[I'm a Homophobe 'cause WHAT?]

(Younger me was an asshole. I approve!)

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Foe fought not to smile as he felt the tension building in the air. The Suepires had finally started tapping into their power now that they had been properly pissed off, their roiling black auras marking them as targets. Foe tapped the deck case hanging from his belt, and the top popped open. A slender bit of shiny black plastic few across his body to his waiting hand, careful to make sure that it never faced the audience. This time Foe did smile as he looked at what card, and by greater implication which deck, the Fates had chosen for him.

Sanura shifted next to him, careful to keep her crossbow leveled at the Suepires. “Your call boss, what do you want to do?”

“I-“

Before Foe could finish the thought there was a tremendous crash as an anchor, of all things, smashed a door sized hole in the wall. Standing on the other side of the wall was…well, Foe thought it was an elf. The ears were pointy enough, at any rate. The elf’s shoulders were broad enough to build a house on, but he had an almost ridiculously narrow waist. Coupled with his broad stance, and he made for a pretty good imitation of the anchor he was dragging back through the wall. Everyone could only stare in shock as he bellowed across the crowded ballrooms, “Not to distract from the matter at hand, but I think this situation could call for some heavy metal! What say you?”

“Friend of yours?” Suzzanna asked as she conjured a ball of fire into the palm of her hand. She glanced back and forth between Foe and the newcomer, as if she wasn’t sure which one was the more dangerous threat.

“Can’t say that we’ve met,” Foe answered with a shrug. He sighed and raised his sword into a defensive position. “I just suppose this is what I get for waiting so long to make my move.”

“You can’t possibly win!” Stephanie Meyers hissed, drawing a pair of wicked looking daggers, that might have seemed more threatening if it wasn’t for the fact that she had covered them in glue and liberally doused them with glitter. “Our numbers are legion, our strength is infinite! You shall fall before our horde!”

“And my heart is pure, so my strength is that of ten men,” Foe yawned. He casually flicked the card in his hand at her. “I’d love to toss around more clichés with you, but I think I’d rather get this party started.”

Anne Rice frowned as the card fluttered towards her and landed on the stage with a puff of grey smoke. When the smoke cleared a handsome young man, no older than twenty years of age, stood in front of him. His hair was midnight black, and his face belonged to a Renaissance master piece. His skin was as pale as the driven snow, the better to show off his chiseled physique. He wore a pair of revealing tight leather pants with a belt loose about his hips, and a cincher that left his chocolate brown nipples exposed for the women to drool over. His only accessories were the leather choker about his neck and a pair of bracers decorated with elegant etchings of a heron being brought down and viciously disemboweled by an eagle.

“My lady,” he said as he knelt down in front Rice. His voice was like the choirs of heaven, and those dulcet tones set her pulse to racing. He reached out and caressed her fingers, drawing her hand to his lips for a kiss. She shivered at the touch, for his skin was as cool as the grave. His soulful green eyes met her own, and Rice was lost in his gaze.

“Oh, not this again!” Atargatis said, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

“Wait for it…” Foe said.

“Foe, they like vampires!” Apollo said angrily.

“Wait for it…” Foe repeated as dozen more cards appeared in his hands.

“Oh, this is so not going to end well,” Sanura snarled. Ah well, she thought, At least it will be a target rich environment!

“Love me,” Rice whispered so low that even those on the stage barely heard her.

The vampire smiled. Then he ripped her throat out. Then all hell broke loose.

Everyone started screaming at once. The mundanes were screaming in fear, as they had just watched a man appear out of thin air and rip a woman’s throat out with his teeth. The Suepires were screaming in anger, for they had just watched the object of their lusts destroy one of their idols of worship. For them it was as if Christ had climbed down off his cross and ripped God a bloody new one. That vampire didn’t care about that; he just stood there, grinning from ear to ear as he licked the blood from his lips. “I think she could have used a bit Grey Poupon. “

“Aaaaaand now!” Foe yelled, throwing the rest of his cards high in the air above the crowd. They exploded in identical puffs of grey smoke, and an army of crimson armored vampires appeared to soar over the crowd on alabaster wings. They plunged shrieking into the chaos, each one targeting a different black aura. The fight had begun.

[Using proper anatomical terms over sex slang]

I believe the phrase in question is "Ikea Erotica". Reliance entirely on the anatomic terms can quickly turn a sex scene into "How To" manual, which bores the reader.

It should be noted there is a major difference between avoiding vulgar terms and relying entirely on technical terms. You can use phrases such as flowered, manhood, member, sex, etc., without having to sound like you're reading out of a medical dictionary on the reproductive organs. But at the same time, you might want to throw in the occasional cock or pussy. Sex is not a clean act. (Well, unless you have a few particular fetishes, I suppose. To each their own.) At worst its a bestial expression of lust, while at its best its an energetic and exhilarating declaration of love. Trying to hide that just seems...wrong.

[The Great Sue Hunt]

The ballroom was packed as the Authors (and one Editor) entered to take their seats. They were forced into the last row, which suited their needs just fine. The stench of Sue was overwhelming, causing Foe’s eyes to water as he tried not to sneeze. The foulness was so prevalent that for a moment he wasn’t even sure there actually were any civilians in the room, but as he narrowed his eyes to scan the seats around them he was able to pick out individual details that marked the difference between the sheep and wolves. It was actually fairly easy, as the Sues weren’t doing anything to mask their presence, letting their auras leak all over the room like poisonous radiation. The innocents were the ones who looked nervous, as if they were perched at the top of a roller coaster that was taking too long to drop.

The techs on the stage hurried to finish their mic checks, no happier to be there than the mundanes in the crowd. The crowd cheered as they left the stage, then cheered even louder as five women walked in from the wings. The first four were easily recognizable. Stephanie Meyers, Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Sherrilyn Kenyon were possibly the most famous authors of erotic vampires out there, a claim their massive sales numbers more than proved. They all blew kisses and bowed as they took their seats to thunderous applause and more than a few catcalls.

“She’s a Sue,” Sanura snarled as she glared at the fifth woman on stage. “A powerful one at that. And I think I’m picking up traces of vampirism from her.”

“She’s definitely a Suepire,” Foe confirmed with a nod. “An especially powerful one to be out in the middle of the day like this.”

“What’s her powers?” Apollo demanded with a whisper.

Foe shrugged. “Standard Sue mixed with standard vampire. Super strength, speed, hypnotism are to be expected. Probably some minor reality warping powers. Kill methods are what you would expect from the undead – fire, beheadings, and a stake through the heart will get the job done. She’ll probably have picked up more off her victims, especially any Hunters she’s killed. We’ll probably know more when she gives us her name. Real problem at this point is the numbers game. I hate to be the one to point this out, but we are seriously outnumbered, and we’re dealing with Suepires, not the average Sue. Same as the boss, just a lower scale. This turns into a fight, and we all know it will, and its going to turn ugly pretty damned fast.”

“Can you summon more of those little robot things?” Apollo asked as she looked around, trying to form a plan of action.

Foe shook his head. “Suepires would rip them apart. If I had an hour or so to get the right ones summoned I could sic an army on them, but something tells me we won’t have that much time. We’re not going to be able to hold them back that long.” He popped the clasp on the pouch hanging from his belt and pulled out a small black box. “Its all going to be up to whatever fate has decided to bless me with today.”

Apollo frowned. “What about the spells you cast this morning?”

“Those were pre-prepared,” Foe answered quietly. “It looks like I took a few levels in bad ass after Vegas and scored some new powers as a result. I was doing some experimenting on Cal this morning, and those were the last I had left. I can do some blind summons at this point, but don’t have anything in the tank ready to go.”

“Here’s to hoping that fate is on our side then,” Atargatis murmured, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Foe replied, not quite as willing to trust the untrustworthy.

There was a squeal of feedback as the Suepire tapped her microphone. “Testing, testing, is this thing on? Oh, I guess it is. My name is Marie Suzzanna, and I want to welcome you all to our afternoon panel: “Vampires: Why We Love to be Sucked On.” Our guests are all very well known in the bloodsucker field, so I would like you all to give a welcome round of applause to Stephanie Meyers, author of the best selling Twilight series, New York Times best sellers Sherrilyn Kenyon and Laurell K. Hamilton, and award winning author, the one who started it all, Anne Rice!”

The second round of applause was louder than the first, drowning out the groan from the cluster of Authors (and one Editor) as they realized the implication of their host’s name. This was no ordinary Sue, but was instead quite likely to be one of the leaders of the Suepires, if not the General herself. In an enclosed space with nowhere for the innocents to run, the looming battle was going to quickly turn into a violent blood bath. They all wanted to avoid civilian deaths, but…

“No, Foe,” Apolloe leaned over to whisper, to make sure the others couldn’t hear her. “We are not going to replay the siege of Asnor Gardens. We’ll get these people out of here with all of their arms still attached.”

“Shhh!” the Sue in front of them hissed. “They’re starting!”

Back on stage, Marie Suzzana was continuing her speech. “Vampires have always occupied a unique space in the public mind, a special blend of the violent and the erotic that seems to have been specifically designed to play on our imaginations. Handsome, rich, and with a supernatural stamina that allows them to go allllll night long, it isn’t hard to see why vampires are often depicted as the ultimate fantasy lover. With that in mind, let’s start with our first question, the one I’m sure most of you have been dying for me to ask. Does being a Mary Sue make getting a vampire lover easier?”

“Of course!” Meyers crowed, getting a loud cheer from the audience as Rice added, “Of course, my dears.”

Hamilton and Kenyon exchanged a pair of confused looks, and Kenyon reached for her microphone. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand the question?”

“Don’t you use your powers to conjure the scrumptious men you envision in your stories?” Suzzanna asked, sounding completely flabbergasted that anything else might be the case.

“Um…no?” Kenyon answered. “I’m afraid my sons might not take it too well if a bunch of naked men started strolling in and out of my office…”

“Though even then it might still not be such a bad thing,” Hamilton mused aloud.

“Oh. My. God. You have nooo idea what you are missing,” Meyers chimed in. “I don’t think I could sleep at night if I wasn’t in the middle of a Jedward sandwich each night…”

Foe snorted as he tried not to laugh, earning him confused looks from his fellow Authors (and one Editor) as well as angry glares from anyone else in ear shot. Ignoring the glares he whispered, “Remind me to show you a picture of Jedward some time.”

“Ok, first, aren’t they like, sixteen or something?” Kenyon asked, sounding increasingly confused. “Major squick right there. I much prefer a real man in my bed, not some skinny little boy. Second, are you trying to tell me that you actually sleep with your characters? In real life?”

“Of course,” Rice purred. “We can show you how…”

“Sleep with jean Claude and Micah?” Hamilton whispered, her microphone dutifully picking it up and broadcasting for all to hear. “Flesh and blood?”

“Flesh and blood,” Rice, Meyers, and Suzzanna cooed as closed in on the other two.

“No,” Kenyon answered defiantly before dropping the ultimate bomb. “What kind of hacks are you?”

There was a horrified gasp from the audience, and the three Suepires recoiled in horror. “What did you say?” Suzzanna demanded.

“Oh, please,” Kenyon scoffed. “You don’t scare me, Little Miss Nobody. And I’ve read the others. Mrs. Rice I enjoyed, but Meyers? Your characters are flatter than steam rolled cardboard, your werewolves are offensive to anyone with even a drop of Native American blood, and your glittering little boy toy is just a puppet that will never grow up to be a real man!”

Angry muttering began to spread like wildfire through the audience, and the girls tensed as they nervously fingered their weapons. It looked like the fighting was going to start sooner than anticipated. Foe popped open his pouch and slid out a card. “Well, that’s appropriate.”

“Fuck you, bitch!” Suzzanna snarled as her features began to twist and deform. “I’m going to drain every last ounce of blood from your body, and then we’ll see who the real puppet is. By the time I get through with you the only thing you’ll be able to say is, ‘Yes, Mistress!’ as you beg me for release.”

Kenyon stared in fascination as the others, Hamilton included, began to go through the same horrifying transformation. “What the hell are you?”

“Your doom!” Suzzanna shrieked as she launched herself across the stage, fangs bared. Kenyon was paralyzed by fear, all she could do was yell, “HELP-“

There was a blur of leather and Suzzanna shrieked as she slammed into a towering figure. Foe stood there, his Gary Stu disguised replaced by a skin tight black t-shirt and a pair of ass-hugging black leather pants, his long coat swirling about his legs. He tilted his head forward to peer over the top of the sunglasses perched on his nose. “I do believe that was my cue.”

“-me?” Kenyon gasped. The man in front of her looked like he would have been right at home in any of her novels. The outfit, the cocky pose, the sarcastic one liner, all perfect Dark Hunter material. Or maybe Sentella. No, that was a sword he was drawing, definitely Dark Hunter. And then his fellow Authors (and one Editor) were there and she knew she must be hallucinating. The redhead in long flowing white robes made Artemis look like a candidate for reconstructive surgery. To her left was a brunette in a sea green gown that left little to the imagination without reducing the woman’s nobility in any way. To the redhead’s right was another woman, who if not quite as magnificent as the first two was more than ready to kick some ass. Her figure hugging leathers were bedecked by knives and bolts, and the crossbow sitting on her shoulder had dozens of notches etched in its stock, each one marking a different kill. Kenyon took one look at these living fantasies and did what any reasonable person would do – she fainted.

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Sanura sighed and shook her head in disappointment as she considered the tableau in front of her. She really did want to join in, but it almost didn’t seem worth it at this point. All the participants were too far into it, and she would hate to be the interruption that would spoil their fun. Well, if she couldn’t play with one team, she would just have to go and play with another. She motioned for Jem to follow her, announcing, “Come on. We should go find Apollo. There are way too many Sues running around for my liking.”

“But how are we going to find them?” Jem asked. “They could be anywhere by this point, and this thing is too huge to just go wandering around.”

“That’s true,” Sanura mused. She contemplated resummoning the cat, but dismissed the notion almost as quickly. The longer she kept him around, the more likely it was to come back and bite her on her tight ass. She was just going to have to wait for Apollo to do something that would signal them.

* * *

“Foe, what the hell do you think you are doing?” Apollo asked, shaking her head as she tried not to laugh. “You know you look absolutely ridiculous, right?”

“Yeah, but he always looks like that,” Atargatis sniggered. “So what else is new?”

“Mock mock mock mock mock,” Foe sneered jauntily. “We are about to embark one on of the most desperate and dangerous missions seen in existence. I must look the part, must I not?”

“This is true,” Apollo admitted with a nod. “But you are going to need more than a cheap meme and a pair of glasses to pull this off. We’re going to need some hard core glamour to make this work. So step back for a minute and let an expert show you how its really done.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated, picturing exactly the outfits she wanted them to be wearing. She was going to have to be careful with this, because it would have to go past more than just mere image, but to the core of their being. She needed to mask their auras so that they could be mistaken as Sues even at more than a glance. She struggled a bit with her own, her soul sickened by the thought to the point where it struggled for a moment, like a child resisting an uncomfortably heavy and restrictive winter coat. Atargatis was even more difficult. The Editor’s very essence was antithetical to Sueness, and it was more like she was hiding under a blanket than actually wearing her aura. Foe, on the other hand, was surprisingly easy, almost to the point where it worried her. If she hadn’t known his history, she would have sworn that he was a Stu and it was hard to suppress the urge to strike him down on the spot.

