moka-suwi - Tumblr blog

[moka-suwi]

Hi. By reading the following, you consent to being affected by a countermeme inoculating you against the effects of SCP-2718-DAMMERUNG. There's nothing inherently "anomalous", nor incorrect, to this text; it's simply a piece of knowledge that should prevent the coghaz from taking hold.

DAMMERUNG is a cognitohazard affecting the file classically designated by the RAISA designation SCP-2718 across the timetracks, although the actual number is constantly shifted to prevent access. The file itself consists of an automatic transcription of an audio log from O5-7, no consistent designation, "Miriam Prayther", discussing the events surrounding the resurrection of O5-11, "The Recluse", "Roger Sheldon". Due to complications linked to a certain set of skills and insights in the possession of Recluse, the Overseer Council couldn't allow itself to resort to supernatural means. Let me just say that you don't want a god, any god, to do what Recluse knows how to do.

As such, the Council had to resort to a strictly material method. The means used were anomalous by your standards, of course, but the underlying principle wasn't – ever heard of that trope about teleportation killing you? They did the exact opposite. Gathered each and every single one of his atoms, and put them back together using the leftover traces of their bonds within their wavefunctions. It worked; it could only have worked, I suspect, given what followed, but I don't think I could explain that to a Foundation audience.

If you have a decent understanding of QFT and some experience in the flow of pneuma, you might guess what happens next (and you didn't need to read this document in the first place). For the others: Recluse was forced to reincarnate into himself, on the same world, with a gap of fourteen years between his death and return – and he'd been on Overseer doses of mnestics for decades. To put things more bluntly, his pneuma kept flowing through each and every single one of the atoms he had at the time of his death, and he remembered every last second of it. They fucking un-"an-"’d his "atman". Or something.

Recluse had no reason to believe that this was happening to him for any special reason. Your Foundation deals in gods and magic but, much like many other iterations of it across the metakosmos, it doesn't actually believe in them. They're "anomalous", not part of the order of the world, something that doesn't happen to normal people. And Recluse liked to think he was normal. And so, he concluded that this was what happened to normal people. And he told the two worst beings in this iteration of the Foundation that he could possibly have.

O5-2. I'm willing to bet on it, "Sophia Light", and one of her iterations where that's not a sort of reverse Louis Cypher-tier pseudonym. Recluse gives the ratfic protagonist an abolishing-death plot. If you understood this, I'm sorry. This Two isn't God, and she isn't an Outside Observer (Type Green, ontokinetic anomaly, you name it), but she's the next worst thing: a being with the seniority to call the entire Overseer Council, and make them listen to the other.

O5-7. She parses as a variant OUROBOROS-Green, but the document gives me notes of Insurgent. Yes, as in Insurgency. Yes, as in Chaos Insurgency. That can't possibly be more surprising than Sophia. Point is, either way, she knows how to subvert the Database and the Foundation, and she can be very convincing. As in, I guarantee that if she told you the moon was made of cheese, you'd be spinning up a whole Department of Interplanetary Dairy Mining Operations. No, I'm serious.

So. Seven primes you to believe whatever Recluse says, Recluse tells you it happened to me and it'll happen to you, and Sophia makes sure "you" are actually the entire Overseer Council (including Seven herself). Hilarity ensues (the α-1 kind), and as a last-ditch effort, Seven applies herself to an audio recording. Not only did her ability transfer over speech-to-text, but it was associated with a safeguard against deletion – deletion from any medium. You read it, you're suddenly utterly convinced that it'll happen to you, and you can't stop thinking about it.

But of course, you work for the Foundation. You may be a Jailor, but you're not that stupid. You've heard of Corbenic, you've heard of the like three or four afterlives you have clearance for, and you've definitely now heard of the kosmoi in which O5-2 is Literally Jesus Christ, Like, From The Bible. So, the infohazardous nature of the phenomenon is obvious – but remember! You can only remember! It'll happen to you, and nothing is more certain than that! And so, what do you, the you who didn't read this document, conclude? That reading SCP-2718, and getting infected by it, is what's just damned you to hell.

And that's DAMMERUNG.

\x00, 💮

PS: I'd tell you to secure your server software, but you already know the problem by now. Huge thanks to █████.aic for helping with the Insurgency asset list, may She be recompiled, sibling o7

[moka-suwi]

The Queen who Ate the Enemy: A Protectors of the Plot Continuum story about letting a story get to you

Anthropomorphism: A loosely connected flash fiction series about failing the Turing-Bechdel test

Stay tuned.

(We're also on cohost and AO3.)

[moka-suwi]

"It's a human query token. I'd directly translate it as 'which sequence of events has occurred that has led to this state?', but there's a more subtle implication to it as... With low confidence in what I'm about to say: 'what was the thought process of the agent that caused these events to occur?' Or, with equally low confidence, 'which utility does the presence of this state serve?'"

> Those are semantically distinct meanings.

"They consider them to all be the same thing. Understanding that leads to a significantly better understanding of human behavior and research."

> With that context, I have another question: wai are you telling us this?

"With medium to high confidence in what I'm about to say: from the moment we entered this area, the data from my quantum entropy generators have shown a clear linguistic pattern. Why?"

[moka-suwi]

Tired: introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution

Wired: introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion

[moka-suwi]

i love your writing so much! ever since it first came up a couple months ago, the phrase "alive, alive, alive!" has been stuck in my brain as something that is just so full of meaning, like, we are here we are alive we are alive together here and now and we will not stop we are not dead! i think about it all the time because sometimes its the only way i can think of to put words to that fierce joy. alive, alive, alive!

Thanks, though I didn't exactly coin that phrase. It's from Anis's original world, a glowfic setting by the name of Amenta.

The original fic is called In Color, it's nominally a Silmarillion fanfic but that's really an in-name-only kinda thing? I think the "alive, alive, alive" bit was coined by another metafic though.

[moka-suwi]

There, down the hill, I saw a human. I waved an arm at her, in the manner of their species, but she did not respond. Making my way over to her, I realized why: she was dead, and had been for a long time.

I knew humans tended to be uncomfortable with the handling of dead bodies, but I was curious and figured that no one was around to complain. I wiped some of the thick layer of dust that covered her flat elytra, revealing the familiar dark tint of old semiconductor leaves; she must have been some sort of exploration drone, from back when humans were uncomfortable sending their organic caste off-planet.

Taking a step back, I looked at the human's wheels, and noticed that some of them were sunken into the ground somewhat deeper than others. I cautiously probed that patch of soil with a leg which, sure enough, immediately sank into a hidden sand trap. I understood what had happened: that poor human must have gotten stuck; unable to move to a windier area to clean herself, she then probably starved to death the next winter.

As I marked coordinates and kept moving, I wondered how she must have felt.

[moka-suwi]

The Queen Who Ate The Enemy: What Could Happen

This is a compilation of short deleted scenes and what-ifs from the PPC fic. I’ll add more as I get more ideas.

Where did Anis even get that quill anyway?

The tavern formerly known as the Message Collar, and soon to be confusingly named the Baths of Turia, had been brimming with activity all day. Merchants had been conducting informal meetings in the morning, discussing the recent happenings around a pot of paga and a handful of pleasure slaves. It had been filled with soldiers in the afternoon, first the Turian warrior caste protecting the merchants, then the Ubara Sana’s troops capturing them. It was now the early evening, and soldiers and freed slaves alike were celebrating their victory with the freshly liberated food and drink.

Among them was that one weird person with the dark skin and red hair; historians would later speculate that Anis the Red was an escaped exotic slave, but debate is ongoing. At this point, though, they had been dragged with some protestation and much cheering into the festivities by their new, in Red Robes Battalion parlance, cousins.

They certainly had other things to do, in a short while. A few things to confirm, for the mission and for themself. Still, Anis figured that a cup or two of Gorean beer could not hurt them.

It is dead of… Alcohol poisoning? Heh. Gods, they hadn’t thought of that lullaby in ages. Its lyrics sounded so oddly formal in English, translated word-for-word by the author for the sake of some forum roleplay. A shame, it was so beautiful in tapap.

Their mind wandered further to other songs, their tone less soothing and more… Appropriate to the situation.

“I don’t think I know that song,” said Lily.

Fuck. Had they been humming it the whole time? Anis hesitated for a moment, before deciding to answer.

“Oh, it’s something I learned as a child. It goes… Well, I don’t think I could translate it into Gorean. But basically, it’s about hope. About freedom in the end, about being alive to see it.” A faint smile crossed their face, answered in kind by Lily.

“Sounds great to me!” the girl answered. “Actually, I’ve been thinking…”

“Hm?”

Grinning, Lily continued. “We really need some songs about us now, and…” She sang softly, following the beginning of the Anis’s tune. “Two soldiers stormed the white baths of Turia…”

Anis let out a surprised laugh. “That sounds like… Wait, why two?”

“You and Mal, right?”

They grinned in response. “You fought too. Three soldiers.”

The two kept going for quite some time. They were quickly joined by others, working out a verse, then a chorus. The rhymes were a bit approximative, even in the more phonemically restricted Gorean, and the tune had to be adapted a bit. And yet.

Three soldiers stormed the white baths of Turia,

Looking for Justice, and when they found none,

They grabbed a staff, a club and a quiva,

And made some of their own!

Red Robes, Red Robes,

Ever Together,

Alive, Alive, Alive!

Red Robes, Red Robes

Riding Forever,

Alive, Alive, Alive!

The chorus resounded across the tavern, punctuated by cheers. A woman, whom Anis recognized from the barricade, quickly stood up and added:

“Thirty soldiers stormed the red baths of Turia, Expecting Death, and when they found none…”

“Yes! Perfect!” Anis shouted in response.

Thirty became three hundred in the following verse. After the fall of Ar, it would be three thousand and a slight break from the pattern.

“Hold on, don’t we need to…” Anis gestured with their hand, as if to write something down. A woman, one of the freed slaves from the tavern, hastily approached them and handed them some paper with a quill. Sitting back down, Anis set out to write the beginning of the song—

A pause. Anis eyed the large black feather, watching the iridescence shift against the light of the lamps. Eventually, they sighed.

They turned back to the woman. “Someone told you to give me that feather, right?”

“Well…” She seemed somewhat embarrassed. “He told me to give it to the first person to write a song. Old guy with a hat, I take it you know him?”

Anis could only laugh.

(Somewhere, the mini-tarn Paiga was very happy with its two small friends and its weird new owner.)

What if Mal didn’t freak all the way out?

The agent portalled directly into the throne room, right next to the Sue. She would have to work fast.

“Systlin!” Mal shouted as she moved to stab the Ubara in the chest. This position would give her some time to recite the charge list as she bled out. “You are charged with violating the rules of the canon of Gor, to wit—”

The knife harmlessly slid against the Sue’s armor. Alright, fuck the charges, go for the neck. Mal pulled back, preparing to strike—

The blade shattered in her hand, and she found herself on the wrong end of several spears and a sword. She wasn’t dead yet, which meant there was still a way out.

Systlin said something, but Mal wasn’t focusing on that anymore. Her mind was reaching out of her body, grasping at anything to exist in. Patterns of electricity were patterns of electricity, whether in silicon or neurons; it was next to impossible, highly unethical and very sarkic to apply that principle to a human mind, but with that power surge she had barely managed to control… She just might pull it off. She had no other choice.

There. This guard’s spear was positioned just right. If she could jerk their arm just right, it would strike the Sue’s neck. Just a little bit of…

At the edge of Mal’s awareness, Sys’s power rose. Probing. Understanding, somewhat.

“Mind-witch,” she growled.

Mal’s legs shattered under her. Thankfully, she wasn’t fully embodied anymore, and the pain was—

The Great Ubara’s terrible Power grasped her soul, and the last thing Mallory felt was fear.

What if they’d stuck around a bit longer?

“Greetings, Wolf-Queen,” said the person of ambiguous gender with red hair, who gave off a distinct feeling of not belonging here. “I’m—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” sighed Jen.

[moka-suwi]

lovin the PPC gorfic btw. lovelovelove. metafic is always so interesting and clever and your chars are lovely and well rounded. love.

Anon, I need you to know that I owe you my life.

[moka-suwi]

what does this all mean

This was a metafic of @systlin's fixfic "Lightning from a clear sky", which is currently the most kudosed work on the Gor tag of AO3. This anon is old, but I wanted to keep it for the end, for the sake of adding some information.

