Insert Red Skies Twilight Here (part 2 of 6)

"I loved you, you made me. 
You gave me hate, see. It saved me. 
And these tears are deadly. 
You feel that? I rip that. 
Every time you try to steal that, 
you feel that, you feel sad.
 
"I'm sorry. It was my heart, my life. 
It was my start, it was your knife.
This strife, it dies and this life and these lies.
And these lungs have sung this song for too long. 
It's true, I hurt too.
Remember, I loved you!"
-'Black Dahlia' by Hollywood Undead.

Marcus ducked another knife swing from the false-Tash, this one slicing off a few strands of hair. "Watch it! You about took my head off!"

"That's the idea!" The insane Sue cackled and lunged at him again, missing by a few inches. "Now hold still and I promise I'll make this as painful as possible!"

"No thanks!" Marcus rolled out of the way and leapt to his feet, snatching his umbrella from where it was leaning against the wall. Whirling, he swung it at her head, intending to knock her out with the blow…

Only for her to grab it with a hand a few inches from her face. "Not bad, boy, but there's no way a measly umbrella can…" Then she was floored as Marcus tapped the released button and the umbrella sprang open. "Hey!"

With a grin, Marcus snagged the umbrella behind her head and yanked her close, slamming his fist right into her face. "You know, everyone laughed at me when I got this thing…"

The Pseudo-Tash staggered a bit, her eyes rolling around in their sockets, blood pouring from her nose. " It's snot fair… I's always… gets the short ends of the stick…" Then she toppled backwards and collapsed on the floor, out cold.

Marcus looked at her for a minute as he folded up his umbrella, then shrugged and dashed out of the room, heading for the sounds he hoped weren't explosions. (If she got out, then I'm betting that some of the others did, too. If that's the case, the other Agents will need my help…)

TTTTTTTTTT

Tash screamed as Harold's punch to her gut rocketed her backwards and embedded her into a wall amidst a cloud of dust.

"Tash!" Valerie shouted and then barely manages to leap aside as Harold casually tossed a sphere of energy at her, the attack zipping past her shoulder and slamming into a target, completely destroying it with a small explosion. The rest of the training was covered in small craters and scorch marks form near-misses, last-second dodges and Tash's fiery strikes.

"Hehehehe…" Harold chuckled as he slowly charged up another energy attack. "This is kind of fun…I've been playing with you for ten minutes and I'm still not bored…"

"Radiance..." Kyle came out of nowhere and slammed his glowing fist into the Super-Saiyan's gut and an explosion of light leapt from the impact point, Harold roaring in pain as it started to shove him backwards even as Kyle slammed his other fist into him and another punch and another and another, till his arms were nearly blurs. "Barrage!" Finally, the Agent clasped his together and wound up, slamming a two-handed haymaker across Harold's face, the blow actually lifting him off the ground and Kyle whirled, landing a powerful kick that sent Harold flying into the wall.

"Rrrrrgggg...tch...!' Harold pried himself free and wiped a bit of blood away from the corner of his mouth, his Super-Saiyan aura still burning around him. "You got guts, kid and you know how to fight, I'll give you that..."

Kyle just glared and got into a battle-stance, trying to ignore the pain in his arms. While Radiance Barrage was one of his more efficient techniques, as he only had to channel a small out of energy into his fists, it still had it's toll, as several dozen miniscule pin-prick like- cuts had opened from the move, leaving his forearms streaked with blood. "I'll going to burn you away with the power of my soul..."

"Not if I get him first! "Tash leapt out of the wall, twirling her staff and leaving a trail of flames it's wake. "Jurai-Ken- Tainrenso!" She crouched down and launched herself forwards in a split second, becoming a tornado of fire, leaving a trail of scorched floor in her wake.

Harold smirked and his hand snapped out, deftly catching the head of Tash's staff and halting her momentum instantly. "You really think such a little attack is going to work... you're too slow, I can see your moves!" Then his eyes widened as a pair of flaming wings erupted from Tash's back. "Oh..."

"Jurai-Ken- Abari!" With a battle cry, Tash's wings flared larger and she rocketed forwards , spinning like a top till she and Harold had punched through the wall and into the next room, smashing through bookshelves and colliding with a marble pillar that halted their momentum and then the head of Tash's staff erupted with flames like a small bomb.

Tash flipped away and beat her wings, putting some distance between her and the Stu, staff at the ready. "Bet you're not so smug now…"

Then an echoing boom sounded and Tash cried out as a wave of sound slammed into her while at the same time it blew the smoke surrounding Harold away and cracked the floor next to him, revealing that he had merely clapped his hands together. "That hurt..."

He glared up at Tash and opened his hands. "But not as much as this will! Destructo Disk!" A pair of serrated-energy disks burst into existence in his hands and he flung them towards the Society leader, forcing her to fly and dart and dodge in a mad game of tag in and out of bookshelves and pillars.

Harold smirked arrogantly as he directed the disks motions with his hands, watching them sheer the top of a bookshelf, a chunk out of a marble pillar and neatly cleaved a statue of Zeus in two, Tash barely able to keep ahead of them. "You aren't going to last, girl! I'll cut you into pieces!'

Tash twisted around one of the disks and yelped as she saw the second hissing right for her. In desperation, she folded her wings around her just as the disk hit. For a moment, energy and fire sparked and flared against one another, then Tash snapped her wings apart and knocked the disk away, destroying it with a swift blast of fire from her staff. "Ha!"

Then Tash heard a humming behind her and turned, knowing that she wasn't going to be fast enough to block or avoid the second disk...

Then a thin blue-arrow shot past her ear and collided with the disk, both of them exploding in a small flare of energy. "Whoa..."

Harold glared towards the hole, where Valerie was standing with Seiryu active, it's edges flicking with uncontrolled energy. "You're next, then!" He cupped his hands together and began to charge up a sphere of golden energy.

"Not likely!" Kyle dropped down from above and drove his Omni-weapon, in the shape of a broadsword into the floor right in front of Harold and discharged a burst of power through the weapon, cracking the floor beneath the Stu's feet heavily.

"Huh? What?" Harold saw a few bits of dust drop down in front of his face and lifted his head, just in time to see the last arrow strike the ceiling above him and it gave way, a huge chunk of it falling his way and accompanied by the books and shelves that rested on it. "I hate you all. So much..."

Kyle leapt away to join Valerie and Tash landed next to the pair as Harold was buried under the ton of debris from the floor above and the floor beneath him a gave way, dropping him out of sight. "Thanks, you two."

"You're welcome." Val nodded and glanced towards the hole they had just made. "I don't know how he got out, but if he has, I bet the others have as well. We need to find the others and Adrian and regroup. The Library's too large and if we don't have a plan, we'll never find them all."

"Right." Tash agreed and pulled out her communicator, pressing the 'Contact All' button and speaking. "This is Chief Agent Tash. I don't know why or how, but it looks like the Sues and Stus have escaped from the basement and their Prohibitors have been removed. Be on alert for any of them and work together. As soon as you are able, get back to the Briefing Room to regroup."

As she finished speaking, a burst of golden energy erupted form the hole and the three Agents grimaced. "I knew that wouldn't take him down..."

Kyle took a step forwards and slid into a battle stance. "You two go on ahead-I'll stall him and beat him down…"

Val shook her head. "He was beating the tar out of you one-on-one and there's no way the three of us can beat him like this. We need to beat a retreat." She whistled once and Ari appeared, latched onto Kyle and in a split second, vanished with him into between.

Tash grabbed Val and with beat of her wings, alighted into the air and flew through the hole in the wall, even as Harold tore his way through the debris burying him and flew after his prey.

TTTTTTTTTT

Mytheus Primal smiled as the couch he had been firing on finally crumbled apart "About time…" He tromped forwards and savagely kicked away the remains of the couch his prey had been hiding behind. "Alright, who wants to be filled full of holes first!"

Then he paused and glanced around. "Hey, where'd you all go…?" Then he heard a loud cry of 'Push!' and turned around just in time to see a towering bookshelves collapse, raining books on his form as it collapsed on top of him. "Awwww…"

Standing on the far end of the room, having pushed over the line of bookshelves that caused them to fall like dominoes, Claire and Miriku high-fived each other. "Yes, we rock!"

Then the bookshelf groaned and then blew apart as Mytheus Primal burst free. "You really think that can hold me!" He yanked another laser rifle off his back and braced it against his shoulder, aiming it at the two girls. "Say your prayers…"

Claire grinned and waggled a finger at him. "Didn't you notice my fiancé isn't around anymore?"

"Huh… so what…?" The Mytheus' eyes widened as he felt himself start to sink. "Hey, what's going on!" He glanced down and a swirling void of darkness where the ground should have been, slowly drawing him down into it's depth. "What the hell is this!" He struggled and even tried to transform, but the darkness' grasp was too strong and soon it drew him completely under.

For a few moments, the void of darkness sat there, swirling silently and then Mytheus' head came flying out, trailing sparks and wiring, his mouth frozen in an expression of surprise and horror. It clattered to the ground and bounced across the floor, rolling to a stop in front of Claire.

She nudged it with her foot. "Wow… that's impressive…"

The shadows next to Miriku rippled and Michael stumbled out, breathing heavily as he dropped to one knee. "I got him… but… I… don't… think… I'll… be able… to do that… again…"

"C'mon, bro…" Miriku and Claire helped Michel stand and the trio headed out the door. "We need to find the others and get out of here before anymore of them show up…

TTTTTTTTTT

Xavier blinked in amazement as the colossal Phoenix Zord in front of him, nearly brushing the giant room's ceiling. "Wow... when I broke into this room I thought there would be Agents here, not this..."

Cackling, he rubbed his hands together and began to search for a way up to the top. "I can cause a lot of damage with this new toy of mine...now how do I get it to work?"

"You won't." A voice commanded from behind him and Xavier whirled, ready to fight...and then grinned saucily at what he say.

"Wow..." He leered at her. "You've got more curves than a racetrack, baby."

Phoenixia, dressed in her normal look of bodysuit and trenchcoat, snorted and folded her arms across her breasts. "Please, don't even think it. You've got a better chance of finding water on the surface of the sun than even getting close to me."

"Oh really?" Xavier smirked and suddenly lunged for Phoenixia, as fast as he could, hands out stretched. "We'll just see about that!"

Phoenixia didn't bother to move, but merely smirked as Xavier passed right through body like it wasn't even there. "Told you so..."

The Stu crashed painfully into the floor and picked himself up, rubbing his bruised face. "What the heck are you, some sort of hologram?"

"I'm a fully capable sentient, naughty computer program. I just have a holographic body." Phoenixia turned to face him. "And that means I can control how I want to look, make any part of me any size, and can make myself intangible at will. So, considering that I can alter myself so I can bench press a semi-truck and smash it on your head, gain claws and slice you to ribbons or literally kill you with marshmallow hell, I suggest that you surrender right now."

Xavier laughed. "Ha! You may be a hologram and a computer, but you can't do real damage to me. Asimov's Three Laws and the fact you're made out of light prevent that."

"Those laws apply to robots, not something like me. And I'm a hardlight hologram- means I can interact with the physical world however I want. And lastly, I'm a computer program and that Zord behind me? Guess who controls it?" Phoenixia smiled sweetly at him as the Zord's eyes lit up and a panel slid back on one of the wings, revealing a rocket.

Xavier's eyes bugged out. "Oh..." Then he turned to run, but didn't quite make it...

TTTTTTTTTT

Adrian leapt forward and caught Chrys as Silver finally managed to throw the hanyou off him. "Gotcha!"

"You little runt..!" Silver leapt to his feet, his hair mussed up and his face covered in claw marks, while bits and pieces of his robe had been torn or ripped. As always though, he somehow made it look really handsome. "You almost ruined my perfect self! I'm gonna make you burn for that!"

"No, you're not..." Adrian set Chrys down and pushed her towards Emily and Mizuho at while he raised Hoshikuzu in front of him. "You've got me to deal with first, Silver!" Then he lunged.

