Subject: Badfic games, anyone?
Author:
Posted on: 2023-09-21 11:40:10 UTC
It's September, and we've yet to start the Games. I say, let them commence! At least, once hS puts together his fun introductory post on it, and we learn how FanficVerse is doing! Down with Lichtenstein!
-Ls, not melting in despair
considering how i’m still somewhat new to ppc :b how do the badfic games work? how do i join? do you need any permission or already created agents to join? i haven’t written anything that’s ppc canon :b
https://www.plotprotectors.org/posts/176192
And welcome!
~Z, in a bit of a rush
We AREN'T up to date with our archives, we AREN'T up to date on what's going on with the PPC, we AREN'T up to our eyeballs in Prince-Primate Konstantin de Leuchtenberg's Confederation of the Rhine Restorationist (Counter-)Revolutionaries (Liechtenstein Faction)...
...and we AREN'T up to the task of refusing your request to re-open our doors to all the PPC fanfiction you can come up with!
So welcome back, one and all, to the greatest fanfic website of all time.
[[PPKdLCotRR(C)R(LF): Alexander von Hohenzollern's faction are on board, commence Operation Napoleon Blownapart.]]
fanficVERSE - for the fanfic you can't find anywhere else!
Welcome to the PPC Badfic Game! Ripping off the previous intro post because that seems to be a tradition now...
What is this? This is the thread where we let our inner badfic writers have free rein. All PPC stories are technically fanfics of the Original Series - but they're all goodfics. That's clearly unreasonable - most fanfic of anything is terrible. So this is your chance to write the baddest of the badfics. Go nuts!
Who can I write about? Any agents currently in the PPC are open for you to mutilate. There's a Creativity Shield around ffV, so everything here is emphatically uncanon. Try to avoid using abandoned agents whose creators have left, and if someone asks in this thread that their agents not be used, please respect that.
Where do I post? In this thread, please. An increasing number of previous games are on fanficVERSE, but it's not a live site; I'll archive stuff When I Get Round To It (TM).
What name should I post under? You should come up with the badficauthorest name you can, of course! Take a look at some of our previous examples. (Note: there's no need to make a new account, just edit your name when you post.)
What sort of story should I write? A bad one! Obviously. But also one that's fun to read. Try not to overdo it on the illegible typos, and remember that you're trying to be funny, not offensive.
Can I leave reviews? Emphatically yes - that's half the fun of the game! But do remember to leave them in character - and equally, remember that the flames you receive are not real flames. They're a game. Don't get upset.
Do I need a beta? Hahahahahahahaha. Don't be ridiculous. ^-^ What sort of badfic writer has a beta?
Do I need Permission? Again, what sort of badfic writer asks permission? (No. No you don't.)
Why are we doing this? Because it's fun! And traditional!
hS/JayBird/admin@fanficVERSE
Once upon a time, there was a hight schooler by the name of Merlin. When he was in class one day, he opened his locker- only to see a magic portal! He quickly fell in, only to land on sone grey concrete. He looked down and said wow that is sonr gray concrete!
Then Majesthibgs showed up abd gave him the all new all cool ppc device-tje ultimate allinone Sue fighter@!
So merlin took the device, opened a portal, and went out to fight mary Suez!
An; Sorry its shory abd laye I had a test to study for, abd I had to go to my mom's funeral so if you flame YUO HATe hER and YUOR EVIL no im not making that up it's totalky reall byeeeeeeeeee!!!!
Somgow i got ZERO REVOIWS HOW COULD YOU GUYS IM OFFEDNDED anway heres the bext part loozers ps u better review
Merlin walked itno panama ( get it like the canal, it was a pun in suez) and spotted one. He set the allinone to XXXtra mode and fired at the sue, and then Pooof! She was gone. This gave merlin sum more xp, so he could power up to level 2! He realixed he cud access the Blanke skin ( lime the agent of course.) But sonce blank sucks he didnt put it on. Just then, one os the suez SHOT HIM IN THE BACK!!!!
WHAT WILL HAPPEN BEXT!! DUnnn dun din dun oh whoops autocorect wad on
-li
sorry i took so longggg some meanies tried to cancel my vid
its v long and i think ive made some improvements from last time uwu
oh also if ur in russia u cant watch it there bc of copyright
[The story was very well thought out, a PPC badfic turned on its head into an actually very developed (but still silly and self-aware) story!
47 minutes long, too? That must've required many, many hours!]
The gacha lady should of beat all the people! Abs why wad everyeryone named melody? More like moldy get it? You should of made the animation better to. But why did the sprling on some of the word tslk change? Hmmm? Is it because you sonehow forgor what you were doing? Why not get a reL animation studio 2 do it bext time hm..m.
-lol
((I am genuinely impressed by the work put into that. The moral message, and the fact that you put it together. Wow. I may have left a few comments highlighting my favorite parts.
Seriously, bravo. -Ls))
at least i can laugh abt ur dumb comments
the one smart thing you did was put lol in ur name xD
the only dumb i did was watch ur definitely terrible movie thing. Btw, how did u do it? for a friend
AND MY NAME IS USUCKKITTYKING NOW SO TAKE THATTT!!!!!!!!!
(-Ls)
43 minutes thats really xool i haven't watchied it all but win i do you can bet ill come vack 2 giv a commemt how can u be sp cool zzomggggg
-lol
((I am actually impressed by your dedication. Like, wow that is a lot. -Ls))
Well done! How cool would it be to team up with different versions of yourself and kill god?!
Title: The Mastersmith’s Apprentice
Author: The Half-blood Ponce
Summary: What does Agent Suicide do when a Pern mission almost goes horribly wrong?
One day, Agent Suicide needed a partner for a mission. Agent Diocletian was being gross with her boyfriend, everyone else was busy, and his intern Henry Robinson couldn’t go because his mom wouldn’t let him. It was super annoying, but since they weren’t dating anymore, he couldn’t do anything about it.
He sent a message to the Flowers, and finally they wrote back that they were sending him a new recruit.
“Oh, great,” said Suicide. “Some idiot newbie I’ll have to train. Okay, fine.”
Soon, there was a knock at his door. When he opened it, there was a teenage boy standing outside. He looked pretty normal, which didn’t really mean anything, but at least he wasn’t a total Sue.
“You must be the kid they sent me,” said Suicide. “What’s your name?”
“Robert,” said the boy, “Robert McGillicuddy.”
“Okay, I’m gonna call you Bob. Is that cool, Bob?”
Robert shrugged. “I guess. So you’re Agent Suicide? I’ve heard all about you. It’s an honor to work with you.”
Suicide nodded. “Sucking up to your betters. Good life skill. Keep it up and I might just make a man out of you.” He invited Bob into the RC. “First of all, do you have gear in that backpack?”
Robert nodded. “Yes, they gave me a CAD, an RC, and everything. My parents gave me a lunch, too. They’re both agents,” he added.
“Oh, you’re a Headquarters brat?” said Suicide. “Great, then I shouldn’t have to tell you how this works. Ever killed anything before?”
Robert shook his head. “No, but I’ve trained a lot. I can shoot a bow and a gun, and I can tie really good knots.”
“You’ll do,” said Suicide approvingly. “Sadly, you probably won’t need to shoot anything, since we’re going to Pern. What do you know about it?”
“Everything,” said Robert, looking excited. “I’ve always wanted to see a dragon up close!”
“Well, Bob, it’s your lucky day,” said Suicide. “Don’t screw it up.”
They went through the portal and came out disguised as a mastersmith and his apprentice. Instead of “darning needles,” Suicide had a big smithing hammer and a belt knife. Robert had a belt knife and a punch for making holes in runner-shoes.
The fic was set in a Weyr, but it didn’t say which one, so it just looked generic. The Hatching was about to start.
“Typical,” said Suicide. “They always have to have a speshul dragon.”
“Looks like he gets a regular blue dragon, though,” said Robert.
“It looks that way, but the Sue is a girl who dressed as a boy to get Searched in the first place.”
“Oh. Why didn’t she just set the story after Mirrim Impressed Path? Or just be a boy?”
“Who knows.”
“Wait a minute, is this a crossover with Eragon?” Robert looked at the Words. “Her name is Erake. That’s like how Eragon is ‘dragon’ with an E instead of a D. And... uh-oh. If she Impresses, the dragon is going to give her magic powers! We have to stop her!”
“Wait, don’t get too close!” Suicide yelled, but it was too late.
Robert jumped onto the Hatching Sands and ran up to Erake. “Stop!” he said. “I know you’re a Mary Sue, and you can’t do this! I’m an agent of the PPC and I’m charging you with having a silly name, tricking the dragons into Searching you by wearing boy’s clothes—which totally wouldn’t fool them, by the way—and crossing Pern with Eragon just so you can have extra-speshul Sueper powers. The penalty is death.” Robert took his punch and put a hole in her head. She fell down.
Just then, the egg in front of her and Robert cracked open! The blue dragonet stumbled out, keening. For one moment, it looked at Robert, and Robert stared into its rainbow eyes. Oh no. This was why Suicide had told him to stop. If he Impressed, he would have to stay on Pern forever. He could never go home or be an agent again!
But then Erake died, and the blue dragonet couldn’t see Robert anymore. It went away to find another candidate (and didn’t give him any magic).
Robert sighed with relief. He and Suicide got Erake’s body and dropped it in Mount Garben during the eruption.
“You got lucky, Bob,” said Suicide. “If you had actually Impressed, either you’d be stuck here or I’d have to kill you for being a Gary Stu yourself.”
“I know,” said Robert. “Not gonna lie, though, it would be really, really cool to have a dragon.”
“That’s true,” said Suicide. Then he looked around, all shifty. “Tell you what, kid. Since you made your first kill today, that deserves a reward. And since we’re already on the Southern Continent, I bet we could find a fire-lizard clutch. No one would have to know.”
Robert stared at him. “You’d let me Impress a fire-lizard? Is that allowed?”
“Well, technically, yes as long as the Flowers don’t find out until it’s too late.” Suicide winked. “Come on, Bob, let’s go.”
THE END
A/N: I don’t really write fanfic, but I had to write a short story with an OC in it for a class. It turned out okay I think, so I put it up here, but whatever.
Beta’d by my friend Mugglus Vulgaris. (It means the Common Or Garden-Variety Muggle, not anything gross, so you sickos who made fun of her had better keep your mouths shut or I’ll hex you. I MEAN IT. You know who you are.) She’s cool, go read her stuff if you don’t like mine.
(( I wasn't going to leave OOC notes, but I want it on the record that writing "RC" instead of "RA" was a genuine mistake I failed to notice until after I posted. It's staying in, of course. Hurrah for unforced errors! {X D ))
youre a rubbish person and your story is rubbish a fire lizard wouldnt even like you i bet ourws would BITE you
you know what you did
((What he did was upset Daphne a little, so now he has to face the wrath of a nine year old whose first writing system has no capital letters. ^_^))
((Also I love how incomprehensible any of this will be unless you read the entire archive for this year in order.))
First of all if u even read the story you'd know it's not me. If u can't give concrit then u shouldn't review.
Second of all I didn't do anything to u, what are u on about??
(( So, uh, they really thought they were being very clever with their "OCs," huh? And Henry laughed in their faces, thinking he was only teasing because surely they didn't really think they were fooling anyone except Google, surely. Whoops. Looks like he's living up to his screen name after all. ^_^; ))
(( Of course, Henry also thinks he's being very clever with his "OC." He's certainly fooled himself. {= D ))
Title: When PPC Agents Need Help
Author: Glycoside Party
Summary: What happens when two PPC agents need help? Will they learn something??
ONCE upon a time there was a very old PPC agent named Tafydd Issian. He was incredibly old, like older than dirt, and everything he said seemed to start with "when I was young, back before the BIG BANG".
His partner was Nonstance Zims, who was not as old but said she felt older. Everything she said started with "ow my back aches". And they worked together, stabbing things and setting them on fire, or sometimes the other way round. And Tafydd was an elf.
Now this all happened so long ago that there were only three canons, and they were the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Silmarillion, and that Robin Hood movie with the foxes in it. And Tafydd and Nonstance went on a mission to the Robin Hood, but little did they know!
ONCE upon a time in Sherlock Forest, Robin Hood and his friends Sparrow Hat and Qua-qua Cap were playing a game. The game was called Don't Let The Sherrif Catch You, and the goal was not to let the Sheriff catch them.
