Insert Random Scream of Pain Here (part 5 of 5)

Ben let his body go slack, hoping he could cushion the blow and protect Bella as much as he could from the falling rock. Suddenly, there was a whoosh of air and a crushing sound. Ben looked up to see Asasca standing over them, sword drawn with stone fragments raining down around them harmlessly.

"Can't have you dying on me," Asasca smirked. "All my hard work would go to waste."

Ben opened his mouth to say something, but Asasca cut him off, holding out his Plothole Generator. "This one has the safeguards removed." He explained.

Ben decided to save the questions for later and grabbed the Generator from Asasca. Firing, he threw himself and Bella through the resulting portal. Both winced as they hit the floor of the Library Arcanium and were thrust from the darkness of the cave into light.

Ben got to his feet slowly, his head slightly spinning.

"Are you OK?" He asked as he helped Bella to her feet. "I think so," She replied, looking around. "But..."

Ben followed her gaze to see Tyler and Pete sitting on a nearby couch, both with Xbox controllers in hand.

"Bella, get behind me." Ben said urgently as Pete and Tyler got to their feet, eyeing the two as one would a wild animal.

"Ben?" A voice gasped behind him. He spun to see Tash with a confused, slightly fearful look on her face. "What are you-?" She blinked. "Is that Bella?"

Ben opened his mouth. "I-"

"I thought you killed her!"

"Tash-"

"Ben, look out!"

Ben turned at Bella's warning just in time to take a kick to the head from Pete's Darkhopper form. The blow knocked him back against a wall and when his vision cleared, he saw a black fist rushing towards him. He ducked and Pete's fist slammed straight through the wall where his head had been seconds before.

Pete pulled his fist back for another blow, only to find a crouching Ben with a finger pointed straight at him.

"Um...Ben?" Bella called uncertainly as she kept an energized palm on Tyler and Tash each.

"Tash," Ben said calmly, keeping his eye and finger fixed on Pete. "Believe me when I say this isn't what it looks like."

"Then what is it supposed to look like?" Tash demanded, keeping her own gaze on Bella. "First you try to nuke everybody, then you show up here again with a Mary-Sue who's supposed to be dead! What is going on here, Ben?"

Ben gritted his teeth. "I-"

Pete, sensing hesitation, slammed his knee into the crouching Ben's face, sending him sprawling.

"Ben!" Bella shouted, taking her gaze off Tash.

Tyler, following Pete's lead, fired a spell at Bella. The magic blast knocked her into Tash who quickly restrained her.

"Nice work, Tyler!" Tash said as he started forward, Prohibitor in hand.

Ben saw what Tyler was trying to do and started to get to his feet, only to have Pete knock him down again.

"Looks like it's light's out for you, traitor." Pete growled, pulling back a fist for another strike.

Ben squeezed eyes shut and braced himself for the blow.

"Enough!" Adrian's voice ripped through the air as he and the rest of the strike force walked in, with Asasca and Shirley tagging along behind them. Shirley looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"Tash, let her go." Adrian said to the blonde leader. "And you too, Pete."

"But, Adrian-!" Pete objected as Tash released the Sue.

"Just do it!" Adrian cut him off. "There's been a... development."

Ben got to his feet slowly, touching his face gingerly.

"Your nose is bleeding." Adrian noted.

Ben dabbed at his nostrils and groaned as his fingers came away stained with blood. "Not again..."

"C'mon, let's get you to Valerie." Adrian said. "You can explain everything there."

"You're coming too!" He said to Asasca. "You've got your share of explaining to do as well."

Asasca donned his innocent face again.

Adrian turned to everyone else. "The rest of you round everyone up for a meeting. There's another matter we're going to have to deal with..."

-

Valerie was stocking the Society's pharmacy of painkillers and other assorted medical paraphernalia when the group walked in.

She turned around, blinking in surprise when she spotted Ben.

"Ben?" She asked, confused. "What are you-" Then she spotted Bella, and her eyes widened. "Bella? What is going on here?"

"That's what were wondering ourselves." Adrian said, folding his arms. "We got part of the story from Shirley, but there's still a lot Ben needs to tell us."

Ben sat down on one of the beds with Bella next to him. He grasped the Sue's hand in his own, took a deep breath and began to speak as Valerie went to work on his nose.

"And that's what happened." Ben finished, not meeting anyones gaze.

The words had barely left his mouth when a loud *SMACK!* sounded through the room and his head was snapped to one side.

"Woah! Tash!" Adrian exclaimed as he pulled Tash back from Ben, a red palm print plastered across his face.

"What is wrong with you!" Tash raged. "Why didn't you tell us what was going on? If you'd just been honest with us from the very start we might've avoided all of this!"

"Sorry..." Ben muttered, rubbing his face where Tash had slapped him.

"You should be!" Tash barked, shrugging Adrian's restraining hand off. "God, do you have any idea how worried everyone was? Jared was agonizing over what he would do if he had to fight you! Karissa looks up to you, how do you think she felt during all of this? Not to mention that you terrified poor Emily half to death when you and Repiv held her hostage!"

"Settle down, Tash." Valerie said soothingly as Ben stared blankly at the floor. "Ben did make some foolish decisions, but everything turned out all right in the end, didn't it?"

Tash snorted and folded her arms, still angry.

"There's something I'm still wondering about, Ben," Valerie said, turning to face the guitarist. "I can understand why you didn't come to us when you first defeated Bella, but why didn't you say anything when Neb kidnapped her?"

"Because... I wasn't sure if you would care." Ben said sullenly.

Tash let out an outraged squeak and started towards Ben again, only to be restrained by Adrian.

"Easy, Tash..." he said placating.

"You weren't sure if we'd care?" Tash demanded. "You weren't sure if we'd care!"

"If I'd told you," Ben protested. "You would've-"

"We would've done everything in our power to help both you and Bella." Adrian replied calmly. "If we're going to win this war, we have to be willing to help, and trust each other!"

"You're forgetting something, Ben," Valerie put in. "We don't want to just capture or kill the Sues, we're trying to reform them. We want them to give up their powers and live normally as characters, and from what I've heard, Bella already did that voluntarily when she lived the the world you made for her."

Bella looked at the healer hopefully as Ben nodded thoughtfully. Then something occured to him.

"How did you know where to find us?" He asked, turning to Adrian. "Even I had no clue where we were!"

"That was my fault." Tash explained. "Valerie came to me a little after Repiv joined. She had noticed you were acting strangely and was concerned about you. I was worried too, so I had Camille install a tracker in Bahamut while she was working on it."

"We were able to track you right from the get-go once you left." Adrian agreed. "Of course we got lost in those caves for what seemed like forever. We finally managed to find Shirley and she pointed us to you."

"I see..."

"So is that it, then?" Valerie asked, looking around. "Has everything been cleared up?"

"Not entirely," Ben said, turning to face Asasca. His character was leaning in a corner behind them, watching the entire exchange with a silent, confident smile.

"What role did you play in all of this?" Ben asked.

"What role did I play?" Asasca smirked, pushing himself off the wall and walking towards them. "You should be asking what role didn't I play?"

"What do you mean?" Ben asked warily.

"Who do you think told Neb where to find you in the Pendragon fandom? Or how to get into the mansion in your imagination? Or even where Bella's little world was?"

"That was you?" Ben gaped.

That was all me!" Asasca corrected.

"But why?" Ben sputtered. "Revenge for being locked up in the Vault of Abandoned Ideas?"

Asasca shrugged. "Not entirely. That part was a lie."

Ben frowned. "So how did you-"

"When you started your transition to fanfiction," Asasca cut in. "I saw all your favorite characters vanishing one by one from your imagination, all bound for the Vault. The fact that I was your absolute favorite character prevented me from being consigned to the Vault too quickly, but I knew it was only a matter of time. So, I used the power you had granted me to escape. I wandered the Multiverse for a while, instigating a few minor rebellions here and there and doing some sightseeing. That was when I encountered the Sues. As time went on, I met more and more of them and it became more and more apparent to me that if they were allowed to take over the Multiverse, it would become a dull, lifeless place, free from any excitement or originality." Asasca rolled his eyes. "And to someone like me, that would be unimaginably boring."

"So you did this purely out of selfish motivations." Adrian accused.

Asasca shrugged, unashamed. "When I found you again, Ben, you were already dedicated to fighting the Sues. That was one part of my job done, so then it was time for me to do what I did best. I had to make you as powerful as you could possibly become. Since you were a self-insert and thus, an author, you were immune to my usual forms of empowerment, so I had to...adapt." He smiled condescendingly at Ben. "And I must say, this little scheme of mine was one of the most enjoyable I've had in a long time."

Asasca began to pace back and forth like a lecturer as he continued. "I told Neb how to find you in Pendragonin the hopes that when faced with an adversary of his level, you would rise to the occasion and find the power to defeat him. Unfortunately, you didn't and you had to be rescued by your little friends." Asasca raised an eyebrow. "Apparently your own life isn't very precious to you."

"Hanging around with Shirley will do that to you." Ben replied dryly, keeping his eyes on Asasca.

Asasca continued. "I reasoned that if your life wasn't very important to you, then the life of your loved ones would be. So I showed Neb the way into your imagination and sent him after Deebs in order to lure you to the Megaman fandom. Unfortunately, you remained in the real world as a NetOperator as your friends fought for the life of your daughter in your place. Not very chivalrous, I'm afraid." He said mockingly to his creator.

Ben ignored the taunt and continued to meet Asasca's gaze levelly.

"I searched long and hard to find the solution to your particular problem, Ben. And the answer," He pointed at Bella. "Was her."

"Me?" Bella asked incredulously.

"Since I was a former character of Ben's and by far one of his most powerful, it was easy to slip back inside his mind. I searched Ben's imagination for a long time, looking for something I could use as an incentive. Imagine my happy surprise when I realized that you were still alive! You were the perfect bait, and with you I could finally move ahead with my plans."

He turned back to Ben." "I cut you off from your friends using Repiv and took something precious from you with Neb. And then," Asasca smiled triumphantly. "You had something do die for."

He flopped onto a nearby chair, crossing his legs and lacing his hands behind his head as he continued. "In the end, you in spectacular style. I especially liked the way you tore off Neb's arm."

"Well you know me," Ben muttered sarcastically. "I'm all about style."

Asasca showed his condescending smile again. "Quite."

