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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ben opened his mouth. "I-"

"I thought you killed her!"

"Tash-"

"Ben, look out!"

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

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

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

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

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

Ben gritted his teeth. "I-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ben squeezed eyes shut and braced himself for the blow.

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

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

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

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

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

"Your nose is bleeding." Adrian noted.

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

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

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

Asasca donned his innocent face again.

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tash snorted and folded her arms, still angry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I see..."

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

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

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

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

"What do you mean?" Ben asked warily.

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

"That was you?" Ben gaped.

That was all me!" Asasca corrected.

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

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

Ben frowned. "So how did you-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Me?" Bella asked incredulously.

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

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

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

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

Asasca showed his condescending smile again. "Quite."

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

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

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

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

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

"I was the one who gave them Neb."

"What?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

"Ben? What's he-?"

"Hey, isn't that-?"

"I thought she was dead!"

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

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

There was silence for a long moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nobody could think of how to argue with that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why?"

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

Ben frowned. "I don't think-"

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

"Bella..."

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

Ben still looked concerned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ben frowned. "Who?"

"Me."

Ben turned to see Shirley, looking very miserable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Meep..."

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

Ben frowned. "Is everything all right?"

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

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

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

"You what?" Ben asked gently.

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

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

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

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

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

Ben took a deep breath.

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

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

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

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

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

Ben pointed at the clock.

"It's been two hours."

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

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

"Welcome home, Bella."

Insert Places Where No Man Has Gone Before Here

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

They had come in the night.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"NO!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

"NNNNNNOOOOOOOOO!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

Chloe laughed.

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

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

"Excellent, engage."

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

"I can't see anything" Chloe said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jared used his Boomhammer to make them functional.

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

Darkness once again dominated the shuttle bay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Are you INSANE?" Shouted Chloe.

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

"And if you're wrong?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Your orders captain?" Asked the helmsmen.

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

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

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

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

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

"Onscreen." Jared commanded.

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

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

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

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

With that, the Sue ended the transmission.

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

"Torpedoes armed!" Chloe said.

"Fire!" Jared shouted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then Jared got an idea.

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

"What?"

"Just do it!"

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

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

Emergency force fields sealed the hull breach a moment later.

-

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

-

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

"Chloe, increase speed!" Jared ordered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Sue raised an eyebrow.

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

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

That changed things.

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

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

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

She began to run towards Jared.

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

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

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

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

"What?" Said the Sue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

Two dark figures occupied the bridge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Insert Random Scream of Pain Here (part 3 of 5)

Time seemed to stand still as the warhead exploded.

Drake saw his entire life flash before his eyes.

Christoph sent a silent prayer of apology to Algzdun.

Aster mourned over all the manga she'd never read.

Emily closed her eyes and shrank back into Tash as the tendrils of flame reached out for her.

Tyler wondered what was for dinner.

Suddenly, the fire shifted into a condensed stream and began to blaze into a circle.

Tash stood, head down, staff planted in the ground, flames coiling around the staff like a snake before vanishing into the staff's tip.

"Nice going, Lady Tash!" Christoph said, picking himself up from the floor where he'd fallen after missing Ben.

Shirley hadn't moved an inch, she just continued to stare unseeingly at the place where Ben vanished.

"Is everyone all right?" Adrian barked, taking a quick headcount.

"I think so." Tash said, putting an arm around the trembling Emily.

"Wait! Where's-?"

Everyone turned to look at the Vault, but it was too late. Ben and Repiv had long since vanished.

Drake leaned up against a wall, running a hand through his hair. "Just what is going on here?"

"This isn't the place to talk about it." Adrian said. "Let's get upstairs."

-

Shirley trailed behind the rest as they climbed the long staircase. The Cliche Stick was stunned, confused and hurt. Had Ben really betrayed them? Why?

Her eyes narrowed. Come to think of it, Ben had been acting strange the past few days, she should've realized when he yelled at her earlier that something was up. But Ben had always shared everything with his muse, so why not this? Nothing made any sense.

