briefing room to find out, isn't it? "To rid the multiverse of anomalies that disrupt canon storylines and characterizations, and keep things on their intended course," the blonde replied after a bit of thought. "Now, seriously - can we get by now?"

"Whhhat... is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

"African or European?" Stacey immediately asked. She had spent too many movie nights with Terrie not to know this one.

"European," the dummy replied, sounding smug.

The blonde opened her mouth and shut it again, then turned to her friend with another shrug. Danielle simply rolled her eyes and whipped out her trusty iPhone. After a few moments of tapping rapidly on its screen, she replied, "Eleven meters per second, or twenty-four miles per hour, give or take."

The dummy was silent for a moment, and abruptly began convulsing and throwing off sparks at its joints. Obviously it had not expected this answer. The girls watched this for about a minute before it finally collapsed in a shuddering heap, its digitized voice muttering something about Assirya before finally falling silent.

Danielle smiled. "And there was much rejoicing."

line

Insert Rockin' Season 2 Theme Here

line

"This is mine; I totally call it!"

Danielle and Stacey had barely walked into the briefing room before their ears were assaulted by their team leader's uncharacteristically loud voice. Valerie was leaning upwards in her seat with her hand as high in the air as it would go, looking for all the world like an overeager third grader. Which was actually more common an occurance than most would think, given her personality.

The girls shrugged as they moved to sit by their teammates. Apparently they were going on assignment, although lord knew what fandom it was to get Valerie this excited about it.

"Deltora Quest," Monika whispered to them when they arrived (Terrie was too busy absently throwing ninja stars in the air to notice them). "Michael's going over the list of transgressions now. So far it's mostly pairing issues - she's moved canon love interests around in order to get at the main character - but there are also issues with timeline. For example, she somehow has the Pirran Pipe in her posession, and her backstory says that she was one of the Shadowlands prisoners rescued in series 2. She's also very friendly with the dragons and has the ability to sense Ols, even Grade 3's."

"Which would completely screw up the Dain sequence, if I recall correctly," Stacey muttered.

Monika nodded. "Not to mention most of the rest of the plot. In addition, she's broken up and reshuffled multiple established pairings, including-"

"JARDA?" came an unexpected screech to their left. Damn, who knew Valerie's voice could get that high-pitched when she wasn't practicing Phantom of the Opera? "You're telling me this Sue is causing freaking JARDA?!"

Michael, who was starting to look nervous in the face of this uncharacteristically irate woman, commented, "Well, if you look at the fanfiction archives, pairing Jarred and Barda really isn't all that uncommon..."

"I don't care! It's still stupid! Not to mention chronologically impossible. Which Jarred are they referring to, anyway: Doom or Endon?"

Danielle rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the spoiler, Val..."

Michael flipped through the file. "Um... Doom, I think. Apparently the Sue got him to come to terms with his past, so he's going by his original name again now..."

There was a pause. "Okay, that does it," Valerie said. "Stace, go down to the wardrobe and get jackets with secure hoods for everybody. Michael, give me the file."

He complied, and Valerie motioned for the rest of her team to follow her out the door. "Try not to get into too much trouble?" the Chief Agent called after them.

"Aw, relax," Ben said, leaning back in his chair. "It's a routine mission. What could possibly go wrong?"

The last thing the team heard as Valerie closed the office door was the sound of the ever-present Shirley the Cliche Stick descending on her partner with a roar.

-o-

The land of Deltora, despite its overabundance of monsters that seemed tailor-made to kill humans, was a beautiful place. Though the world was made up mostly of island chains, Deltora occupied the southern half of the planet's only continent.  In the south was the country's capital, Del city, home to the royal line of the first king, Adin. In the west was Del's sister city, Tora, where dwelt the greatest sorcorers and spell-weavers the world has ever known, and whose sandy shores were both bountiful and deadly to the unwary. To the east lay the unparalleled mystery of the Forests of Silence, and many diverse cultures dotted both the coast and further inland.  The fertile plains of Deltora's heartland were more abundant than ever before in the country's history. Even the craggy and borderline inhospitible mountains to the north were at peace, because the evil Shadowlord had finally been driven back by the magic of the legendary Belt of Deltora.