Silver laughed and met Adrian's lunge head-on, parrying the blow and retaliating with a decapitating swipe, which Adrian blocked and then both of them flash-stepped out of sight, reappearing all over the room for split seconds in various poses of combat as they collided again and again, shaking Adrian's office.

Mizuho kept Chrys and Emily behind her, as her partner was still a little loopy. Her eyes darted back and forth rapidly, barely able to keep with the two. "Amazing..."

"Yeah..." Emily watched in awe. She had known Adrian and a fully-powered combat-class Stu like Silver were incredible powerful, but hearing it and actually seeing it were two completely different things.

A sharp cry, pained cry sounded and suddenly Adrian crashed into the floor at her feet, blood pouring from a wound in his side. "Oh, no!"

Then she felt the air behind her shift and her eyes widened as she glanced over her shoulder to see Silver standing behind, blade drawn back to strike. "Ah...!"

The Bleach Stu sneered as his blade began to absorb light from the surrounding area, cracking ominously. "Death to the traitorous imperfection!" Then the blade swung down and there was a blinding flare of light that forced Emily, Chrys and Mizuho to shield and close their eyes and even then it shone so bright it burned.

Then the light dimmed and faded and Emily felt something warm trickle down her cheek and opened her eyes, seeing the violet blade of Hoshikuzu extending past her face, the tip having bit into the flat of Silver's sword to stop it, mere inches from her face. "A-Adrian..."

Adrian panted as he strained from his awkward position, of half-kneeling, half-sitting up and struggling to prevent Silver's sword from overpowering his own and keeping Hoshikuzu from biting into Emily's skin any further. "You... leave her out of this, Silver...!"

"No." Silver sneered again and then frowned as he strained against their strange-weapons lock. "But why are you still standing! Even if you did block my swing, the power of my attack should have incinerated you!"

"That would be me!" Aster floated in front of him and waved at him cheerily. "Sorry, but I can't let you do that and because I can nullify light, I got rid of your shiny sword's power. Otherwise, you would've hurt a lot of people and we can't have that, kyaa~?"

Silver stared at, dumbfounded that this little sprite of a girl had beaten him so utterly and so easily. Then it turned to rage. "You little brat, I'll crush you!"

Adrian took advantage of the distraction and grabbed Emily's shoulder, pulling her away and rising to his feet, yanking his weapon free and attacking Silver, raining rapid-fire sword strikes down at him from all sides.

The Stu let out a snarl of rage as he blocked and blocked, bits of blood staining on his clothes and face as Adrian's blows nicked him again and again. "Damn you...I...am...perfect! I will..not lose!" With a shout, he caught Adrian's blade in one hand and yanked the Librarian closer, stabbing him deep with Tekogozan in the shoulder and as Adrian jerked in pain, yanked the weapon free, blood spraying the air. "I AM PERFECT! PERFECT!"

Shoving Adrian away, he leapt towards Emily, charging his blade with power even as Mizuho and Chrys leapt in front of the ten-year old protectively. "And you imperfections should not exist in my world!"

Then he howled in agony as a lance of ice come down from above and pinned his foot in place as seconds a later, another lance of ice pierced his sword-wrist and pinned it to the floor as well, Tekogozan clattering uselessly to the ground. "No... you... you damn imperfection..!"

Aster landed in front of him, glaring. "You tried to kill Adrian-kun, Chrys-chan, Mizuho-chan and Emily-chan... you tried to kill my friends."

Silver moaned in pain and desperately tried to tug the ice pinning his limbs free, but it was impossible. "You think... that I'm going to let you beat me! I'm perfect! I'll crush you all!" Light gathered around his good hand and he thrust it towards Aster defiantly, but the fae merely negated it, the attack dying before it even left him. "Imperfection... Imperfection... you damn Imperfection!" He howled and his body began to crackle with power. "You...you shouldn't not exist in my world! I am perfect!"

With a howling cry, he jerked hard, the ice piercing his wrist shattering and he grabbed Tekogozan up and snapped it towards Aster's head. "DIE!"

Then he gasped and the light in his eyes faded as Hoshikuzu pierced his heart from behind. "But... I'm... perfect...!" Then his body began to dissolve away as Adrian pulled his weapon free.

Adrian turned to the other four in his office and grabbed a scrap of cloth off the ground, wiping his sword clean with it. "If Silver's gotten free, then we need to assume everyone in the basement has, too. Mizuho, Chrys, go get Emily to the briefing room and Aster..." Adrian pulled open a drawer at his desk, pulled out a small black book and tossed it to the fae, who caught it deftly. "Get that to Tash and then go round up the others, just like we planned."

"Yes, Adrian-kun." Aster nodded and with a beat of her wings, the fae zipped out of the room.

The two Peacekeepers looked at him for a long moment, Chrys looking like she was on the verge of tears. "Adrian.."

"It'll be okay, Chrys." Adrian smiled reassuringly. "Now, go. Hurry! We haven't got much time!"

"He's right, dummy." Mizuho thumped Chrys on the head with her fist and the hanyou winced in pain. ("Mizuho, that hurt!"). "Now's not the time for cry-babying. C'mon!" She turned and dashed down the hallway, practically dragging Emily with over the ten-year-old's protests that she could walk fine on her own, Chrys scrambling to keep up.

Satisfied that things were going to work out for now, Adrian closed his eyes and extended himself to his connection with the very Library Arcanium itself. Judging from the damage the Library was receiving, he could tell where the battles where and get a vague sense of who was fighting who.

Exerting more of his will, he began to shut and seal all the doors of all the empty rooms and some of the doors that the fighting was going on it, and rearranged some of the rooms to give his fellow Agents the quickest routes to the Briefing Room. Meanwhile, he need to give them some help against the onslaught. "Librarian Art 4: Fiction Press…"

All over the Library, books slid themselves out of shelves and opened, emitting rays of light from their pages as figures began to take shape…

TTTTTTTTTT

Harriet scrabbled over the nearest couch, another scything wave of golden light hissing overhead and shearing the top half of the couch's back off. "Oh bollocks…"

"Does anyone got a plan?" Jamie asked, as he and the four women huddled behind the couch.

In response, Ossa yanked a chunk debris the size of her head from the floor and stood for a brief moment, hurling it at Willowe as hard as she could.

The Sue simply batted it aside with the back of her hand, not even losing step.

"Okay, now we're out of plans..." Aimee muttered as glanced for a way out of Hati's office. Unfortunately, there was only one and the sword-wielding Sue was blocking.

"Come, Mummy…" Willowe drawled out as she tapped Excalibur against her palm while advancing on her helpless creator and her friends. "Let's just end this…hold still and I promise I'll make it a swift, painful end…"

"Not on your life!" Harriet snapped as she and the others slowly backed away from her one-time creation, gulping as she felt her back press against the wall. "I'm sorry that things had to turn out this way, Willowe, but I can't change it anymore. You're the one who let it get this far, the one who decided trying to conquer a world was the best way out!"

"I didn't have a choice! I was trapped in that damn story you never took the time to finish!" Willowe snarled, kicking the ruined couch aside. "You abandoned me and left to suffer the same sequence of events over and over again! Well, I'm done serving someone else! From now on, I make the rules…" She grinned evilly. "After I get rid of you, of course…"

Then the Sue snapped up Excalibur, the blade's edge shining with light as she flicked a glance at Ossa. "Ah, ah, ah...don't even think it, girl. You don't have a weapon and no matter how good you are at fighting, you won't survive the energy my sword can unleash."

The Native American girl growled softly and still stepped protectively in front of Aimee and Jamie as Hati and Jess did the same.

Harriet was a skilled kick-boxer, but she also knew that such skills were nothing compared to someone of Willowe's power and fighting her was probably tantamount to suicide. Desperately, she glanced around for anything she could use as a weapon, for anyone to help her.

And someone did.

Willowe paused as she heard a snap-hiss!Thrumm!- behind and she could see bits of red light dancing against the wall in front of her. Frowning, she whirled around and for one of the few times in her life, she was completely surprised.

Darth Vader stood in the door, his ignited lightsaber in his hand, breathing mechanically as he regarded. Flanking him were Solid Snake and what looked like… Superman?

"What… the… hell!" Harriet stared in amazement. She had believed things couldn't get any weirder since she founded the Society and now it looked she was wrong.

Willowe narrowed her eyes at the three newcomers. (They feel funny… I don't think they're the real deals, but they could prove quite a threat… so I'll take them out first!) She lunged and sparks flew as Vader blocked her weapon with his lightsaber. They traded blows for a few moments and then Willowe was literally blown off her feet as Superman unleashed his Arctic Breath, blowing her across the room and freezing her in a solid block of ice.

Seconds later, the ice shrieked and blew apart as the Sue exerted her power, only to be sent staggering Snake opened up with a pair of twin carbines, unleashing an endless stream of bullets. While they didn't really do much damage, the sheer volume of the attack kept her pinned to the wall as Superman and Vader both advanced on her.

"Holy crap..." Ossa said as she and the others watched Willowe and the three fictional creations fight, the Sue decapitating Superman with a backhand swing and then blasting Vader and Snake to wisps with burst of energy from her palm. "What's going on here?"

Willowe lowered her palm and turned back towards the Agents. "Now then, where were we...?" Then she disappeared under a wave of people as they tackled her. It looked to be the entire cast of the 2008 Star Trek movie dog-piling the Sue.

"Now's our chance! Let's go!" Hati lead the way as the Agents darted out of the room.

Aimee slid to a stop and doubled back, grabbing Ossa by the arm and practically dragging her out the door. "C'mon! We are fleeing for the safety of our lives here!"

"But... but... but... C-Chris Pine!" Ossa wailed in protest as the Irish girl pulled her away.

TTTTTTTTTT

Doug and Cristoph ran pell-mell down a hallway, the gun-toting Agent slamming a clip into his pistol on the run. "Just how many rockets does she have!"

"I do not know and I do not care to stay and find out!" Cristoph responded, as they turned a corner sharply and he opted to actually run up and along the wall without skipping rather than leap over the stand in front of him.

"That's it, that's it! Run, run!" Mary-Ann cackled and chased after the two Agents, moving quite fast despite her petite size and the hugeness of the rocket launcher on her shoulder, firing what seemed to be an endless barrage of rockets that screamed down the hallway, blowing holes in the walls and demolishing pictures, doors, end tables...pretty much whatever they hit. "But don't think you can doge forever! One of my rockets hits you... and boom! No more Agent!"

Then she blinked as she felt the weight of her weapon disappear from her shoulder. "Huh?" Still running, she glanced over her shoulder to see a blue-and-red costumed Spider-Man clinging to the ceiling, obviously the one responsible for yanking her weapon away. "How did he get there...?"

Then a strand of webbing shout of from in front of her and Mary-Ann yelped as she tripped over it. "Ack!"

Groaning and rubbing her sore face, she sat upright and paled a bit when she noticed the several Spider-Men in both his traditional costume and black variant surrounding her on the walls and ceiling. "Oh... nuts..."

Doug and Cristoph watched as the Spider-Men attacked the Sue and threw a glance at one another in confusion before just shrugging and dashing away down the hall towards the Briefing Room.

TTTTTTTTTT

"Venasaur!" The giant blue/green Plant Pokemon bellowed, the flower on it's back shaking as it hurtled of whipping vines down the hall.

"Tyler! Why did you have to go and poke it?" Drake shouted as he and his partner-in-crime ran desperately trying to stay ahead of the dangerous vines.

The smaller Agent shrugged. "I was hungry..."

"It was the size of a car and had a giant flower on it! What on earth made you think it was food!"

"I eat just about anything..."

Drake ducked a vine and swore under his breath. "Tyler! If you ever poke a giant plant-thing to see if it's alive again, I will kill you! Seriously! Who does that!"

Tyler shrugged again while running. "If I had some dressing, I could make a nice salad..."

"ARRGH!"

