Mary Sue Got Harried, Chapter 11 of 14
Feb. 19th, 2009 01:56 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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gen_storytellerTitle: Mary Sue Got Harried
Author: Ozma914
Summary: A group of watchers and slayers taking a creative writing class are assigned a simple lesson in author intrusion. But nothing’s ever simple when magic is -- literally -- in the air. (Note: This is set in my fictional universe in which magical spells have helped heal Dana’s mind and the Buffybot’s body, and may also have had an effect on the resident ghost -- Tara. Things get a bit ... whimsical.)
Rating: PG-13 eventually, for character death. But don't panic.
Warnings: Extreme Mary Suism
Disclaimer: All characters who belong to Joss and co, belong to Joss and co.
Characters: Tara, Dana, Buffybot, Andrew, Xander; appearances by Giles, Willow and Kennedy, and some surprises. Also an original watcher who is absolutely not, in any way, the author, and an original slayer who has absolutely no connection to the author's daughter. Honest. Would I lie?
Mary Sue Got Harried, Chapter Eleven: Friction in Fanfiction
(In which our cast is brought together, whether they like it or not.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Left,” Dana intoned, gesturing vaguely. Xander turned the van onto another street, in some Chicago neighborhood he didn’t recognize, and prayed he was doing the right thing.
“Are we almost there?” Bottie asked again. She bounced in the back seat, excited at the late night drive and the prospect of imminent combat, even though the only thing Dana had told her was that the slayer needed a little assistance saving the world before breakfast.
“Almost,” Dana whispered. “Almost time for the black and the white to meet. The game is on again -- isn’t it ironic?”
"Um ... sure." He should have told somebody. Gripping the steering wheel, Xander verbally kicked himself for not remembering a cell phone. Dana had already grabbed Bottie when he spotted them while wandering the halls, and if he hadn’t hurried to catch up they’d have disappeared, but he still had the feeling he’d made a grave mistake. He’d only stopped trying to talk them out of going when Dana gave him that narrow eyed stare that usually meant she was about to break something.
“I don’t know where we are,” he finally announced. “I really only know my way from the headquarters to the airports in this town. And a few cemeteries.”
“Almost there,” Dana said again. “Room to strike, room to sacrifice, room to out.”
“Uh huh.”
“We’re going to save the world again!” Buffybot squealed. “I love being useful!”
Xander drove on, wondering if he was in a Twilight Zone episode or a Three Stooges comedy. This couldn’t possibly get any weirder.
“Stop!” Dana screamed.
Stomping on the brake, Xander brought the car to a screeching halt. He looked around, and immediately caught sight of a huge, dark building, maybe large enough for two or three apocalypses. It took him a moment to recognize it, but then he felt his eye bulge out. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Dana opened the door and, just before stepping out, turned to her companions:
“Play ball.”
-_#_-
Giles waited for Willow and Kennedy to return with satchels of weapons, before positioning his forces. He had six doors he wanted forced, six rooms cleared at the same time, and after some thought he’d decided to trust not only his magic-contaminated comrades, but even the newcomers to do the job. The devil you know, Richard thought. It seemed counterintuitive to secure magical constructs with other magical constructs, but the reason Giles didn’t call on the other slayers remained obvious: the Head Watcher was afraid this plague of magic might spread further.
Finally ready, Giles took one last look up and down the corridor, then nodded. “One. Two. Three!”
-_#_-
Gerard hit a particularly good spot, causing Teagan to cry out loud at the same instant the door crashed open. Startled, the band leader lost his balance and crashed to the floor. Teagan, who by this time could barely move and would expose herself if she did, poked her head over the couch to see Andrew and an unfamiliar young girl invading the room. The girl held a device over her head that emitted a long, green, humming blade, looking frighteningly similar to a lightsaber, while Andrew held a crossbow at ready.
“Get off that girl!” the lightsaber wielding girl shouted, although even as she spoke Gerard was rolling across the floor.
“It was only a back rub!” Teagan yelled, out of fear that her new boyfriend was about to get sliced in half.
