We no own, you no sue,

Good for us, better for you.

(Why? Because all you'll get is some lint and old gum wrappers. That's why.)

Lord of the Rings belongs to the awe-inspiring author that created them, J.R.R. Tolkien, and to whoever he sold the rights to (but mostly to him.) We're just borrowing it for our sick, twisted pleasure.

Oh, and the Protectors of the Plot Continuum belong Jay and Acacia, and are being used with their express permission.

We bow down to them!! We are not worthy to tie their shoes!

{Bow.}

*****

Suedom

by Andtauriel Longwood-Baggins

and psychicsaphie

Chapter Three:

It Gets a Lot More Complicated

"I'm bored. Can we just kill her now?"

"Not until she's out of Rivendell, or Ravinedell, according the Author," Jay sighed, looking at the Words. "Ravinedell. So now it's the Last Homely Pit before the Misty Mountains…” She squinted. "Or Mitey Montins…"

"It's called spell-check!" Acacia yelled at the Council, or to be more specific, at the Auburn elf with the silver-green-blue-swirled eyes sitting next to Legolas.

"Hey, at least this one left Elrond and Boromir relatively in-character."

Acacia shrugged nonchalantly, but she couldn't hide the uncharacteristic blush that crept into her cheeks at the mention of Boromir's name.

They turned back and watched as the Mary-Sue made a complete mess of the Council of Elrond.

"I will take the Ring!" Frodo's voice called out. "Though I do not know how to get there…"

The two winced at the mistakes in the wording. It was always the little things that made these stories so bad.

Of course, the bigger things made them suck too.

"No!" Acacia hissed. "Nine! Not ten!! NINE!!"

THUD. THUD. THUD. Jay stopped banging her head on the tree they were hiding behind and looked up.

"It's the same thing every time," she said. "You'd think we'd be used to it by now…"

She pulled out her Character Analysis Device and pointed it at Elrond first (naturally.)

[Elrond. Elf. Male. Canon. Out of Character 14.5%]

Then she pointed it at Boromir.

[Boromir. Human. Male. Canon. Out of Character 22.1%]

Acacia sighed in relief when she saw the readout. 77.9% in-character wasn't that bad. She'd watched him suffer through worse.

Jay pointed it at Legolas next, and held the device at arm's length and she and Acacia blocked their faces. The devices had a tendency to explode when pointed at the Elf. They stopped wincing and sighed in relief when it didn't. Jay looked at the readout.

[Legolas. Elf. Male. Canon. Out of Character 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999%]

"Hmm, didn't know this thing was specific to so many decimal places," Jay remarked.

She pointed it at Gandalf next.

[Gandalf. Istari. Male. Canon. Out of Character 84.4%]

Why did they never get the wizard right?

Frodo was next.

[Frodo. Hobbit. Male. Canon. Out of Character 65.5%]

She pointed at Aragorn, or Argon, as far as the Author was concerned. Acacia had just rolled her eyes when Jay joked, "He's a noble gas? Get it?"

[Aragorn. Human. Male. Canon. Out of Character 43.7%]

She pointed at Sam next. The Author hadn't hidden him in the bushes very well.

[Sam. Hobbit. Male. Canon. Out of Character 24.5%]

[Gimli. Dwarf. Male. Canon. Out of Character 1.1%]

Jay tapped the device after seeing Gimli's readout. "That's not possible, is it? That's way too low."

"The Author left Gimli alone in this one. Didn't you see the Words?"

"Still…"

Acacia shrugged. "Maybe it's broken. You should have Makes-Things check it out when we get back to Headquarters."

Jay nodded and put the device away. Then she started whistling the theme to "Star Trek" while tapping on her knees in time with it.

Acacia just stared.

"It's stuck in my head," Jay replied, catching her glance. “I don’t know why.”

Acacia sighed and took out her arrows, testing them to make sure their tips had enough poison.

