Take A Number

"You're Akai right?" Chloe asked, extending her hand.

"Yes, who are you?" Akai replied, exchanging the handshake.

"I'm Chloe. Agent and gadget specialist," she answered.

"Excellent, can you do anything about this?" Akai asked, pushing a small, cold DS into her hand.

"I could if I didn't have monitor duty, but I'm sure Charis could help you... her lab is just down the hall."

"Okay, it was nice meeting you Chloe."

---

Jared checked his watch as he worked on replacing the oil pan on his pickup truck, after he did that it would be all but repaired, after that was accomplished the vehicle would be all but fully rebuilt from it's clash with Death, he was pondering taking a break and going to find some pizza rolls when the door to his lab slammed open, the sudden noise startled Jared, causing him to slam his forehead against the very oil pan he was repairing.

"Ow! Whoever is there would it kill you to knock?" Jared responded, rubbing his forehead.

"It might, and surely you wouldn't want me to risk my life in such a menial way?" Akai said, grabbing Jared's sliding cart and pulling him out from beneath the pickup.

"Ah Akai, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" Jared asked, rubbing his sore head.

"A certain someone borrowed my DS without asking, and when I walked into the room they panicked and threw it in the freezer, now it won't turn on!" Akai said, handing the semi-frozen gaming device to Jared.

Jared pulled his collar and gulped as he remembered finding a DS on the table, getting up to get a bowl of ice cream and returning to the table without the console.

Crap, I must have accidentally stuck that thing in the freezer.

"Well I can tell you right now it's because the battery acid in your power cell is frozen, it's a good thing you didn't try to charge it or else it might have exploded." Jared mumbled.

"Don't care, just fix it..." Akai said, "You there, cookies!" She shouted at the Jun-akuma, the tiny demon happily obliged with a mid-sized platter.

"Small electronics aren't really my specialty, Charis or Chloe would be alot more qualified for this type of thing..." Jared said, searching around for his custom DS screw driver.

"I know, but they're both busy, that's why I'm asking you..." Akai stated between cookies.

Jared felt wounded at Akai pure, unrestrained bluntness.

"Wow, you really are negative..." Jared said, removing the back panel on the DS.

Akai just shrugged and resumed eating cookies as Jared tried to get the tightly packed battery removed.

---

"General, what is that?" Major Industry asked, pointing at the Jun-akuma floating nearby.

"It's ah... ah... turnip maybe," Idea replied, unsure of what to make of the creature which was roughly the same height as the tallest members of the LPGB.

"It's staring at us General, what do we do?"

"Hey, turnip-thing! What are you?" General Idea called, the Jun-Akuma just stared.

"Maybe it doesn't speak english?" Follower added.

"Tu hablo espaniol?" Captain Crunch prompted, the tiny demon did not react in the slightest.

"Let's return to base, I want surveillance teams to follow this... turnip-thing around until we actually learn what it is." Idea said before getting back in his Humvee.

---

"Well, I changed out your battery, I will let you know if I ever find out who put your DS in the fridge..." Jared said.

"Okay, thanks." Akai said.

"If you ever need any more work done I can hook you up right here..." Jared said, sliding back under the truck and going back to work.

"That's what she said!" Akai shouted.

"Wha- OW!" Jared yelled, leaning up and banging his head on the oil pan again.

The Jun-akuma floated next to Jared and pulled out a band-aid as Jared clutched his aching forehead.

"Come back anytime, I always aim to satisfy..." Jared said, bandaging his forehead.

"That's what she said!" Akai said before slamming the door.

"Somedays... it doesn't pay to be smart," Jared muttered, watching the closed door

Insert The Original Indestructible Captain Here (part 5 of 5)

As the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the society team in the Team Rocket base. The Electrode duly vanished off to wherever fainted Pokemon go in the games, and all was silent.

That was, until Emotion Marcus's Kirlia appeared as if from nowhere, looked around a bit, then vanished from whence it came. A few more seconds passed, then it reappeared, with Thought Marcus's Kadabra, Murkrow, Tyler and his Grovyle, and both Marcus' in tow, now they were sure it was safe.

"Well," Tyler said. "That was unexpected..."

"ONE OF US SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT A POLIWHIRL." Emotion Marcus put in. He was thinking of the "Damp" ability.

"Ab-b-bilities don't work in th-th-this generation." Thought Marcus reminded him.

Murkrow flapped off, having had enough for one day, and not even the detachment of LPGB that tried to arrest him as a soviet spy on the way out could stop him.

A quick search of the transmitter room determined that whatever had been broadcasting the interference had been blown to scrap by Electrode, along with their answers. Charis eventually reported that she would be able to get the plotholes working again inside of an hour, possibly faster. No-one however, had any explanation for why Mesha had made her own life so difficult by not defending this installation. It was eventually put down to Sueish over-confidence.

oooo

It was becoming clear to the Society Leader that Mesha was just toying with her. She had yet to draw her sword, and was merely using her arms to block the swings of Harriet's Cricket bat. She decided to call the Sue's bluff, and fell back, waiting for her to make the next move. Mesha pouted in mock disappointment.

"Had enough already?" she said, the bruises practically falling off her arms as she spoke. She drew her sword. "Too bad, because I haven't!"

Mesha swung her sword, using the magical abilities she had forged into it in the Slayers fandom to fling a wave of Blue-green energy at Harriet. The society leader pictured herself at the Rosebowl in Hampshire, and promptly hit it for a six. Mesha responded with another wave, and another.

"Miss Yana..." Captain Black put in. "There is a-"

"Whatever it is, deal with it!" Mesha snapped. "I'm busy!"

Black smiled quietly to himself. That vague instruction gave him the necessary loophole to make life easier for the escaped society agents. He gave orders into his communicator.

oooo

"If it was any easier, it would be a shooting gallery." Captain Grey commented, as he downed another cleaner.

It was true, the number of clones Mesha had brought with her were nothing if they were dispatched piecemeal. This of course, was exactly what Black had done. By encountering them in two's and three's, they were a lot easier to defeat. Not that there weren't a few nasty moments though...

As if to prove the point, the sloping access way that led to the control cabin of the Spectrum headquarters was suddenly filled with bright Promethium flame. One of the Jem'hadar devastators was armed with a heavy flamer.

The team navigating their way up to the bridge were forced back into cover as the jet scorched past, setting off the fire defences and filling the air with a cool Halon gas that restricted visibility. It restricted the range and spread of the clone's own weapon as well however, so Symphony Angel was able to get close enough to take him out with a well-aimed shot from an Electrode Rifle.

Colonel White looked back at the rest of the Team assaulting the Bridge, which consisted of Rhia, Ingrid and Lieutenant Green, and saw the girls loading their weapons with Copyright Darts to bring the non-coms to their senses.

"Everyone ready?" He received an affirmative nod. "Right, then lets get up there and vent this gas before we suffocate!"

oooo

Heading for the wheelhouse were Alice, Louise, Wille, Two Angels (Rhapsody and Harmony) and Captains Magenta and Ochre. Their problem was the Jem'hadar scout clones, which were the ones with the personal cloaking abilities, more than making up for their light armour and lack of any weaponry more advanced than knives and pistols.

The major advantage they had against them was Alice's goggles, now set on X-ray again, which picked them up wherever they were hiding. For the second time in as many minutes, Alice stabbed thin air and was rewarded with a reptilian gurgling noise as the trooper faded back into visibility.

It was at this point that a pair of cleaner clones came up behind the team in the corridor and tried to ambush Captain Magenta. A bad move by anyone's standards, as although he couldn't bring his rifle around in time to deal with the nearest one, the knife (Which was NOT Spectrum issue) in the former crime boss's left hand found the offending clone's eyes and disabled him long enough for Wille to use his Hellfire on him. His partner, attempting to retreat, was unsuccessful in doing so...

Ochre meanwhile was exchanging fire with another cleaner, further down the corridor, and eventually struck the man's weapon. With an impressive reaction time for someone with a burnt arm, the trooper pulled out a combat blade and lunged at the nearest enemy, which happened to be Harmony Angel. With her black belt (Fourth Dan) it was no contest, and he was probably relieved when Alice dealt with him a few seconds later.

That done, Alice stole ahead to the wheelhouse door so the goggles could see through it. She looked for a moment, then said something in sign language back to Louise.

"Three people in there, only one clone." She translated.

"Twelve..." muttered Ochre, who was keeping score. "She must be running out of them by now..."

oooo

Aside from the ten clones or so that Mesha had with her on the deck of Cloudbase, most of the rest of them were guarding the deck access corridor that Phoenixia, Tom, Pete, Ossa, Aimee, Jamie and the remaining Angels (Destiny and Melody) were trying to traverse.

The blizzard of fire that was shrieking towards their position was suddenly stilled for a second to allow a ravening blast of thermal energy to gush forth from another devastator, this time armed with a Multi-Melta.

Phoenixia threw herself against Destiny Angel and pressed her into the wall as the blast passed them, earning her a French expletive in her left ear, and a sudden feeling of being roasted alive on her back, accompanied by the smell of charred fabric.

"Damn it, I liked this outfit..." She muttered, mentally directing her healing abilities at her injuries and aiming a Incandescent Silverreign pistol at the nearest clone.

Melody sank into a firing crouch with a dropped Phaser Rifle and aimed a series of placed shots at the heavy weapon. Two cleaners fell to the deck, but the Jem'hadar was a cagey opponent, lurking at the back of the pack. This was when Tom, by pure chance and at extreme range, managed to put a Tungsten cored Bullet into the Multi-Melta itself.

The resulting high-pitched whine from the weapon gave those agents that were close in to the group the opportunity to dash back into cover before it blew itself out of existence with a deafening roar.

Melody Angel covered her ears and grimaced in pain as blood dripped through her hands. Any advantage the surviving clones hoped to gain from her vulnerability was swiftly blown away by Ossa and Pete as they closed once more and took care of them.

Waiting for a few seconds while her burns healed Phoenixia heard a crackling noise from her Communicator. She smiled as she began to make out Emily's voice.

oooo

"That sounds hopeful." Rhia remarked, as she became aware of the same thing. "Emily this is Rhia, can you hear me?"

The bridge was secure now, and the Spectrum portion of the team were regaining control of the affected systems. With little left to do save make sure Canon characters weren't killed late in the game, she could afford to focus on this for a while.

"Juzzzzzarely." came Emily's voice, through the crackling. "Michael and the rest are on their way now, and you wonzzzzzzz..." The signal degraded again, but Rhia had heard enough. Alice and Louise returned from the Wheelhouse at this point.

"Green? Are there any aircraft that look like they're on an intercept course? I'm told some reinforcements are on their way now."

"Got one." Green came back after a second. "Approaching from the west, height 30,000 feet and descending. Speed..." he paused and stared at his instruments in disbelief. "...Seven point five thousand miles per hour?"

"Lets see it." Colonel White said, thoughtfully. Green brought the image up on the screen. Alice and Louise's eyes widened.

"Is that...? No way!" Alice spluttered.

oooo

Harriet realised something was up when the clones that had up to this point been watching and waiting for Mesha's orders, abruptly looked back at the airlock she had been brought through and shifted to combat stances. If Mesha was aware of this, she gave no sign, but continued to throw blasts of blue-green magic at her, which the society leader duly deflected in short order.

She began to wonder if Mesha was trying to keep her at arms length because she was useless at close combat. She grinned as her mental tally of her score passed 100 runs.

"That's a Century for me!" she taunted. Mesha responded with a menacing smile and threw an especially large blast that sent her skidding backwards a full three feet as she batted it away. That had happened quite a lot during the course of this battle...

As the society team emerged onto the deck, Ossa was the first to spot Harriet's predicament.

"Hati! Behind you!" she yelled.

The society leader chanced a quick look over her shoulder. "There's nothing behind meeeeeee!" Harriet suddenly felt the deck slope away behind her under her feet. Mesha grinned.

"That's the point." She said, and with an expansive gesture, fired the widest blast at her yet.

Harriet swung the cricket bat for the last time, and promptly lost her balance.

"Oh Knickers!" she squawked with surprising politeness as she fell out of sight.

Da-Da-Daa, Da-Da-Da-Daaa!

Something struck the aircraft's wing with a clang.

"Gotcha!" said Captain Scarlet, not bothering to conceal his relief. Dave too let out the breath he'd been holding in.

"Too close... Far too close..." he muttered. He looked up at the pilot. "Okay Scott. Lets get up there and really give them something to think about!"

The pilot nodded, and manipulated his two control sticks.

oooo

Mesha's grin became diabolical as she watched Harriet fall out of sight. If she had calculated it right, (and of course she had, she was perfect!) the society leader would land directly on top of the largest stone at Stonehenge. Once part of a great Trilithon, it had a nasty knob on top that had initially held the lintel on. That was bound to cause a mess.

Only a Sue could have heard the clang Harriet made by hitting the aircraft's wing over the cries of outraged abuse from the remainder of the society, so Mesha heard it alright, and the grin flickered, then vanished as the aircraft rose into view beyond the edge of the Cloudbase deck.

Presenting its left side to the gob-smacked onlookers meant that Harriet Marlow was clearly visible, clinging to the leading edge of the wing, her face a strange mixture of "Am I alive?" and "This is almost fun".

As the silver-grey aircraft turned its red nose cone towards Mesha with the air of a disappointed schoolmaster turning to rebuke a child that had just thrown something at him, it was the word written down the underside of the fuselage that caught every eye.

Thunderbird.

And beneath that, on a blue piece of hull, the number one.

Mesha's remaining Devastators were armed with a Missile Launcher, Plasma Cannon, and Heavy Bolter, and while the one with the Bolter was too busy with suppressing fire in the direction of the society, the others opened up on the giant craft.

Harriet squawked, and buried her face in the Thunderbird's wing as a Frag (anti-infantry) Missile glanced off the hull and spun off into space not three metres from her. Faced with a direct assault, Scott Tracy responded in kind, and the air was suddenly filled with the chatter of machine cannon fire.

The resulting detonation of the Plasma Cannon created a large sphere of super-heated matter that atomised it's bearer and the Missile Trooper, burnt three cleaners to the point they couldn't lift their weapons any more, and cooked off a fuel storage tank on the deck below which knocked almost all the combatants on the deck over with the shockwave.

The Thunderbird lowered itself until Harriet was able to slide over the back of the wing and drop down to the deck (unhurt, but without much grace). As she did so, the hatch underneath opened as well, and a figure dropped out, to the astonishment of all present.

Dave landed on his feet, with his right fist planted into the deck in what he no-doubt thought was a heroic pose. This was slightly undermined by the loud snap of breaking bone that accompanied his landing.