TTTTTTTTTT

Agent Smith loaded another clip into his pistol and returned it to his jacket pocket, glancing around at the bullet-ridden corpses of the Aragons, Gimilis and Legolases that had tried to attack him a few moments ago. "So this is what Runoa was talking about…well, she certainly wasn't kidding when she told me they're be plenty of new people to work with."

Walking over to the nearest corpse, he knelt and plunged his hand into it's chest, the fictional beings legs and arms twitching sporadically as a mercury-like substance spread from Smith's hand and over the being's body.

Moments later, Smith was looking down at himself and smirked darkly. Helping his double up, he and the copy went about their work silently, turning the fictional characters into copies. Two… four… eight… sixteen… Smiths rose from the dead and began to spread out amongst the Library, grabbing whatever fictional being they could find and overriding them, turning them into copies.

Into an army.

TTTTTTTTTT

Tash and Valerie burst a doorway into a reading room, the Leader setting Val down and leaning her hands on her knees, panting for breath as her wings folded up against her back. "Do... do you think we lost him?

Val glanced back the way they had come and listened intently. "I don't know... I don't hear anything and I don't sense, anything either. So I think we're safe for the moment."

"Good.." Tash panted out and gulped down some air, straightening. "I've never flown so much in a such a short time and definitely not while carrying someone else. I'm glad we found some time to rest..."

The healer glanced around the room, but didn't recognize it. Like so many of the Library's reading rooms, it was simply a few coffee tables, chairs and sofas next to fireplace while every free inch of the walls were lined with bookshelves. "Where do you think we are? I don't recognize this section of the Library and we need to get the Briefing Room..."

Tash wiped her brow and took a quick look around. "I think I know where we are. If I'm right, we just need to cut across this room, take a right down the hallway and go up two flights of stairs..."

Valerie opened her mouth to ask what they'd do if the Library rearranged the rooms again, but the words didn't make it was with a loud 'Thud!' Kyle fell from above the two girls and landed on the floor between their feet.

Ari swooped down and alighted onto Valerie's shoulder. (My apologies, but I cannot slip into the Briefing Room from between, the magic prevents me. And I did not mean to drop him either, but he was getting heavy.)

"It's fine, Ari." Val told the muse, stroking her snout with a couple fingers as Kyle picked himself up off the floor. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, save for my wounds from fighting Harold." Kyle responded, dusting himself off. "Though... moving between is a rather... interesting."

Valerie merely smiled. "You get used to it."

"I think I'll stick to flying, Portal Guns and Adrian's doorways, thank you." Tash said, having finally got her breath back. "Anyway, we need to find the others and Adrian and come up with a plan..."

"Tash-san!" All three Agents looked up as Aster flew down from out of nowhere and flapped to a stop right in front of the British leader, hovering at eye level. "I found you!"

"You did. What is it, Aster?" Tash asked. Then her face grew worried. "Is it Adrian? Did something happen to him? Is he hurt?"

"No. He just asked me to give you this." The fae produced a thin black book and pressed it into Tash's hands. "He said if the Library were ever to be invaded, then you were to get this and keep it on you at all times."

"Uhh... Okay..." Tash took the book and glanced it over. It had no title or markings on the cover or spine and felt light in her hands. But if Adrian had said it was important, then it was good enough for her. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Aster nodded her head and blinked when she caught sight of Kyle. "There you are!"

"Here I am...what?" Kyle blinked back and then yelped as Aster grabbed his arm and with a beat of her wings, took off, dragging the hapless Agent behind her. "Not again!"

Valerie, Ari, and Tash stared after them. "It's always an interesting experience talking to that one..."

"Uh-huh."

TTTTTTTTTT

Hati, Jess and the Ossa Power Trio burst into the Briefing Room, skidding to a halt as they saw it was already filled with their comrades. "Did everyone make it here alright?

Claire, who was busy making her fiancé drink some water, spoke up. "I think so... I did a headcount a few minutes ago and we've got thirty people in this room, including you four."

"Good." Hati glanced around at the assembled Agents. "Now can someone tell me what the hell is going on? The Sues and Stus broke out of the basement, Willowe is in the Library and we're getting out butts handed to us! How did this happen?"

"I don't know." Ben, who was seated in one of the rows of chairs, Bella tying a bandage around his arm. Bahamut was leaning against the chair on his other side and judging from the way it was smoking a bit, had seem some serious action recently. "One minute, Bella and I are together, the next, Alianna Flamewing comes bursting in with a bunch of guys in suits and sunglasses..."

"Agent Smith clones." Tash confirmed as she and Valerie applied bandages to Chrys and Mizuho while Emily ran held the first aid-kits in her arms. "They're from the Matrix movies. Adrian and I watched them once...despite that he's really close to a Stu, he's not one. So I don't know how they got him to work for them..."

"That would be Runoa's hand in this." Everyone's heads snapped up to the other door to see the Librarian already coming down the steps to where everyone was gathered. "She somehow resurrected him after his defeat at Neo's hands and Runoa's the reason Willowe and Smith got into the Library and probably how they managed to free the Sues and Stus in the basement and remove their Prohibitors."

"So what are we going to do?" Michael asked, finishing his water. "We can't just sit here and retreat all the time – even the Library isn't big enough for that. We need to form a plan and hit these guys where it hurts!" Nods of agreement and words filled the air after Michael's words.

"I'm afraid that's impossible."

For a second time that day, everyone's attention was focused on Adrian, though this time it was one of disbelief.

"Agent Smith's ability has enabled him to turn my Fiction Press creations into his copies. " Adrian continued as he descended the last steps and now everyone could see the bloody wound in his shoulder and numerous bullet holes in his trenchcoat. "And even if we could mount a counterattack against Sues like Harold and Willowe, Smith would eventually overwhelm us with sheer numbers and kill us all."

"So what do we do?" Valerie asked as she and Tash made their way over to him, ready to bandage his wounds, but Adrian waved them off.

"I have a plan, but we need to hurry. Despite locking all the doors and the Library rearranging the rooms, there's only so much time before they find us..." As if summoned by his words, the room shook violently and many of the Agents toppled over, unable to balance themselves or grab something in time.

The Librarian was one of the few who managed to remain standing, one hand catching Tash as she fell while Valerie grabbed a railing and he stretched out his good hand, which glowed softly for moment and then a large wooden doorway appeared, with a paneled door that had a crystal handle on it. "There... everyone get through there!"

Hati pried herself off of Ossa and Jess, who in turn quickly got up so that they weren't crushing poor Aimee. "What? What is that and where does it go?

A grim smile crossed the white-haired man's face. "You guys didn't really think that I hopped dimensions using Plot Holes, did you? I'm not a Stu. I'm the Librarian and I can summon these doorways to move from place to place when I need to... and this particular door leads back to the Real World."

"WHAT!" Came the simultaneous cry from many of the Agents, several of them tossing curses and swears.

Michael stormed over and grabbed the front of Adrian's shirt. "You mean we're just giving up? Just like that?"

Adrian detached Michael's hand. "We're not giving up, you're retreating to fight another day." He fixed everyone in the room with a penetrating look, and when he spoke, it was the Librarian of the Library Arcanium speaking and not Adrian. "You do not have a choice in this matter. If you do not want to die and not find a chance to beat back our enemies, you will go through the door."

"But what about Emily and Bella? They're Sues- they can't exist in the Real World!" Hati demanded. "And why do we have to go to the Real World? Surely there are other places we can retreat to, ones were we can get an army or weapons or something!"

"I will get Emily and Bella to a place until the crisis is over where they'll be safe." The Librarian replied calmly. "And you have to retreat the Real World because it's only from there that you'll be able to back into the Library of your own power, because the Portal Controls have been destroyed, meaning the Plothole Generators will not work. Now, go!"

Everyone stood there, wavering between arguing with him, staying and fighting or doing as he said.

"He's right..." Everyone glanced over to Valerie who was a bit pale in the face, but her voice was strong and level. "If we stay here, we'll all die. We're all wounded and tired and most of the Sues and Stus are fresh, not to mention we are seriously outnumbered."

A long silence reigned and the room shook violently again before Hati, frustration clearly on her face, spoke. "Everyone... get through the door!"

As the Agents became to make for the door, Tash grabbed her boyfriend's arm, worry on her face. "You kept saying 'you', not 'we'. Does that mean you aren't coming with us?" Without waiting for him to respond, she kept talking. "Because if you aren't, then I'm staying with you. Wherever you go, I'm going with you!"

Adrian gave her a small smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You can't. I am the Librarian and a Counter Guardian. It is my duty to protect the Library and everyone else. My path, not yours."

"I don't care!" Tash said sharply and her face was strained, as if she could not choose between crying and looking fiercely determined. "I love you! You're everything to me! I don't want to lose you! I can't lose you!" Then crying won out and tears started running down her cheeks. "I'm staying with you, Adrian and you can't stop me!" Tash gripped her staff determinedly.

Adrian's violet eyes met her blue ones and he smiled sadly. "Yes, I can." Then his arm moved faster than her eye could follow and Tash felt pressure on the side of her neck. "Sorry, my love..."

"No..." Tash gripped at his shirt with her free hand, fighting with all her strength not to lose consciousness. "I won't... won't... let... you... die..." Then she lost her battle and collapsed into Adrian's arms, out cold.

The Librarian looked down at the woman he loved in his arms and gently brushed some hair out of her face and leaned down to kiss her forehead, but seemed to think better of it and straightened back up. "Here." He handed Tash to Michael, who was looking at the Librarian strangely. "Get her to safety. And...tell her I'm sorry."

Then the room shook violently again and this time, Adrian had to grab a railing to steady himself and the door cracked and buckled. "Everyone, hurry! They're here!"

Then he was charging up the steps, Hoshikuzu appearing in his hand as the door buckled in, then gave way, dozens of Agent Smith copies pouring into the room, weapons drawn as Adrian leapt headlong into them...

Insert Red Skies Twilight Here (part 1 of 6)

 Note: Here it comes, the beginning of the end! ...of Season One. =P


Hold on to your hats, dear readers.




"All the whispers, the warnings so clear.
I see the angels. I'll lead them to your door.
There's no escape now. No mercy, no more.
No remorse, 'cause I still remember...
The smile when you tore me apart."
-"Angels" By Within Temptation

Somewhere in the world of 'Twilight', Bella and Edward were falling deeply in love and trying to reconcile the differences between human and vampire, while Jacob was attempting to cope with the fact that he had lost the woman of his dreams and come in second place in the game of love and somewhere else, both vampire and werewolf forces were planning their next moves, all centered on the fact that a vampire had fallen in love with a human girl….

But this story is not about those people and events, for they are some else's story to tell.

This story is about another young woman, one whose destiny was just as grand as Bella's, but whether it would be dark or light had yet to be determined.

This young woman knew very little about Bella and Edward and all the things that those two entailed and if she did know everything about them, she would hardly care at all. Because in the grand scheme of things, this little fandom out in the corner of somewhere would be nothing be a minor conquest, a footnote on her way to greatness.

You see, this young woman was a Mary-Sue by the name of Willowe Foxblade. There used to be more to her name, but it was gone now. Not that she minded, as Willowe had never understood why Sues and Stus had a fascination with such long, fanciful names that were also so hard to pronounce. So she relished the fact she had a much simpler name now, one that rolled off the tongue fairly easily. When one intended to become an empress and have slaves to speak your name, it was best to have a name that everyone could say.

Willowe was, however, far from becoming any sort of empress at the moment. Though she still possessed her fine looks and gorgeous hair, they were…plain. No longer was she able to exude the natural aura of perfection of a Sue that magnified their beauty and made them irresistible, thanks to the four Prohibitors clamped around her wrists and ankles. No longer was she able to call upon the powers of the fandom and Plot Holes to twist reality to her whims. Instead, she was forced to languish in this horrible, overly-cliché fandom full tragic romances and a strange variation of vampires.

She'd been in the world of 'Twilight' for several weeks, unable to escape nor find a way to remove the Prohibitors, either. So Willowe was forced to wait.