Jay kept whistling. After awhile, Acacia slammed the arrows down and turned to Jay again.

"That's really annoying," she said. Jay stopped.

"This is gonna take awhile," Jay said, looking at the Council.

Acacia looked at the Words. "She's going to tell her whole life story first, isn't she."

Jay nodded. "Did you bring the cards?"

Acacia sat up stiffly. "Uh, what cards?"

"Our playing cards," Jay said. "You know, the ones we nabbed off of Sarumon? The cards we use to idly pass the time by during mundane moments such as this? Ringing any bells?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Jay looked annoyed. "You used them for target practice again, didn't you."

"I was bored!!"

"How are we gonna play Egyptian Rat-Screw now?! Or Cripple Mr. Onion?! Or Casino??!"

"I don't know!"

"Where did you lose them?"

"I didn't lose them! I merely used them as tools to enhance my fighting skills."

Jay glared. "Where did you lose them?" She asked again.

"When we were in Mirkwood."

Jay sighed.

"Hey, we're bound to go back there soon, what with all these 'Sues coming in lately. Most of them are hot after Legolas."

"They have holes in them now! And what are we going to do until then?"

"Um, we could play word games?"

Jay just stared.

"Truth or dare?"

Jay kept staring.

"Look, if you would've just let me kill that 'Sue…"

"We had to wait."

"But—"

"We had to wait."

"I'm tired of waiting all the time. They're Sues, why can't we kill them right away?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because it's against the rules. Upstairs would not approve."

"But there are so many of them now. We can't waste time anymore. We have to kill them as quickly as possible. Besides, they have it coming," Acacia said, nodding towards the elf girl, who was now saying the lines of ALL the other characters.

Jay nodded. "They do," she relented.

Acacia pulled out her bow and notched an arrow.

"But it's against the rules! We have to read the charges first!"

Acacia ignored her.

"Acy!"

She pulled the bowstring back.

"ACY!"

Jay jumped to her feet, ready to stop her.

"I'm tired of waiting."

CHAKOOOOOOOM!

The air started to vibrate. The ground started to shake.

"Whoa!" Acacia cried.

Twang! The arrow sailed harmlessly up in the air.

Jay and Acacia looked at each-other fearfully.

"CANON RIPPLE!!" they both screamed.

They dropped back to the ground and covered their heads with their arms.

Around them the canon twisted, wavered, and started to snap under the tremendous pressure of the distortion.

Full-blown canon ripples were not your typical localized plot holes or time/space distortions. Whereas plot holes and time/space distortions were on a local level, canon ripples moved in a wave outward like an earthquake, and could affect huge areas in Middle-Earth. They had encountered their first several missions ago in Mirkwood. The next couple were mostly in Rivendell. They seemed to happen around high-traffic areas in Middle-Earth, though what or how they were caused was still a mystery.

"THEY KEEP GETTING LONGER AND LONGER!!!" Acacia cried over the roaring of the strained plot.

"I KNOW! THIS DEFINITELY IS NOT GOOD!!" Jay screamed back.

"I TOLD YOU! WE CAN'T SIT AROUND ANYMORE! WE HAVE TO KILL THE SUES THE SECOND THEY COME IN! THE CANON WILL BE DESTROYED IF WE LET THIS GO ON! THERE ARE TOO MANY SUES NOW!! YOU KNOW JUST AS WELL AS I DO THAT THERE’S SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG, JAY!!"

Jay paused for a second, thinking.

Upstairs was not going to like this…

"YOU'RE RIGHT! THE TIME FOR WAITING IS—"

There was a loud snapping noise and the roaring stopped. The canon ripple was over.

Jay lowered her voice.

"The time for waiting is over! Shoot the Mary Sue!"

"Finally!" Acacia nodded, fitting an arrow to her bow.

Then she looked up…and the arrow fell loose. The bow dropped to the ground. She looked at the scene in front of her with a face filled with horror.