"Ow!" he said simply. "Remind me never to do that again." He stood up, and a flash of green light next to his injured ankle signified that it had healed, but he still favoured it for a few steps as he walked towards Mesha.

"Mesha Alicia Maria Susan Maylene Violet Abigail Yana." he said, "You are under arrest for fandom manipulation, creation and maintenance of an army with the intent of further counts of the same, killing m- Oh Bog!" He snapped, as Bolter shells detonated around him, some in him. "Scott, if you wouldn't mind?" he added into a Radio Microphone in his hand.

The words, "Don't bother big brother, I've got him." reached his ears and Mesha's. The last of the Jem'hadar was suddenly propelled rapidly forwards by a missile that had struck him in the small of the back. The unfortunate clone kept moving until he was pushed from Cloudbase's deck by the rocket's force.

"Thanks Virgil." Dave said into the microphone as the blood drained away from his clothes back into him. "But I bet you couldn't do that again if you tried!"

"Not sure I'd want to." Came the younger Tracy's voice as Thunderbird 2, minus it's pod, rose above the cloud it had been hiding in, it's missile launcher smoking. Several harnesses dropped from a lower hatch, each holding a society member. At the same time, a spluttering and sparking, but relatively stable plothole opened, and several other agents came through until almost the whole society were standing on the deck of Cloudbase.

"This endeavour is no longer viable, Miss Yana." Captain Black put in, not without a certain snigger in his voice. "I am instructed to retreat. I urge you to do the same." And without further ado, he leapt from the carrier and was gone.

"Where was I?" Dave muttered, distracted. "...army, fandom manip..., Oh yeah! Killing me several times, traumatising my Luxray, and wilful deception of a society parole board." He paused. "Have I missed anything?"

"Embedding my Cricket Bat six feet in the ground in the middle of Stonehenge?" Harriet suggested. She wasn't sure whether to trust him yet, but was willing to go along with this. Dave clicked his fingers, or more accurately speaking, tried and failed to.

"Thank you Madam Society Leader." he replied, glaring at his fingers in annoyance. "Wilful destruction of Society property!" Harriet frowned. That didn't sound as good.

Mesha blinked several times.

"But... You turned. You didn't want to be part of it. You never did..."

"That may possibly be true..." Dave sighed quietly. "But its less a matter of wanting to be a part of the society, and more a matter of needing to be."

"Yeah right." Mesha retorted viciously. "You're just another Nazi out to destroy us after all!"

"Yeah, about that." Dave said, "Did you really think someone with an Archaeology and History degree wouldn't see the potential for that to happen? Or at least," he swiftly amended, in deference to the incredulous looks he was getting. "that it could be interpreted like that by cynics such as myself?"

It would be fair to say he had everyone's attention now, and took full advantage of that fact.

"That's one of my reasons for joining the society I didn't put on my entrance form. I joined as a voice of reason, to reign people in before they got vilified for trying to do a good thing the wrong way. Thing is, to do that, I needed some kind of proof that Sues could be reformed, that it was possible to save them from themselves. Emily, Lily, and you, so I thought...And then, just to put the cherry on it, you go and make the very thing you're so afraid of more and more likely!"

"What?" shrieked Mesha. "How do you work that out?"

"Think about it." Dave said, his voice dangerously quiet. "What have you done to prevent a war of mass extermination? I'll tell you. You went and proved the opposite point! If you go around betraying those who would help you and trying to kill anyone who gets in your way, then you're only going to prove in the minds of others that extermination may be a worthwhile course of action! Which only makes my job, and yours for that matter, a lot harder."

"DON'T PRETEND YOU HAVEN'T MURDERED YOUR SHARE!" Mesha howled, "FORGETTING ABOUT KIMBERLY AND HENRIETTA ALREADY ARE WE?"

"Who?" Dave said, suddenly confused.

"I think those were the Sues in Primeval at the same time she was." Michael put in. "You know, the ones Helen Cutter killed and left for the scav-"

"LIAR!" Mesha roared, launching a massive wave of blue-green magic at him. It missed, and dispersed harmlessly over southern England. "YOU MURDERED THEM! JUST LIKE YOU ENGINEERED THE OTHER'S DEATHS WHEN YOUR PANDORICA GOT TOO FULL!"

"No, Willowe set them loose..." Valerie said, wincing from Mesha's rage.

"LIAR!" Mesha shrieked again, clapping her hands to her head as if it were about to burst open.

"If you were perfect," Dave said slowly, "You'd know we weren't lying..."

Mesha considered this for a moment, but before she could respond, two things happened in quick succession.

First, the Archangel Necklace, which had been glowing brighter and getting progressively hotter to the touch for the last few minutes without anyone (not even Mesha) noticing, blew a fuse with a spectacular bang and began to spit sparks.

Second, a bright flash of light lanced out from a point just in front of where the Angel aircraft sat at ready launch position and shot Mesha in the back.

Many eyes turned to the source, and found a woman with red hair and dressed in a Dark Red coloured Spectrum uniform holding a bow, from which she had just launched the arrow now sticking out of Mesha's back. In all the excitement, they'd forgotten all about Captain Burgundy.

"You dropped this Marlow." she said, throwing Harriet's cricket bat into the crowd. Then, with a flash of emerald light, she was gone.

Mesha collapsed with a gasp. The arrow was crackling with electricity, and had gone fairly deep into her back, but it was still a minor wound as far as a Sue was concerned. So it was a surprise when Mesha apparently couldn't heal herself, even when the arrow vanished, calmly and without fuss, a second later.

Valerie swiftly cleared everyone away from where she was lying, muttering deliriously to herself, and began trying to heal her, with little success.

"R-romani... No...It can't...they...He tricked me..."

"Mesha." Dave said, kneeling down next to her. "Where's that pellet thing? You'll have to regenerate."

"Not...working...Why can't I...?...He lied!" she spat, with unexpected venom. "He...used...me..."

"I'm loosing her!" Valerie said, quite calmly under the circumstances.

"Who did?" Dave put in. Mesha gave him a glazed look that was supposed to be a glare. She didn't have long left...

"Mesha, you owe me." Dave insisted, presenting his right hand. The burn he had sustained saving her life in Primeval had long since faded, but she understood. Her voice was so quiet, only Dave and Valerie heard her at all.

"Storm...herald..."

With that, Mesha Alicia Maria Susan Maylene Violet Abigail Yana collapsed with a sigh, and immediately decomposed into a cloud of purple glittering particles that spiralled away on the wind, dispersing over the Captain Scarlet fandom until none were visible to the naked eye.

oooo

The man in the shadows watched this, then closed his eyes as a mark of respect.

"Like father, like daughter..." the man called Stormherald said quietly. "May you find redemption for the crimes you committed in another time..."

oooo

"Captain Burgundy, or Romani as Mesha called her, was never a Sue." Phoenixia said. "Looking back at all the readings we got from her proved it conclusively. The bracelet she left behind on Harriet's cricket bat was a highly advanced Suergy generator."

The senior society members present at this emergency meeting in Adrian's office looked at each other in some surprise.

"I thought there was a way to tell the difference?" Valerie put in, recalling her own experiences in the Heroes fandom. Phoenixia sighed.

"Usually yes, and this thing could allow for that, seeming to be real unless you knew exactly what you were looking for. Which we didn't at the time."

"So to the untrained eye, my cricket bat was a Sue briefly?" Harriet asked, faintly amused by the idea. "Interesting concept..."

"Speaking of Sues," Adrian put in, "I think mine was a deliberate distraction." He was tired and worn from battling her for an extended period.

"She wasn't all that hard to get the measure of." he explained, "Problem was, she deliberately fought with the intention of keeping me occupied as long as possible, so I very seldom got to grips with her." He frowned deeply before continuing. "Of course, I couldn't just leave her running around in there, so I had to keep fighting. Eventually she received a message from an unknown point in the multiverse and bailed out of the fandom as soon as she could."

"What message?" Michael asked.

By way of response, Adrian turned in his chair and brought up a picture on a screen behind him. This was what had appeared on the Zord's screens, and those of the Sue's Evangelion. A stick man, holding a flag aloft, bearing a stylised thundercloud on its fabric. Valerie gasped.

"Stormherald!"

Adrian nodded. He'd come to the same conclusion.

"Why do I get the feeling Mesha wasn't the real threat?" Harriet muttered.

"Well, if we turn to questions we can answer for the time being..." Tash said, over her neck brace. She wouldn't need it for longer than a few days thanks to Alan Tracy and the medical supplies in Thunderbird 2's pod (that Virgil had left at the mine), but trying to glomp him immediately after she regained conciousness hadn't helped it. "These Star Trek lizard men. What can you tell us about them Val?"

Valerie frowned. "Louise was right, they aren't all Jem'hadar. They have genes for Klingon redundant organs, which have been modified to produce an organic substitute for Ketracel-White, and Gorn gene sequences that allow them to regenerate lost limbs in a matter of days if they're severed... Basically speaking, they have all the strengths and few if any of the weaknesses."

Michael grimaced. Project Warpath was looking more useful by the minute...

"And Dave?" Adrian asked. There was a brief silence.

"Well," Valerie said at last. "There aren't any sleeper programs in his head, we know that much..."

"Good." Again, silence.

"He did raise some fair points." the healer eventually continued, "What we do can look, to an ill-informed outside observer, like ethnic cleansing. Look at Tash and Harriet's experiences with Lisa. She was convinced to the point of self-delusion that we had murdered her boyfriend. Dave's right. We're going to have to do some major public relations work if we don't want any more like her or Mesha."

Phoenixia frowned to herself as she thought of something else, and made a mental note to Email Mesha's author later.

"If anyone's worried about Dave turning traitor," Tash said, "on his suggestion, Asuka is staying close to him in case of an emergency. Although I don't think she really expects to have to do anything if she was that cut up about stopping him before."

"Would she be able to do anything anyway?" Adrian asked, "He survived it last time."

"Since he's left the fandom, there isn't a ready source of retro-metabolic energy to super-charge that ability." Valerie explained, "An electric attack like Thunder Fang should do it... if it has to. But I don't think he's any immediate threat to anyone save himself. He's still depressed. I'm going to run a few more tests to see if I can find out what his nightmares were about so I can help on that front though."

"Any ideas on how the psychic paper got into the library?" Tash asked.

"Well, logically," Michael began, then he stopped and knocked on the side of his head with a fist. "Shut up in there! I do know what logic is! Anyway, it could only have been planted at four points in the past year, assuming Mesha or her allies were involved somehow. One; Mesha's abduction from the library."

"That's a no." Phoenixia interrupted. "I've already checked that."

"Two;" Michael went on, "Rhia's abduction, when @ turned off the security cameras. Or three; when the Doctor Who villains were running around the library and we had to do the same thing to stop the Weeping Angels..." His face darkened with the memory.

"Unlikely coincidence as the last one is, the plothole sensors were still running while the cameras were off both times, and there were no anomalies." Phoenixia paused. "Besides, the collection of psychic paperwork would need time to cross-breed and develop, so my bet would be during the chaos of the battle of the library."

Michael nodded. "That was option four."

"All very well and good, but how do we get rid of it?" Tash put in again.

"Well," Adrian said, "there is an event in the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy fandom that disperses telepathic power. If we open a few plotholes to that point at strategic places in the library, the telepathic signal should be diffused harmlessly."

"Mesha didn't know it had been planted at all." Valerie said suddenly. "When I confronted her before, she didn't have a clue what I was talking about..."

"Again we're back to this Stormherald person..." Harriet said, "What kind of a name is that anyway?"

"We know he's male." Phoenixia began, "He's not a Gary-Stu, and he's good with technology. His name might indicate that he's from the Doctor Who fandom like Mesha was. "The Oncoming Storm", as in the Doctor."

"So he's comparing us to the Dalek's." Tash said. "Blindly hating and exterminating anything that doesn't fit with our world-view. Or at least, that's the front he choose to portray to Mesha..."

"We need more information..." Adrian sighed, unaware that elsewhere in the library, Jared was granting this wish.

oooo

He was studying the remains of Mesha's Archangel Necklace and Counts-As-Pellet, and he was confused.

The Necklace was designed to direct a lot of its power inwards towards Mesha, controlling her as much as it protected her. That wasn't the biggest surprise though...

He ran another scan to check his suspicion, and was just about to write it off as an attack of paranoia, when the scanning programme he'd borrowed from the Star Trek fandom displayed the last thing he'd expected.

He double checked it. Same result.

Another chip in the same device. Different result, but only by 00000000000000000.1 or something stupid like that.

Chloe's entrance to the lab and her request to borrow a tool went unheard as he stared at the screen.

"Chloe..." he said, remarkably calmly. "Can you look at this for me?"

"Sure. What are you doing exactly?" she asked, coming over to him.

"I was looking at the gadgets that were brought in from Captain Scarlet. Mesha's I mean. I guessed they might work along similar lines to some of ours, but..." he stopped and thought. "The circuit diagram of the Archangel Necklace is derived from a miniaturised version of the society S.E.P field. Its far too similar to be a coincidence. The same goes for the C.A.P and the Guest Appearance."

"That's impossible!" said Chloe. Those gadgets hadn't even been thought of when Mesha first used hers. The very idea was laughable.

"I know, but I ran this quantum dating program through the scanner, just to check it. That's what I don't quite believe..." He let Chloe look over the data. Her jaw dropped, as he knew it would.

"Minus...This is relative to time here in the library, right?" she asked, uncertainly.

Jared nodded. "I'll run some more tests before I show this to a leader, but the way it looks now... Relative to us here and now, some of the stuff in these circuits was synthesised between 2020 and 2025. Ten to Fifteen years in the future..."

oooo

A tunnel of cloud, occasionally lit by flashes of lightning. A figure strode through the chaos, along a road that didn't exist.

A hole formed in the clouds, showing a scene.

The woman had a pair of brown fox ears sticking through her dark red hair, and two long brown tails with red points wound their way out of her outfit. She was beautiful, bleeding, and slowly vanishing into thin air.

"I guess this... is as far as I go... My Storm Angel..." She said, as she faded from sight completely.

The man strode on. His fists tightening.

Another hole in the passageway showed him himself, fighting alongside this woman, as did the next three. That had happened a lot in the last few years...

Another hole. Another time.

A group of Gary-Stu's, gloating over their latest cruelty. A bright white beam shot through a plothole, down through a red sky and struck Stonehenge. The high, evil laughter turned to surprise, then astonishment, then uneasy apprehension as a dome of red and black light expanded from the circle and began to twist the landscape into shapes only possible in fiction.

More images.

Tash, now about thirty, standing in front of the Counter Guardians, yelling at the top of her voice and pointing at the door, a crystal encased Adrian sleeping serenely through the whole scene.

A black haired Mary-Sue, standing over Dave, her sword pinning him to the ground by his stomach. His mouth wide in a roar of rage as he gripped the hilt tightly, denying her its use.

