Protectors of the Plot Continuum: Chapter One

Disclaimer: This is a spin-off of The Protectors of the Plot Continuum by the muchly talented and hilarious authors Jay and Acacia. *blows kisses* If you haven’t read it, then you won’t understand this, so go read it. Do a Google search. It’s not hard. Thankfully, we don’t own the story that we’re disposing of here; however, Claudia did MST it and send it back to the author, so we do own that MST even though it was ignored. Claudia’s family owns most of the furniture mentioned, and we own Claudia and Ella.

The Protectors of the Plot Continuum:
Department of Author Correspondence


by Godforsaken and Lantarmiel


Chapter One: Amin Mela Lle

The room itself resembled a fairly spacious prison cell, more than anything else. It was square, and it had grey floors, walls, and ceiling made out of some sort of Generic Grey Material that resembled Public School Wall Material to a frightening degree. (Consensus holds that Public School Wall Material is painted concrete, but no one’s ever awake enough in school to be sure.) It had no windows or carpet or molding, and only two doors, both grey. It was all in all a very plain and forbidding room.

The two agents resident in this room had done what they could with it, which was mainly to fill it with old furniture and thus a tiresome amount of Family History.

Well, that is not entirely true. Agent Claudia had done most of the interior decorating, going for the shabby look, both because it was convenient and because the room was just too damn small for any sort of Gothic look to have worked at all. So upon the dull grey floor, she had put a large faded rug, with designs in pink and blue and other unremarkable pastels upon a cream-colored background. This rug was about as old as Agent Claudia was. Against one wall, she had placed a very springy deep blue couch, which had been in her various dens since she was born, until it was lost, as was Claudia herself, in the mayhem of moving. An immense wooden desk was shoved into one corner, a great dark wood thing with a black writing surface that was so old that some of the drawers along the side had fallen apart and were gaping holes, now stuffed with paperwork. A computer and various other Technological Gadgets were scattered proudly over its surface. Not only was this desk merely “older than Agent Claudia,” it had been bought secondhand in 1977 at a factory closing by her grandfather. Instead of a typical desk chair, an extremely old, worn armchair sat in front of it; ex-white and with faded floral print, the ends of the arms frayed. An identical one of these chairs sat besides the drysink.

The drysink was a curious piece of furniture; one that is nowadays viewed as obsolete (if it is viewed at all), but that is, undoubtedly, extremely useful. It consisted of two cabinets at the bottom, and a drawer right above one of them, creating an odd sort of surface that seems to be a tabletop with a built-in sink (hence the name). Two feet above these, there were four small drawers, the tops of which formed a nice long shelf. This particular drysink was much older than Agent Claudia (maybe thirty years older), had seen a substantial amount more wear and tear, and contained nearly every proper codex-bound book in the room.

Ella’s little “corner” was full of interesting Star-Trek gadgets, including a holographic projector, a mini replicator (invented by some author, and incredibly useful), and several phasers, tricorders, and other small hand-held devices that went “beep.” The only other article of furniture in the room was an old dresser.

The gloomy grey walls had been decorated with various calendars, signs, pictures, stickers, printouts, and Post-It(TM) notes. One door led to the bathroom, and was labeled “Bathroom” in heavy Black-Letter, and the other led to the hallway, and was labeled “The Sign Is On the Other Side of the Door.”

The sign on the other side of the door read “Department of Author Correspondence/The Lord of the Rings General Understudies: Agents Claudia Beth King and Ella Darcy.”

Back inside the room, Agent Claudia sat in the aged armchair in front of the computer screen, alternately typing furiously and clicking, an unhappy expression on her face.

“Oh, no.” She made an odd, depressed moaning sound, smacking her forehead with her hand.

“What?” inquired Ella, a transfer from the Department of Star Trek: The Next Generation General Fanfics. She was attempting to mount her bat’leth on the wall— not an easy task, considering that she was balanced with the grace only a dancer possessed on the arm of the couch and a leaning stack of paperwork.

