Disclaimer: PPC belongs to Jay and Acacia. Team Phoenix belongs to me. The members of Team Phoenix belong to me in their uncanon (i.e. agent) states.
Chapter 3: The boys get smashed
The mental images were gone, the men had relaxed and learned some new things (Sean had a special talent for Harry Potter magic), and the heads of two fiery little demons poked out from around the doorframe. Or, more specifically, one fiery little demon and one little demon who liked to set fire to things.
“Boriumier!”
“Trevalin!”
“Meet the minis. Boriumier here-” Kitty indicated the mini-Balrog-“Is a mini-Balrog from the Official Fanfiction University of Middle-earth. Trevalin-” She pointed to the chibi-looking thing-“Is a mini-Character from the Official Fanfiction University of Rareware. Specifically, a mini-Trevelyan. Minis are spawned from typos of a canonical’s name.”
Allaire frowned. “There are so many Boro-minis about, I can’t even tell you…”
“We have to work on Upstairs letting us take these guys on missions.” Kitkat began a rant. “They’re not pets, they’re fiery little minions!
“Trevalin likes to eat extreme sushi.” Kitty stated.
“What’s that?”
“Live fish.” Kitty grinned. “Oh, the minis don’t bite…much…”
Both Patricks slowly edged forward to pet the minis. Soon everyone joined in, and they were almost purring from getting so much attention (the minis, not the recruits).
“Why are they so calm?” Sean asked.
“Oh, we put bacon grease in the vents to make Boriumier cuddly. Trevalin just likes you guys.” Allaire scratched the top of the OFUM mini’s head while he sighed in contentment.
“Aww…”
“Iss kayoot!” Kitty beamed. “Oo’s a good boy den? Boriumier is, yes he is!”
Trevalin nudged her leg. He grabbed his fellow mini by the horn and dragged him out the door. They re-emerged with some Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, alcoholic and otherwise. (The non-alcoholic one is Kitty’s invention. It involves grape soda, Mountain Dew, Pixy Stix, and Pop Rocks…)
“It’s time to play the Mary Sue drinking game! You guys can have the alcoholic ones, we’re perfectly fine with the others.”
Alec looked in his cup. “Doesn’t look like much…”
“Trust me, it’s like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.” Allaire nodded. “This is your final exam. It is a true test of your Sue-spotting ability. You go through fanfics, and depending on how smashed you get, that’s how bad a Sue it is! Got it?”
“Oh, yes.” Sean grinned evilly in his Irish way.
While Allaire passed out copies of some badfics and the Mary Sue drinking game, Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters were being distributed by the minis.
“Thank you, Trevalin, Boriumier. Now…start drinking!”
Five minutes later, they were laughing too hard to read, let alone play a drinking game. When they had gotten into a Boromir Sue, said canonical just giggled when the Sue was mooning over him.
“Something is seriously wrong here. If you went and told Alec that Bond had invaded, he’d grin. If you mentioned the Royals, Sean and Paddy would smegging toast to them! It’s a smegging madhouse, and they’re all drunk!” Kitty yelped.
Trevalin just gave her a look, as if to say, “Why do you still retain some faint shreds of lucidity?”
She correctly interpreted the look. “I have a high sugar tolerance, that’s why, dear. Oop, here I go.” She downed another shot of the sugary concoction and promptly walked into a wall.
The minis sighed and shook their heads. Hopeless.
*
Sadly, when there’s a sugar high, there’s a sugar low to go with it, so much so in this case that everyone passed out.
Kitkat woke up to the sound of minis chortling and noticed that she was safely tucked in bed and Boromir was snoozing on a chair next to her, also with a blanket draped over him. She sat up and noticed that Kitty was comfortably curled up in her own bed, Alec was asleep in an armchair, Allaire was stretched out on the sofa, and Sean, Patrick, Paddy, and Spence were all sprawled out on various rugs and floorspace, each with a blanket on top of them and a fluffy thing of some sort under their heads, including many of the girls’ plushies. She rightly guessed that the minis had done all that without waking them up (Pretty easy since we’re not very light sleepers and there’s only one way to wake Allaire up).