Emily, fifteen now, stumbling through the rubble of a destroyed city, supporting a cut and bleeding Harriet, who obviously didn't have much more time left on this earth.

Several W.A.R.G.S stood around a grave, more than one was missing...

Mesha Yana, exchanging blows with Silri in the Heroes fandom. She suddenly noticed Valerie emerging from a plothole, flash stepped over to her, and coldly slid her sword through the healer's heart.

"Mind your own business, Society Ant!" she said, pushing her back into the closing plothole with a contemptuous flourish as Kuroneko arrived too late to help...

"They Betrayed us..." The figure muttered to himself. "I can't let it happen again!"

Tash and Willowe trading blows over the Sahara Desert... Ben and Neb fighting in the tunnels... Chi and Xavier in the Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged fandom...

"Ah. Here's my stop!"

Six wings, so black that light seemed to just fall into them and get lost, erupted from the figure's back. He flew on the stormy wings up to a point in the cloud funnel, jinking almost contemptuously around the lightning that spluttered around him.

"Shadow Ignite!"

A black sword blade emerged from an object in his hand. He swung it to connect with the cloud funnel, and opened a great gash in its side. The length of tunnel that the figure had walked through began to disperse like windblown smoke...

oooo

Dave woke up, alert but far from scared.

"Boss?"

He looked over to the rug in the centre of his room, where Asuka had now taken up semi-permanent residence. As he flipped on his bedside light, it picked out the metal of the translation collar he had found in the same storage area of his imagination as Martha. It was designed for a Flareon initially, so it was ill-fitting and occasionally rendered her language into a series of clicks and squeaks, but since she was sticking around for a while, it would do the job.

"Another nightmare?" Asuka asked, putting her front paws on the bed next to him. "But Val said you wouldn't CLICK WARBLE SQUEEEEEEEEE." The Luxray grimaced as the collar disgraced itself.

"Not a nightmare." Dave said, ruffling her mane affectionately. "It was disturbing, but..." He wasn't sure how to describe what he could remember of it, and gave up. His head diverted into other thoughts.

It was strange. He had expected to feel different.

He literally wasn't himself any more. He was a replica, a perfect replica of Dave. So perfect he didn't know where "Proper Dave" ended and the new him, "Other Dave", began...

To Asuka's Luxray-vision, or Alice's goggles, he was a Dave-shaped blur. The other agents seemed to avoid him, giving him mistrustful glares in passing. Or was that just him being cynical?

What do I have to worry about? I'm indestructible! He thought, clenching a fist in front of his face. Electricity and Old Age are the only things that can kill me, and Valerie isn't even sure about that last one yet! Maybe now is the time. Maybe now I can finally show those serene little-

He terminated that line of thought in something approaching disgust.

"Penny for them...?" Asuka asked, in a slightly strained voice. Dave abruptly realised he had very nearly torn a clump of her fur out by clenching the hand that had been stroking her.

The Society Agent sighed and flopped back on his bed. "Wonderful... I turn on my friends and try to kill them...Mesha's patron has it in for me...my own head is out to stop me sleeping... Ye Gods and little fishes, I've actually died in the line of duty! That was too much for Jenny Lewis, so why am I still here? Am I a masochist?"

"Don't be like that!" Asuka said, in the most matriarchal voice the simulator could muster. Dave's response was to turn off the light again and turn to face the wall. He heard his Pokemon sigh, felt the bed move, and a weight settle across his shins.

He sighed himself, as the Luxray's body heat warmed his legs. "Sorry... Thanks, Mousey."

A yellow eye opened in response. "Don't call me that." But Asuka smiled slightly none-the-less as she watched him drift off.

Please don't make me kill you again... She silently pleaded, her tears dripping onto the bedclothes, as she drifted off into troubled dreams herself. Your pride will do that anyway if you're not careful...

Insert The Original Indestructible Captain Here (part 3 of 5)

"You're kidding me..." Louise was pale. Every eye was glued to the monitor showing Tash and the Dave replica.

"Is that...what.." Miri stammered. "Oh dear God..." Her hands flew to her mouth. She was clearly picturing Michael, Claire or Tash ending up like that. Phoenixia put a comforting arm around her.

"I take it something quite dire is occurring?" Everyone turned round.

Aramayis stood at the door, Saito behind him, unaware he had just won the prize for the understatement of the century.

"You could say that..." Harriet growled.

"We leave you alone five minutes..." Saito muttered.

oooo

Michael, Scarlet, Chloe and Jared were running as fast as their legs could carry them. The replicated Mariana close on their heels. The Mysterons had apparently deactivated the permanent prohibitor when they had retro-metabolised her. Consequently, she had all the powers she had once possessed in her native X-men fandom. Fortunately, as her Nom de Guerre of Snow-Owl suggested, her powers were based around water and wind, of which there was little available around the ruined mine workings. Being a Sue however, what little there was was being used to frightening effect.

She alighted upon a disused vehicle, chanting an spell to focus her mental energies towards her opponents.

"Don't mess with Nukes!"

Mariana took flight again, and Ben's Nuke devastated only the massive Dumper truck she had been perched upon.

"Gaah! Missed!" Ben shouted, as the sue replica banked over his head.

"Um, Ben?" Lily said, tapping him on the shoulder. "I think we have other problems..."

A roar of a massive engine caught Ben's attention as she spoke. Next to the wreckage of the truck, was another one, undamaged and glowing faintly green in the sunlight. The symbol that Ben had taken to be an Audi logo vanished from the radiator, and it charged forward without anyone in the driver's seat.

"Wonderful." Michael said, scrambling to get out of the truck's way. He was irritable because the hot Nevada sunlight meant that the Darkness was restricted to abusing him, which didn't help a bit. "Thanks a lot."

Da-Da-Daa, Da-Da-Da-Daaa!

Joe was down. His arm injury wasn't fatal, but he wasn't going to be of much help if he couldn't hold his weapon. Marcus and Drake covered Pete as he helped his injured friend into cover until they could generate a plothole without being disturbed. Three clones resisted them, while the rest split up to hunt down the Spectrum personnel and society agents.

On the positive side, Rhia had found a new sniping position, and more to the point, had remained there long enough to take out a lot of those with ranged weapons. As Marcus blasted one with the Dragon Talisman, allowing Drake to finish it off with a Storm Spear, he couldn't help feeling that the odds were getting better.

A bullet bounced off a rock next to him. Marcus turned, seeing a Spectrum Agent.

"I thought you were on our side!" Then he saw the man's black uniform. "Oh..."

"You thought wrong, Earthman." Captain Black replied, taking aim with his rifle again. Marcus fired the Dragon Talisman, but as he did so, a clone brought a Klingon close-combat weapon down towards him. He was able to block in time with his Umbrella, but the shot only grazed Black, although it did melt part of his weapon. Dislodged from his hand, the Talisman skittered away over the rubble.

Drake leapt at the offending clone, engaging it, while Pete kept the other one busy. This left Marcus to deal with the Mysteron agent.

Okay. He's probably trained in unarmed combat techniques I've never heard of. Marcus thought, as Black stood up again. So outnumbering him won't work. Still, I think I can copyright him though...

He leapt to one side as Black lunged at him. Black recovered quickly, checking himself where Marcus had struck him.

"Whatever you hoped to do Earthman, it was ineffective."

Marcus was forced to dodge again. He was sure this guy was canon, so why hadn't the copyright worked? Which Talismans did he have left? Ah! Now there was an idea! Marcus rummaged in his pocket, and tried to get close up again.

oooo

"...against the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hands."

Aster's attacks didn't get anywhere near Lina. She was protected by some kind of magical forcefield. Chrys and Akai were beginning to make headway against the living tide of clones, but they would still be in the firing line when the spell was completed.

"Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed, by the power you and I possess!"

"Flat-Chested Little Girl!"

All eyes turned to Aster, who could scarcely believe the words had left her mouth. It was a low blow, no mistaking that, but if the clone thought anything like the real Lina...

Her face turned several colours that Aster had seldom seen in nature in rapid succession, then settled on a look of pure fury.

"DRAGON SLAVE!"

The spell whisked past the agile Fae and detonated somewhere in the stratosphere. The heat was off her friends, but now she had her work cut out just to survive.

"Ray Wing!" Lina cried, taking to the air to follow her. "Blast Ash! Diem Wing!"

"Kyaaaaaaaaa..."

Da-Da-Daa, Da-Da-Da-Daaa!

Claire threw a pine cone. Dave simply knocked it away with his axe, and ducked under one of Seiryu's bolts of energy, bringing up the axe again to intercept a blow from Tash's sword.

Under normal circumstances, Tash could simply have severed the axe shaft with metal melting heat. But these weren't normal circumstances. Dave had not been given Stuishly over-powered agility, or upper-body strength disproportionate to his build. What's more, his short-sightedness meant that blows at range were less accurate. In short, he was himself, only under the control of others. Captain Scarlet was living proof that the people thus replicated were salvageable. Maybe it would work the same way for Dave.

Maybe...

If it didn't, then the replica had to be destroyed. No-one should desecrate the dead in this manner. That would be the hardest part. If it came to it.

Dave disengaged and fell back, breathless, but somehow uninjured. Claire and Tash on the other hand were covered in little cuts and scratches where Dave had nicked them. Tash still had her twisted ankle to worry about as well, as Dave had kept her out of reach of Valerie's healing powers. More because the author asked her politely than anything else, Tash spoke.

"Dave, don't you remember us?"

Dave paused. "Of course..."

Tash blinked. She hadn't expected a response at all. She, Claire and Valerie stopped what they were doing abruptly. Dave did likewise. Mesha still lying on the rooftop and grinning like a maniac, made no attempt to alter this.

"I remember the girl I thought of as one of my best friends, cutting a woman's arm off and burning her alive because she goaded her." Dave said, his voice and eyes blank and expressionless, but his face beginning to tighten with anger. "I remember the only thing people ever had to say about me being "nice job breaking it hero". I remember being scared to be myself because of, of all things, an overgrown matchstick!"

"That's right..." Mesha cooed softly, in the flabbergasted silence that followed. "You don't have to be afraid. Not any more..."

"So that's why you gave him those manufactured nightmares!" Valerie cried. "So you could control him!" It was a fair deduction. With Dave's concious mind beginning to sympathise with Mesha's Mysteron programming, he was all the more dangerous. To Valerie's surprise, Mesha's response was to raise an eyebrow at her, as if to ask what she was talking about.

Dave's eyes locked with the healer's and flashed a sickly green. His frown deepened, but before he could respond, a bullet went straight through the side of his head.

Dave's response was to glare at Captain Blue contemptuously, as the wound healed to almost nothing in a moment.

"By the way, I added a few upgrades." Mesha giggled, reminding everyone of her presence. A bullet, a blast of fire, a pine cone and an energy bolt abruptly shot through the space where she had been a split second before, and now wasn't.

Have it your way then... Her voice echoed mockingly around the buildings.

Dave resumed attacking, and Valerie and Claire rushed to intercept. Tash dived behind the stack of machine parts where Blue was re-loading his gun.

"Don't do that!"

Blue looked up at her. "I'm just doing my job." he said, then his expression softened. "Although, I admit I'm more used to stopping the Mysterons by any means before things get worse..."

This statement hit Tash in the face. That's what we do as well, with the Sues... Isn't it? She shook her head to clear it.

"How did you cure Scarlet?" she asked, as the impact of Dave and Claire's weapons threw up a shower of sparks.

oooo

"Wild line!" Lily's attack punctured one of the Truck's tires, and it speared off at an angle, corrected itself, and charged back towards the fleeing group.

Chloe's explosive Rubik's Cubes disabled a small number of clones, opening a new path for them to flee down. Shirley was a blur of teeth and claws, making sure that few of the clones would be able to stand up before the heavy vehicle rolled over them. Ben reached for Bahmut again, but he was quickly set upon by several clones, so he left it slung on his back where it wouldn't impede his fast step.

Michael however had noticed something strange. It took a lot of effort for them to bring down even one clone soldier, but one shot from a mysterious beam weapon that Captain Scarlet was carrying seemed to be fatal to them. He didn't have time to wonder about this for long however, as Mariana/Snow-Owl was still around, and whipping up whatever water there was available into a devastating attack.

"Don't mess with Nukes!" Ben said, pointing at a specific area of the truck. The warhead detonated in the back and the force was directed away and up. The vehicle kept moving, but Mariana was caught in the blast. Being a Sue, she survived, although she landed hard.

"Boomhammer!" Jared managed to land a decisive blow against a clone soldier. A second clone armed with a Force Lance, a mixture of ray gun and quarter-staff from the Andromeda fandom, moved in to attack him, but was blown away by earth magic.

"How long can we keep this up?" he yelled, dancing out of the way of the truck as it roared past him.

"Lily!" Avak cried. She was standing beside the crater, apparently caught like a rabbit in the headlights of the truck as it charged towards her. Just before it struck however, she used Top Gear to dash out of the way, leaving the heavy vehicle to roll into the rubble filled crater. Because of it's momentum, it flipped over onto its back, allowing a Landslide triggered by Jared to bury it.

"Nice, but we ain't done yet!" Michael cried, exchanging blows with a Bat'leth using clone with his own sword, darkness tentacles lashing out at every foe in reach. It was at this point that the Truck decided to explode.

Da-Da-Daa, Da-Da-Da-Daaa!

Aster and Lina were now very high up in the sky above the mine workings. They heard the explosion and looked down. Lina seemed to decide they were high enough now, and began to recite another spell.

"Lord of the dreams that terrify, sword of the cold dark void..."

Aster gasped and sent a spear of ice at her, but Lina simply dropped out of the sky, as if in free-fall, still chanting.

"...Free yourself from the Heaven's bonds. Become one with my power, one with my body..."

Aster dived too, but Lina was using gravity to open a big lead on her.

"...and let us walk the path of destruction together. Power that can smash even the souls of the Gods!"

Lina pulled out of her dive, over the startled heads of Chrys and Akai, who were finally finishing off the last of the ground-bound clones, dark energy coalescing in her hands as she used the momentum to fly back up at Aster.

"RAGANA BLADE!"

The sword of the Lord of Nightmares struck Aster's staff. The spell's caster wasn't the real Lina Inverse, and nor did she posses the amplification talismans she had bought from Xellos in Slayers Next, so the energies released weren't fully controlled. Sparks of Chaos energy broke from the blade and lacerated Aster's face. Fae and cloned Sorceress struggled with the clashing energies for a while, Aster trying to hold back the chaos blade, and Lina pushing it home.

Something had to give, and it did. There was a bang, and both girls crashed to earth in a cloud of smoke.