"Oh dear," said Nonstance as the agents got there, "they got the name of the forest wrong."
"Yes," said Tafydd, "everyone knows it is Sherbert Forest."
Nonstance groaned because her back ached. "But we will do better than the Sherriff, because we will catch them."
So Nonstance took her knives and Tafydd took his fire things, and they went into Sherbert Forest after Robin and his two friends, because they realised that his friends were Suvians. Because Sparrow Hat was a girl, and the patriartchy says that Robin Hood wasn't allowed to have girl friends apart from Maid Marian (even though the girls in the film are cool, like the nurse and the little rabbit), and Qua-qua Cap ran around saying "I'm gonna steal from the POOR and give to the RICH", and he pretended it was a joke but the agents could knew that it wasn't.
The Sherif and King John and Sir Hiss were walking through the forest when suddenly an arrow hit King John's crown! It knocked it off and Sparrow Hat stole it.
"Get that hat!" shouted King John.
"Do you mean the girl or the crown?" shouted Sire Hiss.
"I mean the crown obviously!" shouted King John.
"Good because I don't hit girls!" shouted the Shirrif , even though HE REALLY DID because he was a baddie.
"Why is there so much shouting," asked Nonstance, "it makes my head hurt."
"Nobody should be allowed to shout," agreed Tafydd, "even when it is really important and they need to get your attention but you just tell them off for it."
"I am glad we agree," said Nonstance.
"Look, Sparrow Hat is by herself." Tafydd pointed to where Sparrow Hat was hiding in the forest while the Sheriif looked for her (but didn't find her). "Let's go and kill her."
The agents snuck through Sherbert FOrest, but OOPS! They forgot that Robin Hood had laid traps! They fell into a hole and were trapped at the bottom of it.
"Oh bother," said Nonstance.
"In my day we didn't fall into traps," said Tafydd.
"Are you okay?" said a nother voice, and they looked up to see two children! One was a fox girl with a blonde streak of fur on her head, and one was a speedy sloth who was hanging upside down in a tree.
"Hello," said the girl, "I am Thaphne and this is my bother Woleander. We live in the forest."
"We used to have parents but they were killed by King John," said Woleander, but he didn't look sad about it.
"Oh, you live in the forest," said Tafydd. "Then you must know Robin Hood."
"We do!" said Thaphne. "But we don't know his new friends."
"We don't like them", said Woleander, hissing like a snake (but he wasn't a snake). "We think they are evil."
"You are completely right," said Nonstance, "well done. They are called Suvians and we are here to kill them."
"But we are stuck in a hole," said Tafydd, "so you will have to kill them instead."
"Okay," said Thaphne and Woleander, and they took Nonstance's knives (but not Tafydd's fire things because they knew that lighting fires in a forest is really dangerous and nobody wants another Rivendell Incident) and went to find the Suvians. It wasn't hard, because Tafydd taught them to read the WOrds.
Sparrow Hat and Qua-qua Cap were by the Sherlock River, arguing about the crown. "We should give it to the poor," said Sparrow Hat.
"We should give it to the rich," said Qua-qua Cap with an evil smile.
But they weren't paying attention to what was going on nearby. Thaphne and Woleander snuck up on them, and then Thaphne stabbed Sparrow Hat and Woleander stabbed Qua-qua Cap, and they died.
"Good job," said Tafydd.
"We couldn't have done it without you," said Nonstance.
"I wish I had known you when I was a child," said Tafydd, "which was a very long time ago."
"Now I understand that children are great at doing things and don't need to be told off," said Nonstance.
"Wow, thank you!" said Thaphne. "Can we join the PPC?"
"You already have by your amazing work," said Tafydd. "Welcome, Agent Thaphne and Agent Woleander! We will take you to the Sunflower immediately."
"WHat's a Sunflower?" asked the children together as they went through the portal and into… their destiny.
FINE
It's a bit short, but that's okay.
I don't know why u changed the names if u were only going to change one letter, but I guess its funny?
For concrit, it's Sherwood Forest actually... even in the Disney version. Sherbert Forest sounds sticky lol.
(( Thinking about how a PPC kid approaches fanfic is something else, isn't it? I'm trying, but it's a stretch. Doesn't help that I was never a 14-year-old boy. {X D ))
These are actually completely original characters, I don't know HY you'd think they were just changed names, who would they even be changed form???
ye thats right and mom will never find out
What are you talking about we don't even have a mom.
((Smooth, Daphne, really smooth.))
its just a coincidence that Tafydd, Nonstance, Thaphne, and Woleander sound A WHOLE LOT like Dafydd, Constance, Daphne, and Oleander?
Suuuuuuuuuuure. Whatever you say Not!Daphne and Not!Oleander. I totes believe you. Even the part about not having a mom lollolol.
You know what, I'm gonna show this story to my friend Danfin. I bet he;ll like it hahaha. What do u think?
"I'm monkey d puffy," said the boy cheerfully. "I'm going to be kind of the pirates!"
"Oh, I see!" Said ilraen. He rather liked this boy: his attitude was very good natured, and Ilraen thought they might get along well. "How will you do that?" What a strange world he was in.
"Well," said Liffy, "first we're going to find the One Piece!"
("Hang on," Dawn said. She was reading over Jenni's shoulder. "Is that what One Piece is about?"
"Mhm." Jenni scrolled down a bit further, sparing a smile and a scritch for the very pleased gold fire lizard Gwilithiel. "Pirates all the way down..."
"Cool," Dawn said, with feeling, and the two kept reading.)
"So we're going to get there, but first we need this map," Luffy said. "And we've lost it, so--"
"What's the map look like?" Asked olraen. "Maybe I can help."
("It looks like a map, probably," Dawn said. "On the plus side, this looks pretty harmless! Just a lot of minis. I don't see anything that would be upsetting for Ilraen to read yet."
"Better safe than sorry," Jenni said. Her tone warned of knowledge gained through harsh experience. "You never quite know with these. Poor Gerry once read one about himself that was fine - even funny - until he reached the last chapter..."
"Oh, poor Gerry," Dawn said, grimacing. "Okay, let's keep going. Ilraen's a sweetheart; if we're going to screen this for him, I'd feel especially bad if it turned out we missed something awful...")
[~Z has been watching the live action One Piece and mostly rather enjoying it, with zero prior knowledge apart from the title name and animation style of the original. The pirates were a surprise!]
"wow" said puffy and ilraen at the same time. "Good fighter!!" Sanji heard and grinned at them before kicking a Fishman in the face!!! Zoro sighed. There's two of them, he thought. But he kind of liked ilraen, because ilraen was really nice and even zoro want immune to people being unrelwntedly nice to him. Even though he tried to be because zoro was TOUGH.
"Get the map!!" Nami yelled a minute later. "The thing in the gold tube!" "Got it" yelled luffy and he streeeeeeeeeeeeeetched out his arm and took it away from the marine who'd just picked it up!! "Gum guuuummm....catch!"
("So this was definitely written by a kid, right?" Dawn said, unable to keep from smiling. "Like, no offense if I'm wrong, but this definitely feels like something my kids would write." She paused. "...hey, Jenni, haven't they all been getting together to watch Netflix recently?"
Jenni stopped reading (and petting Gwilithiel, to an indignant chitter from the gold) and blinked up at her. "...they have." A smile began to tug at her mouth. "You don't think--?"
"The author clearly thinks Ilraen is great," Dawn said, grinning. "Almost as if he's...a favorite uncle?"
Jenni began to laugh, a little ruefully. "So this is what they've been so excited about doing on Seren's tablet lately, hm?" she said, and shook her head. "I guess at least it's unlikely they'll write anything especially scarring..."
Dawn leaned down and put a hand on her shoulder, mock serious. "What if they hit on something scarring by accident? We have to be responsible and keep reading, Jenni. There's no other option. Just think how embarrassing it would be if our kids accidentally scarred Ilraen and we could've stopped it!" She was grinning at the end.
Jenni's serious expression was steadier, though not by very much. "Of course, you're very right. We need to read this all the way through before it gets to Ilraen." She paused, allowing the serious expression to give way to mischief. "I think we need some snacks. Maybe some tea. Are you game?"
Dawn grinned at her. "Reconvene in fifteen minutes?"
Jenni grinned back. "I'll make the tea."
"I'll gather snacks," Dawn promised, and slipped away through a portal with Gwilithiel flying cheerful swoops around her head.)
[So Nesh pointed out that this sounded like the kids might be writing it, and I think that's too adorable to pass up! Also, with apologies to Luffy: autocorrect is not especially fond of his name! Weirdly, it has no real issue with Ilraen. ~Z]
Tho i dont get thy you habe all the sideays text stuff. Os someone spyinf on ilraen? What are they gpnas do two him!!!@@@1
Iv CANt wait to find out
Um that's nothing lol, hq is just being silly and messing with how many of the Words r showing don't work about it
Thanx for reading!!!!!!! ~*~dw~*@~
[[Frantically mimicking DuskWater's previous signatures because this is Of Course actually her using her account to post One Piece crossover fanfic starring Ilraen the Cool Uncle... XD ~Z]]
You guys are NOT old enough to be on here, how did u talk some rando into borrowing their account anyway? And u really thought our moms WOULDNT find out?? Have you MET our moms??
I don't know if Raen even knows about One Piece anyway, but I guess the story isn't BAD, tho? But like get a beta, srsly, come ON. Do u want GrammarBootCamp cuz this is how u get GrammarBootCamp.
(( This is definitely not the FfV username of Henry Robinson, who is definitely too cool to write fanfic and may or may not entirely understand what "ponce" means. ))
Ummmm I didn't know about that. KIND OF regerting signing up at this point but my brother insisted.
no we didnt
Yes you did you said oh it's such a good idea we should sign up.
no wasnt me maybe it was
Don't use names here! We are Glycoside Party and that's IT.
im not a party im a halfelf
frist of all his name is ILLIAN not iralien or whatevs. dOn't know howyou got that so wrong..
and third its' the one RING, Iget that it's hard too rememember words sometims but its' right there in the title "lord of the ONE RING"
but NEway this is like a PPC/LotOR/PotC crossover right?? thas't pretty clever, and we ALL NOW that Barabossa and Jarrow (lol I cal him Jarrow) LLLLLOVE enchanted gold so it macks sense. is Illian there to stop them or start them????
((That is ADORABLE and I am NOT going to have the Illian-Sims kids get in on the badficcing. I'm not. I'm not.))
Like that sounds totally awesome but it's like...a whole other story
Right so Miss DuskWater says to tell you please that she really likes the idea you've laid out and she might write that separate from what we're doing but what were doing is for a whole nother canon so don't worry everything's fine
But also Ilraen is awesome so you should definitely stick around and keep reading our story to!!! But maybe we can have [[help me, what the heck would these kids call Dafydd - you know what, there are up to 6+ of them involved in this, I bet there are multiple correct answers]] Agent Illian make a cameo too at some point because miss duskwater says you're like a bnf here? So that's apparently a big deal? Anyway, he could totally come in and see something on fire, that would be really cool
Anyway!!!!! This is about Ilraeb in a REALLY COOL SHOW called one piece where they all want to find a bunch of treasure that this one scary pirate xalled Gold Roger hid all in one piece and now everyone wants to get it but they can't find it ..
Anyway you should totally watch the show is awesome and like. Stick around and keep reading so you can get to know ilraen too and also who knows maybe you'll think he's awesome too!!!!!!!!!
[[XD Aren't you? It would be very cute. There could end up being a little parents' book fanfic club, though I could see the poor kids getting really embarrassed if they found out...depending on the kid, anyway.
Also, I love how thoroughly JayBird was able to misread that. It really is kind of tempting to write a tiny amount of her version - we'll see if I get there! ~Z]]
Something silly will probably happen
Thanks to Louee Carolole for beta reading.
John made his way down the Generic halls, his heavy footfalls echoing loudly with every step.
At nine feet and over half a ton of armored giant, many passing Agents gave him and the heavy rifle slung over his back a wide berth as they passed.
John, for the most part, was more confused than anything else. His senses were dulled from years of scavenging to survive, killing to survive, and he couldn't remember the last time he had even met a living creature that hadn't tried to murder him. Now here he was, walking through hallways full of people - actual, living people, all of them perfectly content to leave him be.
Before this, his only memories of humans came in the form of corpses, decaying with expressions frozen in fear or pain or defiance. John never had the time to mourn the dead as he scavenged their bodies for ammo and tools to fight back the Invaders that plagued his homeworld, his brain filled with nothing but masterfully crafted plans to stand and fight as the last living resistance.
