Subject: She probably thought things couldn't get any weirder;
Author:
Posted on: 2014-06-11 19:21:00 UTC
She was wrong.
It didn't take long at all for the tapping to start... Almost muffled, as though fabric of some sort was hitting the door. Pausing in xir knocking, a pair of dark yellow cotton briefs with green polka dots passed air through xirself in a fair approximation of a sigh.
"Won't you please let me in? And who's this Merlin person?"
Role-play time! This is open to anyone regardless of their permission status, so bring your agents or hopefully future agents and get ready to RP!
This is based off something SeaTurtle said in my 'You are a Sue' thread; what would the agents of the PPC do if they met their Sue or Stu counterparts? "And there you have it. A perfect RP subject: agents meeting their Suvian counterparts during some strange wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey event."
Da Rules
1) Write your posts in third person past tense to keep things simple.
2) You can only control your agents unless someone else says it's okay for you to use theirs.
3) None of this is canon unless you and anyone your character(s) interact with want it to be, so have fun!
4) Since this involves Sue/Stu counterparts, don't forget to include them! The counterparts can be the same sex or the opposite sex, or if you really want to go wild, why not include both?
5) To show you (the Boarder) speaking separately, use some way to distinguish that fact. It looks like ((double parentheses)) is a fairly common way to do that, but as long as you're clear on who's speaking, it doesn't matter.
6) Try to keep the RP in a continuous line of posts to make the chronology easy to follow.
I'll kick things off below, so get ready- we've got some Sues to kill.
Rina stepped between Yakov and the disgruntled underwear, holding her hands out. "Okay. Okay, we have a pair of talking, floating underpants. It's not like we've seen weirder here, right? He- she- xe? doesn't seem dangerous."
The underwear rustled impatiently. "I do have a name, you know."
((Is the underwear boxers or briefs or panties?))
...as the one seen earlier had just been shoved through a portal. As "anyone who knew xir intimately" (that is, xir, xirself, and xe) would tell you, xe was looking for a name which would fit, and hence picking a new ambiguously gendered name at random from behindthename.com daily. Today xe was going by Quinn, as stated by a small label on the inside (directly opposite xir water-lily flash patch) which served as a reminder, but xe most certainly wouldn't have snapped at someone for not realizing that xe had a name! If anything, xe'd have been impressed with Rina's knowledge of pronouns both uncommonly used and nonstandard.
From a few feet away, however, and in a shadow, the OTHER pair could have been mistaken for xir. She, nevertheless, was very different- of course in personality, but also in appearance. Dark yellow had become glittering gold, comfy cotton ostentatious lace, precise green polka-dots poorly-rendered urple and blello hibiscuses, a rather modest cut a bikini. She'd be ideal underwear for a Sue, although redundant, if her rather large ego could abide such a situation.
She did share the waterlily flash patch with her counterpart, although it was gilded, wilver, and urple. Hopefully that would be sufficient for the next stage- it wasn't often that one got this sort of opportunity for infiltration, after all.
She waited, thinking- what sort of name would avoid suspicion?
.......................................................................................................................
Meanwhile, two boys gestured frantically, if near-indetectably. Ending with gestures along the lines of "tell the truth again?" "yes no better option" "yes you then", they straightened up and the one closer to the door spoke.
"We are trainees. We have no rank. We are sorry. We lack further proof-" but then the other touched a finger to his palm, silencing his "twin". He'd thought of something.
"Bleeprin. It makes you feel better about bad Sue ish structure. Would a Sue know this?"
If not before, a certain Sue now knew. Her counterpart, however, was pretty distracted from getting back due to xir ire over not only constantly being dumped in the laundry (although xe didn't mind it happening occasionally; being laundered for her was like a nice long bath for a human) but having it happen NOW of all times. In a normal locale, such distraction would have delayed xir substantially; this was HQ. She was back in less than twenty seconds, and, in the hope that politeness would be returned in kind, knocked yet again.
Fup. Fup. FUP.
((Briefs, thank you for asking. Cotton (t-shirt type fabric.)))
"No need for more proof; Bleeprin is definitely a PPC-only substance. Welcome to the club, guys. What are your names, by the way?"
Before either of the twins could answer, the Spy caught a glimpse of something shiny out of the corner of his eye. It was somewhere to his left, in the shadow of the equipment cabinet that stood beside the door. There should be nothing behind the cabinet, thought Gaspard. It's an empty corner. Merde! Suvian! The Spy waved to his colleague and pointed to the corner. Yakov's eyes flicked to the suspicious spot. The wizard nodded and adjusted the grip on his wand. Making a "hang on a second" gesture to the rest of the agents, Gaspard pointed his Webley at the corner and very carefully started to walk around the cabinet, not wanting to get any closer to it lest the Suvian thing decided to break cover.
He spotted the floating gilded undergarments and fired. Against all the laws of kinematics, the underwear wasn't pierced when the .455 bullet hit it: who had ever heard of Suvian clothing damage anyways? Instead, the bikini bottom was nailed to the wall, the bullet preventing it from escaping. Yakov and Gaspard-- both standing a safe distance away from the thing and pointing their weapons at it-- exchanged a confused look.
Just then, the pair of underwear known as "Quinn" floated back into the room, let in by one of the twins. Looking from Quinn to the feebly struggling bikini, Gaspard said: "I don't get paid enough for this insanity."
...said Quinn to the "twin" in question, who jumped and clapped a hand over a mouth to prevent a shriek from escaping. While Quinn attempted to start over ("So, what names have you, what abilities- other than the magic, I have noticed the wand- and do you have any suggestions for dealing with my counterpart over there? Oh, and do you intend to swat me again? If so, the least courtesy you could give would be to inform me so that I may at least duck!") the two conversed by means of more hand signals, deciding, again, to tell the truth, and to suggest nicknames- they further resolved who would be assigned which.
On the count of three- timed with subtle gestures, of course- the pair gave a name which, phonetically, would be "rēbnāk" and literally "smooth-stone-in-mud"; the translator spit out both. "So, this is it: we are counterparts-"
"Of each other-"
"From close universes."
"We are not Sues."
"But in a lot of ways we're the same one."
"We'll go by Rēb-" he paused while the translator rendered it as "smooth mud-"
"And Nāk." This was translated to "stone."
"Rēbnāk is too accurate, if no need is to distinguish."
"Will that be good?"
((Reeb, Nake as in snake.))
...said Quinn to the "twin" in question, who jumped and clapped a hand over a mouth to prevent a shriek from escaping. While Quinn attempted to start over ("So, what names have you, what abilities- other than the magic, I have noticed the wand- and do you have any suggestions for dealing with my counterpart over there? Oh, and do you intend to swat me again? If so, the least courtesy you could give would be to inform me so that I may at least duck!") the two conversed by means of more hand signals, deciding, again, to tell the truth, and to suggest nicknames- they further resolved who would be assigned which.
On the count of three- timed with subtle gestures, of course- the pair gave a name which, phonetically, would be "rēbnāk" and literally "smooth-stone-in-mud"; the translator spit out both. "So, this is it: we are counterparts-"
"Of each other-"
"From close universes."
"We are not Sues."
"But in a lot of ways we're the same one."
"We'll go by Rēb-" he paused while the translator rendered it as "smooth mud-"
"And Nāk." This was translated to "stone."
"Rēbnāk is too accurate, if no need is to distinguish."
"Will that be good?"
((Reeb, Nake as in snake.))
preview it. Whatever the case- it's gone. I'll rewrite by Monday, feeling too frustrated @ the moment.))
((Anyone there? Has this died‽))
((Since she seems to be away, I'll carry it on. Also, that's a cool question mark you have there.))
- - -
"Okay, you two. Muddy rock twins. You any good with combat? 'Cause we gots some hallways fulla Suvians that need some clearin'." Yakov glanced over to the hovering underpants. "And you. I can't even imagine how you'd be useful in the PPC, but..." the wizard gestured to the Suvian garment nailed to the wall with his wand. "Do something about it."
Seeing as the bikini bottom was starting to free itself from the wall, Gaspard told everyone to cover their ears for a moment and sank another two bullets into the underwear, this time completely immobilizing it. The junior agent then turned to Yakov. "That's not some very convincing leadership, Yakov. You can't just point at things and tell people 'Oh, kill this thing' or 'Do this for me now'."
"Aw, shaddap, De Grasse. I'd like to see you do better."
"Give me about twenty-five years and I'll get back to you on that."
"Not funny."
Gaspard glanced at the assembled agents. "Er... I guess we haven't properly introduced ourselves. I'm Gaspard De Grasse, Spy 13th class, DoI. This is Yakov Minin, my coworker. I really hate to ask you this, but could you all come over here and stop this thing from escaping? It's doing something really suspicious," added the spy as the underwear pinned to the wall started to glow ominously.
((Clarifying a few things. Thing One, I'm very new. Please let me know if I mess something up.
Thing Two, although hopefully you'll pick this info up from the posts, Stephanie is a former Sue who ended up being pulled from her story into my mind when I lost interest in the former; eventually, she started to evolve into a more balanced character. She travels through time and space supposedly randomly (she typically ends up somewhere/when convenient for the plot, but absolutely cannot control it) if she says something on the hour to within 1 second. I do not have permission, but will probably request it in June, and am likely to attempt to use her.))
Thump.
Stephanie, who had been rereading the Harry Potter series to ensure that she would be familiar with the canon, scooted a little closer to her desk. She didn't even have a mini- so what could have made that noise? As she considered copying her author and scooting underneath, she caught a glimpse of her watch. Twenty seconds past ten o'clock. It should have beeped on the hour; the fact that that hadn't occurred more likely than not meant that a Narrative Law had been invoked. Comedy, Irony, and... Something that didn't come up a lot. Irony probably would have been the console beeping, as she hadn't acted in such a manner as to tempt the Ironic Overpower... Or so she thought, anyway. Comedy... Who knew? Maybe the thump was perfectly innocuous, and her reaction was supposed to be funny. Heartened by the thought, the girl swiveled around before she lost her nerve-
And almost screamed as she came face to face with a girl whom she thought that she'd left behind years before. The girl's hair was blonde to Stephanie's dyed black-brown, her eyes were such an intense, deep shade of the color blue that it almost became a Hoovaloo while (due to Logicillin) Stephanie's were graying, her figure was that of a Barbie to Stephanie's boyish frame, her skin shimmered peach to Stephanie's unhealthy pallor,, and she wore an elaborate dress of wilver and urple.