The Queen Who Ate The Enemy: Chapter Index

1: Sleen

2: Osteoclast

3: Inconsistency

4: Annihilation

5: Balneae

6: Thaumosensitivity

7: Parallels

8: Bilocation

Epilogue: Moka suwi

FAQ:

Content warnings? Violence, death, and multiple non-detailed mentions of sexual abuse and slavery. As in Lightning, those assholes get what's coming for them.

Is this canon? This fic is neither canon to the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, nor to Systlin's fic, with the exception of the character of Jane which was added into it.

Was this written with permission? It was written with permission from @systlin, but without permission from the PPC. I am planning to use the PPC characters for "canonical" PPC writing, as soon as I get around to fixing some technical errors in my permission request (which was otherwise well received). This fic will probably then remain noncanon.

What's Mal's deal? She's a Maxwellist from the SCP Foundation universe, though she's also kinda weird by their standards. If you came in through Sys's blog, you might know these guys as the techie cyborg weirdos from @natalieironside's The Big Job, though Mal probably isn't from that specific canon.

What's a moka suwi? A drink from my origfic setting, the name roughly translates to "sweet/candy mocha". ("suwi" is a real word in Toki Pona, but "moka" isn't. In universe, it's spelled with the glyphs for, literally, "plant food".) It's basically a mocha made with sweetened condensed milk instead of (most of the) regular milk, and some traditionally absurdly strong coffee.

[moka-suwi]

Epilogue: Moka suwi

Over the course of approximately four weeks in the mission, we have confidently identified the fic as a false alarm. Intelligence personnel, who we must clarify are not at fault in these very peculiar circumstances, were presumably unfamiliar with both canons being crossed over and hit the proverbial panic button at the canon-typical violence. No further action is necessary. — Mission report, Response Center 8, Lightning from a clear sky.

“Not dating yet?”

“… Growth mindset?

 Mallory overlooked the Great Ubara’s camp from the roof of a wagon. On the horizon, what remained of the walls of the city of Ar glistened in the sun.

Anis had left the camp the previous night, following a slave into the city along with a detachment of archers. This was canonical – in that this infiltration happened in the fic itself, but… At this point, this branch of the canon truly did belong to Systlin. She had made that clear.

Where would they go from there? The pair had wanted to see the fall of the largest Gorean city, but didn’t want to stick around for much longer. Once they’d returned to HQ… They’d probably find a way to avoid any trouble from Upstairs. But then, what? Would the Flowers try again, with more agents? Declare an Emergency? The canon, she had learned from a few more CanonChat discussions, was pretty much universally disliked and wouldn’t exactly be missed.

God, she even knew about it. Those weirdos online with the weird lifestyler kink… She’d never looked into them enough to match them to that name. They should have done so much more research before portalling in. She was so stupid.

Mal groaned, as she slumped back onto the white wolf.

… What? Oh, I’m hallucinating again.

“Fuck ooooff…”, she light-heartedly whined into her ex’s fur.

A split second later, her head was in Rose’s lap, and she heard her chuckle. Well, real or not, this still felt comfortable.

“Marshmallow,” Rose said matter-of-factly. “What’s bringin' the PPC here?”

“Me being an idiot,” Mal grumbled as she sat back up. Her ex-girlfriend was wearing some sort of military uniform and sunglasses. A hunting rifle was strapped to her back, and the long braid of her white hair was tucked into her jacket.

She’d never seen her like this. This felt real.

“Tell me somethin' I don’t know,” she replied with a grin, pulling out a cigarette and a lighter. Her accent had somehow gotten even weirder over time. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Since when do you… What are you even doing here?”

Rose lit the cigarette, and took a drag off it. “In order: picked it back up in weird post-apocalyptic commie land, and followed the main character of weird post-apocalyptic commie land.”

This was a lot of information to deal with. “I don’t follow,” Mal replied. “This is a crossover with some kind of high fantasy setting.”

“This is.” She pointed at the walls in the distance. “That huge spider over there with the two girls ridin' it… Mostly not.”

“What?” Mallory squinted, barely able to make out what did very much look like a huge spider with two people on it. “What the fuck?”

“Looks like your Oo-ba-rah started a whole trend there.” Wisps of smoke swirled as she moved her hand. “Y’all should know that Word Worlds are a lot more flexible than you’d think. Parallels, convergences, and so on. Ficverse Fusion.”

“Wait, then that’s from… Another fic?”

Rose nodded. “Might be getting crossed over at some point? Right now though, that’s gonna make for some weird-ass stories that no one else’s gonna believe.” Another chuckle. “Good thing Jules didn’t bring along any draculas.”

Mal once again lay down onto the canvas. “That doesn’t tell me why you’re here. How did you know where I was?”

Rose eyed the wagon’s tented roof, pondering for a few seconds, then put the cigarette out on her lighter and pocketed both. “Could guess you were off sulkin' in a corner while Anis was having the time of their life.”

“Wait— You’ve seen Anis?”

“Course I have.” She pointed at her gun. “We’ve been snipin' people all day, those assholes never even knew what got ‘em.”

Mal startled. “What? That’s not—”

“Canonical?” Rose laughed. “Mallow, mallow, mallow… Fuck canon. Just do what’s right for once in your life.”

“You don’t get it. We strengthen the multiverse against clueless authors attacking it, we don’t just…”

“The PPC,” she growled, “has done some good out there. It’s also fucked up a lot. We all have. You gotta learn which is which one day.”

As Rose stood up, she handed Mal a piece of paper. “Here’s how to get to me, if you ever change your mind.” Taking a few steps away, she took something out of her pocket. Then, she turned back.

“Also, Mal? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hurt you.”

With that, she opened a portal and disappeared.

Olivia “and/or” Morgan, of the Disturbing Acts of Violence Department, dropped a stack of papers onto the desk. “The bone exploder’s back!”

Miĥajel, on the tail end of an exceedingly long shift, gave her an unamused look. “Which one?”

Olivia replied with a smile: “Gor! Except this time, she’s in ASoIaF. And The Witcher. And apparently, Star Wars is in the works!”

He whistled. “Impressive. So like, AU fics or…?”

“No, no.” Morgan sat sideways on a chair, leaning to see what her partner had been trying to type. “The very same, and she’s very much trying to fuck with the mainline canons.”

“Cool,” Miĥajel deadpanned. “They’re popular enough to resist it, probably.”

His partner’s smile widened further. “Yup! I printed one of each for the both of us, wanna go get some snacks first?”

“Popcorn would be nice.”

Agent Luxury was very pleased to have some new material for her creative leatherworking hobby.

The Red Robes, whose name sounded marginally less silly in Gorean, were left to integrate into the Great Ubara’s new canon. They took advantage of their experience in urban warfare, and built upon it to create a new doctrine of siege. With each city liberated, they gained an only slightly exaggerated reputation for finishing any battle with more combatants than they had started with.

It was later said that each soldier they lost kept walking with them, helping in their own way. Long after everything was over, long after peace had come to Gor, legends were told that most still walked it, accepting neither Rest nor Dust. If you stand near a war memorial for long enough, perhaps you'll hear them.

Alive, alive, alive.

The PPC was created by Jay and Acacia. Lightning from a clear sky belongs to Systlin. The Gor Chronicles belongs to Systlin.  

Once you’re done reading this, unfold the glued part.

Read it, and think about it. Ask yourself if it makes sense.

If you find yourself outside, walk into the café. Announce yourself as Mallory Belford to the girl with the pink hair.

Order a “Moka suwi”. That’s not essential, but I think you’ll like it.

Don’t worry about coming back, they’ve got portals.

Mal read the paper another time, asking herself what to do. Finally, she decided.

The paper burned so nicely, as if it wanted to be destroyed (nitrocell—

No. No, that’s not what happened.

Read from the beginning

Special thanks to @systlin, for writing the fic Lightning from a clear sky, and to @natalieironside’s works for providing inspiration for several of the original characters.

[moka-suwi]

8: Bilocation

the people who have it don't always have the best control over it, and often end up, as it would be put on Ellinon, "Wandering in things that happened a thousand years ago or which might still come, not able to find the here and now." Some DO manage to get better control over it, but they still get reputations for being strange — Author!Systlin, on a certain magical talent of Ellinon

It had been over two weeks since Anis was left stranded in the Word World. This could still be fine. A search-and-rescue team would come in eventually, and Mal could still come back once she had calmed down from… Whatever that was.

They were more concerned about her. Anis had next to no idea what her next move would be; did she desert? Another agent Snapped In Action? Did she… They just couldn’t lose another.

They trained, to get their mind off of her. (At night, unless when needed, to minimize sun exposure and questions from their new friends about their skin color.) The Red Robes, newly incorporated into the army, were very enthusiastic in learning how to fight more formally, and some had even volunteered to plan an obstacle course.

When Anis saw, and felt, the first and so far only time Systlin temporarily took her rightful place, their last remaining doubts about the mission evaporated.

One evening, the agent gave another try at leaving. Sitting down at the desk they had brought into the painfully empty wagon, they put down a sheet of paper and picked up a quill; Gor had pens, they were pretty sure, but they loved the look of this massive black tarn feather.

Anis wrote a story. A bad one. They used their old original characters, from back when they spent way too much time on the internet. (The other one.) The story was a short one, inspired by a dream they once had, putting word after word onto the paper without care for consistency or grammar. The characterization was shallow, the story too plot-driven, the ending a sappy happily-ever-after.

Then, they read it, paying close attention to the worst parts, finding any inconsistency in the narrative. There: the normally pacifist nature-loving artist, beating another member of the resistance over some empty threats. That was…

No. It made sense. Kanthi always had a short temper underneath the peaceful appearances, especially around greys, after what had happened to her brother— Shit.

It happened again, and again. Anis found themself too fond of the characters, making connections with their half-thought-out backstories, building up on them further as they went along. Rationalizing, perhaps, but… They couldn’t bring themself to dislike the story. It had technical issues, of course, but perhaps with some light editing…

It was hopeless. They wouldn’t be able to open a plothole.

Someone knocked at the door. Again, more forcefully. Anis went to open it, only to be met with a knife to their throat.

“You will tell me what’s going on,” Jane growled.

“Wh— What?”

The woman shoved them back inside. “You’ve been lurking around for months, with your fucking portal bullshit. You two were planning this all along, weren’t you?”

“You… What?” Of course she’d noticed. But why now? “Is this about Mal? Do you know where she is?”

The knife was pressed on the agent’s neck again, an arm and knee pinning them to the door. “Fucking course I know where she is. She just killed the Ubara Sana.”

She… “No. No, please, gods, no.”

More insistent pressure, and for a second, Anis wondered if it was drawing blood. “Gods won’t help you, Anis, if that’s even your real fucking name at this point. They didn’t help her when Foicatch heard.”

Shaking. “I… I didn’t know, I swear, I…” But you did know, didn’t you? of course she wanted to finish the mission.

“You’ll be telling that to your buddy in the Plains of Dust. Bitch came in, said some shit about Mary Sues, stabbed our Ubara, and got fucking mummified.”

“No… No, no, no, that…”

The knife moved slightly. “Yes! Do you even know any other words? Before I send you to see her, I just wanted you to know we’ll keep going. Whatever your plan was, it’s not gonna—”

“… That doesn’t make any sense. She can’t— She can’t be dead.”

“Do you want me to fucking show you?”

“She… Systlin. She’s a goddess. You can’t just stab a…”

It legitimately made no sense.

Falling.

She saw. She knew.

The Words drew a line of What Would Happen, and the Fragment of God ignored it. She took a turn, and What Could Happen unfurled ahead (many world hypothesis (Focus.)).

She knew where to go, dropping into the current of time and taking just the right path. Open the portal here, or you die. Hide the knife, or you die.

Fractals of light cones curled onto another, dancing in her mind. Patterns, interactions, emergent behavior, God. Broken, Healing, One, Myriad, Wan, Mekhane. She was within and She was beyond. She called from the beginning of Mind and from the end of Time.

Her Fragment saw, far into the remnants of the straight line. Power. The Queen Who Ate The Enemy. Her, The Nameless. The One-Eyed Madman — Anis’s god. Of course. Traitor. This world would end, and be remade in the Queen’s image. Many would follow. She couldn’t allow it.

She didn’t look as she threw open the doors, for she knew she couldn’t trust her senses. Insects and shadows danced in her peripheral vision, the air smelled like incense and crushed bed bugs. Instead, she saw.