Except... none of that was supposed to have happened yet, as it was less than a month into Lief's reign as king.

Let me explain. Apparently there was one Shadowlands prisoner named Camillia Anastasia Jessica Zara Chipatatwe'e Jenkins-Walnut who somehow managed to convince the Shadow Lord that she would work for him (despite the fact that said Shadow Lord has about a hundred ways of spotting lies, and even more ways to make you do what he wants anyway, willing or not) and got herself released as a "companion" for Dain. This was used mostly as an excuse for the author to fangirl over the series' resident bishounen, but eventually this fic developed a bit more plot. When Dain met his end at the hands of the good guys, Camillia did not reappear until after Lief was revealed as the hidden heir to the throne and the Shadow Lord was banished from the land with the magic of the fabled Belt of Deltora.

She finally approached Lief during one of his trips to the forge and told him everything she knew - and, being a Mary-Sue, what she knew was considerable, and threw the entire storyline off-track. She had already made friends with the Pirran tribes of the underground seas, and was able to reunite them and repair the Pirran Pipe with very little effort. Once the rest of the Shadowland prisoners were freed, the Pirrans insisted that she keep the Pipe (what?), which she used to destroy three of the Four Sisters without the help of the not-yet-awakened dragons (what?!) with her amazing musical talent and beautiful singing voice. She left the western Sister in place in order to keep the Shadow Lord's final trap from springing - with the Bone Point Lighthouse restored, they could rely on foreign trade for the time being - but somehow released Doran from his curse anyway, without causing said release to kill him (what?!?)

She did all this in the time it took Lief to trace Adin's bloodline down to Marilen. It was discovered at the same time that Camillia was the next heir after Marilen. Really, who would have expected that?

(coughsarcasmcough)

But in between doing all the quests the actual heroes were supposed to be doing, Camillia was also hard at work in fixing character flaws. In addition to convincing Doom to go by his real name, she also caused Barda to become inexplicably attracted to him, despite the fact that the two barely knew each other and at this point only grudgingly trusted one another... not to mention that Barda already had a canon love interest in Lindal. She also brougnt Tira seemingly out of nowhere and paired her up with Jasmine, and miraculously erased all of the former's shyness and all of the latter's cynacism and impatience. That way, the was was clear for Camillia herself to move in on Lief as the pair of them set out to awaken Deltora's last dragons (for no particular reason other than because), on what was sure to be a comfortable and romantic trip...

"I swear to god," Valerie muttered to herself as she and her team exited the plothole into the fandom, "what is the point of making an AU like this anyway? The story was perfect exactly as it was!" The plothole had dropped them off on the outskirts of Del, just inside the gates.

Stacey shrugged as she touched down. "I guess someone disagreed." She was only partially familiar with the fandom, as was Monika. Valerie was the only one of the group to have read the entire sprawling fifteen-book epic. The rest had little opinion on the matter beyond a natural dislike of the canon-warping effects of Mary-Sues. As they followed the healer into the bustling main part of the city, Stacey leaned over to Terrie and asked, "You don't think this fandom is her Berserk Button, do you?"

The shorter brunette chuckled. "Stace, trust me when I say none of us have seen Valerie when she's really mad. Whatever her Berserk Button is, this ain't it."

A passing citizen, a female in a brown cotton dress carrying a basket of corn, gave Terrie an odd glance as she passed, then hurried onward as though afraid to stick around. "...the heck was that about?" Terrie muttered.

The odd behavior did not escape Valerie's notice, and her eyes widened when she realized her rmistake. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Guys, guys! There are some ground rules we need to cover before we go anywhere in this fandom." The group of five paused and ducked into an unused allyway.

"So... what's the plan, boss?" Danielle asked when they were safely tucked away.

The healer clapped her hands together and grinned. "Right. Rule number one: never use contractions when you speak here, or you will get funny looks from people. Only mooks like Grey Guards and pirates use contractions, and I imagine you do not want to be mistaken for one of them."

The redhead blinked. "Bizarre, but okay."

Terrie simply rolled her eyes. "What about how we're dressed?" she asked. "I noticed that chick back there wasn't exactly modern..."