"I am Stephaniella Annibell Rosa Nuitcommevelour. Join me?"
Stephanie could almost feel her GL rising due to being in the same room with her counterpart- but then her gaze fell on the Harry Potter book, and suddenly she remembered- she was going to be a part of something bigger, going to rescue characters from bad chacterization...
"no. NO."
"I can control it, you know." Stephaniella leaned in. "I can rescue our parents."
"They'd never be the same. They were just bits. I don't mean- I love them. But it wouldn't be them."
"I could make you think that they were. We could be happy, Stephanie. Twins. Pick a name. I can force our author to write our story..."
Stephanie was in tears by this point- not of the Single variety, but sobbing that reddened her eyes and made her feel sick. She swung at her counterpart, who flicked out for a second and then reappeared in the same spot as before.
"You just don't understand, do you? I've discussed it with her. She more or less offered. THEY WOULDN'T BE THE SAME PEOPLE!!!11!1!" She willed the punctuation downpour, should one form, to hit her counterpart. "You are disrespecting their memory. STOP!"
Barely caring- it wasn't as though her counterpart would be stopped by a locked door anyway, if her powers could be used anytime- Stephanie rushed out of RC 593, grabbing her RA on the off chance that it could have proved useful to the Sue, and- steeling herself, a bit afraid to be so loud after so long barely speaking- yelled, "HELP! SUE!"
And almost screamed as she came face to face with a girl whom she thought that she'd left behind years before. The girl's hair was long, smooth, and blonde to Stephanie's dyed, choppy black-brown, her eyes were such an intense, deep shade of the color blue that it almost became a Hoovaloo while (due to Logicillin) Stephanie's were graying, her figure was that of a Barbie to Stephanie's boyish frame, her skin shimmered peach to Stephanie's unhealthy pallor, and she wore an elaborate dress of wilver and urple while Stephanie wore a PPC uniform. Otherwise, however, the two were identical.
Where had she seen that woman before?
That was the first thought that went through Hild's mind. Not why had that woman suddenly appeared out of thin air in her RC?
As soon as the strange woman had appeared, Hild leapt out of her chair and looked at her. She was in her early twenties, with bright golden-blonde hair in a long ponytail that snaked down to her waist. The woman's eyes were a mysterious blue-grey with tiny sapphire and silver sparkles in them ("How am I noticing those without getting right up close?" wondered Hild?) set in a flawless face with tanned yet somehow pale skin.
"Who are you?" asked Hild, drawing her dagger from its scabbard on her belt. "And what are you doing here?"
"I'm Princess Éohild, the leader of the Dunlendings and exiled true heir to the throne of Rohan, of course." The words tumbled almost musically from her cherry-red lips. "And you shall never take my placee, imposter!"
So saying, the princess reached behind her back and pulled out a large, ornate sliver bow, covered in jewels. As she reached again for an arrow, Hild leapt, her dagger cutting deep into Éohild's side.
Pushing past the wounded princess, Hild ran for the door. Don't try to kill her just yet, she thought, running out into the corridor. We might need to question her, find out what she's doing here. She pulled the door closed behind her, and ran off to look for Sean who had more experience of this sort of thing.
...and almost empty. Taking up the left side of the long room was a shooting range and on the other wall was a filthy kitchen. Shoved into the corners were a couple of beds, one of them occupied by Agent 99Hedgehog, Department of Floaters.
His other 2 partners, Mon'tyr and Eredan, were in the cafeteria looking for some food to stock the fridge with. 99 had taken the opportunity without the sound of pulse-rifle fire and the sharpening of arrowheads to get some much-needed sleep.
Until he was awoken by the sound of a portal opening.
99 jumped to his feet, grabbing his pants and shirt off the floor and pulling them on uncharacteristically fast as reached for his sword which he sort of knew how to use.
Readying himself for whatever came through the portal, he found himself wishing his partners were present...
Through the portal came... himself. But taller. With animu eyes. And grey hair. Wearing fancy armour. Brandishing a very large sword. Come to think of it, he looked very Bishonen. He said, after looking up from dramatically staring at his feet, in an unnecessarily loud voice;
"I AM LORD GREYSTORM, THE ALMIGHTY SLAYER OF-"
Before he could finish, 99 sliced him across the face with his sword, grabbed his coat and bolted out of the RC, pulling it on along the way. But in the hallway he saw Sues.
Oh he saw too many sues.
Rina cursed herself for leaving her crowbar in her RC. The presence of Sues in HQ couldn't mean anything good.
The boiled cabbage smell grew stronger; Rina spun as a portal opened and a tall, muscular Stu stepped through, brandishing a sword.
"I AM LORD GREYSTORM, THE ALMIGHTY SLAYER OF-"
Lord Greystorm's dramatic entrance was cut short- literally- by an agent's slashing him across the face.
"Like, OMG!!" Sue!Rina said, clutching at her bloody nose. "i can't believe you hit me! You're meeeeeeeeaaaan!" And with that, the Sue kicked Rina in the chest, sending her flying.
Rina hit the wall and fell to the ground. "Goddamn Sueper strength," she gasped, clutching her ribs. "Little help, please?" she tried to yell, but it came out as more of a wheeze. Still, the agent who had attacked Lord Greystorm seemed to hear.
"Well, that was a waste of two hours," Lonny muttered, walking back to his RC with an angry trudge. "Of course it was right under the radiator. That was the same room we started looking for it in, after all, and you always find things right where you started off. Except when you don't. If narrative convention was a person, I'd tell them to be a little more consistent with all this crap."
His mood brightened up when he noticed a distinctive form just a little further down the hall, covered in a black shell and with prominent white eyes. Not only another carapacians, but another Dersite! The other being seemed to be carrying an unnecessary number of weapons, namely a pair of crossed battle-axes mounted on its back, but Lonny ascribed that to being from another department. He knew how some Assassins could get about weaponry, and he expected that there were Disentanglers and Sue-centric Floaters that felt the same. Well, there was one way to find out the details: conversation!
"Hey! Hello!" Lonny said cheerfully, walking up to the other Dersite and turning to make eye contact. "Wow, I thought I was only Dersite in HQ, and here you are! Neither of us is alone now, and that's great! We can share experiences, have common cultural reference points, and all those other things people like! What did you do back on the homeworld?"
The other turned around in response to the voice, and Lonny was briefly taken aback. The being in front of him wasn't just another Dersite; it matched Lonny's appearance in almost every respect. Without the over-the-top weaponry, the only major difference he could see were the other's eyes, sparkling with tiny motes of red glitter and glaring with blind malice and judgement. Lonny had dealt with Suvian character replacements before, but had never expected to see one of himself.
"Out of my way, dweeb," the other Lonny snapped, reaching for one of the weapons strapped to his back. "You've got some nerve getting in front of me. Back of the freakin' line, or I'll show you what color your guts are."
Under normal circumstances, Lonny would have asked what line, made a snarky comment about what the other was waiting for out in the middle of the hallway, or something else of the sort. But back in his home fansession, he'd encountered a fair share of alternate versions of himself, recognized early on how dangerous they could get, and had developed an ironclad strategy for dealing with them.
Lunging forward, Lonny drove his foot into a spot directly between the chest and abdomen of the double, who fell down, his wind knocked out.
All right, so it wasn't an ironclad plan so much as knowing his own weaknesses, but Lonny wasn't complaining. He took advantage of the lapse to grab one of the battle-axes off of the double's back, planning to knock the aggressor out with its handle. However, as soon as it separated from its holder, the axe quickly dropped to the ground, and Lonny grunted in surprise from the sudden increase in weight. Instants later, the other Dersite rose with a light chuckle, recovering his wind far faster than he should have.
"Don't think I'm as weak as you are just because I look like you, dingus," the double snapped with a patronizing sneer. Effortlessly, the other Lonny picked up the axe from the ground, wrenched it out of the PPC Agent's hands, and pointed it at him menacingly. "Advantage lost."
He then bent over again, stunned from another hard blow to the sternum enhanced from Lonny's convenient position underneath him. The PPC Agent took advantage of the momentary lapse to scramble to his feet.
"Bad angle, ha ha, better luck next time, I've learned I've gotta scram bye!" Lonny said, his words emerging so quickly that they almost blurred together. Without wasting another second, Lonny bolted down the hall, partially hating himself for being bested so easily.
Lonny had to admit, the first part of his strategy hadn't been all that effective. But the backup second part, "find someone who knows what they're doing, tended to fare much better.
-----
Back at the RC, Copernicus straightened his sash, glancing at the vision of himself reflected off of the inactive television. He pulled at the top, letting it slide more evenly off of his shoulder gears. Even though he was only headed out to get supplies, he needed to make sure his flash patch was secure and prominent. He wouldn't want to be mistaken for an intruder or a lost DoSAT experiment again, after all. Once was enough.
Waving goodbye to the RC 52080 minis, he pulled open the door, only to find himself face-to-face with another being, approximately his size and body shape, but obviously fully robotic in nature. It also had a wider stance, darker coloration, two glowing red eyes, and most prominently, two massive cannons prodtruding from its shoulders. Upon seeing him, the machine tried to push past him multiple times, but each attempt was blocked by Copernicus's unyielding bulk. It settled for leaning in to peer over the golem's shoulder at the RC's interior.
"Woah, this is a sick-rippin' pad you've got here, my home-brother!" it exclaimed, its words tinged with an unplaceable accent.
"Excuse me?"
"Seems like a most radical place for this bro to hang his hooks and keep tight, you know what I'm saying?"
"No. No, I do not."
"Aw, man, don't be a stickler. You've got to admit this place is mondo suited to my grand vibes! I deserve to call your zone here my spot to crash!"
"Nothing that you're saying is in any way resemblant of actual language, and what little I understand I interpret as confrontational. I am going to close and lock the door now."
"What? You've got no spot calling those shots, bud, and I say that in full-"
Copernicus pulled the door down, cutting off the intruder's words with a powerful clang, and immediately strode over to Anersin the mini-Colossus' charging station and pulled a switch concealed behind it. The door made a low whirring sound as the seal engaged, and Copernicus noted with satisfaction the groans and muffled complaints that issued from the other side.