But today… her waiting was about to end.

Willowe settled back on the park bench and reached into the bag by her side, pulling out another handful of breadcrumbs and scattering them in front of her for the pigeons to eat. She smiled softly as the gray birds fluttered about, cooing as they pecked at the ground for their meal.

"I did not think you would be one for bird-feeding, Willowe."

The Mary-Sue didn't bother to turn to face the speaker who had suddenly materialized behind her, leaning back against the bench and facing away. "I'm a Sue, not evil. I appreciate many things that are already in existence for what they are. I do not wish to have every little thing under my command, like so many other Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus."

"That is why you remained free for so long…" The speaker folded their arms across their chest and continued. "But then, unlike the other Sues and Stus, who are by-products of canon storylines have unfulfilled gaps or loose ends, you had a completely original story… though it took place in a canon world, you had the center stage all to yourself, didn't you? Until dear mummy decided to stop writing…."

The bag crinkled and crumpled as Willowe's fist tightened around it. "I know how it happened, Runoa. I was there. She put me away and forgot about me, leaving me stuck in the same damn pattern over and over again… there was no ending… just an endless circle…"

Runoa glanced back over her shoulder to look at her compatriot. "So all of this…the plotting, the scheming, the conquering… all of it is for revenge on that one woman?"

"No…" Willowe scattered another handful of grain as she spoke. "In fact, I thank her for it…she taught me several important lessons… that there is no such thing as 'fate'… that if you want to change something, you must do it with your own two hands… that in the end, the only person you can count on is yourself…" Her hand clenched into a tight fist.

"Hmmmph…" Runoa closed her eyes briefly. "Well, it's no business of mine what you want to do with your life, Willowe. I have no interest in conquering fandoms or twisting canon…"

"I know…" Now it was Willowe's turn to glance out of the corner of her eye at Runoa. "All that matters to you is your precious research on Immaculation…" A small smirk crossed her face. "That… and making up for all those you couldn't save…"

Runoa's eyes opened and she glared at the auburn-haired Sue. "Don't push your luck, Willowe…I may be indebted to you for saving me from the void between dimensions, but that is all. Don't think I harbor anything like sentiment or affection for you or any other Sue. Push me too far and I may just decide to leave you here…" Her eyes narrowed dangerously, lethally. "Or I could save the Society the trouble and destroy you…"

Willowe's confidence didn't falter in the slightest and the smirk broadened a little. "My apologies, Runoa…" She stood up, brushing breadcrumbs from the front of her dress. "I take the rest of our plan has gone smoothly, then…"

"Yes…" Runoa turned to face her and reached for something inside her robe. "Cassie Anora was captured by Adrian and Tash before she could complete the transfer ceremony and I did not receive all of her powers. And thanks to her author, Cassie's powers have sealed beyond our reach… it was as we expected."

"I never liked Cassie… she was too arrogant for her own good." Willowe raised an eyebrow as Runoa pulled a blue-and-gold sheathed sword from out underneath her robe, handing it to her. "You brought Excalibur with you?"

"You will need it if you are going to fight the Society. Though I gained a portion of Cassie's powers, enabling me to remove the Prohibitors, I cannot restore your powers to you…" Runoa raised her own eyebrow. "Unless you wish to attempt the Immaculation process?"

"No...unlike the others, I earned my fighting skills the hard way. Coupled with Excalibur's powers, they will suffice." Willowe grabbed the weapon and slid it into the belt around her waist. "I assume you can get me into the Library one last time?"

"Of course I can…" Runoa said calmly and handed Willowe a small syringe. "This is an acid I've been developing. It should be strong enough to remove the Prohibitors on the Sues and Stus captive in the Library Basement… a few drops for each one. But this is all I have and as it requires essence of dead Sue to make, I doubt I will be able to mix anymore, so do not waste it."

Willowe nodded, slipping the syringe up her sleeve before holding out her wrists. "Now then… if you'll so kindly free me?"

Runoa reached out and touched one of the Prohibitors before closing her eyes and concentrating. For a moment, nothing happened… and the all four Prohibitors gave a great cracking noise and crumbled apart, clattering to the ground. "There you go…."

"Thank you." Willowe smiled and let out a soft gasp some of her power flooded back into her, her hair becoming shinier and her skin becoming fairer and paler while her eyes acquired a soft sparkle to them. "That is much better… you have no idea what it felt like to be so powerless with those Prohibitors on…"

The former Librarian made a non-committal noise. "Indeed… now then… I have acquired some assistance for your proposed takeover."

As if summoned by her words, the flock of pigeons on the ground suddenly took flight, cooing and calling as a man strode forwards in their wake. He was tall, with a square-jaw and dressed in a dark suit and tie. A pair of sunglasses was on his expressionless face. "Miss Foxblade…"

Willowe glanced at him skeptically. "And just who are you?"

"He is Agent Smith…" Runoa smirked softly. "He's something of a Stu from his home fandom…very nearly took it over, in fact. But he was defeated and supposedly destroyed… I managed to bring him back, though at greatly reduced power."

"Then what good will he be to me?" Willowe folded her arms across her ample chest. "The good number of strong Sues and Stus captured in the Library Basement will be more than enough to takeover the Library."

"Willowe, you will need his help." Runoa said sharply. "Especially if Adrian is present when you start your attack… there is much more defending the Library than just the Society's agents."

"Fine…" The Mary-Sue slid another glance at Agent Smith and then smiled brightly, cunningly. "It's time to go… are you sure you do not want to come, Runoa? This may be your last chance to get into the Library so you may finish your research on Immaculation."

"No." Runoa turned and started to walk away, cloak flapping behind her. "I have told you, Willowe, that I do not care for conquests or revenge… I will reclaim what is mine in due course…" Then she faded away, vanishing like a mist…

Agent Smith watched her go. "She hates you, doesn't she?"

Willowe only smirked. "She does…she hates all Mary-Sues, Gary-Stus, the Society, the Library… her hatred for everything is only outweighed by her hatred of herself…" She readjusted Excalibur and her smirk grew bigger. "Now… it's time to go… and take what is mine…"

She laughed and in a flare of white light, she and Agent Smith vanished…

TTTTTTTTTTTT

"It's not that I don't appreciate your work… it's just that I don't appreciate where you put it…"

"But you said I could paint any of the rooms I wanted so long as it had a large blank wall!"

"I know I said that, but I didn't think you'd take it literally…"

Emily Smith folded her arms across her chest and pouted up at Adrian. "But it's one of my best pieces! And I thought you'd like it…" She pouted more and her lower lip began to quiver.

The Librarian sighed and looked down at her. (She's giving me the puppy-dog eyes… I must resist… I must resist…) "Emily… I love it, really I do. But I would have really preferred it on canvas or something, so I could frame it and hang it or something. Not have it painted onto the wall of my office."

She pouted and her eyes got real big and sweet. "But I had this really cool idea and I wanted to try it out right away! You're a writer! You know you can't suppress the creative urges when they come!"

"Did you have get a creative urge that would give my girlfriend reason to kill me?" Adrian glanced over at the giant mural that took up one of his office walls and moaned softly. "I'm so dead…"

Done in a beautifully bright style of paint was a full-length mural of Tash, lying on a bed of what appeared to be clouds. She was smiling happily and was bright-eyed, little flames dancing around her form while a great pair of fiery wings stretched from her back and her staff was in her grasp.

She was also completely naked.

Luckily, her wings and the clouds were strategically positioned to cover everything necessary, but it was still very little coverage…

Adrian started it with a mixture of awe at Emily's talent, desire and appreciation for Tash's wonderful, sexy form and dread at what his other half would do to him when she found out. "Emily… why do you do this to me…?"

She looked at him, the complete picture of innocence. "What?"

"Nnnnnn..." Adrian found his anger and frustration at her slipping away at the sight the sweetness and puppy-dog eyes on her face. "Next time, Emily...will you at least please ask me if you going to paint in one of the rooms I use often?"

"Okay." The ten-year-old nodded her head and then blinked as blur of some sort hit Adrian in the head and floored the Librarian. "Ummmm..."

"What the-?" Adrian muttered to himself and tried to sit back, only to feel a weight on his back keeping him down... and it felt like someone was nibbling on his ears. "Chrys!"

"Nomnomonomnomnom..." Chrys giggled and continued to nibble on Adrian's kitty ears, her own ears flicking back and forth while Adrian just sighed deeply and propped his chin in his hand.

Emily stared at the sight, tilting her head as a question mark popped into existence above her. "Why is Chrys trying to eat your ears?"

Adrian pushed himself back to his feet and stood up, dislodging Chrys from his back. The hanyou let out a small noise of irritation and, despite the fact she was only a few inches shorter than Adrian, climbed him like a monkey and continued to nibble his ears. "She got into Tash's chocolate again..."

"So?" Emily, despite the oddness of the situation in front of her, also found it rather cute and endearing, as occasionally desu-sparkles would appear around Chrys. "British chocolate has more sugar than American, but it's not enough to cause anything like this."

"Not British chocolate, Tash's chocolate." Adrian corrected and squirmed a bit as Chrys shifted her weight to nibble his other ear. "When she's being devious, she likes to make me some and mix in a little catnip to uh... er..." The Librarian blushed red as he realized what he had about to say. "Well, she never gets any sleep when she makes me chocolate, let's put that way. Anyway, when Chrys eats it, she kinda goes a bit loopy..."

Then he blinked as he noticed that Emily had whipped out her sketchpad and was already hard at work. "Hey! Don't draw this!"

"But it's cute!" Emily's drawing hand was nearly a blur and then she grinned and flipped it around. "See?"

Adrian felt his eye twitch a bit. The picture showed his ears being nibbled on by a chibi-moe Chrys and there were several desu sparkles around them both as well. "I think I felt another piece of my dignity die..."

"Sorry, Adrian..." A slightly-out-of-breath Mizuho appeared the corner of a bookshelf. "She got into the chocolate and before I knew it, she gone after you..."

"It's fine, Mizuho." Adrian replied, reaching behind his head and plucking Chrys free, the hanyou whining a bit and grabbing desperately for his ears. "I just wish Tash would label her chocolate ..."

"At least this wasn't as bad as last time..." Mizuho said, grabbing Chrys around the arm. "That was a bit of a mess.

Emily looked back forth between the two. "Why? What happened last time?"

"Chrys surprised Adrian as he getting out of the shower...he was clothed, but still..." The sprite tightened her grip, as Chrys was starting to eye Adrian's tail intently. A devilish smirk appeared on Mizuho's face. "You look pretty damn hot shirtless, Librarian.."

Adrian blushed while Emily giggled at him. "What is it with women and teasing me? Honestly..."

Then his ears, as well as Chrys' pricked straight up.

In the next second, Adrian had taken two swift steps forward, Hoshikuzu appearing in his grasp even as he slammed it onto the floor, a wave of violet of light racing around the floor just in time to intercept the blast of silvery light that blew through his door like it was paper.

As the two attacks pushed against one another before dispersing away, Adrian positioned himself so that he was between the doorway and other three Agents in the room. "Silver..."

An arrogant chuckle sounded as the Soul Reaper Stu stepped through the ruined doorway, his robes a bright white and his sword's blade gleaming glowing with light. "Hello, Librarian. I'm here to kill you. I hope I'm not interrupting."

The kitty-eared man narrowed his eyes slightly. "If you're free, I guess that means Willowe has made her move..."

"So what?" Silver flicked a bit of hair behind his ear. "You should be worried more about me, for how can you hope to defeat a perfect being like myself?" He smiled and a tooth glinted with light.

Adrian squinted a bit in the light, swearing that Silver's skin was sparkling. "You sparkle more than a Twilight vampire..." Then he blinked as he felt something blur past him, ruffling his coat. "What...?"

Silver blinked as he felt a shadow fall over him and lifted his head, jaw dropping. "Holy *$#%!"

"NO! NO EVIL DESU!" Chrys slammed into the Stu and floored him, Silver flailing around as she attacked him. "RAWR!"