"But what about Neb and Repiv?" Tash frowned. "Repiv was-"

"Repiv was a bungler." Asasca scoffed. "I purposely assigned him a task which was far beyond his abilities, knowing that when he failed he would grab at anything he could to keep himself afloat, dragging it down with him. And in his case, the only thing he had to grab onto was Ben."

"How did you get Repiv andgo follow your orders in the first place?" Adrian asked.

"I discovered Repiv on the edge of a Role-Playing fandom," Asasca explained. "Of course then he was known as Viper. His creator had grown disgusted with him and abandoned him. He was on the edge of being consigned to the Vault of Abandoned Ideas when I offered him an out, which he wisely took. And since he owed me a life debt, he did anything I told him to without question. So I changed his name to Repiv and sent him to the Protection Society, whom I was already on good terms with."

"You were on good terms with them?" Ben asked skeptically. "How did that happen?"

"I was the one who gave them Neb."

"What?"

Asasca laughed. "I know what you're thinking. 'Why would you do that?', right?"

Ben said nothing, but agreement was written all over his face.

"When I was pondering over how to unlock your true potential," Asasca told him. "I decided that the best way to do it was to confront you with a foe who was: A. Extremely powerful and B. Had some personal link to you. And what enemy is more personal than yourself?"

"But how did you find him?" Ben asked.

"Easy, I just used some of the powers you so generously gave me and hopped over to his alternate dimension to track him down."

"But how did you get him to go along with your plans? Neb wasn't exactly the type to take orders from anyone."

Asasca smirked. "You're going to love this. Neb wanted even more power than what he already had, and I told him that if he destroyed you, then your power would be added to his."

"He would be The One?" Ben asked dryly.

Asasca flashed his condescending smile and shrugged in fake modesty. "At any rate, my plan has succeeded. You have now reached the apex of your strength, Ben. You've become as powerful as it is possible for you to become."

He stood and dusted off his armor. "And with that, my job here is done. If I could have my Plothole Generator back..."

"Hey!" Tash protested. "You can't just-"

"Let him go." Adrian said as Ben handed Asasca the Generator. "Who knows? He could prove useful later on down the road."

"Where are you going?" Ben asked as Asasca opened a plothole. Asasca turned back to his author, still smiling condescendingly.

"You should know the answer to that, Ben."

Ben nodded as his greatest creation vanished into the Multiverse. "Wherever the wind takes you..."

Nobody said anything for a long time. Ben continued to stare at the place where Asasca had vanished, a contemplative look on his face.

"Well, that's one issue taken care of." Adrian said at last, breaking the silence. "Now there's just one other detail to deal with."

Adrian's words had brought Ben back to reality. "And what would that be?" He asked, though he had a sinking feeling he already knew.

"Deciding what to do with her." Adrian said, nodding towards Bella.

Ben's eyes hardened and he gave Bella's hand a reassuring squeeze as she gravitated closer to him.

"Come on." Adrian said, walking out with Tash close behind him.

Ben stood silently. Bella followed suit, giving a pleading look towards Valerie who gave her a reassuring smile.
"Don't worry." She mouthed to the Sue. Bella wasn't convinced,

-

Shirley and the rest had done their job well. The entire Society was gathered in one of the commons area and there was a chorus of gasps and questions when Ben and Bella walked in.

"Ben? What's he-?"

"Hey, isn't that-?"

"I thought she was dead!"

Adrian held up his hands for quiet and the buzz quickly died down. He gave everyone a quick synopsis of what had happened and why Ben had done what he did, though he skipped over the parts with Asasca.

"The question now is, what are we going to do with Bella?" Adrian asked. "If it were just up to me, I would make the decision in a heart-beat. But the Library is no longer only my home, it is yours too, and as such, I leave the decision up to you." With that he sat down.

There was silence for a long moment.

"Should we really just let a Mary-Sue just walk right into the Society like that?" Michael asked uncomfortably.

"Why not?" Aster challened. "We let Emily in, didn't we?"

"Emily's powers as a Sue hadn't fully developed yet." Drake said. "We're talking about a fully developed Mary-Sue here. How do we know we can trust her?"

"Weren't you listening?" Karissa demanded. "Bella willingly gave up her powers at one point!"

"Bella isn't a bad person." Valerie put in. "All she wanted to do was help people, she just went about it in the wrong way."

"OK, fair enough." Christoph conceded. "But what about Lord Ben? I mean, fraternizing with the enemy? Why isn't he in bigger trouble over all of this?"

"Ben's a self-insert just like most of us here," Tash said. "He's subject to fan urges just like the rest of us, and I should know!"

"Which brings us back to Bella." Valerie said. "We can't throw her in jail because that wouldn't be fair. We can't just let her go because the Protection Society will be after her. And I'm sure by now they've told the rest of the Sues about what Bella did, so what else are we supposed to do?"

The healer turned to Adrian. "I know you said this isn't your decision, Adrian. but how do you feel about all of this?"

Adrian turned to look at Bella for a long moment. "Ben was willing to die for her." He said at last. "That's enough for me."

Nobody could think of how to argue with that.

"But how do we know we can trust her?" Marcus asked at last.

"Oh, for the love of God," Charis groaned. She had been pulled away from an important experiment for this and was impatient to get back to work. "If you're that worried about her, why don't you just Permanently Prohibit her?"

There was a pause. "Is that even possible?" Ben asked at last.

"You've been an Agent for how long and you still don't know these things?" Charis asked disbelievingly.

Ben shrugged. "I've only ever used one other gadget besides my Plothole Generator and I wasn't even writing that part of the story!"

Immediately there was a rumble and the sound of things breaking. Adrian groaned. "He hasn't even been back for an hour and he's already at it again!"

"Just what is Permanent Prohibition anyway?" Tash asked, ignoring Adrian.

Charis shrugged. "At the moment, it's still a prototype. I was just working on it a second ago myself. It's a new type of Prohibitor. It works in the same way as regular Prohibition, except it releases magic that's absorbed through the skin. After about two hours have passed, any and all Sueish powers or traits will be gone. Forever." Charis cast an appeasing eye over Bella. "This would be the perfect opportunity to test it."

Ben frowned. "If this thing works so great, why haven't you used it on the Sues in the basement yet?"

Charis looked uncomfortable. "Mostly because it has to be voluntary."

"Why?"

"Because compared to a regular Prohibitor, a Permanent Prohibitor is extremely easy to take off."

Ben frowned. "I don't think-"

"Ben," Bella said quietly. "It's all right. I was thinking about what you said in Buso Renkin and you're right." She looked at her hand. "If all these powers are going to do is hurt people, then I don't want them anymore." She looked up at Charis. "If it's the only way I can stay with Ben, then, I'll do it."

"Bella..."

"We were separated once before." Bella said, meeting Ben's gaze. "I don't want us ever to be apart again."

Ben still looked concerned.

"I'll be fine." Bella reassured him. "This won't do anything else to me, right?"

Charis shook her head. "All it will do is block off any Sue-ish traits in you. Anything else about you will be unchanged."

The rest of the Society began to murmur amongst themselves Camille left to go get the prototype.

Jared walked up to Ben and Bella, grinning with relief. "You did it for love, huh Ben?" He asked. "That sounds like the type of stupid thing you'd do."

Ben returned the grin. "Sorry to put you through all of that." He frowned. "You look pale. You OK?"

Jared shook his head. "A lot happened while you were gone. I'll tell you about it later. By the way, there's someone who wants to talk to you."

Ben frowned. "Who?"

"Me."

Ben turned to see Shirley, looking very miserable.

"I'm sorry, Ben!" She said in a rush. "But I had to tell Adrian what was going on or else they'd keep on thinking you were a traitor and attack you so-"

"Shirley, Shirley!" Ben cut her off, laughing. "It's OK, girl. I don't blame you. You did what you had to do. No hard feelings."

Shirley looked hopeful. "So... I'm forgiven then?"

Ben grinned. "Yeah, you're forgiven."
"Good! Then I can add your larynx to my collection for making me worry like that!" The Cliche Stick roared, lunging forward.

Ben stumbled and fell backwards in shock as Shirley loomed over him. "This is for nearly nuking me!" Shirley hissed, raising one clawed hand, when a hand clamped down on her shoulder.

"Hey, twiggy!" Bella snapped. "Hands off my boyfriend!"

"Your boyfriend?" Shirley whirled to face the Sue. "As I recall you nearly ended up killing him at least a dozen different times!"

"Oh, yeah? And how many times have you nearly killed him?"

Ben could only sit on the floor, stunned, watching the two females bicker.

"You know, Ben," Jared muttered to his friend. "Shirley may be cool, Bella may be hot, but right now I wouldn't be in your position for the world."

"You sure about that?" Ben asked nervously. "Because I'm pretty sure I could make a world or two for you."

"WHAT WAS THAT?" Bella and Shirley shouted, both whirling on Ben.

"Meep..."

-

Ekard and Relyt stood before a shadowy figure in a dark room.

"We've failed you, Sir. We have no excuse." Relyt apologized, his head bowed.

"No matter," The figure sighed. "It would've been nice to have the Fandom Stabilizer for our own, but que sera sera. It appears we broke even in this particular venture."

"Broke even?" Relyt asked. "We lost Neb!"

The figure made a dismissive gesture. "Neb was always too obsessed with Ben to ever really be an asset. I should be thanking Ben for ridding us of some useless baggage."

Ekard and Relyt shared a glance. "So then what do we do next?" Ekard asked.

"Now?" The figure asked. "Now we wait."

-

"Well, here we are." Ben said, opening the door to Bella's room and flipping on the light. He stood in the doorway as she walked in and observed her new quarters.

"It's not much." Ben admitted. "It's pretty bare, but all the girls volunteered to donate some stuff. You know, so you can girl the place up a little. I did manage to wrangle you a room next to mine though."

"I see." Bella said softly, keeping her back to Ben, the Prohibitor on her wrist glinting slightly. "So, that's it? They're letting me stay here just like that?"

"I talked with Adrian and Tash while you were being Prohibited." Ben said, leaning against the doorjamb. "You will have some restrictions placed on you, but they're pretty much just going through the motions. In addition to your Prohibiting, you won't be allowed outside the Library without an escort of another agent, plus you're banned from the basement where we keep the other-" Ben caught himself. "-The Sues. They also want you to study up on Sue theory so you can take the test we give to potential Agents. That way you have a legitimate claim to be here. But I figure those things shouldn't be a big deal."

"No..." Bella said quietly. "I guess not..."

Ben frowned. "Is everything all right?"