-----
Out of breath, Lonny rounded the last corner to his RC before drastically decreasing his speed. He clutched a hand to his chest and bent down, coughing slightly. Whatever his class of carapacian was supposed to do back on Derse evidently had not included running with any degree of speed for any notable distance. That or he was out of shape, which was a possibility that he dismissed immediately.
"All right," he panted, slowly regathering his strength. "I've got my evil double running around here. What makes a double? Maybe it... hoo... maybe it escaped from an alternate universe. Maybe it's from... the future. Maybe from a magic mirror. Like, it sucked out my jerkness or something. I'd remember that last one if it happened, but maybe I was asleep." He coughed again. "No, those are dumb. I'm dumb when I'm tired. But Nick will know. He's good with this stuff. Just another few doors and I'll be back to ask him."
Shaking his head, Lonny glanced up, hoping to see the familiar door of his RC a short distance away. He did, but unfortunately, he also saw an eight-foot brownish-yellow machine blasting away at said door with a pair of massive shoulder cannons.
"Yo, I'm only gonna say this once, brah!" it howled, projecting its words over its cannons' dull and repeated booms. "I'm gonna crack this fridge if you don't pony up and free your zone, and we both know that!"
Lonny backed away slowly, taking care not to make any loud noises or bump into anything. Once he rounded the corner, he scrambled away, slowly and quietly due to both his relative exhaustion and his hope that whatever he'd just seen wouldn't hear him.
Or, he thought, I can go get backup, and then we can deal with that thing, and then Nick can help out with jerk-me. I like my new plan. It is a better plan. I don't have to fight robots by myself with the new plan.
Making a few random turns to make sure he was good and lost, Lonny suddenly stumbled into a hallway he'd never been in before. He was sure he'd never been there before, because he'd definitely remember a hallway smelling of dead plants and filled with almost a dozen sparkly-looking entities, one of which spun around moments after his arrival and stared at the Dersite with vacant confusion. A human-looking Agent was slumped at the wall across from the Suvian, distinguishable from her in part by the fact that only the Sue had a slow stream of glittery blood trickling from her nose. A little further down the hallway, a second smaller Suvian, evidently noticing Lonny's presence, glanced up and hissed.
"One of these days," Lonny muttered. "One of these days I'd like to make a simple, straightforward plan that doesn't have to deal with any new variables until I'm almost done carrying it out."
((Ugh, I had half of this written on another computer yesterday, and then it froze and I had to redo it all on my tablet. The description is not nearly as good now, and Stu-Copernicus was supposed to be annoying, but now he just comes across as incomprehensible because I couldn't remember any of his lines and made up about half of his new slang. Which might be... better? I don't know.
Also, this might not be supposed to go here, but I'm trying to keep chronology moderately stable. Then again, this post is so long that it might start warping time from its sheer gravitational mass.))
Dawn had been having a good day. No, really, she had. The console hadn't [BEEP!]ed yet, no one had come by to bother her, and her tribble had yet to eat anything and start multiplying.
This, of course, had changed the moment a rather impossibly perfect version of herself (well, presumably: the glitter made it difficult to be sure) had appeared in front of her, wiggled her fingers in a wave, and giggled with a sound like too many bells chiming at once.
It wasn't a nightmare, Dawn decided, after making several sweeping arm movements while the intruder remained still. This wasn't her reflection. That meant...
A Sue. A Sue version of herself, no less.
Dawn McKenna nodded to herself once, and went for the flamethrower. Oddly enough, the Sue just continued to wave and giggle. Dawn paused for a moment, staring, but then shook her head and raised the flamethrower.
"I'll give you one chance to get out of my RC," she said.
The Sue pouted. "But it's my RC! Everyone loves me. Even with my tragic estrangement from my sister, and the three children I saved from death by canon characters, and I know everyone in HQ, and--"
Dawn's mouth twisted, and it wasn't with a smile. "Name?"
The Sue giggled. "I'm, like, Constable-Agent Aurora Heather Way--but you can call me Dawnie! It's my nickname :D"
Dawn grimaced, especially at the emoticon. "Right. Aurora Heather Way, also known as 'Dawnie'--which is Dawn Summers' nickname, by the way, not mine--you're charged with impersonating and mimicking a PPC agent, knowing everyone in HQ, invading my RC, invading HQ, having a mostly illogical nickname, and warping my backstory. Oh, and annoying me. And being a personification of one of my worst nightmares. Your sentence is death, by flamethrower, to be carried out by me, Agent Dawn McKenna. Any last words?"
Agent-Constable Dawnie batted her (ridiculously long and glittery) eyelashes. "You wouldn't kill a helpless--"
Half a minute later, Dawn glared down at the Glittery smear on her floor. "I'm not helpless. And I don't like Sues."
"Well, that's a shame." Dawn spun around, and aimed the flamethrower at the speaker, who only smiled at her. "Maybe you'll like me a bit better?"
"And you are?"
The man smiled. He appeared to be about twenty or twenty-one, and looked almost completely ordinary compared to the Sue Dawn had just vanquished. His hair was light brown in color, his eyes were blue-green, and his smile was almost sweet. He wore a silver ring on his left forefinger, and was dressed almost entirely in black.
"Lieutenant Commander Maverick Strife." At Dawn's raised eyebrows, he laughed softly. "Well, no, not really. I just saw that on a list."
"What sort of list?" Dawn demanded.
The man grinned. "It was titled 'You are a Gary Stu'." He stumbled slightly over the bold, but managed to make it work. "My real name's Shachar Brenton. I'm, uh--" He smiled again, a little sheepishly, and ducked his head. "I'm you. From an alternate universe." He paused, ducking his head again briefly. "Uh. Surprise?"
Dawn stared at him. He did look rather like her: same hair (in a wildly different cut), same eyes (a little deeper set), even a similar smile and build (excepting the obvious physical differences).
What really made Dawn believe it, though, was the shoelaces. They were purple, in the same shade as the thread holding her flashpatch to her t-shirt.
"Great," she said, lowering the flamethrower. "Wonderful. What're you doing here?"
Shachar opened his mouth to answer, but then stopped, frowning. "Um. Do you smell that?"
Dawn frowned too. "No? Wait, yes. The boiled cabbage and lavender and sunshine--Glaurung it. More Sues."
"I think it's coming from the hallway," Shachar said worriedly. He drew what looked interestingly like a Night-Night Gun from the Agents of SHIELD continuum, as well as a standard-issue Star Trek phaser (TOS-era), holding them easily. "Should we--?"
"Yeah." Dawn hoisted her flamethrower higher, checked that her Klingon knife was securely in its sheath, and subtly made sure that the Muggle-use wand was still in her pocket. (So it had been a quiet day, so what. It paid to be prepared. And the wand was cool.) "Let's go."
Weapons at the ready, they walked out into the hallway, and straight into what seemed to be a battle on pause. Sues and Stus stood everywhere, along with several people who might have been (were hopefully) agents. Another agent slumped against the wall.
Dawn sighed, hefted the flamethrower, and decided that after this was done she was going to treat herself to a lot of chocolate. Maybe she could even swing a vacation in Mr. Wonka's Chocolate Factory...
But no, that would require actual good luck.
--
((Shachar is the Hebrew word for 'dawn', and can be used as both a male and a female name. Brenton has some sort of 'fire' root words from Old English, although I've forgotten exactly what. (It should perhaps be noted that Dawn's surname, McKenna, means something along the lines of 'born of fire'). And Shachar's Stu name is, of course, taken from Neshomeh's list over on the main Board... ~DF))
She blinked at the thing coming down the hallway; it looked like one of those... black goopy things from Homestuck, if Homestuck had been live-action instead of drawn in MS Paint.
Rina staggered to her feet and raised her fists, wishing she'd been more attentive when she'd read Homestuck. How was she supposed to fight Sue!Rina and that thing at once?
There wasn't any time to think, though, as Sue!Rina aimed a roundhouse kick at her head. Rina ducked.
((Dersites are from Homestuck, right? Also, wow, long post. I feel insufficient now. XD))
All right, good, she's not unconscious, Lonny thought. That's two against twelve now. Those are still bad odds, but- His train of thought was interrupted by the two brown-haired humans who suddenly emerged from a nearby RC door, both purposefully holding what looked like a projectile weapon. Okay, he thought, Now these are better odds. Not the best, but they'll work. Fishing out a rubber bouncy ball from beneath his coat, Lonny tossed it at at the bleeding Sue, who had just tried to land a kick on her double. Upon impact, the ball flashed with red and blue light and made a sound like an air horn, causing the Sue to involuntarily stumble back.
Lonny smiled as he leaned forward, catching the ball with both hands as it bounced back at him. Heh. I guess the time I spent finding this thing wasn't wasted after all.
-----
Copernicus had locked himself in the RC for precisely three minutes and fifty-two seconds by the time he realized that the machine outside was not going to stop. Never mind that the doors for his size of RC were specially prepared by Building Maintenance to be nearly shatterproof so that they wouldn't have to come down and fix size-related mishaps like an Agent breaking off part of the frame with his head, and never mind that the intruder would be able to break in much more easily if he aimed at the much more vulnerable wall right next to said doors, the intruder was apparently content to blast at the immovable object and scream nonsense at the person beyond it. Copernicus shrugged. He'd learned long ago not to point out the mistakes of his opponents.
After clanking to the back of the RC, the golem bent over to pick up a small case of his possessions. Ignoring the screaming tirade of the machine outside(it seemed to be negatively comparing him to a mountain range at this point), he rummaged within it, and in the course of a few seconds retrieved a pitch-black oblong of uncertain material.
He paced along the back wall for a moment, trying his best to think of a good place to escape. It was no use going through the side walls; if he had any neighbors, they'd be going through enough problems having to deal with all the noise, and if he didn't, the machine would notice him if he just walked out a door immediately to any side. The ceiling was no good, for obvious reasons, and the floor... well, Copernicus had been in the PPC for long enough to know an avoidable setup for hijinx when he saw one. So that left finding the right space on one of the back walls.
Roughly estimating as best he could with HQ's tenuous grasp of architecture, Copernicus flung his portable hole at a spot near a rear corner, and nodded with satisfaction when the wall faded away to reveal an adjacent hallway. Picking up the hole's carrying sack on the way out, Copernicus stepped through the gap in his wall, feeling the unpalatable twisting feeling he got when stepping through a spot where space and time disagreed. Once through the other side, he peeled the hole off from his exit point and walked calmly down the hallway, the primary concern in his mind being whether he should call the DIA or the DMFF to get rid of the robot. This lack of peril lasted a full fourteen seconds before a female agent turned a corner and almost crashed straight into him.