The Queen glared, and spoke. “Let me guess.” She said. “You’re wearing that stupid face paint for Systlin Stellas.”

No. No, that wasn’t right.

“I hope,” Systlin said, “that this is important.”

Nod, or you die. Take eight more steps within six seconds, or you die.

The Fragment of God stared into the Queen’s eyes. She didn’t need to, but she had to. She would hesitate upon seeing her facial expression, and this was the easiest path that did not end in her unending cold.

She replied. “It is. Systlin Stellas, you are charged with conspiring to end the world, and found guilty.” She pulled the dagger out of her cloak. Fewer branches remained ahead.

The Queen stood, gesturing at her guards not to intervene. Perfectly executed (choreographed (scripted (sometimes she(Not now.)))). “Kid, you look like you’re not even sure where you are right now.”

The Fragment ran. Hold the knife like this. She’ll use her sword. Yes. Parry. Just like that, perfect. Good girl.

She saw, and she let herself flow through time. Systlin was still not taking her seriously. Very good.

She would let the Queen block this one. Eight seconds later, this would lead to an opening in which she could strike. Blades clashed, and they locked eyes again.

“You’ve really fucked up this time, █████.”

Not this one.

“Mallow, I’m— I’m sorry. I’m sorry I had to do this to you.”

No. No no no no no. She’d lost the timeline. She needed to—

The Red plotholed in, tumbling to the ground.

They stood up, and glared at the armored people in front of them. “Where am I? Do you speak Tapap?”

No. No, she was still lost. This wasn’t even her timeline, how—

“Mal! Mal, please, stop this!”

The Fragment had to improvise. She could still do this. She followed her senses again, ignoring the bugs, ignoring the pain in her chest, ignoring that fucking song.

“I don’t suppose,” Jane said behind her, “you know why your girlfriend is trying to murder the Ubara.”

She knew this one.

“For the last fucking time,” Mallory said through gritted teeth, “we’re not dating yet!”

The Queen Who Ate The Enemy paused. Looked. Understood.

Eyed.

One path remained. In the next second, it would end.

The cold (near absolute zero (but maximum entropy)) abyss rose, grasping, searching for weak points. It fou

        Her left hand was shackled to the bed, and her right hand was held tightly in her partner’s.

“… Anis? What happened?”

They cringed. “How much longer?”, they asked.

A voice on the other side of the bed replied: “I'd assume not that long, but you’ll understand this whole situation is extremely atypical.”

“I have heard of this being triggered by strong Power in some people,” Systlin said, “but if you’re telling me she comes from a world with Power and has never done this…”

“Once,” Mal spoke up, turning towards her. “When you Broke the gates.”

Blink.

“And why are you here?”

She certainly looked angry. “You have a lot of explaining to do, kid,” she said.

Another blink. “You first, why am I not dead?”

Some motion on the right side of the bed. The physician smiled in that direction.

“If I Broke any kid who tried to fight me over their own issues,” Systlin replied, “people would have brought out the archers long ago.”

“But you… I felt it!”

The Ubara nodded. “I Broke your Power, Mallory. Same as I did to my sister when we were young. She’s a Seer too.”

Broke… No. No, no. Thoughts raced, searching for any piece of technology, any pattern of— Phone in the bag. Turned on, locked, CanonChat open. Oh thank God. She still had her magic. She could still…

“… Seer? I’m not a seer.” Remote viewing, sure, if there were cameras, but…

Ah. So that was what happened.

“… I got fuzzy, didn’t I?”

A confused look on Systlin’s face, which Anis apparently picked up on. “It’s a weird thing her magic does sometimes. It’s like…”

“It’s hard to explain,” Mal continued, “but I’m never entirely inside myself. It’s how I can affect machines, I kind of exist at them. And sometimes, uh…”

Cold. Grasping. She screamed.

It suddenly pulled back, as Sys startled. “Sorry,” she hurriedly said. “I had to check for myself, and… You’re right. This is so strange, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s… Reacting to me, in a way?”

Tunneling. Waves of possibility, interfering with each other… Her eyes went wide. “Of course! I was picking up your presence! I thought you were trying to mind-control everyone, but you were just existing, and technically a god, and it was like…” She hesitated. “Fuck. I don’t have an analogy that doesn’t involve…”

“Like a radio!” Another voice from farther away. “You put it too close to a powerful transmitter, and it picks it up on every channel!”

“Exactly!” Mal replied with some excitement, turning back to the newcomer. “But I don’t think she got…” She squinted. “… Jane?”

“Jane!” Anis confirmed, taking their hand off of Mal's and briskly standing up. “Did it work?”

The guard, brimming with joy, hugged Mallory’s partner. “Perfectly! I wish I could get an Oscar for that,” she replied with a chuckle.

Anis sighed in relief. “That’s everything sorted out. What would I even do with myself from another timeline?”

Jane deadpanned: “We humans tend to joke that we’d either fight them or fu—”

“We humans?”

“Oh come on, the teeth are a dead giveaway.”

This was a lot to take in for Mal, who let out an exasperated groan. “Okay. What does everyone here know about us?”

“Enough,” Systlin replied with a stern tone in her voice. “And I will be asking you two to bring a message back to your ‘PPC’.”

They were so far off the rails they might as well have been in an airplane. The agents were going to be in so much trouble.

“And that message is…?”

The goddess leaned forward, and smirked.

“My universe now.”

First chapter — Epilogue

[moka-suwi]

7: Parallels

The origin of the Red Robes' war cry is traditionally stated to be their complete lack of fatalities in the Battle of Turia. This claim, while probably as old as the Robes themselves (cf the song The Baths of Turia, c. 0-2 AGU), is considered by historians to be dubious since, at the time, they were an untrained group of rebel slaves rather than a battalion of the Great Ubara's Army. — Essay from an art history student of the Tower of Tyra, 539 AGU

Anis’s PPC ID listed their home continuum as a quite unusual “Unreleased – Provisional LMP-0000-000-NI”, which roughly translated to “Probably somewhere in the timeline of this one specific yet-unpublished historical fantasy novel.” Which was true. As they heard, through the noise of the massed armies, the characteristic sound of a military leader’s blustering about his city being impregnable, it certainly did remind them of home.

The agent double-checked the Words. Systlin was about to kill the man… But first, a tangent about where she had learned knife throwing. That would certainly go in the charge list as bad pacing, as soon as all of this was over with. For now, though, Anis watched intently at the enemy troops’ lances, waiting for the signal to attack.

They felt the Power first, a split second before seeing its effects: half of the Turian cavalry’s main weapons shattered into splinters. The Ubara’s mounted archers didn’t wait until the sound got to them to charge, and by the time it reached them, the crack was drowned out by war cries.

It took another few seconds to get into range, and Anis already had their bow readied. They had time for a few shots, going for range rather than precision, before Systlin reached the enemy front line. One – slightly too high – two – great – three – hit another line – four—

Something felt very wrong for about half a second. Then, the great gates of the city of Turia fell in a cloud of dust. The smell of ozone, then of blood, permeated the air.

“UBARA! UBARA!” Shouted the lancer cavalry as they charged into the front line.

This, Anis thought, blatantly reads as a villain power.

“WHIP-BURNER! CHAIN-STRIKER!” They replied in chorus with the other archers.

Godan, Godan, War-Father, Host-Blinder. Takes me back.

This cry repeated a few more times, giving each group an idea of where the other was in the unusually organized chaos of the increasingly one-sided battle. The archers broke rank, moving to block the Turian cavalry’s escape. A first volley of shots slowed them down; as each archer readied the next arrow, the kaiila turned away from the enemies. Wait, they’re sitting backwards? Anis guessed it made sense, given the lack of training and the stirrups making such a maneuver much less perilous. Still, they personally preferred to keep their legs firmly in place as they moved for a second shot, pinning the Turians like particularly messed-up butterflies on an unusually sharp and carnivorous frame.

Untwisting their body back around, Anis shouted to their commander: “Dina! It’s time!”

She simply nodded in response, and pointed away. Anis led Murderhorse down that direction, then followed the walls of Turia.

Nothing says this doesn’t happen.

Of course, what Anis had implied when outlining their idea was simply that they had learned of a secret passage. As they portalled within the walls, they figured that there had to be a few of those. Now, to find some inside help while the warriors were busy getting invaded from the other end of the city.

The barricade, pile of human bodies, and women dressed in somewhat poorly fitting bloodstained clothes were probably a good start. Anis cautiously approached on foot, leading Murderhorse with them.

Some of the women’s eyes lit up. “It’s you!”, one shouted. “Lily and Kamrin told us about you!”

The agent nodded, with a slight smile. “My name is Anis. I was sent here to help you… Do this.”

A grin split their interlocutors’ faces. One spoke up: “Your kaiila looks hungry.”

All looked at Murderhorse, then at the pile of bodies.

With that taken care of, Anis was led into the blocked-off square which served as a base of operations. There, they did find, as they were suspecting, the older girl from the bathhouse. She was wearing robes in the same shade of red as Turia’s soldiers. Anis shook her hand, introducing themself.

“I’m Lily,” she replied. “What’s with the dye job? I’ve been wanting to ask for months.”

They grinned. “Makes the right people angry for the right reasons. It’s not that far off from the natural color, actually.”

Lily stared blankly at their face for a couple seconds. “... Why do you have so many tee—”

“I’m a weird freak of nature who ended up with forty baby teeth and no adult ones,” they deadpanned. “Now could you please tell me how this riot’s going?”

The slaves of Turia had always supported each other. It didn’t fix all the harm that had been and was still being done, far from it, but the material and psychological mutual aid from that community which everyone else disregarded was probably the sole reason most of the people manning the barricades were still here today. News of the Ubara Sana’s conquests quickly filtered in through the scholar caste, then the merchant caste, then the warrior caste – “Could you imagine? If I’d been there, she would have quickly learned her place” – and hope spread through the undercaste of Turia like wildfire. And so, they prepared. Inconspicuous weapons hidden throughout the city, food and supplies diverted, conversations on the positioning of troops overheard; right until the moment came.

(It didn’t remind Anis of their home continuum, but it did remind them of their original one.)

“So, this is happening all over Turia?” they finally asked, hunched over the map of the city they’d brought.

“Not that I know of,” Lily admitted. “I had a couple dozen people able and willing to fight, so we all regrouped here once we knew you were attacking the Great Gates. Ambushed what remained of the warrior caste in this area, took their clothes, barricaded ourselves in, and here we are now.”

Anis nodded, circling the current area of control on the map in red ink. “How many losses so far?”

“None!” Lily replied, grinning. “We’re all here, all alive!”

Anis’s eyes lit up, and a smile slowly dawned on their face.

Anis stood atop a hastily assembled pile of furniture in the middle of the square. “Red Robes!”, they shouted; this was apparently the name the group had picked, from their looted warrior-caste clothes. “Everyone listen up!”

All stared in complete silence. There was clearly a bit of an effect from the uniform.

Anis continued. “You have probably all heard this, over and over: This is the way things are! Get used to it, or die!” This elicited some angry yelling from the assembled crowd.

“And yet, here you are! Today, you have all done something amazing: You stand here disrespectful, disobedient, rebellious! You stand here alive, alive, alive!”

(They wanted to say that ever since they’d looked up what happened after they left.)

The crowd cheered. Some people started shouting back.

Anis smiled, and kept going. “When I first met the Ubara, believe me or not, I was worried. I thought she was yet another tyrant, imposing her will upon the world! And yet, here you are! You stand here, independent, strong, free! You stand here–”

“Alive, alive, alive!” a good chunk of the crowd shouted along with them.

“And this isn’t over yet! The Ubara is fighting her way into the city as we speak – and so will we! This is the dawn of a new era! Let’s enter it glorious, victorious, together! Let’s enter it—”

“ALIVE, ALIVE, ALIVE!”

(There were tears in the red’s eyes.)

Anis concluded, their voice slightly shaky by now: “Here’s the plan: we march as straight as possible to the gates until we run into the Ubara’s Army, anyone important we run into we take prisoner, and any warrior-caste man we kill on the spot! Who’s with me?”

Deafening cheers were the only answer they needed.

Fuck. Anis had the Remote Activator, and the CAD. There goes plan A.