"I guess I'm just a little tired," Bella said, rubbing her wrist where the Prohibitor rested. "It feels like this thing's sapping my energy."

"That's not it," Ben said, walking forward into the room, stopping a few feet behind Bella. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, it's just..." Bella stared off into space, her back still to Ben. "When I first escaped from my Author's control all I saw was misery and pain in the fandoms I visited, and I wanted to save them from that. But you ended up showing me that wasn't right. You gave me a place where I could learn what it meant to be human, and you rescued me from the Protection Society and I..."

"You what?" Ben asked gently.

"I'm looking around at all of this. Everything you've done for me. All these allowances Tash and Adrian have made just for me, and I'm wondering...why? Why me? Why did you choose to help me? Why did you...just why?" Her voice was soft and her back was to Ben, but he could hear the quaver in her voice.

"I saved you because you were worth saving." Ben said softly, moving closer. "I gave you your own world because I wanted you to experience all the joys and sorrows of mortality that I do. I brought you here because I want to give you your own wings and watch you fly with them. I saw something in you during our battle in Buso Renkin and I don't want anyone to take that away."

"But how do you know you're not feeling this way just because I'm a Sue?" Bella asked, turning to face him. "Tash said you were susceptible to fan urges! How do you know you're not just feeling that and as soon as this Prohibitor goes into effect you'll start to hate me again?" She asked, holding up the wrist the Prohibitor was attached to.

"Bella." Ben said gently, placing his hands on her shoulders. "I never hated you! Is that what you're worried about? That our love is a lie?"

Bella couldn't look at Ben, fixing her gaze on the floor instead.

Ben took a deep breath.

"Listen," he said. "Before I came to visit you and this whole fiasco started, I had a talk with Aster. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I was wondering the same thing myself. I was unsure if I was really in love with you or your powers. But Aster said something that made me stop and think. She said: 'If you can't trust those you care for, who can you trust?"

Ben crooked a finger under Bella's chin, raising her head back up. The Mary-Sue's eyes were brimming with tears and shone with fear as she met the Society Agent's gentle gaze.

"We can't let doubts plague us." Ben said softly. "We've come too far to let little things like that get in the way. I love you, Bella."

He lowered his head to meet hers and their lips gently pressed together. A single tear escaped from Bella's eye and slid down her cheek.

"But how do you know?" Bella whispered insistently, her eyes still closed.

Ben pointed at the clock.

"It's been two hours."

Bella opened her eyes and stared into Ben's face for a moment longer before bursting into tears.

Ben gently wrapped his arms around her shaking form and tucked her head under his chin, inhaling the gentle scent of her hair.

"Welcome home, Bella."

Insert Places Where No Man Has Gone Before Here

Jared and Chloe were running for their lives through the Library Arcanium.

They had come in the night.

Due to the fact Adrian did not need to sleep, he had managed to sound the alarm indicating the library was under attack. But even with the advance warning half of the Society had fallen before any resistance could be formed.

The air was very humid and ambient green light was seen everywhere. Sparks of electricity would occasionally burst and light up the room, emanating from various mechanical elements of the Library. Toppled bookshelves and broken furniture lay everywhere.

"Faster Chloe," Jared urged. "If we can just make it to my tech lab we can use Chevila to escape!" He said, hoping it was true.

"But what about all our friends?" Chloe sobbed. "Did you see what happened to Tash! We have to do something!"

"I'm sure most of them made it to Adrian's panic room." Jared replied. "It's already been put under lockdown so it's too late for us to try to get in. There's nobody left in the library that we can help or receive help from, I'm not even sure we can help ourselves! The only thing we can do right now is escape to the safest fandom possible, maybe we could contact someone like Doug's author and form a rescue force of some kind."

When Jared and Chloe rounded the corner they saw what they both had been hoping to avoid. Several mechanical beings stood in the hall blocking their progress.

"We are the Borg, You're existence as you know it is over. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." The voice came from from every drone, speaking in unison. Jared and Chloe froze at the sudden shock of seeing the beings responsible for the destruction all around them. Chloe recovered her senses first.

"Assimilate this you Borg piece of trash!" She yelled. "Enchanto!" She summoned her shield while charging at the drones, blades extending from the edges of the shield at her touch. At first it looked like she was going to very easily defeat them as her bladed weapon cut down one Borg after another. But after a couple of blows the Borg adapted to the physical assault and she bounced right off of some kind of shielding around the drone she had lunged at.

"Techtonic Shift!" Jared yelled, stomping the ground. The ground shook and the Borg all lost their balance.
Jared's earth powers were much weaker when he didn't actually have any earth to send his waves through, but they still worked. Jared took this opportunity to cut and run, pulling Chloe along by her arm. With the ramp to the science hall cut off, he was going to have to detour by using the stairs by Charis' lab.

Jared and Chloe ran into the kitchen; going way out of their way in hopes of avoiding more drones. Unfortunately they had underestimated the sheer number of drones constantly pouring in through the Library's shattered defenses. They ran smack dab in the middle of several drones busy breaking down the kitchen appliances into raw material.

They began to say"Resistance is futile" but they never got past "fut" because Jared suddenly unleashed everything he had into the room with a shout of "Magnitude 10!" causing every cabinet to splinter, every table to blow apart and every appliance to explode.

The drones fell, either dead or crippled. Dust filled the air. Jared had to stop and rest after releasing such a powerful burst. It was five minutes before he felt like he could move again. They ran through the doorway to the kitchen when a drone they hadn't spotted before before reached out and grabbed Chloe, tubes shooting out of its arm and puncturing her neck. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell to the ground with a weak cry of "Jared..."

Jared kept running, scared almost senseless, he couldn't bear to look back and see his fallen partner. There was nothing he could do to help her, she would become one of them now. Jared promised to himself that he was going to come back, and he would bring everything he could with him. The Borg would pay for this he swore, trying to do everything he could keep himself from falling over and having a nervous breakdown right in the middle of the Library's periodical section.

When he finally got to his tech lab and flung open the door he gasped in horror. The lab was indistinguishable from the interior of a Borg vessel. Several drones were regenerating in alcoves that had recently been put into the walls, including...

"NO!"

Adrian, Harriet, Emily, Tash, Tyler, Drake, Aster and Doug all in various states of Borg assimilation stepped out of their regeneration alcoves with a brief metallic whirring sound.

The Librarian opened his eyes. "Society Agent, designation: Jared. I am Locutus of Borg. My purpose is to facilitate the assimilation of this establishment. Resistance is futile!" Said Adrian, although "Adrian" Maybe wasn't the correct descriptive term anymore...

Jared collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor, sobbing.

It was over. The Borg had assimilated the freakin' Librarian! The strongest member of the society! What was Jared supposed to do? Chevila was nowhere to be seen, probably assimilated or broken down into raw material by now.

Jared wondered what life as a drone would be like, not even having a sense of individual identity to call his own, all his knowledge being ripped from him and being stored on a Borg server somewhere. Well, he had tried to go get help, he had tried to escape. But hey, in the end what you've tried to do doesn't really make any difference at all if you don't succeed in doing it, oh well that's life.

Adrian grabbed the shaking agent by the shoulder and pulled him to his feet, tubes shooting out of his right arm and latching onto Jared's neck, injecting their nanoprobes...

-

"NNNNNNOOOOOOOOO!"

Everybody at the mission briefing jumped, turning to look at Jared.

He opened his eyes and frowned. The entire side of his face felt moist, probably because he was lying in a puddle of his own drool. He apologized profusely, sitting up. He had never fallen asleep during a mission briefing before. He blamed it on the pain medication Valerie had given him for his cracked ribs.
Tash shot him a disapproving glare.

"Well if everybody here is finished napping I suppose we can continue..." The de facto leader said. "As I was just saying, a Level 6 Sue has been detected in the Star Trek: The Next Generation fandom. Normally I would send only the more experienced agents into a fandom like this, but with the current manhunt for Ben going on, we don't have any to spare."

Jared looked around the briefing room. He hated to say it, but Tash was right, new agents and rookies were the only ones present. Most, like Jared, had only a few missions if any under their belt, some of them weren't even full agents yet.

Jared frowned. He couldn't believe Ben would have done something like this.

After he had heard the explosion he and Chloe had come running, by the time they had arrived on the scene all the action was over. Adrian had already formed his expedition team and was preparing to leave. According to Adrian's report, Ben had supposedly been a double agent, and that he and Repiv had supposedly gone rogue and attempted to break into the Room Of Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Jared couldn't believe it, he and Ben were good friends and he might have been a goof, but he had a hard time wrapping his head around the idea that Ben was a backstabber.

To make matters worse, somebody had broken into Jared's sub-lab. Jared had no way of knowing what had been stolen seeing as the whole placed had been trashed and set on fire, so there was several items Jared had no way of accounting for, and this made Jared very worried...

Dave nudged Jared with his elbow. "Pay attention!" He whispered.

"Sorry, I was busy listening to the recitation of the current plot." Jared said.

From somewhere off in the library there was a deep rumble and the sound of snapping wood.

Tash went on as if nothing happened, she was entirely too stressed out to deal with forth wall breakages at the moment.

"-and that brings me to my next point... for some reason we can't get clear reading of what is going on in the fandom at the moment due to problems with the monitors. Charis has informed me that the problem is probably due to sabotage by the double-agent Repiv, or possibly Ben. But from what information we gathered before the network went down the Sue is currently in somewhere in the pre-Nemesis, post-Generations story arc, meaning that the fandom is going to be based around the adventures of the Enterprise-E, not the Enterprise-D. Who here is the most familiar with this part of the series?"

All around the room the rookies and novices murmured amongst themselves. They had all stopped following the series after Generations because Paramount had had the nerve to kill off Captain Kirk. Jared raised his hand and arched an eyebrow.

"Given my knowledge of the area in question, I believe that I am the most logical choice for the mission." Jared said, using the exact same vocal inflections that a Vulcan would. Chloe rolled her eyes.

Tash was skeptical. "What about your ribs?" She asked, alluding to the fact that Jared had been badly injured by a vampire on his last mission just a few hours before.

Jared brushed it off. "I doubt there will be much action in this fandom, I doubt the Sue could offer much more resistance than a phaser fight, and a phaser won't do her much good if I blow up the ground underneath her."

"Alright." Tash said. "Get going, just remember we won't be able to monitor you. Use your communicator if you should require assistance."

-

Chloe and Jared looked at themselves in Chevila's rear view mirror, both were wearing Federation uniforms. In order to blend in unnoticed in the fandom they didn't try to assume any rank higher than Ensign.