((From what it looks like, either Pippa's Ghost, Alltoometa, or Tigeress have agents who can interact with Copernicus now. I wanted to make it non-distinct to increase the chance of future interaction, and also I'm not sure what their Agents looks like beyond a few details, since they're all pretty new to me.))
"...now I sorta need a hand here."
99 found himself desperately dodging Lord Greystorm's excessively large sword with no way for him to attack.
"FOOLISH CHILD. YOU CAN ONLY DELAY YOUR DEMISE."
Agents and their Sue and Stu counterparts were fighting; glitter and fire was flying through the air.
Rina twisted away from her doppelgänger and jumped up, only to collide with another agent.
"What's going on-?" she yelped.
"Look out!" The agent dived to one side as Lord Greystorm swung his massive sword. It was only sheer luck that the blade passed a half-inch over Rina's head.
((Only if this is okay with you, of course.))
"All right. Emiran, I'm taking a shot at Greystorm. Do the follow-up." Special Response Officer Naya'Keegan crouched by the wall, invisible to the naked eye thanks to her armoursuit's cloaking field. She quickly shouldered her M-92 Mantis rifle and carefully lined up a shot at the armoured Stu. "Firing."
The hypersonic slug caught Greystorm in the back, right below the sword arm's shoulder pauldron. To the quarian's great surprise, there was a sound like two hollow cans smashing together and then a part of the Generic Surface ceiling disintegrated into dust. Naya's cloak dropped and the now-visible quarian backed away to the cover of a Response Centre's doorway, drawing her sidearm. "Ricochet! How the... ugh, Suvian armour. Emiran, staser him! I'll pick off the rest!"
She motioned to her partner who was leaning against the doorway of the RC opposite. The Time Lord dashed out of cover, black Inverness coat flapping about him, and made a beeline for the armoured Stu. The ex-soldier slid to a halt two metres away from Greystorm and shot multiple times. This time the blasts managed to make the Stu stumble backwards, but he was still alive thanks to his unnaturally strong armour. Seeing as he bought the Greystorm's would-be victims some time, the DIA agent grabbed the closest person by her denim jacket and pulled her away from the Stu. "Move it! Get out befo-- URK!"
Emiran's rifle clattered to the floor as its owner was picked up and thrown down the hall by Greystorm. The Time Lord flew into Naya and the two were left on the floor, struggling to find their breath and to get back on their legs.
LORD GREYSTORM laughed at his adversaries.
"FOOLS! YOUR WEAPONS CAN'T HARM ME!"
99 ran past him to where Emiran and Naya lay on the ground. He checked their pulses and helped them to their feet.
"You're a Time Lord, right? You have a TARDIS?"
Lonny had waited a little too long wondering how he was going to incapacitate a now-prepared Sue with his light-up ball. On the plus side, the extra time had given him a chance to regain his breath, but on the minus side, the entire hallway had now erupted into turmoil. Lonny heard a loud boom from somewhere off to his right, and suddenly something incredibly fast had smashed into one of the Stus, ricocheting off off its armor, hitting the wall, and finally slamming into the ceiling, breaking through concrit and Generic Surface with equal ease.
Lonny yelped and dove down, passing directly under the damaged spot on the concrit wall, which was currently leaking complaints about improper use of a semicolon. He looked up just in time to see his potential ally wrenched from the quite literal mouth of her attacker, and the Stu that the object had bounced off of, who seemed to have taken a position of most prominent figure if not outright leader of the Suvian band, gloating loudly in bold capital letters and holding his sword before him as a sign of challenge. Blast it, I should have known to bring my knives with me, he complained. He stopped and grunted in irritation. While I'm having this nice bout of wishful thinking, I should've also brought an armored car and two dozen cans of whatever these Sues are allergic to.
Lonny looked up from his position on the floor, staring above LORD GREYSTORM to the ceiling beyond to make sure there wasn't going to be anything blank, gray, and deadly falling on his head from above. When glancing past the titanic Stu, he double-took, noticing from his vantage point something very odd about his armor placement. Lonny couldn't put his finger on it at first, and then the realization hit him.
No, no, I can't be seeing that, that's stupid, why would the armor not cover that spot, it's kind of important, he thought for a moment. Then again, Mary Sues don't cover their navels half the time, and that's a huge disadvantage. Might as well see what I can do.
The Dersite lay motionless on the floor for a few seconds, waiting until the sword-wielding enemy had his back to him. Then, just after seeing a brief opportunity, Lonny scrambled to his feet, adjusted his position for just long enough to confirm his balance, and quickly and powerfully launched an upward kick between the Stu's legs.
Lonny flinched upon making contact; he'd aimed his foot imprecisely, and it had caught on a piece of LORD GREYSTORM's back plating. Regardless, the Stu howled in quite-possibly-played-up agony, bending over and bellowing at the top of its lungs. Lonny knew that if he showed weakness, the massive being would take advantage of such as soon as it regained its footing, so he decided to take advantage of a time-honored narrative tradition.
"And that," Lonny said, smiling through the new pain blossoming in his ankle, "is why you should never think your opponent is above making attacks to the crotch." Note to self: he mentally appended, I am also bad at making one-liners when I'm tired. The Dersite climbed awkwardly onto his incapacitated opponent's back, wrapping his legs around the Stu's neck while sitting on its shoulders in a move he half-remembered from his brief time watching wrestling. He wasn't sure how much longer he'd be able to hold the position, but he knew that while he should be cutting off the Stu's airflow if his stance was right, said stance could very easily be wrong. To tip the odds a little further in his favor, he leaned forward, using his full body weight to push the Stu closer to the ground. Lonny wasn't sure if he could kill the Stu unarmed, but he could at least hold it down long enough for someone else to make the final blow.
((I was originally going to end this with Lonny picking up Emiran's rifle and blasting the Stu in the head, but I couldn't get him to do it. He's not squeamish, and he's not averse to taking Suvian life, since he uses his knives and daggers all the time, and he knows it's dangerous to leave someone like LORD GREYSTORM alive, but he apparently just really does not like guns. Character moment! I've just not figured out all of the reasons behind it yet, or if there even are any.
Besides, him taking the time to go over and get the rifle would allow LORD GREYSTORM time to charge him and either slash at him with the sword or pin him down beneath hundreds of pounds of Stu-armor. That said, I fully expect Lonny to get that massive sword hurled at him before this is up.))
And in classic Suevian fashion, pulls a brand new power he never knew h3 had out of his behind. Pointing his hand behind him, he opens a portal through which a horde of Sues swarm. He then promptly pried Lonny's legs off his neck and hurled him down the corridor right into 99.
WHAT DO?!
The swarm-Sues hovered around each other in vague clusters clicking their insectoid mandibles together while staring implacably down at the mass of Agents and other Sues below. Since the hallway hadn't been intended to carry nearly their number, most of them were quickly pressed closely onto each other, blocking the portal with their combined slimy mass. The few that had managed to break free of the collection swooped down on Sue-double and Agent alike. The hissing Sue Lonny had noticed earlier latched onto the chest of one of the swarm and crashed it into a wall, but many of the Sue-doubles were picked up and flung around mercilessly by members of the swarm, while others swooped down to antagonize the two brown-haired blaster-wielding humans.
Lonny picked himself up off of the Agent he'd been thrown on top of, his eyes closed in response to the bolt of pain that suddenly began shooting up his wounded leg and into his lower back. "Ow, ow, ow. Is whoever I hit okay? I felt bones on whatever I landed on, and that's rarely a good thing." Suddenly, a new voice sounded from behind a nearby corner, seemingly packaged with its own derisive sneer.
"Ah, there you are." said the voice, growing more self-satisfied as its bearer drew closer. "I'd almost thought I'd lost you for a second, pipsqueak. For a second." Lonny opened his eyes just in time to see his Stu double rounding a corner, still holding one of his immense battle-axes in his hand. With a flick of his wrist, it burst into blue-green flame.
LORD GREYSTORM limped toward the new arrival, obviously still smarting from the recent blow to the groin. "SO A FOOL ARRIVES TO CHALLENGE THE MIGHT OF LORD GREYSTORM?" the summoner bellowed. "HAVE AT ME, BEAST OF WICKEDNESS!"
"I wasn't talking to you, you unobservant little pitstain!" snapped Stu-Lonny, removing a thick and noticeably sharp knife from one of his many holsters and throwing it at LORD GREYSTORM. With typical Suvian accuracy, the blade struck right between LORD GREYSTORM's eyes, the massive swordsman's reflexes too dulled by pain and the summoning of the portal to form a proper block, and the other Stu collapsed. Other-Lonny smirked. "Good freakin' riddance. He was making so much noise I'd have found you sorry sacks in the freakin' dark."
Lonny frantically turned to the Agents next to him, which he now noticed included a quarian and a Time Lord in addition to the unfortunate fellow he'd landed on. "I don't suppose you've got any other plans for how to deal with this?" he asked. "Because I think I've used up all of my practical ideas."
((I think Lord Greystorm(no need to bold-caps any more, since he's dead) went a little overboard as a threat when he summoned a mass of swarm-Sues. We've only got a handful of people in this RP, you know. Outnumbering the Agents is one thing, but if you're going to absolutely overwhelm them with enemies that by their nature are better than almost anything that's thrown at them, I say that's time to retire a bit of the opposing force, even if it's only the figurehead and a few of the bit Sues that we never actually described in full. We need to have at least a little balance here.
Now, all I need to do is find an excuse for Stu-Copernicus to stop obliviously shooting up RC 52080's door. I'm sure I'll think of something.))
"I think everyone needs to cool off," said Emiran, pulling out his Remote Activator, smiling to himself. "Naya, shall we do the 'Harris Frost'?"
Despite his partner's face being obstructed by a full-face visor, Emiran could tell she was grinning broadly. "Why of course. Oh, and look: Greystor-- I mean, GREYSTORM's death closed the portal. That's nice. So: destination?" The quarian pulled out her RA and looked at her partner.
"Reality room nine."
"The extra large one. Got it. Flush it. Oh, and you three," said Naya, gesturing towards 99, Lonny, and Rina. "Hold your breath and hang on to your weapons."