“Hands up,” Andrew ordered.
Teagan, still prone on the couch, stared at him. If she raised her arms right now, the young watcher would get a glimpse of something that according to current odds he only had a 50-50 chance of wanting to see.
“Not you.” Andrew waved his weapon at the rocker. “You.”
“Oh, sorry.” Climbing to his feet, Gerard raised his hands, which glistened with massage lotion. “She’s under eighteen, isn’t she? Damn, I need to start carding.”
Andrew and Padme exchanged a look, then Andrew lowered his weapon and reached down to toss Teagan her shirt. “Get dressed, we’ve got work.”
When she hesitated, Padme said, “Maybe I should stay with her while she puts her shirt on.”
Andrew and Gerard mirrored disappointed expressions. Teagan gestured with her head toward Padme. “Sure, but, um, could you turn off the laser knife?”
-_#_-
When the door to James Raleigh’s bachelor pad burst open he reacted by reflex, scooping up the nearest object and hurling it toward the intruder. Kennedy, also reflexively, brought her broadsword up, but she’d been thinking offense and wasn’t prepared for a flying missile.
Just as it reached her, a small hand reached out to grab Kennedy. The object, a heavy glass bowl that had been filled with rice, bounced off the slayer’s head without effect. Startled, Kennedy looked down to see Dorothy Gale clutching her arm.
“It’s the magic belt, it protects people I touch from harm. I got it from the Nome King.”
“I’ll bet he didn’t want to give it up,” Kennedy mused, with an admiring look at the gaudy belt.
“No, he wasn’t happy.”
By that time James and Suzy had risen from the couch, and James stepped forward with an apologetic look. “Sorry, I was just startled -- having someone break down my door, and all.”
“This isn’t --” Kennedy took a second look, and her eyes bugged out. “Oh. My. God.”
“What’s wrong?” James asked, while Suzy turned beet red.
Kennedy couldn’t get another word out, but Dorothy rubbed her chin thoughtfully and said, “I think it’s the hose and garters. Where I come from, that’s a girl’s-only thing.”
“Oh, right.” With a shrug, James headed toward his sleeping area. “If there’s some crisis important enough to warrant crashing through my door, I daresay I should don something more suitable.”
Suzy just stood there, staring at the floor. “It’s a midnight movie,” she finally muttered.
Dorothy turned to Kennedy. “He’s one of us, um, unreal people, right?” At the slayer’s nod, she asked, “Shouldn’t you be in there keeping an eye on him?”
“No way in hell.”
-_#_-
By the time clothing had been properly rearranged, the others had staged similar raids and emerged with sleepy, grumbling members of My Chemical Romance. “Dear God,” gasped Giles, as he looked at his almost-twin.
“Hello, old chap. Apocalypse time?”
Olivia, who a moment before had looked singularly uncomfortable with a crossbow in her hands, gave James Raleigh a hungry once-over. “Two Rippers. Such intriguing possibilities ...”
“I can explain,” Richard and Suzy said together, but Giles held up a hand.
“Later. And in private. For now I’m more interested in why this is happening.”
Everyone started talking at once, even the visitors, with some offering theories and other questions, until Giles managed to wave them back into silence. “Come along, all of you, to the classroom. They’ll be room for all of us to sit there.”
“And have tea?” James suggested. Giles just passed by his counterpart without a word.
It took only a few minutes to get settled, with Giles taking Richard’s usual seat at the desk. Richard was content to stand by the door to his office, looking out over what must have been one of the most unusual crowds in history.
“We know that both black magic and white magic have infused the building," Giles began, "and that it apparently has led to the sudden appearance of these, um, visitors.”
“A combination of both,” Willow agreed. “Usually they kind of cancel each other out.”
“Like matter and antimatter,” Andrew suggested.