"Which one?" she asked, her voice dead.

"What?" Jay looked up. "Oh, my…"

Mary-Sues were everywhere. Elven Sues, Hobbit Sues, human Sues, even some Dwarven Sues, and every mix in between. There were even some centaur Sues, unicorn Sues, fairy Sues, and other mythological breeds. Lost daughters of Elrond, Galadriel, and of other canon characters made their unwelcome appearances, and there were even a few Marty Sams, and plenty of bit characters on the side. There had to be at least a hundred non-canonical characters crammed wall-to-wall, and they were currently fighting over the affections of the canon characters. The poor canon characters, in turn, were starting to pull apart into several planes of existence at once.

Jay looked at the Words, speechless, mouth agape in horror. A hundred stories were scrambled and combined into one terrifying fic. Bad grammar, bad spelling, bad plots, bad original characters, and OOC-ness from a hundred stories were all combined together as one massive fic.

It should have been classified as horror.

Acacia, who was reading over Jay's shoulder, was equally speechless. She was about pull out her Non-Canon Character Analysis Device, but thought better of it. She could easily tell who the non-canonical characters were.

They were the ones that were about to die.

Jay frantically pulled out her Character Analysis Device again, and pointed it at Legolas, who had the largest crowd of Sues.

[Lemon squidgie. SPOOT! Lucy, I'm hoooome. You've got some 'splainin' to dooo! It's Miller time! DAAAAAAANCIN' LIKE A MONKEY!! Hello, floor! Make me a samich! Subway, eat fresh! Domo dorigato, Mr. Roboto! Captain Simian and the Spaaaaace monkeys—]

KRZZZKCK!!! BOOOOM!!

Quite expectedly, the device shorted out and exploded.

"FULL CHARACTER RUPTURE!!" they both screamed, grabbing their bows and quivers.

"We need backup!!" Jay screamed.

"No time!! The characters are being TORN APART!!" Acacia screamed back. "Kill the Sues!! BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!"

And then the bloodshed began.

*****

It was five hours later when two orcs collapsed on the ground far outside of Rivendell in exhaustion. They were completely soaked in blood, some of which was their own. They were bruised, cut, and in some places broken.

For a very long time, they just lay on the ground, silent, gasping for air.

Neither wanted to talk about what had just happened. Neither wanted to remember. They were both half-considering neuralyzing themselves to forget.

In all their time doing their job, the last five hellish hours had brought them the closest to insanity that they had ever been.

And considering that they were both total schizos to begin with…

Acacia, who was more friendly with insanity, and had the uncanny ability to cling to the very edge of saneness, was able to come back to reality first.

"Well, that sucked."

Jay groaned, then spoke herself.

"And the 'Understatement of the Year' Award goes to…"

"Shut up."

"Gladly."

They were silent for a few more minutes.

"Acy?"

"Number one: Don't call me that. Number two: What?"

"Do you think they have souls?"

"Who?"

Jay paused for awhile.

"Who??"

"The Mary-Sues," Jay finally clarified.

"No. They're just literary figures. CRAPPY literary figures at that."

"I'm not so sure," Jay said. "Some of those girls, especially the ones that had just arrived looked kind of, I don't know, scared."

"Two insane orcs were coming at them ready to tear them to pieces. Of course they were scared."

"No, it was different. It wasn't 'oh-my-God-I'm-going-to-die' scared. It was 'oh-my-God-I'm-going-to-die' and 'where-the-hell-am-I-and-what-am-I-doing-here' scared."

"They're just literary figures. They’re not real."

"The canon characters are literary figures…"

"They're different. They're canon."

"What about Ranger?"

"Ranger's different."

“What about Mary Sue?”

“Mary Sue’s different, too.”

"You really think they're soul-less?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

Pause.

"Because if they did have souls, then we just did a really, really bad thing."

"They don't. Nothing with a soul could do that." Acacia pointed back, and Jay craned her neck to look in the direction they had came from.