The DIA officers opened one portal each. At the far end of the corridor, Naya opened a portal that spanned the entire width and height of the corridor. Beyond it lay an ordinary looking warehouse. Emiran opened an equally large portal on the other end of the corridor that lead to somewhere under World One's oceans.
As the wall of water advanced and scooped everyone out of the hallway, Emiran tucked his RA back in his pocket and put a hand on his tricorn hat while Naya tightened her grip on her rifle and RA.
99 grinned and shook Lonney's hand.
"Agent 99, Department of Floaters." Looking over Lonney's shoulder, he grimanced. "That might take a while to clean up. Anyway, heres the first part of the plan. RUN!" And with that, he turned and bolted in the opposite direction of the swarm-sues.
When the two DIA Agents began to open their portals, the slightly delirious Agent that Lonny had crashed into stood up shakily and began introducing himself to the Dersite's Stu-double, shaking the double's hand and announcing his RC number like a name. Other-Lonny blinked in genuine surprise, and in his breif moments of confusion entirely failed to notice that the portals were now gushing water into the hallway behind him.
The genuine Lonny frowned. "Yikes. I must have slammed into that guy harder than I thought."
Upon noticing the sudden flooding of the surrounding area, the Floater cut off his introduction, shouted, and ran away as fast as he could.
((The character limit in the title bar was so short that it nearly killed my grammar! Also, new retcon means that apparently the spelling Lonney can refer to the Stu-double if we want, because I couldn't think of a way to make a mini-Agent work in here. I can live with that. Okay, now I'm going to bed. Any further in and I'll be writing in fragments.))
Rina might have been an agent for a short time, but when someone else said to do something, you did it.
Still, the sudden flood that swept through the corridor caught her off-guard. The wall of water slammed into the group, sweeping away agents and Sues alike. Tossed head over heels, Rina was left feeling more than a little disoriented when the water suddenly vanished, leaving the agents strewn about the floor.
"W-Wha-?" Rina's question was cut off with a bout of coughing.
"I told you to hold your breath," one of the DIA officers admonished her. Rina ignored her in favor of hacking up seawater.
((Wouldn't the reality room kind of be bad for a Dersite? Anyway, sorry I was gone; I had sleep to attend to. Hooray for different time zones!))
Emiran was the first agent to push himself off the ground. He quickly shut both portals, wrung out his tricorn, and plopped it back on his head. Drawing a staser pistol from its holster, the DIA agent took aim at Stu!Lonny and sank several stun-shots into the carapacian's chest. The Stu convulsed as the bolts of energy hit him and was still. The Time Lord quickly rushed to the Other Dersite, rolled him on his belly, and slapped several pairs of handcuffs around the unconscious Stu's wrists and ankles. "You're not going anywhere, buddy-boy," grunted the Gallifreyan man as he worked. "DMSER will take good care of you. Don't try to break the cuffs: your powers don't work here."
Naya, by virtue of her hermetic bodysuit, was relatively unaffected by the wave of water. After a quick electronic systems check, she typed a command into her Omni-tool and tuned her suit radio to a DIA frequency.
"Central, this is Keegan reporting. Requesting backup in Reality Room nine. We flushed a bunch of Suvians into it with the Frost Maneuver. Be advised: we have PPC agents and Suvian duplicates in the crowd. Bring glitter detectors and flamethrowers."
"Acknowledged, Keegan. We're sending a team your way. Stand by."
"Understood, Central. Keegan out."
Naya patted her right hip and sighed in disappointment as she realized her Carnifex pistol was lost in the wave. She flipped her sniper rifle's safety to on, grabbed it by the barrel, and slammed the stock into the face of a insectoid Suvian that had tried to sneak up on her. As it fell to the ground, Naya gave it another solid whack and turned to face the rest of the agents.
"Well? Are we gonna start cleaning this place up or what?"
Rina grinned in reply to the DIA agent's question. She paused. "How exactly do you propose we do that?"
Naya gestured around the room. "You know what a Reality Room is, yeah? If we can lure the Sues in here somehow, their power will be pretty much gone, but I don't see Techno-Dann ready with his speedo..."
"What?" Rina shook her head. "Never mind. Hang on- I have an idea." She ran over to the door and peeked around the corner. Upon seeing that Sues were continuing to appear from various portals, she gritted her teeth and stepped into view.
"Edward and Jacob are totally gay for each other, Harry Potter promotes Satan worship, and Legolas looks like a Barbie doll!"
((I thought we agreed that we couldn't control other peoples' agents? That line was fairly OOC for Naya: she would definitely not have mentioned Dann in speedo... in fact, it kinda looks like a non sequitur to me.))
- - -
Naya, in the middle of clubbing another Agent!Sue, looked up at Rina. "You could have at least waited until we killed all of the Sues already in here! Emiran! Go and do some crowd control at the door, will you?"
"Aye, miss!" said the Time Lord, picking up his sidearm. "Keep an eye on black-shell over here: he's a dangerous one!"
"I'm busy right now!" shouted the quarian as she blocked a katana slash with her rifle. "Find somebody else! Actually, never mind! Here comes the cavalry!"
A dozen blue-edged portals popped into existence, each letting though a stream heavily armed DIA officers. The Internal Affairs Agents started clearing the room one Suvian at the time with the help of glitter-detecting medical tricorders and good old-fashioned flamethrowers.
Minutes later, the air stank of smoke and fuel. Both the swarm-sues and the agent lookalikes were reduced to ash puddles. One of the DIA reinforcements, a towering protoss clad in a black tunic and a glimmering golden chestplate, pointed at the doors and telepathisized a command to the entire room:
"Let in the next batch of Suvians! Abbot, Park, and Becker: use a portal to emerge on the left side of the corridor. Fire Flash, Archer, and Molina: take the right side. Cut off their retreat and force them into this room."
"You flatter me, you really do," he groaned, blinking the wet muck out of his eyes. Slowly getting to his feet, Lonny noticed the Floater who had turned and ran away from the watery onslaught, lying supine on the floor next to the battered bodies of two swarm-Sues. The Dersite limped over to his shackled counterpart, leaning against him with one hand and searching through the Stu's weapon collection with the other.
"Yeah, he probably meant you," he admitted. "But it's nice to think I'd have a reputation among the sort of people who can wipe out the contents of a corridor in seconds, you know?" Stu-Lonny growled incoherently in response, and struggled mightily against his restraints.
Lonny waggled a finger with his foraging hand. "Hey, no thrashing. Don't be a poor sport about all this. Be realistic; they'd just take all of these from you anyway." The PPC Agent untied a pair of knives from a collection of scabbards and cords on the Stu's back, weighing them and their sheaths in his hands with satisfaction. "Not the size I'm used to, but it's a fine product you've got here. I'd thank you if you hadn't tried to kill me a few minutes ago."
Spotting his rubber ball flashing damply on the floor a few feet away, Lonny snatched it up and placed it securely in a jacket pocket. He cursed himself for not doing so earlier, but to be fair, when faced with an unexpected tidal wave one tended to think of how to preserve oneself above how one could best avoid damaging the electronic parts of a novelty toy.
Suddenly, a recognizable telepathic voice thrummed in the space between Lonny's thoughts, and when he looked up, he saw a massive being in gold armor stepping into the room, taking charge of several patchless Agents who were neutralizing the remaining swarm-Sues.
"Oh, wow!" the Dersite exclaimed, all grogginess suddenly leaving his voice as he rushed toward the protoss as best he could with his injured ankle. "It's you! Taldaris, wasn't it? The guy who torched the shapeshifter in New Caledonia? Remember me? I was there too! Too late to help, unfortunately, but hey, I can help out here! I've got new knives and everything!" Lonny leaned back to make eye contact with the massive Officer, his usual grin extra-bright as it returned to his face.
"Yes, I remember you," said Taldaris telepathically, bending over slightly to look over his chestplate at the grinning carapacian. "New Caledonia, nearly a year ago. Your name is Lonny, correct?"
The High Templar raised his head and surveyed his surroundings. Agents and DIA staff were positioning themselves in a very large semi-circle around the main doors, waiting for the next wave of Suvians. Anything that entered the room would be caught in the crossfire of over two dozen well-armed PPC agents. Satisfied that his colleagues were prepared for the next fight, the protoss looked at Lonny again.
"I would advise you to stay out of the next fight, Dersite. Your ankle is starting to swell; it might be sprained or broken. You should head to Medical to have that looked at."
There was some commotion at the doors and a squad of Sues rushed into the Reality Room, chased by five human DIA agents and a MLP-verse Earth pony. Taldaris raised his right forearm, channeled his psionic energy into the gauntlet that covered it, and pointed the newly-formed psi-blade at the Suvians. "Close the doors! Weapons free!"
Silver just ran. Away. To somewhere. Away from Sue!Silver. She fumbled at her side for her hunting knife and unsheathed it while she ran. Unfortunately for her, she had completely lost her sense of direction. She glanced back over her shoulder. Sue!Silver was gaining on her. In desperation, Silver charged into another corridor, her hope almost lost. But then, upon turning the corner, she found that many, many agents were fighting against different 'Sues, yet more were coming from around another bend. With Sue!Silver behind her, she really couldn't do anything but turn and face her.
So, she did, her small dagger clashing against the 'Sue's longer, sharper, better knife.
Almost immediately, she received a long scratch on her arm. She walked backwards slowly, trying to keep away the 'Sue's strokes with her dagger.
...the butt of a spear came and knocked the Sue's dagger out of her perfectly manicured hand. The Sue span around to face her new attacker-- make that attackers: a brown-haired woman with the spear and a blond bare-fisted man that suddenly darted forward and swung his fist.
Harris Frost threw what witnesses would later recall as the sloppiest, harmless, and most comical left hook in the history of the PPC. The Spy's fist lazily arched towards the Sue's jaw like a crane and, despite the Sue leaning back to avoid the blow, managed to bop her chin with his wrist. As momentum carried Harris forward, the Spy looked up and saw Sue!Silver reach down with both hands to throttle him. Again, the spear darted forward-- tip first this time-- and scored a grazing hit on the Sue's left side. Harris fell to the floor and hurriedly crawled behind his spear-wielding companion for protection.
"Stay out of this, Harris!" said the spearwoman, slowly circling the Sue with her weapon at the ready. "Just-- look! Take care of the real agent over there. I'll hold this one off."