Except he wasn’t the last living being, apparently. There were humans here, and they seemed blissfully unaware of any horrors in his home world. It was almost funny, but John’s sense of humor had atrophied long ago.
The current lack of action felt as alien as the monsters he had fought for so long. He felt caged, despite being more safe here than he had ever been back on his fallen Earth.
Lost in his thoughts, he almost missed the door to his newly assigned 'Response Center,' denoted by the balsa-plated 682 etched neatly into its metal surface. He pressed a hand against the metal door and leaned in, checking for noise - nothing. With that, he pulled the knob and entered the RC.
It took a moment for him to register the room as a living space, simply because he was only used to seeing them destroyed - holes melted through walls, the rotting corpses of former occupants usually littered across the floor.
This place was clean, tidy, and simply decorated. The walls were a completely smooth and featureless gray, a messy painting of a man he didn’t recognize hung up on one of them. What looked like black sharpie was scribbled over its casing, blotting out any notable facial features.
In the center of the room was a low table seated on a carpet, a set of cushions laid out around it in a ring. On one of them sat what must have been his ‘veteran partner’ (as the talking flower had put it), staring intently at him.
It vaguely reminded him of a stuffed animal, like the ones he sometimes found in the wreckage of suburban homes ravaged by Invaders, a sign of an innocent life cut short by fire and fangs. This creature actually resembled one to a startling degree, with its stubby limbs and soft features, only that it was flesh and blood (at least it appeared to be) instead of fabrics.
It was very small, barely reaching his waist in height. Despite it standing on two stubby legs and wearing what looked like human clothing, its head shape brought to mind a children’s drawing of a mouse with its clean, white fur and round ears. Thick, oversized glasses framed small, beady eyes, and while part of it may have been the angle their height difference caused, John was half certain the mouse didn’t have a mouth. It wore a button-up collared shirt and a matching skirt, with a hand-knitted purse looped around one shoulder. A rope-like, hairless tail poked out from behind it, nearly reaching the floor.
A hint of confusion went through his mind as he took in the fact that it had hair, blonde and styled into a ponytail tied back by a small red band. Then the thought vanished as the tiny mouse reached up to him with a fittingly tiny paw.
“Hello, Mister! Are you my new partner?" Her voice was a fast and staccato babble, and his helmet’s HUD struggled to match subtitles to the words.
A vague memory of how greetings worked passed through John’s mind. He decided to listen to it, and kneeled down to the little mouse’s level to hold out a hand.
The creature took his single outstretched hand with two much smaller ones that were a single one of John's fingers dwarfed. John shook his hand, and the mouse’s feet actually left the ground slightly, pulled up by the momentum with a barely restrained squeak. More out of reflex than anything else, he immediately let go and backed away, letting the mouse drop to the floor once again.
As John stood up straight, the little mouse took a moment to regain her balance, before stepping back to hold her paws behind its back.
“You’ve got a strong grip, mister!” It said in its squeaky voice. “I’m sure you'll be a great help!”
John, still rather confused, tilted his head slightly to the side. The mouse, surprisingly, seemed happy at that. She pushed up her glasses, then leaned her head back to look at him.
“I’m Molly, your partner!” she said. “Cheesed to meet you!”
John didn’t register all of what she said at first, as his mind had stalled on one word: partner.
He knew what it meant, at least - the basic knowledge of the human language he had been created with made sure of that. He simply did not know what to expect, and that thought stirred the faintest trace of unease in his core. At least when traveling his razed Earth, he knew what monsters to expect, what they would do and what he had to do. But for this? Actually working with someone else? This was a completely unfamiliar situation, and that concerned him more than any Invader ever had.
Blissfully unaware of John’s inner thoughts, the mouse creature reached into a little pocket on her shirt and pulled out a neatly folded slip of paper. "And you would be Mister… ‘John Densepiston Flexgirth.’" She paused, adjusted her glasses, then squinted closer at the paper. "...Huh. Did I get that right?”
John was too confused to answer right away. In addition to the unfamiliar emotions from earlier, it had been such a long time since he’d had to think about his name, and trying to remember the relevant details felt like swimming through molasses. He knew the full name she gave wasn’t accurate, but his complete silence had annoyed a secretary enough to write it down as such on his official record. He didn’t feel the story was worth bringing up, though.
“Well, it’s a great name!” Molly said with a cheery, high-pitched laugh, despite him not saying a word. "Say, you don't mind if I just call you 'Mister John,' right?"
After a moment of hesitation, John gave a vague nod. Molly seemed to stand up straighter, whip-like tail flicking back and forth.
“You’re a lot nicer than my old partner, by the way,” she said. At John’s resulting helmeted stare she added: “Er - nevermind that! I'm so happy to have you here!"
John continued staring at her. He hadn’t the slightest clue what she was talking about. He was beginning to recognize a pattern.
Molly held her paws together, trying to think of what to say next.
[BEEEEEEEEEEEP AAAAAAAGH OHHHHHH THE PAAAAAAIN MAKE IT STOP—]
Molly jolted in her spot, then let out a squeak of surprise as John drew his heavy energy rifle and aimed it at the source of the noise.
“Mister John, wait!” she cried, waving her paws in an attempt to get his attention. “It’s just the console!”
She scrambled over to the blaring machine, hopping up to hit a large red button on its surface. The beeping stopped.
“There we go. Say, do you know what we do on missions, Mister John?” she asked, turning back to her partner. She noted, thankfully, that he had lowered his weapon.
John paused. He raised his rifle in one hand, tapping its side lightly with a finger.
Molly squinted, trying to guess what he was saying. “Um… oh, are you asking if there’s fighting involved? Yes, most of the missions I’ve been on end up… messy.”
Re-holstering his rifle, John stood up and walked over to the console, looking over the screen. His helmet’s programming took the words on the screen and amplified them in his vision, making them easier to read.
The Narnian Revolution
Narnia has toiled under the iron paw of Aslan and his cronies for too long! Brock Dawkins and his band of merry men set out to plan a coup that will overthrow the leonine tyrant and his church and establish a more rational form of government! Rating: T for violence. Don't like, don't read.
“So, a quick rundown on how missions work!” Molly said behind him. He heard her clap her paws together a few times. “Basically, these wish fulfillment-fueled monsters called Suvians go out and invade different worlds and mess them all up. Our job is to go and fix these problems, and then sometimes we get paid! Sound simple enough?"
It was the last part of that sentence that greatly confused John.
In all of his years killing aliens, wiping out hives, his only comfort had been the knowledge that killing monsters was his mission and his reward. John knew what a paycheck was, but the idea of receiving one was something he struggled to wrap his head around. He didn’t even know what he would do with it, seeing as he had spent decades without having to deal with money at all.
“...Mister John, are you okay?” The little mouse sounded concerned, enough so to make John snap out of his thoughts. He nodded, and Molly looked satisfied.
She reached to the side of the console and pulled out a small stepstool. She scrambled atop of it, took a moment to read the fic summary, then started typing on the console keyboard.
A shimmering blue portal opened up in the center of the room. John backed away instinctively, drawing his rifle up to bear. However, instead of the enemies he was expecting, there was… nobody. The inside of the portal revealed a hill, covered with living green grass and scattered stones.
“Don’t worry, Mister John, it’s just our portal!” Molly hopped off the stepstool and scurried over to the rift. She stepped through, then turned to look at John expectantly. “Just step through here, and we’ll be ready to go!”
John ran a few gauntleted fingers along the edge of the portal - sharp, but not enough to penetrate his armor. Preparing for anything, he stepped through the opening and into the space beyond.
(Author’s Note: Hello, y’all, Lou here again. Louie’s lost interest in participating this year. I can kind of see why, four years is a long time to dedicate for someone as young as him. Besides, he’s busy with middle school now. He wanted me to relay this information to explain his absence, so… yeah, here you go.
Anyways, looks like I’m completely filling in for him this year. Hope you don’t mind, and thanks for the patience.
-Lou Carolina)
((The Protectors of the Plot Continuum belongs to Jay and Acacia, and I only own RC #682's John and Molly, in addition to the fic being sporked. John’s PPC name was suggested by doctorlit.))
The first thing the Agents noticed was a tall, smoothly carved wall, not visible at first since it had been behind their portal exit. It appeared to belong to some kind of military base, the building looming over them both. It was imposing and gray, standing out against the natural colors of the surrounding hill and forest.
“What is this?” said Molly, staring down at the hard, concrete wall. Gingerly, she leaned down to press a paw to the surface. “It’s so cold, and… I don’t think I like this.”
Then she jolted, seeming to remember something, and she turned to John. “Oh, almost forgot! If you let your eyes go a little out of focus you can read the Words of the fic you’re in! Very important job tip.”
John stared in confusion for a few seconds. He briefly considered if she was lying, but decided she had no real reason to. He focused, blurring his vision - then his helmet beeped. He stared down at the corner of his visor as small text started to scroll across it. Figuring that these were the 'Words' his partner spoke of, he watched carefully.
I walked carefully across the walls of my rebel bunker, staring over the forests. This was a broken land, weighted down by outdated traditions and filled with people kneeling to their dictator of a master, not even questioning anything he did.
The place needed some improvements, and I knew exactly who to call.
“That’s… worrying.” Molly wrote something down in her charge list. “Are they trying to sound kind of creepy here?”
John didn’t know, and had nothing to say. He was still halfway through the first sentence. He may have emerged from his birthing pod preprogrammed with everything he needed to move and think and kill, but reading had not been a priority at all.
“Well, it’s worth charging for, I think.” Finished with her writing, Molly put down her pencil and turned to watch the fic.
Outside the bunker walls, the main character of the fic - ‘Brock Dawkins,’ according to a quick scream from the narrator - rode up to the gates on a ‘bright white pure bread’ - a typo that resulted in him actually being mounted on a large, pale pastry that wobbled and shook in mid-air in a crude approximation of galloping. Then he entered the bunker, the lack of description causing him to phase through the gates completely, bread mount and all.
Molly giggled, both paws held up to her invisible mouth. John turned a confused gaze to her.
“Huh? Oh, don’t worry, Mister John! It’s just a typo.” Still looking happy, Molly pulled out her pen to write a quick charge in her list. “We can charge for them, but they can also be funny sometimes!”
John raised an arm and gestured at the metal gates leading into the bunker.
“Oh, right! We need to get in there! One second, let me set this up for you…” Molly pulled out the RA and opened up a portal, visibly trying to hold back another giggle as she thought of the floating bread once again. “Okay, just one… hey, where are you going?”
John was walking up to the massive gates, gauntleted fists held together, fist in palm. Then he lowered himself into a bent-leg stance, pulled back an arm, and punched.
Molly jolted at the loud crack that split the air, a bright red exclamation mark appearing above her head before disappearing a moment later. “Mister John, what are you doing?” she squeaked.
John slammed his fists into the gates again. Then again, and again, and again in a heavy, violent rhythm. Reality seemed to bend and crack where he struck. Black lines began to spread out through the doors and into the air like a glowing spiderweb, and—
"Mister John! You need to listen!"
The armored giant stopped mid-swing. Very, very slowly, he turned to look at her.
Molly pointed at the shimmering blue portal right next to her. “I made a portal for us already. We don’t have to do…” She trailed off, wincing at the sight of the cratered doors. “...All that.”
For a second, there was silence. Then John stood up straight again, arms falling to his sides. He shuffled forward, then bent down to fit through the portal. His helmet bumped against its rim as he went through.
Molly watched him enter quietly. She took one more concerned glance at the fractured air, then followed her partner through the portal. It closed shut behind her with a quiet pop.
(Author's Note: Bit of a shorter one, but I had to split this monstrosity up somehow. Don't worry, the next one should be much longer.)
Despite supposedly being indoors, the floor was a ‘grassy field,’ only further contrasting with the clearly electric lights in the ceiling and loud air conditioning units packed into the corners. The room was littered with bits, standing around idly like a shopping mall’s roster of mannequins. According to the narration, they were rebels from all over Narnia who desired freedom from the ‘tyrant who stifled their rights.’ As such, they supposedly ‘truly loved their leader with an almost irrational reverence.’ Molly made a quick charge for awkward wording.