"Deltora is diverse enough that we will not be noticed," Valerie explained. "Unless you somehow manage to get in trouble with palace guards, I doubt too many difficult questions will arise. Now, rule number two: if you see a dragon, under no circumstances are you to let it see your hair. That's what we brought the hoodies for. Dragons in this world like to use human hair to line their nests, so keep your heads covered."

Stacey subconsciously covered her head with her arms. She rather liked her hair.

"Anything else?" the leader asked.

"Yeah," said Terrie, raising her hand slightly. "What's the actual plan?"

Valerie put a hand to her chin in thought and was silent.

"You mean you don't have one?!" Danielle exclaimed. This was actually new; it was pretty rare that their team leader didn't have some idea of what she was doing...

"I do, I do!" she quickly replied. "It is just a little bit complicated, what with the way magic works around here. So..." she paused a moment. "Okay, this is what we need: Monika, you head into Del and see if you can slap a copyright on Jasmine or Barda. You remember what they look like, right?" The books never went into too much detail on their appearances, but with positions like their's it would be hard to miss them.

The tall blonde nodded. "Any particular reason?" she asked.

"Yeah, this is a routine collection," Stacey put in. "Camillia doesn't - does not," she corrected herself (At least someone's making an effort! thought Valerie), "seem that dangerous. Pretty much the only things she has done here is take credit for others' heroics and shuffle the pairings around."

The taller blonde nodded in agreement. "This is a textbook parole case. All we need to do is pick her up."

"Yes, but we also need to get Lief outside of her range of influence," the healer explained. "So far Camillia has not actually taken the Belt of Deltora from him, but I do not want to risk her thinking of the idea when we corner her. We could Copyright Lief, sure, but there is a real chance that the magic of the Belt will actually keep the sticker from working properly. Same with prohibiters, should Camillia get it in her head to put the Belt on herself."

Danielle whistled. "That's some powerful magic."

"Powerful defensive magic," Valerie clarified. "Even if she gets her hands on it, she should not prove more of a fight than she would normally—a tad stronger and smarter, probably, and maybe a bit luckier, if she knows how to use the gems properly—but we still should not take the chance."

Monika nodded. "I getcha. We Copyright Lief's closest friends, and they help him get out from under the Sue's spell if Copyrighting him doesn't - does not - work."

"Exactly," the healer grinned at her friend. "Now, the suefic left off so far with Lief and Camillia going off to find and awaken Deltora's last dragons. Lief already knows there is a dragon under the Os-Mine Hills, so that is where the rest of us are going. Meet us there once you have found Barda and Jasmine." She winced. "Cannonically, it is a two-day journey from Del to the Hills. Now the only question is how to get there in two parties, with canon characters in tow..." She bit her lip, wondering how this was going to work.

"You could probably use a Scene Transition to cut travel time," Danielle suggested. "It has only ever been used for dangerous situations, but I do not see why they should be limited to that..."

"Except that time would still pass, for them and everyone else," Terrie interrupted. "They just would not remember it until later. And it would not help Monika catch up with us either."

The five exchanged glances as they tried to think of a solution, but noneThe woods to either side of the steep, sloping path were lush and green, but also dark, due to the thick canopy caused by the vine-weaver birds overhead. It was that very canopy that caused the layers of forest the Hills were so famous for in the first place, because—

"Whoa, whoa!" Terrie exclaimed, suddenly stopping in her tracks. "What the heck was that all about?!"

"What was what about?" Ezra asked from her position at the front. She was crouched down and looking for footprints and other signs of passage.

"That... that skip thing that just happened! We were trying to think of a way to get everyone where they needed to go, when suddenly the narration skipped over to describing the scenery of the Os-Mine Hills because here we are!"

The other three girls—for there were only four of them there now; Monika was gone, presumably still in Del—looked around and blinked in confusion. Danielle turned to Valerie. "Did you use a Scene Transition?" she asked.

The healer glanced down at her toolbelt. Her emergency Scene Transition was still hooked there, the lights decorating its surface dull and unactivated. "Nope."

"Then how did we get here?" Stacey reappeared to ask. "For that matter, how did Ezra and I switch places without us noticing? If Terrie had not pointed it out..."