She crept over to Allaire, so contently snoozing on the couch, and whispered “Allaire…”
Allaire slowly opened her eyes. “Oh, g’morning Kitkat. If it ever is morning in this gods-cursed place.”
“C’mon, let’s get Kitty up.” Kitkat and Allaire calmly walked over to Kitty’s bed and began poking her.
“Poke.”
“Poke.”
“Poke.”
“Poke.”
“Poke.”
“Poke.”
“Poke.”
Kitty just muttered “Mlrnshgfbd…” and rolled over.
“It’s not working!” Allaire hissed.
“Wait…” Kitkat called Boriumier over and whispered a plan in his ear. He nodded and bit Kitty on the foot, not enough to draw blood, but enough to wake her up (a very thin line indeed…).
“Yowchaballyhoop!” The slumbering PPC agent awoke with a start and rubbed her foot tenderly.
“G’job, Boriumier. Have a cookie.” Kitkat passed him a cookie with bacon bits in. The mini accepted the cookie, smiled (as much as a mini-Balrog can), and went to go share his spoils of war with Trevalin.
“So did they pass?” Kitty asked, scratching one of her ears.
“With flying colors, mon ami!” Allaire said pompously.
Kitty yawned, “’Kay, good. Let’s get our sleeping beauties up,” and darted into the men’s response center and returned carrying the Horn of Gondor, now as intact and gleaming as the day it was made. She put it to her lips and blew a loud blast.
All the men jolted upright. “Oh, Jesus!” Koster moaned. “What happened?”
“You passed!” Allaire grinned.
“And we passed out,” Alec, master of the dry wit, groaned.
“You guys are so cute when you’re asleep,” Kitty chimed in.
“We’re not supposed to be cute!” Sean all but yelled.
At this point Kitty had meandered over to Spence. “Y’know what, Spence?” Kitty asked rhetorically, “you were just a plot device to show how smart Sam is.”
“Okay, that’s it, he’s gone,” Spence staggered over to the weapons closet and pulled out a shotgun. Or rather, attempted to pull out a shotgun as he crashed to the floor, landing on his rear. “Ow.”
“Easy, Spence, easy! We’re here to protect the plot continuum, not destroy it! Hence the name.” Kitty added lamely.
“Dibs on first Sue,” Spence quickly shot.
Alec disagreed. “No way, Spence. It’s mine.”
“You wanna go? I’ll take you on, right here, right now!”
“Psh, you can’t stand blood.”
“How do you know?”
“You told me last night when you got drunk.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Well, I’ll still kick your ass anyway!”
The loud blast of the Horn of Gondor interrupted their bickering. “ENOUGH!” Boromir yelled. “We rotate, okay? It all depends on who the Sue’s lusting. Yes?” At this point, the Gondorian had his sword drawn. Nobody likes to argue with cold steel, so there was a joint “yes”, although it sounded rather sullen.
Boromir sheathed the pointy metal object. “Good.”
“Um, yay?” Allaire raised her eyebrows. A few short beeps made her look at her portable computer. “Sonofagun…look, I gotta go. Misuse of prophetic dreams again…stupid Sues.” She stormed off in a huff. “I’ll teach them to mess with my domain…”
“I almost pity them,” Kitkat said absently.
“Why?” Paddy asked quizzically.
“Well, Allaire takes their dreams and twists them, like Freddy. She dispels the dream or makes it into a nightmare, but as she works as a part-time assassin, if the Sue is bad enough, Upstairs allows her to kill the Sue in her dream, so the Sue wakes up dead. Ingenious, huh?”
“Harsh.” Boromir winced.
Kitkat leaned back in her chair. “Well, it’s time for food.”
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!]
“Narrative laws of comedy. Just when we’re getting comfy, too…” Kitty checked the Words. “Merde. A Legolas luster. To work!”
Kitkat opened the weapons closet to reveal…Spence.
“Spence?”
“Just testing these, making sure they’re all in working order.”