"You got it, Sonia!" replied Harris as his comrade positioned herself between Sue!Silver and the real agent. Harris approached Silver and grabbed her by the non-injured arm, pulling her away from the fight. "Let's go, ma'am! This place isn't safe!"
((I didn't know how else to get the next bit going, but still... my bad.))
Stephanie ran blindly down the halls, reading a copy of Philosopher's Stone- she could use some help with British English- to distract herself.
(She soon realised that the main difference between the American and British versions was... The title. She'd have facepalmed or headbooked, but both were a little difficult at her speed... and then, suddenly, she was going much slower, and her right side ached.
"Ow. What are you made of, rock-" she looked up. More like metal... "Er, hi. I'm Stephanie." She rubbed her right arm, wincing. "We're in danger. An... alternate me, I think, has gotten into HQ. She's a Mary Sue, and I'm pretty sure she can literally travel through spacetime at will. I only can do so at random if I say something within a second of something o'clock, and that isn't too big a deal, but she said that she can control it and showed it..." Stephanie took a deep breath. "What can we do?"
He'd known that he was going to run into someone in the halls, since such was inevitable in HQ, but he hadn't expected someone like this. Time travellers were hard to find in the PPC, and self-propelled time travellers even moreso. And if there was a Sue nearby who had similar powers...
"If she is a Mary Sue with HQ's walls capable of temporal distortions on the level you imply, we will definitely need to destroy her as soon as possible," he replied. "Do you know any ways that we would be able to incapacitate her ourselves? The Security Departments should definitely be involved in the containment of a metatemporal threat, but I would rather we not involve them if we do not have to. I have encountered another problem that they will need to help clean up later, and I do not wish to overtax them." He blinked. "Oh, and my name is Copernicus, in response to your introduction. As they say, I wish that our first meeting would have been under more pleasant circumstances."
((You know, I'm liking the idea that, alongside the inevitable "let's you and them fight" subplot we all knew would come out of this, there's just a handful of Agents like Copernicus who think it's all isolated incidents and don't really know what's going on at the full scale. I'd like to keep the two sides separate, but of course it's not entirely up to me.
Ugh, I'm not making my best writing now, though. I need to go to bed.))
"I have some weaknesses. Some, she might share; they're pretty old. Then again... I suspect that she's probably eliminated any which she's aware of? That being said- here goes... My powers will take me and lightish inanimate objects to a random point in spacetime if and only if I say something on the hour. Sorry to repeat, but it's helping me work this out. Anyway, I've already confirmed that the point isn't random- for her. That being said, in a place like this, time travel and spatial travel are apparently often the same thing anyway- I heard about an incident with one of those angels from Dr. Who, and besides I'd go a bit nuts otherwise.". She hoped that her rambling wasn't getting on his nerves, then mentally kicked herself- they had far more important things to worry about. Taking a deep breath, she continued.
"Anyway. She also isn't restricted to having to activate her power just about exactly on the hour and then waiting an hour to for it to kick in... Wait..." The girl's grayish but still deep blue eyes widened. "I might have found a usable weakness." She leaned in.
A sparkly blonde head poked out from a nearby alcove. So her counterpart had found a weakness, had she? She hadn't thought that there were any issues... Feeling a bit disturbed by the idea that she could be vulnerable, Stephaniella moved herself just a bit closer. She had to hear this. Alas, it was not to be, for Stephanie, whose eyes were becoming more saturated, gasped, cupped something which resembled an ear, and whispered something quite different.
"My GL. It's going up. I think she's nearby."
((Rationale for Stephaniella's presence raising Stephanie's GL: she came very, very close to being a Sue who would have been very similar. She still has that potential, although it's not going to be realized. So... Yeah. Stephanie could have, pretty easily, become Stephaniella.))
((I'm also enjoying that subplot, quite a bit. That being said, it's likely that at some point contact with a different Sue or Agent in the know will occur.))
"I have some weaknesses. Some, she might share; they're pretty old. Then again... I suspect that she's probably eliminated any which she's aware of? That being said- here goes... My powers will take me and lightish inanimate objects to a random point in spacetime if and only if I say something on the hour. Sorry to repeat, but it's helping me work this out. Anyway, I've already confirmed that the point isn't random- for her. That being said, in a place like this, time travel and spatial travel are apparently often the same thing anyway- I heard about an incident with one of those angels from Dr. Who, and besides I'd go a bit nuts otherwise.". She hoped that her rambling wasn't getting on his nerves, then mentally kicked herself- they had far more important things to worry about. Taking a deep breath, she continued.
"Anyway. She also isn't restricted to having to activate her power just about exactly on the hour and then waiting an hour to for it to kick in... Wait..." The girl's grayish but still deep blue eyes widened. "I might have found a usable weakness." She leaned in.
A sparkly blonde head poked out from a nearby alcove. So her counterpart had found a weakness, had she? She hadn't thought that there were any issues... Feeling a bit disturbed by the idea that she could be vulnerable, Stephaniella moved herself just a bit closer. She had to hear this. Alas, it was not to be, for Stephanie gasped, cupped something which resembled an ear, and whispered something quite different.
"My GL. It's going up. I think she's nearby."
((Rationale for Stephaniella's presence raising Stephanie's GL: she came very, very close to being a Sue who would have been very similar. She still has that potential, although it's not going to be realized. So... Yeah. Stephanie could have, pretty easily, become Stephaniella.))
((I'm also enjoying that subplot, quite a bit. That being said, it's likely that at some point contact with a different Sue or Agent in the know will occur.))
Copernicus scanned the area around him. On his third pass, he saw motion at the corner of his vision that fit the pattern of something trying to duck out of sight.
"I see her," he said, keeping his voice low. "If she can do all you claim, I don't know how to get rid of her completely with what I have, but I've devised a plan that should keep her contained for a while." He stood up, not quite to his full height but close enough to not attract suspicion while still keeping his quieter voice audible to the shorter agent.
"But you shouldn't be so conspicuous. If she didn't think that you had noticed her before, she probably will now that you have risen up on your toes and whispered in my ear. That's just for future experience, of course. There's nothing that we can do to alter what already happened." Copernicus briefly considered moving toward the direction of the motion, but nixed the idea. He didn't have all of the relevant information yet. "You said she had a weakness, didn't you? What is it? I want to know how to keep her from teleporting away before she can be captured properly."
-----
An indeterminate distance away, Copernicus's darker-colored mechanical counterpart noticed something strange. The sound his blasts were making had changed, no longer the low booms produced by his explosive blasts landing on an unyielding surface, but a more hollow thumping. He paused in dim confusion, slightly grateful for the chance to cool off his shoulder cannons. They may have possessed unlimited ammo, but the vibrations from their unending barrage had started to make his head ring.
Stu-Copernicus glanced around the site of impact, noticing with distaste that the door had not been visibly harmed in the slightest. Somewhat more encouragingly, however, the constant blasts had damaged its foundations, pushing the doorframe in from the wall on one side and revealing a small split in the Generic Surface. Since Stud rarely stop to wonder whether what was happening in front of them violated multiple laws of architecture, the machine wasted no time in bending down and testing the new opening. It was too small to pass through, and in the wrong position to use as leverage for ripping the door out, but it was a perfect size to shout through.
"Almost there, dog! Quaking yet? If you're not, I'll stock a few ticks to let you drop down quietly... wait." Narrowing his eyes, Stu-Copernicus scanned as much of the RC as he could from the hole. From what he'd seen of it, there were only a few places for the other to hide, but none of them held anything other than what had been there to begin with. The machine reeled back, Stuish rage beginning to rise in him.
"What? The hopper bounced? That's not even in the realm, man! How'd he pass it? He was as box as an armored car, and that just doesn't grok to stealth!" Raising his shoulder cannons to their highest position, Stu-Copernicus fired several shots into the ceiling. Not even the resulting muffled sounds of fearful confusion from the floor above him were enough to lessen his anger.
"You can't just carry this bro on like that, you hear?" he shouted into the nearby corridors. "You've got to get back here and pop this candle, or I'll just take my loss and rip down the whole zone!" Clanking off in search of his counterpart, Stu-Copernicus shook his head in frustration. No one had any respect for the process of breaking open doors any more. He remembered when this used to be easy.
Revealed, Stephaniella abandoned her attempt to be stealthy. "But I just want to help you, twin! Can't you see that? We..."
Stephanie considered making a snappy retort, but on second thought- "Stephaniella" would likely have a difficult time hearing her clearly while she was talking like this- Wait. If she'd be deaf to a retort- might she be unable to hear a whisper? It was worth trying- already, she was properly positioned.
"Her power may be tied to her voice like mine is. I already know that the travel isn't random, and can be triggered at other times rather than actually on the hour, BUT I THINK that silencing her for a while could do the trick. In theory. Unless or until she caught on..."
There was something nagging at the girl's mind- something involving the book still clutched in her hand. What was she missing...
-It'd have to wait. Her statement regarding her GL had been no exaggeration. Her eyes were becoming more and more speshul. Her skin was starting to glitter. Her hair was growing out and becoming impossibly smooth, causing roots of blonde bright enough for an urple prose description to start showing. Even her uniform looked more attractive, having stretched and ruched itself in a flattering manner as she went up 1.6 cup sizes, gained a narrower waist, and otherwise grown curvier.
Worst of all, she was becoming more and more sympathetic to her counterpart. Which reminded her-
"I AM NOT YOUR EFFTRIPLEASTERISKING TWIN!" Perhaps foolishly- hopefully the Sue wouldn't read it and realize what Stephanie wasn't quite thinking of- she hurled Philosopher's Stone at her counterpart.
It missed. But having done something that unwise and failed so miserably- the opposite of a Sue- helped in a different way- Stephanie's skin stopped glittering, her eyes turned blue-gray again, and her hair, though it stayed at its current length, started getting very tangled as her roots stopped meriting urple prose.
Unfortunately, however, her uniform hadn't snapped back with her- because that would just have been Sueish. Unbuttoning several shirt buttons at her waist, glancing ruefully at the... deflation, and being a bit glad that her bottoms had shifted to the cut of low- rise jeans and hence wouldn't further hurt her waist, Stephanie fixed the situation as well as she could- tying a jacket around her waist to conceal skin, tying a knot in the pants to narrow the band. She wouldn't have bothered that much, but Sues had a habit of showing skin and being further Sued really was the last thing she needed. Fortunately, her... poorly fitting uniform seemed to be preventing that for the moment- Sues' clothing more often than not fit perfectly, after all.