“Not bad,” Foe admitted, glancing down and nodding with approval. He began to flare with power as he began to add his own touch. “But it just needs a little something extra…” Suddenly Foe was huge, a hulking seven foot Fabio with long blonde hair that fell down to the middle of his back, his t-shirt replaced with an open vest that did nothing to hide his rippling thirty-six pack. Apollo and Atargatis shimmered as well, their bodies replaced with ridiculously proportioned bodies, impossibly large breasts defying gravity above wasp like waists that just seemed to become curvy hips, as if they had been designed by a horny fourteen year old with an implant fetish. “Now we’re ready.”

* * *

Sanura winced as the waves of power slapped against her. Anyone with even a trace of sensitivity would have noticed that…and she realized that was part of the point. They weren’t just disguising themselves as Sues, but they had to go even farther and act like it as well.

“What’s wrong?” Jem demanded as she noticed the look of pain on Sanura’s face.

“Well, I found Apollo…” Sanura answered. She wasn’t fooling her friend, however.

“But?” Jem pressed on.

“Foe is with her. And someone else, someone new. Also very powerful.”

“OH, HELL NO!” Jem declared. “If Foe is there, I am not going anywhere near that bastard. Not after what happened in DC. I don’t want to get caught up in another one of those crazy battles of his. He might think killing Sues is fine, but I think he has a death wish. I don’t know whatever screwed up childhood trauma he’s got, but he insists on picking a fight with the biggest, baddest monsters he can find and it just ends up getting the rest of us hurt.”

“Wasn’t Foe the one who rescued you, though?” Sanura pointed out.

“So what?” Jem snapped. “He wasn’t there to help me, he was there for the fighting. I know I was out of it, but I wasn’t that out of it. I could hear him snapping orders to you guys while he went off and fought. He didn’t do a damned thing to try and keep me alive. If there hadn’t been a swarm there, he probably wouldn’t even have known I was in trouble. ”

“I think he is a little more aware of things than that…”Sanura murmured, unsure of herself.

“He ISN’T!” Jem snapped. “He didn’t say one damn word to me when he arrived. All he did was start fighting, didn’t even spare a look for me. He thinks everything can be solved by fighting, and so what if someone gets hurt? That’s just what happens when people fight, isn’t it? You've seen the way he works. Hell, he shot Kelk right in front of everyone, and for what? Kelk hadn't done anything wrong, but BAM! Off with his head. You'd do well to stay away from him.”

“I…” Sanura shook her head, unable to argue. Thinking back to it, she didn’t recall Foe approaching Jem at all. But they had been in the middle of a battle. Surely that counted for something, didn’t it? I mean, hadn’t he been the one holding back the horde of Sues while she was administering first aid. “Look, I don’t have time to argue this. If Foe and Apollo are throwing around that much power, then they’re going to need my help. Even if I can’t fight it I can at least be there to patch them up when they’re done. And I trust Apollo. Even if Foe is as bad as you say, she’ll at least keep an eye out for me.”

“Well, I’m not going,” Jem insisted. “All this fighting is just causing more fighting. We need to find a way to end this isn’t ‘kill them all and let the Gods sort them out’. Why haven’t we tried to talk to them? Why not get their side of the story? Foe’s barely told us anything at all, and look all it has gotten us is running from one battle to another.” She shouldered her bag, making sure she had everything in place. “Look, I’m going to see if I can’t go find that Tzu. Try and talk with her. See if maybe I can’t talk her around to seeing things from our side, make her give up the whole Sue cause. I mean, she’s a reasonable person, right? If it doesn’t work, we’ll just shake hands and part as friends. I’ll have my communicator with me, but what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Jem…” Sanura tried, knowing it was no good. The fae woman was too determined. Jem turned and walked off into the crowd, set on her mission. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Sanura did a quick check on her gear to make sure that she had everything she needed and headed off in the direction of the others. Her senses were on over drive, her tracker’s instincts ticking off in response to the perceived danger. Soon she was close enough that their auras were warm against her skin, as if she was standing out under a hot sun. Her nostrils flared as she drew up to the ballroom, recognizing a familiar scent.

There were vampires nearby.

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Foe shook his head as he got back to his feet, a girl pulling on each arm. He could feel the back of his head tingle where the nanites were busy stitching his scalp back together. Fortunately the crafty little robots had gotten a jump on things before he had bled all over some poor dealer’s table. Not that he would have minded claiming some of those swords (assuming they would have been given a good sharpening, of course) but he hadn’t planned on making any large purchases, and was fairly sure he would screw it up if he just started pulling out cash from half a dozen different dimensions. He turned to Apollo and asked, “So, what are you doing here, anyway? And who’s the civ?”

“The what?” T asked, frowning in confusion.

“Civ. Civvy. Civilian,” Foe explained rapidly, waving his hand to encompass the milling crowd. Most of the folks in the dealer room were slowly starting to go back about their business, though some were still commenting quite animatedly about the “event” they had just witnessed. “You know, ordinary blokes like yourself, without any powers.”

“Hey!” T protested indignantly.

Foe shrugged. “Not an insult, just the truth.”

“Besides, T, you make up for it with…special talents all your own,” Apollo added with a wink towards Atargatis.

“Hey!” T protested again, this time blushing at the comment.

“So, anyways…” Foe led in, raising an eyebrow to prompt Apollo into an explanation.

“I met T during my somewhat extended “vacation”,” Apollo explained. “He helped me get back on my feet after that whole incident with The Nameless Sunovabitch.”

T frowned. “I thought you said you had just gotten out of a bad relationship.”

“I might have understated the situation,” Apollo answered with a grim smile.

“Excuse me?” Atargatis butted in, raising her hand to get everyone’s attention. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Sues,” Apollo and Foe answered in unison as Foe’s watch beeped.

“Heads up, guys,” Cal warned over the transmitter. “I’m detecting a massive surge of Sues in your vicinity. Maybe a hundred feet to your left. Floor plans have it listed as one of the ballrooms. Accessing con databanks for more infor- Oh. Yeah, that would do it, I suppose.”

“What would do what, Cal?” Foe asked impatiently. It was times like this that he seriously wondered what it would take to reprogram Cal’s priority circuits and actually make the changes stick with before the recalcitrant car decided to undo them.

“Well, I looked up the panel schedule for that room,” Cal explained hastily, almost as if he could read Foe’s mind. “According to the con notes, the next one in there is “Under the Blood Red Moon: Writing Romances With Vampires That Don’t Suck. Guests on the list are Sherrilyn Kenyon, Laurell K. Hamilton, Anne Rice…and Stephanie Meyers.”

“Well, shit,” Foe swore.

“That is very ungood,” Atargatis said shaking her head.

“What?” T demanded. “What the hell is going on?”

Apollo just sighed. “Its… Nothing draws out a Sue like a good vampire romance, especially one where they can throw in a lot of yaoi over tones if they want to. There’s probably going to be several hundred of them crammed into those rooms on the other side of the wall. Worse, Meyers is a confirmed Sue agent and we’ve had our suspicions about Rice for some time now. We thought they might have gotten to Hamilton, but then we figured it was just too much of “write what you know” and that she was okay, but no one has been able to tell for sure. The only one who hasn’t proved suspect is Kenyon. But if Rice really works for the Sues, if they turn Kenyon and Hamilton… They’ll own four of the most powerful mythos in existence. That would be…”

“Entire Verses would fall,” Foe finished bitterly. “Sues wielding the power of Apostolos and Apollymi? Any they touch would need to be gutted and burned, reduced to ashen midden heaps to save the rest. We could do it, we would win, but it would be the ultimate in Pyrrhic victories. It would consume so much power that even Cal would need to go into hiding when we were done just to rest and rebuild. We would lose people for sure – even someone on Apollo’s power level would be at risk. Hell, not even Kelk would be able to walk away from something like that intact.”

Foe slammed his fist into the palm of his hand and then started walking towards one of the tables laden with t-shirts.

“Wait, where are you going?” Atargatis demanded.

“We have to stop them,” Foe repeated. “But we can’t just walk in there, fists blazing. There are too many of them – we’d be overwhelmed in no time. This calls for a disguise.”

He flipped over a shirt depicting a white pony with a strange hourglass birthmark on its hindquarters standing in front of a blue British police box. There was a flash of power, and the shirt had replaced the storm trooper armor. Foe reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of hair gel and a pair of sunglasses. One pass of his hand slicked his hair back, and he popped the glasses on as he took up a confident pose.

“Oh. My. God,” Atargatis declared.

“What the hell is passing as a Brony supposed to get you?” T wondered.

“F-Foe you, look ju- just like a-“ Apollo stammered.

“No,” the man said shaking his head. “My name isn’t Foe. My name is Stu, Gary Stu.”

[The Great Sue Hunt]

“FOE.OF.THE.LANCE.”

“Oh, shit,” Foe swore as a familiar voice cut through the noise of the Dealer’s Room. “This is so not good.”

A drop dead gorgeous brunette pushed her way through the crowd, causing more than a few heads to turn in her direction. Part of it was due to her choice of outfit. In a crowd of costumed fen and fans be decked in jeans and sarcastic t-shirts her choice of a colorful sun dress stood out like a flock of parrots in a Dalmatian convention. If the colors were enough to get people’s attention, it was her figure that made sure she kept it. Her hips swayed with seductive allure as she moved and her breasts bounced with each step, threatening teasingly to pop free of her plunging neckline.

Foe sighed and turned around. “Hello, Atargatis. What brings you here?”

“Where the hell have you been?’ Atargatis demanded hotly, completely oblivious to the looks she was getting. “You’re two months late with your manuscript and the publisher is demanding the advance back if I don’t deliver a fat stack of paper by tomorrow!”

“Huh, really?” Foe asked, stroking his chin as he desperately tried to figure out what she was talking about. “Which one? What day is it? More importantly, which year?”

“YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT YEAR IT IS!” Atargatis thundered…

* * *

Narussa smiled as she braced herself against the ceiling, breathing shallowly so as not to alert her pray…

* * *

Atargatis shook her head and sighed. “It is prey, not pray. Just because the two words sound alike doesn’t make them mean the same thing!”

Foe blinked stupidly. “Um, what?”

“Nothing,” Atar answered dismissively, shaking her head in frustration. “Just an idiot relying too much on Spellcheck and not enough on her dictionary.”

Foe began to scan the crowd warily. “Atar, we’re in a Reality. You shouldn’t be able to read this ‘Verse…”

Atargatis frowned as she considered what Foe had said. He was right about that. As an Editor her powers were only supposed to extend fictional ‘Verses created by Authors, not the ones generated by Realities. Unlike Foe and his fellow Authors, she lacked the power to simply create something from nothing. Instead she had to rely on what an Author created, interpreting it and turning it to her own needs. It wasn’t much of a handicap; actually, it was hard to tell who was more powerful at times, a question which generally came down to how powerful the Author was and how invested they were in their creations. She also had to be careful that her changes weren’t too big, or she could risk bringing down the entire story. Usually a ‘Verse was powerful enough to resist that, but if the Creator wasn’t paying attention or was weak willed… Then it could prove disastrous.

She closed her eyes and focused, looking for the source of the problem.

* * *

Narussa peered down at the new girl and her hideously blinding outfit. She strained her ears as she tried to listen in on the conversation. Her target was on alert now, scanning the crowd for some sign of the danger that was about to befall him. Soon she would embrace him in the warmth of his firey death-

* * *

“Fiery, not firey,” Atargatis corrected automatically, looking up just in time to see a small cloud of text dissolve somewhere near the rafters. “And now I’ve got you, you little bitch. Foe! She’s up near the ceiling!”

There was a blur of orange as the Suenobi realized her cover and been blown and dropped down to attack. Foe dodged left as Atargatis dropped to the right, each one rolling away as the Sue landed nimbly. Unfortunately for Foe he came back to his feet with his back to his opponent, an advantage the Narussa refused to pass up. She leapt like a monkey, launching herself forward from all fours, and landed on his back in a howling storm of nails and teeth. Foe roared in pain as she tore into his skin, but all he could do was flail around as she scrambled around his body.

“Foe, drop!” Atargatis yelled, and Foe hastily complied, toppling over on his back in a hasty attempt to dislodge his assailant. Narussa wasn’t going to be caught by such tactics, however, and leapt out from underneath him as he came crashing down. Foe’s head collided with the base of a Captain Kirk statue with a sickening crack, causing him to pass out with a moan.

Narussa somersaulted backwards as Atargatis called out, “Foe! No!”

The Suenobi smiled as she came out of her roll in a crouch facing the Editor, who backed up warily. Narussa’s tongue flicked out as she licked her sharpened canine teeth and sniffed the air. “Now, now, what do we have here? I can smell the trace of power around you, but you’re no Author. No, I smell ink, and red, red and ink. You’re an Editor? I looove Editors. They’re so much fun to destroy!”

Narussa’s fingers began to flash through a complicated pattern of figures as she took a deep breath. When she exhaled, it came out as a massive cloud of roiling flame too wide and too fast for Atargatis to dodge.

So she didn’t. With a wave of her left hand the flame became water, which she quickly absorbed into the palm of her right. Her spine snapped straight, and a blue aura enveloped Atargatis as the Suenobi’s spell spent itself. It began to fade almost as quickly as it came, but there was still enough time for Atargatis to sigh, “Hadad, I’ve forgotten what the power of the sea can do for me.”

“Wha-? No, you can’t do that!” Narussa shrieked in dismay.

“Naruto didn’t use Sosuke’s firebreathing technique, either,” Atargatis replied scornfully as Narussa’s fingers began to flashing through a new pattern. Water poured out of the Sue’s grip as it rushed across the ground between the two women, encircling Atargatis in an orb of torrential currents some ten feet across. The only thing that could be seen were a pair of shark’s fins cruising around the outside of the orb.

“You want to play with water?’ Narussa snarled. “Then drown, bitch. Or be eaten by my sharks. Either way, you’re dead now!”

“Or not,” Atargatis replied, her words eerily calm and clear despite the water surrounding her. The ripping tides began to subside until the water was clear once more, revealing Atargatis floating in the center, with no sign of the sharks to bother her. “Did you really think I turned your flames to water by chance? I am Atargatis, you dim witted child. Mistress of Hierapolis, Queen of the Fish and Dove. All you’ve managed do is soak the carpet and some books, but I should be able to correct that easily enough.”

“Fish and doves?” Narussa chortled nastily. “Am I supposed to fear such creatures? You boast of being a goddess, but have not yet struck a single blow! You Editors are all the same, claiming power and credit for the works of others, when you have no strengths of your own! I call you a coward, and a weak one at that!”

“You would,” Atargatis agreed with a slight nod. Her fingers began to work through a similar pattern to the one Narussa had just demonstrated. The sphere of water expanded instantly, enveloping the Suenobi before she had any time to react. Narussa immediately pushed back against the water with a burst of chakra, forming a bubble of air around her so that she could breathe.

“What are you doing?!” she demanded angrily as Atargatis finished the gestures. “That’s not how it goes!”