"Aster!" Chrys and Akai ran to their friend as she struggled to sit up, desperate to defend her. Lina, although weakened, wasn't about to let this opportunity pass by.

"Van Rail!" she cried, through a mouthful of blood, slamming her palm into the ground. Tendrils of ice spiralled out of the ground and swirled towards the trio. Aster desperately raised a hand.

With Aster's powers over ice, it was no contest, and the spell rebounded on Lina, cocooning her in ice. Aster sighed with exhaustion.

"Poor choice, Lina-san." She muttered, as her friends helped her to her feet.

oooo

Marcus took the opportunity to search for the Dragon Talisman. His reprieve had been gained by using the Tiger Talisman to split Captain Black. This had worked better than he had hoped, as instead of splitting him into good and bad halves, the dormant human part of him had been released.

The society agent looked over his shoulder at them. Conrad Turner was fighting his Mysteron self like a man possessed, and Marcus could only imagine what the man had seen as his body had been used to kill and destroy in the name of the Mysterons. Surely that would drive anyone insane...

He caught sight of the dropped Talisman and reached for it. No sooner had his fingers closed over it, than the rubble shifted as the heavy lorry nose-dived into it and flipped. Drake and Pete gestured him over to the side of the crater, opposite the now buried vehicle. It was at this point that it decided to explode.

The two Captain Black's were blown into the crater wall and joined together again. Marcus landed on top of him and was promptly split up by the Talisman's power.

Dazed, Drake peered over the crater edge.

"Okay, both Marcus' are out cold." he paused. "Where's Captain Black?"

oooo

Mesha looked up from her binoculars as Captain Black appeared next to her, in the same manner as he had vanished from the crater.

"Enjoy getting your butt kicked?" she asked, teasingly. The Mysteron Agent frowned.

"Have they observed our secondary objective?" he asked in turn. His tone was slow and deliberate

"Not that I can tell."

"Then I have succeeded in my endeavour." Black paused. "I would note that you failed to inform us of certain information."

"Like what?" Mesha was looking back at the battle from the hilltop, uninterested.

"The Mysterons expected this society to be of similar purpose and organisation to Spectrum. You did not tell us the degree of unfamiliar powers they possessed."

"They're barely competent enough to use them." Mesha retorted, annoyed that she should have to justify herself. Her earlier effort had made sure the Mysteron's loyalty wasn't dependant on her powers, but she wasn't aware of how fragile her control was... Unaware of the Copyright, she turned on the Sueish charm again. Fortunately for her, she was still wearing the Archangel necklace. "Surely you can deal with that?"

"Even incompetence of use can threaten us. It is better we do not keep secrets..."

"I'll make a note of that." Mesha replied, focusing her binoculars on the battle again, unknowing of how close she had come to disaster. She wondered vaguely what Valerie had meant by manufactured nightmares, but decided to think about that later.

oooo

General Idea stood on Martha's dashboard. In the brief moments before he was forced to run from the cloned army, Jared had ordered him and the small detachment of LPGB he had with him to search Dave's Land Rover for anything that might be useful in combating the Mysteronised clones.

The General himself however was privately convinced that the Mysterons were aligned with the Soviet Union. And he didn't like the sound of this Bereznik state he had run across in the background of this fandom either...

"General Idea, Sir!" Idea's electric thoughts returned to the present.

"Captain Crunch?"

"We have completed our inventory, Sir."

"Report."

"Plastic carrier bags quantity two, containing one complete set of clothing and a pair of boots. All non-ferrous. One standard issue Communicator. One pair of Specsavers glasses, associated case, and clip-on sunglasses..."

"Anything that isn't standard issue?" Idea queried.

"Yes sir. One device of Society manufacture matching the description of experimental gadget designated "Guest Appearance". Also, one Poke Ball of the "Heal Ball" variant, containing unidentified Pokemon." Captain Crunch paused. "Permission to speak freely, sir."

"Granted."

"The deceased was not known for carrying superfluous items around with him. It is my strong belief that both the anomalous items are present for a good reason."

"Agreed Captain. But lets not waste time speculating on what these reasons were. Prepare to move out, the Admiral needs this information."

"Si- Get Down Sir!" Crunch roared. General Idea turned, wondering why Crunch had addressed him in Spanish, and only just got out of the way in time. Jared's Boomhammer impacted against the Land Rover's bonnet, bounced off and passed straight through the windscreen, striking the centre console before coming to rest on the back seat. The sonic boom of it's impact in the car's front shattered all the windows, and the computer screen in the dashboard.

"Are you alright Sir?" came a shout.

"Never mind that!" Idea replied, lifting a large piece of glass off himself. "That was the Admiral's weapon. At best he is disarmed, at worst captured by Soviet agents! Move out!"

"Warning. Handbrake has been disabled." said Martha sweetly.

The Land Rover was indeed in motion, slow now, but gathering pace all the time.

"Well this makes deployment easier." Idea remarked. "Miss Martha. Engage engine and apply brakes."

"Drive controls for this vehicle are not governed by this system. Please fasten your seatbelts and rejoin the nearest main road."

"Oh..."

Da-Da-Daa, Da-Da-Da-Daaa!

A minute or so earlier...

Jared cried out as Mariana, grounded but still fighting, lifted him of the ground with a gust of extremely cold wind, letting go of his Boomhammer as he did so, and allowing it to be blown away. He landed on top of Ben.

"T-t-t-thanks for the s-s-s-soft landing mate."

"Wwooommbbbsol.."

"Sorry?" Jared asked moving his foot.

"I said "You need your boots re-soling"." Ben repeated.

Both men suddenly remembered they were in battle, just in time to see Rhia and Cristoph slide between Snow-Owl and them, still fighting off the cloud of cloned Pokemon. Their two sets of foes promptly became entangled with each other, but only briefly. They soon came at the four agents again, coordinating their attacks with each other.

It was then that Michael realised that his group of agents had been forced into a dead end. There was no-where for them to retreat to, and as he saw Drake and Pete heading for them, both supporting a Marcus and Joe covering their retreat as best he could, he realised that returning to the library was their only option.

"Warning, unknown interference." said his plothole generator.

"Stacey, Phoenixia, we're locked!" he yelled into his communicator. There was no response. Apparently they were on their own for the next few minutes. He looked down at the device again, and his eyes were drawn to the Phoenix morpher on his wrist.

Five times only... Only in major emergencies... It was becoming hard to known what those emergencies were. Activate it too soon, and he would waste the power. Too late... He looked up at the agents, his colleagues, his friends. If he guessed wrong, then one or more of them might die.

Captain Scarlet seemed to be having trouble with his weapon. He looked at Michael. No words were spoken.

You're obviously an amateur organisation...Prepared physically, but not mentally...You start taking things for granted, its all the harder when the miracle you're depending on fails to turn up...

Scarlet noted Michael's gaze, and nodded, almost imperceptibly.

Get on with it will you! The Darkness growled, impatiently.

Fine then. Michael thought. We make our own miracles. The Chief Agent's hand crept towards the activator.

It was at this point, music caught Michael's ears.

He looked up again, just in time to move out of the way of Martha, as the LPGB steered her towards the group of agents. It was just as well they had accidentally switched her stereo on, or whatever they had done, or he wouldn't have noticed them.

The plastic soldiers wrestled as best they could with the vehicle's heavy steering, too early to be power-assisted, but Martha's next destination was looming ahead of them. A building's wall.

The impact was undramatic. The Land Rover did not crumple up, but merely struck the brickwork and shuddered. There was the sound of part of the mechanics underneath the vehicle coming loose, and the patter of the plastic figures of the LPGB falling all over the bonnet. It was now possible to hear exactly what was blaring from her speakers.

Caramelldansen.

All fire stopped, both sides paralysed by the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. There was a flash of light from the front passenger seat, which coalesced on Martha's roof.

A blue-black creature with scary eyes surveyed the scene calmly, the tail with the yellow throwing star on the end twitching slightly. Still, no one moved.

Dave's Luxray noted the music and looked down through the shattered sun-roof.

"Ray?"

Captain Crunch, in something of a daze, pushed a button. A different music track began to play.

This bloody road remains a mystery. This sudden darkness fills the air.

Asuka grinned. This was her kind of battle music. Leaping from the roof, the Luxray charged into battle, as the clones finally resumed fire.

oooo

"You won't help us?" Harriet was annoyed, but not exactly surprised with the Counter Guardian's response.

"Not our problem." Saito said, brusquely. "Not serious enough for us to be needed."

"I thought it was your job to stop these things before they got worse!" Jess exclaimed. "Now you're saying you can't stop them until it gets beyond the point you should have stopped them at?"

"I would point out before we go any further," Aramayis said, in the confused pause this statement created, and gesturing to the monitor. "That the society seems to be winning. Quite conclusively, unless I'm mistaken." He was right. The tide of battle around Captain Scarlet and Michael seemed to have turned with Asuka's intervention.

"That still leaves Dave..." Miri murmured.

oooo

Claire hadn't planned to be fighting to the death when she woke up this morning, and if she had, she certainly wouldn't have guessed that it would be Dave she was facing. She disengaged, allowing Valerie to hit him in the neck with an energy bolt. He healed himself close to instantly, and Claire found herself wondering vaguely how Jack Harkness would react if he saw this...

Tash swooped in again, Nephthys swishing to and fro, knocking aside his axe blows. One swing allowed the sword to connect with the hook of the axe, and yanked it from Dave's hands.

Then something neither Claire, nor Val had expected happened. Nephthys vanished, and Tash hugged Dave, her arms sliding beneath his shoulders and locking behind him in a death grip. Tash's wings spread out to their maximum span, and the two of them rocketed skywards.

The Girls looked at each other, then at Blue for an explanation. Before he could reply however, all three of them noted the music, punctuated by the sounds of battle.

"Tash knows what she's doing..." Claire said, moving towards the noise, all the while casting fleeting glances at the red/orange spark vanishing into the clouds.

Da-Da-Daa, Da-Da-Da-Daaa!

Won't anybody help us? What're we running for? When there's nowhere...

Asuka was mopping up the last of the clone troopers now, her Discharge filling the air with static. They were panicking now, targeting her instead of the society agents, apparently she was more of a threat to them. This meant that it was fairly simple for the society agents to lay down a suppressing fire.

...nowhere we can run to anymore!

As the Luxray connected a Thunder Fang with Mariana, Michael felt Scarlet tap on his shoulder.

"What is that?" he shouted over the music, indicating Asuka.

"Lion with X-ray eyes and the powers of an electric eel." he said, quickly. "Not sure why she's doing so well though..."

We can't afford to be innocent. Stand up and face the enemy.

A clone with a large Katana made as if to bisect the Luxray as she landed near him after a jump. He suddenly found Akai's spear sticking out of his chest. And then he had a set of electrified fangs in his shin.

"Mysterons are impervious to X-rays and vulnerable to High Voltage Electricity." Scarlet replied, taking out another clone with his repaired weapon. "That's how this Electrode Rifle works."

"You tell us this now?" Michael was suddenly struck by how thorough Dave was... Had been.

Be fair, you never asked him, did you? Came a sarcastic voice in the back of his mind.

It's a do or die-ie-ie-ie-ie...

Combat stopped again, as if by some unspoken agreement. The LPGB could be heard debating amongst themselves how to stop the CD skipping.

"Advise application of manual overshoe!"

"Make sense Major Detail!"

"Kick it sir!"

ie-ie-ie-ie situation.

The fighting picked up where it had left off, as if it had never stopped.

We will be Invincible!

Scarlet shouted a warning. Michael turned around in time to see another clone with a very big gun standing some way behind him, obviously in the final stages of charging to fire.

And with the power of conviction, there is no sacrifice!

An energy bolt struck the power pack, detonating it, and spreading the unfortunate man over a wide area.

Valerie grimaced, she hadn't meant to do that, but it had saved Michael.

Its a do or die situation. We will be Invincible!

The song finished just as the battle ended. Asuka finally allowed herself the luxury of collapsing under the weight of a dozen minor injuries and bullet ricochets. Had she been under level 70, she wouldn't have survived. The society agents spread out, making sure all of their foes were actually dead, tending their wounded, searching for other halves they had been separated from. Everyone was accounted for, except...

"Where's Tash?" Michael asked. Claire and Valerie looked at each other, then up in the sky, where a tiny dot was only just visible.

oooo

Tash bit her lip to stop herself crying out. Dave was punching, kicking, doing everything in his power to hurt her, uncaring they were now almost a mile up in the sky.

She didn't know what the "London Car View" was, or how high it had been. All she knew was that somehow, falling from such a height had been a major factor in Captain Scarlet's De-Mysteronisation.

She glanced down. This was high enough, surely? If he falls too far...

Could I...?

Inexplicably, her grip tightened, as if hoping Dave would pass out from lack of oxygen.

He didn't.

The composite plates in Dave's toe caps found her shins again, and Tash was sure she felt something break. She flinched in pain, and heard something rip. Cold air buffeted her front.

Tash hadn't realised that she'd closed her eyes, and opened them. Dave was falling away, part of her blouse in his outstretched right hand. His face registered neither fear, nor anger.

It was blank. Empty.

oooo

"Um... Guys...?" said Ben, his gaze firmly on the descending dot.

It was quite easy to tell where Dave was going to land, and everyone scrambled to reach the spot as fast as they could.

Dave landed hard, and deep in the ground, closely followed by Tash, who was using her wings to keep the weight off her injuries. Few noticed she was holding her ripped blouse closed, as her face was stricken.

"Please... please let that work..."

Scarlet started forwards, but just as he reached him, Dave's arm twitched, then spun almost comically back into its accustomed position.

"You're kidding..." Someone murmured.

The former agent pulled himself out of the hole his impact had created, the dust falling away from his clothes as they too repaired themselves, cracks and pops signifying his bones returning to normal.

Scarlet took a step back and raised the Electrode rifle, but Dave reached out, and pushed it down, away from himself. His blank eyes flashed green.

Mysteron Green.

Before anyone could react, Asuka sprang forward, clamping her jaws around Dave's throat. Only when he let go of the rifle to try and pry her off did she start to pass current through them. She knew Scarlet was just as vulnerable to her powers.

Dave gave a muted gurgling noise, then fell over under the Pokemon's weight. The Luxray clung on for a moment longer, but Dave didn't even twitch this time.

It was over.

oooo

"The evacuation of the reserves is completed...It is Done." Black commented.

Mesha grinned. "Good. Now we proceed to the next stage of the plan." She said. A split second later, the ridge where they had observed the battle was vacant, as if they had never been there.

Da-Da-Daa, Da-Da-Da-Daaa!

Michael, Ben and Lily were attempting to explain to Captain Blue what was going on in way that made some kind of sense to him. Their success was varied in this, but as long as Mesha was still in the fandom, it was clear they'd have to establish some kind of understanding if they were going to be sticking around for a while.