Valerie bit her lip in thought. The whole thing felt like a Scene Transition had activated, but no memory of the interceding time flooded to her mind. Was there any interceding time at all? It simply seemed natural to be where they were, at least until the inconsistency was pointed out to them. The Sue must be warping the fandom even harder than I thought... "Let's just keep going," she said finally, forgetting her own grammar rules in her nervousness. "Monika knows what her job is, she will be fine. We have a job to do too." After a moment, she turned to her remaining comerades and clapped her hands in anticipation. "After all, finding the topaz dragon will not be easy!"

"Wait, we're looking for the dragon?" asked Stacey, covering her head once more.

"Duh," the healer replied as she strode down the forest path once more. "Camillia and Lief are looking for the dragon, so that is our best bet to find them." No one could mistake the excited grin on her face, and even Ari, who was sitting quietly on Valerie's shoulder, seemed to shake her head in amusement.

"Dragons, huh?" Danielle said to her comerades as they followed their excited leader. "No wonder. I haven't seen her this hyped since she got back from the Dragonriders of Pern fandom..."

Terrie rubbed her brow in an attempt to look exasperated, although Valerie's enthusiasm was nonetheless infectious. "As long as she doesn't try to take one home with us. That's all I ask."

-o-

Lief of Del followed the path Camillia made on the little-used game trail, unconciously rubbing the back of his head and trying to look anywhere but at her. That by itself was difficult, however, as the girl was extrordinarily pretty - she had flawless skin the color of rich earth, high cheekbones, and a proud, pointed chin. Her eyes seemed to change color with her moods (they were a startling, icy blue when he first met her, but had since softened to a dark mauve), and her long, thick hair was a blinding cacophany of forest colors that shifted and rippled when she moved.

Of course, as long as they were in the Hills, they were always moving, it was only safe. Even though they paused rather frequently to admire the scenery in strategically unsafe places, or to have brief, idyllic picnics that somehow contained more food than the two could have logically carried with them even on horseback, let alone on foot.

Lief frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose. Thinking of all the tiny ways Camilla made strange things happen always gave him a headache—not to mention made the Belt grow uncomfortably warm—but with all of Barda's training drummed into his head, it was hard not to.

Focus on the mission, he thought to himself. We are looking for the dragons. That is the only way to... To do what again?

He could not remember. The Four Sisters were nearly gone, and the final trap left unsprung, so what where the dragons needed for? How do we even know there is a dragon in these hills anyway? Neither of us has been here before...

"Is everything alright, Lief?"

Camillia's melodious voice broke into his thoughts, and Lief could not help but smile as he nodded in reply, his headache gone. Camillia has proven her loyalty to the kingdom and to me many times over. There is no need to jump at shadows.

Camillia smiled radiantly in response and, with a jerk of her head and a swish of her effervescent hair, continued jauntily down the forest path.

Lief, meanwhile, frowned again in thought. Was there not something that must be done before they encounter a dragon? Something about her hair...

-o-

Monika whipped through the city at a breakneck pace, not because there was any terrible emergency (although sooner was indeed better, but not drastically so), but because she could. Running was something she enjoyed, and her long legs made her good at it without even trying. In fact, along with her gift of persuasion, Monika would bet money that her speed was a primary reason Valerie had sent her back this way. Well, that and, ever since the team leader was getting proficient with Seiryu, Monika was actually the member of their team who was least prepared for battle now.

Finding her way was not at all difficult. The palace was situated on a hill and clearly visible from all directions, and though the city streets were complicated and maze-like, she ran into no dead ends.

At the palace itself, the front gates were thrown open wide, due to this being a supposed time of peace. No one gave her any trouble as she dashed inside the courtyard, probably thinking her to be a messenger of some sort. At the door of the palace itself, however, she was stopped, though not distrutingly. Monika gave the guards her name and told them what she was doing there—that she had been sent to deliver a message via the messenger birds. The guards hesitated, but let her through, and someone inside gave her directions to the room where the birds were kept. Easy, she thought to herself.

The moment she walked in, however, Monika found herself pinned to the wall with a knife at her throat by a girl nearly half her size. "Who are you?" the girl said through a small snarl. "No one is allowed into the bird room unless accompanied by Sharn, the king, Barda, or myself."