The narration, voice sounding through the air like a public school PA system, began to go on and on about how Aslan wouldn’t let them do a variety of things - ‘LGBT orientations, justice in blood for real criminals, and free market trading‘ among them. It then proceeded to segue into a rant about how Aslan was sexist, racist, homophobic, ableist - and on and on it went. It brought up priests and the church, sky daddies and delusion, and the longer it went the less it seemed like the rant was about Narnia at all.
“That’s not what…” Molly closed her eyes, sighed, and pulled out her chargelist. “I’ll just charge, sorry.” She winced as the narration used ‘God’ once instead of ‘Aslan,’ writing down another charge. In fact, with every minute the Words went on and on about its thinly veiled rant, Molly seemed to shrink further and further into herself.
John, who simply did not understand what the narration was going on about and thus wasn’t listening, was instead busy looking around at the modern military bunker, at the way it warped slightly where metal walls met the grassy floor. It looked less like the building had been constructed than like the walls had simply been dropped into the ground from a great height. It was unnatural in an almost primal sense, and staring at it for too long made his vision start to glaze over.
Finally, the rant stopped, with the narration itself saying ‘[not sorry for the rant, but you should get the idea by now],’ before falling into silence. Then the fic finally resumed its plot. Brock, the main character Suvian from earlier, suddenly appeared in the center of the room. On sight, every bit snapped to attention, ramrod straight with a hand to their forehead.
“Oh, thank goodness it’s over.” Molly took her paws off her ears, letting them flip back up from where they had been pressed flat against her head to block the rant. She adjusted her glasses and let out a sigh, a small but visible stylized puff of air appearing for a second before vanishing into nothing. “Looks like they might move on to plot stuff.”
As the Words of the fic ran across the HUD of his helmet, John didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was wrong.
“SAMUEL!” screamed the lead Suvian, and one of the bits in the crowd raised his hand.
Said bit rose, and the air suddenly became heavy. Everything desaturated in color, and the Suvians' movements grew slower and slower until they completely froze.
As much as she tried, Molly couldn’t move a muscle. She quickly found she could still blink and breathe (a small mercy) but she was otherwise locked in her seated position, pencil halfway raised.
John stared at his frozen partner, the frozen Suvians, then looked down and flexed the fingers of one hand. He could still move, but he didn’t know where the sudden freeze had come from, nor how to stop it.
Then the narration rang out yet again, this time robotic and echoing:
Name: Samuel Hunter (belongs to me)
Samuel is a man with a long hoodie and jeans, leather boots and blond hair. He is fit and muscular, with a 6-pack.
Personality: He is cool, calm, and intelligent. He no longer is held back by the idea of hurting people, as he knows he will only do it to those who threaten human rights.
Powers: He has a katana that can cut through molecular bonds. He is an iajitsu master, and moves too fast for normal people (and animals) to see.
The moment the narration was finished, time resumed, color returned, and the bit - Samuel, the infodump had said - opened his mouth.
“Here.” His voice was crackly and robotic, and he sat down the moment he was done.
“What was that?” Molly asked in a whisper, turning to John. “I’ve never seen that happen before. Do you think—”
Then the world grayed again as the lead Suvian screamed “STEVE,” Molly freezing mid-sentence. John stared in confusion through his visor as the narration described yet another bit, their personality, and their powerset, time unfreezing again when it finished.
Molly blinked a few times. “...That’s really not right,” she said, reaching for her CAD and turning it on. “Okay, please work…”
[Time distortions detected], it said. [Reboot time?]
“Yes, please!” Molly quickly pressed a paw to the screen as the lead Suvian called out yet another name. She closed her eyes, tensed up - and nothing happened. She opened her eyes again and looked around. Time was normal, colors were normal, everything was normal again (Suvians and military bunker aside). “Oh, thank Cheesus,” she said, putting a paw over her chest.
Realizing she was fine, John gestured towards the scene, tilting his head slightly to convey a question.
“Woah, almost missed this!” Molly straightened out her chargelist, quickly put pen to paper, and watched the scene. Beside her, John turned to analyze as well.
Yet another bit - ’Belle,’ according to the screaming narration - stood to attention, nearly toppling forward from the weight of a comically oversized chest. She giggled, voice sounding robotic like the bits before her.
“Oh, is she okay? What…” After a confused skim through the Words, Molly turned to look at John. “Why does the fic call her a ‘cow girl’? She doesn’t look like a cow to me. Am I missing something?”
John didn’t know the answer, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. What he did know was that the clothes the bit was wearing - ‘a tight tank top, its straps one deep breath from snapping, along with a flowy short skirt,’ according to the fic - didn’t look in any way suitable for combat training. He also noticed two small, white horns sticking out the top of her hair, but even they looked far too small and blunt for any practical fighting purpose.
Molly seemed to notice this as well. “Well, her clothes are never explained, and they don’t seem to fit, so… that’s a charge.” She put pen to paper, then paused. “Ooh, ‘fit.’ Double meaning!” She looked pleased with herself as she turned to John, who gave her a polite nod back.
The narration moved on, and the absurdly top-heavy bit fell victim to gravity and toppled forwards without the attention of the fic.
The next debatable-bit to stand up was introduced as Brock’s love interest. Her power was her devastating screams, the narration declared before even saying her name.
While the Agents weren’t frozen this time, the narration began loudly relaying what was apparently 'Colette’s' internal monologue. It went on and on about how she formerly had no interest in love due to trauma from her past in the ‘Church of Narnia,’ but was ‘rescued’ by the ‘actual love’ of Brock, the Suvian leader. According to a narrative-dumped backstory, he had given her powers she had used to kill her former tormentors and their families in a ‘rightful fury’ of superpowered screaming. It then segwayed into how she supposedly got over her trauma and always tried to please Brock for saving her from the nasty, nasty people who ‘made’ her not experience sexual attraction for years.
The entire time the narration was droning, Colette herself was just standing there, staring blankly ahead, a blank smile plastered onto her face.
“...I think that’s a few charges,” said Molly, writing in her chargelist. “It's a weird place to tell a backstory, and I don’t think this is how love works.”
John nodded idly, partially as a sign of support, partially because he was deep in thought trying to remember all the traits and powers of the bits listed so far. Knowing the enemy was important, and he didn’t want to miss even the smallest of details.
By the time Molly looked up from writing, the love interest had sat down and another bit stood up.
“Um, um, um…” At first, this Suvian looked like a stereotypical nervous wreck, lacing her fingers and staring at the ground. Then she jerked upright, face contorting into a snarl, eyes glowing such a bright red it lit up the bunker and hurt to look at. "WE'LL CRUSH THEM ALL, SENPAI!" Then her expression snapped back to 'the dictionary definition of innocence,' red lights vanishing. "Oh! D-did I say something?"
“What was that?” squeaked Molly, charge list held up defensively to her face. Beside her, John had a hand to his rifle, confused himself.
Before the two could fully comprehend what had happened, however, the Suvian had already sat back down and the narration began to boom about her powerset - something about an ‘Ubertank’ and ‘superhuman intelligence,’ but neither Agent had recovered enough to acknowledge it. In fact, by the time Molly had set pen to paper to charge again, another bit had stood up.
Time seemed to blur together as the ‘introductions’ - if they could even be called that - went on and on. Each new ‘character’ seemed to consist of a powerset and a single bare-bones personality trait, occasionally skipping the latter. Some of them were so under-described they appeared as featureless mannequins made of cardboard.
There was the stereotypical ‘dumb muscle’ brute whose only personality trait was eating, yet he was capable of shrugging off atomic bomb blasts and breaking diamond with his bare hands - at least the Words claimed so.
There was the generic ‘anime pervert’ who only talked about how much he wanted to assault his attractive teammates. He apparently had the power to throw out blue balls of energy that would disintegrate matter down to the molecular level, but once again the fic merely told and didn’t show.
The narration continued to ramble, bits in various degrees of cardboard-ness popped up and down like puppets on strings, and time dragged on.
"And… and another one," Molly said after over ten minutes of bit role-calling. Boredom was starting to creep into her voice despite her best attempts to remain perky. “Number…” She checked her charge list, checked the Words, then seemed to sag inward. “...thirty-four of fifty-five…”
Many more OC dumps followed and Molly tried to write individual charges for a few minutes, but gave up after a while and simply wrote down 'too many profiles.' John, battle-trained mind at work, tried to analyze every profile the narration described, but even he found his attention fading by the forty-seventh gimmick masquerading as a character.
Finally, after nearly half an hour of what felt more like a lecture from the narrator than anything resembling a story, the fifty-fifth bit sat down.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Molly sighed in relief, getting up from the ground where she had been trying to take a nap. “I hope we're done with things like that.”
Then the head Suvian slammed a palm on his podium and cleared his throat, voice echoing loudly through the bunker despite not having a microphone.
Molly’s relieved expression crumpled. “...Why did I say that out loud."
The head Suvian slammed his hands on his podium a few more times, despite none of his bit audience saying or doing anything without the fic’s instructions. Then he cleared his throat once more and spoke.
"This world is broken and full of weak creatures, letting themselves be ordered around by a tyrant who dares tell them what not to do! We are the heroes they need, and we are the heroes it gets!"
He spread his arms out in a grandiose gesture. No one in the audience reacted except for the Agents - specifically Molly, who wrote down a charge for ‘lies.’
“The world will be free, free to choose for themselves the most rational decisions, to advance civilization to greater heights! We will make our own order, our own rules!”
“And if anyone violates our rights…” The Suvian drew a handgun and fired a shot into the air. “They get what’s coming to them!”
And the trainees cheered in unison, arms pumping down in an eerie, robotic motion.
“...I don’t like this, Mister John.” Molly turned away from the scene and scooted closer to John, something that greatly confused the latter.
Why did she trust him? He did nothing to earn it, as far as he knew. Then again, he thought, it could simply be self-preservation leading her to move closer to the most combat-capable entity in the room. Surely that was a likelier explanation.
What was clear to him, however, was the nature of these creatures. At first, he had been conflicted about these being the targets to kill - they looked like humans (at least most of them), and it had confused him at first.
However, as the scene had gone by, he noticed more and more how unnaturally they moved - or didn’t, for that matter. They spoke in a way that seemed less alive than pre-programmed, and none of the bits did very little without their leader directly commanding them. They weren’t humans at all, merely monsters wearing their skin.
Finally, the scene ended with a booming, mid-chapter author’s note. It screamed:
(AUTHOR’S NOTE: THis is all of the rebels I have for now, but I’m always open for more!!! Just put their name and powers in the comment section and like the fic, and maybe your OC’s will show up in the next chapter! :D :D :D)
By the time the ringing had cleared from the Agents’ ears, the fic’s plot continued. What looked like a vague attempt at a training montage ensued.
John and Molly quietly watched as Brock, lord of the bits, ordered his minions to formation across the bunker floor - then demanded them to do “pushups, situps, and planks.” However, without time specifications, the room immediately descended into chaos. Many of the more lifeless bits blatantly sounded like cardboard as they twisted themselves into inhuman positions trying to do all three at once. The few with the smallest trace of individuality still struggled maneuvering around the flailing of the other bits.
Their Suvian leader didn’t seem to care, only spurring them on further. "Harder, faster! Are you alphas ready to change this world for the better, or are you chuds like those who want to keep us stuck in the past?"
“Why do the Words say they like her?” Molly said, looking concerned. “She’s pretty mean to them.”
John stared at her, silent. Not sure whether the stare was positive or not, Molly stumbled over her words as she continued.
“Do you… have something to say, Mister John?”
More silence. John slightly tilted his head. Unsure what to make of that, Molly quickly glanced at the Words. “Oh, will you look at that? The Suvians are moving!”
And she was right - the horde had formed a solid line and begun to march out the bunker doors. John and Molly hurried to follow them, managing to slip through as the heavy gates closed shut behind them.
Suvians and Agents walked together for a minute or so, cresting a nearby hill - then the world seemed to warp. Molly nearly lost her balance, stumbling into John’s leg for support as suddenly rows of tents appeared in front of them. The Agents found themself in front of an entirely different hill - one that Molly recognized.
“Ooh, Aslan’s Camp!” she squeaked, clasping her paws together. “I’ve visited here before, but it’s so nice to come back to!”
She turned to John, clearly excited. Her tail flicked back and forth, and what looked like tiny stylized stars sparkled around her head. “I hope you don’t mind if I explain! I really like this series, and this is an important place in the lore.”
She took his dead silence and blank stare as an invitation. She cleared her throat, then took a moment to adjust her glasses.