A few agents had been brought to, and indeed sent out of, the fandom by Tash's doors as the plotholes were still not working, and the society were making sure there were no extra clones waiting in the ruins to ambush them. Scarlet had sent for some extra Spectrum back-up agents to provide a cordon around the mine.

When the rain started, Claire and Miri had to bodily pick Asuka up and carry her into the shelter of a nearby shed, as she was almost completely catatonic. She had only done what Dave had asked her to do in the event of his being taken over -Valerie had found this out pretty quick- but that didn't alter the fact that it had been hard for her.

Dave himself lay under a tarpaulin, as they didn't dare bring him back to the library just yet. As the wind got up, it blew it off his head briefly, allowing the rain to strike his face. However, when Avak covered him up again, he failed to notice that he wasn't as pale as he should have been...

oooo

"Mesha's not getting away with this!" Said Louise firmly. "Can't we get in yet?"

Phoenixia shook her head. She, Charis and Emily were working at full tilt to try and get the plotholes to the Captain Scarlet fandom working again, thus far with little success. Tash was needed at the mine so the team there weren't completely cut off and Adrian was in no position to be distracted, so they left him to get on with whatever he was doing.

"I'd love to help," said a message on one of the monitors, "but my hands are just collections of zeros and ones. Oh dear. Poor, poor Dave (sniff)."

The Blue Italic font that @ had used to compose this note made it clear she was being sarcastic, and Harriet only paid as much attention to it as was required to push the delete key.

"Alright." the society leader said at last. "As soon as we have plotholes again, I'll lead a team in there personally. Louise is right. Mesha's gonna pay!"

oooo

In the Medical wing, Valerie was treating the injured agents. Aster was exhausted, but her injuries were mostly cosmetic, so she left Aimee to clean her up, and dealt with Joe's arm.

It was as she picked up her records, meaning to write down exactly what medicine she had given to him, that she suddenly felt something strange on the edge of her empathic senses.

A wayward emotion. Vague and insubstantial, but definitely present. She put her clipboard down to focus on it, and the emotion abruptly vanished off her mental radar.

The healer frowned, and took her obsidian pendant off. If it turned up again, she'd know about it for sure. Turning to continue, she touched the clipboard lightly...

...abandon us? ...Pushing it a bit... Traitor...

Valerie dropped the clipboard with a yelp of surprise that drew Rhia over from Cristoph's bedside.

"The paper. Its... Psychic!"

Rhia looked from the dropped medical report to Valerie and her eyes widened.

"Psychic paper is from Doctor Who..."

Mesha set Dave up by giving him nightmares that stirred his emotions. Something in the library was giving him these nightmares by a psychic signal that Phoenixia couldn't pin down. The library's paperwork bred at an exponential rate. Psychic paper had evidently cross-bred with it. It's native fandom was Doctor Who. So was Mesha's...

The half-second it took Valerie to make this deductive leap seemed to her to be a century long.

"Get Harriet down here, now!"

oooo

Captain Scarlet was still marvelling at the society. He had seen a great many strange things in his career as a Spectrum agent.

An alien plant that caused three spaceships to crash as its mutated vines lashed wildly in the cabin, a fantastic city built in secret on the lunar surface by the Mysterons, and much more besides...

And yet all that was nothing next to the sight of the Jun-Akuma hovering above Akai's head, apparently balancing an Umbrella on top of its own head as she checked the clones for signs of life.

"Paul, over here!"

Scarlet shook his mind back to the present and walked over to where Blue was standing, staring at the ground.

"What do you make of this?"

Several hand-sized fragments of ice were scattered over a wide area, as if something had dropped an ice sculpture from a great height, causing it to shatter. Scarlet shrugged.

"One of the society could throw ice around Adam. Remember the girl with blue hair? One of her shots must have gone wild."

Blue frowned. "She struck me as being a better shot than that..." he stopped, and picked up a fragment that had caught his attention. Encased inside, was a lock of red hair.

oooo

Tash sat in the shelter of a building, wearing Claire's coat to cover her ripped blouse. Her two sisters sat next to her with Asuka across their laps. It was Miri that spoke first.

"Stroking a kitty is supposed to be therapeutic, Aneki." she said, gesturing at the grief-stricken Luxray. "Maybe it'll do both of you good."

"I've got my own kitty, thanks..." Tash replied, smiling faintly. "And to be honest, people that have come back..."

Are the last thing I want to think about right now, she silently finished.

Asuka glared at Tash with tear-soaked eyes. "Ray Lux RAY!" she snapped, standing up with a sharp crack of static that had both Miri and Claire feeling like they had just been punched in the chest.

Tash wasn't so good at Pokemon languages, but she got the drift of what she had said.

"It's not fair?" she repeated, as if confirming it. "Agreed. Dave was my friend too, and- You don't mean that?"

Asuka had interrupted, shaking her head and clearly frustrated by the language difference.

"You don't think its fair Adrian gets to come back properly and Dave doesn't?" Claire suggested. The Luxray nodded.

"It doesn't work like that." Miri said, stroking the electric Pokemon in an attempt to get her to calm down. "Adrian was just a bit... luckier."

Lucky was a poor word to describe what had happened, and everyone present knew it.

"Hmmmmm. Ray ray Luxray..." Asuka replied, casting a suspicious glare at Tash as if she had just confirmed something she had suspected for a while...

"Um, I hate to interrupt..." Michael stuck his head into the shelter, a thankful distraction from the building tension. "Captain Scarlet has just told me that all the clones we've faced thus far can't equate to more than half of what he and Dave saw in the tunnels earlier. And it gets better! The clone of Lina Inverse is missing. We think she's thawed herself out and is lying in wait around the ruins."

Tash looked up at the Luxray again. "Think what you like Asuka, but we need your help now." Asuka nodded slowly. Tash understood. She would help because duty demanded it, not for any other reason.

oooo

The minutes, and the rain squall, passed, and still there was no sign of Lina or any other clones, despite an exhaustive search of the mine buildings. When the society and Spectrum met again, they reached the conclusion she was long gone. It was at this point that someone noticed they had lost contact with base again.

Tash stood to open a door back to the library.

"Befis Bring!"

The ground split under everyone's feet, and swallowed them up to their calves, which on Asuka was up to her chin. All except Tash, who of course could fly. Sure enough, there was the cloned sorceress, waiting to fire again. She fled over the mine, and Tash gave chase.

"Jurai-Ke-" Tash stopped in horror as her eyes alighted upon something Lina had just flown over. The tarpaulin that Dave was under had been rolled back, revealing that there was nothing underneath! He had vanished.

"Elmekia Lance!"

The moment of distraction cost Tash dearly. Although she was able to move sufficiently for the spell to be robbed of it's lethality, it snapped her head to one side in passing, and she blacked out.

Drake and Michael were the first to free themselves, and ran towards where Tash had crashed. Where Lina was standing over her...

"Digger Bolt!" Her arm crackled with power as the spell charged.

Another arm intercepted hers as it fell towards the prone society leader. Lina's eyes widened in shock as her assailant guided her electrified palm into her own stomach. Being an electric attack, the result was as it had been for the rest of the clones.

Michael and Drake held up their weapons in fright as the cloned sorceress collapsed at the feet of her attacker. His face hidden in shadows as he turned to regard them...

Insert Multiple-Homicidal Counterpart Here

I want domination
I want your submission
I see you're not resisting
To this temptation

I've got one confession
A love deprivation
I've got a jet black heart
It's all fucked up and it's falling apart

Whoa, I never give in
Whoa, I never give up
Whoa, I never give in
And I just wanna be, wanna be loved
-Papa Roach, To Be Loved

"See anything yet?" Ben asked. Avak shook his head, dejected.

"We'll find one eventually," Lily said bracingly.

"We've been finding ones for an hour now," Shirley grumbled.

Ben glared over his shoulder at the Clichè Stick as Avak winced. "You know as well as I do that we have to find the perfect one, Shirley. That's just the order of things."

"Whatever," Shirley snorted, folding her arms.

The four of them were exploring an enormous room located somewhere deep in the Library. The chamber was filled with musical instruments of every kind, color and variety. Everything from flutes, to oriental gongs to electronic keyboards streched from one end of the room to the other, neatly arranged in categorized rows. Such was the variety of instruments, that Ben, Shirley, Avak and Lily had no clue how to even play some of them, and several resembled torture devices more than musical apparatus.

At the moment, the four friends were searching for a bass guitar for Avak. Simply finding the bass section was hard enough, but once they located it, they were faced with an even greater challenge: deciding on which one to pick. It wasn't an easy choice. Fender's, Gibson's, Ibanez and Yamaha brand instruments of every style and color populated the section. Some of the selections were traditional shapes, while others were wild and shocking.

"What about this one?" Ben asked, stopping in front of a black Epiphone-brand bass.

Avak glanced at it and shook his head. "No... That's not it either."

"Do you even know what you're looking for?" Lily asked.

"I'll know it when I see it." Avak replied.

Lily raised an eyebrow at Ben, who shrugged. "That's just the way these things go," he said. "You'd understand if you were a musician."

"How is the band doing anyway?" Lily asked as Avak took a bass down off it's peg, slipping the strap over his shoulder and moving his hands across the strings experimentally.

Ben shrugged. "Well, now that we've got Avak playing bass, all we need is a vocalist and we're set."

Lily nodded, but she was less than thrilled. She had hoped that once Ben was released from cleaning duty, he'd have more free time, but unfourtnately that wasn't the case. Instead, Ben began devoting his spare energy into the band and as a result Lily was seeing even less of him if that were possible. Now she could only hope that once the bands line-up had been finalized and they got some songs written, Ben's schedule would open up again.

"So have you seen anything you like yet, Avak?" Ben asked, turning to face his creation.

"No..." Avak sighed, eyeing a Les Paul.

"Mabye this would be easier if we knew what you were looking for?" Lily suggested.

"A bass?" Shirley asked sarcastically.

"I mean what kind of bass," Lily glared.

"Is ther a particular brand you're after?" Ben asked, ignoring the feuding females.

"Not really," Avak replied looking around. "All I'm looking for is..." This eyes lit up. "That!"

Ben followed his gaze and raised an eyebrow. "Not bad..." He murmured.

Moving down the row, Avak took a bass off it's stand and pulled the strap over his neck. As soon as his fingers touched the strings, Avak knew he'd found the right instrument. He plucked the top string, letting the deep, rich tone of the bass hang in the air for several seconds before it slowly faded. There was silence for a moment before Lily asked, "So I take it that's the right one?"

Now it was Shirley's turn to glare at her rival.

The body Avak's new bass was more rounded and considerably slimmer than your average bass, with a rich blue body and a black pickguard.

"A Silvertone Revolver," Ben said, leaning over to read the brand name and type off the stand. "Good choice," He straightened up, grinning. "Well, I guess I'll go ahead and edit your base fic then,"

"So he'll be able to play it just like that?" Lily asked, snapping her fingers.

"Well, he'll still have to practice to be any good at it," Ben explained. "But now he'll have more of a natural bent for it. Plus-" his Communicator went off, interrupting him. "Sorry," Ben grimaced, pulling the device out and turning away. "Hello?"

Bored, Shirley wandered off several rows over to admire various drum kits that were on display. Lily turned back to Avak, who was moving his fingers across the fretboard in various positions. "Avak?" she asked.

Avak looked up from his new instrument. "Yeah?"

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Lily asked quietly so she wouldn't be overheard. "I mean, this isn't just because he asked you, is it?" She gestured behind her at Ben.

Avak was quiet for a moment. "Not entirely," he replied. "I mean, that's part of it, but I still want to do this too, so..." He shrugged.

Lily nodded. "Well as long as you're sure." She said.

"I am."

Lily looked over her shoulder. Ben was still on his Communicator. When she turned back around, Avak was looking at her with a strange expression on his face. He looked like he was about to say something when Ben came back over.

"That was Michael," He said, turning his Communicator off and shoving it back into his pocket. "Another Stu popped up, and he asked me to take care of it, but I talked him out of it,"

Lily's eyes widened. "You ditched a mission?"

Ben shrugged. "It was a weakling anyway. Michael said he'd send Jared and Chloe after it. Besides, we need to get you rocking!" He said, turning to Avak.

Avak nodded as he took his new bass off from around his shoulder and began storing it in the unzipped carrying bag tucked underneath the stand he'd taken it from. "So what are you going to go do?" Ben asked Lily as Avak slung the case over his shoulder and straightened up.

Lily shrugged, "Problably go back to playing Halo: Reach,"

Ben laughed, "Isn't this like, your third play-through?"

"Something like that,"

"Well, whatever makes you happy," Ben chuckled. "C'mon, Avak,"

The four went their separate ways once they'd made their way back to the commons area, Ben and Avak to Avak's room to acquaint him with his new instrument, while Shirley went to meet up with Leonard and do whatever it was mutated freaks like them did when they were alone together. Nobody really wanted to know.

Several hours later, Lily was watching the game credits for Reach scroll by again, when Charis walked in. "Hey, Lily," She said in greeting, "Do you know where Avak's room is?"

"Avak?" Lily asked, setting down the Xbox 360 controller and getting up.

"Yeah, I need to talk to him about something,"

Lily shrugged, "Sure, c'mon,"

Avak readily responded to Lily's knock and when the two girls walked in, they found his new bass grumbling under his fingers, it's rich, warm tones easily filling the small room.

Lily raised an eyebrow as his solo ended. "Looks like Ben's editing really did the trick. Where is he anyway?" She asked looking around.

Avak shrugged. "He stuck around just long enough to ensure I knew how to play, gave me some music to practice, then left. He said he had something else to take care of."

Charis nodded. "I'd heard you'd gotten a bass," She held out a hand. "Cough it up," She demanded.

"What?" Avak's eyes widened and his grip tightened on his bass.

Charis sighed. "Avak, if you're going to be a combat Agent, you need some way to fight. And since you don't have any powers, I'm turning Abraxis into a weapon for you."

"Abraxis?" Lily asked. Charis shrugged. "I figured I'd stick with the whole alliterative-dragon thing. Ben and Bahamut. Avak and Abraxis, you know." She turned back to Avak. "So, c'mon. Hand it over."

Avak swallowed hard and hesitantly removed it from around his neck and, after a breif pause, handed it to Charis. The techie turned it this way and that in her hands, nodding in satisfaction. "Yeah, this should work just fine. OK, see ya!" And with that, she was gone.

Avak looked at Lily helplessly. Lily laughed. "Don't worry, Abraxis will be fine. Charis is problably less likely to break it than you are."

"Wasn't she the one who made Bahamut?" Avak asked. "No, that was Camille. Charis repaired it after our battle though."