Rivendell, or the mess-formerly-known-as Rivendell lay behind them. It was twisted, demented, and full of plot holes now, with spires and turrets winding up into the sky. It was a mix of the Rivendells from hundreds of different stories, written by hundreds of different 'Sue writers.

It was horrifying.

Even after they had killed the Mary Sues (and the Marty Sams [and the bit characters]), thrown them in the River Bruinen, had Elrond make a flood to wash them away, and neuralyzed all the canon characters, the plot-holes and distortions hadn't reversed themselves.

The characters had gone relatively back to normal though.

Jay sighed. "You're right, of course. Aww, man, I hurt in places I didn't know I had. Thank

God there were only eight warrior 'Sues and the rest were all pansies."

"I'm just glad the canons were so out of it that they didn't try to protect the 'Sues, or kill us because we were orcs," Acacia said. "Or we might have had trouble."

"I'm surprised they trusted us after the 'Sues were all dead and they were almost back to normal," Jay said. "I really thought that they were going to kill us."

Acacia shrugged. "I think they understood that the 'Sues were worse than orcs."

They lay for a few more moments in silence.

Jay finally sat up with a groan. "Let's go home now."

Acacia sat up as well. "Ow, ow, ow. Get the remote activator out, will you?"

Jay did so. They both got to their feet and she pushed the button.

Nothing happened.

She mashed the button again.

Nothing.

"Jay, stop fooling around."

"I'm not," Jay said, wide-eyed. "It's not working!"

"Let me see that!"

Acacia snatched it away and started fiddling with the buttons.

Still, nothing happened.

"No, no, no!" she cried. "I need a shower!"

She smacked it against her palm, none too gently.

SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.

"WORK!"

SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.

Jay snatched it back. "That's not going to help!"

"Is it out of power?" Acacia asked.

Jay inspected it carefully. "No," she replied, shaking her head in confusion. "There's absolutely nothing wrong with it!"

"THEN WHY ISN'T IT WORKING?!"

"I DON'T KNOW! STOP YELLING!"

They both collapsed to the ground again.

"Okay, so we're stuck," Jay said. "But that's alright. We know the terrain, we can get ourselves food if need be, and someone's bound to be sent to look for us eventually."

Acacia snickered. "Yeah, right. Upstairs would do anything to get rid of us."

"They need us. They're understaffed."

"If they're understaffed, who will they send to look for us? Sean and Lux?"

Jay shuddered and lay back down, looking up at the sky. "I hope not."

"Well, I guess it's not as bad as it could be," Acacia sighed. "And at least we killed all those 'Sues. All I know is that if there'd been a 'Sue on a winged unicorn or a dragon or something, I would have gone INSANE."

That, of course, is when the Universal Laws of Comedy kicked in.

POP.

POP.

Jay squinted.

POP.

POP.

"Um, Acy?"

"Yeah?"

"I suggest you don't look up then."

She looked up. Her face flushed with rage.

"THEY…MUST…DIE!"

She jumped to her feet, grabbed her bow and arrows, and aimed.

Twang!

"Missed."

Twang!

"Missed again. Help me here!"

Jay stood and started shooting. "Just don't hit the dragons."

"I can't even aim at that one!"

"The really, really blindingly bright one?"

"Yeah. What color is it?"

"It's so bright I can't tell."

Jay aimed carefully, squinting, trying to see the dragon's rider over the glare.

Twang!

The 'Sue slipped and fell off.

"Got one."

"Good shot."

They watched as the other 'Sue and her dragon dove down.

Then just as suddenly as they had appeared…they were gone.

"Huh? What happened?" Acacia asked.

"I don't know. They just…disappeared."

Acacia picked up the rest of her things.

"Let's go."

"What?"

She nodded on the direction the Sues on dragons had been before they'd disappeared.

"Let's go hunt them down."

"We can't make portals!" Jay said.

"We'll walk."