“Do you recall that Sue we CC/MST-d last week where all the chapters were really short and unformatted?”

Ella grew slightly apprehensive. “Yeah, why? Did she finish Chapter Ten?”

Claudia was the first to break the streak of Answering With Another Question. “She supposedly posted Chapter Three, but it’s just the Story Notes and Chapter One again. I’m pretty sure that means she’s ignored our message, and that we have to send it off to the assassins.”

Ella screeched and began to suck on her hand, as she had just cut herself with the bat’leth. She leaned over Claudia’s shoulder and peered at the computer screen, wincing.

The computer display, apparently nauseated by the offending fanfic, was turning greenish. Ella blinked in surprise.

“I’ve never seen it do that before.”

“Well, you’ve only been in this fandom two days,” Claudia reminded her. She quickly sent an alert off to someone whose job routinely included killing things, and sat back in her chair. Ella opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted.

[BEEEEEEEEEEP!]

Claudia sat bolt upright, her face twisted in anger and disbelief. “Gilthoniel, a Elbereth,” she muttered, glaring venomously at the window that had popped up on the screen. “Apparently all the assassins are busy,” she said to the confused Ella.

“What does that mean?” Ella asked, hoping the answer was not what she thought it was.

“It means we get to play assassin,” Claudia said, brightening up considerably, as if she had only realized what a fun prospect that was. “Let me send this off to the Department of Redundancy Department first so we don’t relive Chapter One three times….” She tapped some keys on the console, then sat back. “So. Have you ever been Sue-hunting before?”

“Not in this Continuum, and the Star Trek ones were fairly easy once you find them. But I’m good at finding charges, because the Mary Sues there would find something that had happened in an episode and think it was original. Anyway. Have you?” she babbled happily.

“Once or twice.” Claudia got out of the chair and headed towards the dresser. “I did fairly well on them. And I’ve talked to some of the older assassins; they gave me tips.” She pulled a canvas duffel bag out of the third-from-the-top drawer and started throwing things into it, naming them as she went. “Character Analysis Device, important; playing cards; CD player; knife; snacks; seam ripper; rope; water bottle; glass jar; Lórien cloak; clipboard with paper; pen; portalling device; neuralyzer thingy; sunglasses... I need one more thing, Ella. Can you guess?”

“Towel?” Ella hazarded.

“Exactly!” Claudia ran into the bathroom enthusiastically, and came out holding two big jade-green towels. She threw one of them at Ella. “Get packed. We should be getting that back soon.”

“Yes’m.” Ella complied as quickly as she could. When she finished, Claudia handed her a large knife and a length of rope.

“I’m too weak for archery in this body; besides, you don’t have training. But knives are easy,” she explained. She leaned over the console as Ella stuffed the knife and rope into her duffel bag.

“Can I bring my phaser? Or my bat’leth?”

“No, Ella, it’s not canonical enough. Now, most of this takes place in Mirkwood, if there is a ‘most,’ so we’ll be going as Elves. Stay still.” She fiddled with the console for a bit (it’d been a while since her last mission, but she was sure that the default was on Uruk-hai). “Alright, give the DRD a few moments….”

As everyone knows, the best way to get something to happen is to start doing something else. Claudia opened a Correspondence assignment, and sure enough, as soon as her fingers touched the keyboard—

[BEEP.]

“Ah, there it is.” She hit something else on the console, and a hole appeared in the air, shaped like a doorway. “Brace yourself,” she told Ella. “We have to start at the beginning.” The two agents stepped through it.

Ella’s head swam. The air seemed too thin, and the world seemed to be spinning. The setting looked like a green-screen with sky. She looked down at herself, and gasped in delight. She admired her Elven frame and gown for about half a second, and then returned to feeling ill. “Claudia?”

“It’s the lack of description,” Claudia answered, before shoving her onto the spinning ground and flinging the Lórien cloak over them both, à la Frodo and Sam at the Dark Gates (in movieverse).

“Where’d you get the cloak?” Ella asked from underneath it.