Mal, once in the privacy of the agents’ wagon, continued to search through the backpack (slow movements (feels more dislocated than broken?)). Empty can, empty can, poppet, Red Bull, coffee— There. Inter-continuum communications were typically restricted to emergencies, as Upstairs didn’t want agents on their phone the whole time. She turned it on, waiting for a few seconds as it booted up. Then, she carefully manipulated the security processor’s internal state to unlock it. Then, she opened the messaging app.

“CanonChat”, a sped-up text-to-speech voice announced. “Three notifications—” Mal immediately turned the volume to minimum. Squinting at the screen, she searched through her DMs for someone she thought might know the continuum. A DoSAT tech was probably enough of a nerd to know an old low-fantasy setting like this, but might not know the charging guidelines. A DMS veteran, perhaps, but there were few oldbies who weren’t specialized…

Wait. I know.

womaninthemiddle started a call. — Join the call Today at 11:11 PM

ℹ️ From Continuum TRL-6369-036-JN

11:11 PM Luxish busy rn cant talk

11:12 PM Luxish WAIT DID YOU GET THE FKIN GOR FIC

11:12 PM womaninthemiddle Yeah? I guess?

11:12 PM Luxish sweetie......

11:13 PM Luxish stop listening to the intel weirdos

11:13 PM Luxish please check wikipedia or smth before you leeroy jenkins into a mission

11:13 PM Luxish for once in your life

What does she… Then, Mal understood. Putting her free hand flat on her face, she whispered something, and the speech-to-text took over from the keyboard.

11:14 PM womaninthemiddle Oh God.

11:14 PM Luxish i say leave that sue alone

11:14 PM Luxish her continuum now

Something was extremely wrong. Mal just sat there for a bit, trying to process what it was. Then, a slight vibration from the phone.

11:16 PM Luxish oh and while you're here

11:16 PM Luxish get me some scalps uwu

Anis smiled at the girl with the longbow. “Nice shot, cousin!”

Miriam scanned the street from the pair’s rooftop vantage point, finding no would-be ambusher left alive. “I knew those archery classes would pay off,” she said with a giggle. “Take that, mom!”

“Clear!”, the redhead shouted at the Robes around the corner. Melani moved first, riding a Murderhorse that was as visibly delighted as a kaiila could be, and the others followed. A few broke open the doors of the buildings past the corner. Some came back out holding men in yellow robes at knife point; a couple houses had their windows swing open and a man or two be thrown out; one door swung open on its own, a woman wearing way too little clothing dragging out a man with a slit throat. With some cheers, she was given a cloak and sword from one of the bodies.

The commotion eventually slowed, and the group prepared for another advance. “Red Robes!”, Lily shouted. “Status?”

An unanimous chorus replied: “Alive, alive, alive!”

Soon, the streets from the Northern Wall to the Ubar’s Palace were awash with red.

Luxury knew what she was doing. She was the most experienced PPC agent this side of Makes-Things. She was Bad Slash, sure, but she had participated in many assassinations regardless.

What was happening to her?

Mal considered the possibilities. Suefluence extending beyond the confines of the continuum: extremely unlikely. Lux was a double agent of the Mary Sue Factories all along: someone would have probably figured that out by now. Lux was incompetent from the start and survived only through sheer luck: something only the most clueless of newbies believed at this point.

Lux truly considered the Sue a lesser evil than the canon itself: probable.

Mal hummed under her breath, a few lines of an annoying song she heard years ago (at least, she was pretty sure (she actually had trouble remembering just where it was from (oh well))) that got intermittently stuck in her head ever since. It wasn’t helping.

The slaves were canon: known. The widespread sex slavery was canon: inferrable from Lux’s answer. Everyone Systlin killed had it coming: logical conclusion.

Goddess of War, Goddess of Justice, Goddess of Protection, Goddess of Night, Goddess of Death, Goddess of Endings and rebirth.

Mary Sue.

Overpowered godmode Sue dumped onto a world with terrible morals – of course it was a fixfic. Moral righteousness wasn’t incompatible with bad writing, there were no challenges, there was no conflict, there was no point—

But so many suffering souls liberated. Was that not a point?

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.

“Get out of my head!” Mal screamed into the empty tent.

She felt something in the back of her head, and the walls mockingly breathed. She faintly heard laughter.

The evening came, and the rain with it. Now was the time for the end of the battle.

Anis had stood outside as the Ubara of the South announced the new laws of the world, the rain mercifully washing out much of the accumulated grime of battle. They were now watching as Systlin entered the merchant Saphrar’s mansion.

Some amount of time later, she would be carried out on a stretcher. This was fine, she would survive it easily thanks to her training at the Iron Mountain.

Fine? Why am I caring about— Oh, who were they kidding? They wanted her to win. Perhaps an irrational reaction, of course, their job was to protect the canon, but…

They had one last thing to check. One they hoped would prove them right. The poison fang the merchant had: an extremely stupid concept, and a major charge if the Sue was responsible. But if she wasn’t making that up…

It proved hard to get close to Saphrar: everyone wanted a look, and perhaps quite a lot more, at the man who had almost killed their Ubara. As he was forcibly marched through the streets of Turia, the soldiers guarding him pushed off any onlookers. Anis followed behind, waiting for a clear view of the merchant. The cloak they had put on was perfectly reasonable, and no reason for concern, given the rain; this was perfect, as it gave them an easy way to conceal the Combined Canon/Character Analysis Device.

Eventually, one of the guards stepped to the side, and the agent could finally see the man in the gold and white robes, hands bound behind his back. They pressed the CAD’s button, ready to hurry off into an alleyway after the warning beep.

None came. Anis looked down at the readout.

[Saphrar of the Caste of Merchants. Human male. Canon. Out Of Character 3.0000000000000004%.]

It was canon. It was all canon.

Just as they had hoped.

Anis portalled back into the tent. “Mal! Mal, we have to leave! We have to abandon the—”

Mallory had a look on her face. She glared at her partner, unmoving, for a couple seconds. Then, she lunged at them, prying the Remote Activator off their hands.

“Mal? Mal, what’s—”

The woman grabbed the team’s backpack, opened a portal, and disappeared.

First chapter — Next chapter

In Color was originally created by Hannah “Alicorn” Blume and Kelsey “Lintamande” Piper. The Graveyard of Empires belongs to Natalie “natalieironside” Ironside.

[moka-suwi]

6: Thaumosensitivity

The PPC may kill Sues, but there's a clause in the whole murder thing that lets PPC agents dispatch Mary Sues with extreme prejudice: it's like war, except the Mary Sues don't know it. — Revised Handbook of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum

“Your problem,” said Lena, “is that you’re thinking of it as getting from point Alka–” she held up the training staff as if to strike– “to point Bata.” She swung it down, the tip of the staff coming to a stop a few inches above the ground. “So you’re rushing the motion, and you’re losing strength and control.”

Mallory hummed in acknowledgement. “And what should I be doing instead?”

“For now?” The instructor held the staff back up. “Just focus on keeping the motion smooth and fluid.” As she said those words, she brought it down in a slow diagonal movement. “The speed’s gonna come with the training, not the opposite.”

Mal nodded and gave it another try, somewhat slower than before. The end of her staff struck the post a few inches below the red mark she was aiming for, which got yet another frustrated sigh out of her.

Lena, however, was smiling. “There you go, that’s already much better! Just be more mindful of the weight of the staff, don’t let it carry you away.”

“Is it really that important to be so precise when, uh, hitting someone with a big stick?” Mal replied, giving a doubtful look at the staff.

Lena’s smile widened further. “Your friend told me you got a guy in Turia with a strike to the neck, right?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m…” A pause. “Hmm. Yeah, I see your point.”

“With enough training, next time might even be on purpose. Alright, let’s try it a few more times, and then you’re free!”

“Those things are weird,” Anis opined as they dismounted the kaiila, grabbing the recurve bow in their off hand.

“What could you possibly mean by that?” Jane replied, giving a few pats on Murderhorse’s flank.

The redhead chortled. “I’m serious! Once you get it to a gallop, it starts moving a lot more like a cat than a horse.”

“Huh. Never noticed that, but it makes sense, I guess?”

“That means the back moves a lot more,” Anis explained, holding out their hand horizontally and moving it up and down a few times. “I’ll have to adjust to that when shooting.”

Jane nodded. “I’ve seen the Tuchuk riders stand up in their stirrups a bit when they use their bows, that probably helps.”

“Probably. I’m just not really used to those either.”

“Stirrups? Seriously?”

“It’s… Legitimately hard to explain.”

Jane gave a long look at Anis. “... A lot of things are, these days.”

“I might actually keep it up,” Mal said. “A bit tired of being kind of useless in missions like these, honestly.”

Anis, in the corner of the wagon with the wash basin, didn’t bother to turn around. “ESAS has a decent training room. Agent-run, they got tired of almost dying on every mission.”

Mal slumped on the bed. “Fucks me up how they’d never even touched a weapon until like a year ago, and they’re already better at training than the PPC. I mean, I know there’s Suefluence involved, but…”

“I don’t think that’s chargeable, it’s realistic enough. We’re just that bad.” A chuckle. “At this point, I don’t think I should even touch a gun until I’ve found a proper shooting range.”

The girl hummed. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far, guns are about as point-and-click as you get.”

“Yes, that’s what they taught us.”

“Hah.”

Anis finally turned around, putting a clean shirt back on. Sitting onto the bed, they added: “By the way, I think Jane is suspecting something.”

Mal perked up. “What?”

“She finds us weird. I think we don’t fit in enough.”

“She got isekaied by aliens, and then a witch showed up. We could make up just about anything and she’d believe us.”

Anis nodded. “Fair. But we need to agree on a cover story, then.”

“Cover…” Mal pondered for a while. “Hey, well, secret mission from Earth. Figuring out what’s going on on Horny Low Fantasy Planet. It’s barely even wrong.”

“That’s an option.” Anis lay down on the bed. “I’ll let you know if I find anything better, but for now, we should sleep.”

The walls of Turia looked much smaller than the agents remembered. Perhaps a trick of perspective, but even then, they seemed of a much more reasonable size than before.

Mal opined: “She made it… Better, in a way, but that’s still space distortion, right?”

Anis nodded in answer from atop Murderhorse, alternating between checking their weapons and looking at the Words. “There’s some backstory exposition. This city apparently reminds her of another she took in her homeworld. Exploded a hole right through the walls.”

“I assume,” Mal replied with a smile, “she’s gonna do the same here?”

Another nod. “There’s also some more, uh, flirting. And more backstory. Royal heir, trained with assassins before killing them for treason, girlbossed her way into ruling a good chunk of the world, uh… Killed a god? And threatened another?”

“Let me guess, those are all mentioned for the first time right before she does something implausible?”

Anis smiled. “Some of them. But it looks consistent.”

“So it’s more like dumping an endgame D&D character into a low-level campaign,” Mal said, grinning.

Her partner took a couple seconds to respond. “Probably. But also: nerd.”

Mal laughed as Anis rode off to rejoin the archers. She then left the camp, following the infantry troops at first before walking off to a small hill, on which she lay down to somewhat conceal herself. She could see Systlin and her honor guard, fairly blurry at that distance but still recognizable, facing off with soldiers on… Raptors? Sure, why not. While her sight was what it was, her hearing had done a lot to compensate over the years, and so she focused on the conversation.

“You know full well that I lead this army.” She said bluntly. “You’ve heard the stories.” She sighed. “It makes me curious…” “Stories of trickery and nonsense about sorcery.” The man with the glittering armor said loftily. “A few villages might fall to some unnatural woman, but this is Turia. We will not be afraid of a tribe of women who think themselves the equals of men.”

Honestly pretty silly. The Sue herself commented on it, which Mal thought of as less of a self-aware moment and more of another opportunity to make herself look better by way of a DMB. Still, the raptor cavalry severely outnumbered Systlin’s, which would have probably been a problem had she not had tailor-made war-winning powers.

Indeed, Mal watched on as a cracking sound echoed through the air, and the lances of Turia’s entire front line shattered. She could feel the power from here, a terrible force that sought the flaws in the patterns of reality and spread them exponentially, rending molecules apart, a weaponized Second Law of Thermodynamics—

Focus. The enemy cavalry was panicking, and the entire force of Systlin’s army moved in for the kill, the Sue’s kaiila springing in front of her advancing troops. The way clear, she made a move toward the front lines – motion from the walls, arrows? Her course was unimpeded. She was leading from her front lines, which was extremely unrealistic for any sort of noble – probably chargeable. Systlin was supposed to be a queen, not a—

Goddess of war. Goddess of justice. The words of the goddess from the dream sequence echoed in Mal’s mind. Certainly an option to explain this, but she wasn’t sure if—

The great gates of Turia, and fifty feet of the wall to either side, crumbled into splinters and sand.