TTTTTTTTTTTT

"Okay… now concentrate again… don't try to force it… just let it happen…"

Valerie nodded at Tash's words and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Alright…" The bracer attached her right arm began to glow blue softly and then twin beams of blue light shot up and down, forming into a large energy bow in her grasp. Reaching up her left hand, she grabbed the bow's 'string' and pulled it back slowly, a large arrow the same color as the bow forming there. She took another breath and let it out, aiming her weapon down the range… and let fly.

The arrow shot down the range towards the target… but at the last second, it suddenly flew to the side, missing completely and striking the floor as it releasing a small spark of power and left a tiny scorch-mark.

"Nuts…" Valerie sighed and then yelped as the bow suddenly flared briefly, doubling in size before vanishing completely with a 'zzzz-shiwsh!' sound. "Damn it!"

Tash smiled ruefully and shook her head. "You're concentrating too hard, Val… you can't make the bow and arrow happen… you have to let it happen."

Val nodded and glanced down at the bracer on her arm. "I'm trying… but it's difficult… the bow either gets too much power or too little… maybe I'm not opening my shields enough."

"That's not it…" Tash said as she walked over to her friend. "Adrian said that it didn't matter how much your shield are open. What matters is how firm your resolve is… That's how the Seiryu works."

The Seiryu was designed for empathetic people, to help give them an edge in fighting. Because empaths routinely avoid conflict so as not to overwhelm their spirits with the strong emotions battle produces, they make weak fighters. Empaths posses a stronger spiritual pressure than most individuals and this is what makes them sensitive to the feelings of those around them and as such, they develop 'shields' to keep most of outside forces at bay. With the Seiryu, it wasn't necessary. Normally just a bracer, to an empathetic individual, it was a weapon of great power. Because the bow requires a flow of spiritual energy to work, the empathetic user was forced to devote most of their energies to making it work, thus enabling them to fight and avoid being overwhelmed by the pain and fury of the combatants.

In short, the Seiryu kept the empathy busy enough that they did not have time to be overwhelmed by battle's emotions. At least, that how it was supposed to work…

Valerie glanced down the range, where a few dozen scorch-marks all over the floor and the wall, but not the target gave testament to her struggle to master her weapon. "I think I'm going to need more practice…"

Tash nodded agreement and then glanced over towards a second target, which was now nothing more than a smoking ruin. "Adrian made it look so easy…"

When demonstrating the weapon, Adrian had channeled his power into the bracer and it instantly formed into a metallic longbow of white and violet and quickly volleyed off several shots of violet energy arrows, all of them thin and sleek and all had exploded with great force on impact with the target. However, when he was done, his fingers were bleeding a bit and he explained (as Tash scolded him for hurting himself and wiped his hand clean) that though he could use the bow, he lacked the open empathy that prevented his own energies from backlashing on him.

So Tash and Val had spent the last two hours trying to get the weapon to work for her, but their success had been minimal.

Val winced and flexed her fingers a Seiryu for so long was making her hands hurt. "I'm starting to get blisters... since Seiryu is pure energy, I'm surprised that it just doesn't burn my fingertips off."

Tash nodded. "I was worried about the same when Adrian taught me Jurai-Ken. I kept thinking I was going to light my clothes or my hair on fire, but it never happened. He said it was something it being our own natural energies and so they wouldn't hurt us..." She grinned a little as she remembered how her training had gone. "Of course, that didn't stop me from lighting other things on fire..."

Valerie chuckled. "I seem to remember treating him for burns on his tail a dozen times during the first week or so..."

The British girl's grin grew bigger. "He kept getting annoyed that I kept 'accidentally' burning his trenchcoat and clothes off...not my fault he looks so hot with his shirt off..."

Val just shook her head, smiling. "Do you ever not think about him bedding you, Tash?"

Tash gave her a look of mock-indignation. "I'll have you know that I do not always think about him bedding me..." She dropped the look and giggled. "I think about him taking me everywhere else, too!"

Both Tash's giggles and Val's sighing and smiling were both interrupted as a golden blast of light burst through the floor nearby, both women leaping back as bits of debris rained down where they had been. "What the hell!"

There was a heavy crash and a figure landed at their feet, rolling to halt and moaning, their body covered in cuts and bruises and they spat out a globule of blood as they managed to sit upright and lurch to their feet. "Kyle?"

"Hehehehehe..." A deep chuckle filled the air as a golden-glowing form rose slowly through the hole, his spiky golden hair sticking up and to the back. Muscle atop muscle bulged as Harold flexed and cracked his knuckles. "So... who wants to die first?"

TTTTTTTTTTTT

"Drake…"

"Yeah, Tyler?"

"How you doing?"

"Considering my position, pretty well…" Drake was currently eagle-spread against the wall upside down, a hail of arrows and knives having pinned him to the stone wall by his clothing. "What about you?"

Tyler, for his part was dangling from the ceiling, a lasso having snared his wrists together and hauled him high. "Okay… though my wrists are starting to hurt some…"

They both glanced down below, where several packages of Oreos and chocolate lay scattered on the floor and Drake commented. "You know…we should have known it was a trap when he left it out in the open like that…."

"Yeah…"

"Oh my god!" A high laugh echoed down the hallway and both of them glanced to see the blonde-haired form of Chi skipping towards them. "You guys are really idiots if you actually fell for that kind of trap!" She snickered and laughed and clapped her hands. "Of course, it makes destroying you both so much easier for me!"

"What the hell!" Drake managed to free himself as Tyler did the same and both Agents readied themselves for battle, Drake tapping his wrist controller and his arm activating around him while Tyler whipped out his Ping-Pong paddle as it morphed into it's staff form. "How did you get out of your cell!"

"Oh, just a secret!" Chi giggled and stalked towards him. "But you're going to die, so I won't tell you…" Then she paused as she heard a 'CLICK!' noise from underneath and glanced down. "Oh… no…."

A trapdoor dropped open beneath her feet and she fell, screaming into the darkness below. "Noooooo!"

Both Agents blinked. "Well, that was... anticlimactic..."

Tyler paused. "Wait... you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"It sounded like a 'sproing!' sound... like a giant spring launching something..."

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Chi screamed she rocketed up off the trapdoor and smashed into the ceiling...then started fall back the way she came. "Daaaammmmmmmiiiiit!"

Drake and Tyler watched, their heads going up and down like bobble-heads as Chi kept bouncing off the spring, up through the trapdoor, into the ceiling and back down...only to hit the giant spring...

TTTTTTTTTTTT

Aster blinked slowly as a shadow fell over the manga she was reading, blocking out her light and preventing her from seeing the page. "Eh...?"

She lifted her head to see a man dressed in a suit-and-tie, wearing dark sunglasses standing over her. "You're blocking my light..."

Agent Smith smiled darkly. "I'm sorry. But don't worry, it won't matter much in a moment." Then his hand came up and he knifed it straight towards Aster's chest. "Just relax…"

Then the man felt his arm stop instantly and glanced down to Aster's hand clamped around his wrist like a vice. "Wha...?"

"You blocked my light..." Aster summoned her moon-staff and her eyes narrowed in irritation. "Now I'm never going to know how Gai-Rei ends!" She cracked Smith across the head with her staff and with a twirl of the weapon, followed it up with a powerful gust of wind magic that blew him across the hall and through the wall... and the next wall and the next wall...

The fae sighed. "If he's here, then Adrian-kun was right..." Shifting forms, she beat her wings and took off, casting a forlorn glance at the massive pile of manga on her bed before darting down the hallway. "Now I need to go find him..."

TTTTTTTTTTTT

Michael sighed and buried his nose in the Lovecraft book he had, desperately wishing for a way out of the room he was in.

(I could always teleport you out...) The Darkness offered from inside his head. (I don't like being here much more than you do…)

(Thanks, but no thanks... do you realize what they'd do to us if we disappeared?) Michael replied. (And I don't think you'd like Claire getting at you with those pinecones again…)

The Darkness made what sounded like a soft whimper. (I didn't even know you could do that with pinecones...)

Across the boy and his parasite, Claire and Miriku were seated on a couch and digging through the piles of dozens of wedding magazines, occasionally pulling one out and flipping through it and animatedly chatting about the upcoming wedding and the dresses and everything.

Michael was there solely to go 'Uh-huh.', "Whatever you want, love. I'm happy if you're happy." and 'Yes, dear. That would look good on you.' whenever he was asked a question. And so far, neither his fiancé or little sister had noticed that he had occasionally mixed up his answers.

"So, Michael, what do you think?" Claire held up a magazine and pointed to a picture of a flower arrangement. "Should we stick with this color set up or switch to white and purple?"

Michael flipped another page in his book and continued reading.

"Michael!" Claire got to her feet and loomed over her other half. "This is our wedding we are planning! Only the most important day of our lives and how can you-"

As Claire ranted at him, Michael casually lifted his head and said the two words that he had developed in response to when she was like this. "Claire Wasson."

Instantly, the British girl stopped ranting, got a dreamy look in her eyes and rocked back and forth on her heels, sighing happily.

Miriku poked her brother with a rolled-up magazine. "That's not playing fair, Aniki."

Michael grinned at her. "All's fair in love and war."

"Quite right." A laser blast came out of nowhere and seared off the top of the magazine Miriku was holding. "Including an ambush."

As more laser blasts zinged their way towards the trio, Michael leapt forwards and tackled Claire, two Darkness tentacles lanced out, one yanking Miriku down while the other flipped the couch over, making it an impromptu barrier.

Mytheus Primal stomped out from behind a bookshelf, laser rifles in each hand. "That's not going to hold for long..." Then he opened fire and the hail of laser blasts began to eat away at the couch, making the trio's shield smaller and smaller...

TTTTTTTTTTTT

Marcus ducked a knife swing and then skidded back to avoid a foot in his gut. "How did you get in here!"

The False Tash grinned and walked her knife along her fingers. "I walked!" Then she cackled insanely and charged again, the Society Agent catching her arms and they grappled, the knife flashing dangerously close to Marcus' neck.

TTTTTTTTTTTT

Cristoph and Doug coughed and waved the smoke from the explosion away even as they grabbed their weapons, Dough pulling out a pistol and the ninja flipping his sais into his hand.

"Hi, boys." Mary-Ann Twilight grinned cheerily at them as she stepped through the rubble that had been a wall only a few moments before. " Can I join in on the training? I know I don't fight well..." She hefted up a rocket launcher larger than she was onto her shoulder and took aim. "But I make up for it with a really, really big gun!"

TTTTTTTTTTTT

Aimee, Ossa, Jess and Jamie all sat in Hati's office, sitting in a neat row in front of the Society Leader's desk.
Hati assumed a serious mien. "As your leader, I would like to bring to your attention a very serious situation."

All four of them nodded as one.

"It is something that we must remedy at all costs, as it concerns the welfare and comfort of the Society's Agents and as we all know, a stressed and irritated Agent is an Agent that will fail with missions and generally be crabby and bitchy."

All four of them nodded again.

Hati slammed her fist on her desktop in frustration. "We need to persuade Phoenixia to sell the tapes of Adrian and Tash doing each other to us! They're the hottest things around and after seeing that brief clip she let us watch that night, they are most definitely worth getting our hands on! Any questions?"

Jamie raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Why am I here? I didn't even see the first clip and to be honest, it doesn't really interest me at all."

Ossa shushed him. "You're one third of the Ossa Power Trio and this is the only way you'll get a cameo in the movie." Nobody paid any attention to the rumbling of the Fourth Wall.

Aimee blinked. "I thought we were Ossa-tachi..."

Jess frowned. "No, I thought you guys were Team Ossa or something like that..."

Ossa sighed. "I'm Ossa, I write the stories and I say we are Ossa Power Trio. And because I can beat you all six ways from Sunday, do you really want to argue with me?"

Then the door to Hati's office exploded inwards and threw all four of them forwards as a second concussive wave of energy hit the room and blew the desk and flooring apart.