“Last mission, and I’m glad, ’cos there’s no setting here. Oh, here’s the story.”

Out of nowhere, they heard the sound of hoofbeats. A moment later, they heard the sound of Orc-feet. Claudia lifted up the edge of the cloak; they could see the feet actually coming out of what appeared to be nothing, but were actually plotholes. They heard a few female screams, a cry of “Run!”, then the twang of a bow and a thud as the Orc fell. More noise of general stampede and arrows being shot; then dead silence.

“Aaaaaand that’s Chapter One,” Claudia mumbled. The two agents could see the bodies of the Orcs fading into nothing, video game-style. “Be happy we only get that once.”

“Are you hurt?” The voice was recognizable as Legolas’.

‘ “I could have taken care of the Orcs myself!” Be’léa snapped at Legolas, not realizing that he was the prince of Mirkwood. “I'm sorry, briennillen,” Legolas replied. “I did not know that you would be able to.” ’

Claudia gave a long-suffering sigh; Ella opened and closed her mouth repeatedly. “Bitch!” she said, outraged.

“That is not the Sindarin for ‘my lady’!” Claudia hissed. “It’s híril nîn, if I’m not dreadfully mistaken.” She turned her head to the side in an attempt to make out the Words.

‘Be’lea looked at him, and realized that he was gorgeous. He was tall and had blonde hair that shone like silk and the clearest, bluest eyes that she had ever seen. She also took a liking to his voice, which was gentle and sounded almost musical. Then he realized that he didn’t know their names.’

Ella squinted out from under the cloak, looking at the Words. “Clearest, bluest? That can’t be right. That’s not right. And she switched points of view without warning. This is painful already!”

“What are your names?” came Legolas’ voice.

‘ “I'm Be’léa Fayr’whing, princess of Lorien and these are my two friends, Noshaan Raven’tress and (Tiffany’s elvish name), also of Lorien. I believe we don’t know your name either.” Be’léa said. “I am Legolas Greenleaf, prince of Mirkwood, Your Highness.” Legolas replied. He looked at Be’léa and realized that she was even more beautiful up close. She had soft, long, wavy brown hair and gentle, big brown eyes.’

Ella looked thoughtful. “While there isn’t enough of this for me to figure out if it’s bookverse or movieverse, I know that in movieverse, all the Lórien Elves are blond and blue-eyed. At any rate, if she’s descended from Celeborn and Galadriel, it’s likely her hair would be silver, like Celebrían’s. Or maybe not. Depends on which Elven genes are recessive and how many generations separate them.” She continued looking thoughtful. “Oh, and don’t let me get started on the names. I’ll never shut up.” Claudia snerked appreciatively.

‘She also had a clear, sweet voice, although she sounded annoyed. “Please, call me Be’léa. I hate Your Highness.” ’

“And that’s Chapter Two,” Claudia said matter-of-factly.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think ‘(Tiffany’s elvish name)’ counts as an Elven name,” Ella remarked. “And Elves don’t use double vowels or apostrophes either. Klingons do....”

“Sh!”

“Ah. Thank you.”

Legolas’ voice sounded again. “Alright then Be’léa, where are your horses?” Pause. “All right, we can take turns riding my horse. Noshaan, why don’t you go first, while Be’léa, (Tiffany), and I walk, then (Tiffany) you can go next. Noshaan and (Tiffany) glanced at each other. They could tell from the moment Legolas had set his eyes on her. Legolas had fallen in love with Be’léa.”

Claudia giggled. “Somebody left out a quotation mark.”

The two agents stood up. Well, the poor out-of-character Legolas was walking besides the brown-haired Sue, and the two nondescript Elven bit characters were walking ahead of them. They were walking over completely bare scenery towards a large, shimmery hole in the air that resembled a severe heat haze. A forest could be seen through the hole in the air. The two agents stayed several feet behind the troop, as only one character in it could not see them. Damned groups of OFCs.

“What's that?” asked Ella softly, gesturing towards the heat haze.