Willow nodded, and while those with more magical knowledge discussed the reasons for why it hadn’t happened this time, Richard examined the room as he often did as a teacher. He’d learned the habits of the good and bad students, the trouble makers and the quiet ones, and the cliques. In this case, he noticed the probably unreal people weren’t staying together: Padme sat next to Andrew, Dorothy had chosen a seat right in front of Kara, the Giles look-alike who’d been introduced as James Raleigh hovered near Suzy, and the MCR members had formed a cordon around Teagan.
“It’s not just why it happened,” Kennedy was saying. “What does it mean? Or is there any meaning?”
“The dark magic came from a chaos worshiper, either a demon or a mage,” Tara reminded them. “So it could mean nothing at all.” Richard noticed she had chosen a seat in the rear corner nearest him, almost as far from Willow and Kennedy as she could get.
“Then what can we do about it?” Kara asked. “Are these people stuck here forever?”
“I have a planet to rule,” Padme said.
“And I’d like to get back to Oz,” Dorothy added.
Gerard put in, “We have a tour coming up.”
James, with a glance at Suzy, shrugged. “I’m quite comfortable here.”
It was the stories, of course, Richard thought, as ideas and counter-ideas started flying around the room. Bottie’s was the only one of those hit by the magic bolt that didn’t have characters coming to life --
Suddenly he straightened, his concern so evident that Giles noticed from the other end of the room. “Richard?”
“Dana’s story.”
Tara twisted around to look at him. “It hasn’t been read yet!”
“Not yet, and it may tell us what’s happening with her. Kara, go to my room and grab those stories, they’re on the table.” She leaped up, and to his surprise Dorothy followed close behind. Richard thought about stopping her, but his gut told him none of these newcomers were truly threatening.
“But what about Bottie’s story?” Tara asked. “Is it because she was a robot that the magic hasn’t brought its characters to life?”
“Was?” Suzy repeated.
Willow shrugged. “Even if she is more than when she was built, she’s still something other than human. That may have stopped her story from coming true, but it won’t work with Dana.”
When Kara ran back in, Richard grabbed Dana’s story from her and started reading. He tried to ignore the others, who waited in an impatient silence, but soon found himself giving a running commentary.
“Dana’s story is set here in Chicago, in the present time. It involves a chaos worshipper trying to destroy the city, and how he’s helped by ... he paused, skimming down to get to the characters as they were introduced. “Darth Vader ... the Nome King ... and ...”
He looked up at Tara. “Vlad Dracula.”
“Dear Lord,” Giles and James murmured at the same time.
“The Nome King brings a band of Nomes with him ... little guys, but nasty fighters. Dracula comes with a group of vampire servants, and Vader brings a squad of stormtroopers ...”
“Where do they meet?” Kennedy asked.
“I haven’t gotten to that yet,” Richard said distractedly.
“Somehow Dana thought she could fend an army like that off by herself?” Kennedy shook her head. “She’s gone crazy again.”
“Not herself.” Richard tried to divide his attention between the story and the people gathered in his classroom. “The Nome King’s plan is to draw Dorothy Gale into a trap, and get her magic belt away from her.”
“But she can’t be harmed with the belt on,” Kara protested.
“Not hurt her -- just get the belt.” Richard looked up at Dorothy. “Could someone touch you while you’re wearing the belt?”
The little girl shrugged. “Sure. As long as they didn’t try to hurt me.”
“Then they might be able to just hold you down, and remove the belt.”
Dorothy’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Clearly she’d never thought of that before.
“But she can make a wish!” Andrew suddenly broke in. “In the books, doesn’t it say Dorothy can make one wish a day? She could wish the bad guys back to where they came from!”
But Dorothy, looking embarrassed, shook her head. “I, um, already used today’s wish.”
“For what?” Willow asked.
“I ... well, the cooks ran out of shortcake for the strawberries, and I kind of, um ...”
A communal groan went up while Richard turned back to the story. After a few more minutes of reading, he nodded approvingly. “Dana didn’t forget my instruction, that they should be the central heroes in their stories. She uses a special power to summon all the heroes from the other stories to do battle with the forces of darkness -- along with their real life counterparts.”