Monika immediately recognized the piercing green eyes and untamed tumble of black curls as Jasmine, and clearly her exposure to a Sue had done nothing to dull the wild girl's reflexes, or her overly suspicious nature. Valerie did say she was protective of these birds... "My name is Monika," she said quickly, trying not to betray her nervousness. Understandable nervousness, mind—the last time anyone held anything reasonably dangerous to her neck, it was during a mandatory combat training exercise for the Society, and the object in question was blunt and made of wood. "I am here because I was looking for you, Jasmine. You and Barda. The king is in danger."

Jasmine did not move, although her grip on her dagger did relax slightly. "Lief is on a tour of the kingdom," she said blandly, reciting the usual public excuse for when Deltora's only defense against the forces of darkness, aka Lief, did something moderately dangerous. "He is accompanied by a troop of guards and Lady Camillia. What harm could possibly befall him?"

"There are no guards," Monika replied tightly, "and Camillia is not to be trusted. If you would give me but a moment, I can prove it to you."

The wild girl made no move in reply, so Monika took that as a tenative yes. Slowly, and with exaggerated care to show that she held no weapon, the tall blonde pulled a Copyright sticker out of her back pocket and affixed it to Jasmine's upper arm.

In an instant, her green eyes widened in sudden clarity, surprise, and finally anger. She released Monika from her grip, but did not put her knife away. "What is this magic?" she demanded harshly. "I have remembered... so many things..."

"I merely lifted the spell Camillia had set over your eyes," Monika replied steadily, exerting as much trustworthiness as she could manage. "If you could lead me to Barda and your father, I can do the same for them."

"Barda and Doom..." she said quietly, before a surprised and faintly disturbed look came to her face as her memories of what had been happening clashed with her regained knowledge of what was supposed to happen. "Oh, that is just—wait, no. No! That is not possible, it does not make any sense!"

Monika patted the smaller girl's shoulder in sympathy. From what she understood of the series, kissing and other more demonstrative forms of affection were never shown, so this would be doubly bizarre for Jasmine to accept. "I know. Trust me, it was never meant to happen. But we can put everything to rights if we—"

"No, that is not what I meant," Jasmine interrupted, shrugging the blonde's hand off. "Doom is not here. He left months ago to explore the wildlands, and to discover more about the dragons' abilities and history."

"The dragons'... abilities..." Monika repeated slowly. The information tickled some thought in the back of her mind, some memory of something Valerie had once said about the end of the Deltora Quest series, and combined with the suddenly-regained memory of her teammates being suddenly gone - not vanished, just gone - and finding herself running through the city... and then she nearly facepalmed as the realization hit her. Oh, come on! Seriously?! She sighed. "We need to find Barda, and we need to find my friends. They went on ahead to catch up with Lief and Camillia. I just hope we are not too late..."

-o-

"I hope we're not too late..." Terrie mused as they followed Stacey's blonde head through the thick foliage. Ezra was a reasonably good tracker, and had found the game trail the duo had been using, but other than that, there had been no sign of either their quarry or the elusive dragon.

"I hope we do not run into a pack of Granuous," Valerie muttered in reply.

"Grano-what?"

"A rather sadistic race of miniature Yetis," said the leader. "They are actually not that much of a challenge, but they have become rather adept at catching their victims by surprise. Their idea of fun is psychological torture and slow dismemberment."

The shorter brunette turned to give Valerie a look. "And this is a kids' series?"

"And the poster-child for the Defanged Horrors trope," Valerie said with a small laugh.

Ezra whipped around to shush them all. "We're getting close," she said quietly. "I haven't seen signs of a rest stop for a while, so they should be stopping again soo—waah!"

The warrior suddenly vanished, fallen down the side of an unseen (and unexpectedly steep) slope, and before her teammates could stop themselves, they found themselves tumbling down the hillside as well. After a comically long and bouncy fall, the four landed in a confused and uncomfortable heap at the bottom.

"Well," Danielle groaned, "That was anti-climactic."

"Oh shut up," Ezra replied.

"Um... pardon me," asked a light tenor, "Who are you all? What are you doing in the Hills?"