“That’s a Time-Space Distortion, and the barrier between chapters Three and....” She squinted at the Words. “Five. It’s taking them straight to Mirkwood, all the way from here,” Claudia whispered back.

“And ‘here’ would be ‘supposedly just-outside-Lórien’?”

“I guess so.”

“Yeesh, you could at least say ‘after a long and arduous journey’ or something….”

Claudia laughed slightly. “You know, I’m sure there was a Chapter Four when we MST-d this. Although I’m also sure it was about five lines long.”

“There was. They smiled at each other the whole time.”

Claudia pulled out her Character Analysis Device, and handed the cloak she was carrying to Ella. She turned the volume all the way down, then pointed it at each of the characters in turn.

[Noshaan Raven’tress. Elf female. Non canon. Bit character.]

[(Tiffany’s Elvish name). Elf female. Non canon. Bit character.]

[Be’léa Fayr’whing. Elf female. Non canon. Mary Sue.]

[Legolas Greenleaf. Elf male. Canon. Out of Character 60.38% CHARACTER RUPTURE!]

“Augh!” cried Ella, outraged. Noshaan glanced over her shoulder at the sound, but, seeing nothing, resumed being a lifeless bit character.

Claudia and Ella had thrown themselves flat on the ground, the Lórien cloak only half covering them. Luckily, bit characters were often exceedingly dumb, and Noshaan was no exception. They hastily got back to their feet.

The “fic” characters walked into the Time-Space Distortion and through the un-canonically sunny woods, heading for the entrance to the home of the Elven-king. (Not like this author would use an actual book-term like ‘Elven-king.’)

Ella felt only mildly nauseous as she stepped into the Time-Space Distortion, having been through several transporters in the Star Trek continuum, which rearranged one’s molecules in a similarly uncomfortable way. Claudia didn’t look so good, but immediately starting poking through her duffel bag in a businesslike manner. She stuffed the Character Analysis Device back into it, and pulled out a seam ripper and a glass jar.

“What are you going to do with those?” Ella hissed.

“Eliminating the Mary-Sue snaps canon back into place, but shoving canon into place helps weaken the Mary-Sue,” Claudia replied. Ella watched in amazement as Claudia started picking at the edge of the Distortion with the seam ripper, a look of intense concentration on her face. It looked almost as if the entire view were painted on a wall, and that Claudia was standing right in front of that wall peeling off a large patch of old wallpaper.

As Claudia picked diligently at the seams of the Distortion, she fed it slowly into the glass jar. By the time she was done, the characters they were tracking had vanished inside, and she was holding a jar of shimmering air. She clamped the lid on it and shoved it back in the bag. Then they ran up the path as quickly as they could, ducking inside the gate before it clanged shut. After all, once the door to the Elven-king’s stronghold was shut, it could not be lock picked open, and since the Sue never mentioned that occurrence, it was still intact.

They slipped in through the doorway just as Arwen was leading the Sue and her friends to their rooms. Ella frowned, and fished the Character Analysis Device from Claudia’s duffel bag. She checked the volume, and pointed it at Arwen, who was following the group of soulless demons in Elf-bodies Elf-women.

[Arwen Evenstar. Elf female. Canon. Out of Character 72.08% CHARACTER RUPTURE!]

“How is she more out of character than Legolas?” Ella demanded.

“Maybe because Legolas got to keep his fighting skills.” Claudia paused. “Wait, she overdid his fighting skills though... maybe because he gets to keep his status as royalty?”

“Possible. Very, very possible,” Ella replied, à la Bernadette Peters.

The three non-canons entered a room off the hallway; Arwen closed the door and turned around. Claudia, a sucker for totally inconsequential actions, jumped in front of her and grabbed her shoulders. Arwen looked at her, eyes unfocused, and started saying incoherent things.

“Nice... friendly... Be’léa friendly... sister... nice... nice?... what is wrong with these people?” She looked at Claudia fearfully. “What did she do to me? Who are you?”