Shirley was so lost in thought so failed to realize just how far she'd fallen behind everyone else, and didn't notice the figure approaching from behind.

"Having a bad day?"

Shirley turned, then froze.

"You..."

-

Subdued, the group trouped up the stairs to find the rest of the Society gathered around the doorway and instantly were assaulted by a barrage of questions.

"What's going on?"

"We heard an explosion."

"Where's Ben?"

"We'll talk in a minute." Adrian said, looking around. "This is something everyone needs to hear. Where's Jared and Chloe?"

"I sent them on a mission." Tash said, sending Emily with Karissa to go see Valerie to check her for injuries. "They should be back in a little while."

Adrian nodded. "Good. I want everyone to report to the briefing room immediately. We'll explain everything there."

As the speculating Agents hurried off, Adrian turned to Tash. "Is everything in place?"

"According to Camille it is."

"Good."

-

Everyone was already sitting and waiting for Adrian and Tash when they walked into the briefing room.

Adrian headed to the front of the room and looked around.

"Is everyone here?"

"We are now." Jared said, walking in the door, followed by Chloe.

"We heard the explosion," He grimaced as he eased himself onto a chair. "So, what did Ben nuke this time?"
Then he noticed how serious everyone looked.

"What's going on?" Chloe asked.

"Ben and Repiv are traitors." Adrian announced heavily. "Repiv was a member of the Pro-Cliche and Mary-Sue Protection Society, and they tried to break into the Room of Things Man was not Meant to Know!"

There was a chorus of gasps and "What?"' as the assembled Agents quickly began to murmur amongst themselves.

"Are you serious?" Charis asked, her face pale.

"I'm afraid so." Said Adrian, looking grim.

"But that's impossible!" Jared exclaimed, jumping to his feet. He quickly regretted the action though.

"Why would he do something like that?" He winced at his injured ribs as he slowly sat back down in his chair, assisted by Chloe.

"We don't know why," Adrian said. "But that's what happened. Repiv tried to use Emily as a hostage to get me to open the Room, and when things went south they both escaped."

Jared slumped back in his chair, stunned.

"I can't believe I didn't see this coming." Tash murmured. "I mean, all the signs were there and I didn't recognize them! Valerie even warned me there was something going on with him!"

"Don't beat yourself up too much" Adrian said, his eyes hard. "What Ben did was up to him. If he wanted to betray us, that's up to him."

"I don't think Ben has gone traitor, though!" Tash insisted.

"What?" Christoph scowled. "With all due respect, Lady Tash, Ben tried to nuke us!"

"But that's just it!" Tash insisted. "There wasn't enough power in that warhead to nuke a sandcastle! At the worst, we would've gotten our eyebrows singed!"

Drake shrugged. "Maybe he just didn't have time to summon a stronger nuke."

"I wish Doug were here." Tash sighed. "He and Ben got along pretty well, maybe he could've told us what was going on."

Adrian shrugged. "No matter. We're still going to have to operate on the assumption that Ben is a traitor. "

Adrian looked around. "Ben knows too many of our secrets to be left unchecked. We need to re-capture him before he can do any serious damage. I want Christoph, Drake and Aster to get ready, we're going after Ben and Repiv in ten minutes."

"Hey, I want to go!" Jared exclaimed. "Ben's my friend too you know!"

"And that's exactly why you shouldn't be going." Adrian said. "Your friendship could cloud your judgement if you end up having to fight him."

"But I could try to snap him out if I got the chance to talk to him." Jared insisted.

Chloe shook her head. "Adrian's right. And besides, with your ribs the way they are you couldn't fight. Not to mention your Boomhamer's still recharging."

Jared looked glum but nodded nonetheless.

"Just promise me you'll at least try to talk to Ben first." He pleaded.

Adrian nodded. "I promise."

He looked around the room again. "I want everyone I just mentioned to get ready for insertion in ten minutes! I'll lead the strike team to recapture Ben. Meanwhile, I want everyone else to remain on high alert! There's no telling what the Protection Society might try to do while we're still off-balance."