Avak nodded, though he still looked troubled.

"Don't worry," Lily said, smiling. "You're more likely to break Abraxis than she is."

Avak didn't look convinced.

-

Lily was half-way through breakfast when her Communicator beeped. She sighed, drained her glass of and pulled the gadget out. "Yeah?"

"Lily?" It was Michael. "Is Avak with you?"

"No, but I can find him, why?"

"We've finally found a mission for him. Level 3 Sue in The One fandom. Get on it ASAP." With that he broke the connection.

Lily sighed. She'd been hoping to spend today learning to play Yu-Gi-Oh!, but it looked as if that were out of the question now. She took another bite of toast before pushing her chair back from the table. Finding Avak should be easy enough, given how much time he spent in the Medical Wing. She just hoped Charis had Abraxis battle-ready...

Charis was putting her tools away and chatting with Karissa who sat on a tall stool, letting her feet swing back and forth when Lily knocked on the door to her lab.

"Hey! Perfect timing you two!" Charis exclaimed, closing a drawer. Lily returned the greeting, but Avak hung back in the doorway awkardly. Karissa shot him a kind smile. "Hey, Avak, how are you?" She asked.

Avak smiled back shyly, ducking his head. "Fine," he replied softly.

"I'm assuming you're here because you want your bass back?" Charis asked.

Lily nodded. "A Level 3 Sue just popped up, so I'm taking Avak out after it."

"A low-level, huh?" Charis asked. "Sounds like the perfect field test for Abraxis." She grinned at Avak. "I think you'll like this."

She walked over to where the blue bass sat on the steel workbench and held it up. "Like the changes I made?" She asked.

Avak frowned. "I don't see any changes..." He said.

Charis smirked. "Exactly. Here, try pushing this."

"The tone knob?"

"Yeah, go ahead," Charis held the intstrument out so Avak could push the button.

Avak frowned suspiciously, but dutifully reached out and pushed the knob. He yelped in surprise and jumped back as a twin pair of axe heads suddenly shot out from either side of Abraxis' body with a loud *SCHRANG!*

Charis giggled and Karissa shot her sister a disapproving look. "Sorry," Charis apologized, seeing Avak's wide-eyed expression. "But I couldn't resist."

"So, you turned his bass into a literal axe," Lily said, walking over to get a better look, "Not much for thinking outside the box, are we?"

Charis grinned wryly and shrugged. "Give it a swing or two and tell me what you think," She said handing Abraxis to Avak, who took his new weapon by the neck gingerly and took several steps back, hefting it experimentally. "It feels light," He said.

"That's because I balanced it almost perfectly," Charis replied as Avak gave Abraxis a few slow, experimental swings. "I used an extremely strong metal alloy to reinforce the body and edge the blades too, so you shouldn't have to worry about ever breaking it." She snapped her fingers. "Oh, I almost forgot! Try turning the tone knob," Avak frowned, but did as he was told, and twisted the button marked "Tone".

"Now try swinging it," Charis said, grinning evilly. "Charis," Karissa said reproachfully, but it was too late. Avak swung Abraxis again and was knocked off his feet as an invisible force ripped Abraxis out of his hand and sent it flying across the room where it embedded its axe-head into the wall.

"What was that?" Lily asked as Avak got to his feet unsteadily, eyeing Abraxis as one would a poisonous snake.

"That was another invention of mine," Charis explained around giggles as Avak tried to pull his bass from the wall. Unfourtnately, he was already so scared of Abraxis that he was unwilling to pull to very hard.

"It's an inertia multiplier. It takes the force of your swing and increases it exponentially. The tone knob controls the magnitude of the swings enhancement. Careful not to turn it up too high though, or you could end up killing someone,"

By now, Avak had finally gotten Abraxis out of the wall with Karissa's help, and was searching for a way to retract the blades.

Lily chuckled. "I don't think we have to worry about Avak killing anybody."

Charis shrugged. "True. Just be careful."

"Right," Lily said, pulling out her Plothole Generator. "Ready Avak?" Avak nodded, having finally figured out how to retract the blades on Abraxis and slung it across his back.

The bass's fretboard was too long to allow it to hang diagonally downards like Bahamut, so Avak had the fretboard angling upward diagonally to the left. He looked rather pale and somewhat shell-shocked from his encounter with his new weapon.

"You know, I'm gonna be shocked if he survives the mission, even if the Sue IS Level 3," Charis said once Lily and Avak have disappeared into a plothole.

Karissa elbowed her sister.

-

The One was a sci-fi martial arts film inspired by the bullet-time craze spawned in the wake of The Matrix movies, although The One never acheived the same level of popularity. The premise of the film centered around the concept of the existence hundreds alternate realities, in which dwelled alternate versions of every person alive, all bound by a common thread of life energy. When one of those alternate verisons died, the remaining life energy was equally divided among the survivors, making all of them stronger, faster and more intelligent. When an interdimensional law enforcer named Yu-law discovered this, he went rogue, hunting down and killing his doubles to absorb their power, ganing increasingly inhuman levels of strength until only one copy, Gabriel Law, remained. With the two of them at equal levels of god-like strength, a battle between the two of them would only leave The One standing.

"Is he done yet?" Lily asked as she leaned against the lip of the edge of the roof she and Avak were currently crouching on, fiddling with her Communicator. vak glanced back at the Narrator who shot him a thumbs up before vanishing. "I think so," He replied. "Does he always do that?"

"Every now and then," Lily replied off-handedly. It was currently night in The One, and she was having trouble seeing well enough in the dark to work her Communicator. She finally got it running and held it up. "Hey, Rhia, you there?" She asked.

"I'm here," The Library's resident chef replied.

"Do you have the info on the Sue for us?"

"Yep," Rhia replied. "I was right, apparently the Sue's holed up in the hospital over there. Be careful though, apparently there's gonna be at least two big fight scenes in the building in the next half-hour or so, but as long as you stay away from them you should be fine,"

"I doubt that's going to be an option," Lily said. "Two fight scenes in that short a time period? It'd be the perfect place for the Sue to intervene."

"Good point," Rhia admitted. "So what are you going to do?"

"I think our best bet is to see if we can't get Gabriel Copyrighted first, before the Sue can do anything to him,"

"What about Yul-aw?"

"I get the feeling he'd try to kill us rather than stand quietly and let us slap a giant sticker on his forehead."

"OK, then. Be careful!"

"You don't have to tell me twice," Lily muttered, turning the device off.

To be completely honest with herself she had to admit that she had other motives for wanting to catch the Sue than to just give Avak some field experence. After Matthew Slaymaker had escaped from her twice in a row, she was losing confidence in herself. Mabye helping Avak catch this Sue would help restore some of that lost confidence.

"OK, here's the plan," Lily said standing, "We track Gabriel down and get him Copyrighted, then wait for the Sue and ambush her. I'll distract her while you sneak up from behind and prohibit her. Got it? Avak nodded, rising also, "I just have two questions though,"

"Shoot."

"One, how exacly did we get onto this roof? And two, how do we get down?"

-

It was the singing that woke Ben, which made him frown in consternation. That voice was beautiful. Had he died and gone to heaven? Sure, Shirley had ripped out his femur and stabbed him with it repeatedly, making an organ-kebab, but he'd been through worse. Much worse. So then why was he hearing angels? Then he opened his eyes and realized he was back in his designated medical wing bed. The singing he'd heard had been Valerie's.

Ben's eyes widened. He'd never heard the healer sing before, and couldn't help but wonder why not. If he had a voice like that, he'd never stop singing. He waited until she'd finished her song before politely appluading.

Valerie jumped and whirled, "Oh... I-I thought you were still asleep," She blushed.

"I was until a minute ago," Ben grunted, pushing himself up to a sitting position. It was remarkable how much more flexible you became without half your ribs and 90% of your so-called 'vital organs', "That was beautiful."

"I... usually don't sing around other people," Valerie admitted, embarrased.

"Why not?" Ben asked, "You've got a gift! You shouldn't hide something like that."

"I know," Valerie admitted, "I'm just... kind of self-conscious about it."

She looked away, and an idea began to form in Ben's mind. Valerie had never shown any preferences for metal, true, but it couldn't hurt to ask...

"Hey, Valerie?" He asked. She looked up. "Me and Jess have been looking for a vocalist for our band," He raised a questioning eyebrow, "You interested?"

Valerie's eyes widened. "M-me? B-but I don't know anything about heavy metal!"

Ben shrugged. "Neither does Avak, but he's learning,"

"But aren't you playing death metal? All that screaming and yelling and stuff?"

"It's symphonic death metal actually," Ben said, "It won't be all screaming, there'll be plenty of regular singing too,"

"S-still... I've heard the type of music you listen to, Ben, and I can't yell like that..."

"Have you tried?" Ben grinned.

"No..."

"It's really not that hard, c'mon, try it! Aaaaaargh!" He growled.

Valerie blushed and cleared her throat. "Um... rrrrrrrr..."

Ben rolled his eyes. "Valerie, that sounded like a kitten. C'mon, get angry! Aaaaargh!"

"Rrrrrgh!"

"And that sounded like a puppy, but still better! Gaaaaah!"

"Aaaaaargh!"

"UuuuuwAAAAAARGH!"

"UWAAAAAAargh!"

"GEEEEEEAAAAAGH!"

"UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

By now, Ben and Valerie were almost nose-to-nose, staring into each others half-crazed eyes, panting heavily. They stayed like that for a moment, when a noise drew their attention and they both turned to see a wide-eyed Emily standing in the doorway, staring at them with a terrified expression on her face. Before either of them could say anything, she scuttled back through the door and vanished.

Ben and Valerie glanced at each other before dissolving into laughter. "Y-you see?" Ben gasped when the laughter had subsided. "You're actually pretty good at it!"

"I-I guess so," Valerie giggled, wiping a tear from her eye.

"So, how about it? Care to join the band?"

Valerie bit her lip before nodding. "I really don't know what I'd sing though..."

"No problem," Ben said, fishing around in his pocket. "I'm in charge of the lyrics and I was just working on a song before Shirley decided to give me open-claw surgery. Try this," He said, holding out a wrinkled peice of folded paper. "It's my magnum opus. I've been working on it for years, but never really had a band to play it with until now."

Valerie carefully unfolded the paper and began to read off the words, "Red dawn / There's blood in the sky / Only the good die young / And only the young survive..."

-

The hospital was as ordinary on the inside as on the outside. If not for the fact that two superhuman beings were about to duke it out inside soon, it would have gone unnoticed by the rest of the fandom.

"Try not to look so nervous," Lily hissed to Avak as they walked down the hallway in the direction the Library's monitors indicated the Sue was hiding, "You'll draw attention to yourself."

Avak nodded, but he still looked very uneasy. They had arrived at the hospital several minutes before Gabriel showed up and the first of the two battles began, so Lily decided to try and at least locate the Sue first, that way they could keep an eye on her before they made their move.

"How will we know the Sue when we see it?" Avak asked.

Lily shrugged. "We'll just know is all, Sues aren't exactly the most subtle of characters."

Avak frowned as they rounded a corner. "Okay, but-Oof!" He was cut off as a girl came flying around the corner and collided with him head on, sending them both sprawling.

"Sorry," Avak apologized as he got to his feet, "Are you OK?"

The girl scrambled to her feet desperately, a wild, frightened look in her eyes. She was
dressed in slim black jeans, a black tank-top and had a beautiful heart-shaped face, framed by shoulder-length hair that matched her clothes. "A-are you from the Society?" She asked shakily.

Lily's eyes narrowed. "The Society?"

"You've got to help me, he's coming!" The girl said in a panic. "He already knows I'm here and if he finds me, he'll kill me!"

"Who? Who's going to kill you?" Lily asked. Was this the Sue?

"There's no time!" The girl shouted, grabbing Avak by the wrist, and turning to run, "We've got to get out of here before he-"

"Found you."

All color drained from the girl's face at the sight of the boy in the hallway. He was dressed in all black, like her, but his clothing had a more militant feel to it, as if he were wearing armor rather than a jacket and jeans.

He smirked cruelly. "I have to say, you led me on quite the merry chase, Ashley, but it ends here."

Lily's communicator squaked from her pocket and Rhia's urgent voice came through. "Lily! Lily are you there? A Level 7 Stu just showed up in The One! I repeat, a Level 7 in The One! Get Avak out of there, now!"

Lily's eyes widened as she realized what was going on, but Avak was still clueless as he moved to stand in front of Ashley. "What do you want?" He demanded, one hand reaching for Abraxis.

"He's been after me for a week now," Ashley said, her voice shaking. "He's trying to kill me."

"What? Who are you?" Avak demanded, pulling Abraxis off his back and holding it towards the Stu threateningly.

"Oh, have I not introduced myself? My name is Ash. Ash Harth. And the quivering coward behind you is Ashley Harken, one of my dopplegangers," his grin was manevolent. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Now if you would kindly stand aside, I'll be killing her and be on my way,"

Ashley took a step backwardsn involuntarily. Lily reached out and took her by the elbow, pulling the Sue back, her face hard. "Stay back, we'll handle this,"

"I won't let you hurt her," Avak said determinedly, pushing the Tone knob and releasing the axe blades on Abraxis.

"Avak, let me take care of this," Lily ordered firmly, walking up to face Ash who was a good head taller than her.

Avak's eyes widened, "But, Lily-"

"Avak, he's Level 7, you wouldn't stand a chance against him. I'll hold him off long enough for you and Ashley to get away and get back to the Library, now move!"

Avak hesitated for a moment, then grabbed Ashely by the hand and took off down the hallway. Lily looked about, assessing their surroundings. Apparently the hall they were down was some kind of maintenence area, so there were no patients around. Good.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Ash asked patronizingly. "It's not too late you know. I have no quarrel with you or your Society. Step aside now and I'll have no reason to harm you,"

"I don't think so," Lily replied, raising her hands in a battle stance.

Ash sighed resignatedly. "It's your funeral."

Then his fist appeared out of nowhere, filling her vision at an impossibly fast rate. Instinctively, Lily activated Top Gear and teleported behind Ash, but even so it was a close thing. She could still feel the wind from his fist's flyby ruffling her hair. "Excalibur!" She shouted, snapping a hand up, and sending a stream of lightning barreling at the back of Ash's head. Ash's head snapped to one side at an inhuman speed and the lightning blasted past to blow a hole in the wall at the end of the corridor.

Reaching out, Ash grabbed a janitor's cart filled with trash bags and cleaning supplies and whirled, hurling the whole thing at Lily with one hand.

"Live Slow, Die Fast!" she barked, and caught the cart in mid air with the telekinetic Pin, bottles and cans spilling out of it as it hung suspended in mid-air. With a flick of her wrist, Lily sent the cart flying back at Ash who hauled back a fist and punched it mid-flight, crushing it.