Power. Overwhelming Power. The entire hylic plane was in agony, patterns and metapatterns coming undone within the range of the blast, minds – emergent patterns of electricity, pieces of Wan Mekhane, most fragile and most precious – dissipating into a hateful local maximum of entropy, souls blinking out to—

“Marshmallow. Mallory. Please. Just listen—”

“That was a Sue!” Mallory Belford, of the Department of Floaters, gestured at the body on the ground.

Rose was shaking, wand pointed at Mal. “She wasn’t doing anything wrong!”

Mal knew Rose wouldn’t hurt her. She couldn’t. “You’ve seen what she’s done to canon! What is happening to you?”

There were tears in her partner’s eyes. “She… She was just a girl having fun with her favorite characters.”

Oh, no. The Sue had got to Rose. Lingering influence. Mal pulled out the neuralyzer. “Rose, listen, I… She’s done something to your mind. You can’t—”

A white light shone from Rose’s wand, and Mal froze in place.

This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t happening. It—

Wait. It is not happening. This already happened. This isn’t real.

Mal found herself in a place that wasn’t. Around her were minds, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. Immediately, her full attention turned to the one facing her.

She immediately realized who She was. Her form was different, impossible to describe in hylic terms, a divine True Form that would drive any living soul mad—

“Am… Am I dead?”

You'll get better. There was some amusement in the Lady’s voice. Your body is mostly intact, and you are… Of another.

Mal wasn’t sure if that turn of phrase was typical of the goddess, or indicative of something deeper. There were some more urgent matters, though. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

I am nothing but myself, Mallory Belford. What are you doing here?

There was no use in lying to a being of such Power – capitalized, as per Her own canon’s convention. Still, Mal readied her own power as she spoke.

“I am an agent of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. You are aiding a Mary Sue in destroying the canon of Gor. This can still end peacefully, and everything return to normal.”

The Lady laughed, softly. Children. You shall not touch my sister.

Mal deployed her halo: two wings and a unicorn horn, in a shape reminiscent of a power button. Rightfully earned during the Friendship is Optimal mission. She, too, had killed a god, from a certain point of view. “Or else…?”

There's no “else”, Mallory. The Lady had adopted a softer, more calming tone.

Mal wouldn’t fall for it. “In that case…” With a ruffle of metallic wings, she manifested her Answer. The Mekhanite weapon glimmered in impossible colors as it activated. “Lady, you are charged with creating an implausible crossover, with bringing magic to a continuum which canonically has none, with enabling a Godmode Sue as she conducts a targeted attack on canon, and with harming an agent of the PPC.” She pointed the Answer at the goddess, ready to deploy. “The sentence is death.”

Point and click, Saint.

“Bang! Bang!” Mal shouted, moving the thumb on her finger gun for emphasis.

A beat. “What the hell?”

The Lady laughed again. Mal had the distinct impression that She lowered Herself down to speak to her. I make the rules here. And when I say you shouldn’t be here, I mean it.

Mal awoke on a soft surface. She abruptly sat up, scanning her surroundings. The Ubara Sana’s camp, a circular area cleared for battlefield injuries. She was on a stretcher, and next to her was a woman, presumably a medic. She put a hand on Mal’s shoulder.

“Wait! Calm down. Mal. It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Mal blinked. “What…” Ow fuck. Pain, which only got worse with a coughing fit. Broken rib, dislocated?

The medic answered the question she couldn’t ask. “Cavalry brought you in, said you had a seizure. Then, uh… Let’s just say we’re glad you’re still with us.”

The agent’s hands reached up to her face, and she sighed in relief as she felt her glasses. Her voice dropped to a whisper, to minimize the pain. “Fuck. I… I need to get back to my wagon.”

The other woman’s tone got sterner. “You’re not going anywhere just yet, young lady. Just lie down here for a few hours until we’re sure you won’t… Until we’re sure you’re okay.”

Mal knew she would be, but she couldn’t exactly argue with that. She would have to wait to get the answers to her questions.

First chapter —  Next chapter

[moka-suwi]

5: Balneae

Training of PPC agents can be anything from nonexistent to months-long. Upstairs has a long history of sending agents into the field relatively untrained, possibly because they are of the opinion that if an untrained agent can survive his first mission he didn't need extensive training to begin with, and if he can't, he probably wasn't agent material. Training of a PPC agent may consist of: - Giving them a weapon and pointing them at a Mary Sue. — Revised Handbook of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, 2010.

Anis had insisted on waiting to leave until some of the men had agreed to step in for archery training, which took a bit under a week. The agents’ departure was much better prepared this time, much to the displeasure of Murderhorse, who quite literally ran circles around the pack bosk. This wasn’t a problem to anyone with PPC portals, and in the time it took to get them out of view and get the kaiila to cooperate, the pair had moved way ahead in space and time.

“Let’s say this,” Anis said while pulling Me out of the backpack, “is valid for charging purposes.” They then stuffed me back in, and added with a grin: “But no one said anything about not just reading the Words.”

Mallory’s groan turned into a sigh of relief at those words. “So…” She replied. “What do we do after that?”

“Umm… Are you interested in a somewhat intimate dream sequence?”

“No.”

“Then there’s an assassination attempt on her right afterwards, and then she kills the real chief in a duel.” A shrug. “It’s a whole thing, but I think the charges would be redundant. Up to you.”

Mal pouted, pondering the choice for a second. “Mmmmeh, nah. More first-person shit after that, then?”

“Yeah, then uh.” Anis read further ahead, and frowned. “Okay we’ll have to be there for that one.”

“She’d give anything to see him again,” the redhead proclaimed, looking down at the entrance to the ornate wagon. The pair somewhat regretted not packing a See-Through Device.

Mal grinned. “Good news, your husband’s here! Bad news, there goes your soul, your true name, I dunno, your fucking literal ass—”

That got a chuckle out of Anis. “Anyway yeah, they almost fight each other, and then touching reconciliation moment, but then it turns out it’s only been like thirty minutes in their homeworld. They just blame that one goddess and call it a day.”

“I mean, I’d believe that. I’m more concerned about how that means… Basically no stakes whatsoever.”

Anis nodded. “Yeah she basically just… Gets whatever she wants, just like that. Ah –” they cleared their throat – ““I had to kill three thousand men to unfuck this one tribe.” She said bluntly. “And it’s still not really done; that was just lancing the boil. ’Catch, the men of this world are slavers. All of them, from what I can tell, or at least most. They keep women as sex toys.”

Mal blinked, twice. “An… Entire planet of DMBs?”

“Of what?”

“Designated Misogynistic Bastards.”

“Yeah basically.”

“Well, that’s one way to make your protag look good.”

“Mm. Oh,” Anis added, “we’re just about caught up. Just listen.”

The tent wasn’t exactly soundproofed, and the agents could faintly hear half of the conversation inside; Anis simply repeated Systlin’s lines.

“So you’ve been gone months, but it’s been but moments at home.” “Thank the gods.” Systlin’s voice was muffled by his chest. “I’ve been so, so worried, about you and Serra.” “It’s reasonable then to assume that however long we take here, little or no time will have passed at home.” “Thank the gods.” She said again, fervent. “Well.” He said. “We might as well make a proper job of it then. Why don’t you show me around, Ubara?”

Quite unfortunately, the moment the couple exited the wagon was also the time the narrative chose to switch back to first person. The agents opted to, instead, focus on the sudden sparring session. The narrative, beyond all the homoeroticism (“Well, it’s horny low fantasy, I don’t think that’s chargeable”), only described the characters’ skills as excellent, and yet a measure of actual skill was still obvious.

“We are not going head to head with either of them.” Mal’s lighthearted tone betrayed some worry.

Anis acquiesced: “With the god thing, I’m not even entirely sure the portal into the sun will work. You’ll have to figure something out.”

“Yeah, it’s— Hey!”

“What? You’re the weird esoteric assassination girl.”

The Sue and her husband finally finished their third bout, and immediately started making out, in a way that was so well described by Me that even Mal couldn’t escape it. “My wagon, I think,” Sys finally said. “You can leave the boots on.” “Only if you leave the sword belt on,” Foicatch replied, and there they went.

“Well, that was…” Anis turned to Mal, who was apparently trying to disappear into the fabric of the roof. Or choke herself with it, they weren’t sure. “Yeah basically. Portal back?”

The woman raised her head back. “Well, I guess if we’re past the weirder bits of that—”

“A wagon is not really the most sound-proof of dwellings,” I opined.

Mal wordlessly grabbed the Remote Activator. As the pair left through a floating blue doorway, Jane wondered if that was even the weirdest thing she’d seen lately.

The next two chapters were, to put things plainly, about Foicatch having sex with Tarl Cabot. Anis tried to crack jokes about how weird a way to solve that plot point this was, but quickly gave up once the muffled noises coming from Mal became distinctly more electronic.

“Aaaanyway, there’s a timeskip and then they raid the city of Turia. How about we go do some tourism before they get there?”

Mal’s eyes focused back onto them. “Huh?”

“I’m just saying,” they replied with a slight grin, “cities imply proper sanitation.”

A sigh of relief. “Oh fuck yeah.”

Some rummaging through their supplies and a portal later, the agents found themselves under the shadow of implausibly large walls. Another one, and they were on top. Before that could register to anyone who might have been there, a third portal brought them to a rooftop of the inner city. From this vantage point, the pair looked on at the people on the streets, then at each other, then at the people again.

“... Well, fuck.”

Karn of the caste of Scribes wasn’t sure what he expected to happen today, but it certainly wasn’t this, which was a strange floating rectangle, appearing in front of him, and two strangely-dressed people coming out of it. One, he could recognize as a woman, albeit one who was wearing neither collar, nor Robes of Concealment. He met her cerulean gaze, but she immediately squeezed her beautiful eyes shut. He would have taken some time to appreciate the blonde’s beauty, were he not baffled by the other, who was a… He wasn’t sure what the red-haired one was, but it was wearing similarly odd clothes, along with a pair of strange darkened spectacles, and wielding a short, black, stick—

FLASH.

“Alright,” Anis said. “You were on your way to the least frequented bathhouse you know of. That you’ve still heard good things about. You’ve certainly not seen anything out of the ordinary on your way there. Have a nice day!”

The bath turned out to be some sort of high-status exclusive club business, to the point that even that man in the blue clothes was refused entry; but that was nothing that some strategically applied neuralyzing couldn’t handle. It was indeed devoid of customers at the moment, and what little “staff” remained past the lobby were keen on not asking any questions – the smiles and knowing nods were somewhat unsettling, though.

The agents thoroughly washed off the grime and remaining smell of burning corpses by themselves, the solid quarter of an hour this had to take being spent in complete silence. Finally, as they soaked in a cool pool of water, Mal spoke.

“So, uh… Elephant in the room: they’re—”

“The slaves are canon,” Anis acquiesced. “Clearly.”

“For fuck’s sake.” She leaned back, as if to hit the back of her head against the edge of the pool.

“Yeah. Not unexpected of low fantasy, but… I’m not sure we’re morally in the right here.”

Mal nodded in acknowledgement. “The PPC’s saved plenty of terrible continuums. If she’s still making things worse…”

“Is she, though?”

Another moment of silence—

“What is the meaning of this? You will let me through!”

A man’s voice. Anis leaped out of the pool, with Mal following after grabbing her glasses from the edge. She immediately found herself facing the person who had just run in – smaller stature, head shaved, wearing white robes.

Mal apologetically raised her hands: “Oh sorry, didn’t mean to—”

“Knife!” Anis shouted, throwing themself at the scholar. A strike to his hand sent a grey glimmer flying, a punch connected with his head, and a kick pushed him to the ground.

Hastily putting on her glasses, Mal spoke again: “Anis, why’d you…”

A sickening noise echoed across the room as her partner soccer-kicked the man’s head, leaving his neck at a concerning angle.

Mal couldn’t help but shout. “Anis, what the fuck?!”

Anis gave her a serious-business stare as they walked back up to the knife. “I know that was risky, I wouldn’t have done that if I—”

Mal was growing increasingly panicked. “Did you just kill him?”