He looked up to meet the gazes of certain people in the room. “That would be those of you who wrote stories.”
next: A Whole New Ball Game
Author: Ozma914
Summary: A group of watchers and slayers taking a creative writing class are assigned a simple lesson in author intrusion. But nothing’s ever simple when magic is -- literally -- in the air. (Note: This is set in my fictional universe in which magical spells have helped heal Dana’s mind and the Buffybot’s body, and may also have had an effect on the resident ghost -- Tara. Things get a bit ... whimsical.)
Rating: PG-13 eventually, for character death. But don't panic.
Warnings: Extreme Mary Suism
Disclaimer: All characters who belong to Joss and co, belong to Joss and co.
Characters: Tara, Dana, Buffybot, Andrew, Xander; appearances by Giles, Willow and Kennedy, and some surprises. Also an original watcher who is absolutely not, in any way, the author, and an original slayer who has absolutely no connection to the author's daughter. Honest. Would I lie?
Mary Sue Got Harried, Chapter Eleven: Friction in Fanfiction
(In which our cast is brought together, whether they like it or not.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Left,” Dana intoned, gesturing vaguely. Xander turned the van onto another street, in some Chicago neighborhood he didn’t recognize, and prayed he was doing the right thing.
“Are we almost there?” Bottie asked again. She bounced in the back seat, excited at the late night drive and the prospect of imminent combat, even though the only thing Dana had told her was that the slayer needed a little assistance saving the world before breakfast.
“Almost,” Dana whispered. “Almost time for the black and the white to meet. The game is on again -- isn’t it ironic?”
"Um ... sure." He should have told somebody. Gripping the steering wheel, Xander verbally kicked himself for not remembering a cell phone. Dana had already grabbed Bottie when he spotted them while wandering the halls, and if he hadn’t hurried to catch up they’d have disappeared, but he still had the feeling he’d made a grave mistake. He’d only stopped trying to talk them out of going when Dana gave him that narrow eyed stare that usually meant she was about to break something.
“I don’t know where we are,” he finally announced. “I really only know my way from the headquarters to the airports in this town. And a few cemeteries.”
“Almost there,” Dana said again. “Room to strike, room to sacrifice, room to out.”
“Uh huh.”
“We’re going to save the world again!” Buffybot squealed. “I love being useful!”
Xander drove on, wondering if he was in a Twilight Zone episode or a Three Stooges comedy. This couldn’t possibly get any weirder.
“Stop!” Dana screamed.
Stomping on the brake, Xander brought the car to a screeching halt. He looked around, and immediately caught sight of a huge, dark building, maybe large enough for two or three apocalypses. It took him a moment to recognize it, but then he felt his eye bulge out. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Dana opened the door and, just before stepping out, turned to her companions:
“Play ball.”
-_#_-
Giles waited for Willow and Kennedy to return with satchels of weapons, before positioning his forces. He had six doors he wanted forced, six rooms cleared at the same time, and after some thought he’d decided to trust not only his magic-contaminated comrades, but even the newcomers to do the job. The devil you know, Richard thought. It seemed counterintuitive to secure magical constructs with other magical constructs, but the reason Giles didn’t call on the other slayers remained obvious: the Head Watcher was afraid this plague of magic might spread further.
Finally ready, Giles took one last look up and down the corridor, then nodded. “One. Two. Three!”
-_#_-
Gerard hit a particularly good spot, causing Teagan to cry out loud at the same instant the door crashed open. Startled, the band leader lost his balance and crashed to the floor. Teagan, who by this time could barely move and would expose herself if she did, poked her head over the couch to see Andrew and an unfamiliar young girl invading the room. The girl held a device over her head that emitted a long, green, humming blade, looking frighteningly similar to a lightsaber, while Andrew held a crossbow at ready.
“Get off that girl!” the lightsaber wielding girl shouted, although even as she spoke Gerard was rolling across the floor.
“It was only a back rub!” Teagan yelled, out of fear that her new boyfriend was about to get sliced in half.
“Hands up,” Andrew ordered.