(And, of course, it just wouldn't be okay for her pants to fall down right now.)
((Just thought of something- what if an urple cloud were to form?))
((are showing up. Testing, testing- will this show up? Did this RP die?)))
I should have a post or two up this afternoon, though.
((Yay!))
((I had exams last week, so sorry about that. I'll get working on a reply to Outhra.))
((I'd been too embarrassed to rejoin and I'm now waiting for a good spot to join in again.))
((That's a perfect time to join, if you ask me. If you're looking for interaction ideas, I'd like to point out that Naya is missing her pistol and Emiran is still looking for his rifle. The weapons should have been swept into the Reality Room along with the rest of the agents and Suvians...
Oh, and you wouldn't have happened to have played Mass Effect, have you? I've got references for quarians and the Carnifex if you need them.))
We can keep this RP going if you want! I can always find a way to smoke Gaspard out of his RC if need be.
I do have some possible characters.
Char. A&B: two people who I intend to have exist in the canon of something on a different website at some point- due to a quirk of the world in question, are actually each others' counterparts and more alike than twins. Male, late teens.
Char C- could be quite funny: A sentient pair of underwear. Has self- cleaning/repairing properties and the ability to move xir own fabric, allowing feats such as levitation and picking up objects.
I think Char C could work. ;)
((that I'd like your opinion on the matter.))
I like the idea of a freaky pair of floating sentient underwear, but I'd prefer that Gaspard to have some human-to-human interaction. I choose mystery men A and B!
All right. Do you want to kick things off or do I start by flushing Gaspard out of his RC?
After taking care of the Sues in the Reality Room, Rina slipped away to check the hallways for any remaining Sues.
"Hello?" she called, gripping her crowbar so tightly that her knuckles turned white. "I hate sparkles and think Twilight is stupid and Draco Malfoy is a giant FLOATING UNDERWEAR WHAT THE-?!"
And groping around, her free hand landed on the doorknob of a nearby RC and she fell through, slamming the door behind her. She leaned against the door, panting.
"What in the name of Merlin was that?" She wondere aloud.
She was wrong.
It didn't take long at all for the tapping to start... Almost muffled, as though fabric of some sort was hitting the door. Pausing in xir knocking, a pair of dark yellow cotton briefs with green polka dots passed air through xirself in a fair approximation of a sigh.
"Won't you please let me in? And who's this Merlin person?"
...as the heavy table that was blocking the door was effortlessly pushed to the side to let though a panicked-looking teenager gripping a crowbar like Gordon Freeman in Ravenholm. Gaspard and Yakov, who were in the process of cleaning up the TV area's coffee table, dove for cover while drawing their weapons. The junior agent and the wizard peeked out from behind the couch, threatening Rina with a Webley Mk VI revolver and a wand respectively.
"Hey, missy! You put your 'ands up in the air where we can see 'em!" said Yakov. "No sudden movements or we shoot!"
"Er... how about only you shoot, sir?" whispered Gaspard.
"Whaddya mean? 'Stupefy' never 'urt anyone. You gots your wand, don't you?"
"Technically speaking sir, the only spell on this thing is shooting up to six bullets at people. They've been known to cause high velocity lead poisoning in their targets."
"Oh, right. You gots that Muggle pew-pew thing. Well, wot's the point of carryin' it if you ain't gonna use it? Sheesh! Er... yeah. Don't move or I shoot," said Yakov, gesturing with his wand at Rina.
Gaspard half-lowered his revolver and said: "Prove to us that you aren't one of them! Tell us something only a real PPC agent would know!"
Resisting the temptation to make a snarky comment that would probably get her killed, she said, "HQ is governed by the Narrative Laws of Comedy and Irony. I'm stationed in RC 3-Apple-14 and work for the DMS- see? I have the flash patch and everything- and consoles have the most annoying habit of BEEPing when people are settled in and relaxed."
She didn't see how the two agents would mistake her for a Sue, though. She was wearing jeans from Wal-Mart and didn't have any unnaturally-colored eyes, and she was still stinking of fishy seawater.
...who nodded and lowered his wand. The wizard and his friend walked out of cover and stowed their weapons. As Yakov moved towards the door to barricade it again, Gaspard stopped in front of Rina and said: "Apologies, ma'am. We can never be too careful in our line of work." The Spy noticed the Assassin's crowbar on the floor. "You know, there are still Sues outside. Shouldn't you be carrying a gun instead of a mêlée weapon?" He pulled the Five-seven pistol he acquired earlier out of his Adventure pouch and offered it to Rina grip-first. "Here, take it. I've already got a gun and I don't need another one. Er... It's loaded but not cocked. The safety is still on--"
Gaspard's explanation was cut short by the arrival of two twins bursting though the door and spouting gibberish. Yakov whipped his wand out again and challenged the pair. "Don't move, laddies. Tell us something only a PPC agent would know or else it's off to DMSE&R for both of you!"
After conferring by means of shared signals- such comes in handy for rebels, and the pair (having led identical lives up until their arrival at the PPC) understood each other's personal signals well enough so that the transfer of info could have very easily been mistaken for one done through paranormal means- and speaking up, the pair repeated themselves, voices blending rather eerily into one.
"Err... Madame Sub Rosa! Scary, like a spirit in old tales!" They glanced at each other- the one who had meeped drew a finger to his palm and the other fell silent. "She talks without evident means too!"
They waited with bated breath- would it be enough? Fortunately, a distraction was arriving, in the form of- what else- floating "cloth for privacy". Xe'd been trying to remain polite and knock even when others kept opening the door, but really the time for that was long past, considering all of the Sues around! Hence, she'd flattened herself and slipped through as the door closed... Not accounting for the fact that xe'd emerge around eye level and did not exactly blend in well.
"And they're quite right about Upstairs being scary at times," said Yakov. "Whaddya say? They legit enough?"
"They did ID the Sub Rosa," said Gaspard, "but that could easily be her name in a Suvian version of our universe." The Spy turned to the twins, intending to ask them their rank, colour group, and cubicle number--should they be in Intelligence-- but was distracted by a pair of flying underwear that had fluttered in through the door. "What in the name of-- What do we do with that?"
"Oh for goodness' sake, Gaspard. It's just some underwear under a levitation charm," said Yakov, rolling his eyes. The Russian wizard swatted the garnement to the floor with his left hand. "See? Nothing to worry about."
...as said pair of undies shrieked, jumped up, and (lightly) swatted Yakov right back.
"HEY! Is that any way to treat a...um.... person? REALLY! Lacking parents, I at least have something resembling an excuse, but I doubt YOURS raised you that way!" At that, xe was silent for a moment, and started to droop. "Oh. OH. You have a wand, there's no way you're an author- you're probably a bit- oh no, I'm so sorry!" Had xe been wet, xe'd have squeezed out water, approximating tears. Being quite dry, xe instead had to settle for drooping even further.
The "twins" let out a synchronized whimper. While grateful to no longer be the center of attention, they knew that undergarments just didn't float and (worse) talk, ever, at home.
But then again- they were a very long way from home, and almost nothing was the same. Things out of stories happened here. Things too fantastical for people of their homeland ever to have even dreamt of walked these halls. Literally.
That perspective unfortunately didn't make the panties any less perturbing.
Otherwise things would've been REALLY awkward, considering that he'd arrived very recently and hence had no natural understanding of English. Or French. Or Sindarin. Or anything else which plausibly could have been used to communicate.
Said translator translated some of his invectives to things so unprintable that they have been redacted, others were translated literally to things such as "wet-bird-standing-on-dragonfly", and the most frequently repeated translated well- "one-who-reduces-knowledge-to-filth." Despite how it might have appeared, the kid's ire was directed at the situation, the Sues, and, well, the frankly terrifying weapons.
He had, however, managed to pick up ONE word.
"MEEP! Please don't hurt me! I would, but I'm only a trainee, and a really new one at that!!!"
Nearby, the person who was technically his counterpart from a nearly-identical universe but for brevity was referred to as his twin burst in.
"Hey, what are you-"
Seeing the weapons, he flinched and became almost still. Small things moved- an eye, a thumb. His "twin" did the same, but for longer, and then they cycled back and forth; at the end, he had a near-full status update, and said "twin"- the party originally in the room- was aware of the fact that a floating cloth for privacy was outside.
"Err... Madame Sub Rosa! Scary, like a spirit in old tales! She talks without evident means too!"
Otherwise things would've been REALLY awkward, considering that he'd arrived very recently and hence had no natural understanding of English. Or French. Or Sindarin. Or anything else which plausibly could have been used to communicate.
Said translator translated some of his invectives to things so unprintable that they have been redacted, others were translated literally to things such as "wet-bird-standing-on-dragonfly", and the most frequently repeated translated well- "one-who-reduces-knowledge-to-filth." Despite how it might have appeared, the kid's ire was directed at the situation, the Sues, and, well, the frankly terrifying weapons.
He had, however, managed to pick up ONE word.
"MEEP! Please don't hurt me! I would, but I'm only a trainee, and a really new one at that!!!"
Nearby, the person who was technically his counterpart from a nearly-identical universe but for brevity was referred to as his twin burst in.
"Hey, what are you-"
Seeing the weapons, he flinched and became almost still. Small things moved- an eye, a thumb. His "twin" did the same, but for longer, and then they cycled back and forth; at the end, he had a near-full status update, and said "twin"- the party originally in the room- was aware of the fact that a floating cloth for privacy was outside.
"Err... Madame Sub Rosa! Scary, like a spirit in old tales!"
She didn't waste time on any more chat, opting to tackle her double to the ground. She got a hold of Sue!Rina's hair and yanked, causing the Sue to screech.
"Lesson one," Rina panted, twisting her hands in the thick hair, "Keep your hair short." She laughed when the Sue tried to grab hold, but Rina's short hair didn't provide enough of a handhold and her fingers just slid through.
The Homestuck creature was standing a few meters away, holding the bouncy ball in preparation for another throw.
"I think I've got her," Rina said, then yelled when the Sue bit down. "Aagh! Don't got her!"