“Okay, here we go!” She pointed a tiny paw towards the camp. John couldn’t tell exactly what she was pointing at. “So you see that big red and yellow tent at the end of the path? That’s where Aslan’s waiting to come out! And the Stone Table… right, that should be a while that way!”
Molly kept talking even as the Suvians marched down the hill before them, towards the camp. She was fully engrossed in her verbal tour of Aslan’s Camp, stubby arms waving as she skipped from one side of the hill to another to view the camp from different angles.
Almost five minutes passed before John straightened up, realizing at some point his head had sagged forward.
“Oh!” Molly seemed to notice his movements, and rubbed a paw against the back of her head. She glanced away, a cartoonishly large sweatdrop appearing by her head. “Sorry if I rambled for too long! Was that too long?”
John considered this for a moment. For the sake of politeness, he decided a simple shake of his head would do.
"Thank you, Mister John!" Molly clapped her tiny paws together. “It’s nice to have someone listen to me.”
John was confused for the umpteenth time that day. Being thanked was a new experience for him (being the only resistance left alive in his home universe didn't help with that), and it caused a foreign feeling to stir in his chest. Not uncomfortable, but foreign. He also had no idea why simply listening merited thanks.
He didn’t get more time to think about it, however. The Suvian brigade had approached Aslan's Camp, lined up behind their leader. Brock, leading the horde as always, slammed a hand onto a suddenly-summoned podium (the same one from the bunker, on closer inspection) and began to speak.
“Aslan!” Brock shouted, heroic tones carrying out and over the air, cutting off the idle rambling of Aslan’s horde. “Your reign of tyranny and bigotry ends here! You and your minions are holding us back from true societal advance! You quash our potential, stifle our rights, and you will be stopped!”
“And if that means killing you or making you scurry off and hide, so be it! Believe me, I couldn’t care less if bigots and their insane beliefs die out. I only care for people.” He waved an arm. All of Aslan’s troops shrank back out of fear.
“So what will it be, lion? Accept truth or die in delusion? Frankly, I couldn’t care about your decision, but I’m letting you choose anyway because I respect freedom.”
John sat in silence, glaring at the Suvian through his visor. This rhetoric vaguely reminded him of the propaganda he had heard from Earth-destroying invaders of his home world, of their call to kill all humans because they believed them meaningless to some grand advance of galactic civilization. Specifically, it brought to mind the Invaders' belief that humans were useless and actively detrimental to keep alive. This was a much different scenario, but there were some parallels. Any reservations he had about harming them faded away into nothing.
Molly’s squeaky voice broke him out of his thoughts. “I feel a little bad, Mister John. You look like you want to do something, right?”
John did, in fact, want to do something. He was actively holding back the urge in him to draw a weapon and blast these ‘Suvians’ on the spot. Parasites, self-absorbed monsters with no other desire than to consume and assimilate — they were exactly like the creatures he was created to kill back on Earth. They looked like humans, but were mere monsters wearing stolen skin. He realized his fingers were tightly clutching the grip of his energy rifle. He loosened the grip.
The movement didn’t escape Molly's eye. “Oh, was that a yes? Perfect, I have just the job for you!”
A jolt of adrenaline ran through John’s body. Was it finally time? He mentally prepared to draw his weapon and start firing.
Molly held out her charge list and pen. “You can try writing charges! We have to write down all the bad things here before we can fix them, you see."
John’s grip loosened immediately. Silently, he re-holstered his rifle. With his free hand, he reached down and plucked up the pen from his lap.
The pen was comically small in his grip, two armored fingers dwarfing the tiny metal stick as he turned it, scrutinizing it from all angles.
"So for instance," Molly continued, "you could write a charge for accusing Aslan of bigotry without evidence, or maybe dehumanization.” She took the charge list and tapped a paw on a blank line to demonstrate.
John continued staring blankly at the pen.
“Um… if you're ready, you can give it a shot!” said Molly in encouragement, holding up the charge list like a makeshift living easel.
John looked at the paper in front of him. He slowly lowered the pen towards the paper.
There was a quiet crack, and John separated his fingers, plastic scraps and drops of ink clinking and drizzling to the floor.
Molly looked considerably more stressed out than when the mission had started. Wiping another oversized sweatdrop off her brow, she reached into her shirt pocket. “Haha… whoops! It’s a good thing I always bring spare equipment with me!”
She pulled out another pen and was about to pass that one out as well. Then she paused, thought about it for a second, and packed it away again, still trying to smile. “On second thought, maybe I can charge after all.”
John handed the chargelist and remnants of the pen back, head slightly bowed. He looked vaguely ashamed.
“It’s okay, Mister John! We all have to start somewhere!” said Molly, even as she pulled a small plastic bag out of her purse to sweep the pen scraps into.
Still trying to wrap his mind around a feeling of unfamiliar embarrassment, John shook his head. He stared at the pen ink running down one of his armored hands.
Molly tried to give him a reassuring look. “It’s fine, I promise! Please don’t be mad at me.”
Thankfully for Molly, a trumpet blast from Aslan's Camp interrupted the conversation. The Lion himself appeared on the crest of the hill, flanked by a ‘Mr. Tummus’ - a mini-dragon, brown-scaled and spouting goat-like horns, who looked terribly confused at what it was supposed to be doing here.
“Who are you intruders who threaten our sacred tradition?” roared Aslan, sounding angry. “You would dare question my rightful authority? You will all die for your impudence!”
“Perish for your sins!” said Mister Tummus. The mini’s voice was the polite, accented tenor of the movie-canon Tumnus. Its single line finished, it flew off the crest of the hill and over the heads of the Suvians. None of them seemed to care as it left the scene.
It made a beeline for the Agents. John was about to draw his rifle when Molly put a paw over his hand. “Don’t worry, Mister John! It’s just a mini! They appear when fics misspell names.”
The mini-dragon coiled itself around John’s armored neck, humming softly like an old microwave. Still suspicious, John raised a hand and lightly pressed a finger to its scales. The mini only hummed louder, pressing its horns up against his chin.
“Aw, I think it likes you,” said Molly. “I’ll get a portal ready! A lot of the time, we send minis to the HQ Adoption Center for the pet-loving residents to adopt. It’s a nice place, really.”
She reached into her purse, pulled out a device, and tapped away for a few seconds. “Sometimes, though, the mini actually belongs to one of those Fanfiction Universities out there, so it can be confusing.” A portal opened up in the air, revealing a large room full of other mini creatures wandering about.
“I’m sure the Center workers can figure that out, though. Here, little dragon! Over here!” Molly held out her paws and made a noise that sounded like a clumsy attempt to click a tongue. Mr. Tummus tilted its head at her and yawned. “Um… Mister John, do you think you could help a bit?”
John complied, reaching to his neck. With careful hands, he uncoiled the mini-dragon from his shoulders and lowered it down to the portal. Mr. Tummus looked through the portal, tongue flicking in and out as it seemed to consider its options. Then it slipped out of John’s hands and scurried through, joining its fellow minis in the crowd.
Molly closed the portal and packed her device away. “Okay, that should do it… are they still arguing, Mister John?”
John gestured at the fic scene, where Aslan was going on about how he would stone the rebels to death as per the ‘old law.’
“Oh, this? Yeah, this is… not really accurate to his canon self. He’s a nice enough lion,” said Molly. “Not tame, but never anything like this, I promise.”
John looked at the arguing characters, then back to his partner, gun still gripped tightly in his hands. His skepticism must have been evident in his body language, because Molly elaborated.
“It’s - it’s not the real him.” She hesitated, trying to figure out the right words. “Here, let me check real quick.” She aimed the CAD at the scene.
[Amogus.]
A large, bright yellow question mark appeared over Molly’s head. “Huh? That can’t be right.” She tapped the screen with her paw a few times.
[Glod, you’re boring. Fine, yes, they’re replaced. All of them.]
The question mark disappeared. “Oh, thank you, Mister CAD!”
[Miss.]
“Miss CAD!” Molly said, not missing a beat.
[Shut up.] And the CAD shut itself off.
“So there you go! Replacements.” Seemingly unfazed, Molly packed the device away and turned to John. “Sometimes canons act out of character because Suvians possess them, sometimes they kidnap them and stick them into plotholes so they can replace them with puppets instead. These guys are the second case.”
Noting John’s silence, she gave him an almost pleading expression. “Am I making sense so far? Do you need me to say that again?”
John shook his head. After hearing the Suvian strategies from his partner, realizing these targets shared more with the Invaders of his home world than the humans they appeared to be, he was starting to get a sense of familiarity back. Back on his ravaged Earth, said Invaders would often wear the rotting bodies of the dead as disguises and attempt (very poorly) to be other survivors, but they were never successful - something was always off their imitations. The little mouse’s words made sense, though he wondered where she got her information from, and how accurate it actually was.
Molly kept going, putting a paw up to an invisible mouth. “Though, for Aslan, it’s always replacements and never possession. I could never figure out why, but at least it’s an easy pattern.”
The one-sided conversation was interrupted by the fic.
“For Nar—” started Aslan before he was cut off.
Brock screamed louder than the lion could ever hope to match.
“FOR A BRIGHTER FUTURE!!!”
With his scream, the world seemed to crumple inward, stretched and distorted scenes flashing by as multiple hours’ worth of battling was compressed into a single sentence. Then everything snapped back to normal, reality wobbling like a rubber band. John took a step back, planting his rifle to the ground for support, while Molly was sent tumbling head over heels across the green.
Aslan lay dead on the ground, along with the bodies of nameless bit ‘followers.’ Around him, the Suvian’s own bits were cheering in robotic unison, pumping their arms up and down like they did in the bunker.
John gestured towards the dead lion corpse, turning a questioning glance to his partner. Molly shakily got to her feet and gave it a glance.
“Don’t worry, he’s still a replacement,” she said, rubbing a sore spot on the back of her head. “We can leave it be.” To double-check, she pulled out the CAD and aimed it at the corpse.
[I literally told you he was a replacement a few minutes ago. You didn’t have to wake me from my beauty sleep for this.]
"Just making sure, sorry!” Molly stuffed the device back into her satchel (with a muffled [I’ll kill you] from the CAD), then looked back to John. “So since it’s a replacement, I think we’ll be fine. It should vanish with the fic when the Suvians are gone, and we can always check if it’s not!”
With that, the Agents turned their attention back to the fic, where the Suvians were celebrating their ‘hard-earned’ victory. They had zero casualties or wounded.
“No tyrant will tell us what to do again! We are free, and now we can change the rules of this world for the better!” The lead Suvian put his heavy biker’s boot on the lion’s head, digging in his heel slightly.
“Well, we can start off with the simple, rational decisions. Round up any survivors - we’ll banish them from this land. We simply can’t tolerate those who align with the old ways of thinking if we are to truly advance.”
“You’re so right, Brock!” Colette swooned, grabbing my arm.
John stared, then slowly reached for his holstered rifle. He paused when Molly scurried over and started tugging at his arm.
“W-woah! Hey, Mister John! Mister John, wait!”
Her tugging didn’t even budge his arm an inch. John was sure that if he were to raise his hand, she’d be pulled off her feet.
“We can’t kill just yet!” She lifted her charge list, tapping at its pages. “We have to read our targets their charges before we act! Plus, we just have to fill out a quota for charges before we can read to begin with!”
John stared. He was unused to restrictions, especially when they came between a parasite and its death. He looked at the monsters before him, watching them gloat over their body counts, then back down to the little mouse pulling on his arm.
He couldn’t remember the last time he let authority prevent him from killing monsters. Granted, this was because when he emerged from his pod everyone else on Earth was dead, but still.
He studied Molly, saw how desperate she looked. She was back to tugging at his armored sleeve, yet another large sweat drop running down the side of her head.
“Mister John, please! It would violate protocol!”
His fingers tightened around the rifle’s grip.
“The Flowers would be so upset with us!”
He raised the rifle, leveling the sights at the lead Suvian’s head.
“Surely you can wait just a few more minutes… right?”
John stopped moving. He sighed, a sound barely audible through his visored helmet. His shoulders sagged, and he lowered his rifle back to his side.
“Oh, thank you, Mister John!” Molly wiped the sweat off her brow, then took a moment to re-adjust her glasses. “It won't be more than a few more minutes, I promise. We should have enough charges by then.”
John nodded. Molly didn’t know whether it was a ‘good’ nod or not, but optimism had her act like it was the former. “Sorry for the inconvenience, Mister John!” she added, just in case, and he simply nodded again.