“No, it isn’t,” Atargatis admitted. “But I wasn’t using Kisame’s spell. I was using my own – Summon Bigger Fish.”

“Go ahead!” Narussa raged. “Summon the biggest fish you want! Summon all the fish you can! No school of mackerel is going to be enough to stop me!”

“Oh, dear,” Atargatis said, shaking her head sadly. “You really don’t know much, do you?”

Narussa opened her mouth to snap back a reply, when a massive shadow flashed by overhead. She looked up in astonishment at the ugliest creature she had ever seen. It was easily seventy feet long, and must have weighed dozens of tons. It turned lazily before spotting her, then racing towards her at an easy thirty miles an hour opened its mouth wide. Narussa froze, unable to get out of the way, unable to do anything but stare at the plate sized teeth that filled that monstrous jaw. Those same jaws closed around her with a quiet snap and the last thing Narussa knew was darkness.

“After all,” Atargatis commented to no one in particular as she began reabsorbing all the free water in the room, paying specific attention to not leaving any of the goods damaged, “Sharks are fish, too. And no shark was bigger than C. Megalodon.

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Apollo stepped out of the room where she had crucified the Sue, took one look at Kelk and BW lovingly molesting Myr, and just shook her head. She supposed at some point she might have been surprised by the two of them deciding to get frisky in the middle of a battle but by now she was long past immune to the thought. There was another Tzu in the middle of a crowd of men who seemed unsure what to do with her. Apollo had heard Kelk’s warning of course, but didn’t think it was really going to matter that much. Half the guys there were bearing some sort of heraldic shield or markings and from the sounds of thing they were more worried about whether it was polite or not to frisk the Tzu in search of a card key.

Apollo looked askance as Suicune sidled up to her and mumbled, “Er, excuse me?”

“Not dead yet, huh?” Apollo asked mischievously.

“That’s actually what I wanted to know,” explained with a blush. “Is Foe really going to kill me? What’s the deal with him, anyways?”

Apollo opened her mouth to answer, then paused as she thought about it before shrugging ruefully. “You know, to be entirely honest, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if he’s going to kill me?!” Suicune squealed. She whipped around and started trying to push her way through the crowd. “That’s it, I am totally done. Gone. You never saw me…”

“Not so fast,” Apollo said as her arm shot out and grabbed the other girl by the shoulder. “I doubt Foe is going to kill you. He generally tries not to leave too many unnecessary corpses behind. I just don’t know what his story is. Foe is from the Dark Time.”

“The what?” Suicune asked, looking totally confused.

“The Dark Times…” Apollo answered slowly, before shaking her head sadly. “I guess to tell you Foe’s story, I have to explain a bit about my own. I am one of three Primes, the foundation of a Verse and all that it contains. You might think of me as a God, but what I am is well and truly far more greater and powerful than anything you can imagine. My sisters and I built it slowly and slowly, until it was a grand and shining thing. We frolicked amongst our followers, spreading joy and knowledge as far and wide as we could.”

Apollo took a deep breath and sighed. “Althena was the oldest, and first to grow bored. She had enjoyed what we had made, but in the end it was not enough for her. She left to go find her own way through the Verses. To this day I do not know what has become for her. That left the world to me and Jelazi to run, and though we tried and succeeded, the cracks began to form. Here and there darkness and trolls began to find their way into our shining land. We fought back, rallied our forces and followers, but in the end we lost.”

“We lost because of a man,” she snarled. “A handsome, charming stranger who lied and tricked and cheated his way into my heart. He envied me for what I had created, and at first sought to twist my power to his own creations. But when he realized he could not, his jealousy turned to bitter hatred and his urge to unmake what had already been made began to grow too strong. I tried to fight back, but it was too late. He had isolated me from my followers and my loyal legions, leaving me exiled from my own kingdom.”

“That must have been terrible,” Suicune murmured.

“Far more than you can imagine,” Apollo answered sadly. “Imagine knowing you have a shining jewel, a grand treasure to be shared with everyone, just there on the horizon where you can see it, but forever out of your reach. That was my existence every day for years. In my absence, Jelazi found herself overwhelmed by the demands of the world. The darkness and trolls continued to spread, finding new footholds where once they would have been banished. She raised a new group to power and named them Gods, giving them power over our creation. But the new Gods were vicious liars, and twisted the powers they had been given. Rather than fight back against the tide of evil, they fed it, and used it to wrench away what little powers Jelazi had left. She continued to rule, but it was in name only. They all partied, the Sues found their way in, and Creation began to burn. That is when Foe arrived.”

“And let me guess, he smote them all with his magical sword, beat back the tide of evil, and rescued you from you exile?” Suicune asked sarcastically, rolling her eyes for extra emphasis.

“Hardly!” Apollo scoffed, shaking her head as she tried not to laugh. “I would gladly call the boy brother, but he is nowhere near as powerful as all at. Hell, BW or I could twist him in a seven foot pretzel before he would have the chance to blink, and these were threats that had defeated me! No, Foe was actually a follower of the Dark Gods, partaking in their rituals and amusements.”

“WHAT?!” Suicune cried out in shock. “Oh, fuck me!”

“Well, he might if you ask nicely,” Apollo chuckled. “But yes. Foe was one of their lackeys, but not a particularly cherished one, as he would learn. There was an argument between him and another minion, and the Gods came down heavily on him for it. They sent out their forces to bring him in and punish him, simply for the crime of speaking his mind. He, in turn, forsook them, rising from his worship to stand on his own. By then the Darkness had become all consuming except for a few sheltered bastions of hope. Even they only existed by the Dark God’s benign ignorance, fending off the small attacks of the weaker dark forces where and when they could. There was a terrible battle. Foe was outnumbered thousands to one, and had no friends and allies to call upon.”

“What about Kelk?” Suicune asked.

“This was before he met Kelk,” Apollo answered, reaching into a pocket and pulling out her drink. All this talking was making her thirsty!

“So what happened?” Suicune pressed on.

“Foe vanished,” Apollo answered as she set the drink aside. “Everyone thought him exiled or slain. The Dark Gods continued to abuse their powers, but soon they became intolerable. My last few followers set out to find me, and as they did my powers returned. I snuck back into my own world under the cover of the breaking. By fading light of the evening twilight I reformed my legions, and under the shadows of the new moon I raised new Gods, one stronger and more terrible than those created by Jelazi. There was another battle, which we won, and the Dark Gods were struck down, their powers confiscated from them. Unfortunately the world was too badly wounded at that point. We began to cleanse it, but it was slow going at first. Each time we struck back it would be at a terrible toll.”

“And that is when Foe returned?” Suicune guessed.

“Wrong again!” Apollo crowed. “No. We heard stories of a lone warrior who would appear, defeat some Sue that was lording it over a domain and then vanish again, or who was trying to establish a name for himself, but we were always hearing such stories. Far too often it was just another Sue replacing the one she had vanquished. Or the victor would be conquered shortly after in bitter Darwinian conflict. I suppose a few of them might have been Foe, but we still don’t know.”

“How can you not know?” Suicune demanded in frustration.

“Like I said, I love the boy, but he can be entirely frustrating,” Apollo explained carefully. “I came back to the Island after a long day of war, and found this great big pompous silver dragon arguing with one of my Champions over who had been there longer. She absolutely could not believe that this trumped up juvenile had her ranked in seniority, especially since she had never met him before. So I did the only thing that made sense at the time, and smacked him on the nose.”

“You…smacked Foe?!” Suicuine looked like she was ready to faint at the mere thought!

Apollo grinned at her in a way that would have made a tyrannosaurus envious. “Like I said little girl, Foe isn’t the power around here. But he does have spunk, and sure as I smacked him, he smacked back. We had a little tussle to straighten out what was what and who was really supposed to be on top. Then he invited me to go Sue hunting with him, and it’s all been fun and games since then.”

“Huh,” Suicune replied. “So where was he for all that time after he vanished?”

“Who knows?” Apollo asked back. “The only one who was there for any of it was Kelk, and he sure as hell ain’t talking. He wasn’t there for all of it, either, from what I understand. All I know is Foe came back with Cal, and almost encyclopedic knowledge of Sues, and a blood thirst that would put most vampires to shame. He doesn’t talk about what happened after that battle, unless he’s talking to Kelk. And even then all they do is drop hints and references to places and people even I haven’t heard of.”

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Foe slid through the crowd with liquid grace, turning and twisting through the ranks of Space Marines, Doctor Whos and Doctor Whats, and people in “costumes” that would have made the cheapest strippers blush with embarrassment. He wasn’t worried about the others – between the three of them Kelk, BW, and Apollo more than capable of dealing with half trained Tzus. The only real question was how much of the city would still be standing when they were done. That, and whether the three new girls would survive. That he wasn’t so sure about. They seemed competent enough, but they had just been so sloppy about their kill, and it hadn’t even been a Sue!

He felt a familiar tingle at the back of his neck and paused. His eyes scanned the crowd , picking out a familiar bright orange backpack over by the Utilikilt booth. Foe headed over to the man wearing the backpack, taking note of the petite blonde in period dress and gorgeous brunette wearing some sort of school jacket who were accompanying him. The guy was talking with the two girls as he was being fitted, seemingly oblivious that his pants were down around his ankles in the middle of the crowded room. He was more surprised when Foe tapped him on the shoulder and ordered, “You need to get out of here.”

“Excuse me?” The man turned around angrily, took one good look at Foe, and blurted out, “Hey, you look like-!”

“Yes, I do,” Foe answered bluntly. “Now think about that for a moment. And the fact that I have an interdimensional car named Cal. I am telling you to get the hell out of here. Leave. Now.”

“I dunno,” the other man answered a little sheepishly. “I mean, the trip down here was kind of expensive…”

“And who is this?” Alyzabythe asked as she draped a shapely arm over Foe’s shoulder. She peered closer at the man Foe was talking to and gasped in shock. “Why, he looks like-!”

“If you lay a hand on him I will gut you here and now, then burn every Sue out of existence and be damned to the consequences,” Foe snarled as he grabbed her by the arm and yanked her in front of him. Alyzabythe took one look at the hardness in her eyes and held up her hands in surrender.

“Peace,” she declared. “I’ll mark them as off limits. No one will touch them, this I swear.”

“What are you even doing here?” Foe growled. He could feel his body beginning to react to her presence, but refused to give into his hormones. The end result was to make him very irritable indeed.

“Recruiting, mostly,” Alyzabythe answered with a coy shrug. “Care to join? Nah, didn’t think so. “That dumb bitch Merry cost us several thousand troops when she carried out that debacle back in the DC main. What better place to recruit then from a fan convention? I’ve already recruited several thousand Tzus and Suenobies myself, and I’m hardly the only commander here. They should be more than enough to replace the ones you butchered back in Sanctuary and the ones I am sure you are going to end up butchering here. Hell, even Gary wanted to come, but Mary went into heat and wouldn’t let him.”

“That can’t be the only reason you’re here,” Foe snarled as he tried, and failed, to resist the urge to look down her shirt.

“Nope!” Aly cheerfully admitted. She held up a copy of Witches Abroad by Sir Pratchett and opened it to the title page, where his signature was scrawled above his name. “I also wanted to grab some autographs. See?”

Foe nodded appreciatively, but could feel his head clouding as all the blood began to flow towards his cock. “Wait a minute…”

“I said I wasn’t the only one here…” Alyzabythe chuckled as she faded back into the crowd.

“Gods damn it,” Foe muttered as he realized what was going on. “They’re setting up for a Conversion Orgy!”

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Foe sighed as the Suenobi started bleeding ink all over the floor. If there was a Suenobi in the room, then the Tzus wouldn’t be too far behind. That, in itself, wasn’t too bad. They would still be reeling from the fight in Sanctuary, and it took quite a bit of time for them to be reformed, trained, and have all the protections installed. The ones they would be facing here at the Con would hopefully be half trained and half armored at best. Unfortunately, if the Tzus were in the area, then Alyzabythe wouldn’t be too far behind, and Foe was determined to get some answers for the events in the Watchtower.

Well armed blondes began to filter their way out of the crowd, heading directly for the gathering of Authors. It was easy enough to tell them from the rest of the crowd, as their weapons lacked the distinctive bright orange tape that security insisted be used to mark all props. “Right, I’m going to need myr for this.”

“Huh?” the woman Kelk was clutching gasped.

“I’m going to need reinforcements,” Foe explained as he focused on the spell forming in his head.

“But what does that have to do with me?” she demanded as Kelk began to fondle her.

“Nothing,” Foe answered, shaking his head in confusion. “I’m talking about them.” He reached out with his one free hand, gesturing towards the advancing Tzus. Black energy began to roil in the air above his palm as purple lightning began to crackle between his finger tips. Half a dozen of the Tzus stumbled and screamed as their chests began to convulse. They collapsed to the ground, their ear breaking wails sending the crowd scattering backwards, unsure whether this was some sort of emergency or an unplanned performance. Foe made a vicious ripping motion with his hand and their chests stomachs exploded in a welter of black, oily gore. Six metal balls rolled out of their spilled guts, unfolding into hawk nosed automatons. Purple rings at the side of their heads glowed as the myr looked back and forth, analyzing the crowd for potential victims.

“That won’t stop us!” one of the blondes shrieked, spitting up blood even as she forced herself back to her knees. Indeed, the Tzus’ bodies were already beginning to stitch themselves back together, muscle knitting back into place over bones that were melting and fusing back together. She reached for the glaive at her side and swung it clumsily at one of the little machines. It dodge nimbly aside, raking her face with sharp talons.

“I thought we were trying to avoid detection,” Kelk remarked as he slipped his hand into her bodice. He seemed entirely unconcerned with the melee unfolding before him.

“It’s not like I started it!” Foe snarled as one of the Tzu’s got back to her feet and tried to charge him with a spear. He grabbed at the weapon with his free hand and muttered a brief incantation. The metal haft of the spear splintered in his grip, leaving him grasping the broken head. He twirled it between his fingers and used it to backhand the girl, sending her sprawling to the carpeted floor. Turning around, he flipped the spearhead in his hand, lifted the woman he was holding a little higher, and shoved the spear through the shirt she was wearing so that she was pinned to the wall a good solid foot above the floor. “You and I need to talk later, so stick around.”

A few feet behind him, the Myr were dancing back and forth with the Tzus, narrowly dodging attacks that would have easily shattered their metal hulls, while the Tzus easily healed whatever shallow gashes the Myr managed to rip in their flesh. Foe waded into the middle of the fight and grabbed one of the Tzus by the wrist. Dragging her down by the wrist, he Wrapped his other arm around her head and twisted. There was a sharp crack as her neck snapped to the sound of the Tzu screaming, “OW!”

He tossed the Tzu to a waiting Apollo even as her head began to twist back into place. Materializing his sword, he began to hack his way through until he was standing on the other side of the fight. Blood and oil soaked, he found himself at the center of the attention of the crowd that had decided to stick around and watch the rest of the fight.

“Aw, fuck it,” he muttered. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! DON’T FORGET TO ATTEND TONIGHT’S PERFORMANCE OF CSI: DOMINARIA, TONIGHT IN THE GRAND BALLROOM!”