Jared and Chloe both gave themselves satisfied nods and opened the truck's doors, Chloe paused before she got in.

"Jared, why did you put a decal of the Society logo on the door?"

Jared growled. "Tyler! He had to key my door, I couldn't find the right shade of navy blue paint anywhere in the entire library to fix it, so I had to just cover it up."

Chloe laughed.

"Mr. Chekov, set a course for the Next Generation fandom, warp factor 2." Chloe said, doing her best to sound like William Shatner.

Jared laughed, then assumed an unconvincing Russian accent. "Aye aye captain, course layed in!"

"Excellent, engage."

With that, Jared coaxed the truck to life and went cruising down the runway of his lab. Like always he flipped a lever that controlled the plothole generator when he was halfway down and they were suddenly in a very dark room. Jared could vaguely make out the shapes of objects in darkness, he put on the brakes and brought the truck to a stop. In the background Jared could hear the low rumble of warp engines.

-

Somewhere in transformational space a guy with messy brown hair wearing carpenter jeans and a brown leather jacket over a red shirt and a light haired women dressed in tight black clothing and covered in barbwire tattoos were lugging a strange contraption labeled "Flux Capacitor -do not remove" down a winding corridor made of blue rock towards and idling Toyota Camry.

"You know Deraj, Asasca is going to kill you when he notices you stole this thing." Said the woman.

"Not stealing Eolhc, borrowing." Deraj said. "And further more, what Asasca doesn't know will not hurt him. My Sue Storm project is more important than that little science fair project of his anyway."

"I'm sure High Command would disagree..." Said Eolhc.

"Duh, why did you think I didn't tell them." Deraj said with a smile as he and Eloch lugged the device into the car's trunk. They were just about to go and rejoin the others when a device on Deraj's wrist started making a beeping noise.

"Oh! It seems my counter-part is taking the bait I set out for him, I'm sure two less people guarding the phantom table setter or whatever that thing is won't make a difference." Deraj said, shutting off the beeping. "Hop in Toyotanya, let's go catch us our test subject."

-

"I can't see anything" Chloe said.

"I can fix that." Jared said. He clapped his hands and Chevila's headlights sprang to life.

Chloe looked at Jared. "You installed a Clapper in your truck?"

Jared shrugged. "Hey, I was bored." Chloe rolled her eyes.

The two of them got out and began to look around.

Jared could tell by their surroundings they were obviously in the main shuttle bay of the U.S.S. Enterprise, but what astounded him was the complete disarray that it was in. Debris lay all over the place. There were numerous hull breaches, but thankfully emergency force fields were in place that kept he and his partner from being sucked out into space. Several barrels of Federation rations lay overturned. It looked like someone had been trying to load a shuttle with supplies, but obviously whoever it was had not finished the job.

"This is all wrong." Jared said, looking grim. "This ship looks like it's gone through numerous battles, but the Dominion War should be over during this time period. I'm going to call Tash, this may be more than the two of us can handle."

Jared tapped his communicator, which had been modified to look and function like a federation com-badge.
"Jared to Tash." All Jared got in reply was white noise. He looked confused.

"There appears to be a heavy magnetic footprint of some kind here, it's interfering with our communicators." Said Chloe.

"And Chevila's plot hole generator won't recharge for another 10 minutes, looks like we're on our own." Jared added.

"Well, let's go find an access panel, maybe it will tell us whats going on." Chloe said.

Jared had a nagging feeling about the magnetic field, but couldn't put his finger on why exactly. They tried to leave the shuttle bay, but found the doors were non-functional.

Jared used his Boomhammer to make them functional.

After he had blown the doors down he realized that toting a sledgehammer and a sword aboard a federation starship was not the best way to go unnoticed. Regrettably, he and Chloe left their weapons in Chevila's cab, and Jared turned the truck off and killed the lights with a clap.

Darkness once again dominated the shuttle bay.

Chloe and Jared began to walk down the corridor, red emergency lights were the only thing that provided them with light of any kind. They were having to push aside debris from collapsed bulkheads and doorways as they progressed, at several points they had to turn back when they ran into severly damaged areas of the ship that were sealed off. Eventually they managed to find an access panel, unfortunately for them the main computer was offline and they couldn't get any information out of it.

"We're going to have to go to the bridge." Said Jared. Chloe agreed.

They took the nearest functional turbolift to the bridge. When they got out, the first thing they noticed was that the bridge wasn't much better off than the shuttle bay. The next thing they noticed was that Captain Jean Luc Picard was just finishing a Captian's log, his voice sounding heavy like someone who had not had much sleep lately.

"-with the fall of Earth, the war effort looks bleak, I'm afraid that they will not stop until all humanity is erased from existence, the Enterprise is currently in a state of disrepair, and we are currently on our way to rendezvous with the 42nd Fleet, or rather what remains of it after the battle of Vulcan, to make what might be considered the Federation's last stand. End log recording."

Jared froze. What force could possibly drive the Federation to near extinction? The only race with even close to that amount of power was... Jared suddenly realized the significance of the magnetic footprint.

He began to speak. "Chloe! We have to get out of here now! I know what's going on here and we don't stand a chance! We have to leave before..."

Commander Data suddenly interrupted him by turning to Picard. "Captain, enemy vessel detected, time to intercept, 2 minutes. The vessel didn't appear on our sensors until it was almost on top of us!"

"On Screen!" Shouted the captain. Jared's fears were confirmed when a vessel shaped like a perfect cube appeared on the viewscreen.

"Red Alert! All hands to battle stations!" Yelled Commander Riker. The bridge was suddenly bathed in red light and sirens filled the air, crewmen all over the bridge sprung to sudden life as consoles suddenly brought up displays indicating shield strength, hull integrity and weapons status. Jared gave them all a quick glance, the Enterprise was clearly not in optimal fighting condition. Jared doubted that this battle would have a pleasant outcome.

"Captain! The Borg are hailing us, audio only!" Data said.

The bridge speakers came to life with the typical Borg mantra. "You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."

Jared and Chloe got back in the turbolift, heading straight for the deck that Chevila was on. If they could just get to the truck they might have a chance to escape, the Enterprise was no match for a Borg Cube even when it was in top condition. Their only hope was to escape the doomed ship before the Borg could assimilate it. The ship suddenly rocked, and the turbo lift stopped. They almost panicked but after several painful seconds the lift started again.

"We're not going to make it to the shuttle bay." Jared said ominously as the ship rocked again. "We only have one chance. 'Computer, halt turbolift.'"

The doors to the lift abruptly opened, revealing a scene of absolute carnage. Repair crews were running in every direction, mixed with the occasional Yellow of security officers. Another Borg torpedo hit, the entire ship lurched as this one found it's mark, punching straight through the shields. Jared and Chloe were thrown against the wall, Jared yelping in pain and clutching his heavily bandaged side. Consoles overloaded and exploded, part of the wall burst open and fire spilled into the corridor.

"This way!" Jared yelled. He and Chloe turned to run when they saw a shimmer of Borg transporters deposit numerous Borg drones in the corridor. The nearby security officers drew their phaser rifles and began to fire at the drones. The drones adapted their shielding almost instantly, nullifying the effects of the Federation weaponry. Several drones walked right up to the security personal and injected them with nanoprobes. The security officers never gave any ground until the very last one of them was assimilated. Jared began to have vivid flashbacks from his nightmare.

"The other way!" Jared yelled. He and Chloe turned to run the opposite way down the corridor, only to find more drones.

"Tremor!" Jared shouted, arms extended, the corridor underneath the drones exploding.

The two of them ran around the dead Borg and crater down the corridor. Chloe felt the ship shudder as damaged impulse engines fired and the Enterprise maneuvered to return fire on the Borg Cube, phaser banks discharging and photon torpedo tubes emptying as the Enterprise valiantly fought the hopeless battle.

After stumbling over injured crewman and fallen bulkheads for two minutes the agents finally found the room they were looking for: the transporter room. They found it to be unoccupied, and Chloe ran over to the control panel.

"Transporters are online thankfully, I think I can give us a site-to-site transport to the main shuttle bay."

She hit a few buttons on the control panel then grabbed Jared by the arm and ran to the transporter pad. There was a shimmer of light and they were back were they had started. Apparently just after they had left the engineers had repaired the emergency lighting, clearly showing the Borg drones assimilating all of the shuttles and the engineers that had done the repair work. Thankfully they had ignored Chevila, as they didn't consider the old pickup as a worthwhile investment of their time. Chloe began her attack.

"Enchanto!" This time she summoned a dozen Rubik's cubes, half of them were unsolved, representing her intellectual side. The cubes exploded, blowing the drones back, individual sections of the cubes embedding themselves into the drones like shrapnel.

"I always wondered how to solve those." Jared said, running over and jumping in Chevila. He hit the Plothole Generator switch, but nothing happened but a slight sizzling sound and some smoke under the hood.

"Oh C'mon! The Borg are using some kind of scattering field to keep me from using the Plothole Generator, we're gonna have to make a run for it!" Jared yelled.

Chloe was about to ask him what he meant by that when Jared picked her up, threw her in the truck, got out and made his way to the shuttle bay controls, he was muttering to himself as he was trying to figure out how the controls worked until with a shout of "Bingo!" He managed to get activate the shuttle bay's decompression cycle.

"Warning: Shuttle bay decompression will begin in 30 seconds" Chimed the computer.

Jared hopped back in the truck and drifted around to face the open shuttle bay doors, in half a minute the force field holding the atmosphere in would go down and everything in the bay would be sucked into space. Jared put on Chevila's parking brake and put the pedal to the floor. Chevila's engine whined and the back tires began to spin, fighting to overpower the brake. Chevila inched forward, leaving a trail of black skid marks.

"Are you INSANE?" Shouted Chloe.

"Yes, but that has nothing to do with this! We have to get outside the range of the Borg cube's scattering field in order to call for help or escape. When I count to 25 I'm going to release the parking brake and we will shoot forward. 5 seconds later the bay decompresses and we will be sucked into space. If I time this right, we will hit 88 MPH and be able to canonize."

"And if you're wrong?"

"Well..." Said Jared. "We die, hopefully it won't come to that."

Chloe was speechless. The Enterprise had maneuvered around so it could fire from its aft torpedo bays giving Jared a view of the Borg Cube ominously through the open shuttle bay doors.