Thinking quickly, Lily knelt, scooped up a bottle of detergent and rose, all in one smooth movement, muttering "Egg Bomb," under her breath before hurling it at Ash.

Ash eyed the makeshift projectile as it flew towards him skeptically. "You've got to be joking," He said disbelievingly, "Is that really the best you can do?" He didn't even bother moving out of the way as the bottle arced towards him, "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," He said, "After all-" He was cut off as the bottle exploded in his face, stunning him.

Now! Lily activated Top Gear again and teleported past Ash, breaking into a dead run in the direction Avak had taken Ashley in.

Ash shook his head, clearing the stars from his vision. "Not bad, not bad at all..." He murmured, turning to look after the fleeing Lily. "But not good enough,"

-

"Where are we going?" Ashley asked as she and Avak sprinted through the hospital hallways, drawing shouts from doctors and nurses as they passed. "I need to get you away from here," Avak panted, "Then we'll get you back to the Library where you'll be safe."

"What about that girl you were with? We can't just leave her back there, Ash will kill her!"

"You don't know Lily like I do," Avak replied, "Trust me, she can take care of herself,"

"But Ash-"

"Here!" Avak cried, as the hallway they were running down opened into the lobby. The two ran out the front door of the hospital, ignoring the protests of the receptionist as they slowed to a stop out into the parking lot.

"Okay," Ashley gasped. "Do your thing, let's get out of here and-" She stopped, "What's wrong?" She asked, seeing Avak's face go white.

"I just realized, I don't have a Plothole Generator!" Avak groaned, patting his pockets frantically.

"What?" Ashley demanded. "How did you even get here in the first place, then?"

"We used Lily's! And I forgot to get one from Charis before we left." He froze. "I've gotta go back and help her!"

"Who, Lily? And who's Charis?"

"I'll be right back! Just wait here!" With that, Avak dashed back into the hospital.

"Wait!" Ashely shouted after him, but Avak was already gone. She stamped her foot in frustration.

"Excuse me? Is everything all right?" Ashely turned to see an Asian police officer and a woman who appeared to be his wife standing behind her. Ashley stared at them for a moment, before an evil grin crawled across her face. "Hello, Officer Gabriel..."

-

Lily ducked, shards of ice flying past her head as Ash's fist shattered the Ice Blow icicle like sugar glass. She shoved a palm towards the Stu, sending another blast of lightning in his direction with a cry of "Excalibur!"

Ash snorted and didn't even bother dodging, the energy bolt striking him in the chest and dissipating. Lily growled, gritting her teeth in frustration as Ash shook his head in a combination of regret and disgust. "Give it up, you haven't a hope of defeating me," He started towards Lily, who grabbed another bottle that had fallen off the janitor's cart, charged it with Egg Bomb and tossed it at him. The makeshift explosive exploded against his shoulder, jerking it back, but otherwise having no effect.

"If you had just stood aside earlier, we could have avoided all this unplesantness," He said. "As it is, I fear it's time to end this charade,"

Lily set her jaw and triggered Top Gear again, vanishing in a puff of air. Ash just rolled his eyes and lashed out with a fist. Lily materialized a split second before his fist caught her in the chin with the force of a freight train, knocking her off her feet and sending her flying back down the hallway where she hit the linoleium floor and slid several feet, barely conscious.

Ash was standing over her before she could blink and the next thing she knew, his hand was around her throat and he had lifted her of the floor, her feet dangling uselessly a foot off the ground. "Remember," Ash said, his voice growing fainter as he strangled her with one hand, "This was your decision."

Lily barely heard him, everything was getting dark and it was hard to think. Her hands were clutching at his fingers, but she may as well have been clawing at a brick wall. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was frantically trying to find the mental commands to activate one of her Pins, but it was no use. Consciousness was slipping away from her.

Just when everything was about to go black though, Avak appeared from nowhere, swinging Abraxis at Ash with all his strength. The force of the blow made Ash drop Lily and send him stumbling backwards, Abraxis' blade having torn through his clothing and opened a deep gash in his side.

"Agh!" He groaned, whirling to face this new threat, "You little punk!" He roared, striking out with his foot. Avak instinctively jerked to one side, but not fast enough to avoid the kick; which glanced off his ribs and knocked the breath from his lungs. Ash hauled back his fist for a mighty punch, giving Avak enough time to instinctively raise Abraxis to protect himself. Ash's fist clanged off Abraxis' body and he screamed in pain, even Stu-ified flesh and blood being no match for Charis' metalwork.

Meanwhile, Lily had somewhat recovered enough to regain coherent thought. Avak was fighting the Stu by himself now, she realized. He may have caught Ash off-guard, but he couldn't hold him for long. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shoved the pain in her body aside and forced all her mental energy into her Pins. C'mon... C'mon... C'monnn... YES! She got to her feet, swaying unsteadily and wrapped both hands around the handle of the Wild Line energy blade. Ash was still clutching his hand, but was starting to recover. With a scream of rage, he raced towards Avak, who was still trying to regain his balance. With a ragged shout, Lily lunged forward and brought the sword in her hands down across Ash's back, falling to her knees as the world spun about her from the effort.

Ash screeched in agony as the blade sliced through his shirt and laid his back open. He whirled on Lily, eyes flaming with hate as blood began to pour from his back, joining the stream from his already-bleeding side. He started staggering towards Lily, Avak forgotten, when a figure appeared from nowhere and sent him flying backwards into the wall.

Before Ash could recover, Gabriel Law was all over him, fists and feet flying at absurdly high velocities. Stunned and weakened from his wounds, Ash was steadily forced backwards as he desperately tried to block Gabriel's blows.

"You OK, Lily?" Avak asked, rushing over. Lily nodded weakly, still massaging her bruised throat. "Avak, what are you doing here?" She asked weakly, keeping one eye on the fight. "I thought I told you to escape with Ashley."

"We couldn't, I don't have a Plothole Generator!" Avak explained.

Lily's eyes widened. "You don't?"

"I forgot to get one from Charis earlier, remember?"

"That's right," Lily moaned. "What about Ashley?"

"I'm fine," Ashley replied, walking up from behind.

"I thought I told you to wait outside!" Avak said as he helped Lily to her feet.

"I brought you some help," Ashley said, nodding towards Gabriel, who was continuing his relentless assualt on Ash.

"That was you?" Lily gasped, "You shouldn't have done that! Who knows how manipulating the main character like that might affect the plot?"

"I didn't see as how I had much of a choice," Ashley countered. "There's no way you could've beaten Ash by yourself. You've seen how strong he is. Besides, Gabriel seems to be doing a pretty good job of taking care of Ash by himself!"

Avak and Lily turned back to the fight. The two combatants limbs were moving at blazing speeds, striking and blocking almost faster than the eye could follow, but even at such monstrous speeds, the outcome of the battle was clear. Ash was purely on the defensive and rapidly losing ground, even the power of a Level 7 Gary-Stu paling before the strength of The One. Gabriel's blows fell on him with the force of sledgehammers and any blows that got past Ash's defenses were invariably accompanied by the sound of cracking bone or bruising flesh.

Ash gritted his teeth against the pain that was being inflicted on his battered body at an almost continuous rate. Winning was out of the question, those damned Society Agents had already injured him too much from their battle, and if The One was stronger than himself, than he was almost certainly faster as well. His eyes narrowed as his forearm nearly snapped in half from the force of a blocked punch. There was only one chance.

He leaped backwards, grabbed another janitor's trolley and hurled it at Gabriel's head with all his might. Gabriel ducked to avoid it, and Ash capitalized on the opening, his foot slamming into Gabriel's head and knocking him backwards. Before Gabriel could recover, Ash dashed past him and down the hall, escaping. Meanwhile, the trolley went crashing down the hallway towards the three spectators.

"Move it!" Ashley shouted, pushing Avak and Lily out of the way and reaching out with both hands in an attempt to stop the runaway projectile. Before either Avak or Lily could move, the trolley crashed into Ashley head on, knocking the breath from her lungs and blowing her backwards.

"Ashley! Are you OK?" Lily asked running over to where the Sue lay sprawled across the linolieum. She raised her head groggily, "I'm...I'm fine..." She wheezed, trying to sit up, stars swirling in her vision.

"Don't push yourself," Lily advised.

Down the hallway, Gabriel had recovered and was shaking his head, trying to clear the stars from his vision. "Looks like Ashley's lost her control over him," Lily said, watching the character look around the wrecked hallway in confusion.

Avak turned to follow her gaze just in time to catch a glimpse of black vanishing around the corner. "Damn! Ash is getting away!" He shouted, jumping to his feet. "Stay here with Ashley, I'll go after him!"

"What? Wait!" Lily called after him, but Avak was already half-way down the hallway and out of earshot.

Avak rounded the corner Ash had turned down, only to find the Stu nowhere in sight.

"Hey, which way did he go?" Avak shouted at a nearby nurse, his shyness forgotten in the stress of the situation. The nurse blinked. "Who?" She asked in confusion. "The guy in black!" Avak yelled, "Which way did he go?" The nurse pointed towards a set of stairs and Avak ran towards them.

The door at the top of the stairs was open, confirming that Ash had fled this way. When Avak ran, he found himself on the roof of the hospital. It didn't take him long to spot Ash, who was running across the roof as fast as his legs, injured during his battle with Gabriel, would carry him.

"Hold it!" Avak shouted, giving chase.

Ash glanced over his shoulder and picked up his pace, forcing his battered body into a run. Avak slowed as they neared the edge of the hospital roof. Where was Ash going to go? As if in response, Ash increased his speec and jumped off the edge of the roof, flying across the street to crash onto the roof of the building on the other side.

He laughed wildly as he jumped to his feet, turning to face Avak who stood, stunned at the edge of the hospital roof. "How'd you like that, you little shit?" He shouted mockingly. "Think you can catch me now?"

Avak gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes. He couldn't let Ash escape, no matter what! He only had one shot at this. Reaching across Abraxis' body, he twisted the Tone knob, cranking it from one, up to ten.

"What? Giving up so easily?" Ash shouted as Avak turned and ran back across the roof.

"Not by a long shot!" Avak growled as he turned and raced back towards towards the rdge of the roof at a dead sprint. He jumped off the edge of the roof at full speed and swung the Abraxis with all his strength in mid-air. The device embedded inside Abraxis kicked in, multiplying the force of the swing exponentially and this time, Avak didn't let go.

Ash's eyes barely had time widen in shock as Abraxis drug Avak through the air and across the gap between the two buildings before the Agent crashed into him like a football linebacker and sent them both sprawling. The impact knocking Abraxis from Avak's grasp and sent the weaponized bass sliding across the roof.

Avak got to his feet first, but Ash grabbed his leg and yanked him back down. Ash's first punch stunned the Agent, and soon Avak's world was filled with stars, blow after blow raining down on him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that they hurt, but at the moment he was unable to focus on anything but the endless fists.

Ash's mind was filled with a blind rage as he pummeled Avak, his eyes blazing with undistilled madness. Escaping was no longer a priority for him, instead, the urge to kill was getting stronger.

He breifly halted his assualt and watched Avak's eyes roll in their sockets, panting. With a snort, he pulled back his fist for a killing blow when he felt the barrel of a gun press against the back of his head, followed a split-second later by a sword blade at his throat.

"I wouldn't move if I were you," Rhia said calmly, holding her sniper rifle on Ash as Cristoph dragged Avak away from the Stu.

"Hey! Hey, Lord Avak! Are you alright?" The ninja asked as he slapped gently at Avak's face and was rewarded when Avak's eyes stopped rolling and tried to focus on the black-garbed figure standing over him. "C-Crissoph?" Avak sluured, still dazed and Cristoph breathed a sigh of releif.

There was a puff of air as Lily teleported across from the hospital roof, bringing Ashley with her.

"Is he OK?" Lily asked, hurrying over as Cristoph helped Avak to his feet, supporting him with one arm. "He should be fine," Cristoph assured her. "He managed to prevent Ash from escaping long enough for us to get here," He said as Rhia cuffed Ash with a Prohibitor and pushed him through a Plothole.

"Here's his weapon," Ashley said, having gone over to retreive Abraxis from where it fell. "T-thanks," Avak stuttered, still trying to blow the fog from his mind. He was standing on his own now, although his stance was still rather unsteady.

"Who is this?" Christoph asked, eyeing Ashley suspiciously.

"This is Ashely Harken, she's the Sue we came here after originally," Lily explained. "She was the one who helped us beat Ash,"

"I didn't do that much," Ashley protested.

"You brought Gabriel to us when we needed him the most," Lily pointed out. "If you hadn't, Ash might've killed both of us, even if he was weakened. Plus, you protected both me and Avak from that trolley. I'd say that counts as helping us,"

"In that case, you have our thanks, Lady Ashley," Christoph said, bowing, "I'm sorry," He continued apologetically, holding up a Prohibitor, "But I'm going to have to Prohibit you before you can come with us back to the Library."

"Do we have to?" Avak asked hesitantly. Christoph shrugged. "The Plothole won't allow her through otherwise."

Ashley hesistated for a moment, but nodded and obligingly held out a wrist for Christoph to attach the cuff too.

"I'm assuming that's the last one?" Christoph asked wryly.

Lily rolled her eyes and nodded.

"Good. Let's go home," Christoph said, opening another Plothole.

-

Once back at the Library, the assembled Agents from The One mission met in Michael's office, along with Ben, Shirley Valerie and Ashley. Surprisingly, Ashley readily agreed to Permanent Prohibition. When asked why, she shrugged.

"Being a Sue is what got me into all this trouble in the first place, isn't it? Good riddance," She snorted. "Our Author was a complete idiot anyway,"

"Our?" Lily asked.

"Yeah, me and Ash came from the same fic, didn't you guess?" Ashley asked.

"Seems pretty obvious now..." Lily muttered.

"Well, I have to thank you for helping our Agents," Michael said graceously. "And once you're Prohibited, you're free to take the entrace exam if you'd like to join our Society,"

Ashley raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"I used to be a Sue," Lily offered, "They took me in, why wouldn't they you? You haven't done anything wrong,"

Ashley frowned at Lily for a moment before recognition dawned in her eyes. "Hey! You're Bella Aubrey, aren't you?"

Everyone in the room winced, but Lily just smiled. "I used to be. My name is Lily Adamson now."

Ashley considered it a moment longer, but still shook her head. "Thanks but no thanks. I appreciate the offer and all, but I've had enough excitement in one day to last me a lifetime."

Michael shrugged. "It's your decision," He said, "But if you ever change your mind, you're welcome to join us. In the meantime, Christoph here will show you to the labs for your Permanent Prohibition,"

"So, how did Avak fair on his first mission?" Michael asked, turning his attention to Lily as Christoph showed Ashley out of the office.