“Not telling. But we can and will help you. We will take care of her. She shall cause no lasting damage to you or those you love, you have my word.” Claudia let go of Arwen and ducked behind Ella, looking very sad as Arwen regained her Sue-induced OOC-ness and walked off down the hallway.

Ella pressed her ear against the wall in time to hear Noshaan squeal, “Isn’t Prince Legolas gorgeous?” She made mental gagging noises, then repeated what she’d heard to Claudia. The two of them ran into a nearby completely nondescript room to write up a charge list.

Claudia pulled out the clipboard with paper and the pen, and titled it “Amin Mela Lle—Noshaan Raven’tress—Charge List: Be’léa Fayr’whing.”

Ella was shaking with rage as she started rattling off every little thing that the Sue had done to annoy her, most of it having to do with Legolas. However, she only got to rattle on for about five seconds before the thinness of the air got to her and she slumped to the floor, gasping.

Claudia winced and looked up at the sparse Words. “This fic is brutally rapid. They’ve gone down for dinner already, hon; I’m hungry.” She kept reading. “Oh, and it’s Chapter Six. And—” she made a incoherent ‘gak!’ sound “—they’re having a ball afterwards.”

Ella sat up. “Don’t they usually have that portable outdoor-feast thing?”

“Yeah, but perhaps all the spiders left when it became Eryn Lasgalen.”

“But it’s not Eryn Lasgalen yet. The Words still say Mirkwood.”

Claudia sighed. “Would it be too much to ask you to specify how much time has passed since the War of the Ring and the time this fic takes place?” she asked the Words bitterly.

... ‘an elf came and escorted them down to the dinner table. Legolas looked over at Be’léa, who was on his arm. She’s so beautiful, he thought.’ the Words responded. Ella groaned.

“FOOD, hon.” Claudia pulled Ella up and pulled her out of the room, and the two agents started running at breakneck speed in the general direction of the dining area, despite the fact that it made them feel as if they were about to asphyxiate. They only slowed down when they actually reached the dining room—canon characters couldn’t see them, but would most certainly notice if they got ran into.

For the most part, they looked normal; however, Claudia had brought the Character Analysis Device, charge sheet and pen with her, and was busy writing down offenses while munching on buttered rolls and staying away from Elven alcohol. Ella, on the other hand, was listening to the Sue tell Legolas her life story, and thus was drinking Elven wine in abundance while making snide, MST-style comments. There is a reason that Legolas-fanciers are not assigned jobs that go into fanfiction often, and this is one of them.

Claudia was distinctly unhappy. Although the hall was packed, it still felt empty; the sumptuous rooms of the Elven-king’s cave seemed bare; and the dinner, though it made sense that it should be about two hours long, seemed to be going by very quickly. Also, listening to Legolas and the Sue talk was irritating beyond belief—the author had neglected to started new paragraphs for replies, so they did not seem to be going back and forth in a conversation so much as stepping on each other’s lines. She amused herself by pointing the Character Analysis Device at people, but that wore off quite quickly.

[Frodo Baggins. Hobbit male. Canon. Out of Character ERROR Cannot Find Character 0% Personality Detected]

Claudia pouted. Frodo was the main character; what was the use of putting him in a fic if you didn’t put a personality in there as well? Damn Mundanes.

Suddenly, everyone up and went to an adjoining room. Claudia looked at the door fearfully. “A ballroom... so Cinderella....” she whimpered, her fear of fairy tales taking over for the moment.

Ella looked at her with massive puppy-dog eyes. “Can we just stay here and do the charges through the Words?”

“If we can keep eating.”

“Fine by me.”

Ella and Claudia had a fairly enjoyable two hours, which included much playing of the dot game on the other sheets of paper besides the charge list, and swapping random bits of life story. The Words for all this time amounted to something around half a page, although the half page was distinctly painful and included much butchering of the Elvish language (including not specifying which Elvish language, to Claudia’s chagrin) and a stuttered marriage proposal.

“She will die soon, and all will be well. She will die soon, and all will be well,” Ella muttered to herself. She began tapping her finger just behind her ear.