In the fic, the Suvians began to cheer, drawing the Agents’ attention to them as their leader finished up his speech.
“We still have a few more loose ends to clean up before we can advance though,” he said. He gestured to the side, where an ocean and dock suddenly popped into existence where a stretch of land used to be. “We're going to the Dawn Treader! Prince Caspian represents the same cruel regime Aslan did, so we can’t tolerate his tyranny either!”
“Oh no… wait, Prince Caspian?” Molly pulled out her notepad and wrote down a charge. “That confuses the timeline quite a bit.”
John didn’t know who Prince Caspain was, but judging by his partner’s reaction he could tell this was a problem.
"FOR FREEDOM!” I shouted valiantly. I stood on the stern of my Ironclad Virginia as she sped away from the Narnian shores.
The two Agents watched as what looked like a Civil War-era ship rocketed away into the distance far too quickly to be natural. The hill was now empty, as every Suvian had vanished to appear on the ship’s deck as it left.
“Well, uh…” said Molly. “That’s not good.”
John stared at her in silence. Molly looked up and blinked. She glanced out to sea, then back to John, then back to the sea again. Then she jolted, reaching into her bag.
“Right, we can follow them!” She pulled out the RA and opened up a portal in mid-air. “Come on, through here!”
(Author’s Note: Sorry for this being a longer chapter than normal, I just couldn’t find a good place to split this one. Hope you understand.)
(Content Warning: contains language and some more violence than previous chapters. Also contains parts that may hit BL1, BL2, BL3 and BL9 on the Blacklist, going off of the Wiki.)
Despite its ironclad shell, the Virginia’s deck was still wooden planks tightly packed together. The entire entourage of bits from earlier was scattered across the deck, and if anything there looked to be more of them. The Agents portaled in, hidden by the shadows of the staircase leading up to the helm. Even then, a couple of bits were an arm’s reach away from them, more than close enough to notice them if they glanced.
At least for the time being, the bits were all too distracted to notice - most of them were enacting stilted slice-of-life scenes concerning their specific gimmicks, and those who weren't were staring off into space or out into the open waters.
For a moment, it looked like Molly had zoned out completely, staring blankly into space. Then she blinked, shook her head a little, and looked at John. She held up her charge list in one paw, pointing at the crowd of Suvians with the other.
“We have enough charges to do the Duty,” she whispered. “Ready to stop them?”
John didn’t know what ‘the Duty’ was. He nodded out of habit, before realizing it might not have been the best idea. Molly immediately turned and strode to the center of the deck, by the mast of the ship. Hopping up on top of one of the supply barrels stacked around the flagpole, she cleared her throat.
Despite the cough being incredibly quiet, every bit stopped talking and moving at once. Then, slowly and in perfect unison, they turned to face her head on. A wave of stares met the two Agents.
Another oversized sweatdrop appeared on Molly's face. She averted her gaze into the chargelist and began to read.
“Okay, everyone listen for a moment, please! In the name of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, you’re all charged with the following:
“Taking up so much space with character profiles, breaking time to infodump the profiles everywhere, bringing non-canon powers and tech into Narnia, having weak personalities, some of you having no personality at all, claiming to be rebels when you don’t act like it…”
Molly lowered the charge list, only to notice all the staring Suvians. She clutched her list a little tighter to her chest. “Um… and in general being awful excuses for heroes. And helping a Suvian. Any questions?”
“YOU DON’T BELONG HERE,” the bits replied in droning unison.
“Oh, gosh.” Molly crouched down and slipped off to the deck, placing the barrel between the Suvians and herself. Then she turned to her partner and called, “Okay, Mister John! Now you can do your thing!”
A moment passed as John processed those words. Then realization set in. He tensed beneath his armor, and his hand drifted towards the holster of his energy rifle. He unslung the weapon and aimed it at the bits, clicking off the safety. The Suvians in front of him, noticing the sound, turned robotically and crouched into battle stances of their own, an eerily united wave of movement that rippled across the deck as more and more of them noticed the armored giant.
There was a moment of silence.
Then, in the back, one of the bits screamed, “KILL IT!” And the horde charged forward, John breaking into a run to meet them.
The absurdly top-heavy ‘cow girl’ from earlier was the first one to reach him, arms outstretched in a very poor attempt at a tackle. Almost casually, John took a single step to the side. Already precariously balanced and unable to change her trajectory, the bit barreled past him before tripping and crashing forward. She tried to get up, struggling under the weight of her massive chest, but found herself pinned to the deck by her own proportions.
Deciding she was no longer a threat, John turned to fire a salvo from his rifle, blowing another incoming bit to cardboard chunks. Liquid glitter sprayed out over the deck like a macabre rainbow.
Meanwhile, Molly was lost in thought behind her barrel, double-checking to make sure she didn’t miss a charge. WIth a quiet splat, a small glob of wet, pink-on-red glitter landed on the paper. She blinked, peering over her cover in time to see John throw a dead bit into another group charging at him, scattering them all like bowling pins.
“Mister John! I’m sorry, but could you watch your, uh…” A gunshot rang through the air, and Molly scooted back as a cardboard arm bounced off the barrel, sending it rocking. “Maybe you could try to be less messy, please? Thank you!” She popped back down, shook out the charge list, and went back to checking.
Molly’s words were just audible enough to show up as subtitles on John’s HUD. He didn’t get the chance to read them, however, as he raised an armored gauntlet to parry a lightning-infused punch from one of the bits.
The bit was panting, huffing, its strongest blows not doing anything as it backed John up against the helm under a storm of blows. All of its strikes were parried or outright tanked, not even smudging John's armor. Then, in a blur of movement, its head exploded in a cloud of cardboard and glitter. John drew his glitter-stained fist back and shoved the body away, adding another husk to the growing pile around him.
The next enemy to approach was one of the less cardboard Suvians - Samuel Hunter, the edgy swordsman. He stood in front of John for a moment, hand against his sheathed katana’s handle. With a finger, he popped the handle up an inch.
In a flash of light, he suddenly stood behind John, katana outstretched from a move made too fast to track. With a spinning flourish, he lowered his blade into its sheath, but not quite all the way. Eyes shut, letting out a breath for dramatic effect, he let his katana drop fully into his sheath with a quiet click.
The loud sound of a sword slice rang through the air behind him, and all was silent. The bit exhaled, eyes closed, satisfied. He knew no one could withstand the blade that could shear through molecular bonds—
A hand gripped his shoulder from behind.
“wha—”
John lifted the bit up and slammed him through the wooden deck in a storm of dust and splinters. When the dust cleared, only the bit’s legs stuck out of the floor, slightly twitching. His katana quivered next to him, jammed into a plank of wood nearly up to the hilt. John's armor wasn't even scratched.
Reaching down, John pulled out the katana, whirled it around, and threw it across the deck - another bit fell to the floor, compressed glittery slime spraying out of its cardboard body.
A splash of glitter hit Molly's charge list, which she had lifted up as an impromptu shield. “Mister John, please! It’s not easy to focus like this.”
This time, John managed to read her words off his helmet HUD. He couldn’t help but feel a touch of guilt - an unfamiliar feeling, seeing as he had spent the last decades of his life with little more emotion than rage and bloodthirst. There was something about the experiences of the last hour - had it only been an hour? - that was drawing out parts of him he didn’t know he had, thoughts long-buried after a life of salvage and slaughter.
Then he was driven out of his wandering thoughts as a bit grappled him from behind, driving a golden knife towards his neck. The blade shattered against his armor in a rain of shards, and John took advantage of the bit’s shock to grab it and throw it straight up into the air.
At the apex of its impromptu flight, a rifle blast tore a hole straight through the bit’s chest. As the body fell, John followed up the shot with an armored punch, tearing further into the glitter-filled cardboard husk until he was wearing the monster like an oversized, macabre glove. He turned, using the body as a shield to block a salvo of energy blasts from a bit wielding a high-tech rifle not unlike his own.
John charged forward, his cardboard shield decaying piece by piece as blasts tore it open in chunks. By the time he had closed the distance, the last few shots had to be blocked by his gauntlets held up in a defensive guard. The gun-toting bit didn’t even get a chance to scream as nearly half a ton of armored giant slammed into it, sending it flying off the deck.
Even before the body made a splash, John turned after an alert from his HUD - three more of the bits had crept up behind him.
John’s fist punched straight through the first’s cardboard torso, spilling the liquid glitter inside to the deck. As the body fell, John turned and drew his rifle to shoot off the legs of the second bit, who was too lacking in individuality to even make a sound as it died.
The third bit actually managed to get in a blow, slamming what looked like a warhammer made of lava-veined obsidian into his helmet - it shattered on impact, shards of rock flying everywhere. John promptly grabbed the stunned bit, lifted it up by the throat, and slammed it to the ground hard enough that its cardboard body split open on impact like a pinata full of soggy glitter.
The smell of wet cardboard was beginning to fill the air. The deck was littered with cardboard bodies and wet globs of red glitter. The bodies were already beginning to pile up in a large heap.
John continued to fight the horde, punching, grabbing, headbutting. He was running out of clean room on the deck to place his feet, and he found himself adjusting every step so that the cardboard corpses he trod on wouldn’t put him at a disadvantage.
Soon, he found that the Suvians were hesitant to approach him, standing around him in a wide circle. John scanned the dull, expressionless faces of the closest ones, patiently waiting for any of them to make a move.
“You insignificant fool…” A low, purring voice came from behind him.
John turned to see who was speaking. It was that psychic mockery of split personality disorder - another of the Suvians with enough substance to be more than a cardboard pinata. A feral grin stretched across her face, eyes glinting that floodlight-bright red.
“Your mind is an open book, and I…” The bit paused, her eyes widening. Her grin fell off her face and her bright red eye-lights flickered out. “No…”
Holstering his rifle, John began to approach, heavy boots shaking the wooden deck with every step.
"Why can't I read you? *WHY CAN'T I READ YOU?"* she screamed, the veins on her forehead looking dangerously swollen.
John kept walking. One bit ran up to him, napalm gel in one hand and a lit torch in the other. Without losing stride or looking away from his original target, John grabbed the bit by the neck and threw it up into the clouds. A second later, there was a muffled explosion, and bits of cardboard rained down on the deck.
"I'LL TEAR YOU APART FROM THE INSIDE OUT!" the psychic yelled, though her voice peaked from stress. She took her hands, clenched them into fists, and slowly wrenched them outward as if stretching a roll of taffy.
John kept walking. He kept walking as the world around him was twisted, wooden planks cracking and splitting, the space around him warping.
The bit began to visibly panic, arms waving wildly, the ship itself twisting and breaking to throw itself at the approaching man. Glitter began to ooze from her mouth, her nose, even her eyes as she pushed her body to the limits.
John kept walking. Pieces of the ironclad hull, torn off for use as telekinetic projectiles, shattered against his armor.
“Stop it! I WON’T LET YOU WIN!” The bit gave one more defiant scream, and the air itself compressed. It tried to crush him with telekinetic force, pressing in on all sides like a vice, slowly lifting him up into the air.
However, years of pushing back against the reality-bending abilities of Invaders in his own world had well prepared John for cases like this. These powers were familiar, and it was almost a comfort as that knowledge settled into his mind. He clenched his hands into fists and flexed his arms, pushing outward against the monster’s own power.
The cardboard bit screeched, trying to fight as its glitter-fueled power was pushed back, reality warping back into it. John snapped his arms out, the power forcefully shattering - overwhelmed by the backlash, body rippling with the force, the bit let out one more scream and exploded into a forceful blast of glitter and vapor. Several nearby bits were sent spinning through the air like ragdolls.
Yet another non-cardboard Suvian swaggered forward - yes, swaggering - to such a degree John actually didn’t shoot it immediately. It was the ‘anime pervert’ one, actual ooze dripping from its mouth as it approached. In its hands it gripped a warbling blue ball, which it dropped to the deck at John's feet.
This Suvian, another of the ones with more than the bare minimum of substance, grinned at him with its sleazy grin. "Do you know how it feels to have every molecule in your body ripped apart?"
John stared. The Suvian stared back, then gestured at the slowly growing ball of energy between them. “Well, now you will.”
The warbling sphere exploded, the force pushing John a step back. For a moment, the world flooded with blue as a wave of color washed over it, and then it was gone.
The color was gone, and so was the Suvian - it hadn’t moved far enough from its own explosion, as the only parts left of it were a pair of smoking boots. Before John could fully register the humor in this, another voice rang out from behind him.