Ugh, this always happens. Whenever I make a long post, I always reread it afterwards and catch something I didn't earlier, like here when I was all "Argh no I meant 'most notably' the axes, not 'namely' the axes; 'namely' implies that they were the unnecessary part when it's just the sheer number of random swords and cleavers and such that Stu-Lonny's carrying" or "Argh no those details were not nearly clear enough for my purposes why did I say it like that" or something else that makes me wish for the twenty-oddth time that the Board had an editing function. I will almost certainly have to clarify something in that super-long post for someone.
Silver gritted her teeth as she strummed the last note, her fingers raw from the hard strings of the ukulele. She had picked up the talent in Hawaii, and was truly working hard at it. However, it couldn't be said that she was very good. She moved her fingers late.
She shook her ash blonde hair back and stretched her fingers, then started picking at the strings, letting her sore index finger rest. Her favorite song was a picking song, so she played it, humming along to the tune.
When it finished -- on a rolling Am, contrary to her original desire to preserve the skin of her index finger -- it seemed she was hearing echoes. It sounded as though the Am note was still going on… but she had stopped.
She couldn't be going crazy, not at this age. Silver pressed her fingers to her temples.
She sat their for a few more seconds, then hastily jumped up and walked over to her door, poking her head inside her living room.
What she saw there made her jump back far enough to touch the other wall.
A beautiful blonde woman with the prettiest, brightest grayish-blue eyes stared back at her.
They were the same… but they were different. Silver's hair was darker, and her eyes deeper gray, with slate-gray around the edges. Not that bright, not that large and doe-y.
"Who are you?"
Silver looked at the Sue, fury dancing up inside her like flames. "May I ask exactly what you are doing in my response center?"
The Sue smiled demurely.
Silver's mouth twitched.
The monitor beeped.
And Silver swung her fist, connecting the flat of her palm to the Sue's face.
Silver sprinted for the door.
that looked just like several agents she'd seen around Headquarters. The sickly-sweet stench of lavender, honeysuckle and sunshine made her cough, unfortunately drawing the attention of several doubles standing nearby.
Rina braced her feet, readying herself for a fight, when a door several yards down the corridor burst open and a woman burst out, followed closely by someone who was either her twin sister or her Sue doppleganger.
((You might want to double-space between paragraphs to make it easier to read, by the way.))
"Just a minute, I'm coming."
Gaspard, who was seated in front of the television watching The Day of the Doctor, grabbed the remote and paused the DVD. The Spy quickly made his way to the door and cracked it open. "Yes... um... hello?"
Through the gap he saw himself-- or rather a taller, cleaner, and more muscular version of himself wearing a black three-piece suit. The Other Gaspard smiled and shoved the muzzle of a Five-seven pistol into Gaspard's nose.
"Excuse me, may I come in?" asked the Other, his voice smooth and slightly reminiscent of Pierce Brosnan. "I'd just like to have a quick chat with you."
Gaspard very slowly opened the door. The Other lowered his firearm and briskly entered the Response Centre. "Ah, fascinating. I always wondered what my living space would look like if I were a different man. Well, when I say different, I mean sad and alone and unimportant. Look at this. So spartan! Table with chairs, couch with TV, smaller table with stuff on it, half-stocked kitchenette over there, bedroom over there, bathroom there. Back at my pad, I've at least got some decorations up. You should do that too, son. Livens up the place. Oh, come on. Don't just stand by the door looking like you just saw a ghost! Come, sit!" the Other gestured towards the couch in front of the television with his pistol. "Oh, and close the door too. Lock it, please. I don't want any interruptions during these talks."
"Er... right." said Gaspard quietly, gently closing the door and fumbling with the lock with his suddenly very cold and sweaty fingers. He stiffly walked back towards the couch as the Other pulled a folding stool from his Satchel of Holding. As Gaspard took a seat on his couch, the Other sat on the stool and put his legs up on the coffee table, kicking away the neat stacks of notes and DVDs as he did so.
"Firstly," said the Other, producing a flask from his satchel, "I would like to apologize for the brusque entry. I like to think I am a gentleman, but sometimes there needs to be a little force applied in the right places for things to happen." He took a swig from the flask and offered it to Gaspard. "Firewhiskey. Want some?"
"Oh, no, that's okay," said Gaspard, blinking sweat out of his eyes. "You said you wanted to talk?"
"Yes. Now, second order of business..." the Other put his flask back in his satchel, pulled a smartphone from his pockets, and snapped a picture of Gaspard with it. "Thank you. Tomoko is gonna get a real laugh out of this. Into the bag it goes. You know, alternate me-- you that is-- you're really ugly. Like, really fekking ugly. How do you live with yourself, son?"
The Spy's mouth worked silently for a few seconds. "Uh... I don't... what?"
"No, seriously. You got acne out of the wazoo, a crooked nose, ugly eyes-- which look like some sort of mud brown colour to me-- stupid haircut, and even stupider bowtie. What the heck, man? Wear a tie like a real man!" The Other pointed to his simple black tie with the muzzle of this Five-seven. "Did you buy it yourself?"
"N-no. It w-was a gift." said Gaspard, trying to keep his voice steady.
The Other stared at his "host", then at his pistol. He made a sudden movement with this firearm and Gaspard dodged accordingly. "Oh. Still worried about this thing, right? Like I said, I'm a gentleman. No need to feel threatened among alternate selves, eh?" The Other thumbed the magazine release and let the mag clatter to the floor. He then pulled sharply on the slide and caught the ejected cartridge in midair. To finish, he pointed the unloaded pistol at Gaspard and pulled the trigger. "CLICK! Ha ha! You should see your face! Ha ha ha... ah. Now that I'm disarmed, you should do the same. Oh, don't play stupid with me. We're the same person, you and I! I know we both have weapons on us. I put aside my pistol, you do the same to yours. No funny business, eh?"
Gaspard very slowly reached into his Adventure Pouch strapped to his belt and pulled out a Webley Mk VI revolver. He broke the revolver in half to show it was unloaded and set it on the table. The Other arched an eyebrow and picked it up.
"A revolver? Really? You're ugly and stupid. Sheeeit, don't you want a semi-automatic by your side?"
"It's not what I'm supposed to do," said Gaspard. "I'm a Spy. I'm just there to see the sights, not kill loads of people. A revolver reminds me that what firepower I have is limited and should not be used wastefully."
The Other shrugged and started playing with the Webley's hammer. "Yeah, so? I'm a Spy too. Recon Department: first ones in, last ones out. If something doesn't fit in a fic, we shoot it dead! The Assassins take out the stragglers and BAM! The Word World has been saved. That's not how it works for you guys? No? Man, this world sucks. Oh, personal questions: ever had a girlfriend? Been promoted? Had lots of friends? Killed something, maybe?" The Other put the revolver back on the table and stared at his alternate self over steepled fingers.
"Er.... none of the above...?" said Gaspard.
"Not even a kill? I thought we were in the business of removing unwanted influences from worlds. What good is someone who can't fight?"
The Spy stared at his Webley lying on the table. "
"I just wanted to know how much of a loser you are. I'm hopping from AU to AU, interviewing all my alternate selves, and you're the biggest loser so far. Look, more evidence," the Other pointed to the fallen stack of DVDs. "You watch My Little Pony. Hey, where is your fedora?"
"Look, did you specifically come here to insult me or do you have something else to do?"
The Other struck a mock pensive pose. "Hm... You're fun to screw with, but really boring. I should go. Well, I can't say this has been a pleasure. I've met the most pathetic me yet. Maybe the next one will be a bit more interesting. Toodle-oo."
With that, the Other scooped his Five-seven off the table, retrieved the magazine from the floor, and put the parts in his suit's front pocket. He folded the stool back up and tucked it under his arm as he walked towards the door.
Gaspard suddenly grabbed his revolver in one hand and pulled a speedloader from his Adventure pouch. He pushed the six bullets into the cylinder using the device and snapped the revolver shut. The Spy quickly rose from his seated position and pointed the gun at his doppelgänger. "Stop right there. You're not allowed to leave. Any suspicious move and I'll shoot."
The Other stopped with one hand on the lock. "You're too much of a coward to shoot me. You never killed anything before, so why start now?" he asked without turning around.
"You are a threat to the PPC. I'll stop you."
"I'll be travelling to another universe in a couple of minutes. Sure, some of my kind are out in the hallways, but agents from your universe should clean them up quickly. I promise I won't cause trouble."
Click. Gaspard had thumbed the revolver's hammer. "I'm serious. If you know what's good for you, surrender now."
"I don't think so. Goodbye." the Other unlocked the door and twisted the doorknob.
"All right," said Gaspard, lowering the revolver. "I guess that means Yakov can take care of you instead."
"What--"
The Other unlocked the door and pulled it open. At that moment, the RC's bathroom door exploded outwards and let through Yakov Minin, wand drawn, yelling "PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!"
The Other's arms and legs snapped together, causing him to fall backwards. The Russian wizard ran over to the Stu's body and dragged it away from the door while Gaspard locked the door again and shoved a nearby table in front of it for good measure. Once the PPC agents caught their breath, they looked at each other and grinned.
"That was a really lucky time to go for a bathroom break, right?" chuckled Yakov, twirling his wand around his fingers. "Didn't even notice me in there. I heard everythin' that poor sod said to ya. Rude fellow, isn't 'ee?"
"Indeed he is, sir," said Gaspard, wiping the cold sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "Your timing is impeccable, as always. What should we do with him?"
"I say hand him to DMSER. It's where 'ee belongs, right? We don't get lots of agent look-alike Suvians, do we?"
"Agreed, sir. I should message the DIA while I'm at it: he mentioned others in the hallways."
"Do it, man. Afterwards, 'ow about we finish that movie?"
"Sounds good, sir."
Rina was unused to the silence, but with Randa off exploring Headquarters and Mcgonagoll being suspiciously silent in his web nest thing, she allowed herself to lounge on her bed, a well-thumbed copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in her hands, looking forward to a good long time to read.
She'd barely turned to the first page, though, when a smell similar to boiled cabbage met her nostrils, quickly followed by a loud shriek. Rina sighed and got up to investigate.
She slid the door of the RC open and found herself face-to-face with... herself?
The other Rina flipped her waist-length, shiny chocolate brown hair and looked questioningly at Rina with large emerald green eyes that shone with artificial intelligence.
"Like, hi! Can you tell me where I am?" The other Rina's voice was high and breathy.
Not even pausing to think, Rina punched her Sue doppleganger in the face and ducked around her into the corridor for more room to maneuver. That was when the boiled cabbage smell grew stronger.