The crowd let out a small, confused cheer as he scanned the crowd, looking for two familiar faces. He reached out and grabbed Eve and Piper by the shoulders, dragging them into a small huddle. “Alyzabythe is here somewhere. If you find her, do not engage. Come find me. Not one of the others. Do you understand?”

“What about Kelk?” Piper asked defiantly.

There was a moan of mixed pleasure and fear from somewhere on the other side of the fight.

“He is…currently occupied,” Foe allowed. “But I’m sure he won’t be occupied for too long.”

[The Great Sue Hunt]

There was a dull thump, and Sanura screamed as a pair of blurs dropped out of the darkness. Her screamed turned into a shriek as Kelk yanked her backwards, saving her from a clumsily tossed batterang. The thump she had heard was Foe tackling Batman, smashing the Caped Crusader into nearest wall.

“Here, I believe this belongs to you,” Foe snarked as he tossed a small black bag at Batman. The bag exploded in size as it flew, stopping only when it was roughly the size of a full grown man. The bag thrashed and swore as it collided with the superhero. It took several more moments for Jonathon to grab the internal zipper and rip it open.

“What the hell is going on?” Sanura demanded as Kelk dropped her gently on the roof of the building.

“DA was having a hard time letting go, so Foe and I decided to make a go of it before it got any worse for Crane,” the Tarenth explained as he hopped onto the short wall surrounding the roof, preparing to launch himself back into the fight. “Can’t really blame her. I think this is setting some sort of record for the shortest honeymoon ever. Not even sure it counts if they didn’t consummate it.”

Batman looked down at the package that had literally been thrown in his lap, opened his mouth and let out an ear splitting howl. Everyone save for Crane cringed as the pitch grew louder and louder, until their noses began to bleed and their ears threatened to pop. Kelk toppled from his perch, landing on his face with a crack.He stood up shaking his head as grey fog began to crawl out of Batman’s throat.

“OH FUCK!” Foe screamed.

“Is that what I think it is?” Kelk asked in horror.

“CAL! WE NEED EXTRACT NOW!” Foe bellowed as he leapt at the wall, extending his hands into claws as he climbed as rapidly as possible. Kelk was right behind him, neither one willing to look back as the fog began to solidify into a solid mass some three stories tall. The faceless juggernaut stood motionless for a moment before raising its arms above it head and bringing them crashing down on the roof.

“What the hell is that thing?” Sanura screamed as the boys each grabbed an arm and hauled her off the roof a mere moment before the titan struck. The building vanished under the blow, and for a moment the escaping trio was running on air before they plummeted to the ground.

“Publisher!” Foe gasped as he got to his feet and kept running, the others right behind him. “They exist to deal with things like, well, us for example. Anything they touch ceases to exist, retconned out of existence. The only thing that can survive their blows are their own property. We shouldn’t have been enough to draw its attention, but the battle with the Sues must have made too much noise!”

There was a screech of tires from a nearby alley as Cal whipped into view, spinning out as he popped open his doors and trunk. The ground beneath them shook as the Publisher lumbered towards them, each bus-sized arm swinging through buildings and lampposts as it moved. It was bizarre to watch such a behemoth move without actually impacting its environment, but Foe knew to them it would be all too real. He and Kelk each grabbed a hold of Sanura and didn’t even bother to apologize before throwing her bodily into the trunk.

“You’re next!” Kelk insisted, grabbing Foe by the collar and waist of his pants and throwing him end over end into the back seat of the car. The Publisher roared silently as it brought one mammoth foot down on the Tarenth’s body, the force of the scream so potent that Cal’s doors slammed instinctively.

“Well, that would have sucked,” Kelk’s spirit verbalized from the seat next to Foe.

“Cal, Atlanta, now!” Foe ordered as he sat up. He shook his head as he turned towards Kelk. “Damn, I am so glad you perfected that hurl of yours. Didn’t know you could throw yourself along with me.”

“Tracer tag I slapped on your shirt,” Kelk explained. “I slapped it on when I grabbed you. Served as a carrier for my signal.”

“And thank god for that!” Cal replied. “Jesus Christ but the two you freaked me out! I haven’t been that worried since the Tau Ceti affair!”

“Still going to need a new body,” Kelk pointed out.

“Closet on the left,” Cal instructed. “And feel free to mix and match. It’s a fan con, so you shouldn’t have to worry too much about blending in…”

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Merry fumed as she watched her invasion get thrown back by the Authors. She didn’t mind the loss of her minions – far from it! After all, the entire point to having minions was that they were expendable in the name of her greater glory. No, what really pissed her off was the fact that they were failing, which in turn made her look bad. That was absolutely intolerable. She had put far too much work into her hair and nails just to have an entire makeover wasted by incompetent minions!

“Mistress!” It was one of her boy toys, a heavily tanned Legolas clone that had far more muscles than any realistic depiction had ever given him. He fell to his knees in prostration. “Mistress! I bear news from your monitors! A high energy event is rapidly approaching the planet!”

“What, more interference?!” she shrieked. “This! Is! Inconceivable! We will not fail! Send Everything! Send Everyone! I want this planet conquered, and I want it conquered now! This Verse shall fall! It shall become a new breeding pit for our glorious armies, from which forth we shall launch a dozen new invasions! I shall it reduced to flame and rubble, and then all will recognize that I am Mary Sue’s one true heir!”

“Mistress!” the clone whined, “We are already sending everything we have!”

Merry snarled, a low, inhuman sound that made everyone around her shudder uncomfortably. “Incompetent lack wits! Now I must sully my beauty, risk my perfection upon the battlefield?! Foolish, childish morons, don’t you realize I could chip a nail?!”

“Have mercy, Mistress, please!” the clone begged. With a cry of utter frustration, she reached down and snatched him off the deck. Reaching between his legs she grabbed his cock and yanked with all of her unnatural strength. His member tore free with a wet pop, spraying those nearby with blood. The clone shrieked with unbearable agony, but Merry wasn’t through with him. She reached into the gory cavity left by the wound, and felt around until she had taken hold of his spine. Another power tug ripped it away from muscle and bone, shredding his skin as she yanked it from his body, the skull dangling limply from the other end. The body sagged as it lost its central support, and she tossed it hard enough to leave a messy splatter against the far wall.

“Fine, I will go myself!” she announced as the rest of her minions cringed and tried to avoid her rage. She began to shove her way through the gathered Sues as she made her way to the portals below, silver armor pouring its way up her body as she went. Her feet arched as they rose on twelve inch stiletto heels until she was perfectly balanced on her toes. From there it spread like metallic spider silk, encasing her calves and thighs in ornate filigree. It began to flow together as it neared her hips, spreading and outlining the lips of her pussy. A single strand worked itself into a tear drop shape that covered her clit. The metal twisted and curved as it worked its way up her back so that it formed an image of a graceful angel ascending, sword held high to point towards the heavens. From there it spread over her shoulders, forming into a pair of masculine hands that cupped her breasts, culminating in pinched thumb and forefingers that embraced her erect nipples. A large battle axe appeared in her hand, the head as broad as a full grown boar and covered in depictions of fornication.

She turned as she reached the threshold to the portal. Raising the axe high overhead, she gazed over the assembled Sue army. There would no one left to challenge her greatness after this, not even that bitch Alyzabythe.

“CHARGE!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DA could feel the rage coursing through her veins as another swarm of Sues came sprinting down the street. Normally she would have fought it down, content to let it fuel her body only, but at this point there was no reason to hold back. She called up the images of Kelk back on the Watch Tower, his smile of smug satisfaction. The way the two ex-Sues had radiated helpless innocence. The way they had cringed in Foe’s presence had called out to her inner predator. The urge to rip out their throats and bathe in their blood had been strong. Then Foe had been there, playing with them, flirting with them…

She let out a howl of ecstasy as she felt the change take hold, releasing her inner demon. Her fingers thickened and lengthened into wickedly sharp claws as curved horns sprouted from her forehead. Her skin darkened and turned black as her veins thickened and rose to the surface, their red glow giving her a slightly marbled look. The tip of her tongue split into fourths and flicked out to taste the air as six massive, bat like wings burst from her back.

The swarm faltered as their prey transformed into a Harbinger of Hell. They turned to flee, but their moment of hesitation would prove too costly. DA leapt into the air and landed in their midst, claws ripping and tearing into exposed flesh. A few brave souls tried to fight back, but their weapons only bounced off her armor like skin. Catching a Stu by the throat she yanked him off his feet and sank her teeth into his neck. A twist of her head tore out his jugular, and she savored the tangy, coppery flavor of his blood as it spilled over her face and breasts.

“DA?” BW asked cautiously as she back winged in for a landing.

“Don’t worry, Bronx,” DA reassured her. “I’m still in control. It just feels good to cut loose for a change.” She squinted at a fleeing Sue, aiming carefully before throwing the Stu’s body as hard as she could. It smashed into the luckless girl with bone breaking force, and she fell with a shrill scream as her back shattered under the blow. She continued to whimper as she tried to crawl away, which only served to get on BW’s nerves. She made a careless motion with one talon, summoning a bolt of lightning from the clear blue sky. The Sue convulsed as hundreds of thousands of volts slammed into her body, leaving behind a charred and twitching corpse.

“They found Jem,” BW announced as they took to the air in search of fresh prey. “She and one of the green lanterns got pretty shot up defending some civilians. Foe and Sanura are evacuating them right now.”

“Is she going to be ok?” DA rumbled.

“They think so,” BW answered. “She was pretty much out of it by the time they got to her, and she still hasn’t woken up yet. But she was still breathing when they got to her, and Sanura managed to get a couple of potions down her throat.”

“What about Apollo?” DA demanded. “She should be able to heal her instantly!”

“She’s holding the other side of town, by herself, I might add,” BW answered crossly. “So stop complaining. She has enough to deal with without us pestering her every time one of us gets a paper cut. “

Before either of them could say another word they interrupted by a howling figure that came plummeting off a nearby roof. DA stopped to hover in midair as she recognized the face that had gone flashing by. “Dem?”

Demorta groaned as the two women landed next to the crater he had smashed into the asphalt. “Be..ware,” he managed to gasp as unconsciousness took hold. “She’s…tough.” His eyes rolled up into his head as he passed out, leaving the two women lost in confusion.

“Who is tough?” BW wondered aloud, looking for some sign of an obvious threat.

As if in answer a blue portal opened up not five feet away from them. They watched with mouths agape as an impossibly attractive blonde in barely-there silver armor stepped out and walked up to Demorta. The blonde wagged her finger at his unconscious form as she scolded, “You naughty, naughty boy! It only serves you right for trying to touch me without my permission. Though if you had asked, I just might have been up for some play time!”

“Um, who are you?” BW asked.

“She reeks of Sue,” DA cursed as she took a deep breath.

Merry turned to look at them, and her eyes widened as if she had just noticed the eight foot tall demon and hundred thousand ton dragon for the first time. She took an involuntary step back, covering her mouth. “Oh! My! God! You two are soooo ugly!”

“Oh! My! God! You are soooo dead,” DA replied in mocking imitation.

“Hey, you can’t talk to me like that!” Merry cried indignantly. “I am Merry Ellen Sue! First of my name and heir to the throne of the Great Mary Sue, long may she reign!”

“So, you’re an important Sue?” BW asked, grinning evilly.

“Does that mean we get bonus points for killing her?” DA asked as she licked her lips.

“Bring it, you bitch!” Merry screamed as she charged DA< her axe held high. DA leapt aside, narrowly missing getting cut in half. Even then, Merry checked her swing at the last minute, smashing DA aside with the flat of the blade. The force of the impact knocked the Author off of her feet and sent her flying backwards. Dust and bits of brick and glass flew through the air as she went tumbling through the side of the building, across a room full of cubicles, only coming to a complete stop when she connected face first with a steel support pillar.

BW roared as she watched her friend get knocked aside. She slashed at the grinning Sue with one massive claw, but Merry managed to dodge nimbly aside . She countered with a swipe of her axe meant to separate BW’s foot from her leg, but the dragon’s great bulk held an incredible speed. Her tail swept around, knocking the Sue from her feet. She rolled sideways with the blow and kept rolling as BW’s tail began to hammer the road to pieces.

“Stand still, you cunt!” BW demanded as she turned to spit flame at her adversary.

“I am not a cunt!” Merry protested as she looked around desperately for her axe. It had gotten left behind on the far side of the street, so she was forced to rip a street light out of the ground. She sent it hurtling towards the , forcing BW into the air so that she could dodge the missile. Merry used the brief respite to make a run for her axe – only to get caught in a bone jarring tackle by DA.

“Why won’t you two die?!” Merry whined as she lashed out with her armor. DA howled as the pure silver stabbed into her demonic flesh. The pain drove her into a mindless frenzy. Causing to scratch and claw bloody furrows into the Sue’s exposed breasts and belly. Merry’s shrieks echoed DA’s pain, and the Sue’s armor pulsed as it threw the demon back. DA staggered back, shaking her head as she tried to regain control of herself. Merry Ellen tried to escape, lifting into the air to get away from the terrifying monstrosity that DA had become. Above her, BW roared again and dove, trying to catch the Sue between her and the ground.

Merry Ellen muttered the words to a quick spell, unleashing a blast of icy wind that blinded the diving dragon. BW howled as the frozen cloud wrapped around her head, stinging at the sensitive membranes around her eyes and snout. Merry Ellen slashed at her as they passed each other, showering the street below with fat drops of the dragon’s blood. She smiled as she considered the gaping wound she had left in her wake, only to gasp in horror as she realized her gauntlets were smoking, slowly melting away as BW’s acidic blood ate away at the metal.

BW landed heavily, popping fresh craters into the asphalt as she did so. DA was just about to launch herself skywards at the shrieking Sue when she felt BW’s tail wrap around her waist. “Wait,” BW ordered. “We need to stop and think about this. Frontal attacks aren’t getting us anywhere. She just keeps getting the better of us.”

“What did you have in mind?” DA growled.

“Have you ever seen Gundam SEED Destiny?” BW asked. She shrugged when BW shook her head no. “Well, neither have I. Foe was talking about it the other day. Apparently there was a scene where a pair of characters were trying to kill a third by basically not fighting him at all. I want you to do the same. Fly up there and attack her, but don’t try to hit her. When she tries to fight back, just dodge. That should give me enough time to spring my trap.”

“How will I know when it is ready?” DA demanded.

“Oh, you’ll know,” BW chuckled as she faded from view.

DA shrugged at the cryptic answer before flinging herself into the air. By that point Merry Ellen had managed to clear the acid from her gauntlets. She whirled as DA bellowed a war cry, dodging out of the way as DA feinted towards her exposed legs. Back and forth they went, each one pulling just outside of the reach of the other. They danced across the skies, a whirling knot of blades and teeth, claws and armor, neither one willing to give up the advantage to the other.

“Hey, who turned out the lights?!” Merry Ellen shrieked as she suddenly found herself engulfed in sticky darkness. It felt like she had been wrapped in a web made of glue, the binding material pinning her arms to her legs. The problem was that she couldn’t see. She had been bred to be able to see in total darkness! It must have been a trick or illusion of some sort! She cried out, “Help me!”