The cube engaged its tractor beam and the Enterprise ground to a halt. Borg cutting beams began to slice the Enterprise up like a Thanksgiving turkey as more tractor beams began to pull the severed parts of the ship from their places and drag them slowly towards the Borg cube to be assimilated.

Jared counted to 25 and released the brake, the truck shot forward like a bullet from gun. The speedometer hit 60 in 3.5 seconds, at 4.5 it was 70 and at 5 the shuttle bay decompressed. The dead and damaged Borg drones, the Federation rations and all the shuttles were all pulled into space, and Chevila was no exception.

The engine instantly stalled as there was no longer any air to fuel the combustion inside of the gasoline engine. The cab was not airtight and was losing air rapidly. The windshields were suddenly covered in cracks. they were mere seconds away from the cab blowing open when the speedometer hit exactly 88. Jared punched the canonization button and there was a bright flash. Jared was suddenly sitting in the captain's chair of an odd looking blue shuttle craft of obviously Federation design. The control panels revealed that they were aboard the U.S.S Chevila. Jared noticed a generic looking crewmen sitting at the helm, while Chloe sat at tactical.

Jared wondered how it was possible for Chevila to generate a crew member until he saw the holographic emitter mounted on the ceiling.

"Your orders captain?" Asked the helmsmen.

"Um, Warp 9, any heading, engage." Jared said, once he realized the man was talking to him.

"Aye aye!" The man hit a few buttons and Chevila's warp nessels that looked deceptively like brake lights lit up with a hum. Stars began to streak by as the shuttle craft shot forward and fled the massacre behind them.

"Sir!" The helmsmen said. "The Borg vessel is in pursuit."

"What?" Said Chloe. "The Borg always take the biggest technological and biological targets first, they should ignore us until they've completely assimilated the Enterprise!"

"We are being hailed!" The helmsmen ignored Chloe.

"Onscreen." Jared commanded.

Jared nearly fell out of his chair when he saw Cassandra standing on a platform aboard the Borg Cube. At least, he thought it was Cassandra, This Sue had purple hair and was slightly taller than Cassandra, but had less of a figure. She was wearing what Jared could only describe as a metal jumpsuit, her skin was a shade of pale green. Due to the implants of the Borg Queen.

"Who the heck are you and how dare you do such outstanding damage to a fandom!" Jared yelled.

"My name ez Fiona, I em Cassandra's sister." The french Sue Purred. "As for why I'm doing thes, De Borg are dee ultimate deesplay of the pursuit of perfection. Their queen was unable tu complete the goal. That's why I em here, to feenish what she begaan."

Fiona gave a devilish smirk. "wait unteel Cassandra hears I em the one who killed you."

With that, the Sue ended the transmission.

The Helmsmen turned to Jared. "Sir, the Borg are firing!"

-

Charis was performing surgery on the monitor display terminal back in the Library.

Whatever Repiv did, it had taken the techie all day to just begin to make progress. She made a connection of wires and the whole console burst into a shower of sparks. The monitor network suddenly sprang to life, the displays slowly warming up and pictures began forming, all but one of them coming to focus on Adrian's task force.

The other formed a very grainy image, heavy with interference, of Jared and Chloe's mission, but it was so garbled up that nobody could make any sense of what they were looking at.

"Charis, what's wrong with the monitor?" Tash asked.

"Absolutely nothing. The interference seems to be coming from the fandom itself. Has Jared sent you any information about something that could be causing that?"

Tash frowned. "My communicator had a burst of static awhile back, I just assumed I accidental set it off."

It was Charis' turn to frown. "That may have been Jared. If this interference can screw up our monitor feed, I'm sure it could disrupt communications. Hand me that voltage reader, I'm going to see if I can make the monitor compensate for all the static."

She began adjusting levers and knobs with the skill of someone who clearly knows what they're doing. The monitor suddenly snapped sharply into focus, it's picture depicting the U.S.S. Chevila being hit by some form of drain weapon, her shields lighting up like a firework.

Tash instantly sized up the situation and turned to Charis. "Get ahold of everybody you can, this situation is obviously well over Jared's head. We'll need to form a rescue team."

Tash whipped out her plothole generator and fired. The gadget managed to make a pinky sized plothole before shorting out, this did not bode well...

She pointed at Charis. "Never mind pulling the rescue team together. I'll do that, you try and find some way to get past that magnetic field!"

She took off at a run to try to find any available agent who wasn't a rookie. "Of all the times for Adrian to be gone!" Tash yelled to no one in particular.

-

"Shields down to 35%!" Called the helmsmen as Chevila was hit by yet another Borg shield drainer. "Captain! We can't take another hit like that!"

"Chloe! Arm Micro-quantum torpedoes!" Jared shouted over the sound of all the noises aboard the tiny shuttle.

"Torpedoes armed!" Chloe said.

"Fire!" Jared shouted.

Two micro-torpedoes fired from Chevila's aft launcher and slammed right into the Borg cube, inflicting a negligible amount of damage.

"Direct hit! Now all we need to do that again about 50,000 more times!" Shouted Chloe.

Jared hadn't expected anything different, but hey, it was worth a shot.

"Helmsmen, send an emergency distress call on all frequencies!" Jared ordered, turning to a speaker.

"This is Captain Jared of the Federation Shuttle Chevila, under attack by Borg vessel. Said vessel has also crippled the U.S.S. Enterprise, we require assistance!"

Jared had run out of options, he was even starting to consider turning about and ordering a collision course, he doubted it would do much damage but at least he'd go out with a bang.

-

Fiona was almost giddy with glee, watching the shuttle attempt to escape. Right now she was just toying with them, had she wanted to end this quickly she could just fire a real torpedo instead of low power drain weapons. Heck, one Borg torpedo could probably take out a whole fleet of Chevila's, but the Sue was just having too much fun. With a simple mental command she ordered the vessel to fire out one last drain weapon.

-

"Impact in 3... 2... 1..." The helmsmen called out. The shield status display abruptly lit up and the next moment all shields on all vectors went from 35% to offline. Green shimmers of the Borg transporters filled the cockpit of the shuttle as a dozen Borg materialized.

Mr. Generic Helmsmen grabbed his phaser, set the setting to maximum and fired at the closest drone, it dropped in a shower of sparks. He managed to take out two more before they adapted to his phaser's frequency.

"Boomhammer!" Jared shouted. Lifting the hammer from its resting place, he gave the nearest drone a crippling blow, the resulting "BBOOOOMMM" was almost unbearably loud due to the confined space of the cockpit.

Jared tried the hammer again but it only bounced off of the next drones adapted shielding, making the sound of someone loudly clapping their hands.

Jared shrank back, he didn't dare start slinging earth waves around the tiny cockpit. Chloe didn't even bother attacking, if they could absorb Jared's hammer, her sword and shield wouldn't stand a chance. And all she could accomplish with her Rubik's cubes would be to blow Jared and her up. They all backed up against the control panels at the front of the shuttle as the drones crept closer.

"Computer, initiate self-destruct matrix, no countdown. Set self destruct to occur on my command." Jared said, determined not to be assimilated.

"Confirmed. Self destruct will occur at the Captain's orders." Said the computer. It had the exact same voice as the one it had when Chevila was a transformer, and it might've only been Jared's imagination, but it also sounded sad somehow...

Then Jared got an idea.

"Chloe, strap yourself into your seat!" Jared said to his partner.

"What?"

"Just do it!"

Chloe and Jared sat in their seats and buckled in. When the Borg were only feet away, Jared turned around and readied some earth magic. He was aware he couldn't use it effectively against the Borg without accidental damaging the shuttle, but intentionally damaging the shuttle was something he could do quite easily, although he'd regret it if he ever got back to the Library.

"Tremor!" He shouted, pointing at the wall. It exploded outward and the vacuum of space began to suck everything out of the shuttle craft. The Borg were pulled into space, as well as the generic helmsmen, who dissolved into nothing the second he was outside the range of Chevila's holoprojector.

Emergency force fields sealed the hull breach a moment later.

-

Fiona was very annoyed. Jared would blow up his entire shuttle before letting drones assimilate him and Chloe, so she had to use another tactic. The cube shuddered briefly as it began to accelerate to higher warp velocities. Chevila could barely do warp 9.2, the cube would easily overtake her at warp 9.9.

-

Chloe had assumed the helm position. The Borg vessel was closing rapidly.

"Chloe, increase speed!" Jared ordered.

"But we'll fly apart!" Cried Chloe.

"Fly apart then!" Jared yelled at her. "If we get assimilated the Borg we'll be able to adapt Chevila's Plothole Generator to their technology! Once they've adapted to Adrian's defenses, which they will, they'll be able to get into the Library and we can't let that happen!"

The hull screamed with strain as Chloe pushed the warp engines well beyond their safety tolerances. The rate the Borg cube was closing began to slow and Jared briefly thought that they might even be able to outrun it, but then with a terrible boom the warp engines gave out and Chevila dropped to sublight speeds.

The Borg cube also dropped out of warp and locked on to Chevila with a tractor beam. The docking bay where some Cubes housed Spheres opened and promptly pulled Chevila in and latched on to the shuttle with docking clamps. Jared turned to Chloe.

"Get to work on the Plothole Generator. See if you can rewire it to get past this field, I'll try to buy you some time, here's the plan..."

Jared opened the shuttles doors and walked slowly down a ramp to the floor of the cube. He had to stall Fiona as long as he could, if he couldn't stall long enough he was going to have to blow up Chevila. They were fairly close to the main reactor, he wondered if he'd be able to take out the Borg vessel with him. If he blew up the Sue, the fandom would still return to normal.

The Sue seemingly emerged from nowhere and immediately began to gloat.

"You can forgeet about escaping agent Jereed, my drones cen adapt to aneething you can throw at them. Cassandra vill be so disappointed she wasn't 'ere to personally witness your defeat." The French Sue said in a sing-song voice as she slinked towards Jared.

"Oh, you're looking for Jared! Well then this whole affair has just been a case of mistaken identity." Said Jared.

"Oh really?" The Sue said, stopping a short distance from Jared. "Then pray tell, which agent are you?"

Jared assumed a absolutely terrible British accent. Out of all of his accents, British was Jared's worst. "Agent Bond, James Bond. The woman in the shuttle is a member of the the CIA."

The Sue raised an eyebrow.

"You wouldn't happen to have a dry martini would you, shaken not stirred?" Jared kept rattling on. "It would be quite a shame if I didn't manage to get one on this mission."