“Ara, ara! You’ve fallen into my trap!”
John turned to see another of the more substantial Suvians, this time a busty kimono-wearing kitsune who looked extremely out of place considering the canon she was in.
“Ara, ara,” she repeated. The Suvian let out a haughty laugh, putting a hand over her mouth. “That idiot may have blown himself up, but he made for an excellent distraction!”
With an overdramatic flourish, she reached into her concerningly generous cleavage and pulled out a katana that was far too long to reasonably fit in there. It was ornate and golden, with heavy gemstones embedded all over its hilt.
“It’s my turn to play, and you’re trapped in my GOD AURA! You obey me now.” She waved a hand, and a few black sparks appeared in the air, illuminating a shimmering orb of mist that surrounded John and herself. “Now. Take your gun and shoot yourself in the head.”
John stared at her, expression unreadable under his opaque visor.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear the first time. Listen to me, take your gun—”
John took another step forward, and the Suvian's eyes widened.
“No - that’s unfair!” she yelled, raising her katana to point at him. “This is my god aura! No one can disobey me in—”
John lifted his rifle, now fully charged, and shot her in the head. Before the husk could fall, he grabbed it by one shoulder and hurled it in the way of an incoming ball of rainbow-hued energy. On impact, the body exploded into scraps of scorched cardboard with enough force to rock the entire ship. Still crouched by the steps, Molly squeaked and nearly dropped her charge list.
The bits kept coming. Watching John get swarmed by more and more Suvians, Molly tried to remember how many bits had been on the ship originally. Was it in the fifties? How many new OC volunteers did the fic take? As she watched the pile of broken cardboard and glittery sludge grow high enough that it looked like John was fending off the horde on top of a DIY volcano, even a hundred started to look like a massive lowball.
John, in contrast, couldn’t care less about numbers. He was simply fulfilling his purpose of killing monsters, and he would go through with it until there were none left around him.
A loud scream broke through his concentration, so air-shatteringly loud it demanded his attention. Behind her barrel, Molly squeaked and curled up into a ball, paws held tight over her ears.
John turned towards to face the Suvian the screams came from. This one was Colette, the main Suvian's love interest, her mouth open wide in an unending, unbreathing howl.
Her screams warped the air itself, making it look like the world was consumed by a violently wobbling glob of clear jelly. Its sheer force made it a struggle for John to stay standing. Cardboard bodies crumpled and dissolved beneath his feet, only making balance more difficult. He could hear the wooden planks of the deck behind him creaking and snapping in indignation as the Suvian’s screams intensified.
He began to walk forward. Seeing this, the Suvian screamed even louder, mouth opening even wider, eyes becoming even more piercing as their pupils shrunk to tiny blue dots. John ignored her reaction, making progress through the mountain of bodies.
Step by agonizingly slow and measured step he moved, but even when he had made it within arms’ reach of the Suvian, she didn’t try to run away, only screaming loud enough the ironclad hull of the ship cracked in protest. Her mouth stretched wider, inhumanly so, looking more like a snake's than anything resembling a human's.
Pushing through the pounding noise, John reached through the rippling curtain of air at the hazy silhouette they came from, managing to grip the sides of the screamer’s head. His arms flexed, his gauntleted hands shoved inward, and a second later the headless bit slumped to the ground, its deafening screech muffled by the remains of its own head forced into its hollow imitation of a chest cavity.
Looking around, John counted less than a dozen bits still standing - only a few more left to deal with. None of them seemed willing to approach, even as he drew his rifle and shot another one clean off the deck.
"Mister John! Mister John, help!"
John swiveled around, gun at the ready. Molly was running across the ship as fast as her tiny legs could carry her, one of the Suvians - the giant, hungry one - lumbering after her with arms outstretched. “Food! Food!” it chanted.
John aimed his rifle and fired, blowing a hole in the Suvian’s shirt, but the cardboard-like skin underneath looked barely scorched. However, it did get the giant to stagger, before slowly turning to stare at him instead.
“...You interrupt food,” it said. “NOW YOU FOOD!”
"Thank you, Mister John!" Molly squeaked, before crawling behind some barrels to hide. John couldn’t respond even if he wanted to, as his attention was drawn to the monster lumbering forward, a look of childish anger plastered across the giant Suvian’s face. It began to march up the hill of dead bits, glaring at its new target standing on its peak. Wet cardboard crunched and squelched under its feet as it went.
At similar heights and body shapes, both giants shaking the deck as they approached each other, the two looked like they would be evenly matched. The Suvian swung first, giant cardboard fist clenched, a 'diamond-shattering' force behind it.
John caught the fist with his own hand, then squeezed. The fist crumpled into a glittery mess the shape and size of a crushed soda can. The bit roared, and its other hand shot out, clasping over John's visor. It attempted a crushing of its own, but John didn't seem to react at all, his armor not even giving slightly.
The giant Suvian was so focused on trying to crush John's head, roaring in rage and agony, that it didn't notice as he reached for his holster and drew out his rifle with his own free hand.
The rifle shots hit their marks, blowing apart the Suvian’s legs. While not as cardboard as some of its bot comrades, the giant was still clearly hollow and filled with nothing but glitter. It fell onto the mountain of its fellow bits’ corpses, screaming in eerie autotune, arms flailing in an attempt to pull itself upright. Its writhing sprayed glitter across the floor and over John's visor. As John rose to his feet, wiping the mess off his helmet, he raised his rifle and aimed at the now-prone monster, only a pinkish silhouette through his blurry vision and glitter-stained visor.
As on Earth, there was no reason to torture or taunt monsters. It was inefficient and pointless, and would delay the satisfaction of a demon unmade. He fired another shot at the red-lined shape's head, and its stopped writhing.
On the windowsill, Molly squeaked and jerked away as a splash of glitter hit the barrel she was tucked behind.
And then the ship was silent. All around him, the Agents could only see dead or dying bits and Suvians (and one simply pinned to the deck, but the effect was the same).
"Is that… it?" Molly asked tentatively, poking her head over the rim of the barrel. "Are we finished with the Duty?"
"S-s-stop right there, p-p-please!"
"Never mind," sighed Molly.
One more Suvian stood on the helm overseeing the deck, flanked by two bits so cardboard they looked like faceless mannequins dressed in concerningly revealing sailor's wear. For a second, her face looked like a sickly-sweet mask of innocence, matching her earlier, stuttering tone. Then it curled into a snarl and her eyes lit up red, casting a glow over the entire deck.
“GRANDMASTER!” the Suvian screamed, slamming a button on an elaborate watch she wore.
There was a twinkle in the sky, and a shadow formed over the deck. The two remaining bits behind her didn’t react in time and were crushed as an enormous Bob Semple tank dropped from the clouds, crushing the helm down to the deck, rocking the entire boat and nearly sending Molly flying off the side. She was barely able to grip the handrails to avoid going over.
“Sweet Cheesus!” she squeaked as she took in what had dropped onto the deck. “Is that a tank?!”
”IT IS A TANK!” screamed the watch-wearing Suvian, now the last of her crew standing, laughing as she leapt up and into the open hatch in the tank’s top. It closed shut after her, and her laughter became muffled. While the treads had slammed straight through the wooden deck, the gun turret still stuck out the top. It swiveled, displaying a massive, heavy railgun on its weapon mount.
"DISOBEY AND DIE, BAKA!" the Suvian screamed, and the elaborate gun of the Ubertank lowered to point straight at John.
With no hesitation, John held up one armored gauntlet and plunged it down the nozzle, up to the elbow. There was a small click from deep inside the tank.
For a moment, everything was quiet. Even the waves seemed to still for a moment.
"What," came the muffled voice of the Suvian. A low rumble began to fill the air.
Molly had gone for cover the moment the tank had aimed at her partner. She barely managed to dive behind her familiar barrel hiding spot and fold down her ears before a billowing explosion rocked the entire boat. There was a cacophony of wood shattering and metal snapping, and she was bounced around her hiding spot like a stuffie in a washing machine. It was only after the initial echo faded away and reality had stopped shaking that Molly dared to peek over her barrel.
Scraps of metal rained from the sky, and the deck was covered in the glittering, flaming ruins of what once was the Ubertank. A massive, smoldering crater sat straight in the middle of the ironclad ship. Molly thought she could hear water gushing from blasted leaks deep inside the hole. She hoped the ship would at least stay afloat for a few more minutes.
John turned to face her, soot-covered arm still outstretched, the remnants of the tank's cannon covering it like a bracer. The orange light and falling embers from the fires behind him made him look like a wraith. It was a shockingly cinematic scene, all things considered.
“Are you…” Molly coughed to clear her throat. “Are you okay, Mister John?”
John pulled the tank cannon off his arm and let it hit the deck, where it collapsed into scraps of smoking metal on impact. He looked back up and shrugged, content. After all, his job was complete. All of the bits were either dead, overboard, or otherwise unable to fight.
Molly seemed satisfied at this, pulling out her charge list to show to him. She tapped her pen against the paper.
“Well, I double-checked and we’re all good with the bits!” she chirped, putting her list away again. “Didn’t miss a single charge! Now the only thing left to deal with is—”
There was a loud, drawn-out creak. Both Agents turned as a trapdoor behind them, nearly invisible at first due to how it blended in with the planked deck, flipped open. Brock, the lead Suvian, looking groggy from sleep, emerged from belowdecks. A handgun dangled at his side.
“What’s happening here? A party wasn’t on the script…” Then he noticed the mess on the decks. “...What the fuck.”
John fired his rifle, and the Suvian exploded in a spray of glitter.
“Wha - Mister John!” Molly looked at the new stain on the deck, then back to him. “We had unique charges for him! It wasn’t time yet!”
John looked at her. He lowered the still-smoldering barrel of his rifle, letting it point towards the deck. Despite his face being completely hidden behind his visor, he managed to look confused.
“I…” Molly weakly waved her chargelist. “To be honest, I don’t know what to do now—”
A geyser of glittering void erupted from the deck, shooting up into the atmosphere with a tremendous blast that made the air ripple like waves. Molly squeaked and made for her barrel again. John raised his rifle and fired at the geyser, but to no effect. A booming voice blasted through the air, smarmy yet rage-filled and echoing.
“YOU KILLED MY FRIENDS! MY PARTNERS!” It roared, the ship cracking from the force of its shout. “YOU WILL NOT GET AWAY WITH THIS!”
The geyser slowed to a halt, its spray of black gunk falling down and condensing, before shifting into a more glittery, ghost-like appearance. Becoming a flash of glitter, the Sue-wraith grabbed John, carried him off the ship and into the sky, back towards Narnian mainland.
Molly was left on a silent ship, only corpses (and a single bit still pinned) surrounding her. Trying to bite back panic, she pulled out her RA, opened a portal, and scrambled through.
(CW: contains violence.)
The Narnian mainland came into view as John was carried through the sky, waves of green hills and forest beneath a sea of darkening clouds.
The wraith set into a dive, dragging John behind it like a living wrecking ball, before using the momentum to swing a glittery arm and send him flying. He slammed into the bunker hard enough to make a crater in the metal wall, a cloud of dust billowing out from the impact.
Flying down after him, the wraith loomed over John in an enormous black-glitter silhouette that blotted out the sun, which was already muted by the heavy clouds filling the sky. Before John could get back up, the wraith attacked.
Its mass rippling like a living black wave, a giant fist formed from its center and swung - John was slammed between the wraith’s fist and the bunker wall with a dreadful crunch. The wall caved, then shattered into solid steel shards as his body broke through from the impact, tumbling across the bunker interior.
With an echoing screech, the wraith shot through the hole to catch up to him mid-flight. It swung its giant glittery fist in an overhead sweep that slammed John straight to the metal floor in another massive crater, more concrete and steel sent flying.
The debris had barely begun to clear before John braced his arms against the floor to pull himself upright.
”NO!” The wraith slammed another fist down onto him, driving him further into the cratered floor. Then it pulled back up, only to punch down again. And again, and again, and again.
There was no cheap power thrown out, no mystical combat arts or perfectly-planned strategies. There was just raw, hate-filled Power imbued into every heavy strike, the soul-gripping rage of a broken monster denied its fantasy.
Small cracks formed across John’s visor. Red-lit words appeared in the corner of his HUD: WARNING - ARMOR INTEGRITY FAILING. His world shook, images doubling, tripling, as the shadowy fists slammed down harder and faster. A crackling, static-like film appeared over his vision.