Valerie looked up. Just ahead of them, walking out into the clearing they had fallen into, were a pair of travelers. The female of the two was stunning and exotic and commanded all of her attention, but Valerie forced herself to focus on the male. He had a youthful face and was a couple inches below average height, giving the appearance of being younger than he was. His clothes were simple, for traveling, but nonetheless of fine make. But what was of particular interest to the healer was the way his shirt was hastily untucked, as though to cover something around his waist from unwanted eyes. Even more interesting, from this angle Valerie could see the lines of scar tissue circling his neck and part of his jawline.

Untangling herself from her friends, the healer stood up and introduced herself. "I am Valerie," she said with a smile. "What is your name?"

The boy blinked once. "Lewin," he replied.

Bingo, Valerie thought. Lewin was one of the names Lief sometimes went by when travelling incognito. This boy was obviously the king, which made the woman the Sue they were looking for. She looked around hastily, wondering where Monika could be, or if she had succeeded in her task. But with the sudden warp in the narration from earlier, it was hard to tell. She could be anywhere. The healer considered her options.

Even without Barda or Jasmine to keep Lief under control, the four of us should be more than a match for the two of them. Lief isn't even fully trained as a swordsman, but even if he was, he's too nice a guy to actually try to kill anyone... unless Camillia's more powerful than her folder indicated, but unless Monika shows up in the next ten seconds, I'm not seeing much in the way of options here...

Making her decision, Valerie signalled her by-then-untangled friends behind her back, and they complied by moving to encircle the clearing. She could see Lief tense up with suspicion and move his hand towards the hilt of his sword, though Camillia merely tilted her head in confusion.

"Camillia Anastasia Jessica Zara Chipatatwe'e Jenkins-Walnut," the healer said in a clear voice, "For unlisensed disruption of the canon timeline, fandom warping, and multiple counts of uncharacterized romances, you are hereby under arrest by the Anti-Cliche and Mary-Sue Elimination Society." Ezra flash-stepped right up behind the surprised Sue and promptly cuffed her with a Prohibiter.

Lief whirled around, eyes wide. "Camillia!" he cried, drawing his sword to defend the girl. Terrie and Danielle both moved to block the young king, while Valerie reached for her plothole generator to get them all back to the Library. However, Camillia interrupted them all with a loud, lilting laugh.

"Hahahaha!" The Sue was nearly bent double with amusement, and everyone else in the clearing paused to look on in surprise. "Seriously?" Camillia asked, still giggling. "Is this really what's going on here?" She ignored the startled looks from everyone. "Wow, if I thought I stood a chance of the Society coming after me, I would've been a bit more obnoxious to try and make it worth your time. I mean, come on!"

Valerie was about to speak when another voice rang through the clearing.

"Val!" The healer whipped around to see a familiar blonde head running through the trees with two others in tow - Jasmine and Barda, the latter of which only barely keeping pace. "Valerie," Monika said breathlessly as she arrived. "The Sue. She's not what you think she is."

"No freaking kidding," Camillia laughed, casually shaking her wrist and dropping the Prohibitor - which refused to stay locked - onto the forest floor. "Come on, Miss Valerie," the Sue said, looking right at the team leader, "I hear you're smart. Use your brain. The Prohibitor, by definition, prohibits characters from using their powers in a manner not dictated by their author or another nearby Power attempting to assume control of a failed story. But this Prohibitor doesn't seem to be working on me, because there's nothing to work on. Do you know why?"

Danielle frowned. "So that means... she's not outside of her author's control?"

"Can't be," Terrie argued. "The Society has dealt with the creations of rogue authors before, and the Prohibitors worked fine. She wouldn't fall outside of the definitions of a Mary-Sue unless..."

Valerie's eyes suddenly widened as comprehension dawned. "Unless..."

"She's a Parody Sue," Monika explained. "Created with exaggerated Sue traits in order to exemplify what not to do, without actually doing it."

"What do you mean, 'without actually doing it'?" Stacey asked.

"Everything that has happened in this series," Camillia said gently, as though explaining something to a particularly slow child, "has already happened the way it's supposed to. Deltora Quest is over. The only thing I've altered here is their memory of what's happened. I planted a silly little Mary-Sue story in their minds to show readers what the series would look like as a Sue-fic, and why that would be a bad thing. I mean jeez, would you want to read a story that turns out like this?"