"Wait a second..." Tash frowned. "Where's Shirley?"

The Clichè Stick was gone.

-

Ben came flying out of the plothole and hit the ground hard.

He groaned and coughed as he picked himself up. This was bad on so many different levels. Not only had Repiv's cover been blown, but the worst of Ben's fears had come about, and now the entire Society thought he was a traitor. But the absolute worst part of it was with Ben no longer being an asset, chances were Bella would be dead within the hour.

Ben gritted his teeth. It was all on him now. The only person he could rely on to help him and rescue Bella was himself.

He took a moment to look around. He seemed to be in a cavern of some sort.

"Great, now where am I?" Ben wondered out loud.

"So, you managed to get away, did you?"

Ben whirled at Repiv's sneer to find the traitor standing several feet behind him.

"No thanks to you." Ben growled.

"You weren't exactly a huge help either as I recall." Repiv replied, folding his arms. "You even let that girl go! We could've used her as a hostage!"

"As if I'd let you do that." Ben sneered. "Don't forget, I'm not on your side here. I'm only working with you so I can figure out where you're keeping Bella."

Ben gestured around the cave tunnel they were in. "I'm guessing that this place, whatever it is, is the Protection Society's hideout. And now that I know where you're keeping Bella," He said, dropping a hand to Bahamut's neck and pulling the guitar around to his front. "I don't need you anymore."

Repiv's eyes narrowed. "That's funny," He said slowly, pulling another Space Hammer card from his pocket. "Now that my cover's been blown, I could say the same thing for you..."

The two stared each other down for a long moment. Then Ben made the first move, snapping off a note on one of Bahamut's strings, firing a bolt of green energy at the traitor, but Repiv was faster.

He threw himself to one side, avoiding the projectile, unwinding Carl from around his neck and hurling him, fangs outstreched, at the Society Agent.

Ben tried to do the Fast-Step, but he slipped on the smooth rock and went down.

Carl overshot Ben, and when he hit the ground, he whirled on the Agent, preparing to strike again.

Ben desperatly tried to scramble out of the way, but it was too late. Carl's teeth were less than inches away... Ben closed his eyes, waiting for the feeling of fatal venom entering his veins.

Suddenly, a blur came flying out of nowhere, crashing into Carl in midair and slamming the snake into the opposite wall.

"Listen, buddy. I've got one rule and one rule only."

Ben cracked open an eye, then widened both in astonishment.

"Nobody," Growled Shirley, pinning the thrashing Carl to the wall. "And I mean nobody, messes with Ben, except for me!"

"Shirley?" Ben gaped, struggling to his feet. "How did you-?"

"We'll talk later!" Shirley snapped, turning to face her erstwhile partner. "For now, you just take care of Repiv while I deal with Capitan Overbite here!"

Just then, Carl managed to work his head around and sank his fangs deep into Shirley's bark. The Clichè Stick turned around slowly and gave the serpent a whithering look.

"I'm a stick, you moron," She sneered. "You really think that's gonna affect me any?"

At that moment, if Carl was human, Ben would've been willing to bet that the snake would've sweat-dropped.

Ben turned back to Repiv, ignoring the one-sided battle raging behind him.

"Looks like it's just you and me now." He nodded towards the Space Hammer card still in Repiv's hand. "Think that little knife's gonna be much help?"

"I prefer to tailor my weapon to the occasion." Repiv replied.

The Space Hammer card twisted and flickered in his hand, until it morphed into a long ivory-colored steel whip tipped with a wicked spike.

"You call your guitar Bahamut, the king of Dragons, right?" Repiv asked, cracking the whip a few times. "In that case, this is Balor, king of the snakes!"

With that, he cracked the whip at Ben. The Agent ducked, but not quickly enough to prevent the tip of Balor's spike from snagging his shirt sleeve and tearing a rip in it.

Ben fired of a second series of notes, but Repiv whirled Balor in front of him, creating a vortex and batting the energy bursts aside.

