"Oh, an' how's our newes' friend settlin' in, eh?" Hagrid peeked into the corner where Fortesque had settled in to the great, room-spanning web.
The mini-acromantula, recently delivered by a PPC agent team who had saved him from a mission, had strung an ice cream cone into the web. Its fangs were inserted deep into the dark red ice cream—probably strawberry?
Hagrid blinked. "I still dunno where you misspellin's o' Florean always seem to come up with ice cream. Ah, well. Just don' go spoilin' yer appetite! New shipment o' rats jus' came in."
As Hagrid stomped back out of the room and into the canonical parts of Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy, Fortesque settled back into his treat. Lulled by the gentle hissing of all his web-mates, he let his mind wander. Inevitably, it kept coming back to the scarred agent who had shrieked at him not long after he had "hatched." Why would an agent be scared? The PPC were friends of canon. Only Sues should be afraid of—
"So, what is this place?" The deep human voice spoke out suddenly from somewhere in the room, making all the mini-acromantulas rustle in the huge web. Fortesque looked back and forth around the room. (Without moving his head, of course—he had eight eyes.) No one was visible; the floor of the room was empty, save for some dusty barrels in the corners, draped in old web strands.
"Who'sssss there?" called out Godirc.
"Not to worry, folks. I'm no enemy of yours. I must ask again, though: what is this place?"
Multiple minis chimed in.
"Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy!"
"The canons teaches the fanthingssss . . ."
". . . And we protects the canons from the fanthingssss!"
The unseen stranger didn't respond right away. "So you protect canon . . . by hiding out in this sub-reality, and acting as bodyguards to cheap knock-offs of the real thing? Interesting strategy."
The room filled with angry hissing.
"It is tradition!"
"Tradition, Precioussss!"
"We serves the canon!"
"Well, protecting the staff allows them more time to focus on teaching the students properly. This, in turn, leads to a higher turnout of goodfic writers at the end of each year, fighting against the imbalance of fics that are canon-damaging versus canon-supportive. It's a slow process, but we're making steady progress."
The other minis all stared at the spider who had spoken.
". . . Precious?" he added, hesitantly.
The human voice spoke again. "Be that as it may, surely at least one among you would consider taking on a more . . . active role in the Canon Protection Initiative? You there—new boy." Climbing up onto the barrels directly underneath Fortesque, behind which he had apparently been hiding, was a tiny dark-skinned human with a black suit and an eye-patch. Staring directly up at Fortesque, the human-shaped mini asked, "Are you content to defend this canon from your corner, or do you want to defend all of canon—head on?"
Fortesque stared. He thought of the screaming agent. Perhaps, if minis were more visible in their efforts to combat the uncanon, agents would see that minis were allies, and not be scared? He lowered himself on a strand of silk until he was face-to-face with the strange mini, who didn't flinch. "Yessss, Precioussss . . ."
The Avengers Minitiative
coming May 4, 2012
Acromantulas and Hagrid belong to J.K. Rowling. Nick Fury belongs to Marvel and Stan Lee. I'll also be adopting Midguard. The name "Avengers Minitiative" was coined by Good Mod Addict in the Discord chat.
—doctorlit