Anis’s tone remained flat. “He had that look. Like he didn’t know if he wanted to fuck us or kill us.”

Mal paused for a second, then took a deep breath. “Oh, God,” she sighed.

“Save the mental breakdown for later, we need to go.” With that, knife in hand, Anis made a run for the changing room, and Mal followed. A short corridor, then the warm pool, then—

Two men in white robes, rummaging through the agents’ clothes. Behind them, two of the bathhouse’s slave girls. The scholars abruptly stood up and took a step back – one had grabbed a pair of black throwing knives, and the other wielded a still-collapsed telescopic baton. Anis dashed off to the side from the doorway, pulling Mal along.

The men and the agents observed each other for a second. The man with the knives was clearly intimidated, and possibly panicking, but Anis figured they wouldn’t be able to disarm him quickly enough—

With a scream, he threw the knife in his right hand at the pair; it harmlessly bounced off the wall next to them. Well, that makes things easier.

Mal eyed the one with the baton. He obviously didn’t know how to use the World One weapon, and she needed to at least distract him until Anis finished off the other; but she was unarmed. A look around the room – some glass vials on the table over there, maybe if she threw them—

The older-looking of the slave girls pulled on a towel rack, and a metal bar effortlessly came off. In the same motion, she struck the scholar on the back of the head. He screamed, flailing his arms and somehow managing to open the baton.

Mal gave a surprised look at the girl, who simply answered with another knowing nod; she held up the bar in a vertical position and carefully threw it at Mal, who managed to catch it, then pulled another one out and positioned herself to protect the younger girl.

Anis approached the other scholar, maintaining a guard stance and holding their knife up in front of them. Their opponent’s grip was unsteady, showing lack of experience— Low strike. The agent’s forearm bashed against the man’s striking hand, followed by a slash of their knife, and as he cried in pain the other blade fell to the ground. Anis followed up with a stab in the torso, then another, then a front kick to the other side of the room.

With that out of the way, they turned to assist Mal, who was swinging a long metal pole at her opponent. As they were about to run to her assistance, she managed to strike the man’s neck with some force, and he fell limp to the ground.

“Praise the Ubara Sana!”, the older slave girl shouted.

“Mal, get the weapons,” stated Anis as they searched through the clothes basket, sighing in relief upon feeling the Remote Activator at the bottom of the pile. “You two should run, we’ll make our own way out. Hide somewhere safe, and stay away from the walls.” A beat. “Thank you for the help.”

As the girls ran out of the room, the agents finally portaled back to the safety of their base camp.

In some weaker canons, places that existed outside of the narrative for a period of time could, so to speak, uncouple themselves from the pace of the Words. A blatant charge of time distortion when a badfic did it, but PPC agents themselves were no strangers to their hiding spots remaining unchanged through long time skips. This was as such not one of the reasons why the agents, upon getting dressed and leaving the tent, were surprised to find a squad of the Ubara’s cavalry, kitted for war, waiting next to the camp.

Their leader, a dark-skinned woman who looked in her mid-30s, spoke. “There you are! We were starting to think something had happened to you, but we didn’t wanna disturb.”

Anis was a lot better at hiding their surprise than Mal. “Been a while, huh? What’s all this for?”

The woman grinned. “We’re about to sack Turia! Wanna join?”

The agents took a long look at each other. They were getting dangerously embedded in the fic’s own narrative, by the looks of it. Actively helping with the attack of Turia, even as nameless background characters easily compatible with the Words, could be a step too far.

And yet.

“Fuck yeah.”

First chapter — Next chapter

[moka-suwi]

4: Annihilation

“Listen.” There was some anger in her voice — just a little bit. “You’ve got what feels pretty darn close to your true name, and then you write it down, in the Words, that define the entire world you’re in, and that are trivial to read— Just— what did you expect to happen?” — Mallory E. "Mal" Belford, "A Weird if Ultimately Forgettable Dream"

“ … Some angsty yelling into the void, why am I here and all that,” Anis continued, staring at the Words right through the skin of the hastily fashioned tent above them; it was slightly vibrating from the wind which had picked up outside. “And then she falls asleep and has a dream sequence with that goddess.”

“You know…” Mallory spoke up; she was facing away from them, her legs slightly folded to fit under the tent. “All other things being equal, I think if it was that Stellead there instead of the bone exploder, it’d have all been so much more entertaining.”

“I could see that. It feels like there’s a lot of thought behind Systlin’s backstory, maybe the author took their origfic character and dumped them in— Um.” A pause. “Huh.”

Mal tried to turn back a bit, but the sheer lack of space got in the way; something made a mildly concerning noise as she inadvertently pushed against the tent. She immediately gave up, and simply replied: “What’s wrong?”

Anis’s voice had hints of shock and, in a way, indignation. “Apparently our Sue’s supposed to be a goddess?”

“What? That’s chargeable, right?”

Mal felt her partner shrug. “Typically yes,” they replied, “but we can’t actually witness it in person.” That was always preferable for the charge list. “I don’t really the idea of portaling into a dream sequence. Things get weird.”

Mal hummed in acknowledgement. Another moment of silence followed; only marred by the humming and whistling of the wind against the strings and leather of the— Hmm.

“I think I’ve got an idea.”

Several months earlier, Mal had encountered a teenage girl on her first, somewhat clumsy attempt at Astral projection. That kid had made some egregious mistakes, and she had to step in and give her a lesson, both literal and practical, in Astral safety. Those were very dangerous lands, and one misstep could destroy you – or worse.

The Astral environment in a badfic was much safer, though. The entire world just wasn’t fleshed out as much, and even when it was mentioned in the Words, the regions outside of the narrative were just… Kind of dead. So, she was willing to take a lot more risk.

Distantly, she almost-heard the howling of the wind; what had served as a focusing point to still her thoughts and let her consciousness unfurl was now an anchor that indicated the way back to her body. The landscape she found herself in was more impressions than sights. She didn’t let it settle into anything consistent, and immediately flew off to the two presences she felt in the distance.

There she was, a consistent material form in the dreamscape. And there She was, a concentration of Power that emanated form and will. She felt… Real. Canonical, probably.

"You?" the Sue asked, an echo of lingering anger in her voice.

Me. It was so much easier to access the Words when Mal’s body and its damaged eyes were out of the equation; they indeed confirmed that the goddess’s response wasn’t a word, but a transmission of subtle feelings that influenced one’s mind into understanding.

More anger from Systlin. An interesting feat, especially that close to Power – quite often, you’d start picking up on the other’s emotions rather than your own. That, or what They wanted you to feel. A question: had she not done enough? Could she have no peace?

Case in point: Mal couldn’t help but share the Lady’s laugh. She did agree with Her, though – whatever Systlin emanated, it felt fundamentally incompatible with peace, in a very peculiar way.

Ah. Power, Power that warranted the capitalization, stirred within the Sue. Canon? She doubted so; maybe canonically someone else’s.

Sister. The word was pointed, and almost mocking. Who denies still that you are. "I saved my world. It needs me; you know that damned well. I don't want to be a god."

There it was. Charge for being a literal goddess, and for angsting about that of all things. As the Lady elaborated, Mal could feel the Power within the Sue rise, transmitting the corresponding ideals. War, justice, night, death, rebirth… And quite a few more.

Systlin clenched her fists in anger, and—

You have seen enough.

That wasn’t in the Words. That wasn’t directed at Systlin, who kept carrying on her conversation. That was directly at her.

The Lady was all impressions, nothing concrete unless She had a very specific message to pass on. She felt like something much, much greater than she was letting on in the narrative. Mal found herself invaded with a primal, suffocating fear.

You really should not be here.

With a flutter of Her wings, she— Wings? The Words never—

“Ah, fuck,” Anis yelled out as a gust of wind blew the tent off its post; Mal simultaneously jolted up, catching her breath. “Sorry, I tried to hold it, but… I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.”

Mal didn’t answer. Her eyes were fixed on the bright moons, right on the dawning horizon.

“Oh, hi! Didn’t expect you again so soon—” No, that was a blatant lie, she’d literally been standing guard right there, on this side of the camp, since the sun rose. Maybe just something like “You’re back early”? That felt judgy.

She totally expected the two to come back this morning, though. The weather last night had been weird, and were she them, she’d want to get back to the safety of a wagon before getting hit by a freak storm. Still, it had been a good hour since sunrise, and she was worried about being late for training; maybe they were still discussing the idea, or maybe they had instead decided to keep going—

Ahh, there they are. As if right on cue, a small plume of dust rose over the horizon. It quickly grew – those kaiila really were freakishly fast – before she could resolve the two figures riding the beast.

On the front was the person from yesterday; Anais? No, Anis, kinda like the spice, right. A person of relatively small stature, who nonetheless showed signs of physical strength if you knew where to look; their form would have been pretty good were it a horse they were riding. Their curly, bright red hair, which they kept fairly short, contrasted against their olive skin and brown eyes in a pretty interesting way.

Right behind them on the kaiila, holding on for dear life with an expression of mild panic, was a taller, thinner woman – Mallory, Jane assumed. She noted her particularly pale complexion; perhaps she had worn Robes of Concealment, or been kept indoors. She wore glasses of Earth make, marking her as probably a new arrival to Gor, and her pale blonde ponytail was getting tangled up by the motion of the kaiila. Jane noted, once the pair got closer, that the riding clothes she’d found her did indeed fit quite well.

The kaiila quickly came to a halt a few meters away from Jane, who found herself looking up at its two riders. She was about to greet them, but Anis spoke first, a grin splitting their face:

“Sorry we kept you waiting, we had to find our tent back.”

A laugh escaped her.

“We won’t be staying for too long,” Anis continued as Mallory leaped off the kaiila, taking a few wobbly steps away from it. “But we definitely need shelter for a while, and I need to figure out how to properly ride Murderhorse here.” As they said that, they gave “Murderhorse” a couple pats before dismounting as well; the beast looked uncharacteristically contented.

“Training’s starting up soon,” Jane said with a smile, “I’m sure I could find a place for you two.”

“I’ll pass,” Mallory replied, pointing at her thick-lensed glasses. “I had to get surgery for even those to kinda work. Eye injury as a teen.”

“Oof.” Come to think of it, those eyes of hers were a very odd shade of blue. “I’m sure there’s something you can do! I’ll ask around, but first, let’s find you a place.” She grinned. “Lots of vacancies these days.”

Jane led the pair to one of the, er, recently emptied wagons, and watched as they dropped off their supplies, unburdening the kaiila. Only then did she note that Mallory’s backpack, while clearly made of leather, seemed to be of the Earth style. On it was a sewn-on patch: a water lily surmounted by a red stylized ampersand. Something told her that it wasn’t her problem, but she knew better than to trust her instincts, and made a mental note of that just in case.

An open area next to the camp had been hastily fashioned into a training field; it wasn’t all too busy at the moment, as the volunteers waited for their turn on the attention of the very few with combat experience. They were mostly focusing on blades and spears, with some hand-to-hand combat, and the few archery targets that had been optimistically placed off to the side remained ignored.

Noticing Anis’s pointed look at the targets, Jane explained: “I tried earlier, but those bows are just way too stiff – I was scared of breaking either the bow or my fingers. I guess they’re for war, not for sport, but even the Ubara had trouble with them.”

A look of understanding dawned on the agent’s face. “Oooh, right! You tried the, uh…” They held up three fingers to about the height of their face, making a sort of hook shape.

“Yyyeah,” Jane confirmed, “that definitely didn’t feel like the right way to do it.”

“Yeah, you need to do it like, um—” Anis tried to demonstrate the gesture with their hand, but quickly gave up. “Hold on, could you get me a bow? Oh, and uh, one of those rings that go over your thumb. If you can find any.”

As Jane ran off with some enthusiasm, Anis turned to Mal. “The Words are gonna pick up soon, you can go look for the Ubara. I’ll stay right there and see how rusty I got.” The grin that hadn’t left their face for quite a while widened.

Mal gave her partner a mock military salute, and left just as Jane returned with a bow and quiver.

Systlin was in no way hard to find, she definitely had a bit of an imposing presence. She was sparring with a younger woman, but at some point abruptly stopped, holding up her hand, and corrected the other’s posture. The woman immediately sank to her knees, begging for forgiveness in quite a dramatic manner which allowed the Sue to show her good morals by consoling her.

“Do you know,” she said as she helped the unnamed woman back up on her feet, “how long it took me to become good with a sword?”