He quickly struck again, this time Balor shot straight out, aiming for Ben's chest.

In a flash, Ben angled Bahamut at the ground and fired, the energy blast creating a small explosion which forcefully propelled Ben backwards, just out of range.

Ben staggered as he hit the ground and Repiv capitalized on the opportunity. Pulling Balor backwards as far as he could, he struck with all his might.

Even down, Ben was not out of the fight. He blasted a power chord out on Bahamut, knocking the whip inside aside, deflecting the blow.

Repiv's eyes widened. He was wide open.

"My turn!" Ben gritted, wailing a barrage of notes at the traitor.

I got him! Thought Ben triumphantly as the energy streaked towards their target.

But fate begged to differ. Repiv tightened his grip on his whip's handle and in a flash, Balor curled in front of him, absorbing the blow.

"Nice try," Repiv scoffed as Balor trailed to the ground. " You really thought I would go that easy?"

Ben shrugged. "No, not really."

Shirley leapt at Repiv from behind, jabbing the fangs of the now-dead Carl into his neck.

The traitor gasped as the venom entered into his bloodstreams. His eyes were wide and vacant as he took a staggering step forward.

He gasped for air again, his eyes fixed on Ben. "You..."

He took another step forward, then his legs gave out from under him and he slumped to the ground like a sack of grain, panting in vain for air. A few seconds later his eyes glazed over.

Ben gingerly walked over to the body and, kneeling, checked for a pulse, keeping one hand on Bahamut as he did so.

"Dead." He said shortly, standing.

"Sorry." Shrugged Shirley, not sounding very sorry at all. "There was no other way to stop him."

Ben shook his head. "If you hadn't done it someone else would have, probably me."

"If you say so." Shirley said, tossing the dead Carl's body aside. "Well, c'mon, let's go home."

Ben shook his head. "I can't." He said looking away.

Shirley growled. "Why not? Come on, Ben! You're already in hot water as it is! You're obviously not in league with the Protection Society, or at least Repiv! If we go back now-"

"Neb's got Bella." Ben said, still not meeting Shirley's gaze.

Shirley scowled. "Bella? I thought you killed her in Buso Renkin!"

Ben shook his head. "She's still alive."

"Well so what if she is? And who cares if Neb has her? I mean, it's not as if you're in love with her-!"

Ben didn't reply; he just continued to stare at the cave wall.

Shirley frowned. "You..."

Then it hit her.

"Oh." Was all she could say.

There was a long pause as her mind tried to register this development.

Then she took a deep breath. "You could've told me, Ben."

Ben nodded. "I know." He said quietly.

Silence reigned between the two for another long moment, then Ben glanced at Shirley.

"How'd you find me here anyway? Even I don't know where we are."

Shirley looked grim. "I ran into an old friend of ours."

Ben raised a questioning eyebrow, but Shirley shook her head.

"You'll figure it out soon enough," She said. "It wouldn't do you any good even if I told you, believe me."

Ben considered pressing the issue, but decided against it. After what he'd done he was in no position to make demands.

"If you say so." He sighed. "C'mon, let's-"

Shirley suddenly wavered and collapsed as he started forward.

"Shirley!" Ben cried, hurrying forward to catch his muse. "Are you OK?" He demanded, worried.

"I'm fine." Shirley grimaced. "Just a little dizzy is all. I may be a stick, but that venom Carl shot me up with still knocked me for a loop!"

Shirley glanced up into his worried face. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." She assured Ben. "I just need to rest for a bit. You go on ahead and rescue Bella, I'll follow when I've caught my breath."

"Are you sure?"

"Just go!" Shirley insisted, shoving on Ben's shoulder weakly. "I'll be right behind you!"

"All right..." Ben conceded, standing, as Shirley propped herself up against a rock.

Ben turned to go.

"Ben!" Shirley called after him. Ben looked over his shoulder at his partner.

"Be very careful." Shirley said, looking Ben straight in the eye. "We're in deeper trouble than you know."

Ben met her gaze for a second longer, then turned and ran off down the tunnel.