Teagan, still prone on the couch, stared at him. If she raised her arms right now, the young watcher would get a glimpse of something that according to current odds he only had a 50-50 chance of wanting to see.
“Not you.” Andrew waved his weapon at the rocker. “You.”
“Oh, sorry.” Climbing to his feet, Gerard raised his hands, which glistened with massage lotion. “She’s under eighteen, isn’t she? Damn, I need to start carding.”
Andrew and Padme exchanged a look, then Andrew lowered his weapon and reached down to toss Teagan her shirt. “Get dressed, we’ve got work.”
When she hesitated, Padme said, “Maybe I should stay with her while she puts her shirt on.”
Andrew and Gerard mirrored disappointed expressions. Teagan gestured with her head toward Padme. “Sure, but, um, could you turn off the laser knife?”
-_#_-
When the door to James Raleigh’s bachelor pad burst open he reacted by reflex, scooping up the nearest object and hurling it toward the intruder. Kennedy, also reflexively, brought her broadsword up, but she’d been thinking offense and wasn’t prepared for a flying missile.
Just as it reached her, a small hand reached out to grab Kennedy. The object, a heavy glass bowl that had been filled with rice, bounced off the slayer’s head without effect. Startled, Kennedy looked down to see Dorothy Gale clutching her arm.
“It’s the magic belt, it protects people I touch from harm. I got it from the Nome King.”
“I’ll bet he didn’t want to give it up,” Kennedy mused, with an admiring look at the gaudy belt.
“No, he wasn’t happy.”
By that time James and Suzy had risen from the couch, and James stepped forward with an apologetic look. “Sorry, I was just startled -- having someone break down my door, and all.”
“This isn’t --” Kennedy took a second look, and her eyes bugged out. “Oh. My. God.”
“What’s wrong?” James asked, while Suzy turned beet red.
Kennedy couldn’t get another word out, but Dorothy rubbed her chin thoughtfully and said, “I think it’s the hose and garters. Where I come from, that’s a girl’s-only thing.”
“Oh, right.” With a shrug, James headed toward his sleeping area. “If there’s some crisis important enough to warrant crashing through my door, I daresay I should don something more suitable.”
Suzy just stood there, staring at the floor. “It’s a midnight movie,” she finally muttered.
Dorothy turned to Kennedy. “He’s one of us, um, unreal people, right?” At the slayer’s nod, she asked, “Shouldn’t you be in there keeping an eye on him?”
“No way in hell.”
-_#_-
By the time clothing had been properly rearranged, the others had staged similar raids and emerged with sleepy, grumbling members of My Chemical Romance. “Dear God,” gasped Giles, as he looked at his almost-twin.
“Hello, old chap. Apocalypse time?”
Olivia, who a moment before had looked singularly uncomfortable with a crossbow in her hands, gave James Raleigh a hungry once-over. “Two Rippers. Such intriguing possibilities ...”
“I can explain,” Richard and Suzy said together, but Giles held up a hand.
“Later. And in private. For now I’m more interested in why this is happening.”
Everyone started talking at once, even the visitors, with some offering theories and other questions, until Giles managed to wave them back into silence. “Come along, all of you, to the classroom. They’ll be room for all of us to sit there.”
“And have tea?” James suggested. Giles just passed by his counterpart without a word.
It took only a few minutes to get settled, with Giles taking Richard’s usual seat at the desk. Richard was content to stand by the door to his office, looking out over what must have been one of the most unusual crowds in history.
“We know that both black magic and white magic have infused the building," Giles began, "and that it apparently has led to the sudden appearance of these, um, visitors.”
“A combination of both,” Willow agreed. “Usually they kind of cancel each other out.”
“Like matter and antimatter,” Andrew suggested.
Willow nodded, and while those with more magical knowledge discussed the reasons for why it hadn’t happened this time, Richard examined the room as he often did as a teacher. He’d learned the habits of the good and bad students, the trouble makers and the quiet ones, and the cliques. In this case, he noticed the probably unreal people weren’t staying together: Padme sat next to Andrew, Dorothy had chosen a seat right in front of Kara, the Giles look-alike who’d been introduced as James Raleigh hovered near Suzy, and the MCR members had formed a cordon around Teagan.