The Sue quickly caught on to what Jared was doing. "You will be assimilated." She smiled. "And don't bother self destructing, de force fields around this section are more than adequate to contain the explosion."

That changed things.

Plan B, stalling the Sue and escaping failed. Plan C, blowing up the whole cube wouldn't work, so here goes Plan A.

Jared tapped his Com-badge. "Chloe, fire all phasers now!" He yelled.

Chevila's phaser banks immediately let forth a barrage of powerful bursts of energy. The drones could adapt to the frequency of the phasers, but the pure power of the beams was more than their shield generators could absorb and they were all blown away. Torpedo tubes emptied as Chevila fired micro-quantum torpedoes in quick succession into the areas where the most Borg were concentrated. The resulting explosions could easily take out up to 50 drones, but at the rate they were pouring in it wouldn't make much difference. One of the phaser banks blasted Fiona, but her own force-fields were more than strong enough to absorb the beam.

She began to run towards Jared.

"Epicenter!" He yelled, punching the ground, but nothing happened. Apparently the Borg Vessel had adapted so that it simply absorbed all the earth waves Jared could pour into it.

"That's unfortunate." He thought as the fake queen of the Borg tackled him to the ground. He let out a cry of pain as she forced him to land on his injured side. She raised her right arm and assimilation tubules shot out, writhing venomously in the air.

"Eeny last words?" The Sue said, laughing despite the destruction around them.

"Stupidsuesayswhat?" Jared said, as fast as he could.

"What?" Said the Sue.

"Ha, ha, I always wanted to do that." Jared said as he pulled out a Copyright and slapped it on the floor of the cube.

The Borg vessel, free of the non-canon influence from a fake Borg queen came to an immediate all-stop. Chloe glanced at her sensor readings aboard Chevila, noticing multiple power surges all over the vessel.
Fiona's eyes opened wide with horror.

"You ediot! Don't you know what happeens when a Borg vessel stops recieving commands from de collective? De failsafes activate and... and..." She stuttered.

"It self-destructs!" Jared said. "Goodbye."

He put his hands on her stomach. "Tremor!" He shouted, pouring the Earth waves directly into her abdomen. The Sue was blown off of Jared and flew across the room into a wall, hitting it hard. She grunted and fell to the floor, a small communicator of some kind landing next to her, Cassandra's voice coming through the tiny speakers quite clearly.

"Ello? Fiona? Where are you? We are waiting for you at dee test site for dee fandom stablizor..."

"Chloe, divert all power to the engines and engage at full impulse!" Jared yelled as he ran into Chevila's cockpit. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see an approaching explosion as the ship began to incinerate itself.

Chloe punched a few buttons, the engines groaned, but they could not break free from the docking clamps holding them.

They had only seconds left. There was no time to try something else.

Jared ran up to the Society Tech controls and punched a button next to the Plothole Generator controls labeled "experimental".

Everything went black as as the Scene Transition Jared had installed in Chevila activated. It only managed to fast forward them for about two minutes before shorting out, but it was long enough to avoid getting incinerated in the explosion.

Chevila re-appeared in the middle of a debris field, forcing Chloe to perform evasive maneuvers to avoid colliding with the wreckage.

The Scene Transition was supposed to last longer and fill them in on what happened in their absence, but all the instrument panel said was "Scene transition error 42x114d, consult licensed Society technicians for diagnostics."

"I am a licensed technician and even I don't even know what the heck that's supposed to mean. I'll look it up later. For now I'll just see whether or not that magnetic field is still there." Jared said as he flipped the switch that controlled the Plothole Generator.

Unfortunately for him, Jared did not realize Chloe had just put on a burst of speed to avoid a collision with a piece of wreckage from the Borg ship, causing them to enter his tech lab at about 75 MPH.

Chevila reverted back into truck form in a flash of light, placing Jared in the driver's seat. Jared hit the brakes but it they were going so fast that it was unable to bring him to a stop fast enough to avoid a collision. After plowing through Jared's desk and several file cabinets they crashed through the wall separating Jared's lab from Doug's.

Bricks and mortar went flying. Chevila didn't have enough power to go all the way through the wall and wound up being stuck halfway.

As tough as Doug was to startle, a pickup spontaneously forcing it's way halfway through the wall of his lab did the trick. He nearly fell out of his wheelchair in surprise.

Jared coughed and pushed Chevila's airbag out of his face. He noticed the big gaping hole where Chevila's passenger door used to be and made a mental note that any damage Chevila suffers in canon form will be reflected upon reversion in her truck form.

Then when he spotted Doug. "Uh, Hi Doug! Listen, you wouldn't mind if I parked Chevila here for awhile would you?" He said nervously while trying to jostle his door to open.

Chloe just looked at Jared. "You are going to have sssoooooo much monitor duty after this."

Doug was at a loss for words, he made sure the device he and Charis were working on wasn't damaged before wheeling around to face Jared. He did not look happy...

-

Back in the Star Trek fandom the 42nd fleet was just arriving on scene in response to the distress call Jared had issued, just in time to witness the Borg cube's explosion.

Several of the crew members cheered as they watched the burning debris slowly drift through space, none of them detecting the cloaked Klingon Bird of Prey in their midst.

Two dark figures occupied the bridge.

"Deraj you idiot! Not only did you not manage to capture a test subject for project Sue Storm, you also may have gotten a member of the race our society is supposed to protect killed!" Yelled Eolhc.

"Shut up Eolhc! Talk to me like that again and I'll use you as my test subjet!" Said Deraj.

"I'd like to see you try!" Replied Eolhc, holding her sword threateningly.

"Enough of this, if we're fighting among ourselves, who will be left to fight our enemies?" Deraj said.

"Well, there's one thing we know for sure, we can't use this fandom as a base of operations for our project anymore, they'll get suspicious if they find another Sue here." She said.

"Right." Said Deraj. "A pity... I was beginning to develop a taste for Gaak."

And with that he maneuvered the Klingon vessel, which was actually Toyotanya, into a plot hole, back to wherever Deraj had his lab set up.

-

Jared was pondering what had become of the Sue he had earth magicked and if she could have possibly escaped when Chloe interrupted his thoughts.

"Wow Jared. First you get on Tyler's bad side with the pink candy bars, then you crash a pick-up truck into Doug's lab. If you're trying to get everybody in the Society against you I suggest you try setting Aster's latest Anime fort on fire." Chloe said as the two made there way to Adrian's office to report their 'accident' but as it turned out he wasn't back yet.

"Hey, the second one wasn't my fault. Boy, for a guy in a wheelchair Doug can really move!" Jared replied.
"If I didn't shove my sword into his spokes he would have caught you too, you owe me one." Chloe said.

"Hey, I blew up an entire Borg Cube, with a copyright I might add, just so they wouldn't assimilate us, if anything, you owe me one."

"How about we just call it even." Chloe suggested.

"Deal, as long as you agree to catch me." Jared said.

"What?" Chloe asked; and with that Jared fainted. Taking on two missions, coupled with fighting off black court vampires, Borg drones, two different Mary Sues and an angry handicapped halfling all in one day had taken it's toll on the agent.

Chloe shrugged. She tried to move him to his room, but he was too heavy for her to move effectively, so she just propped him up against the wall. She was going to find someone to help her move the unconscious techie when she heard a loud cry and a lot of shouting... Ben had returned to the Library Arcanium.

Insert Random Scream of Pain Here (part 4 of 5)

Lights began to flash across the Fandom Stabilizer as it activated. A loud hum filled the air as Asasca and the assembled Protection Society and Sues stared at the device in awe.

The hum grew louder and louder until it was beyond deafening. Ben clapped his hands over his ears as the noise reached an unbearable volume.

Asasca turned to his allies, arms spread wide dramatically.

"And now," he somehow shouted over the din. "The dawn of a new world!"

Unfortunately for him, it was at that exact second that a harsh grinding noise sounded, and with a clatter the Fandom Stabilizer shut down. Several warning lights began to pulse red as sparks flew from a handful of access points.

Asasca stood stock still for a second, then turned slowly to glare at Neb, Raven and the rest.

"All right!" He roared, his face red with rage. "Which one of you idiots forgot to hook the flux capacitor back into the coaxilizing rationalization convertor?"

There was a silent chorus of feet shuffling and eye shifting from the Protection Society Agents.

"Never mind," Asasca hissed, rolling up his sleeves and stalking towards the massive device. "I'll just have to fix this myself."

"How long with that take?" Raven asked, moving to help him.

"A few hours, give or take."

"I knew it wouldn't work," Relyt muttered. "Remind me again why the higher-ups let him go ahead with this?"

"Quit complaining," Neb growled.

Cassandra pulled out a communicator of some sort and held it up to her ear for a second before turning away, swearing.

"Everything OK?" Ekard asked.

"I can't geet my seester." Cassandra huffed. "I've been trying for 'ours now."

Ben pulled Bella aside as the Protection Society agents bickered.

"Are you OK?" he asked. "Did they do anything to you?"

Bella shook her head. "I'm fine."

Ben let out a sigh of relief. "Good. I was so worried."

"I'm all right," Bella reassured him. " But what happened? What are you doing here? And where's Shirley?"

Ben grimaced and related the events of the past couple of days.

"Repiv panicked and ran," Ben concluded. "I followed him here and we fought. Shirley managed to kill Repiv, but she got hurt in the fight, so she stayed behind to rest."

He sighed.

"To make things short, the Elimination Society thinks I'm a traitor, so I don't think we'll be able to count on any reinforcements coming. We're on our own here."

Silence reigned between them for a long moment, then Bella asked a question.

"Ben, I know Asasca is your greatest creation, but who is he really?"

Ben turned to look at his erstwhile character who was busy working on the Fandom Stabilizer.

"Him? He's the man behind the curtain, the Chessmaster, the man behind the man."

Ben turned back to look at Bella. "Back before I discovered fanfiction, my stories were always somewhat of a cross between fantasy and super-hero comic-bookery. Asasca was...it's hard to define him."

Ben's brow creased as he thought. "It's like this," He said at last. "My earliest generations of stories centered around an evil entity I named Sluthen. Sluthen was your average run-of-the-mill-destroy-the-universe-refuses-to-stay-dead baddy. But for some reason or another I never got around to explaining, Asasca and Sluthen hated each other with a passion, so Asasca would go from world to world one step ahead of Sluthen, and grant a team of teenagers the power to fight him."

"So, that's all he did?" Bella asked. "He gave people super-powers and disappeared? Sounds like a walking deus ex machina if you ask me."