“Okay,” BW answered, dropping her invisibility as she checked the Sue through the nearest building. Broken bits of concrete and glass trailed behind them as BW slammed her captive into the road, pinning her in place with a single claw. “Did you like that? It is a spell of my own devising called Web of Shadows. Typical Web spell mixed into a Sphere of Darkness. Leaves my prey totally unprepared.”

“Let me go!” the battered Sue screamed.

“No, I don’t think so,” DA replied as she landed nearby. Something under all the debris sparkled and caught her eye. She casually tossed a three hundred pound joint lock aside to reveal Merry Ellen’s axe. “Oooh, this is pretty. I think I’ll keep this.”

“Give that back!” Merry whined. “That’s mine!”

“Finders keepers, losers weepers,” BW admonished. “And you, my dear little terror, have lost. Frankly, I’ll think we’ll be doing the world a favor. Hell, even the Witchblade wears more armor into combat than you do. You didn’t even bother to protect your womanly bits!”

As if to reinforce her point, BW squeezed with her middle talon, applying pressure to the thin strip of metal between the Sue’s legs. Merry Ellen let out a long moan and began to thrash as a series of violent orgasms ripped through her.

DA paused, blinking. “Did she just…?”

BW frowned and squeezed again. Once more Merry Ellen began to shudder as a series of cascading climaxes ripped through her. “What sort of idiot builds an orgasm button into their armor? That’s just begging for trouble!”

“You know what?” DA asked, hefting the axe up to her shoulder. “I think I’ve had enough of this.” As she walked over to the helpless Sue, BW obligingly moved her talon out of the way.

It took ten swings of the axe to fully remove Merry’s head from her shoulders. The dumb bitch hadn’t bothered to keep the edge sharp. Then again, DA wasn’t very careful about making sure that each blow landed in the same place as the ones that came before it, either.

When it was done, the Sue’s silver armor began to melt down into a single shimmering puddle. It slowly snaked around BW’s leg until it came to a stop at the wrist, forming a simple bracelet. She looked at it for a moment, as if considering something, then said, “No clit buttons, and we’ll be good.”

“So, what’s next?” DA asked.

“I dunno about you,” BW said with a smile. “But how about we go round up the others and take a vacation? There’s this con Apollo and I wanted to go to…”

[Apollo at Dragon*Con]

Its been decided Ye Olde Harem Dragon shall be there as well, and might even participate in said kiltblowings. We shall see.

[The Great Sue Hunt]

There is a place between the Verses which does not exist. In this place is a room. It is a small room, such that you could sit with your back against one wall and comfortably read a book propped against the other. Yet if you were to get up and try to retrieve that book, you would find that it is always just out of reach. You could walk for hours, for days, for centuries, and yet you still would never be able to pick it up.

There is only one person in this room. He is an old man who sits at a plain wooden table. You would recognize him at once, though the two of you have never met and he has no name for you to recall. In front of him is an old leather book filled with cracked and yellowing pages, stained nearly black with the ink they bear. He fills the pages using an old fashioned quill, a feather plucked from a bird that no world has ever known. He never pauses, either to refill his pen or to turn the page, and as you watch him work you get the feeling that he never has.

Surrounding him is an endless sea of candles, their individual flames more numerous than all the stars in all the skies that ever have been and ever shall be. Some are short and thin, burning hot and bright before returning to the darkness. Others are tall and thick, and will continue to burn well past the end of all other things. Some are shaped in such exotic manners that to contemplate their lines is enough to drive the sanest man to madness. Others are black and twisted into such horrible designs that they leave behind a sense of unquiet dread that lingers on the soul. Some are so vibrantly beautiful that those who view them weep, knowing that they will never see anything as perfect ever again.

Out of this multitude of candles, one sits in a special place on the old man’s desk. Its flame burns hot and bright, but unlike all the other candles it never changes. Sometimes it would grow brighter or dimmer, sometime it would grow warmer or cooler, but its height never diminished. It had remained the Author’s constant, if inconsistent, companion since the day it had been first been lit. Sometimes it stood alone, but for now it was kept in good company by others. One towered over the others, a mammoth pillar as wide a tree. The smallest was a flat black coin that irritably vanished and reappeared in clouds of wispy smoke. The others all varied in size and shape, but they all stood in the shadow of that one unyielding candle.

Now, for the first time since he could remember, the Author’s ancient and wrinkled hand paused as something in the air changed. He frowned and cautiously sniffed the air. The frown deepened as he turned and considered his companion, and saw a faint whisper of smoke curling upwards from its wick. He watched with stilled horror as the top of the candle softened and deformed, a small blemish forming as a small ball of wax trickled down its side…

* * *

Foe had to run to keep up with Superman as the Kryptonian glided through the halls. Red alarm lights continued to glow for several minutes before cutting out and returning to normal lighting. They were at a T junction only a few hundred feet away from the labs connected to the trophy room when they ran into the girls. Foe was, admittedly, surprised to see them. “I thought you two were with the fake Batman!”

“We were,” DA explained. “Once we realized who he was though, we decided to come looking for you. We figured you might be able to explain to us exactly what the hell is going on around here.”

Foe shrugged. “The quickest answer is I screwed up. We got the wrong part of the timeline, though I don’t know why. The good news is that we’re still going to have a massive throw down. The bad news is that its going much more dangerous than the one I had originally planned for. But how did you guys find me?”

“The nose knows,” BW answered, tapping the side of hers with a finger. “What it doesn’t know is why you smell like sex. What, did you stop for a quickie on the way to the lock up?”

“Er, something like that,” Foe admitted with a blush as Superman gave them all the oddest of looks. Foe decided to head them off before they could press him for any more details. “C’mon, we should go find Kelk and the others.”

“But they told us you shot Kelk,” BW pointed out as they jogged towards the labs.

“Guilty as charged,” Foe replied with a grin. “Though its ok. For one thing, he probably deserved it for something or other. On the other hand, he’s probably feeling better by now.”

“You shot him,” BW repeated more slowly, as if speaking to a particularly thick child. “In the head. With a plasma pistol. He didn’t have a head left. They showed us footage. His neck just sort of ended. You don’t ‘feel better’ from having your head disintegrate.”

“Wanna bet?” Foe asked as the door to the labs slid open to reveal Kelk and two strange women in the various stages of dressing. A trio of stealth cloaks sat in a rumpled pile on the floor nearby.

“I don’t think we need to wonder why he smells of sex,” DA said sarcastically as she glared at the two half dressed girls. The door on the far side of the lab had jammed open, revealing the wreckage of the trophy room beyond. Foe could see massive scorch marks and shattered displays, as well as the telltale ink splatters that marked the death of a Sue.

“That was caused by them having sex?” Superman demanded incredulously as he stared at the wreckage. “I don’t believe it!”

“Well, the foreplay may have gotten a bit out of hand,” Kelk admitted nonchalantly. “But a man becomes inspired when he has such…vigorous partners.”

The two ex-Sues flushed furiously, DA sneered at them so hard they should have combusted on the spot, and Foe rolled his eyes, claiming, “Kelk, you could get inspired by watching a dead rat floating in the gutter, just because you’d have to use the word ‘wet’ to describe it.”

“Hey!” the Taren protested as Foe approached the two girls. “I resemble that remark! And leave my haremites alone! I don’t want a repeat of Dolus VI!”

“You got killed on Dolus VI,” Foe replied, waving a hand dismissively. “Multiple times, if I recall correctly. The Doluns kept laying eggs in your skulls. I warned you about the consequences, but noooo, you just had to play around with the giant insectoids.”

“Yeah, but oh man, the things they could do with their mandibles!” Kelk answered cheekily. When everyone but Foe turned to look at him, he shrugged. “What? I like to experiment.”

“Yuh huh.” Foe stopped when he was less than a foot away from the two girls, well inside what could be best defined as their personal space. Piper shied away from him, trying to hide behind Eve as Foe studied them. They were both attractive enough, especially Eve. She had a pair of tits that just begged to be sucked and fondled if there had been time for it.

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, its him,” the shyer of the two whispered as she tried to shrink away from him. He could feel the raw power rolling off of them. They weren’t nearly as bright as anyone he normally hung out with, and he could feel the latent Sueness waiting to be unleashed again, but there was also some potential there if they could be taught to tap into it. The one in back, oddly, seemed to be the more powerful of the two and as he turned to focus on her she moaned, “Please don’t kill me!”

Foe couldn’t resist the temptation. He leaned in close, so that his head was directly over Eve’s shoulder (who, to her credit, tensed up but did not flinch) so that his face was a hairsbreadth away from Piper’s. Her eyes grew wide as she found herself confronted by the ultimate boogeyman, a nightmarish killer whose wake of death and destruction was the thing of legends. She could see her death shining in his eyes, and she bit her lip to keep from shuddering with fear as he smiled slightly. She couldn’t imagine what he had in store for her. Would he flay the skin from her body? Would he slake his first by guzzling her blood from her skull? Would he wreathe her body in flames, orchestrating her piercing, agonized screams like a master conductor weaving his finest symphony?

Foe held her gaze with his own. Her eyes began to water and he watched her throat move as she swallowed, trying to avoid giving in to the inevitable. Her entire body was trembling as she struggled to maintain control. Alas, it would prove to be in vain. She blinked.

Foe whispered, “Boo.”

Both girls shrieked and only Foe’s lightning quick reflexes kept him from a cracked jaw when they jumped. Everyone else laughed, with the exception of Superman, who just looked more confused than ever. Foe turned and wagged a finger in Kelk’s direction. “Ok, you can keep them. BUT! They are your responsibility. You need to feed them, and play with them, and clean up after their messes. I don’t want to hear about how hard it is later, understood?”

Kelk winced. “Ok, that was just a terrible pun.”

Foe just smirked and turned back to the girls, who were now staring at him like he was ten feet tall and had three fire breathing heads. “And you two, I expect you to try and keep him in line. I already know you’re going to fail, but try anyways. Now get dressed. There’s a storm brewing, and if the fecal matter is about to impact on the rotary air impeller then that means it is time to get the band back together.”

* * *

Alyzabythe was in her room, studying potential recruits for the Tsues while Ashleigh painted her toenails for her. She had learned a long time ago that indulging in a few creature comforts was not only relaxing, but necessary to her place in the Sue hierarchy as well. (Not that many of the Sues could even spell ‘hierarchy’.) When she had first taken her position it had been one challenge after another, and no matter how many broken and bleeding bodies she left behind her there was always someone else willing to step up and annoy her for five minutes. Eventually she had had enough and took a day off to go to the spa. When she had gotten back, her challengers had taken one look at her and each and every last one had submitted on the spot. Apparently the real secret to maintaining respect amongst the Sues was having a killer manipedi.

Her door slammed open to reveal a furious Merry Sue. She strode into the room without waiting for an invitation and, as if her beet red complexion wasn’t warning enough, miniature black storm clouds orbited her head while emitting thunder and lightning at random intervals. “HOW DARE YOU?!”

“With great gumption and gusto, normally,” Aly replied drily. She reached for a nearby fruit bowl and plucked a fat, green grape from its stem. She began to lazily peel the skin away with her fingernails, confident the other woman wouldn’t understand the warning implied by her actions. “Pray tell, what have I done now?”

“You are interfering in my operation!” Merry screamed. “This is my moment of glory! Mine!”

“Which means absolutely nothing to me,” Aly replied scornfully. “I have no interest whatsoever in this doomed little venture of yours.”

“You were on the Watchtower at the same time as one of my blacks ops teams!” Merry raved. “And don’t try to deny it! But they’re all dead now, and it is all your fault!I know you killed them just o screw around with my plans! You know the rules! We’re supposed to stay out of each other’s business! She said so! Mary will have your head for this, you bitch!”

“A law which applies to everyone except for me,” Aly answered, rolling her eyes. “It never has, you dumb cunt. Nor will it ever. Mine is Her ultimate Right Hand, that which dispenses justice and wrath in equal measures. I go where I will, when I will, simply to keep egotistical harpies such as yourself in line. Now, as for the facts. Yes, I was on the Watchtower at the same time as your pathetic little squad. But I was there of my own business, and had nothing to do with their demise.”

“Then who?!” Merry screeched as the clouds around her head got darker and angrier. “I can’t stand it when people screw around with my plans!”

Aly popped the grape into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Was it possible? She leaned forward, looking for any signs of deception as she asked, “Are you telling me you can’t feel him? Or his friends for that matter? My gods above and below, they’re brighter than a nova!”

“WHO?! WHO IS HERE?!”

“Why, Foe of course,” Aly answered, leaning back against her pillows. She honestly hadn’t known. Now that was interesting. “He and his friends are here. I expect it was one of his little minions that wiped out your team.”

“Th-that’s not possible!” Merry protested as her face went white. “It isn’t! He doesn’t exist! He’s just a stupid legend made up to keep the lessers in line! I would have known, otherwise! Someone would have told me if he was real!”

“Oh, he’s real, all right,” Aly said with a huge smile on his face. “And as for the legends… Well, some of them are deserved, at least. I have…experience when it comes to dealing with him. You would do well not to underestimate him, or those who travel with him. Individually they are more power than you can comprehend. Have you ever been to the Alternative Verses?”

“You know I haven’t!” Merry snapped angrily. “Such filth and darkness! Hardly the proper place for someone of my…stature!”

“Fair enough, though some of them would undoubtedly surprise you quite a bit,” Aly said. She snapped her finger and materialized a large, overly stuffed, manila envelope. She reached in and pulled out a series of photos and reports. “I started putting this together when I realized he was here. It’s hardly complete, but we started with everyone my spies could track down who doesn’t belong to this Verse. Though with comic book lands, there’s always the inevitable crossover anyways…”

“I don’t want your information!” Merry declared indignantly. The idea that she of all people, might need help, was just purely offensive. She turned as something caught her eye, and she glared when she saw Ashleigh. Not that she recognized the girl. Heaven forbid she actually take the time to get to know her followers, whether they had volunteered to work for her. She slipped a bit of her aura into theirs to mark them as hers, and then went back to the glorious, joyfully existence of being Merry Sue. “Hey! This is one of mine!”

She reached out for Ashleigh and managed to grab the girl by the wrist. Before either of the two of them could do or say anything, there was a bright flash and Merry yelped as Ashleigh was suddenly wreathed in flames. A long, nasty looking scorch mark ran from Merry’s hand up the length of her forearm. It was bad enough that the skin was black and cracked, and the sickly stench of burned meat filled the room. Aly glared at her from across the room. “That one is mine, now and forever. Do not every again try to take from me what I do not give freely. Now get out!”

* * *

John Stewart was not having a good day. During his tour of duty as a Green Lantern he had seen just about seen and dealt with everything, from walking on the living planet Mogo to doing battle with the living embodiment of Fear known as Parallax. Before joining the Corps he had been a marine, and a damned good one at that. Very little shocked him anymore, mostly because very little could.

Except for an entire army of horny school girls.

When he had first heard of the disturbances in Vegas he had reacted immediately and flown over, even though the dust had already begun to settle by the time he got there. Still, there was always the little fact of the post op cleanup that needed to be dealt with. A few suspects always seemed to escape from custody, and he figured he could lend a hand in trying to round up the remainders. He had been tracking a young woman who was either drunk, stoned, or wounded when all hell broke loose right there in front of Caesar’s Palace. Large portals that crackled with energy had ripped open all across the sky and the Sue armies began to pour forth.