“Mace and long knife, please.” Spence handed her the weapons. “Thank you.”
*
What seemed like fifteen minutes later (as everyone knows it’s impossible to measure time accurately in HQ), the agents returned, dragging a dead Sue behind them.
The door of the closet inched open. “I’m getting a sandwich. There had better not be a dead Sue out there!”
“Well, funny story about that…” Koster began.
The door abruptly stopped. “Oh God, there’s a dead Sue, isn’t there.” It wasn’t a question.
“I prefer to call it ‘Balrog chow’.” Kitty said jovially.
“I don’t care. Get it out! The cloying stench of Sue is filling my nostrils! Get it out!” Spence yelled.
“Oh, relax. It’s not too bloody.”
“NOT helping.”
“We have to feed the minis, and plus, you have to know what a Sue looks like!”
Before Spence could protest, Kitkat had yanked the door open and dragged him through. Surprise was on his face when he didn’t see any blood.
“We poisoned her, just for you. Happy?”
Spence nodded slowly.
“Dead Sues shouldn’t make you sick. Sue soufflé, however…” Spence turned a sickly green.
“Disgusting.”
“Yep. Trevalin! Boriumier! Snacktime!”
The minis emerged from their hiding places. Upon seeing the Sue, they pounced on it.
“Boys! You’ll make Spence sick!” Kitty scolded.
“Too late,” Kitkat said cheerily, admiring the new floor decoration. “Someone has to clean it up, and in all likelihood it’s going to be me.”
Kitty was still talking to the minis. “Well, don’t make a mess.” Boriumier cocked his head, a chunk of arm in his mouth.
“Cute.” Spence hid his eyes.
Alec bent down and cut a sliver of the Sue with his dagger and tasted it. “Not too bad. Needs salt. Or ketchup.”
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
“And satisfaction brought him back,” Alec retorted. “Hey, Sueshi! That would be pretty good, with a bit of wasabi, soy sauce, and ginger…”
“Hm, I think I’ll try that someday.” Kitty smiled.
Kitkat wrinkled her nose. “Ew, sushi.”
“You’re so American,” Kitty rolled her eyes.
At this point, everyone except for Spence and the girls had tried some Sue.
“Much better than Orc,” Boromir stated.
“Ew! You ate Orc?”
“When a man is starving in a barren wasteland, you can bet he’ll try anything. Even Orc.”
“So how did it taste?”
Boromir thought for a second. “Like chicken, really. But mucky.”
Sean snapped his fingers. “I knew it…”
“Probably what the school feeds us.” Kitty tasted a bit of Sue. “Yep, that’s school meat all right.” She paused. “Well, except without the dead rat and Uruk-hai.”
That received a response of a deafening “EEEEEWW!”
“Are they trying to kill you?”
Kitkat answered. “Probably.”
“Then we shall kill them first!”
“Rock on, Sean.”
“I’m Patrick.”
“Whatever.”
The minis looked hungrily at them, as if to say, “Are you quite done yet?”
“Uh-oh, the minis look hungry. We’d best give them the Sue.”
Alec frowned. “I want Sueshi.”
Kitty replied, “Maybe next time.” She hugged the minis, careful not to get scorched by Boriumier’s ember-like body. “Get ye gone and eat ye Sue!” The minis nodded and dragged the Sue off.
“You can get your sandwich now, Spence.”
“Gee, thanks.”
*
After Spence had safely locked himself in the weapons closet with his ham sandwich, Kitkat remembered something. “Yo! Spence!”
Spence’s voice, slightly muffled by the door and the ham sandwich in his mouth, replied, “Mmhat?”
“You gotta come out and go to your own response center. I forgot that you have something in the fridge that you gotta drink right away!”
There was the sound of someone scarfing a sandwich, and Spence stepped out of the closet again, with a bit of mustard on his chin.
“Spence, you have mustard on your chin…” Kitty warned him.
“Oh, right.” He began hunting for a napkin. Kitkat just gave him one.
“We don’t have time for that,” she simply said.