“What are you doing?” Claudia asked.

“I forget the Betazoid name, but it releases pleasure hormones. I’m trying to stop my homicidal thoughts from entering the Sue’s mind. I’m trying to imagine that I’m back on the holodeck on the Enterprise, playing my favorite program,” Ella replied. Then she stopped. “Damn. I keep forgetting that I’m not a Betazoid ensign anymore, and that I don’t have psychic powers.”

Claudia snickered.

‘Then they walked hand in hand back to the palace to tell King Thranduil. Thranduil was shocked, but thrilled, and gave the happy couple his blessings, as he thought it was time that Legolas found a wife.’

Ella stuck out her tongue and scribbled another offense down on the charge list as the room filled up again. Claudia made sure the volume on the Character Analysis Device was down as low as it could go, put her hand over it for good measure, and pointed it at Thranduil. She still heard the faint beeping noise.

[Thranduil, the Elven-king. Elf male. Canon. Out of Character 91.29% CHARACTER RUPTURE!]

“Where’s the canon ten percent?” Ella asked disgustedly.

“Being King and being shocked,” Claudia guessed; then the two agents had to run after the Sue as Chapter Eight started.

The Sue ran through a couple of hallways until she randomly ran into Arwen, the two agents close behind. The Sue pulled Arwen through a random doorway, and the two agents ran into the room next to it. Ella pressed her ear against the wall between the rooms, dictating what she heard to Claudia in whispers as Claudia peered at the Words and added things to her charge list.

“Wait...Aragorn asked the author to marry her? What the.... Oh, it’s Arwen’s thoughts.” Claudia growled at the lack of italics, tildes, commas, or anything else to demonstrate that Arwen was thinking the lines.

“Young love? Okay the author has to know that Legolas is 2,931 at the time of the Fellowship, movieverse,” Ella grumbled. Then she looked at the Words. “Oh, and it’s his 3,000th birthday party. Hmmm. Young. Riiiiiight.” The Sue ran silently down the hallway to find Legolas with Sue-ish grace, as Arwen faded into lifelessness.

A quick glance at the Words showed the authors where the Sue was heading: Legolas’ bedroom. Ella was furious, but didn’t really have a chance to do anything except complain as Claudia pulled her down the hall in the general direction of Legolas’ Elvish singing.

“Can we kill her yet? Please?” she begged. “And look, she says that Mirkwood will one day be Legolas’. That implies that Thranduil dies! And she mentioned a diner. If that’s not a breach of canon....”

“Shut up!” Claudia snapped. “I think we’re going to have to stick around until the wedding; that’s kind of the biggest single-event canon break I can find.”

“Rules suck,” Ella pouted. “When’s the wedding?”

“After this conversation,” Claudia replied soothingly.

The Sue shut the door to Legolas’ room, and the singing stopped. The two agents pressed their ears against the wall again, breathing heavily. How can she do all this running around with this total lack of atmosphere? Claudia wondered.

The conversation was once again utterly unformatted, creating another irritating stepping-on-lines effect. The two characters inside were alternately making out and insulting each other. Ella was furiously adding every bit of un-Elven behavior to the charge list; Claudia merely got fed up, stuck her fingers in her ears, and started singing Ex-Lover’s Lover.

I saw you with him, you looked so happy; all of that can change, ’cos I am so lonely, and I have lots of time to send you straight to the Devil; I’m taking my time to plan your demise…,” she sang, eyes shut, and swaying slightly back and forth. Ella, whose liking of Voltaire did not stretch past Banned on Vulcan in the least, ignored her and started humming Shy to herself. However, as the song was meant to be belted at the top of the singer’s lungs, it didn’t sound quite right and Ella was forced to continue note-taking. She heard laughter, and looked at the Words. Thank Goddess, the second Chapter Eight was over; Chapter Ten next...

...in a month.

“Claudia!”

Claudia pulled her fingers out of her ears at her partner’s panicked cry. “What?”

“Next chapter takes place in a month. I am not hanging around here for a month.”