There had been no chance to control the flow. All around him the battle raged as the Sues fought to establish their foothold on the planet. Some had rushed for the casinos, attracted by all the bright lights and loud noises. The rest had headed straight for the crowd, causing chaos everywhere they landed. Some went straight for the best looking members of the crowd. The lucky ones were trussed up and carried back to the portals for later use. The unlucky ones were thrown to the ground as their clothes were torn away so that the horde might ravish them where they lay. The rest began an indiscriminate slaughter as they tried to clear the world of “imperfections.”

John found himself the target of several dozen giggling invaders, ranging in size and shape from a petite blonde who couldn’t have been out of junior high to a hulking brute of a man who looked like he had probably done hard time somewhere. The man kept shouting, “I’m a pitcher! I want him as a catcher!” John had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but he could tell that he probably wouldn’t enjoy finding out the answer. Emerald light pulsed from his ring as he tried to punch them back, but there were far too many of them. Grasping hands reached for him and fingernails that were sharper than they had any right to be began shredding his uniform. Swords, knives, and axes whistled through the air as they hacked at him, while more than a few enquiring hands reached for his crotch. None of it should have been possible. As far as the ring could tell, these were just normal people. His uniform was a construct of the ring, and it took an incredible amount of power to rip it, but they were shredding it like it was made of wet tissue paper.

Generating a massive green riot shield, he used it to shove the Sues back as he flew higher out of their reach. The construct cracked and shattered a moment later as they continued to hammer it, but by then he had enough altitude to get a good look at the battlefield below.

There. Down on the ground, defending the doors to the casino, was the young woman from earlier. Flame and lightning ripped the air around her as she blasted the Sues, trying to keep them from reaching the civilians who had escaped inside. She refused to yield, but he could see that her back was flat against the door. He doubted that she could last much longer on her own. She was completely hemmed in by the Sues and it seemed that for each one she struck down ten more rose to take their place.

He blasted a path down to where she stood, then wrapped them in a triple thick bubble shield. She staggered almost immediately, remaining standing only because of the quarter staff she was clinging to. Dead and dying Sues littered the ground by her feet. “Are you all right?” he blurted out, realizing even as he asked it that it was a stupid question.

“I’ve been better,” Jem managed after a moment. Her face was a bloody mess, one sealed shut by the blood that had poured into it from a long gash across her forehead. Her clothes had been cut to ribbons, strained brown in places where the blood had already had time to dry. Her left leg was twisted at a bad angle and judging from the bulge in her calf it was probably broken as well. The other was covered in bruises. Her fingers were black and cracked from the energy she had been wielding. John nearly vomited as he realized the extent of the beating she had taken. By all right she should have been dead and likely would be soon.

“Don’t worry, help is one the way,” John replied, silently adding, ’I hope.’

“Foe?” Jem murmured, unable to see clearly.

“No, friend,” John answered, confused by the question. “My friends. The JLA at the least.”

He turned around as something behind them popped. The shield around them was covered by the swarming Sues and had already begun to crack under the combined weight of their blows. Behind him, Jem let out a moan and collapsed. John braced himself as he prepared for the attack. He glanced about at the boys and girls trying to kill him. Instinct told him that he should be doing everything in his power to protect them. Training said otherwise. He knew the enemy when he saw it and if this was to be his final stand, then so be it. The others might find him on top of a pile of the dead, but he’d be damned if these creatures made it through those doors.

“No fear!” he bellowed as the shield finally collapsed. Sues and Stus fell around him as it no longer held their weight. Summoning a massive green fist, he smashed them into the ground to finish them off. That one fist split into a hundred more as they lashed out at the charging Sues. Then they were too close for constructs. He lashed out with his own fists and one Stu fell as a satisfying crack marked his jaw shattering. One of the girls squealed as he elbowed her in the belly, only to fall silent as he twisted around and smashed her face in with his knee. He knew he was screwed when he felt an arm wrap around his face, trying to pull him deeper into the swarm, but that didn’t stop him from sinking his teeth into the fleshy bicep and feeling his mouth fill with the semi-rancid taste of inky blood. He watched as a battle crazed Sue lifted her hatchet high for the killing stroke-

-The air shattered with a thunderous boom as a blood red dragon materialized out of thin air in the middle of the street. She unleashed a horrifying roar and for a brief instant the entire battle froze in terror at the sound-

-Before a silver blade flashed between them. The Sue’s hand went spinning away, sacking into the doors with a gory splatter. She screamed and clutched at the gushing stump until another sword stroke sent her head tumbling off her shoulders. John fell backwards as his attackers released him so that they could turn and face the new threat and he landed on the ground with a thud. A second sword joined the first and the air hummed as they wove a gory dance over his head. Blood and body parts flew like cheap confetti and for a brief moment he feared getting caught up in the maiming as well.

The storm of swords ended almost as soon as it had begun. John found himself looking up at one of the men they had arrested earlier, though the man had cleaned up some, trading in the jeans and t-shirt for a long black leather duster thrown over a black polo and black trousers. He held his two weapons casually, one leaning back across his shoulders while the other was still buried in a Sue’s carcass. He pulled the second sword free and flicked his wrist to clear it of the gore coating the tip before stabbing it back into the corpse and leaving it there.

“Sorry we’re late,” Foe apologized as he reached down and offered the fallen Green Lantern his hand. “But you wouldn’t believe the kind of traffic we had to deal with to get here.”

“She needs help,” John wheezed as Foe helped him to his feet. “I tried, but there were too many of them.”

Foe’s eyes flickered to where Jem lay propped against the doors. “Shit. Sanura! Get over here! I need a medic, now!”

“What’s wrong?” John turned as a striking red head clad head to toe in black, skin tight leathers jogged over. It was a good thing he was suffering from blood loss or his arousal would have been more than evident. Sanura took one look at where Foe was pointing and said, “Fuck.”

She knelt down next to the battered Fae and gently opened her eyes. Jem struggled feebly and tried to turn away. “Nuh. I wanna slee’. Tire’. Lemme slep.”

“She’s in shock,” Sanura announced as she reached into one of her pouches and pulled out a small vial filled with a clear blue liquid. “I don’t know how bad her injuries are, but they’re pretty severe. She needs some major treatment as fast as we can get her there.”

Popping the cork from the vial, Sanura pressed it between Jem’s lips and gently tipped her head back. “C’mon baby, drink this up. It’ll be good for you.”

Jem didn’t stir as the potion drained down her throat.

“Damn,” For swore as he ran a bloody hand through his hair. “Apollo is busy holding down the north side of the city by herself. She’s our only dedicated healer, but we can’t afford to distract her with this, there’s too much on the line. We’ll have to take her to Cal and get her stabilized in one of the medbays. He can watch over her until we’ve got the rest of this taken care of. Let me know when she’s stable enough to move.”

“We can’t wait that long,” Sanura countered. “I can move her now, but if there are any delays…”

Foe nodded and turned to John. “You heard the lady. We need to move and move fast. You up to this?”

“No problems here,” John replied, his ring glowing with power.

Foe nodded again and turned around. “BW! I need air cover, now!”

The dragon roared in acknowledgement before flinging herself into the air, pausing just long enough to finish eviscerating the Sues she had been battling. She swept over the fighting, the gale force of her wing beats knocking over Sues as if they were bowling pins as she headed for the far end of the street. She banked at the nearest intersection and despite the increase in space it still looked like an impossibly tight turn. She opened her jaws wide as she came back around and flame issued forth. The Sues screamed in agony as their flesh burned and melted, with only a lucky handful managing to avoid the wrath of the strafing dragon.

Foe threw himself head first into the swarm, ignoring the flames still licking at his coat. Cinders danced around him as his blades lashed out, hewing a path through the crowd. He moved with steadfast resolution across the blood slick street as he hacked a corridor for Sanura to follow. The huntress scooped up the Fae woman with surprising ease and dashed for the parking garage where they had left Cal parked.

“Come and get it!” Foe taunted as a new wave of Sues came pouring through the portals. He was going to need much more fire power. He vanished his swords and coat as his body began to ripple and bulge beneath his clothes. His entire form swelled as silver scales broke out all over his body. His hair began to lengthen and thicken into a gorgeous mane as his jaw stretched and narrowed. A second later his shirt shredded itself as a pair of massive wings erupted from his back. When the transformation was complete the man had been replaced by a might silver dragon only slightly smaller than his red comrade. He beat his wings as he leapt into the air, breaking over the front of the Sue lines with all the destructive force of a tidal wave. Hoar frost poured from his mouth, and their bodies shattered easily with each swipe of his claws. Soon their screams of despair filled the air and all he did was smile…

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Alyzabythe dropped to one knee as she phased back into reality. To an inexperienced traveler her landing would have looked clumsy, as if she had just narrowly avoided a bad fall. On the other hand, an inexperienced traveler would most likely have fallen flat on their own face instead. Stepping from point to point through the Verses the way she did was incredibly dangerous and required an immense amount of power if one didn’t want to end up scattered across a thousand different existences. That was exactly why she did it. The danger always gave her a slight rush, and at the same time it reminded all the other Sues exactly who she was and what she was capable of.

The situation she landed in could best be described as a clusterfuck. Sues were running back and forth like headless barnyard fowls. Some carried weapons, making the chaotic situation that much more dangerous. At one of the chamber a large portal had been erected, energy crackling around its round edges. Every so often a group of Sues would let out a great cheer and go charging through to the battle on the other side. Much more rarely a dazed and bleeding Sue would come stumbling back from the other side, only to get crushed underfoot in the disorder. All Aly could do was shake her head at how pathetic it all was.

A green haired Sue went charging by, her halberd clutched haphazardly as she tried not to trip over the weapon’s long shaft. Aly’s hand snaked out and grabbed the girl by her hip length ponytail. The girl let out a painful shriek as her head snapped back by the roots of her hair. “Ow! How dare you?! Who do you think you are?!”

Aly ignored the questions in favor of slapping the Sue hard enough to rattle the girl’s brain around her mostly empty skull. “If you don’t recognize me, then its your own damned fault. What’s your name, and who is in charge?”

“You can’t treat me like this!” the Sue protested. Aly sighed, rolled her eyes, and slapped her again.

“Sweetheart, there is no one here powerful enough to stop me, even if they wanted to. Now, once again. What is your name, and who is in charge?”

“M-m-my name is Ashleighy,” the Sue stammered as she tried not to cry. No one had abused her like this before and she was unused to the concept of pain. “I-I-I think Merry Ellen Sue is in charge. At least, that’s what I was told. I haven’t seen her myself…”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Aly admitted, while thinking, ’Dumb cunt is probably off getting her holes stuffed.’ Instead she said, “Actually, I am surprised. It only took two slaps to get through to you. That’s about five less than average. Hell, you’re jaw is still intact and that almost never happens! So consider yourself lucky, there might almost be hope for you yet!”

“R-really?” Ashleighy asked, smiling faintly.

“Mhmm,” Alyzabythe answered with a curt nod. “Might even take you on as one of my own. So I’m going to go ahead and give you a little test. Are you ready?”

“Yes, miss!” Ash replied, nodding eagerly.

Aly slapped her again. “First lesson. Its either ‘ma’am’ or ‘mum’ depending on your accent. You’re here to follow my orders, not try and flatter me. Understand?”

“Ye-yes ma’am,” the Sue stuttered as tears began to form around her eyes again. She choked them down and straightened her shoulders. “I mean, YES MA’AM!”

“Muuuch better,” Al acknowledged with a small nod of approval. She materialized a small mahogany box, completely featureless except for a silver snarling dragon’s head emblazoned on the top. She handed it over while ordering, “Bring this up to my room. Ignore anyone who tries to stop you. Kill them if you have to.”

“Oooh, sounds important!” the green haired girl cooed as she started to life the lid. “What is it?”

“Nothing that you need to know about,” Aly replied, slamming the box closed so quickly that she nearly amputated several of Ash’s fingers. The silver rag the box contained was a secret she had no intention of sharing with others, mostly because they wouldn’t understand, and she had no interest in repeating herself as she tried to explain it. Sue’s tended to have limited attention spans, and explaining anything complicated risked getting them distracted by the nearest shiny object.

Instead she glared at the other girl, threatening, “Don’t try to open it again. I have made a pact with the darkest powers in regards to this box. If anyone unauthorized tries to open it, then they will be confront by Yensheillitath, the Bull Headed Sire of the Yoggoth Horde. His ten thousand tentacles will ravish your body, hammering at your mouth, cunt, and ass until he has climaxed one million times, his demonic seed filling you until your womb and belly burst forth the next generation of his ravenous hordes. All the while you will writhe in agony as the acidic slime he uses as lubrication melts your flesh from your muscles, strips your muscles from the bone, then dissolves your bones into a gelatinous goo. Only then, once he has sated his unholy lusts on your broken corpse will he grant you the final mercy of devouring your soul in his hundred stomach for a millennia each.”

“Really?” Ashleighy asked, horror and excitement mixing on her face. Aly had to resist the urge to shake her head in disgust. What was it about her that drew in all the freaks?

“Yes, really,” she answered, trying not to sound condescending. “Now go! If I don’t get this FUBAR straightened out soon, this invasion is going to fail harder than it already is going to.”

Ashleighy had already turned to run off when Aly made the last comment, and she stopped for a moment as confusion spread across her face. “But we’re Sues. We can’t lose!”

Aly only chuckled grimly. “Lass, you have no idea how wrong you are. This invasion was doomed from the minute that dumb bitch Merry cooked it up. It is going to fail, and fail hard. The timing is wrong, the opponents are wrong, and in twenty four more hours the entire world is going to go to hell. The only good news is that you and I are going to have front row seats.”

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Foe looked up as someone new walked up to his cell. It wasn’t hard to identify the new comer, as very few people could pull off the striking red and blue uniform, emblazoned with the Kryptonian symbol for the house of El. Foe nodded as Superman turned the bars off and stepped inside.

“Hello, Clark,” Foe said. Surprised flashed across Superman’s face for a moment, then he shook his head and smiled.

“I suppose I should have expected that,” Big Blue replied with a smile. “I’ve been talking to some folks who claim to be friends of yours. You know anyone named DemonsWench or BronxAngel?”

Foe frowned as the hero butchered his friend’s name. “I take it this is supposed to be some kind of test? I explain that you butchered their names, and that its really BronxWench and DemonsAngel and you let me go?”

“Something like that,” Superman replied with a chuckle. “Though I can’t still let you go until you guys answer a few questions, like why you thought it was ok to open fire in the middle of an armed crowd, even if it was against armed criminals.”

Foe shrugged, or at least did the best he could considering his restraints. “We’re not vigilantes, if that’s what your worried about, at least not in the normal sense of the word. We don’t normally go around looking for fights with supervillains. I don’t know how much DA explained about the Verses-“

Superman nodded. “She explained a bit about the Sues and the Verses. Sounded sort of like a Monitor issue. We recently dealt with one of those ourselves. Assume I know enough to understand what you’re talking about.”