-

Ben hurried through the caves twisting tunnels silently. He jumped at every little sound, convinced that every other shadow held a Pro-Clichè and Mary-Sue Protection Society agent ready to jump him. More than once he stumbled on a hidden rock and fell flat on his face. The caves seemed to go on forever.

Ben had no way to keep track of time, but it felt like he'd been stumbling around blindly for hours.

Maybe this wasn't the Protection Society's base after all. Maybe Repiv had just opened a random plothole and he was going nowhere. He could wander these caves forever and never find anyone.

Ben could just feel the beginnings of panic setting in when he felt something. A breeze.
An exit?

Ben quickened his pace and quickly found the source of the wind. It was an opening in the cave wall, just big enough for him to fit through.

He glanced around warily, but there was no one in sight.

Holding his breath, he sidled up to the aperture, looked through and froze.

He was looking into a massive cavern. The hole he was looking through was situated almost one hundred feet up a steep cliff face. The cavern was so large you could easily fit four football fields side-by-side in it. That wasn't what had caught Ben's attention though.

On the ground far below him, several figures were milling around. Even at this distance Ben could pick out the forms of Ekard, Relyt... and Neb. Ben's eyes narrowed when he spotted his nemesis, but forced himself to focus, that wasn't the only thing that had caught his attention.

Situated in the exact center of the cave was a massive construct. It reached from the ground to the ceiling and was roughly dumbbell shaped. Ben frowned. Just what was that thing? He shook his head, it didn't matter. The priority right now was rescuing Bella.

He scanned the cave again and spotted her. She was tied to a stalagmite off to the side. She appeared to be asleep... or unconscious. He hoped it was the former. Fortunately most of the Protection Society was ignoring her.

Ben glanced down the cliff face. It would be tricky, but if he took his time and went slow, he should be able to make it down without breaking his neck. He gave another glance at the people far below. At this range, it was unlikely anyone would notice him climbing down. At least he hoped it was...

Ben took a deep breath and tentatively stepped out of the hole onto a rock outcropping. From there, he gingerly began to climb down the cliff face. More than once he thought he'd reached a dead end and was stuck, but there was always another way down just within range.

It was a torturous few minutes. He was completely exposed. If anyone on the ground did manage to notice him, he would be a sitting duck. While Ben was lost in thought of the horrible things that would happen if he was spotted, his foot slipped.

He scrambled desperately for something to hold onto and managed to find a tiny ledge to balance on, but his thrashing around had knocked loose a few pebbles. The stones went skittering down the cliff face, their nearly inaudible clicking sounding like thunder to Ben. He held his breath, looking down, but by some divine intervention, he was still yet-unnoticed. After remaining frozen for several seconds to be sure he was still invisible, he cautiously continued his descent.

Ben wanted to let out a sigh of relief when his foot finally reached the ground, but he still wasn't out of this just yet. Ben stuck close to the cliff wall, skirting the edge of the shadows and slipping from stalagmite to stalagmite.

Even from this distance he could hear the Protection Society Agents talking as he moved thanks to the caves acoustics.

"You really think this is gonna work?" Relyt asked, arms folded, looking up at the giant dumbbell-thing.

"How should I know?" Neb grumbled, leaning up against a stalagmite. "I just can't believe the big brass actually gave him the green light to go ahead with this harebrained scheme."

"Theoretically speaking, it is perfectly possible." Raven said. The Stu was sitting on a rock, one ankle resting on the other knee.

"Besides, if this does work, we will enjoy such power that those fools in the Elimination Society will be helpless to stop us."

"I don't know why you're even here." Relyt muttered, shooting the black-clad Stu a resentful glance. "I don't even know why we're here."

"To protect it, moron." Ekard snorted. "'Cause, you know that's what we do. We're the Pro-Cliche and Mary-Sue Protection Society, remember?"

"Yeah, but protect it from what?" Relyt grumbled. "A few bats? Her?" He jerked his head towards where Bella was tied up. "If he really wanted to protect it, he would've built this thing back at base, not out in the middle of god-knows-where. And why do we have to keep that pathetic excuse for a Sue here with us anyway?"