“Fine.” Claudia stood up and looked around. “Let’s pick a room and figure out what we’ve got to do to get in the least amount of trouble with Upstairs. I don’t want to talk to an angry saffron crocus.”

“Never met the boss face-to-...petal. Don’t want to either. The sequoia was frightening enough.”

“That’s because it was a drugged-up hippie sequoia tree,” Claudia replied, entering a conveniently placed Vacant Elven Guest Room.



“Okay, so we’ve condensed the charge list and we know what we’re gonna do for the wedding, so... we can go now,” Ella said happily, stuffing everything back into her duffel bag.

“No. Tired. We’ve been on this mission for five and a half hours already.” Claudia sounded sullen.

“Most of that was waiting for the next chapter to start. Meaning five hours of it. Which was condensed into probably two hours.” Claudia glared, and pulled the Lórien cloak out of her bag. Ella sighed. “Fine, we’ll portal tomorrow, wimp.”

“Just because you were trained in the Star Trek continuum,” Claudia grumbled, curling up and throwing the cloak over herself.

“Five hours, and they’re already engaged. How pathetic,” Ella mused. She stretched out on the floor and fell asleep immediately.



Claudia woke up early the next morning to the sound of Ella unwrapping a cereal bar. Claudia, for the record, was a really light sleeper. “Food?” she asked, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Ella tossed her another cereal bar.

After she finished it, Claudia looked at the wrapper dubiously. “Isn’t this a bit uncanonical?” she asked, her morning laconic tendencies having worn off.

“You packed. And it’s not like anyone else gets to see it.”

Claudia stuck her tongue out in a most un-Elven way and stuffed the cloak and the wrapper back in her bag. “Lessgo.”

Ella pulled out the portalling device, and Claudia grabbed her wrist. “Don’t you want more Lórien cloaks?” she inquired.

Ella’s face lit up. “Now that you mention it, I do. Let’s go see if these Sues have anything worth stealing.”

The two agents crept as quietly as possible towards the Sue’s room. Thankfully, everyone was still asleep, so there was no one to stop them from pinching the cloaks off of all three noncanons. “Extras always useful,” Claudia whispered.

“Ooh, pretty knife!” Ella picked up a long belt-knife that had manifested in Chapter One, but had been discarded as soon as possible via never being mentioned. She grinned widely; lack of continuity leaves some wonderful things lying about forgotten.

She looked at it more carefully—it was very pretty and well made, as would be expected of anything within twelve feet of ‘Galadriel’s granddaughter.’

“Anything else?” Claudia asked.

“Might be fun to see if we can lift any lembas. I’ve never had lembas,” Ella suggested. “Gakh, yes; lembas, no. But hopefully lembas is better than live worms.”

Claudia threw her a venomous glare. “Are you trying to irritate me?” However, she agreed to go to the kitchens and steal food (“Although supposedly Galadriel’s lembas is better…”). After all, they didn’t get to go on missions very often.

“So why can’t we just stab her at the wedding again?” asked Ella, stuffing lembas into the (now very full) duffel bag.

“Elves don’t kill other Elves,” Claudia replied, taking out the portalling device. “Oookay... Chapter Ten.” She looked at Ella. “We have to do this fast.”

“Quickly,” Ella corrected. Claudia rolled her eyes and hit the fast-forward button on the portalling device.

With a nauseating lurch, the scene shifted to the day of the wedding. The agents had no idea what part of the palace they were in, but it was decked out in traditional modern Western big-church-wedding style, complete with the groom wearing a tuxedo (thankfully, this was enough of a break in canon to warrant assassination immediately). The Sue was in white, and was hanging about in what seemed to be the equivalent of the vestibule. The two bit characters were in the front of the chapel-equivalent.

“Noshaan! Ruunya!” Ella called, and the two bit characters (one of whom had apparently gained an Elvish... er, Klingon name somewhere in the past month) up and ran back into the vestibule.