Harriet moaned and stirred, brushing off debris and dust that had been the door to her office and her desk as she stood up weakly, coughing sharply. "What…"

"Hey, Mummy…" Willowe strode through the door, Excalibur still glowing from the power she had unleashed. "I'm home…" She raised the blade and smiled evilly. "Want to see how happy I am to see you?"

Insert Cliched Halloween Clipshow Here (part 4 of 5)

"Ben? Ben it's Stacey. Can you hear me?"

The seer pinched hard on Ben's thumbnail, but the agent did not stir. Rather his forehead seemed to wrinkle in worry.

"Anything from Drake?" Tash asked, lifting Ben's head and placing a cushion beneath him. Valerie, who was tending to the other unconscious person, had a hand on his forehead and her eyes closed, trying to determine his current state. Her worry was written all over her face, and she shook her head as she registered Tash's question.

"Try slapping him!" Harriet suggested, trying to get to her feet. She lost her balance and toppled backwards into her seat, dropping her plate of sandwiches to the floor. "Whoa... I am so drunk..."

"You can't get uuuuup!" Jess teased, parking herself on the leader's lap. Harriet pouted.

"Heeeey! Get off! I wanna slap the unconscious bodies!"

"They're not unconscious, they're sleeping," Valerie declared, taking everyone by surprise (including herself from the tone of her voice). "There's a lot of REM activity going on up there."

"So they're dreaming?" Tash summarised, and Claire gasped suddenly, causing everyone to jump.

"Or flashbacking!" she exclaimed. "We've been having them all night!"

Valerie was looking dark as she observed all the gathered agents, trying to determine if anyone was going to nod off where they stood. "I smell a rat," she declared. Harriet and Jess looked around curiously, leaning down to peer under the tables.

"Where?"

"Can I eat it?"

That response came from Tyler, who was promptly smacked around the head by Doug.

"It's a figure of speech," he informed the shorter agent.

"Uh, Lady Tash..." Cristoph's voice was tense, and everyone felt anxious. It took a lot to make Cristoph worried. "I do not wish to cause alarm, but does anyone know how long Lord Pete and Lady Charis have been sleeping?"

A cold chill seemed to sweep through the room, as everyone's gaze fell on the sleeping couple. Valerie got to her feet and crossed the room, but she froze before she could reach the sofa.

"They're not the only ones sleeping," she said, raising a finger and pointing across to a corner of the room. Ossa, Aimee and Jamie were slumped asleep against the bookshelves, Aimee's head in Ossa's lap, and Jamie's resting on her shoulder.

"God damn it," Tash muttered, yanking one of the blankets off the sofa, and over Ben. As the agent slept, the leader was positive she heard him give a soft, worried moan, and the name 'Bella' slip from his lips. She frowned.

"Definitely flashbacking," she muttered.

"Charis?" Karissa was shaking her sister gently, while Valerie worked on Pete. Both agents were sound asleep, and from the flickering beneath their eyelids, were dreaming deeply.

"What is this?" Marcus demanded, crouching down next to Ossa and her friends. "Some kind of flashback spell?"

"Combined with a sleeping spell," Tash guessed. "It took the sleeping spell longer to affect us than the flashback spell, which is why we've been flashbacking all night. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to the spell though. It's just picking people-"

She was cut off as Rhia's eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped against Cristoph, who caught her easily, and gently rested her on the nearest sofa.

"- randomly," Tash finished.

"So we're all going to fall asleep?" All the agents were looking worried, and Valerie could sense that some of them were about to panic. She got to her feet, and levelled everyone with a calm gaze.

"We're not going to fall asleep," she said firmly. "We're going to find a way to counter this spell. It doesn't seem to be spreading incredibly fast, and there's nothing to say that once the flashbacks are over they won't wake up again."

Deep down, Tash was having doubts about that. If a flashback spell had been cast without anyone realising it, it was unlikely to be a friendly cause. She nodded along with Valerie however, not wanting to alarm anyone.

"Valerie is right, and we won't figure this out by panicking," she turned to Aster. "Aster, track down Adrian, wherever he's gone. We will need him. Jess," she turned to the Moulin Rouge dancer, paused as she remembered how drunk she was, and turned to Michael and Claire. "Michael, Claire, all three of you go to check on the Sues in the basement. For some reason I'm seeing their finger prints all over this."

"You got it Aneki," Michael nodded, taking Claire's hand, and leading her out of the room. Jess followed, shouldering her purple handbag and trying to perform some kind of military march as she exited the room.

"Miri," Tash pointed to her little sister. "You and Cristoph go check the monitor room. See if there have been any active plotholes into the Library, or if there is any way anyone could have broken in here."

The two agents turned and headed for the door, just as Adrian, Emily and Aster reappeared, the former two looking white in the face, and the latter fluttering above their heads in first fae form.

"Found them Tasha-san!" Aster sounded pleased with herself, and Tash smiled.

"Aster, get out of the air," Valerie ordered, from where she was arranging for her team members to fetch more blankets and pillows from wherever it was that the Library kept them. "If you go to sleep I want you to do it close to the ground so you don't have as far to fall."

"Do as she says," Tash ordered, before turning to Adrian. "You're white, love. What's wrong?"

So worried was her boyfriend's face, that Tash failed to notice that Adrian had somehow located a trench coat, and thrown it over his kitty costume.

"The Fourth Wall has been sealed off," Adrian reported, gripping her shoulders and speaking in a low voice so that no one would hear. Valerie and Aster, who were close enough to hear however, did crowd around.

"What?" Tash cried, before chewing hard on her lip as she realised that several people had looked up in fright. "Sorry... what?"

"There's some kind of spell blocking us from getting to it," Emily said, lowering her voice to a whisper so as not to alarm anyone. "I noticed that people were breaking it all night, and nothing was happening, so I went to check it out. It's not breaking because it's been sealed off from the Library."

Hearing the hushed whispers, Harriet tried to get up, but once again, failed miserably.

"Hey! I'm leader! I want in on the secret conversations!"

"Umm actually, I'm in charge," Tash corrected, pulling out a long, rolling piece of paper, with a gold header at the top declaring itself to be "The Anti-Cliche and Mary-Sue Elimination Society Rules, Regulations And Other Minute Little Crap That We May Forget At One Point Or Another And Thus Needs To Be Written Down In Case Of Emergency (R&R for short)".

"Rule three thousand and ninety six of the Society R and R – should Harriet and Lauren fall under the influence of excessive alcohol, sugar or cricket withdrawal, Tash is in charge."

"You made that rule up five minutes ago!" Harriet spluttered. Her housemate smirked.

"It still stands! I'm in charge!"

FLASHBACK

"I'm going to check it out," Harriet stated, picking up her cricket bat and resting it over her shoulder. "Tash, you're in charge."

She stepped through the portal and vanished. Tash's jaw dropped and she morphed her necklace into her staff.

"You are not going alone Harriet! I'm coming too! Michael you're in charge!"

Michael blinked slowly as his sister vanished after their leader. He glanced at the monitor, and gasped.

"Gah! Harriet left her handbag!"

He seized Harriet's bright blue handbag, stuffed with paperwork, cricket magazines, a prohibitor and two copyrights, and raced for the portal.

"Aster, you're in charge!" he bellowed over his shoulder, leaving a small, blinking fae alone in the room.

"...Kyaa~"

OOO

"...Did anyone else just see that?" Tash asked. Aster and Harriet raised their hands.

"Another flashback?" Valerie guessed, from the dazed expression on their faces.

"Another? What's going on?" Adrian asked, having only just noticed that the music had been switched off, and most of the Society agents were sitting on the floor, on cushions or on sofas. Tash chewed her lip.

"We have a problem..." She broke off to glare at Harriet, who had just let out a wide yawn.

"...what?" the leader blinked, as she noticed everyone scowling at her.

OOO

"Here's an agent, there's an agent, and a bloody lot of agents. Fuzzy agent, funny agent, agent, agent, Sue!"

"Jess?" Claire looked over her shoulder at the singing brit, who appeared not to have noticed that they had arrived at the basement, and that Michael was fumbling with the keys.

"Agent, agent, Hati, agent, Tashy, Willie, Aster, agent. Agent, agent, Michael, agent, agent, agent, Sue!"

"Jess!"

"That one's the Librarian, Tyler ate the cake. Shirley is a scary stick, Rhia knows how to bake. Emily paints naked pics, while Tyler eats the mail. Keep away, little child, for I'm about to fail."

"JESS!" Claire shouted, getting the older girl's attention. "I'll give you this cookie if you stop singing!"

She dangled a cookie that she had snatched from the plate upstairs in front of Jess's nose, and the girl thought for a second before nodding.

"I am a little hungry, so okay!"

Handing over the cookie with a sigh of relief, Claire returned to her boyfriend, who turned the key clockwise and pushed the heavy door open. Replacing the keys in his pocket, he took Claire's hand and led her down the stairs.

"Keep an eye on her," Michael advised, not trusting Jess's footing when she was this drunk. The last thing they needed was an accident at the bottom of the staircase. Claire nodded, and took Jess's hand gently. The still tipsy girl smiled in a seductive manner.

"I'm flattered Claire, but don't you have a boyfriend? Won't he mind?"

"Of course he'll mind Jess!" Claire sighed, turning to give the other girl a withering look. She made a funny strangled gasping noise. "And put it away! Jeeze!"

Michael swung his head around, but did not get the chance to see just what Jess was flashing (which was probably for the best) as with a swing of her hand, Jess pushed the heavy door closed behind her, and cut off most of the light on the staircase. Claire immediately felt cold, and she moved closer to Michael.

"Jess! What did you do that for?" Michael hissed, his eyes glowing a soft orange tone, and snake tentacles slithering from his back to bask in the darkness.

Ah this is much better the Darkness crooned in his head. So fitting, don't you think?

"What do you mean?" Michael snapped back. There was a sinister chuckle in the back of his mind.

Well... it's dark... and this is Halloween isn't it? The time of year when ghosts are said to run around and frighten you mortals into an early grave?

"Stop it!" Michael growled, taking a firmer grip on Claire's hand, and feeling for the next step.

Not to mention you're heading for the cells where your most hated enemies are kept...

"Shut up!" Michael screamed, stopping dead, causing Claire to walk straight into his back, and the Darkness to snigger.

So easy to scare...

"I'm sorry," Michael apologised to Claire. "The Darkness was BSing."

But you know I'm right, young one.

"Beware of the things that lurk under your bed..." Jess giggled in a creepy manner, as they descended. All the lights were out, and it was impossible to see anything. "The creepy crawlies sneaking under your sheets..."

"Enough Jess!" Michael told her, and Jess took another bite of her cookie. "Where's the light switch? I've only ever been down here in the day with the door open."

"Its on that wall," Jess pointed.

"...I can't see where you're pointing Jess," Michael informed her dryly.

Left, you fool, the Darkness informed him in a grudging tone. Steering the snake tentacles directly ahead of him, to stop him walking into anything that could potentially break his nose, Michael released Claire's hand and stepped forwards toward the left wall.

He stopped as he trod on something soft, and a loud shriek filled the air. Claire and Jess screamed, and Michael stumbled back in horror.

"What the bloody hell was that?" he yelled, still beating a hasty retreat. His back collided with something warm and moving and he screamed, along with Claire.

"Claire?"

"You walked into me!" his girlfriend was breathing heavily, and he felt her fingers brush across his chest. He took them gently.

"I'm sorry... bloody hell you frightened me!"

"Shhh!" Jess hissed suddenly, and all three of them fell silent, their frightened breathing echoing in the silent basement...

...except it wasn't silent. A rasping breath was coming from somewhere ahead of them, and the stench of fresh raw meat was growing stronger, along with a shuffling sound of something moving slowly closer...

"There's a zombie down here!" Jess squeaked, tugging at her frizzy hair in fright. Michael grabbed her arm and pulled her alongside Claire, painfully aware that this was just like every bad horror movie and good horror novel he had ever seen.