"They thought Doom was in the palace," Monika said, gesturing to Jasmine and Barda, who were currently attempting to explain the situation to their bewildered king. "But as soon as I copyrighted them, they remembered that Doom was actually travelling around the country studying dragons, who are, by the way, already awakened, just like canon says they're supposed to be."

"Well what about that weird transition that happened?" Terrie asked stubbornly, crossing her arms. "A couple of days gone, just like that."

"That's just an effect of my author's writing style," Camillia said, rolling her eyes. "He never uses scene breaks. He says he only does it for parody purposes, but I've seen his regular stories, and he does it there too. I keep telling him to change it, but does he ever listen to little old me?"

"We felt it too, on the way up here," Monika offered. "Or at least, I did. The characters seemed to view it as normal passing of time, just like a Scene Transition is for us. And I guess it is just a scene transition for them..."

"Listen," Camillia interjected, striding forward to face the team leader. "I really am sorry about the confusion. I thought the parody aspect of the story was pretty clear, but if it's not, you can take it up with my author. He's a bit of a troll sometimes, but he really does just want to make people laugh. And I promise, he in no way supports the Jarda pairing." Camillia laughed a bit - high-pitched and nasally, now that she wasn't in her overly-perfect Mary-Sue persona - and extended her hand. "No hard feelings?"

Valerie smiled, extended her hand in return... and grasped onto empty air, because Camillia's hand was no longer there to shake. The Parody Sue looked in faint surprise at the stump where the rest of her arm used to be. "What...?"

And then Camillia's head was rolling on the forest floor.

Seiryu sprung instantly into life, and everyone else in the clearing immediately drew their weapons as well. "What the fuck was that?!" Danielle shouted.

"Such vulgarity..." The newcomer drawled from beyond the treeline in a voice that all of the Society members recognized all too well - the beating he'd handed all five of them at Eizenburn Mansion was not one they'd soon forget. "Not that I would expect any better from the likes of you," Order smirked as he walked calmly into view.

Ezra reacted first, leaping so high into the air that Valerie swore she was utilizing her ki to achieve near-flight and descending on the Sovereign with a roar. Order casually raised a hand, his fist connected with Ezra's powerful kick... and then Ezra was flying again, this time so hard into a tree trunk that the wood cracked and splintered.

The remaining agents took a collective step back.

Order glanced around at them all. "None of you are my concern at this time," he said. "I am not here on official business. I merely wish to speak privately to the healer."

Valerie scowled, trying to look anywhere except at the decapitated body on the ground. Had Order done that to her? How?? "Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of my friends," she said darkly.

The Sovereign merely chuckled. "You misunderstand me. Obviously there is nothing that needs to be said between us; I am merely curious. You held back when last we fought. I cannot fathom why you would, but now I wonder how you would fight if you did not have these so-called friends," he spoke the word with a sneer, "to distract you."

No one spoke, no one moved. For a moment, Valerie was mildly saddened by that, but she put it out of her mind. This isn't a fucking fairy tale, goddammit. Of course they're scared. That's why they look to me. The clear, cold logic of it did not stop the trembling in her knees, or the apprehension in her heart.

"And by 'friends'," Order continued, "I include the little shapeshifting demon on your shoulder. Do not think I do not know that she is hiding in your hair, waiting to strike when I least suspect it."

Ari slithered out from hiding and flared her wings, hissing a challenge at the Sovereign, and Valerie was momentarily comforted.

Order leveled a glare directly at the little dragon. "Believe me, familiar. If any one of you Society folk attempts to interfere, I will kill her immediately."

"You'll kill her anyway!" Terrie shouted, only to be cut off as Order flash-stepped to her location and handed the short brunette a swift punch to the gut that left her doubled over in pain. Monika raced over to her injured friend's side, and Danielle took the momentary distraction to duck behind a tree.

"Do not overstep your bounds, child," Order snarled. "It impedes propriety." He quickly regained his composure and addressed Valerie once again. "So what will it be? I have already chosen the perfect location for--stubborn little-!"