Ben shrugged. "That's pretty much what he was. But later on, my stories and Asasca's role both changed. He tended to head small, highly powerful strike forces of teens he had bestowed power to. In return for their servitude, Asasca promised them that they'd find the answer or solution to some personal problem or struggle they were dealing with. He also evolved the Chessmaster personality, playing people off against each other and even using his own servants as pawns. I tried hard to make him morally ambiguous. Sure, he helps people, but there's always something in it for him. He's not above betraying his own servants if it served his own ends."

"You said his primary ability was to bestow power on others." Bella said, looking towards Asasca. "Just how powerful is he?"

Ben sighed and scratched his head. "See, that's the thing. Since Asasca was always the master planner type, he virtually never fought himself. He always let his subordinates do any dirty work for him. So to answer your question, even I have no clue. He could be strong enough to take on the entire Elimination Society with both hands tied behind his back, or he could be so weak a Care Bear could mop the floor with him. There's really no way of telling, short of engaging him head on."

"So what are we going to do?" Asked Bella.

Ben sighed. "I'm not sure what we CAN do. We're out numbered three to one, and I have absolutely no clue where we are or how to get out of here. And to top things off, the Society thinks I'm a turn-coat, so there's no hope of back-up."

He looked back towards Asasca and the rest. "We're on our own here."

There was another long silence.

"I'm sorry," Bella said softly. "This is all my fault."

Ben turned back to look at her.

Bella was sitting on a rock with her arms wrapped around her knees, drawing them up to her chest.

"All this time I've done nothing but cause trouble for you," Bella continued. "If it weren't for me-"

"Don't think like that!" Ben cut her off. "You didn't ask for any of this! If anything, all of this is my fault for creating Asasca in the first place."

"But what are we going to do?" Bella insisted.

"I don't know," Ben admitted. "But I'm going to get both of us home alive."

He looked Bella straight in the eye.

"I promise."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were being serious."

Ben turned at Neb's snicker, glaring at his counterpart who was flanked by Ekard and Relyt.

"What do you want?" he growled, dropping one hand to Bahamut.

"I got bored," Neb shrugged. "So I figured I'd come over here and have a little fun. You're not busy, are you?" he leered.

"Too busy to waste time on someone like you!" Bella shot back.

Neb raised an eyebrow. "Watch your mouth," He rasped. "Asasca said I couldn't kill you, he didn't say anything about not beating you bloody."

"You lay so much as a hand on her and I swear to god I'll-"

"You'll what?" Neb challenged, cutting Ben off. "You know, I think you need a lesson in respect more than your girlfriend does! Grab him!"

Before Ben could react Ekard and Relyt grabbed him by the arms, restraining him.

"Now," Neb said, cracking his nuckles. "School is in session."

"Let him go."

Bella's voice was dangerously calm.

"Or what?" Neb sneered, turning to face her. "You'll zap me with your little energy beams?"

Bella met his gaze evenly, the green energy in her fists pulsing gently.

"That's the general idea, yeah."

"Why don't you try it?" Neb scoffed. "See what-"

"Hey, Neb!" Ben interrupted.

Neb turned back to face the Agent.

Ekard and Relyt still had a hold of Ben's outstretched arms, holding them out to the side. Ben's hands were spread as well and his fingers were splayed in every direction.

He smirked. "Don't mess with Nukes."

"No!" Neb looked around wildly, but it was too late. A curtain of warheads was descending all around them.
Ekard and Relyt had let go of Ben in shock. He grabbed Bella by the hand and pulled her out of the way as the bombs exploded, the entire cavern shook violently.

One of the nukes collided with the Fandom Stabilizer, the explosion blowing the top half of the device clean off. It smashed into the ground, barely missing Asasca and Raven who dove for cover, shielding their heads from the falling debris.

Stalactites broke from the shaking ceiling, plummeting to the ground point-first like spears where they shattered into stone shards.

Suddenly, before even half of the nukes had gone off, the cave ceiling exploded inward and Adrian, Aster in fae form, Cristoph, Drake and Shirley came flying in.

"Aster!" Adrian called as they fell. "Give us an air cushion!"

"You got it!" the fae chirped and instantly the group's descent slowed. There was a flash as Adrian summoned Hoshikuzu and angled towards Asasca, sword raised to strike.

Asasca reached over his shoulder and drew his own sword, just in time to bock a swing from the still airborne Adrian.

Their swords locked and eyes met as Adrian remained perched in mid-air.

Asasca raised an eyebrow. "Hmm..."

He gave his sword a swing, breaking the lock. Adrian hit the ground and slid backwards several feet.

"So you're the Librarian." Asasca said, twirling his sword idly. "This should be interesting..."

In response, Adrian raised Hoshikuzu and charged.

Meanwhile, Christoph had engaged Relyt in a flurry of strikes, blocks and parries, neither giving, nor moving an inch.

Drake and Aster were double-teaming Raven, the black-haired Stu taking both on without breaking a sweat. Aster flitted around Raven, loosing various spells at him, while Drake took a more direct approach armed with his spear.

Raven deflected a blast of magic and a spear thrust with one flick of his sword, then released a wave of energy from his palm. Aster was forced to make some very undignified aerial maneuvers to avoid it while Drake was unceremoniously bowled over, the spell denting his armor.

"Is that really the best you two have?" Raven asked, leaning on his sword as Aster and Drake recovered. "I get more of a challenge from stretching when I get up in the morning! At least make this worth my time, won't you?" he cried, grabbing his sword and going on the offensive. Aster and Drake fell back, struggling to keep their limbs intact as Raven advanced, his sword a blur.

Ekard looked around, trying to decide who he should help, when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around. It was Shirley.

"Hi," she grinned evilly. "Remember me?"

Ekard paled. "OH, NOT HER AGAIN!" he shouted as Shirley started chasing him.

Neb looked around desperately. This was bad. The Fandom Stabilizer had been destroyed, and if the Librarian were here, chances were they had already lost, Asasca or no Asasca. He had no interest in risking his life in an uncertain battle. With one last glance around the battlefield, he turned and ran.

Ben and Bella slowly picked themselves up from off the ground. They had narrowly missed getting caught in an explosion from a nearby nuke and barely avoided an ensuing barrage of falling rocks.

Bella looked around at the warring agents. "How'd they find us here?" she asked, open-mouthed.

"Who knows?" Ben asked grimly. "I'm more worried about-" Then he noticed the fleeing Neb. "Hey! He's getting away!" He shouted.

"Who?"

"Neb! Hey! Christoph! Adrian! Someone! Hey!" Nobody could hear him over the sound of the raging battle.

"Dammit!" Ben swore. "I'm going after him!"

"Who? Neb?"

"Yes!" Ben said sharply, turning back to the Sue. "I want you to hide somewhere and wait for me. Don't budge until I come for you. If I'm not back in an hour, run."

With that, Ben took off after Neb.

"Ben! Wait!" Bella cried. She started after him but an invisible force knocked her off her feet and sent her flying backwards several feet.

"Just 'ere do yoo think 'URE going?" Cassandra asked, striding into view.

Bella struggled to her feet. "Looks like it's time for the obligatory catfight." she growled as her eyes vegan to glow green.

Neb hadn't realized just how large the cavern was. He'd been running for several seconds now, but he'd hardly made any progress.

"Neb!"

Neb groaned, he recognized that voice. He turned to see Ben hot on his heels, his face a grim mask. Neb growled and picked up the pace only to come skidding to a stop on the edge of a precipice. The yawning abyss stretched out in front of him, so wide he couldn't see the other side.

Turning back to face the approaching Ben, he raised a palm and rasped, "My coffeemakers rule the world."
Ben slid to a stop and pulled Bahamut around as the tidal wave of coffee came barreling towards him. He quickly began to crash out a rapid-fire stream of power chords, creating a wall of sound, pushing the flood away from him and creating an island in a sea of coffee.

Ben let out a sigh of relief as the last of the java streamed away, but it was cut short as Neb decked him, spinning him around and knocking him to the ground.

Neb took several steps back from the stunned Agent and pointing at him. "Mess with nukes."

Ben shook his head to clear the stars from his vision. The cave was still spinning slightly but he had other things on his mind, namely the approaching nuke. There was no time to think and only just enough time to pray.

Ben flipped onto his back, pulled his Plothole Generator from his holster, held it up and fired, creating a plothole in mid-air. The nuke fell through the portal and vanished into an unknown fandom.

Ben was starting to his feet when Neb plucked his Plothole Generator out of his hand and crushed it. Then he grabbed Ben, raised him over his head, turned around and slammed the agent back onto the cave floor with all his might. Ben gasped in pain as the air was driven from his lungs.

"Let's try this again," Neb said calmly, stepping back and pointing at Ben again. "Mess with nukes."

Ben's eyes widened and he gasped for air desperately as he tried to struggle to his feet, but it was too late. The warhead struck Ben head-on, creating a small mushroom cloud and kicking up a dense cloud of dust and smoke.

"Gotcha," Neb growled, watching the billowing cloud. He had only summoned a minor, localized nuke, but even a small one was more than enough to deal with someone like Ben. Then he heard something. A wheezing noise.

The smoke slowly cleared, revealing Ben who was nearly bent double. Bahamut was slung across his back in shambles. Apparently Ben had used the weapon-instrument to block the force of the blow from Neb's nuke. Ben had one hand on Bahamut's neck, the only part of the guitar that had escaped any significant damage. Bahamut's body was broken open in several different places and severed wires and sparks were poking out.

Ben made the half-wheezing, half-gasping noise again, and Neb realized with a jolt that Ben was laughing.
"Y-you just lost, Neb," he chuckled.

Neb snorted. "Yeah, sure, because I'm the one on the ground sobbing like a little girl."

Ben ignored him. As he took Bahamut off of his back, chips and flakes from the guitar's ruined body fluttered to the ground.

"Tell me," Ben said, straightened up. "Do you know how I defeated Bella the last time we fought?"

"No," Neb sighed. "But I get the feeling you're about to tell me."

"I smashed Bahamut on the ground." Ben said, not paying the least bit of attention to his adversary. "When I did, all the energy stored in Bahamut to power its combat functions was released in a massive explosion. Of course, Bahamut was ruined, so when I got back to the Library Camille almost had to rebuild it from scratch."

"Who's Camille?"

"While she was working on it though, she noticed something interesting..."

Neb groaned. "Oh, don't tell me you're about to have a flashback..."