"Stay quiet!" he ordered, trying to stay calm. "It's probably just the Sues playing a trick..."

The explanation fell on deaf ears, as Claire let out another shriek.

"Something just brushed past my leg!" she said, clinging tightly to Michael. Her boyfriend froze suddenly as he felt the faintest draft around his ankles.

"There's something by my feet..." he whispered in horror.

Okay, I'm sick of you acting like such a pansy! The Darkness snapped, and the snake tentacles shot out further from his back, one of them impacting with the light switch –

- at the moment something small and stick limbed, chomped down on Michael's ankle, just above his boot. The agent screamed and raced around the now fully lit room, trying to shake the assailant off. The pain in his leg was unbelievable.

"Leonard!" Jess shrieked, recognising the stick-limbed creature attached to Michael.

Sure enough, the deformed conjoined twin was hanging off Michael by his teeth, with the strangest contraption ever attached to his back. It looked like some kind of harness, attached to a pole which rose high above Leonard's head. Attached to the end of the pole, was a long piece of string with a bit of meat attached to the end, so that it dangled above Leonard's face. The intention presumably was to keep him occupied while Jess had been at the party – though it was anyone's guess how he had got down the stairs to the basement.

"Michael hold still!" Claire ordered, grabbing a chair beside the door, and taking careful aim. Michael managed to hold still long enough, biting back his pain, as Claire impacted the back of the chair onto Leonard, ripping his teeth from Michael's leg and sending him sprawling onto the ground.

"HOLY FUCKING HELL!" Michael screamed, sinking to the floor and clutching his leg, which was bleeding profusely. Jess ripped open her bag and dumped it on Leonard's head, scooping him up and zipping it tightly shut.

"Let me see. Let me see!" Claire insisted, prying her boyfriend's shaking hands away. Deep teeth marks were gouged in his skin, and blood was pouring free and soaking into the legs of his black trousers.

"Jess, that creature of yours is a fucking psycho!" Michael yelled. "And I know psychos!"

"I'm sorry!" Jess wailed, kneeling down and rummaging in the pharmacy pocket of her bag for bandages. "Here! Wrap it up with these!"

"Do you all mind?" came the snooty voice of Mary-Ann Twilight, in the nearest cell.

"Yeah we're trying to sleep!" Harold snapped, throwing an empty mug at the bars of his cell, the clang waking several of the more heavy sleeping Sues from slumber.

"Some of us perfect beings need our beauty sleep you know," Silver flicked his 'perfect' hair in the direction of the agents.

"FUCK OFF!" Claire, Jess and Michael screamed in unison, with equal venom. And to everyone's surprise, Silver actually backed off, looking mildly afraid.

"We need to get him back to Valerie," Claire stated.

"Better do what we came here to do as well," Jess added, her fear and the shock of Leonard being down here sobering her fast. She got to her feet, and faced the wide awake Sues.

"Have any of you been having strange flashbacks at all this evening?"

Several of the listening Sues exchanged confused looks, and Harold and Silver smirked.

"Having problems upstairs are we?"

"None of your business," Claire snapped. "Now are you going to tell us?"

Another look was exchanged, and every prisoner in the basement burst into loud laughter. Michael growled, and tentacles of Darkness shot from his back, through the bars, and pinned Harold and Silver against the wall of their cell. Another two lifted him into the air since he had lost use of one of his legs.

"Jess..." he growled. "You do the honours."

Claire smirked and unlocked the cell, while Jess rummaged in her bag and produced her trusty, ferocious looking, body piercing needle. Silver and Harold went pale.

"You wouldn't dare!" Harold hissed, but his pupils shrunk horribly as he saw the demonic smirk on Jess's face, and he realise with a fit of terror, that she would do it without hesitation.

"You'd all better watch closely," she smirked, drawing close to Silver, and brushing his hair away from his ear. "And you'd better stay still..."

"Nooo! My skin! My perfect flawless skin!" Silver wailed as the needle pressed gently against his earlobe. "We'll talk! We'll talk!"

Jess withdrew slightly, smiling widely. "Good... now tell us, have you been having any flashbacks at all this evening?"

"Not a one!" Silver shook his head. "None at all."

"Wimp!" Harold snapped, but he gulped as Jess advanced on him.

"I don't have to use this on your face y'know," she stated, her eyes flicking down to a certain area of the Stu's anatomy. From his position suspended by his tentacles, Michael winced.

"That's hitting below the belt Jess."

"Literally," Jess beamed, sadistically.

"How did Leonard get in?" Claire asked. "That door has been locked all evening."

Michael too was suspecting something amiss here, and was sure that even locked up, the Sues in the basement had something to do with the spell. Harold jerked his head in the direction of the air vent in the corner of the room, just big enough for Leonard to wriggle through, the grate of which was hanging wide open.

"Little bastard came in about an hour ago... frightened us all half to death. The only reason he didn't get into any of our cells was because of that thing attached to his back."

Somehow, inconceivable as it was, Jess was sure that they were telling the truth. Sighing in defeat, she dropped her arm back to her side, and turned on her heel.

"We're done here..." she muttered, shoving the needle back into her bag. Silver let out a smug chuckle.

"Knew she wouldn't do it."

Jess paused at the door to the cell, and turned slowly on her heel, a dark smirk spreading across her face.

"I'd pierce you right now if I wasn't feeling so..."

Her eyes glazed over before she could finish her sentence, and she swayed on her spot, before dropping like a stone onto the floor. Claire hurried to her side, but she knew as she rolled her over that Jess was deeply asleep.

"Damn," Michael muttered. "What do we do now?"

Dragging Jess from the cell, Claire hastily locked up behind her, and Michael let Harold and Silver drop to their feet. "We go back upstairs and let Valerie look at your leg. And we tell Tash what we've learned."

Michael tilted his head, as Claire bent down and hauled the unconscious Jess over her shoulder. "What have we learned?"

Claire gave Michael a grim look that did not match her usually cheerful personality.

"That for whatever reason, this spell is only targeting Society Agents, not Sues."

OOO

"Have you had any flashbacks tonight, Lady Miriku?" Cristoph enquired of the shorter agent. Miriku turned to look up at him.

"Oh yeah. I didn't think much of them though to be honest...you don't really think much of your memories when you're reminiscing, do you?"

Cristoph shrugged. "I would not know. I have very few memories of my past to call on."

Miri wondered briefly if this was what it would be like to talk to the Pharaoh in Yu-Gi-Oh – overly formal, and constantly having to remember not to bring up sensitive subjects, such as self induced amnesia...although whether Cristoph's apparent lack of past was self induced or not, no one knew.

"So what do you think this is?" she asked him, as they turned into the next corridor. "Flashback spells... sleeping spells. Not overly benign is it?"

"Not in the slightest," the ninja agreed. "I am sensing Sueishness all over these events. I can only hope that we have not been infiltrated."

Even as he spoke, the monitor room door was fast approaching, and Miriku picked up her pace. As she jogged toward the door however, Miriku stopped dead and slammed backwards into the floor with a cry of pain. Cristoph skidded to a halt and blinked slowly, before slipping a shuriken from his belt and throwing it down the corridor. Miriku, who was pulling herself upright, shrieked as she saw the spinning weapon flying towards her, and ducked down hastily as it clanged into a large, glass like bubble, blocking their way.

"Well... that's different," Cristoph frowned, as Miriku stood up slowly and placed one hand on the bubble. She winced a little as it was forced away.

"I don't think we're getting through that," she stated. "And you're right. I'm seeing Sueishness all over this..."

Both of them stood, and just stared at where they knew this invisible dome like barrier lay, blocking their progress, before Cristoph spoke again.

"I suggest we report back to Lady Tash."

"Seconded."

OOO

FLASHBACK

"Harriet?"

The leader's head rose from where it had been balanced on her hands. Her elbows were pressed hard into the table, but she didn't care about the ache that had begun to build in her joints. She was still dealing with a small part of her heart that was aching at the enormity of what she had been forced to do today.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Harriet didn't need to look up at Tash to see that her face was shaken. Nor did she need to ask what she meant. But ask she did.

"Tell you what?"

The co founder stepped over the threshold to the leader's office, and into the dark room, trying not to stumble over stacks of paperwork, discarded clothes, and abandoned copies of All Out Cricket.

"Why did you never tell me that Willowe was your creation?"

Harriet still flinched at the word 'creation'. It was like calling the Sue her child.

"Lauren and I never asked where she came from, or why you were chasing her so badly... we just listened to how much you hated her, and we felt it too in time."

Oh how Harriet wished Tash would just shut up. But her friend carried on.

"All this time... these months we've been living together. Why couldn't you trust us with the truth?" Tash stood beside her desk, her eyes begging her friend to erase her confusion. "Did you think we'd hate you, or judge you? We would never have judged you..."

No, you wouldn't have, Harriet thought to herself. You're hiding your own secrets... you know why it must be done sometimes.

She got slowly to her feet, not meeting Tash's eyes.

"I know you wouldn't have judged me. None of you would have. You would all forgive me for my past mistakes, blame it on my age and my own stupidity. But even through all that, I couldn't forgive myself for any of the things Willowe has done."

Tash's eyes went wide. "You... you think... you blame yourself?"

Harriet nodded, her eyes downcast. "You said it yourself. Willowe is my creation... my child." She spat the word out. "Like a child I never wanted to have. I locked her away, destroyed all evidence of her and pretended she never existed. I'm the reason she turned out the way she is. She's my responsibility."

She paused before continuing. "I wonder every day when it all went wrong. When my innocent writing became so deadly. When I became capable of creating a monster." She gave a mirthless laugh. "We authors are cruel people. We have the power to give lives and take them away. We can start war in our books, send famine or plague, or murder a loved one with just a few words. We can torture our characters, and then abandon them in their unfinished stories and not think twice about it. I've done it. You've done it."

Her hands were shaking by now, and Tash had gone still. She had never heard Harriet sound this dark.

"We have so much power that we're capable of becoming the things we hunt..."

"Stop it," Tash finally said firmly. "You can't think like this..."

Harriet carried on regardless. "Every time I think of Willowe, I'll think of the damage I've caused by bringing her into this world. It'll take a long time to put everything she and her sisters have done right."

"Then do it," Tash turned Harriet around to face her. "Forgive yourself and move on. You know you're sorry, and you've made up for it by catching Willowe and locking her away. All that's left to do is make it up to yourself. Help pick up the pieces and just accept that its all over."

Harriet looked sideways at her friend. "Is it over? Do you really think it is?"

Tash chewed her lip. "Yeah... I think it is."

The leader nodded slowly. "Okay... I can do it."

"You sure?"

"...I don't... I don't know..."

"Harriet?"

"I..."

"Harriet!"

OOO

The leader's glazed eyes became clear again, and she snapped her attention to the worried looking healer.

"I'm sorry Valerie," she smiled. "I was having a flashback."

"...that's not a good thing," Valerie informed her, pushing a mug of tea into her hands. The healer was rushed off her feet. In the last ten minutes, Chrys had nodded off, with her head on Aster's shoulder, and Valerie had tripped over Karissa, who was still kneeling next to her sister, sound asleep, clutching her sister's hand.

"Anything?" Valerie asked as she approached Adrian. The Librarian was kneeling beside Tyler and Willie, who had fallen asleep not thirty seconds ago, spilling their mugs of coffee all over the floor. Tash had a handful of kitchen paper and was trying to mop up the mess, while her boyfriend muttered various spells, all of which had no effect what so ever.

"Nothing," Adrian shook his head. "Flashback spells are mostly used for recreational purposes, but this isn't your everyday spell. It's too strong to negated by a general stopping spell. Same with the sleeping spell."

"I'd say the sleeping spell is more dangerous right now," Valerie stated, lowering her voice. "What happens if we all fall asleep? There will be no one to wake us up... ever!"

"We'll negate it," the Librarian promised her firmly. "We just need to find the right spell to get rid of it...I'm sure there's a book on it somewhere in the Library."

Aster nervously glanced around the room. "Who's doing this... and why?"