“Fair enough,” Foe answered, returning the nod with one of his own. “My…car for lack of a better term is our primary means of travel. For some screwy reason the idiot thing likes to drop into the middle of fight scenes already in progress. Getting shot at does not sit well with most of us, but we also aren’t very good at the whole less than lethal option, either.”

“And what about…” Superman began, only to take a deep breath and frown. “Why does it smell like sex in here?”

Foe blushed. “Um…I may have had a quick conjugal visit…”

Supes frowned. “How?”

“I may or may not be getting stalked by an overly powerful Tzu who may or may not be deliberately playing head games with me while she possibly tries or doesn’t try to take over the Sue throne for herself?” Foe hazarded. “Honestly, at this point your guess is about as good as mine is. It wasn’t like there was anything I could do about it, you guys had me all tied up!”

“So…you were raped?” Superman hazarded, trying to make sense of the situation.

“Are you kidding?” Foe asked. “Sure, she’s a possibly psychotic monster who may be toying with my brain as part of some sick game for interdimensional supremacy, a game I have no intention of letting her win, by the way, but a really hot chick was fondling my cock. I might not have said yes, but I definitely wasn’t going out of my way to say no, either!”

“And that’s supposed to be helping your case?” Superman asked.

Foe gave another psuedoshrug. “After all the things I’ve seen… Really, sleeping with the enemy every once in a while isn’t that bad. Can even be kind of kinky, as long as they’re not actively trying to kill you in the process.”

“That is a very odd way of looking at it,” Superman murmured.

“It’s a very odd world,” Foe replied. “For example, did you know that’s not really Bruce Wayne?”

Superman looked momentarily startled again. “I- Yes, we did. How did you know?”

Foe grinned. “Well, for starters, he made the mistake of reacting when I called him Bruce. Batman is too controlled for that. He also wasn’t nearly menacing enough when he interrogated me. Also didn’t have the list of my accomplices, which meant he hadn’t had time to get all the information, which meant he was probably hiding from people so that they didn’t realize he wasn’t who he claims to be. My guess is its, whats-his-name, Tommy something-or-other. The Hush guy.”

“Thomas Elliot, yes,” Superman agreed. “We’ve been waiting for him to make a move to find out what he’s planning, but so far he hasn’t done anything.”

“Probably can’t,” Foe said with a laugh. “It’s one thing for him to fool Gotham’s socialites, who never have been the brightest of bulbs, but somehow I doubt he’s had much of a chance before now to deal with Martian, Oan, Thanagarian, Kryptonian, and whatever else kind of technology you people have squirreled away in here.”

Superman nodded, trying to hide his own smile. “Probably. But that brings us to the last question. The man you shot and killed. He was clearly with you, and you called him by name before you shot him. Can you give me any explanation for that?”

“What, Kelk?” Foe replied. “That’s easy enough – the bastard is an immortal alien. He wasn’t alive for me to kill, that was just a synthetic body he happened to be inhabiting at that point. It was a cheap way for him to escape and possibly rescue us if needed. Hopefully by now he’s found the others and given them my message.” Suddenly, the lights overhead flickered and went dim. A siren began to wail, and red emergency lights kicked on. Foe chuckled.

“Actually, that’s probably him now…”

[The Shadows of the Gods]

After much question asking, I have agreed to run a 3.X format Dungeons and Dragons game for the folks of the forums. I'm looking for a small party, 4-6 people in total. This being an adult site, I feel we should be able to play an appropriately mature game if that is what people want. This is where you should post your character sheets. Character construction is as follows:

Level:

Characters will start at level 3.

Classes:

-Only classes from the PHB 1 for now. Later in the game I may allow for more exotic classes if I can track them down.

Races:

-Again, only races from the PHB 1 are available at the moment. Special requests can be made and might be granted, but only if I can get the information from a proper source.

Items:

-Any item is fair game for purchase, so long as I am given the source book the item is from and its full stats.

Abilities

-Ability scores will be derived from a standard 22 point buy. For those who don't know what this is, five scores start at 10, with the last score starting at 8. Each increase is then bought for a number of points equal to its provided bonus, or a minimum of one point. you cannot buy an ability higher than 18, and racial modifications are added later.

11-13: 1 point each

14-15: 2 points each

16-17: 3 points each

18: 4 points.

Spells:

For now, only the spells from PHB 1. More spells will become available later, subject to DM approval. And remember, anything you can do, so can the bad guys!

Starting Gold:

1500 GP to start. No personally crafted items, only what would be available from the PHB and DMG. Item crafting will be allowed later in the game, that much I guarantee.

Feats: Again, PHB 1 for now.

DM's Note: I am not normally a strict DM, but do not currently have access to much in the way of noncore materials. As such, I'm limiting character creation to core only materials so that I'm not spending extra hours running down errata and obscure abilities while deciding who gets to play. Once the game starts I will allow more splat materials and character rebuilding.

[The Great Sue Hunt]

A small lapel pin on Bruce’s jacket began to flash as he scolded the girls, and his scowl turned to furious rage. “Damnit, always when I’m in the middle of something important.” Turning back to DA and BW, he wagged his finger in their faces. “I have some League business to take care of. I will be right back. The three of you are not to leave this room. I will know if you do. Do not make me any angrier than I already am, or this entire thing will be that much worse for you.”

There was a flash of light as one of the Watchtower’s teleportation beams caught him, and he was gone.

There was a moment of silence, and then BW shrugged. “Eh, it was going to be a boring date anyway. So, what’s next?”

-----------------------------------------

Foe groaned as he woke up. The last thing he remembered was shooting Kelk in the head. Granted, he hadn’t warned the Tarenth sneak he was about to do it, but he figured Kelk was smart enough to realize that he was supposed to play the man on the outside. It would take Cal about an hour to manufacture a new body for the alien, but it was better than nothing.

Then it had all gone to hell.

First there had been the sudden smoke cloud, blinding him and cutting him off from the others. Hopefully it meant someone was escaping, but he found himself totally lost. Just as it had been beginning to clear and he was getting his bearings again, Demo had thrown a flash bang. Without any warning, Foe had been struck by the blast and damned near knocked out. Then there had been a big, green, glowing fist and he was knocked out.

Shaking his head to clear his vision, he realized that he was being held upright by two large shackles mounted above his head. A matching pair held his legs spread out below him, leaving him entirely vulnerable. But at least he was still dressed. Yellow bars of energy crackled in front of him, forming the fourth wall of his prison. Heavy footsteps rang across the metal plates as someone came closer, and Foe let out an exasperated sigh as an all too familiar black cowl came into view. “Look, I can explain everything…”

“Who are you?” Batman demanded.

“My name is Foe,” Foe began. “I’m a…traveler of sorts. Look, me and my friends, how are they by the way? Anyway, we weren’t there to cause any problems, it is just that my car has really lousy timing and always drops us in the middle of those kinds of things, we were actually trying to help, just ask Michelle, she’ll tell you, this is all just a big mistake-“

“Goldstar is currently in the medical bay, recovering from injuries sustained during her intervention in your attack,” Batman snapped. “Who do you work for?”

“What?” Foe asked, totally bewildered. “Well, I suppose I work for Apollo-“

“The Greek God?” Batman interrupted.

“Huh? No, the redhead who was with me,” Foe answered. He really needed something to drink. “I mean, I suppose I work for her, I’m not entirely sure. I just run the Harem, make sure the Sues are all kept in check, stuff like that. That’s what we do, we hunt down threats to the Verse and take care of them-“

“What is the Harem?” Batman growled. “Some sort of club? A sex slave ring? New villain group?”

Foe sighed. “Geeze, paranoid much? Look, I’m not a criminal-“

“You were caught in the company of Harley Quinn, known acquaintance of the Joker, in the middle of an armed robbery by known metavillains,” Batman replied, pulling out a list to read off the charges. “While in the middle of resisting arrest you were seen shooting a man at point blank range with an energy weapon of unknown make or model, killing him instantly. You were reported by witnesses to have entered the building using an ‘elevator’, one which does not appear on any building plans nor seems to be there any longer. What was your plan?”

Foe rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Bruce, this is all just a big misunderstanding-“

“How do you know my name?!” Batman roared, reaching through the bars to grab Foe by the throat.

“I know all the names,” Foe gurgled. “Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Hal Jordan, Diana Prince, Barry Allen- This is all common knowledge where I come from.”

“Stay here,” Batman ordered. He snapped his cake as he turned around, and was gone before Foe realized he had moved.

“Now that is a scary individual,” Alyzabythe announced as she stepped out from behind Foe. She smirked as she stood in front of him. “But it was nice of him to leave you at my mercy.”

Oh, shit, Foe thought as the leader of the Tzus stepped closer. “What do you want?”

“Didn’t you get my message?” she asked. She was close enough that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his skin. Her skin tight cat suit had been left open in the front displaying a healthy amount of cleavage, and Foe cursed himself for not being able to look away. She reached up and gently stroked his cheek with the back of her hand, and he felt his cock harden at her touch. “I left it for you back in the Time Labs. But I guess that’s not important. Technically, I’m still supposed to kill you.”

“So then why don’t you?” Foe growled, trying to ignore how tight his pants were beginning to feel.

“Oh?” she murmured, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. She pushed it to the side and ran her hands down his chest until they came to rest at the top of his jeans. “And what fun would that be, with you all tied up like this?”

“You’re planning something,” he stated as she unbuttoned his fly and slowly dragged down the zipper. Pushing the material aside she pulled his cock out of its confinement, and it sprang to attention. On one hand, Foe realized this gave a whole new meaning to the term, “exposed position.” On the other hand, if he was going to die there were ways to die so he might as well enjoy it. And if he wasn’t going to die, even better. Wouldn’t be the last time he’d seduced or been seduced by someone on the other side.

“Oh, I’m always planning something,” she replied as she began to gently stroke his cock, smearing a bit of precum over the tip for lubrication. She popped the clasp on the front of her own suit and peeled it down, baring her shoulders and breasts. Her nipples were already hard and swollen. “But what you really want to know is what I’m planning.”

“Then what are you planning?” Foe gasped as she began to stroke him faster. She slipped his member between her breasts, squeezing them together to pin it in place. She began to masturbate him, his cock gliding between her soft, warm tits as she bobbed up and down. His hips began to rock of their own accord in a counter rhythm to her motions, and when she began to speed up, he did the same.

“Now that would be telling,” she teased as she bent her head down, flicking her tongue against the crown of his cock each time it appeared from between her breasts. Foe bit his tongue to keep his focus as he tried to drive his cock higher to her tempting mouth.

“And what’s wrong with telling?” he growled.

“Oh, nothing, I suppose,” she answered. “You just have to earn it.”

Foe could feel his balls tightening, and clenched his cock to try and hold off his release but it wasn’t enough. She lunged forward as his cock spasmed, wrapping her lips around the head of his cock as the first shot of cum spurted forward. She tried to swallow as much as she could, but after having been blue balled earlier by Sanura, Foe had gotten a little backed up. Her mouth was overly full by the time he spurted for the fifth time, and a little bit began to dribble down her chin. She smiled as she rose back to her feet, wiping away the extra with a silvery cloth. She leaned closer and kissed him, long and hard enough that Foe could still taste a bit of him on her tongue. “Well,” she murmured, “I got what I came for. So I suppose you’ve earned your part of the bargain. Listen carefully, and know this! This world has already been invaded by Her forces, seeking to add it to Her domains, for the First is every hungry for more power. But they do not know what I know, that this world is in for a time of reckoning, and sooner than even you realize. And know this as well! I will not follow forever, nor will I be disposed of lightly. I enjoy playing our little game, Lover Boy, but a game it will remain. Take it seriously at your own peril.”

Her statement given, she stepped around behind him again and was gone.

[The Great Sue Hunt]

“Don’t kill any of the face cards!” Foe hollered as blaster fire chewed up the casino. He leaned out from behind a tipped over table that he had been using for cover and tossed off a few rounds, not really caring if he hit anything. The idea wasn’t to maim or kill so much as to draw attention to himself and away from the innocents.

“What the hell, Foe?” Apollo screamed from where she and Sanura were hunched behind a large bank of slot machines. A stray bolt slammed into the machines, spilling coins all over the floor, and the two women ducked lower. “Why is it everywhere we go someone wants to kill us?”

“Blind chance!” Foe hollered as he emptied the rest of his clip. He switched out the pistol for a plasma gun he had picked up in New Vegas a while back. It had a sort of retro 50s look to it, but considering where they were he thought it seemed appropriate. Rolling out from behind the table he squeezed off a few shots. A few of the gang members managed to dodge the slow moving balls of energy, but one hapless minion caught a round in the back and flashed into a pile of softly glowing green ash.

“Damnit Foe!” Jem swore as she fluttered up next to him. “What gives you the right to keep killing people?”

Foe shrugged. “Narrative casualties?”

Before she could scold him any further, a red blur rushed between them, and Jem vanished. Foe did a double take, then looked up when the sky light above him shattered. He ducked out of the way of the falling glass, only to mutter, “Oh, shit,” when he recognized the girl in a familiar red and blue costume. The big S on her chest was a dead give away, even if he was partially distracted by the rather clear view up her miniskirt.

“All right, no one move!” Supergirl ordered. “You are all under arrest!”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Foe swore. Superheroes were bad. It was one thing to deal with them as civilians, but as the battle grew louder he realized most of the Justice League must have turned out for the fight. That was bad. Faceless mooks were disposable, but even hurting one of the Verse’s characters could cause all sorts of undesirable consequences. The only real option was to surrender, which meant they’d get locked up for sure. Hell, anyone of them was probably violating half a dozen different weapon laws, especially him. He was going to have to act fast.

“Kelk!” Foe yelled as his gun snapped up.

Kelk popped out from his hiding spot with a “Yo!” Foe pulled the trigger, but as close as the two of them were, there was no time for Kelk to get out of the way, and Foe’s friend’s head disappeared in a spray of blood, bone, and crackling energy.

[The Great Sue Hunt]

“Guess she had more up there than I thought,” Foe mused as the top of the building vanished in a cloud of fire and shrapnel. He ducked as a pissed off Possession Sue swung at his head with some sort of oversized sword. It looked like it would have been more at home in a chapter of Berserk than the hands of the petite girl in front of him. He snapped a kick off to her belly, and she folded over as his boot shoved her stomach back into her spine. The sword tumbled in the air as she let go, and Foe reached out to grab it, only to stumble under the weight of the thing. He tried to give it a few practice swings, and managed to messily decapitate the Sue. He dropped it, swearing, “Damn, not even balanced right.”

Flicking his wrist to materialize his own sword, he began the steady work of butchering the Sues. This was much easier than fighting the Tzus. Sure, they were trying to imitate the legendary Harley Quinn, which mean these idiots were bouncing all over the place, but they lacked the style and grace of the original. Mostly Foe just wished they would shut up about their ‘Puddin’. It was starting to sound like a bad dessert commercial, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in a while.

One of the Sues reached for a pistol, and his sword flashed under the dim light from the street lamps, leaving her staring at the bloody stumps where her hands had been. He yelped as someone punched him in the kidneys, the blow fortunately absorbed by his heavy coat. Turning around, he found one of the Sues bouncing from foot to foot, brass knuckles bouncing like a boxer’s gloves. “Gonna getcha, gonna getcha,” she chanted.