Ezra, whom they all thought was still unconscious, had instead been building up her ki into a significant enough blast, directed right at the Sovereign. At the same moment, Valerie unleashed a hail of energy arrows while Ari grew to roughly five times her previous size and dive-bombed him repeatedly. Lief, Barda, and Jasmine could only watch, astounded, as the scuffle quickly escalated with such otherworldly magic they couldn't even begin to comprehend. Danielle retreated further into the woods, tapping furiously first at her standard-issue Society communicator, and then at her iPhone, biting back a growl of frustration and terror and praying she wouldn't be noticed.

Order stood as the dust cleared, a slight furrowing of his brows the only indication that anything had even happened at all. "So this is how it is going to be. Then let me put this in terms you can understand."

Without another word, without even a gesture, plotholes opened all around them, all over the Hills. From the swirling rainbow portals came misshapen, gray-tinged figures by the dozens. Initially, Lief would have taken them for Grey Guards just from the way they moved - sure, deliberate actions that bespoke a total lack of fear, lack of any emotion whatsoever - but the washed-out, colorless creatures that appeared otherwise had nothing in common with one another. Different shapes, different sizes, different degrees to which they might be recognized as having once had a human body.

The characters did not recognize the creatures, but the Agents did. They had last been seen in such numbers back at the Eizenburn mansion during Aster's rescue. They had sprung from a contextual trap Runoa had laid, but Valerie's first sight of one of them was moments before the explosives loaded into its corpse went off. Two things had occurred to her then: that the creature might not have been able to tell whether it was dead yet, and that that fact was probably the most horrifying thing about it.

Runoa had called these things the Usurped. Failed Sovereign candidates who were sacrificed in the name of perfecting the Immaculation process, and now only existed as drones.

Danielle glanced back one more time, finished programming her plothole generator, and then opened a portal of her own and dropped her ringing iPhone through.

Order chuckled darkly. "Now let me ask again. Valerie. I would speak with you privately. The longer our conversation takes, the longer your 'friends' will have to deal with my 'friends'. You do not have the option to refuse me, nor can you send a message to your superiors. This is the way of things."

Before anyone had the chance to react, Order flash-stepped toward Valerie, effortlessly knocked Ari aside, and suddenly the two of them were astride one of the larger Usurped, one with a misshapen beak jutting from its face and two pairs of enormous feathery wings. The creature took flight on the Sovereign's command, speeding westward and out of sight before anyone could even blink.

A split-second later, the remaining Usurped attacked.

-o-

A slight sound drifted past Cristoph's ear. It was barely audible, and he likely would not have noticed it at all, were he not attempting to meditate in one of the unused areas of the Library.

The ninja cracked an eyelid, already annoyed. He was used to tuning out the sounds of turning pages, snatches of conversation, or the slams and clangs of various agents training. On occassion, he had even had to tune out Sues and Stus snapping at each other and at whatever Agent was on guard duty at the time. Cristoph prided himself on being able to meditate pretty much anywhere, under nearly any circumstances if the need called for it.

And yet something about this sound - it was a musical tune of some sort, he was certain of that - was so grating, so piercing, it just threw off his entire mindset. With a grumble, Cristoph disentangled himself and rose to his feet. After a moment of careful listening, he started down the hallway in search of the source of the noise.

Sticking to the shadows as was his habit, Cristoph quickly drew closer to the source of his irritation. When he arrived at an abandoned hallway - one actually often-used, though not at this time of day - he knew it had to be here somewhere. That sound was grating, nearly painful to listen to!

Scant moments later, he found it: someone's iPhone, smack in the middle of the floor, playing a musical ringtone at full volume over and over... though "music" was a term that could only barely be applied to what was coming out of the machine's speakers.

"Ain't got a care in the world, but got plenty of beer.
Ain't got no money in my pocket, but I'm already here.
And now the dudes are lining up 'cause they hear we got swagger,
But we kick 'em to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger."

Cristoph looked at the device incredulously. "Who the hell is Key-Dollar-Sign-Ha?"

Shaking his head, he poked at the iPhone's interface to turn off the offensive noise. Apparently the iPhone was on its ringtone test setting? But what for, and why in the middle of nowhere?

As soon as the setting was canceled and the music thankfully died away, another screen popped up - the one that was already active beneath the setting change. It was an unsent text message.

----deltora quest. fandom sealed off. sovereign attack. order.----

Cristoph's eyes widened, and he bolted off in search of a leader.