They all trooped into the other response center, wondering what Kitkat was talking about. She stalked off to the fridge, grabbed the pitcher, and poured six cups full of the confusing liquid. There was enough for two, maybe three more glasses left in the jug.
“What is that?” Alec asked, squinting at the strange drink and trying to determine its color.
Kitkat shrugged. “I dunno, the SO said that you guys had to drink it.” She passed them the note.
“Remember, this is only if you’re serious about this. If not, we can always erase your memories and send you back…” Kitty said, brandishing sunglasses and a neuralyzer threateningly.
The men all looked at each other. “Bottoms up,” Boromir suggested, and as one, they downed the drink.
The effect was slightly different for each person. Starbursts flitted across their field of vision, but they changed colors, depending on the recruit. Sean’s, for example, were emerald green. Spence’s vision flickered with sea blue. Paddy saw orange flashes. Koster, on the other hand, saw scarlet explosions. Alec’s and Boromir’s were strangest of all, for they seemed to flicker between black and other colors, blood red for Trevelyan, and a dazzling silver for the Man of Gondor. They all broke out in cold sweats, and each one could swear that he heard a loud keening noise. Then, simultaneously, they all passed out.
“Holy cow.” Kitty whistled, looking at the six unconscious men. “Let’s sit them up against the wall or something. That’s just creepy.”
“We should check the alcohol content in that. Looks like a powerful sedative,” said Kitkat as she set up both Patricks and Boromir against the wall.
“Yeah, we have to find out what’s in that.” Kitty agreed as she propped Alec, Sean, and Spence up. Slowly, they all opened their eyes.
“Anyone get the tribal symbols on that black and silver mûmak?” Boromir groaned.
“Whee! Spinny, spinny, spinny…exploding black and red gas cans…” Alec said, trying to focus his eyes on just one place, specifically the table in front of him.
“Sparkly orange…” Paddy blinked a couple of times to clear his vision.
“I think. That bloody suitcase. Just exploded,” Spence said slowly, recalling his canon. “I didn’t know that explosions were blue, let alone that shade of blue.”
“Ruby? Where’s ruby? I saw…dark red…shiny…” Koster shook his head to reorient himself.
“I saw…home. Nice emerald isle…” Sean shut his eyes, trying to recall the image. “So green…”
Kitty and Kitkat just looked at each other. “What on earth are you guys talking about?” They exploded.
“Nice shiny starbursts before we passed out.” Alec said, having successfully focused on a nearby chair, and was using said chair to pull himself up. His hand slipped, and as he put out his arm to absorb the fall, a pulsing red and black flame shot out of his hand and propelled him into a standing position. “Cool! I’m pyrokinetic!” He exclaimed, shooting oddly-colored fire out of his hands.
Spence stared at his hand and willed fire to come out of it. Sea blue fire sprang up from his palm. “Ooo…shiny.”
Meanwhile, Boromir was having way too much fun with his new madd skillz. Basically, he was toggling the fire on and off. “On…” The black and silver flames flared up. “Off.” The flames dwindled to nothingness. “On…off. On…off.”
Well, I bet you can see where this is going. It turns out that the starbursts were actually conveying magic that worked quite like the Gift from the Tamora Pierce books.
Kitty pouted. “I wanna be pyrokinetic.”
“Not on your life!” Kitkat growled, remembering the last time that Kitty, officially an Evil Associate of Miss Cam, had used her standard-issue flamethrower. The Sue died, that was the important thing, but Kitkat had only just dodged the stream of flame.
“But we likessss fire, we does, precious. Nice, ssshiny fire…” Kitty wheedled in her Gollum voice.
“NO!” Kitkat dragged Kitty out of the room by her ear.
“Ow, ow, ow, bye guys, ow, ow…” The door slammed, but not before they heard a loud [BEEEEEEEEEEP!] and a loud string of curses in French, Spanish, Elven, Syldavian, and Ailurin.
After everyone had had enough fun with their newly acquired powers, Sean stood up. “So!” He rubbed his hands together. “What do we do?”
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]
“Son of a-”