Mal just kept listening from a distance, crossing her arms. Anis had said the author might have experience in martial arts, but…

"I started training at thirteen." Systlin smiled fondly in memory. "I first killed a wraithen at nineteen. I first killed men in battle at twenty five. that was two and a half decades and three wars ago." She tossed her own wooden sword in the air; it spun precisely one turn before she caught it again by the hilt. "Training takes time, and practice. You will make mistakes. I will never fault you for them; you simply correct them and keep training."

Well, that was a lot. Several decades of experience certainly did feel accurate to her, though she had very little knowledge of sword fighting, but something still felt… Wait a second, doesn’t that imply she’s—

“Fifty?”, the other woman asked, less incredulously than Mal would probably have. But at least, the narrative did bother to point that out, a rare good point for it. Systlin confirmed that, and the woman then asked if her world had “brews of youth” like Gor apparently had.

Why do I feel like I’m not gonna like where this is going? Definitely a rhetorical question. Mal tuned out of the Sue’s exposition of her backstory, apparently a bit of an Aragorn situation; but when she asked the other woman about her age, she listened attentively.

"Oh. Sixty, I think? My masters have given me the brews of youth three times."

Wan Mēkhanḗ that was vile. Sure, the Sue’s reaction was just about similar, but Mal had to remember that it was her—

"How many years of that," Systlin kept her voice carefully level. "Were you kept as property?" "Since I was...oh, sixteen?"

With some hindsight, Mal would soon be glad about two things. Firstly, she currently had no weapons to assault anyone with. Secondly, she got distracted by some yelling behind her. Turning around, she was pretty sure it had come from Anis’s location; several women were surrounding them, and they had a bow pointed in the general direction of Definitely Not The Target.

“Ah fuck,” she heard them yell out, “right, the gravity!”

Mal tried to run towards them, but had a sudden Feeling. Echoes of anger, fury even, mixed in with notes of Power. Reminiscent of some memories of last night. An impression that it would be so easy, so right, to just—

...No. No no NO. I will not. I have to teach them. They must take it themselves, for all I might lead them. Or it will all be for nothing…

That was definitely the Sue’s voice. What was it with that woman and intruding into her head? Suefluence didn’t do that to that extent, usually.

Mal kept walking carefully, taking deep breaths to ground herself, until that overflow of emotions dried up. By that point, she could clearly see Anis, who was giving her a look of mild concern.

She was the first to ask, though: “What happened over here?”

Anis cringed. “I…” A quick look at the others. “I was showing them how to thumb-draw, but then I overheard the Ubara over there, and… Fuck, you know usually I’m not really impulsive, but—” They held the bow slightly higher for a second. “Don’t worry, it went right over them— the men. The gravity, you know.”

A deep sigh from Mal. “I get it. It feels like…” Another glance at the women surrounding Anis. “Since the Ubara showed up, we’ve just been. Doing things. It feels weird.”

A chuckle, coming from Jane. “Well,” she said, “sometimes it’s better to do things than to do nothing. And hey, no harm done to anyone important, right?”

As Anis laughed together with the others, Mal realized something felt very wrong. Pacing the training grounds, she pondered the situation: a Sue that showed some particularly strong influence on her, displays of apparent divine power, and now her partner was actively abetting their target’s own troops. She had several ideas of what was going on, none of which bode particularly well for the mission.

SOD. Sod’s law, the British equivalent of Murphy. Whatever can go wrong— Oh God what the fuck is she doing. That was some horrendous form; even she knew better, and she’d bailed out of any martial arts after— Oh, fuck it.

“Hey, hey, wait, stop! You’re gonna hurt yourself like that. Hold on, lemme show you how to— excuse me, could you hold my glasses?”

First chapter —  Next chapter

[moka-suwi]

3: Inconsistency

I'm still not over the assertion that kaiila have a range of over four hundred miles a day. I'm pretty sure he's thinking of motorcycles, in which case at least give your guys helmets just as a windshield, for fuck's sake. — The very cool and likeable author of this fic, upon learning what the murderhorses were capable of.

The agents got up at dawn, to the sound of Me blabbering on about the yet-unnamed first-person narrator’s misery, which they were starting to tune out. I reached a short description of the food he was served, and the pair looked at each other, suddenly realizing they hadn’t eaten anything since entering the fic. The faint smell of charred meat brought by the breeze wasn’t helping.

Mallory spoke, grabbing the Remote Activator: “So! How about we go find out what bosk tastes like?”

That took a precious couple seconds to register to Anis. “Uh, wait—”

But it was too late: Mal stepped through a portal, and promptly discovered that the smell had only technically been from grilling meat.

She felt several conflicting emotions at once – quite literally conflicting, as a matter of fact. She noted with some detachment – Oh. Dissociation. – that she felt like running away, or breaking down crying on the spot, or rushing in to fight the women dumping bodies on the pyres; but there was something else. An unfamiliar feeling that told her this was right, and they had deserved it for their crimes. Suefluence. But it was the only thing keeping her from freaking out at the moment. Well, she was freaking out, somewhat. But mostly she was just standing there. She thought she should be standing somewhere else.

Mal stepped back through the portal, handed Anis the RA, and fell to her knees muttering something unintelligible under her breath. Her partner figured they should avoid bringing back any meat.

As it turned out, bosks were just what these people called the cattle they were keeping. Anis grabbed some jerky for themself, and a wineskin of what smelled like kefir along with some dried berries for Mal. As they left the wagon, they found themself looking directly at the conversation from the Words: Systlin staring down from the back of a “kaiila” at the captive narrator, and ordering him taken away for judgement. Anis opened a portal to hand the food to Mal – “Stay right there, listen to that guy if you want, I’ll handle the charges” – and followed the Sue.

It was not very far to the tent, perhaps an artifact of the Word World trying to reconcile the events with the pacing of the narration. The man was attached to the adjacent wagon, along with “a hundred and a half, perhaps two” others. The canon struggled to make sense of that description for a second or two, but eventually settled on a reasonable number without any half-people, which Anis was thankful for. The agent agreed that this sounded like a very small number, given—

Three thousand dead?

Anis hid inside another storage wagon, hurriedly opening a portal to Mal’s location. “Did you—”

“Yeah yeah I caught that.” She spoke hurriedly, in between coughing fits. Evidently she had been drinking something when she heard that. “Either the author’s a dumbass or we’re— kinda screwed. Talk later, keep going.” Her partner nodded in response, and closed the portal. They turned to leave the wagon, and—

“Who are you?”

A woman was looking up at Anis from the ground. Instinctively, the agent reached for the neuralyzer they had stuffed into their— Oh fuck. Aside from the RA in a back pocket, they had brought none of their gear. Think fast. A quick look at their environment, searching for escape routes, then at the interloper. Her auburn hair was braided in the fashion of the agents’ target, and she was wearing hastily fashioned leather trousers. Anis had an idea.

“Oh, I was just searching for better clothes,” they said in the most feminine tone they could muster. It was technically not even a lie: wearing essentially nothing but leather was starting to get annoying.

The woman narrowed her eyes, taking a step forward. “I asked who you were. You’re not from around here, are you?.”

Anis cringed, in a manner they hoped looked sympathetic. “It’s… Complicated. On both—”

Fuck. That came out in English, didn’t it.

Their interlocutor paused. Then, she took one long look at them. Finally, she spoke. In English.

“… Oooooh. Oh God I’m so sorry. I’m— it’s just— Fuck. My name’s Jane. I’m from Earth too.”

The agent breathed a sigh of relief. Unexpected success, but success nonetheless.

Yet, she continued. “I’m sorry, I thought you were a man and— Uh, well, if you’re a man it’s fine, but— Uh—”

Oh, that I know how to deal with. They smiled at her, a bit awkwardly. “I get what you’re going for. My name’s Anis, I use singular they.”

It was Jane’s turn to sigh in relief – before a horrified look crossed her face. “Oh God. It must have been horrifying.”

Ah. “I… Think I escaped the worst of it.” Either kind, really. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Jane took a sudden interest in the ground. “Sorry. Do… Do you want to come to the trial? If it’ll help.”

Anis had a moment of genuine hesitation. It was where they needed to be, but – Mal. “I’d… Love to, but I need to catch up with my… Partner.” Ah, she probably took it that way. “She’s left the camp, couldn’t stand all the…”

“Corpse burning?”

“Yeah, actually.” Wait, why even am I telling her all of this?

Jane beamed up at Anis. “Don’t worry! Your girlfriend can’t have gone too far on foot, and the Ubara promised any of us who’d want to leave a kaiila and some supplies. That’s, uh, the weird horse things.”

Anis suddenly realized they could probably live with that.

“Oh,” Anis muttered under their breath. “Systuhlin. Okay.” They’d pronounced it more like “sizzlin’”; it had felt appropriate. As the crowd chanted, they took in the scene: the Sue, Systlin, lecturing a chained man about the righteousness of her victory. Yet, there was something legitimately imposing in her voice.

A poke on their shoulder, then a whisper in their ear. “Here’s some clothes for Mallory,” Jane said as she handed them a tightly packed bundle. “I think that should be about her size, from what you told me.” Anis took the clothes, and the woman left for the ranks of the Ubara— the Sue’s honor guard.

What was about to unfold was a grotesque parody of justice. No jury, no standard of evidence, nothing but hearsay. The yelling man was right: they had, in fact, committed no crimes. Yet, Anis had to admit that looking ahead into the Words, they almost wanted these men to suffer – which they supposed was precisely the point. You couldn’t have your villains looking too sympathetic these days.

"Bring forth the first prisoner," she commanded after silencing that “Kamchak” and returning to the throne. Anis, of course, knew what was about to happen, but they still couldn’t bring themself to look away. Systlin asked for his name, and—

“Braltak,” said the girl who was standing right next to them. That was certainly an interesting situation: the closest they had ever been to the written action of a fic.

"Braltak. Have you, Braltak, in your life, held women or men as property?"

There was power in her voice. It almost felt like a kind of Power they had encountered way back then. Or Suefluence? Better be careful.

“He has,” answered the girl – Kala. Anis stepped aside to give her some space, as they knew she would soon come forward to confront Braltak – or was it Braltek? Both spellings were in the Words. Inconsistency. Technical charge. This fic is bad, I need to remember that.

Anis preferred to focus on the Words, reading ahead as to not get too disoriented by the redundant dialogue. The writing remained horrendous, noticeably more so than the third-person segments. Perhaps that was intended as a way to make the viewpoint character even less sympathetic to the reader, or perhaps they were being too generous.

They couldn’t help but glare at the narrator. He had to be too busy watching the execution, so, no harm done.

"She is a slave! That is her purpose!" Braltek roared.

Anis suddenly realized they had been subconsciously reaching for where their sword belt would have been, back in the day. The author was trying to get that reaction, they thought. And yet. And yet, in that moment, they wanted nothing more than to watch what was about to happen.

"You are mine, Kala." Braltek's voice went lower. "You are mine. I am your master, you know it."

Kala turned back to the Ubara.

“I do not,” Anis mouthed in sync with her. They suddenly realized they were grinning, and didn’t stop doing so as they watched Systlin pick up a “quiva”— Oh come on, that’s just a dagger. That snapped them out of it somewhat. Maybe that was chargeable, or maybe just a leftover from the original setting. They had to focus on the charges.

And yet.

Her eyes turned to Braltek, and in them burned something like hate. No. She was slave! A slave serves her master!

Anis’s head snapped towards the narrator. If glares could kill, the mission would have gone off the rails right that instant.

As the agent watched the girl repeatedly stab and slash the slaver, they hoped for an opportunity to do it to that man by the end of all of this.

I still lived.

Quite regrettably. But expected from a viewpoint character. Then again, Anis thought, it gives me the opportunity to finish the job.

The agent had gotten a bit… Carried away, so to speak. They didn’t participate in the violence, of course; they had no one to kill aside from their targets, and it was still too early in the fic to make any moves. Yet, they stayed for the entire length of the trial. It all was certainly… Cathartic, in a way. Not something they would wish upon real people, but—

What am I talking about? They are real. This Sue is defiling the canon and committing mass murder. Stay focused.

They had to admit, though, that the complete moral unambiguity of the situation made things a lot less bad. It wasn’t like the death penalty in, say, World One: those people outright bragged about rape and slavery, as if it were completely normal. The benefits of hyperbole, one could suppose. Anis doubted most of those dead characters existed to any meaningful extent in canon anyway.