-

"DANGIT!"

Camille blinked. "Who was that?"

Ben shook his head. "Ignore it, this is a flashback. So what new features were you talking about?"

Camille walked around the table and over to a bank of computers and began to input several commands.

"I noticed something when I was working on Bahamut." She said. "The energy source I used to power it was a brand-new one I had just invented and had never before tested. It didn't even have a name and frankly, to be honest, I wasn't even sure if it would even work or not."

Ben gulped at the idea of fighting Bella with a short-circuting Bahamut. It did not make a pretty picture.

Camille finally found whaat she was looking for and stepped back to allow Ben to see the computer monitor. Long strings of numbers and various blueprints for Bahamut flashed across the screen.

"When I hooked Bahamut up to these computers to run diagnostics, something didn't add up. The energy expended by Bahamut during its destruction was nearly fifty times what I had charged it with originally."

Ben scowled. "What? How is that possible?"

"I had no clue myself until I conducted a few experiments." Camille turned back to Ben. "Apparently, the energy source Bahamut uses has a very interesting property. Whenever the energy is compressed, the amount of power contained within it is increased exponentially. So the tighter you pack it and the longer you pack it, the stronger it becomes!"

Ben looked down at the silver guitar in his hands with a newfound respect.

"As soon as I discovered this," Camille continued. "I set to work on developing a new function for Bahamut. Now, when Bahamut has sustained a sufficent amount of damage, you can activate what I call the Achilles Device, which releases all the stored power contained within Bahamut. But rather then externalizing the energy and wasting all of it in a single oversized blast-"

-

"-The Achilles Device internalizes the multiplied power, giving Bahamut a whole new form..."

Neb blinked. "Did you just segue the dialogue from a character in a flashback into your own line?"

"Yeah."

Neb nodded appreciatively. "Smooth."

Ben shrugged modestly. "I thought so."

Then his eyes hardened. "Get ready to face the face of war, Neb!"

Behind his sunglasses, Neb's eyes widened. What the-? Is his voice changing?

Ben held Bahamut up, his voice distorting.

"Strike with the fury of a wounded god... Bahamut!"

There was a flash of light and an explosion of darkness. Shadows and smoke billowed around Ben, hiding him from view.

Even from a distance away, Neb could feel the raw force emanating from the cloud. It was like being faced with an unbearably loud noise. You put your hands over your ears, but you still have to turn or back away.

"Ben," Neb ground out, trying to keep his voice steady. "What is that?"

"This?" Ben's voice asked from inside the cloud. "This is my Bankai, my Limit Break, my Final Form."

There was a wail of a guitar and the shadows were blown away, revealing Ben once again.

"This," said Ben, "is Death Metal Bahamut."

Bahamut had transformed. It's original polished silver color had changed to a jet black. It had changed shape too, from the gentle waves and curves of the SG variety, to the jagged edges and spikes of a Warlock configuration. The black swoosh on the top and bottom of the front of the body had inverted as well, from a black to a silver which shone brightly in the darkness.
Ben kept one hand on the fretboard which had extended by another two feet, letting his other arm hang at his side.

Neb struggled to remain calm, he could feel the raw power from the weapon.

"Is that it?" He sneered, trying to sound confident. "Is that all your Achilles Device can do? Give your electric twanger a makeover? Pathetic! My coffeemakers-"

Ben intruppted him, plucking a single string on Death Metal Bahamut. A concussive blast slammed out from the transformed guitar, knocking Neb back several yards and slamming him into a stalagmite.

Neb shook the stars from his vision, staggering upright. "You-won't beat me that easy!" He grated, lifting a finger. "Mess with-"

It was at that instant he noticed Ben's fingers strumming a second note on the black guitar. Neb dodged, but he didn't move quickly enough. The shockwave caught him in the side, spinning him around and slamming him into the ground, the blast shattering one of the lenses in his sunglasses.

The Protection Society Agent heard a second, less prominent thump as he hit the ground. As he slowly got to his feet, dazed, he noticed something on the ground. Someones severed arm lay several feet away, slowly oozing blood. It was a bizarre, almost comical sight, a severed arm just lying there on the ground. Then Neb felt a dull ache in his right shoulder, and when he looked over, his own arm was missing, blood spurting from a ragged stump.

Neb gasped in shock and pain, then whirled on Ben, shaking, blood still spraying from his shoulder.

"What are you?" He half-screamed at Ben, the one eye visible through his broken sunglasses wide with fear and rage.

"I told you Neb!" Ben shouted, hauling back on Bahamut. "I'm your death!"

He fired one last blast, the shockwave picking Neb up off his feet and tossing him over the edge of the abyss like a rag doll. Neb hardly had enough time for one final scream before it, and he, vanished forever.

-

Asasca and Adrian moved steadily across the cave floor, swords flashing and ringing in the darkness.

"Not half bad..." Asasca murmured as he blocked a twisting blow from Hoshikuzu.

"Don't patronize me!" Adrian barked. "Boot to the head!"

SCHWOOSH-FWUMP!

Asasca staggered back, a bootprint plastered across his face. He rubbed his face vigirously for a moment, before looking up and roaring with laughter.

"Excellent!" he shouted. "Do it again!"

"Your wish is my command!" growled Adrian. "Boot to the head!"

SCHWOOSH-CLANG!

Asasca caught Adrian's boot on his sword's flat and with a flick, sent Adrian staggering back.

"Now then," Asasca said raising his sword as Adrian tried to regain his balance. "Where were we?" he asked with a smirk.

-

Cassandra winced as she tried her hardest to sustain her force fields. Bella kept up her assault grimly, a continuous stream of twin energy beams wearing against Cassandra's shields. Blue sparks shot from the underside of Cassandra's force fields, burning her slightly, but she forced herself to ignore the pain.

Cassandra growled in frustration. This Sue was stronger than she had expected, Cassandra wasn't sure just how much longer her shields could hold.

Suddenly, Bella stopped the energy streams. Cassandra raised an eyebrow in confusion, then grunted in surprise as Bella renewed her assault, slamming individual charged bursts against Cassandra's shields.

Despite Cassandra's best efforts, she was forced back and her force fields finally buckled, a blast of emerald energy struck her in the abdomen, knocking her backwards and driving the wind out of her.

Cassandra heard a scream as she picked herself and turned just in time to see Neb being kncoked over the edge of the cliff.

Cassandra's eyes widened in shock. "Raveen!" She cried, whirling.

The Stu swatted Aster out of the air with the flat of his blade and turned to Cassandra. "What?" He asked, bored.

"They got Neb!" she shouted. "'Ee's dead!"

Raven growled as he spun back around to face the rest of the warring agents. "Retreat!" He shouted over the din of the battle. "Return to headquarters!"

He turned back to Drake who was leaning on his spear, trying to remain upright.

"This isn't over," he warned as he opened a Plothole and vanished. The rest of the Protection Society and Cassandra followed suit and in seconds, they were gone.

-

Ben collapsed to his knees in exhaustion, leaning on Death Metal Bahamut for support.

With a flicker the black guitar reverted back to its standard form, using the last of its energy to repair itself. Ben smiled down at the guitar. It was finally over. For now, Bahamut would be powerless, but it was a simple enough matter to recharge it. He looked out across the chasm, wondering idly just how long it would take Neb to reach the bottom of the canyon.

He turned as he heard a clapping sound. Asasca sat on a nearby stalagmite, applauding slowly.

"Bravo!" He chuckled, taking a sip from what appeared to be a tea cup. "That was better than Pay-Per-View!"

"Asasca," Ben said, getting to his feet "What are you-"

"Ben!"

Ben turned to find Bella sprinting towards him. She threw her arms around him, and he returned the gesture, hugging the Mary-Sue tightly.

"Are you OK?" Bella asked worriedly, pulling back so she could get a better look at Ben. "You're not hurt are you?"

"Nothing serious," Ben assured her. "I'll be fine. What about everyone else?"

"I wouldn't worry about that if I were you."

Ben turned to find Adrian, flanked by the rest of the Society, standing behind them.

"You've got more important things to worry about. We found Shirley and she told is what happened."

Ben gave Shirley a look. The Cliche Stick bit her lip and refused to meet Ben's gaze.

Adrian folded his arms. "You've got a lot of explaining to do. You too." He said to Asasca. Asasca put on his best innocent face.

Ben started to speak, but Adrian raised a hand, cutting him off.

"This isn't the place," He said. "We'll talk back at the Library."

"We'll have to get her Prohibited." Drake said, pulling a Prohibitor bracelet out of his pocket and starting towards Bella.

"No." Ben said, moving in front of the Sue. Drake stopped dead in his tracks.

"We HAVE to Prohibit her, Lord Ben!" Christoph insisted. "We can't let a Mary-Sue just walk into the Library Arcanium!"

"I don't care," Ben said flatly. "You're not laying a hand on her!"

Aster bit her lip. "Ben-kun..."

Then the cave started to shake violently.

"What's going on?" Ben shouted as everyone struggled to keep their footing.

"Well, let's see," Asasca said sarcastically, sliding off the stalagmite he was sitting on. "For one thing, you dropped ten different nukes in here and for another you destroyed the Fandom Stabilizer which was the only thing keeping the ceiling up!"

"What?" Ben shouted. "Why would the Fandom Stabilizer be the only thing keeping the ceiling up?"

Asasca shrugged. "I thought it would be more entertaining that way. Plus the author generally finds it amusing when the device you just destroyed ends up making you run away like little muskrats."

"Enough!" Adrian shouted as rocks began to tumble from the ceiling. "Get back to the Library!" He fired his Plothole Generator and vanished through the created rift.

Christoph and Drake shot Ben a look before jumping through the Plothole themselves, folowed by Aster.

"Come on, Ben!" Shirley shouted urgently, ducking as a stone smashed to the ground next to her.

"I'll be right there!" Ben yelled back. "Bella, you go first!"

The green haired Sue started for the portal, only to be knocked back by an invisible force accompanied by a rude sound.

"What's wrong?" Shirley demanded as larger and larger rocks began to fall around them.

"I forgot!" Ben shouted, smacking himself. "The Library's safeguarded against any outsiders! Bella can't get in through that Plothole unless she's Prohibited!"

He started forward to help Bella up, when Shirley shouted a warning, too late.

Ben looked up just in time to see a massive piece of stone break from the ceiling and come plummeting towards them.

There was no time to move; there was no time to think. Ben wrapped his arms around Bella and closed his eyes as a shadow fell over them.