“Hey! What’re you—” The Sue ran angrily towards the two Elves with the odd gleaming thing and the duffel bags.

Claudia hit the button right as the non-canons reached them, dumping the lot of them in Headquarters.

“...doing...?” the Sue finished, looking around in shock. Claudia leaned over, hit a button on the console, and shoved the Sue and the bit characters through the portal. The characters looked around in bewilderment.

They were standing at the Cracks of Doom.

“How unoriginal,” Ella grumbled, pushing the bit characters off the edge. “And it smells.”

“I know,” Claudia answered, “And we’re supposed to be able to portal without going back to HQ.”

Ella nodded vaguely and turned back to the Sue, whose arms Claudia had a firm hold of. “Be’léa Fayr’whing,” she began officiously, “you are charged with causing Time-Space distortions; lack of formatting; short-arse chapters; massacring the Elvish language; massacring the English language and its formatting rules; utter lack of respect for Elven culture as manifested by modern slang and bloody TUXEDOS; interfering with the characters of Legolas, Thranduil, Arwen, and just about everybody else; deleting characters; utter lack of continuity; complete lack of danger therefore making it impossible for us to kill you without breaking company rules; scheming to make Legolas fall in love with you; planning to marry him; changing a character’s name four times; pissing me off big time by attempting to steal my man,” –Claudia raised an eyebrow— “and... erm... and being a Mary Sue. I think that’s all. Any last words?”

“I’m not a Mary Sue!” the Sue said.

“Yes you are, dear,” Claudia informed her politely.

“How?” asked Be’léa, tears forming in her eyes.

Ella sighed. “Being related to established canon characters; holding a nonexistent title; having hair and eye colors that, as far as we can tell, don’t properly reflect your lineage; having Legolas fall head-over-heels in love with you immediately; spending more time describing clothing than setting, against the express rules of Miss Cam— the list of things wrong with your story is ten times longer than the story itself. Any non-sentimental last words?”

“How could you do this to me? What did I ever—aaaaaaaauuuuggghhhh!” the Sue wailed as Claudia spun her out of her arms and over the edge.

Claudia peered over the edge. “Okay. Glad that’s over. Let’s go home now.”

Back in Headquarters, the two girls dropped their luggage and sank onto the couch.

“That,” said Claudia, “was one of the most tedious missions I’ve ever been on.” “If that Sue had woken up, it would have gotten even worse,” commented Ella. She looked down at her all-black ensemble and ran her fingers through her hair, which was back to its shoulder-length caramel blonde. “I kinda liked being an Elf, though.”

“We’re going to get into trouble with Upstairs,” Claudia predicted pessimistically. She started rooting through her bag, and pulled out the glass jar that contained the Time-Space Distortion. “I’ll go give this to Makes-Things.”

“What does Makes-Things need a Distortion for?” Ella inquired.

“Power source, of course,” Claudia responded, then slipped out the door into the hallway. Ella groaned and started to unpack.

[Claudia’s A/N: Considering that the fic we were working off is three pages long when condensed to Verdana in 8-size font, it’s amazing how much incorrectness got squeezed into it. Oh, and that’s only with Story Notes and Chapter One in it *once*. Poor author posted Chapter One and Notes *three* times. Anyway, we love reviews; we really do, so please email us reviews! I can be reached at agentclaudia@optonline.net. And feel free to send us more victims. And many thanks to Jay and Acacia for writing the original PPC. Dedicated to the “author” of the “bare bones of a story with osteoporosis” ‘Amin Mela Lle’. Thank the Goddess it’s gone.]

[Ella’s A/N: Well. I’d like to point out one simple fact about me. I am *not* a pitiful Legolas fangirl. I have always felt a strange affection for the character, even when he was known as “the strange elf clad in green and brown” who sang a lot. Also, I hadn’t read the PPC until Claudia told me to. But they’re awesome.... Anyway. The story we based this on was so painful, I was sitting slumped on Claudia’s bed screaming “NO! DON’T MAKE ME READ ANYMORE!” the entire time. Anyway. Please review!]

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