Raven sighed tolerantly,as if he were dealing with a small child. "He insisted it had to be built here, something about energy fields and multiverse-geolgical locations. And if this thing really is as powerful as he claims, would you want to take any chances on anything happening to it?"

Relyt muttered something under his breath.

"Also," Raven continued. "He insists that Bella is crucial to his plan. As for why I'm here," He shrugged. "I'm a scientist. I wouldn't pass up the chance to witness something as spectacular as this in action!"

As the four continued to argue, Ben had finally slipped behind the stalagmite Bella was tied to.

He inched closer, still in the shadows and whispered in her ear.

"Bella," He hissed. "It's me. Are you alright?"

Bella instantly stiffened and let out a small squeak at the sound of Ben's voice

Ben? What are you doing here?

"Don't worry, I'm going to get you out of here. Can you move?"

Bella nodded slightly, making it look as if her head had lolled in sleep.

"Good, hold still."

Ben looked around and found a suitably sized rock.

It always works in the movies, why not?

Still crouching, he hauled back and threw the rock as hard as he could into the darkness in the opposite direction.

"Look, I'm not disagreeing with you," Relyt growled. "I'm just saying-" The clatter of the rock as it bounced off a stalactite and bounced to the ground interrupted him.

"What was that?"

"Just ignore it." Neb yawned.

"No, he'll throw a hissy fit if he finds out we let a potential threat to his baby go investigated." Ekard sighed. "C'mon, let's go check it out."

As the arguing dopplegangers went in search of what had caused the mysterious noise, Ben went to work on rope binding Bella. Someone really knew their knots. Ben frowned, tugging harder at the cords.

"Well, well, well. What do we 'ave 'ere?"

Ben whirled to find Cassandra standing behind him, a smirk plastered across her face. "SON OF A B-!"

Fortunately for this story's rating, it was at that moment that Bella acted. A pulse of green energy blasted from her hand, severing her bonds and slamming the french Sue back.

Neb, Raven and the rest whirled at Ben's cry.

"How'd he get here?" Relyt asked, open mouthed.

"Why cares, moron?" Neb shouted. "Get them!"

Ben leveled a palm at the approaching Protection Society and barked "My coffemakers are not controlled by Hoover Dam computers!"

The torrent of dark liquid blasted out, and the charging Protection Society with no time to stop, were caught up in the wave and swept back.

"Go, go, go!" Ben screamed as Bella jumped to her feet and ripped her blindfold off, her bindings falling to the ground.

By now Neb and the rest had recovered from the coffee wave.

"You're not getting away from me this time, you little freak!" Neb rasped, pointing at the fleeing duo. "Mess with-"

"No!" Ekard knocked his hand aside. "He said he needs Bella alive."

"Yes, but he didn't say anything about Ben." Raven said, materializing his sword.

Ben and Bella started to run, but Raven appeared from nowhere blocking their path.

"And just where do you think you're going?" He asked, leveling his sword at the two.

Bella glanced behind them in desperation, but it was too late. They were surrounded.

Ben made a move for Bahamut, but Raven was faster. In a flash he twirled his sword and swept Ben's legs out from under him.

Then he raised a palm and knocked Bella off her feet with a blast of magic, negating the energy beam she'd been charging.

Ben tried to get back up, but the point of Raven's sword at his throat forced him back down.

"Long time no see, Ben." Neb chuckled as he approached.

Ben just snarled at his twin as Cassandra and the rest of the Protection Society surrounded them.

"I can't believe you were actually stupid enough to come on your own." Ekard snorted. "What happened to Repiv?"

"Dead." Ben spat.

Ekard shrugged, completely unconcerned. "I should've figured. I never got just why he recruited that idiot into our ranks anyway."

Ben frowned. "He? He who?"

"None of your business." Relyt snorted, twirling his staff menacingly.

"Say, Raven," Neb said slowly. "Are you certain Bella's needed for his plan?"