Finally, the wraith’s rage seemed to subside. It rose up to something as close to a standing position as its glittery, shapeless mass would allow, most of its black hands retracting back into its body. One arm was left out, a spindly one tipped with a bony-fingered hand. Said arm stretched down to John’s prone form, tracing a thin finger up against his armored chin.
”Now that I think of it, I could use a new body…” it said, voice uncharacteristically quiet and pensive. For a moment a thin, black tongue formed from the glitter and licked nonexistent lips, before retreating back into the wraith’s featureless face. “Yes… this body will work perfect—”
There was a soft flumph sort of sound, rather like a pillow being fluffed out, and the side of the wraith’s misty head warped inward. A second later, its glittery mass roiled back to normal, pushing out the tiny pebble that had been thrown at it. With a quiet growl, it turned to the side where the rock had come from.
A few meters away, Molly stood, snout raised in an attempt to look defiant. “I - I have a lot more where that came from, Mister Wraith!” she squeaked. With that, she pulled out her Neuralyzer, squeezed her eyes shut, and fired.
FLASH!
The wraith simply floated, staring blankly at her. Not wasting any time, Molly started reading from her charge list.
“Okay, Mister Wraith! We’re from the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, and you have a lot of charges:
Bringing very tone-clashing buildings and technology into Narnia, making hordes of minions with almost no personality, having said bits do nothing except follow orders and worship you…"
She took a quick moment to catch her breath, then continued. "Twisting canon to make yourselves look good, acting like perfect heroes when you’re even mean to your ‘friends,’ using a canon as a punching bag for World One issues that don’t even work as an analogy—"
Another breath. She flipped a page, quickly lifting a paw to adjust her glasses.
"Not even planning out your rebellion beyond the ‘hurt them all’ step, trying to kill PPC Agents, and for reminding me of my old partner! For all this, we have to stop you!”
John looked at Molly after her last charge, trying to figure out what she meant by that. Then he re-focused his attention as a wide grin appeared on the Sue-wraith’s spectral, glittery face.
“That was it? Just some mere emotional words? That was almost as pathetic as trying to pull a mind trick on me with that little light-up glowstick.” The wraith laughed, a cold and harsh sound that echoed through the air far more than it should have. “Oh, you’re adorable. I’ll make your death qui—”
Taking advantage of the distraction, John pulled up his rifle and blasted the wraith’s grin clean off its face and its face off of its body in a spray of glitter and mist. Screaming, the wraith seemed to shimmer in place, forcibly trying to keep itself together.
Stepping forward, John stomped down on its middle, pinning it to the dirt. The glittery spirit flailed about, trying to turn to mist, to slip out from the boot and reform elsewhere, but it found it simply… couldn't. Its own form, its Power, the Words it strung together to fuel its very being, were no longer responding.
John held up his free arm, aimed a fist at the wraith, and shook his wrist. With a soft, almost polite ding, a rusty, jagged buzzsaw sprouted from the back of the gauntlet and began to spin.
A buzzsaw roar, a downward swing, and the monster's glittery body was cleaved neatly in half. The halves shook, the wraith screamed again, and, with a deafening shockwave of glitter, it exploded.
Molly raised her charge list in defense as the wave of glitter blasted towards her - then she opened them again, realizing nothing had hit her. Instead, it looked like everything had frozen. The air was polluted with black glitter.
Before her eyes, the enormous Suvian military bunker crumbled. Walls fell, rusting and decaying centuries in the span of seconds, turning to dust before they hit the ground. The indents where the bunker foundations used to be filled back in with grass, the soil rising up until it looked like nothing had ever touched them.
Even the floating spiderweb of cracked reality John had punched into existence earlier was fixing itself. The long cracks unmade themselves, seeming to shrink in towards the center of the mass, before it too disappeared into nothing.
Then time moved again - a rush of wind made Molly clutch her charge list tightly to her chest as she sat down.
John hadn’t been frozen in place like his partner, but he had still been mesmerized by the restoring reality. Even with time and space back to normal, he kept staring at the grassy hill where the bunker had been.
A short silence followed, before Molly spoke up. “...Is the wraith gone?”
The silence answered her question. John kept staring at the now-normal hill.
Molly raised a tentative paw. “Hey, Mister John? Are you okay?”
John turned to look at her, and took an audible breath.
He had no one to speak to back on his Earth, and as such he hadn’t used his throat for years. It took effort to force the sound from his mouth and through his visored helmet.
“Thank you,” he said. His voice was rumbly, groaning, like a heavy metal fence creaking open after centuries of collecting rust and cobwebs.
Molly blinked, stunned. “You talk?” she squeaked, before catching herself. “Oh, uh, I mean— you’re welcome!”
John nodded back. Not sure if there was anything left to say, Molly cleared her throat.
“Well… it was messy, but I think we’ve met mission protocol!”
Pulling the tiny checklist from her shirt pocket, she opened it up and skimmed through. “No torture, check… enough charges read before punishment… yep! All good!”
She closed the list and packed it away again. “I think we should go before Aslan shows up. He likes to come out at the end of missions, but I really don’t think I can handle that stress right now.” Molly rubbed a paw against the back of her head.
“If I remember how this works, he can clean up some of the leftover stuff, like the replaced canons and that… Suvian ship we left floating out at sea…” The cartoonishly-sized sweatdrop reappeared, only for her to quickly wipe it away. “I’m sure it’ll be fine! Scariness aside, he’s good at what he does.”
She shook her head, pulled out her RA, and opened up a shimmering portal. "I think we can just go back now. You coming with?"
John didn't respond at first, staring blankly into the sky. The cracks and dents in his armor were gone like they were never there. Molly scurried over, grabbed a giant finger with both paws, and started tugging in the direction of the portal.
Noticing his partner's weak but persistent pulls, John snapped back to reality. Unfamiliar emotions still clouding his mind, he let Molly lead him away, though he had to hunch over so he could fit the portal frame. Together they stepped through the portal, back to Headquarters.
Back in the RC, the Agents were quiet. Molly was typing up the mission report into the console, while John simply stood off in one corner and stared at nothing.
Eventually, Molly finished and sent her report. Sliding off the tall booster seat she had been using as a stool, she waved over to John.
“Hi, Mister John! So, you might be wondering what to do now! It seems calm, doesn’t it?”
John stirred, looking up. She was exactly right, and that concerned him at first - after a second, he wondered why that was, especially considering she had shown him no hostility since his arrival. He brushed the thoughts aside and adjusted his body language to appear attentive.
Molly threw her arms up into the air happily. “Surprise! We get a full break until our next mission!"
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP WEE-WOO WEE-WOO HOOOOOOOOONK—]
John instantly aimed his rifle at the source of the noise, before remembering what the console was and lowering the weapon.
“Oh, speak of the… I got it!” said Molly, skittering over to the console to shut off the alarm. After a quick glance over the console readout, she began typing away at the keypad. “Looks like we’ve got another mission! I hope you’re ready, Mister John!”
John nodded, thinking about how short that 'break' was, empty gaze leveled at the rifle in his lap.
He was thinking.
Back on Earth, he was but a lone, simple being, fighting against endless hordes of alien invaders seeking to kill and destroy everything they saw fit. This new world, this job, was familiar despite its initial strangeness. Never-ending waves of monsters to kill, worlds in need of aid, horrors beyond comprehension at every turn. No breaks, no pay, possibly no end until death. The song was different, but the beat was the same.
As he watched Molly happily open up a portal in the center of the room, John decided he was okay with that.
Perhaps, for this song, he did not have to be alone.
(Author's Note: Well, there you have it, folks. Five months of planning and hours of plotting and writing, all leading to... whatever it is you just finished reading. Longest piece of fiction I've ever written and it's this, heh. Anyways, I hope y'all enjoy it, and have a nice day.)
i really liked the part where he killed thenm all and they died :D
so FIRST ov all it was VERRY RUD of Milly not to rebember John Densepiston Flexgirth's name right, thas't just basic decentsy. but THIRD of all id on't think you got thesizes rtight?? b/c one minute shes' a mouse and hes' a gigant, but tehn theyr'e the same size??? don get itt
One morning Agent Corolla* and Agent Helena** were walking along**** hand in hand****** when they saw Flickerbright.******* "Hello," said Corolla.******** "I thought you were dead."*********
"No,"********** said Flickerbright, "I survived, but I have had a lot of time*********** to think. I am almost sorry for being so bad."************
"Why only almost?" asked Helena.**************
"Because*************** I have not found anyone who loves me," said Flickerbright.
Toy**************** and Hel***************** looked at each other and then at Flicks.******************* "Maybe we could love you," said Toy.*********************
"I would love********************** that," said Flicks, and they all went somewhere.***********************
~
You'll have to imagine them all kissing (and maybe more???), I think the story stops there.
~
*Corolla is a magical robot fairy who can turn into a car. Her full name is Toyota Corolla. Helena calls her Toy as a pet name.
** Helena is a magical not-robot fairy who wears lots of bright colours. She works in both the Department of Floaters and the Nursery for some reason. ***
*** Oh, Corolla works in DoSAT, I should have mentioned that.
**** Or flying along, because they're fairies. Does Corolla have wings? Her pic on the Wiki doesn't show. I guess she has wingMIRRORS haha. *****
***** Because she's a car.
****** I did SAY it was fairyslash. I think they'd be really cute together. They could curl up in like a flower or something together and Helena could stroke Toy's hair while she sleeps. Awww.
******* Flickerbright is a magical fairy who is kind of grumpy and gets a bit murder-y at times. I think she sometimes has poison fairy dust? Not sure though so I'm not using it.
******** I imagine they all have really high pitched voices, but more alto than soprano (but higher than both). Just really warm cozy voices that are also squeaky.
********* I should have said, Flickerbright was in the Black Cats and tried to destroy the PPC. Corolla was around then, so she knows they were beaten, but I don't think it ever said what happened to Flickerbright.
********** Haha, were you expecting her to be mean? Nope! Read on to find out why she's not trying to kill them.
*********** I think it's been like 5 years since Crashing Down came out. Crazy right?!
************ How bad was Flickerbright? I haven't read it in a while but I think she killed a Flower, and maybe Blue too? Unless that was the vampire, ************* I might be getting them mixed up.
************* So WHY DID Selene turn evil and start calling herself Lady Thingy? And why did the SO let her back into the PPC afterwards? I never understood that bit.
************** Because she works in Nursery I figure she must be really kind. I've not read her spin-off much though.
*************** "Never start a sentence with because!!!" - Mr Young back at school. How do you like that subducting clause, Mr GRUMPung??
**************** Remember I said that's what Helena calls her? FORESHADOWING.
***************** I'm not sure about this one. I want Toy ****************** to have a nickname for Helena but I don't think this works. But she doesn't have a last name??
****************** Haha it autocorrected that to "You". No, you don't have a nickname for anyone!
******************* She's called that in the story ******************** ! See, I did my research.
******************** I think.
********************* It corrected it wrong again! Anyway Toy is the most decisive one so that's why she said it, but she checked with Helena first.
********************** Not sure what that's called when you repeat a word? It's like alliteration but different.
*********************** Haven't managed to think where. Helena has infinity response centres ************************ so I don't think they could find one. Corolla works in DoSAT which is way too dangerous to let anyone else in. And Flickerbright has been hiding/lost/missing and I don't know where.
************************ Somehow.
((NO REGRETS! NO APOLOGIES! ~hS))
Louie wanted me to tell you he couldn't understand it all that well, though. Could use more footnotes to explain, maybe.
You should have used numbers insteadof all the tiny dot thingies so ir wasnt be so confising. Just a little top next time.
I liked the story istelf tho!!1 there juat arent enoufh faities in the poc lol.
((All real typos. -Ls))
Ok I'm trying something new here Which is called ouch painkillers distractions, yes yes? And lowercase name because why not Anyways so yeah, at first I kind of thought you were censoring the story saved then I realized it was all footnotes!! XD awesome m except then I started getting lost so maybe next time if you have so many footnotes your night want to make some labeled with numbers or other symbols or something? Just a thought bc I got really lost by the end and that was sad BC I was enjoying it before that
That's it hope ur doing well dw
[ETA: there was actually formatting in there! XD It even shows up in the editing view! I'm just going to leave it as is for ~realism~ or somesuch, though. ~Z]
Fairies r the best an their so cute!1