"That's what we'd all like to know..." Valerie muttered, getting to her feet. Even as she spoke, she could see Doug's eyelids drooping, and Monika seemed to sway on the spot. Dashing over, Valerie was by her side, speaking in low worried tones, as her friend closed her eyes and relaxed into the healer's arms.

"Monika?" Valerie was holding back tears. "Wake up... please?"

Stacey's arms were wrapped around the healer's shoulders, as Danielle curled up beside them both. Five seconds later, the redhead was sleeping too.

"We have to stop this," Adrian said, turning to Aster, who was still hovering in the air, and Tash, who was crouched on the floor, paper towels frozen in mid air, her eyes glazed.

"Tash?" Adrian shook her shoulder, and the leader snapped out of it, her cheeks flushing a marvellous shade of red.

"Oh... sorry... that was weird..."

"Another one?" the Librarian asked, Tash nodded.

"But it was strange...most of my flashbacks tonight have been related to what we've been talking about at the time. This time, you guys were talking about this spell, and then I started remembering about..." the blush increased. "Well...the first time you and I..."

Adrian placed a hasty hand over her mouth. "I get the picture love."

"Lord Adrian!" Cristoph skidded to a halt, next to the Librarian, with a disgruntled looking Miriku racing into the room behind him ("I have short legs Cristoph!").

"Any active portals?" Adrian asked. Cristoph shook his head.

"We could not check. When we attempted to approach the monitor room, a barrier prevented us from entering.

Adrian's face paled. "Big and clear like glass? Tried to force you away when you touched it?"

"Yeah," Miriku nodded, rubbing the sore spot on the back of her head, as she panted for breath from the marathon dash between rooms. Adrian nodded.

"That's what blocked the Fourth Wall off from Emily and myself."

At this point, Michael and Claire staggered back into the room, Claire supporting the sleeping Jess. Adrian and Tash were horrified when they saw blood still oozing through the bandage around Michael's leg, and the agent limping heavily.

"What happened?" Adrian demanded, hurrying to give Michael a shoulder to lean on.

"Leonard happened," Michael grumbled, easing onto a sofa. "And then Jess fell asleep, and as soon as we got into the corridor, the Darkness buggered off and we had to carry her."

"Never mind that," Tash stated, taking Jess from him, and dumping her unceremoniously on a sofa, her handbag on her lap. "We need to get Valerie to take a look at that leg."

"Had any of the Sues broken out?" Adrian asked, and he was unsurprised when Claire shook her head. He had not expected this to be the case – after all, the Library's alarms would have sounded.

"No, in fact," Claire paused, trying to organise her thoughts. "The flashback and sleeping spells don't seem to be affecting them at all. Whatever this spell is, its only cast on us."

Adrian froze, and you could almost see the pieces slotting into place in his brain. "You know...I don't think those barriers we've been finding were made to keep us out of places..."

"What do you mean?" Valerie asked, as she shuffled over to take a look at Michael's leg, wincing as she peeled the bandages away, and recognised the teeth marks – she was becoming a little too familiar with Leonard's attacks for her liking.

"I think they were designed to keep us in," Adrian finished grimly. "Whoever's cast this spell has done so from the outside, and they don't want us to escape it by getting out of the Library, so they've blocked off all our exits."

"But how could they cast a spell on the Library from outside it?" Tash demanded. "The Library is transdimensional space."

"I think we need to find out," Adrian stated. "And fast."

OOO

Emily raced for the second time through the Library, but this time she knew exactly where she was going. She only knew of one room in the Library with exactly what she needed in it, and she wished bitterly that it was not so far away.

She had been close enough to see the tears in Valerie's eyes as Danielle and Monika had fallen asleep, and she knew that she needed to do something. Agents were falling asleep one by one, and no one seemed close to finding a counter spell. And searching for one spell in a Library this size would be neigh on impossible before everyone finally succumbed to the sleep – herself included.

They needed a faster search. And she knew of someone that could do just that.

OOO

"When you say one of these rooms...?" Tash asked, in a dread filled voice. Adrian looked equally bleak.

"I mean one of these eight rooms in this corridor."

"And each room contains...?" Miriku was chewing hard on her lip.

"Over ten thousand books in each," the Librarian stated. "Some have fifteen thousand."

"And we have..."

"Sixteen confirmed sleeping agents," Marcus stated, one ear pressed to his communicator. Michael was on the other end, keeping the group updated on the condition of the rest of the Society. "Oh wait... make that seventeen. Terrie just fell asleep."

He hastily split himself in two to better aid the search, Emotion Marcus taking control of the phone.

"I still think I should have come too..." Michael stated on the other end of the line.

"ON YOUR LEG? FORGET IT!" Emotion Marcus bellowed. "YOU STAY RIGHT THERE! WE'LL SORT THIS OUT!"

Adrian ran an anxious hand through his hair and turned to face the few gathered agents who had come with him.

"Okay men-"

"And women," Tash couldn't help herself, and she managed a sheepish grin when Adrian glared at her.

"We should split up and search. Keep the comms open. Anyone who finds anything let me know immediately." He pointed to the first room. "Tash, you take this one. Miriku you take door number two."

Both girls nodded, and split up into their respective rooms. Adrian turned to point to the two Marcus's.

"Thought Marcus, you take room three. Emotion Marcus, room four."

"O-okay..."

"YOU GOT IT!"

"And Aster, you take room five," Adrian finished. The fae nodded obediently and hurried off to the room. Adrian was puzzled as he noticed that Aster had not switched back to human form, and he wondered if she was hoping that she would have more defence against a sleeping spell as a fae.

For her sake, and all their sake, he hoped that they all stayed awake long enough.

OOO

"Oh nice try..." the Stu's voice was smug as he observed the events in the Library, through what appeared to be a hazy looking wall with a large crack down the centre. "But not good enough..."

"Can I do it?" the purple haired Sue was grinning widely, twirling a small silver key between her fingers. The white haired Stu nodded.

"Sure. It'll distract them long enough for the spell to take effect...and provide us with some entertainment while we wait."

The Sue let out an excited giggle as she hurried to a corner of the room, and dragged a large cage into the centre of the room. Placing it beside the wall, she unlocked the top, and picked up one of the small wriggling creatures from within, and tossed it casually through the crack in the wall.

"How many?" she asked. The Stu shrugged.

"Six will do," he stated. "One for each of those unlucky agents."

OOO

"Anything?" Adrian asked, frowning as he realised that his communicator was not built to accommodate kitty-hybrids. He shifted the speaker up to his ear, which twitched as the responses started coming through.

"Not a thing," Miriku stated. "Just a lot of books on how to stop magical plants, fungus and bacteria from spreading in your house...nearly all of them from different universes, I might add, and a handful of them not in English."

"Marcus...both of you," Adrian swiftly amended.

"N-nothing Adrian..."

"STILL LOOKING!"

"Aster?" Adrian enquired hopefully.

"Kyaa~...there's a book on a hundred and one ways to make a three dimensional illusion of any scene from a television show or film..." the fae replied, and everyone could almost hear the light bulb going off above her head. "Hey! I wonder if I could use this for anime..."

Adrian would have told Aster off, were it not for the loud crashing noise, and the scream of "Bollocks!" from room number one.

"Tash?" the Librarian was ready to run to the room, thinking for a wild minute that she might have fallen asleep. But then reason caught up with him – she would not have been able to swear at that volume if she had fallen asleep.

"Ow..." the chief agent's voice was pain filled. "I fell on my coins..."

"What happened Aneki?" Miriku demanded. From the long pause, it sounded as though Tash were trying to get her head together, as she staggered to her feet, the coins of her costume jingling in the background.

Then there was a long silence.

"Umm... guys," from the rapid jingling of her outfit, Tash was beating a hasty retreat away from something. "I tripped over a Potential Subplot."

That was the last thing Adrian expected to hear, and Miriku gasped in fear, while Thought Marcus gulped, and Emotion Marcus began swearing in a loud voice.

"Everyone quiet!" Adrian snapped, silencing the noisy agent half. "Tash what's it doing?"

"It's just... staring at me."

"Get out of there," Adrian said instantly. "As fast as you can."

"I can't! It's between me and the door..."

"Adrian!" Miriku squeaked suddenly. "There's one in my room too!"

Adrian's back straightened and the hairs on his neck prickled, as he felt a set of eyes on him, and he knew as he turned around, just what he would find.

It looked for all the world like a small Plot Bunny. But unlike regular Plot Bunnies, who's bodies were black and comprised of strings of compressed words rather than flesh and blood, these bunnies were brightly coloured, and Adrian could tell just what kind of subplot they were supposed to induce by their markings and colour.

His body went numb.

"Adrian, what do purple Subplots with white circles do?" Tash asked fearfully. The Librarian did not want to answer, but his lips moved anyway.

"Brainwashing subplots."

Tash let out a curse word that while very nasty, was wholly appropriate given the circumstances.

"Run!" Adrian shouted, snatching the pendant from around his neck, and yelling the chant as the bunny jumped off the back of the sofa and leaped straight for his throat.

OOO

"Adrian? Adrian? Tash? Anyone?" Valerie was doing something she rarely did – losing her patience. The search team were not responding to their comms any longer, which either meant that they had found the spell and were trying to put it into practise, they were all distracted, or worse, they had all fallen asleep.

Unfortunately, Valerie was betting the latter. Almost all the agents around her were now sleeping, covered by blankets, shawls and throws, resting on the sofas, armchairs or otherwise leaning on large cushions. Some were snoring gently away, and overs were cuddling each other in their sleep.

"We should check on them," Stacey suggested. "If they've fallen asleep we'll need to continue the search."

"We can't just leave the other agents!" Valerie insisted, waving a hand at the dozing masses in the room, the steady drone of snoring agreeing with this statement. Most of the agents were frowning or whimpering in their sleep, and Valerie could sense that the flashbacks were causing most of them incredible distress.

"Valerie, they're sleeping," Michael pointed out, already getting to his feet and forcing growling as the tentacles of Darkness dissolved to whispers of shadow in the light of the room. Claire hastily got to her feet and offered her shoulder to him, and he smiled gratefully to her.

"And you're injured," Valerie reminded him, nodding to his properly bandaged leg. "You can't carry them back if they've fallen asleep, and Claire can't either while she's supporting you."

"Once we get to the darker corridors I should be able to use the Darkness to support me," Michael argued. "We can't just leave them all!"

"And we can't leave these people either," Valerie retorted. "We don't know what might happen to them while they're sleeping. They need supervision!"

"Guys," Claire interrupted suddenly, pointing to a nearby cushion. "Cristoph is sleeping."

Sure enough, the ninja was sprawled on the floor, completely unconscious. Valerie sighed, and went to check him. Already she could sense the horror that the flashback was putting him through and it brought a lump to her throat. She couldn't leave, not when so many of the agents seemed to be recounting horrific moments of their lives...

You should go, Valerie.

Valerie blinked as the voice of Ari sounded in her head, and the small fire lizard appeared out of between, settling on the back of one of the sofas, and surveying her with sharp blue eyes.

I know you want to stay and help these people. Her guardian spirit stated. But you would do better to help the others find the means to end this spell... after all, there are not many people left awake with magical ability. She nodded her triangular head at the healer. Go. I shall watch the sleeping agents.

Valerie would have hugged her muse, but she was conscious that time was not on their side, and so she hastily got to her feet, projecting her thanks toward the fire lizard, as she turned toward the others, just in time to see Stacey yawn widely. Her determination seemed to shrink as she watched her friend blink.

"I feel tired..." Stacey managed out, before slumping forwards onto a footstool, her camera falling out of her limp hand and onto the floor with a clatter. Valerie chewed hard on her lip.

"Stacey..."

Go. Ari urged, swooping low toward the latest sleeper. I will watch them.

Steeling herself towards the door, Valerie tried not to look at her sleeping friends, less their faces draw her into staying, and focused instead on Michael and Claire. "Let's go... before its too late."