“It’s not just why it happened,” Kennedy was saying. “What does it mean? Or is there any meaning?”
“The dark magic came from a chaos worshiper, either a demon or a mage,” Tara reminded them. “So it could mean nothing at all.” Richard noticed she had chosen a seat in the rear corner nearest him, almost as far from Willow and Kennedy as she could get.
“Then what can we do about it?” Kara asked. “Are these people stuck here forever?”
“I have a planet to rule,” Padme said.
“And I’d like to get back to Oz,” Dorothy added.
Gerard put in, “We have a tour coming up.”
James, with a glance at Suzy, shrugged. “I’m quite comfortable here.”
It was the stories, of course, Richard thought, as ideas and counter-ideas started flying around the room. Bottie’s was the only one of those hit by the magic bolt that didn’t have characters coming to life --
Suddenly he straightened, his concern so evident that Giles noticed from the other end of the room. “Richard?”
“Dana’s story.”
Tara twisted around to look at him. “It hasn’t been read yet!”
“Not yet, and it may tell us what’s happening with her. Kara, go to my room and grab those stories, they’re on the table.” She leaped up, and to his surprise Dorothy followed close behind. Richard thought about stopping her, but his gut told him none of these newcomers were truly threatening.
“But what about Bottie’s story?” Tara asked. “Is it because she was a robot that the magic hasn’t brought its characters to life?”
“Was?” Suzy repeated.
Willow shrugged. “Even if she is more than when she was built, she’s still something other than human. That may have stopped her story from coming true, but it won’t work with Dana.”
When Kara ran back in, Richard grabbed Dana’s story from her and started reading. He tried to ignore the others, who waited in an impatient silence, but soon found himself giving a running commentary.
“Dana’s story is set here in Chicago, in the present time. It involves a chaos worshipper trying to destroy the city, and how he’s helped by ... he paused, skimming down to get to the characters as they were introduced. “Darth Vader ... the Nome King ... and ...”
He looked up at Tara. “Vlad Dracula.”
“Dear Lord,” Giles and James murmured at the same time.
“The Nome King brings a band of Nomes with him ... little guys, but nasty fighters. Dracula comes with a group of vampire servants, and Vader brings a squad of stormtroopers ...”
“Where do they meet?” Kennedy asked.
“I haven’t gotten to that yet,” Richard said distractedly.
“Somehow Dana thought she could fend an army like that off by herself?” Kennedy shook her head. “She’s gone crazy again.”
“Not herself.” Richard tried to divide his attention between the story and the people gathered in his classroom. “The Nome King’s plan is to draw Dorothy Gale into a trap, and get her magic belt away from her.”
“But she can’t be harmed with the belt on,” Kara protested.
“Not hurt her -- just get the belt.” Richard looked up at Dorothy. “Could someone touch you while you’re wearing the belt?”
The little girl shrugged. “Sure. As long as they didn’t try to hurt me.”
“Then they might be able to just hold you down, and remove the belt.”
Dorothy’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Clearly she’d never thought of that before.
“But she can make a wish!” Andrew suddenly broke in. “In the books, doesn’t it say Dorothy can make one wish a day? She could wish the bad guys back to where they came from!”
But Dorothy, looking embarrassed, shook her head. “I, um, already used today’s wish.”
“For what?” Willow asked.
“I ... well, the cooks ran out of shortcake for the strawberries, and I kind of, um ...”
A communal groan went up while Richard turned back to the story. After a few more minutes of reading, he nodded approvingly. “Dana didn’t forget my instruction, that they should be the central heroes in their stories. She uses a special power to summon all the heroes from the other stories to do battle with the forces of darkness -- along with their real life counterparts.”
He looked up to meet the gazes of certain people in the room. “That would be those of you who wrote stories.”
next: A Whole New Ball Game
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