"Not entirely." Raven said. "I suppose we could do without her, if we absolutely had to."

"Then let's have to." Neb hissed, taking a step forward.

"'Ey!" Cassandra protested. "I've got a score to settle with eem too you know! Plus eez a leed on that eediot cheesing me!"

"Back off," Neb rasped. "He's mine!"

"Five bucks on Neb." Ben whispered to Bella as they all watched the two bickering.

"Make it ten and you've got a deal." Bella replied.

"What was that?" Raven asked, digging the tip of the blade into Ben's throat.

Ben resisted the urge to swallow, for fear the sword at his neck would tear out his larynx. Maybe this wasn't worth ten dollars after all... twenty maybe, but not ten...

"Oh, for the love of Chuck Norris. I leave you infants alone for five minutes and what happens? You get in a fight!"

Everyone turned to see a plothole open and someone step out.

"How many times do I have to tell you? I don't want any violence near the device!"

The figure who emerged from the plothole was tall, with unruly blonde hair streaked with brown. He was dressed in a set of combination plate and chainmail armor and steel boots. The S-shaped latticed hilt of a sword protruded out from behind one shoulder. His ice-blue eyes swept the crowd, widening when he spotted Ben.

"Well, well, well..." He breathed. "What do we have here?"

Ben couldn't move, it was like his brain had shut down. This was impossible, it couldn't be him...

"A-Asasca?" He said in a quavering voice as he got slowly to his feet.

"So it is you!" Asasca said, walking over.

"You know him, Asasca?" Neb rasped.

"I should hope so," Asasca said with a dark smile. "He's my creator."

"Whaaat?"

There was a loaded silence for several seconds.

"Is this true, Ben?" Bella whispered, standing. "Did you really create him?"

Ben nodded, still stunned. "He was my greatest character..." He said dumbly.

"Greatest character, eh?" Asasca scoffed. "Not great enough to keep from getting locked up in the Vault of Abandoned Ideas though, was I?"

"So can I kill him then?" Neb asked, cracking his nuckles.

Asasca eyed Ben for a long moment before shaking his head.

"I don't think so," He mused. Ben let out a sigh of relief which he regretted as Asasca finished his statement. "It'll do him good to see what he caused. After all," He continued with a cold smile. "If not for him, the Fandom Stabilizer wouldn't even exist!"

Ben frowned. "The what?"

"He killed Repiv, you know." Neb put in, clearly hoping Asasca would still let him kill the Society Agent.

Asasca shrugged. "If Repiv was weak enough to get himself killed, then that's his fault."

Neb muttered something under his breath. Everyone ignored him.

"I'm assuming you got what you needed, then?" Raven asked, letting his sword vanish.

Asasca nodded. "I'm planning on installing it right away." He said, turning towards the massive dumbbell-shaped structure. "Why don't you give me a hand, Ben? And the rest of you keep an eye on that Sue!" He called over his shoulder as he headed towards the construct.

Ben looked uncomfortably at Bella for a moment before Raven gave him a shove to start moving. "Walk," the Stu growled. "Don't worry, we won't kill your little girlfriend...yet. We still need her."

With one last backwards glance at the jade Sue, Ben hurried after Asasca.

"Asasca, just what is going on here?" Ben asked as he struggled to keep up with his character.

"What do you mean?" Asasca asked, innocently.

"Why are you with the Protection Society? Just what is that thing?" As they drew closer to the device, Ben could see a slew of access panels, lights and control boards scattered across it's surface.

"This," Asasca said, gesturing to it as they drew up. "Is my mangum opus, my doomsday device."

He turned back to Ben. "My revenge."

"Revenge? For what?"

"Don't give me that," Asasca sneered. "You know very well what you did. We, your characters, were perfectly happy in the stories you made for us, you had massive epics and quests spanning millennia and entire universes planned!"

"Yeah, but-"

"Oh, I know what you're going to say. Sure," Asasca shrugged. "The stories were crap and you never got farther than three chapters before giving up on it, but we were perfectly happy knowing you cared for each and every one of us. Nobody ever died and stayed dead, and you had pasts and futures planned for all of us!"