Jay squinted. "But it's really far away. And I'm tired."

Acacia started walking. "Canonical inconsistencies. The geography will be distorted. We'll get there fast."

"But—but—but—"

"We have nothing better to do."

Jay thought carefully for a second. "Good point."

She grabbed her stuff and they both started walking.

A few seconds later, the dragons came back.

"This is not good," Acacia said.

Jay pulled out her bow. "And once again, the 'Understatement of the Year' Award goes to…"

Acacia pulled out her bow and some bottles of tranquilizer. She opened one of the bottles and dipped the points of several arrows into it.

The bright dragon lurked far off in the distance.

The blue one didn’t.

It swooped down at them, roaring.

They screamed and dove out of the way.

Why wasn’t it spouting fire, though…?

"We had better get a raise after this!" Jay cried.

Acacia wasn't listening. She was lining up a shot at the dragon's soft underbelly.

Twang!

"ROOOOOOOOOOAAAAWWWWRRRRR!!!!"

The dragon fell, its wings limply folding, and crashed to the ground on its back.

It didn't move again.

"You didn't kill it, did you?" Jay asked.

"Nope. Tranquilizer," Acacia walked over and pulled the arrow of its stomach. "It didn't go too deep. It should be fine."

"How many hours will the tranquilizer last?"

"Until I give it the antidote."

Jay nodded, then looked around for the bright dragon. It had disappeared.

Smart dragon, Jay thought. She turned to Acacia. "We should hide it," she said, nodding toward the dragon.

The two gathered brush and bracken and threw it over the dragon.

It took a long time to cover the massive flying reptile.

After they were done, they set off.

"We'll come back when we're rescued and relocate it somewhere," Jay said. Then they sauntered off in the direction the dragons came from.

*****

"The Words are still a mess," Jay said, squinting at them. "We're not going to be able to use them to track down the Mary-Sues."

"Then we'll have to do it the old-fashioned way."

"Follow the path of destruction?"

"Yep."

The trees thinned and opened up to a clearing. They stared at what lay in the clearing in complete awe.

"So that’s why they disappeared," Acacia said.

"That's one heck of a plot-hole," Jay said, quite impressed.

The rip in reality was at least two storeys tall and as wide as the entire clearing. They couldn't see through to the other side.

"Where do you think it goes?" Acacia questioned.

"I don't know."

"Let's find out," Acacia ran and jumped through.

"Are you insane?!" Jay screamed. "Wait…never mind."

Then she sighed and followed. They'd probably land in the Cracks of Doom or something.

She jumped through and was immediately enveloped in cold water.

Or in a lake, she thought.

She spotted the shore in the distance and swam. She was huffing and puffing when she reached it.

Another orc was already there, lying on the ground and gasping from the long swim.

"That— ” Huff! “—was— ” Puff! “—brilliant,” Jay panted.

"Shut—” Gasp! “—up."

They both caught their breath.

"Where are we?" Acacia asked.

Jay looked around. "Esgaroth, maybe?" She pointed. "That looks like Lake-town."

Acacia nodded. Then something caught her eye.

"Footprints!"

They both got up and went over to investigate.

There were three sets of humongous bird-like footprints.

"The dragons most, likely," Jay said.

"But there were only two. There are three sets of footprints."

"One must have landed twice."

They spotted more tracks nearby, one set of very large footprints that were unmistakably hobbit-like, an uncountable number of prints made with heavy boots, and another set that had unusually long toes…

They all led into the woods. Woods that really shouldn't have been there.

"Okay, so we have two dragons, a hobbit, a whole bunch of dwarves, and…something weird. And Lake-town and the Lonely Mountain are right near-by," Jay said. "What's that sound like to you?"

"Soooomebody likes 'the Hobbit.'"

"The weird prints must be the 'Sue, but weren't there two of them?"

"Either the one you shot is fish-food at the bottom of the Lake, or one's an elf."