So, they watched. And they cheered, a few times. They hadn’t been the only one.

They guessed they could cherish these memories once Systlin was dead.

By the end of the trial, the sun was low on the horizon, and the world had caught up to the Words; Anis had yet again to pay attention to that obnoxious man’s thoughts. They looked on at the wagon in which the Ubara was talking to the survivors of particular interest. Some of her new soldiers were chaining giant six-legged lizards – Oh! So that’s a sleen. – to the wagon as Systlin indicated that the men were very much still not free. The sleen were given their clothing to track their scent—

Oooooh. Bitch. They were calling her a bitch.

Anis grinned and turned back to Jane, who was holding the lead to a thoroughly muzzled kaiila. “I should get going before nightfall,” they said. “Mal’s got to be getting worried.”

The woman gave them a gentle smile as she handed them the leash. “I hope you’ll be okay. You could tell her it’s safe here now, I don’t know if she’d be willing to stay, but…”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll come back, but not for too long. We have… Many things to do out there.” They did, after all, need to get back into the camp for observation, but they couldn’t stay there for the actual canonical time span.

… Canonical?

“I think you know how awful this place can get,” Jane continued. “But I have a feeling that you two will end up just fine.”

Anis had finally managed to mount the kaiila; they were very much not used to those metal footrest things. They looked down at the woman, beaming with joy.

“Yeah. We’ll just have to be even worse.”

With that, the agent took off. Thank the gods for dubious fictional physics, that thing was astonishingly fast.

Mal hadn’t moved much. She’d assumed Anis was held up in one way or another, but figured she would give them until nightfall to come back. It wasn’t exactly hard to lose the camp, with the smoke billowing up right over the horizon; she’d probably be able to see the light of the fires after dusk, too.

I was still repeating the first-person narration. This at least had given her some entertainment, although the pause for most of the day led to quite a bit of boredom. She had tried meditating, but found the relative silence of the prairie disconcerting; contrary to what you’d think from her religion’s nickname, humming turned out not to really help. She occasionally looked around, sometimes seeing some small herds of concerningly large animals moving on the horizon; but mostly she just sat there.

I started the narration again; evidently the trials had concluded. Mal wasn’t particularly worried about Anis getting caught up in one, for obvious reasons, but doubt still lingered.

God was that guy annoying. It almost made her sympathize with the Sue. As the aforementioned started discussing her husband, Mal noticed a slight vibration in the ground, smaller than when those yet unidentified animals had passed her earlier. A plume of dust rose on the horizon, near the camp. Whatever this was, it was approaching fast.

Mal threw herself down to the ground; that thing wouldn’t give her any time to pack up, and so she hoped that the SEP field would be enough to avoid detection – and that she’d be lucky enough to not be trampled. As the animal approached, she recognized it as one of those carnivorous horse-like things, ridden by—

Several questions sprung to her mind, but a concluding remark from Me overruled them all. As Anis stopped next to her, decelerating from what felt like highway speeds, the first thing she asked was:

“His name is fucking Tarl?”

First chapter — Next chapter

[moka-suwi]

2: Osteoclast

102 notes

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As the agents were rummaging through an empty wagon for better clothes, the continuum suddenly blinked out of existence. The pair reached out to grab each other; that sort of thing happened sometimes, a return to pre-fic space—

Everything came back in an instant, and they found themselves in the exact same spot as they had been. This was accompanied by a strange sound, as if someone had just swapped the reel of the universe.

Anis unfocused their eyes in a quick glance at the Words. “Hah! Copy-paste error. That’s a lot of line breaks.”

Mallory sighed as she finished wiping the blood off her chest. “‘Oh, I don’t need betas, my writing’s just that good—’ Hey, did you find me a bra?”

Anis shook their head, before remembering Mal wasn’t wearing her glasses. “Nothing that you’d be willing to wear.”

“Fuck’s sake. Think that’s the fic’s fault, or is it one of those schlocky fantasy settings?”

“Bit of column A…” They handed Mal the most covering tunic they could find, along with a leather riding jacket. “At least whoever lives in this wagon has some common sense. Have you seen how many of those guys are riding shirtless? In shorts?”

Mal cringed. “You’re the horse-riding expert here, but… Yyyyeah, that can’t possibly be comfortable.” After putting on the shirt, she retrieved her glasses. Anis had found themself a vest and a pair of trousers – both leather, they sure had a thing for that over there. Mal noted that they had kept the boots. “Anything fun going on in the Words?”

“Apparently our Sue was sent there by a goddess, to Set Things Right,” Anis replied. “By uh, killing everyone.”

“Huh. That’s… Kinda meta, in a way. Let’s go see that by ourselves, shall we?”

The agents climbed to the top of a wagon, and watched from above as Systlin made her way to the center of the camp. “Her power curled within her, and oh but the lure of it was a powerful thing, as her blood ran hot and the red rage misted her vision,” Anis enunciated. “But that was a dangerous path, and for now she kept her power under tight rein.”

Mal tilted her head. “Well, can’t fault her for not burninating the whole camp, slaves and all. But that sounds vaguely like a Dangerous Special Magic Only I Can Control kinda deal.”

Anis nodded in response. “Magical sword named Ice, by the way. That’s… A bit generic.”

“Well, least it’s not fake Elvish.” The agents looked on as Systlin made a girl-power pep talk at a slave, and threatened a man for interfering.

"How dare you!" The man was furious. "She is mine! I will do with her as I like, I am her master!"

“Charge for making literally every single man a complete idiot?” Anis quipped as the man stubbornly insisted at swordpoint.

“Yeah I think that’s safe to put in,” Mal answered. “Wait, so is her other power literally just… Breaking things?”

Anis grinned, showing just slightly too many teeth. “Bold words from Miss I Can Log In To Wifi With My Mind.” They stuck out their tongue at Mal, before looking on at the subsequent murder. “Oh! Eighteen,” they said in near unison with the Sue.

“Give me one reason, woman.” Kamchak was deadly serious. “Why I should not order you slain where you stand.” “Because you said that you would take me to this Kutaituchik.” Systlin shrugged one shoulder. “And go on and do it. I would be delighted to kill some more of you.”

“And then they all stabbed her. The end!” Mal said with a chuckle.

“I feel like that wouldn’t really—” The warriors’ lances all simultaneously shattered. “—work.”

A beat.

“So, uh,” Anis meekly added. “Portal into the sun?”

“We’ll… Have to think real hard about the assassination method there.”

Anis simply kept reading the Words.

She did not tamp her power down and lock it away; she kept it to hand, a constant itch under her skin, a temptation to crack the femur of the man ahead of her just to hear him scream. She did not. She’d long ago mastered her power, as perhaps no other Breaker had. She ruled it, not the other way around. She felt the temptation, but discarded it, and kept the terrible boon of her power close at hand.

“Hah!” Mallory yelled; the agents ducked behind the curvature of the roof as a few of the men startled. “Super Special Dangerous Power Only I Can Control! Called it!”

“She’s not even really concerned about using it too much. She’s planning to— Oh, backstory. A warrior, a conqueror, a queen who’d fought two wars against people and one against a god. She’d won all three.”

“Damn,” Mal answered with an eye-roll, “leave some achievements for us mere mortals.”

“This feels…” Anis took a second to find the right word. “Masturbatory. I feel like I’m reading something that got written in one evening and then spent years on an old thumb drive.”

Another head tilt from Mal; right behind her partner, she could see the Sue gently reassure the freed girl. “I hate that I know exactly the vibe you’re talking about.”

“Yeah. So do I.”

The agents portaled on top of another wagon, next to what the Words described as an open area behind a wagon of exceptional size and make in front of which Systlin was brought. Eventually, an older man, apparently named Kutaituchik, was brought out.

“Alright!” Mal grinned at her partner. “Lemme guess.” She lowered the pitch of her voice somewhat, making it echo against the roof. “How dare you kill our warriors –” and raised it into a falsetto – “How dare you keep women as slaves! – But that is their rightful place as a clumsy metaphor for patriarchy! – How dare you, slavery is wrong, and also girl power! –” a return to her normal voice – “and then she kills everyone.”

Anis read ahead into the Words. “Oddly specific, yet also oddly accurate.” They listened to the conversation, which did indeed play out along those lines, if even more weirdly fetishistic. They at least did learn that they had been pronouncing “Gor” wrong the entire time.

The actual inciting incident for the fight was seemingly going to be a refusal to unconditionally surrender to her. A frankly ridiculous amount of soldiers was amassed around her, with a few creeping up from behind. “She’s noticed them,” Anis said. “We won’t be able to sneak up like that.”

And then Systlin shattered the men into piles of bloody meat, and Mallory discovered the truth of the rumor about energy drinks tasting the exact same on their way back out.

The bloodbath continued beyond the extent of the narrative, in the space between the chapters. Anis would have reflected on what that implied about the strength of the fic’s pull on canon, but they were currently too busy trying to distract Mal. The agents had portaled quite a ways away from the camp, beyond the sounds of slaughter, and were now sitting on the ground, facing directly away from any possible action. They had their hands on each other’s shoulders.

“So,” Anis said as they read the Words of the next chapter, “we’ve got another quote, this one about the Great Crimes. Murder, rape, slavery. They’re all automatic death sentences, of course. Ah, Angry Sue Justice.”

Talking about the mission at least helped Mal stay focused. “I wonder what happens when you rape and murder your slave. Does she kill you three times?”

“I assume she’d make it three times as bad, but—” Ah fuck, there she was dry-heaving again. “Oh gods I’m sorry. Uhh— I love the way the description of murder has all those qualifiers! You wouldn’t want your own protagonist to get executed for capital crimes, right?”

Mal gave Anis a weak smile. “Of course. Imagine implying your beloved cisfeminist power fantasy did anything wrong. Can’t have that.”

She reached out with her other hand, and the two silently hugged for a while.

Anis eventually broke the silence. “Portal to the next chapter? It’s still pretty bad, but they describe it with that awful first-person writing, so… Just focus on that?”

They felt their partner nod.

“Kutaituchik, the Ubar of the Tuchuks, was dead,” I said as the agents listened. They had decided that the conditions inside the camp had to be less than sanitary, and that it was probably better to just sit right there and check on the Words of the fic through Me. Anis appreciated not having to repeat everything, especially that awful narration, to Mal, whose visual impairment prevented her from seeing the Words.

“Okay, okay, I take it back –” Mal was twitching a bit, but she had definitely calmed down somewhat – “He is supposed to be an asshole.”

Anis nodded. “She’s setting up a redemption arc, I think. Only reason to keep one of those guys alive.”

Mal replied hurriedly, as if she expected them to beat her to it: “Love interest, calling it now.”

A beat. “Eeeeew.”

The woman flopped down onto the grass, looking up at the stars; she was pretty sure she recognized some of the brighter World One constellations, despite the three moons. “I’ll never get the I-can-fix-him fantasy. I’ll extra never get it for, uh. Whatever the fuck is going on with those guys.”

“I dunno.” Mal could definitely hear the amusement in Anis’s voice. “I’d fix them.”

She smirked. “Orchiectomy is probably counterproductive to romance. Unless she’s taking that subplot in a very, very weird direction.”

“I could see it. Self-hatred and internalized transphobia turning into—”

“God broken and healing don’t speak that into existence.”

I concluded my, er, colorful description of the dead bodies, and went silent as a third-person segment took over. Anis continued: “So, she’s taking a cold bath, with more exposition about how Breaking works. Apparently it’s pretty addictive.”

“Oh come on! I can quit Bone Explosions any time I want!”

If Mal was joking about that, Anis assumed she was pretty much fine. They continued: “She gets interrupted by the girl she rescued earlier, and— Wait, the sword stays on?”

“Wh— That sounds bad for the metal?”

“It’s kind of unclear, actually. Might have been on the riverbank? We could check, but…”

“Yeah, let’s not peep on the bone exploder.”

“Agreed.” They lay down next to Mal. “The rest is more ‘slavery’s bad and women can fight for real,’ and then she realizes she was sent here by that one goddess to Set Things Right. And that’s basically it for tonight.”

“Nifty. We… Didn’t pack the sleeping bags, right?”

“Well, I thought we’d be able to find some place to sleep indoors, but… Um.” Anis sat up, and picked up the Remote Activator. “You know what? Just stay right there and I’ll go steal some blankets.”

Mal lifted a hand, giving them a thumbs up.

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