"But then," Asasca's face darkened. "You discovered fanfiction and the Society and you forgot about us completely. You threw yourself into the Society with everything you had and left us to fend for ourselves. Eventually, by default, we ended up in the Vault of Abandoned Ideas. Me, Sluthen, Starfire, Spirit, Jet, Nightmare, Damnation, Hellfire, all of us."

Ben couldn't look away as Asasca's piercing blue eyes pinned him in place.

"Fortunately, you made me strong enough to be able to escape on my own, though I couldn't save anyone else. Once I got out, I learned of your exploits in the Society and knew immediately what I had to do."

He turned to the device, open an access panel and began to fiddle with a tangle of wires inside.

"Tell me, Ben." He said as he worked. "What is the greatest, no, the only thing standing between the Sues and total domination of the Multiverse?"

"The Elimination Society?" Ben hesitantly.

"As if!" Asasca snorted. "You idiots are only deluding yourselves if you think you can really stop the Sues. There will always be Sues. Their forces are increasing and at a faster rate than that of your patheic Society. The best thing you can do is stall for time. There is only one tiny detail that keeps the Sues from destroying you utterly. Think about this, what enables fanfictions to exist? What allows you and your friends to insert yourselves into fandoms without fear of repercussion?"

"The... fact that we accept that we're not canon, so..." Ben trailed off.

"So?" Asasca prompted.

"So anything we do is reversed the instant we leave."

"Exactly!" Asasca closed the access panel, moved to a control panel and started to push various buttons. "But the Fandom Stabilizer removes that limitation! When this is activated, it aligns the bio-signature of anyone who's keyed into it's database with the wavelength of any fandom they enter, resulting in any action of theirs becoming canon, and thus permanent!"

Ben's eyes widened. "What? That's impossible!"

Asasca shrugged. "Extremely difficult maybe, but far from impossible. Of course, such a venture would require a massive source on energy, so that's why I sent Repiv into the Society as a spy, to acquire the energy source I needed."

"From the Room of Things Man was not Meant to Know." Ben deduced.

"So you're not a total idiot after all." Asasca smiled wryly. "Yes, the power source we needed was locked in the Room of Things Man was not Meant to Know. I sent Repiv to go get it, but I should've guessed he'd bungle it, so I had to go and get it myself."

"Fourtnately," Asasca crouched down and opened a small access port. "With the entire Society rushing around like a chicken with it's head cut off after your little 'betrayal', it was a simple enough matter to break in."

"But how did you get into the Library Arcanium in the first place?" Ben asked. "I thought it was safeguarded against any outsiders!"

"I got in with this." Asasca said holding an item up.

Ben frowned. "Isn't that just a regular old Plothole Generator?"

"Close." Said Asasca. "See, when Repiv was in the Society he stole several Plothole Generators for me and a few other members of the Protection Society who needed them. Once we had them, it was childs play to rewire them in order to remove the safeguards."

"And once I was inside," Asasca continued, drawing an object from a pouch. "I was able to steal this, the power source for the Fandom Stabilizer."

The object was small enough to fit into the palm of Asasca's hand, but it glowed so brightly you could barely discern what it was.

Ben paled. "Is that...?"

"Yes..." Asasca hissed. "This is the reason fangirls write Mpreg fics!"

"But you can't!" Ben exclaimed, taking a step back. "That power was locked in the Vault for a reason! It was never meant to be used by mortal hands!"

"You're forgetting, Ben!" Asasca said as he opened an access panel and shoved the object deep inside. "You made me immortal!"

Lights lit up across the surface of the Fandom Stabilizer as it began to power on.

Even Neb and the rest who had been arguing (again) turned to watch.

Asasca turned to Ben with a gleeful expression.

"And now," He said, holding up what appeared to be a detonator switch. "It's all over!"

"No!" Ben shouted, diving for the switch. But it was too late.

Asasca pushed the button.