"Let's hope for the first scenario," Jay said. She looked off into the distance, where a single, lonely peak rose up out of the wastelands. "Let's try for the Lonely Mountain. That's probably where the Sue is."

"Um, problem."

"What?"

"Our current disguises."

Jay looked down. "Oh."

"Dwarves and Bardings don't like orcs, remember?"

They both sat and thought about what to do. Had the remote activator been working, they would have gone back to headquarters and gotten dwarf disguises.

"What do we do?" Acacia asked.

Before they could solve their problem…it got a lot more complicated.

A bright light flashed, there was the noise of air being displaced.

"YAY! Fun!!!" a squeaky voice squealed out.

"Hika! Nazgul don't say 'Yay, fun!' You have to sound eviller!" a different, harsher voice said.

"'Eviller' is not a word, Sprite," said another voice, raspy and cold.

"It is NOW, C-Chan!" the squeaky one, Hika, squealed.

"Hmm. I wonder if I'll see Figwit…" growled Sprite.

"Come on, guys! We have to focus on our mission! We have to find Jay and Acacia!" Rasped C-Chan. "While avoiding the RABID VAMPIRE BUTTERFLIES!"

"WHERE?!" Hika said, looking around. "I CAN'T SEE WITH THIS STUPID HOOD!"

Jay and Acacia just stood there, staring.

Two "Nazgul" and a "warg" stood before them.

Two very inept "Nazgul" and a rather pathetic "warg."

They sighed.

"Um, who are you?" Jay called out.

"AAAAAGH! ORCS!!" the three screamed. Hika pulled out a very evil-looking sword, C-Chan pulled out a very evil-looking dagger, and Sprite the warg unsheathed some very evil-looking claws.

Jay and Acacia sighed again.

"Are you the ones they sent to rescue us?" Acacia asked.

Confused, they lowered their pointy things and stared.

Jay and Acacia rolled their eyes.

"Did headquarters send you?" Jay asked.

The Nazgul and warg perked up in understanding.

"YOU'RE JAY AND ACACIA!" Hika squealed.

They rolled their eyes again.

"We hadn't noticed," Acacia sarcasmed. "You guys are new recruits, aren't you."

It was a statement, not a question.

"Yep. We got recruited yesterday, to rescue you." growled Sprite.

"Have you gone through training?" Jay asked.

"Trai-ning?" C-Chan asked, scratching her head.

Jay and Acacia slapped themselves in the forehead.

"HEY! That looks FUN!" Shouted Hika.

SMACK!

"Owies…"

"I told you that you shouldn't have given her that bag of Pixie Stix before we left," C-Chan hissed to Sprite.

"We're doomed," said Acacia.

Jay didn't hear her. She was too busy banging her head against a tree.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

She stopped. "Please tell me you remembered to bring a remote activator?" she asked.

The three froze.

"Uuuhhhhh…"

Sprite looked herself over and quickly realized that she didn't have any place to put a remote activator.

Hika and C-Chan dug through the folds of their cloaks.

"I thought you had it!" C-Chan whispered.

"I thought YOU had it!" Hika whispered back.

Acacia stared. "So not only are we stuck here, we're stuck here with these idiots."

THUD. THUD. THUD. "That seems to be the case." THUD. THUD. THUD.

Acacia kept staring.

"Maybe the RABID, VAMPIRE BUTTERFLIES took it!"

"Figwit could help us get it back!"

"HEE HEE, I'm invisible under here! I could run around stark-raving NEKKED and no one would see me! HEE HEE!"

The sound of two heads slamming against a tree could now be heard.

"HEY! That looks like FUN!"

THUD.

"Owies…"

*****

(A/N: The Canon is falling apart! Mary-Sues are running rampant!

How will the PPC survive the onslaught of incoming warrior 'Sues, the tumultuous Canon, and their own bumbling, incompetent teammates?

Read on, faithful…erm…readers! And find out!)