"Extremely well, actually," Lily reported, "He saved me from Ash, and if not for him, Ash might have escaped all together."

Michael nodded appreciatively. "That's a good sign. He'll make a powerful Agent someday."

"So?" Ben asked, leaning forward in his chair. "Does that mean I have the go-ahead for Project Warpath?" He asked eagerly.

Valerie's face suddenly and suspiciously went neutral, but Lily didn't notice this. She was transfixed by Ben's eyes, which had suddenly developed a mad gleam to them. She finally understood what Avak meant when he said Ben's eyes looked 'hungry'. They had a manical quality to them and Lily half expected him to break out into evil laughter at any second. A chill ran down her spine...

Michael considered for a moment, but shook his head. "Avak did an excellent job, according to Lily, but he's only been on one mission so far. Let's wait a little and get some more data before we commit to anything major."

Ben looked dissapointed, but he nodded his head anyway.

"Speaking of Avak, where is he?" Valerie asked, looking around, "He's not in here..."

Ben blinked in confusion. "Wait, what? He's not?"

"He's your own character and you didn't even notice whether or not he was in the same room with you?" Lily asked. "Nice."

"Well, normally he's so quiet..." Ben muttered.

"He caught up with me when I was taking Ash to the basement," Rhia spoke up for the first time, "He said he wanted to be the one to take Ash down there."

Ben's frowned. "Seriously?"

Rhia shrugged. "He seemed pretty serious, so I let him."

"I'd would have thought after how badly Ash beat him, Avak wouldn't want to be anywhere near him..." Valerie said slowly.

Ben shrugged. "Who knows? Mabye Avak's finally growing some backbone..."

-

Avak had never been down to the basement before, and quavered a little at the thought of descending the dark stairs, but he set his jaw, and tightened his grip on Ash's shoulder.

"Hey, watch it!" Ash snarled as he stumbled on one of the steps. Avak didn't reply, instead nudging the captive to continue.

"You won't be able to keep us down here forever," Ash spat as he continued down the stairs. "We escaped once before and we'll do it again! You heard about what happened the last time we got out, didn't you?" He laughed. "We kicked your Librarian's ass!"

He turned as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Avak stared at Ash impassively. "And you know what else? The next time we escape, I'm coming right for you, you little shit. I'm gonna kill both you and that stupid bitch you were with."

Avak's eyes widened. "What did you just say?" He asked softly. Before Ash could reply, he yanked Abraxis from it's place on his back, not bothering to extend the blades, and drove the weapon into Ash's stomach with all his strength. Ash stumbled backwards and collapsed to his knees, bent double, gasping for air. Pulling back with his weapon again, Avak swung Abraxis like a golf club, smashing the blunt weapon into Ash's face and knocking him onto his back, feeling the cartilige in the Stu's nose crumble. There was blood staining Abraxis when he pulled it back.

Ash writhed around on the floor in agony, his fingers growing bloody as they clutched at his face.

"If you ever say that or anything about Lily ever again," Avak hissed over the sound of Ash's screams, "I'll kill you, do you understand me?" He pulled his leg back and kicked at the twisting form on the floor and was rewarded with an increase in the volume of Ash's screams. He kicked the Stu again and again, his mind an endless haze of fury and only stopped when the sharp *crack* of one of Ash's ribs breaking reached his ears.

He panted for air, watching the Stu beg and plead for mercy at his feet as he tried to compse himself. Finally, he growled, grabbing Ash by a leg and dragging him into a cell before slamming the door and whirling to face the rest of the incarcerated Sues and Stu's. "And the same goes for the rest of you!" He bellowed, pointing a shaking finger them. "If I even think that one of you have so much as insulted Lily, I'll come down here and make you beg for death!"

With that, he stalked up the stairs and slammed the basement door open, his face still a stormy mask of rage. He was greeted by the startled form of Ashley, who had been forced to jump backwards in order to avoid being clobbered by the slamming door. "Oh, sorry," Avak blinked in surprise, his rage subsiding.

Ashley waved it aside. "It's no problem," She frowned. "You're breathing hard. Are you alright?"

"Uh..." Avak thought desperately for an excuse for his excited state. "Ash...he tried to get away and I had to get a little rough with him," It was half true, if an extreme understatement.

"Well I just wanted to say thank you," Ashley said. "If it weren't for you and Lily, chances are I'd be dead right now,"

Avak shrugged. " We were just doing our jobs," He noticed Christoph hovering silently several feet behind Ashley. "What's he here for?" He asked.

"Oh, I opted for Permanent Prohibition," Ashley responded, holding up a wrist surrounded by shiny metal. "I'm not allowed to go home until this takes effect, and they don't want me out of sight, so..." She shrugged.

"Oh, sorry," Avak winced, but Ashley shook her head. "Don't be, it's no big deal. They offered to let me join the Society, but I turned them down. This sort of thing isn't for me,"

"Sorry to hear that," Avak said, dissapointed. "It would've been nice to have you on our side."

Ashley shrugged. "Yeah, well..." She trailed off for a moment, looking at Avak strangely and he felt a blush creep across his face. "Is something wrong?" He asked, uncomfortably.

Ashley glanced over her shoulder at Cristoph. "Could you give us a bit of privacy, please?" She asked sweetly. Cristoph thought about it for a moment, then moved backwards until he was out of earshot, but still able to easily keep both in sight.

"You're in love with Lily, aren't you?" Ashley asked softly, leaning closer to Avak. Avak would've blushed even harder had he not gone pale. He started to protest but Amanda cut him off. "I see the way you look at her, you know."

Avak sighed heavily and nodded slowly. "I can't help it," he muttered.

"I know," Ashley murmured gently. "And she's in love with someone else, isn't she?"

Avak nodded again. "I'm not... entirely sure if he loves her though..."

Ashley cocked her head to one side. "What makes you say that?"

Avak shrugged. "Just the way he's been treating her lately. You don't treat the people you love that way..."

Ashley nodded. "I see. Well, in that case, I wish you luck, Avak."

She leaned in closer to subtly let her lips brush against his cheek, feeling his skin flush in response. She straightened up and stepped back, nodding over her shoulder at Christoph, who walked back over as she said in a normal volume of voice, "Goodbye, Avak. Who knows? Mabye someday we'll meet again."

With that she turned and followed Christoph who led her away.

It was only once they were out of sight that Avak allowed himself to reach up and gently touch the place where Ashley had kissed him with the pads of his fingers.

He smiled.

-

18 Months ago...

Bella walked slowly across the roof of Gensei Academy, her emerald-green dress gently whispering around her slender form. She took a deep breath, tasting the cool evening air.

Two months. It had been two months since Amanda slated her to die, and although she loved her Author, Bella knew that Amanda didn't love her and that no amount of pleading would convince her to spare her character.

Breaking free from Amanda's control had been an impulse decision, one that she never expected to succseed. Her first test of her constraints were tentative, like reaching for a doorknob you suspected was going to shock you. To her surprise though, Amanda's abombnably poor writing crumbled under her experimental touch. Amanda had tried to contain the literary equivalent of a wild animal in a cage made of wet rice paper.

After her initial attempt, Bella knew there was no going back. She had to break free from Amanda's influence entirely, before her Author noticed, or else she'd either be killed off prematurely, or Amanda would trap her in an even stronger cage of words. As much as Bella loved her Author, she feared the oblivion of literary death even more.

After her escape, she wasn't quite sure what to do at first. Following Amanda's plotline had given a purpose, no matter how flawed that plot might have been. Without that, Bella was all alone and adrift in the world. As she wandered aimlessly around the streets of Shibuya though, she soon realized the common thread tying the lives of all The World Ends With You characters together. Suffering. Underneath their masks of cheer, indifference, or superiority, everyone was being torn apart on the inside by some personal conflict. Amanda had given her the power to change the world with little more than a swish of her hair and a smile, so why not put that power to good use? Her efforts succeeded spectacularly, much to her surprise. Even the most egregious imperfections whithered before her touch and it seemed as if she'd acheived utopia...and then Ben showed up.

Bella walked over to the edge of the roof and placed her hands on the railing, staring at the sunset. At first, Ben had been little more than an annoyance, but as he interfered with her plans time and time again, the annoyance grew, until things had came to a head during their last battle in the Dragon Drive game. She closed her eyes. For some reason, so matter how hard she tried, she coldn't get the nuke-crazy Agent out of her head. He didn't seem like a bad person, so why was he always getting in her way? She was just trying to help people! Couldn't he see that? Her grip tightened on the railing. She couldn't stop thinking about him! There was just... something about him that was so...

There was the familliar sound of a Plothole opening and she turned. Ben stepped through, a guitar slung across his back. His leg had been heavily bandaged, but there was a resolve in his eyes that hadn't been there before. Bella's stomach sank as she realized that this would be their final battle. Only one of them would walk away from this alive.

She took a deep breath. "Hello, Ben."

"Bella."

-

Present Day...

Lily's eyes opened to darkness and she lay in bed for a moment before realizing it had only been a dream. She sat up, blinking the sleep from her eyes. The glowing red dial of her bedside clock proclaimed that it was after midnight, but she knew that sleep was impossible now. She sighed, flopping onto her back to stare up into the darkness a while longer.

Things hadn't changed much betwen her and Ben since their battle in Buso Renkin a year and a half ago. Lily still had no clue what Ben was doing, or why he was doing it. She could barely remember the last time she had had a real conversation with him alone. The thought hardened until it formed a hard lump that rolled around in her throat. She closed her eyes. She needed to talk to someone. ANYONE. She glanced over at the clock again. It was late true, but... she needed a friend.

She rolled out of bed and padded barefoot out into the hallway. Unsurprisingly, there was nobody around at this hour. Her eyes had already adjusted to the darkness, so she had an easy time navigating down the hall until she reached Karissa's bedroom. She rapped softly on the door and heard the sound of someone stirring on the other side. She knocked again and this time heard a rustling noise as Karissa slid out of bed and opened the door.

"Wha-Lily?" The dark-haired girl asked, groggily, rubbing her eyes. "What's going on?"

Lily took a deep breath "I-I need someone to talk to... Can I come in?"

Karissa frowned and nodded, standing aside to let the smaller girl in. "Sit down," She said, gesturing to the bed as she turned on the light, leaving it dim.

"So what's wrong?" Karissa asked, moving over to sit beside her friend.

Lily drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her flannel-covered knees. "Do you think Ben loves me?" She blurted, avoiding Karissa's gaze.

Karissa frowned, she should have guessed. Why else would the former Sue have come to her this late? "Why wouldn't he?" She asked.

"He never has time for me anymore," Lily replied. "I can't even remember the last time we had a real conversation. We haven't been alone together since... since I don't know when. I mean, we've been together for over a year now and he hasn't even tried to do... anything... to me yet," She said, feeling a blush creep across her features.

Karissa paused. "Do you want him to?" She asked quietly.

Lily shrugged. "At least then I'd know he loved me," She said. "He's always off doing something with Jess or..." she trailed off and her jaw dropped. "Oh, my god! You don't think he's-"

"No!" Karissa cut her off. "Ben would never cheat on you!"

"But he's always spending time with her!"

"That's because they're friends! Besides, they're the ones in charge of songwriting for the band, they have to spend time together to compare notes!" Although she would never admit it, Karissa was glad Shirley wasn't around to hear her make that last statement.

Lily looked unconvinced and Karissa sighed. She knew Ben had been neglecting his girlfriend for a while now, but she had no idea it had gotten this bad...

"Did Ben ever tell you about what happened back here the time Neb kidnapped you?" She asked after a moment. Lily shook her head.

"Ben was a wreck," Karissa said. "He was jumpy and was constantly snapping at everybody. I don't think I've ever seen anybody as worried as he was then. Apparently it got so bad he actually yelled at Shirley!"

Lily's eyes widened. "Seriously?"

Karissa nodded. "Ben really does love you, Lily," She said, "Try talking to him, tell him how you're feeling. I'm sure he'll understand."

"But I can never find time for us to be alone!" Lily protested.

"Then make time," Karissa respoded.

Lily thought about it for a moment, then noddded. "Thanks, Karissa," she said, standing. "I'll be sure to talk to him as soon as I get the chance. I'll let you get back to sleep. Sorry for bothering you again,"

"No need to apologize, Lily," Karissa smiled. "Good night,"

Lily sighed as she closed the door to Karissa's room. She knew that there was no chance of catching Ben alone during the day. If she was going to talk to him, it had to be now.

There was no response when she knocked on his door, but that was nothing unusual, Ben was a notoriously heavy sleeper. Lily carefully opened the door and peered inside. Ben's bedside lamp was still on, illuminating the room and empty bed. It appeared as if Ben were still up and wandering around the Library somewhere, and Lily wasn't foolish enough to go looking for him this late. Chances were she'd only end up getting lost.

She closed the door and headed for the kitchen. She wasn't about to wake up Rhia, but she was sure she could scrounge up something to eat in the other kitchen.

She heard the laugher before she saw the light coming from the doorway. She peered around the doorframe and her heart sank. Ben was sitting at the kitchen table, which was covered with half-eaten dishes of every size, color and description, laughing and watching Jess sashay around the kitchen, apparently cooking sometihng.

"Okay! Done!" Jess sang, sweeping a bowl filled with a mushy orange substance off the counter and onto the table in front of Ben with a flourish, sticking a fork into it.

Ben stared at it dubiously. "Jess, that looks like something one of Rhia's cats threw up."

Jess let out a mock-outraged gasp and smacked Ben over the head with a ladle. "Shame on you!"

"It does!" Ben insisted, laughing, "Look, there are chunks in it!"

"That's to give it texture!"

"Oh, like your chicken soup has texture?"

"Hey now, my chicken soup is awesome!" Jess pouted.

"You can stand a spoon up in it! Watch!" Ben said, stabbing a spoon into a bowl half-filled with a brown sludge that looked as much like vomit as the orange substance. Sure enough, the spoon remained upright when Ben let go of it.

"But you loved that stuff!" Jess pointed out.

"Yeah, but it wasn't glowing," Ben shot back playfully.

Jess let out a distainful sniff. "I will have you know that this is Pumpkin Risotto, one of my finest dishes," She said in a snobby TV-chef voice. "Now shut up and eat it while I start work on the Tiramisu,"

"OK," Ben said, fishing the fork out of the bowl. "See if you can't make some more of that Prawn Pilaf too. That stuff was freaking amazing,"

"Can do!" Jess sang, turning back to the open cupboard, "Now, where is the Tia Maria?"

Lily silently moved backwards, still unseen and ran back to her room.

The tears on her pillow had yet to dry when morning came.