“Going to get you,” Demo answered, bringing both hand down on the back of her skull. It caved under the blow, spilling blood and brains across his shirt. He glanced up at Foe and smiled. “Don’t worry man, I’ve got your back.”

“Thanks,” Foe said with a nod. Working together, they slowly battled their way over to where Michelle had been hammered into the pavement. She groaned as Foe reached down to pick her up.

“What hit me?” she moaned.

“Damned idiots brought artillery,” Foe answered as she got back to her feet. “Good thing your shields took the blow.”

“Oh, I am so going to kick their asses,” Michelle swore. She caught a good look at the two gore covered men, and frowned. “What the hell happened to you two?”

“Sues,” Foe answered with a shrug. “Taking care of them tends to be a bit messy.”

“You killed them?” Michelle asked, horrified. Killing went against everything she had ever been taught about superheroing. Just what had she gotten herself involved with?

Foe nodded. “Yeah, we did. But don’t worry about it. They might look human, but they’re not. More like an interdimensional virus that can take on the shape of local life forms. If we were on Oa, they’d all be short and blue. Hell, once we’re done it will be like they never existed at all.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yup,” Foe answered reassuringly. “Been doing this for quite a while now. Nothing to worry about.”

Before Michelle could say anything else, a tank appeared at the far end of the street, earning a cheer from the embattled Sues. “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me,” Foe whined as it opened fire. The aim was lousy, fortunately, and a nearby building exploded as its third floor was blasted to rubble. The tank rolled forward slowly, grinding over the dead bodies in the way. Its turret rotated slowly, coming to bear on Foe, Michelle, and Demo. Foe wasn’t sure what was going to be worse – getting blasted in the face by that monster of a cannon, or explaining to DA why her hideout had gotten chunked by a tank.

“THAT IS ENOUGH!” Apollo screamed from the roof of the warehouse. “I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU JUMPED UP BITCHES MAKING A MESS OF MY FRIEND’S HOUSE!”

“Oh?” one of the Sue’s taunted. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Apollo didn’t reply except for a very satisfied grin. Holding up her hands, they began to glow against the dark of the night. The moon above her seemed to swell as it got brighter and brighter, until it was too painful to look at it.

“Oh, shit,” Foe swore, grabbing Demo and Michelle and hauling them back into the alley.

“What’s going on?” Michelle demanded.

“Apollo,” Foe answered. “Sun goddess. She draws her power from the sun, and can command it when she wants to.”

“But the sun isn’t out!” Demo protested.

“No, but the moon is,” Foe replied as he shoved a dumpster between them and the mouth to the alley. “And the moonlight is just reflected sunlight. Think of it like using mirror to bounce a laser.”

“Oh,” Demo answered, then “OH!” as the full implications hit. He quickly began grabbing more garbage cans to add to the stack of debris Foe was building. “Is this going to hold?”

“Not a chance!” Foe answered giddily. “But better it than us, am I right?”

The world went white, and for a moment all three felt as if they were standing in the middle of a large fire. The sky above cracked with thunder as the air around them flash heated to ungodly levels. There wasn’t even enough time for the Sues to scream before they were utterly consumed, reduced by the heat unto their basic atomic components. A hurricane-like wind ripped over them as the blast passed, trying to fill the vacuum now vacated by the superheated air.

“Is it over?” Michelle whispered.

“Yeah,” Foe answered, rising back to his feet. Sure enough the barrier they had erected had been melted into a solid sheet of metal. It was still semi-liquid in places. Wrapping his hands in his coat, Foe pushed it over into the street. It sank into the semi-molten asphalt, which was still bubbling in places. Peeking out around the corner, he saw where Kelk was doing the same from the alley across. “You ok?”

“Yes!” he hollered back. “Could we please not do that again? You know I don’t have fire insurance on my bodies after what happened on Sirius VII!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Foe snarked back. “How the hell was I supposed to know they had a tank? Where the fuck did they get a tank in the first place?”

“Are you guys all right?” Apollo called down as she and Sanura peeked over the edge of the building. “I probably should have warned you, but I didn’t want them to damage DA’s place any more than it already was.”

“We’re fine!” Foe called back, waving. “So is Kelk, and he’s got Harley with him. No harm done, at least not to us!”

Cal came hovering out of an alley across the street, hanging a good four feet above the still liquid ground. He began pouring a white liquid on to the ground, rapidly cooling it back to solid. Once he was sure it was safe to land, he dropped to the now rock hard asphalt and opened the his doors, letting Demo, Jem, and Kagome out to join the group. Foe groaned when he saw that there were two Demos.

“Um, that’s not right,” Sanura pointed out as everyone look backed and forth between the two Demos. “Why are there two of him now?”

“Hey! They’re twins!” Harley exclaimed, bouncing up and down happily. “I always wanted twins, though Mr. J would never let me keep them. Said they spoiled his beauty rest.”

“Foe, what the hell is going on?” Michelle demanded, echoing the thoughts of everyone there.

“Universal instability,” Foe explained. “The more Sues try to force a universe to accept their own twisted views, the more the Verse reacts by trying to get rid of them, mostly by collapsing all potentialities into one. What we’ve got now is a prime example. Every time Demo made a decision, rather than branch the universes this one simply took both paths at once. Demo is literally into places at the same time, rather than being into two different places in two different time lines. I’m surprised it happened this early, though.” Foe frowned. “Normally it takes much more stress to invert the potentialities this way. The polarity of the wave functions must be skewed, but it takes much more interaction on a quantum level to bend them that way. That would require making the strange quarks into charmed ones.”

The others stared at him in confusion, with the exception of Kelk, who asked, “But wouldn’t that require someone interfere on the epsilonic plane? You can’t just dent the mat that way, you need to seriously fuck with the chronal and spatial wimeys.”

“Spatial wimeys?” Kagome asked.

“Dr. Who,” both men answered at the same time. Foe continued from memory, “Time and space are like this big ball of time wimey…stuff, except that it really isn’t, it’s more like a big ball of string but it’s nothing like that, either. And if you pull on one of those strings that time is nothing like at all than you cause problems, because the rest of the universe requires that string to be there and tries to replace the nonexistent nonexistent string with an existing nonexistent string. Unless there are two Verses, at which point they try to replace each other’s nonexistent strings with nonexistent strings of their own, and from the looks all of you are giving me I’m not making any sense at all, so….” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. Looking at the two Demos he asked, “Heads or tails?”

“Heads!” the one who had been in the alley answered.

“Tails!” the one who had been in Cal answered.

Foe nodded, flipped the coin, caught it, looked at it, pulled out a massive gold Luger and shot the Demo standing next to Cal. Blood and brains sprayed all over the hood of the car.

“You shot me!” Demo protested as he stared at the corpse of the other him. “I can’t believe you shot me!”

“I don’t see what you’re bitching about,” Cal complained as he activated his windshield wipers. “I’m the one now covered in your blood.”

Foe just shrugged. “What? It was the quickest way to fix the canon before the cops showed up, and I’m on parole. I seriously don’t want to get busted again. Now, everyone get in the car so we can bounce over to Vegas. If we’re lucky, we can get there before DA and BW get into too much trouble.”

Kelk raised his hand as if to ask a question, and Foe rolled his eyes. “Yes, that means Harley too.” Kelk put his hand back down.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elsewhere

Booster paced nervously in front of the blackboard as he pondered everything written there. “This is about those guys Michelle ran off with, isn’t it?”

“Most of them, yeah,” Rip answered. “I think there might be a few players involved who weren’t here.”

“Do you know what of any of it means?” Booster asked, looking more and more flustered.

“Not a clue,” Rip replied, scanning his bookshelves for something to read. He finally settled on Quantum Mechanics and the Unsound Mind: A Universal Study in the World of Myth Primary Expansion Theory.

“Not even, “Hey, lover boy, I got here first”?”

Rip frowned and stood up to look at the board. “I didn’t write that…”

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Foe just shook his head as Kelk smirked behind him. “Alright, here’s the deal. If there are this many of us running around here, something bad is probably going to happen very, very soon. So we’re going to go to Gotham first.” Jem and Kagome both pouted at this declaration, and Foe let out a sigh. “Look, we don’t have time to go shopping. The two of you can use Cal’s wardrobe instead. It’s got Nth dimensional properties, so if you honestly can’t find something to wear in it you clearly aren’t trying hard enough.”

“What’s Nth dimensional properties?” Demorta whispered to Kelk as Foe ushered them all into the car.

“Cal is based off Caltrop technology,” Kelk explained as the two of them slipped into the backseat, and ended up in what looked like the lobby of a large hotel. A familiar dragon statue hovered in its fountain in the center of the room. “Isn’t that right, Cal?”

The statue nodded. “Its true. By basically beating the laws of physics until they cry for mommy, I have access to every dimensional existence. Which means I can convert a single thread from any outfit into whatever possible outfit it could have been conceivably been used for, and a few more than that besides.”

“The statue talks?” Dem asked, totally surprised. This group just seemed full of surprises.

“Yes, I talk,” Cal answered. “But I’m not a statue.”

“Then what are you?”

“Personal User Interface,” Foe answered, as he shut the door behind him and Michelle. “Cal is the only thing that remains as a constant in the ship, since he’s both the main computer and defense systems. Which is a good thing, since normally he drops me into the middle of a world ending battle for the sake of humanity.”

“I’ve only done that two or three thousand times!” the statue protested.

“Uh huh,” Foe answered as he walked over to Kagome. “Phone, please.”

“Why?” she asked, totally confused.

“Because up those stairs is a wardrobe waiting to be plundered,” he answered. “And if you girls are busy when the others try to get a hold of us, I want to make sure the call gets through.”

She nodded and handed the phone over as a robotic butler approached silently on its one wheel. It was otherwise humanoid, and dressed in an impeccable tuxedo. “This way, madams,” it said, leading them forward with a single robotic arm. Jem and Kagome giggled, hurrying after it as it sped away to the waiting room.

“Cal, take us to Gotham, please,” Foe ordered.

“Transitioning now,” the statue announced. There was a brief moment of nothing before Cal announced, “And we have arrived.”

“Thanks,” Foe said, and turned for the door, Michelle, Kelk, and Demo in tow.

“Well, that was fast,” Demo commented. “But shouldn’t we wait for the girls?”

Foe shrugged. “For the sake of me not losing what little sanity I have left, Cal is programmed to make sure that all timelines inside of him flow at a 1:1 ratio, both with each other and the outside world. There is no way they had enough time to get any clothes hunting done, hell, they probably just got there. So we’ll leave them for now, and Cal won’t let them leave without my say so. That way once we’ve gotten Sanura and Apollo back we can all just warp out.”

He opened the door and stepped outside…and right into the middle of a fight. Nightwing was bouncing all over an alley filled with Falcone grunts, each of whom was trying to fill him with as many bullets as possible. “Oh, we so do not have time for this,” Foe grumbled as he walked into the middle of the fight, just as Cal hollered, “Three thousand and one!”

“He’s going to get killed!” Demo cried as several of the monobrowed thugs turned around and tried to take on the slender Author. They were wielding a variety of weapons, from knives to heavy looking metal clubs, while Foe had nothing but his long coat and boots.

“Nah, he’s just going to have fun,” Kelk replied as he leaned back against Cal’s hood. There was the crackle of hissing electricity as the car tried to zap him the same way he had zapped Demo, but Kelk jut tingled with excitement. “Ah, Gods, I needed that! Was afraid I was going to run out of a charge.” He handed Demo his coat, warning him, “Hold this, and be careful. I don’t want to get it dirty.”

Demo looked at the coat for a moment and frowned. “What the hell, man?” turning around he handed it to Michelle. “Here, watch this, would you?” Then he too ran off to join the fight.

Michelle looked at the coat, then at the car, then back at the coat. “I am a superhero, right?”

“Yes.”

“They’re not doing this just because I’m a girl, right?”

“No.”

“Hold this?”

Cal let out a sigh. “I thought that’s what you were going to say.” A robotic arm extended from his hood and snagged the coat, tucking back in on itself to put the garment away as Michelle flew into the middle of the battle.

Foe was already far ahead of everyone else. The four thugs that had attacked him had seriously underestimated who they were dealing with. They had no superpowers, no extraordinary abilities, just the natural advantage given by their size and weapons. The first growled as he swung his pipe at Foe’s head. Foe stepped into the blow, grabbed the man’s arm, and twisted it at unnatural angle. There was a wet crack as the man’s bone snapped in half, and he dropped the bar reflexively. Foe snatched it out of midair with his other hand and spun, bringing his newly acquired weapon down hard enough to shatter the man’s kneecap. The thug whimpered and collapsed as he blacked out from the pain.

Foe laughed as another charged him with a knife. This was almost as good as sex, and a great way to relieve some of his pent up stress from the fight with the Sues. He chucked the pipe he had as hard as he could into the gorilla’s stomach, and the man bent double as the wind was knocked out of him. Foe’s leg snapped up, and the man’s jaw cracked as it met the heavy steel toed boot. Grabbing the knife, Foe tucked it into an empty sheath before using the man’s back as a vaulting board into the face of another goon.

The other’s were soon in the middle of it, but there was plenty to go around for everyone. Kelk bounced around like a monkey, taunting his foes as their blows just narrowly missed him each and every time. They thought he was lucky, but really it was just another means for him to show off. One by one they dropped as the small tranquilizer darts he carried pricked against their necks and filled them with a heady concoction of sleeping drugs and hallucinogenic chemicals. Demo was just straight up brawling, taking every hit they tried to lay on him as a means of getting them back twice as hard. Michelle darted overhead, stunning the ones she could with her wrist blasters, quickly neutralizing the gun wielders.

It was over just as soon as it had begun, and Foe carefully tugged his jacket back into place as Nightwing dropped to the ground in front of him. “Who the hell are you guys?”

“Just travelers,” Foe answered calmly. “Don’t worry, we’re not here to cause any trouble.”

“It looks to me like you are trouble,” Nightwing growled.

“They’re with me, Dick,” Michelle announced as she landed next to Foe.

“Michelle?!” he asked in shock. “I thought you were dead!”

“And how long does that remain a permanent problem?” she asked rolling her eyes.

“Good point,” he answered with a nod. “All right, well, if you’re willing to vouch for them, I suppose that’s good enough for me. You guys don’t need help with a case or anything, do you?”

Foe shook his head. “Nah, we’re just here to pick up some friends who got misplaced. But if we need any help, I’ll be sure to send up a signal flare. I know this is your city, and don’t worry, we don’t want to intrude.”

Nightwing nodded, then popped a grapple to a nearby roof and disappeared. Foe pulled out a device and turned it on, motioning for the others to follow him as he headed deeper into the darkened city.

“Is that normal?” Demo asked Kelk as they took up the rear. It was probably the best place to be, since it gave them a wonderful view of Michelle’s…assets as she walked next to Foe.

“Pretty much,” Kelk answered with a shrug. “Well, maybe not entirely. Normally there’s a bigger name involved than just some thugs. It’s one of the reasons Foe hates going to the Star Wars verses – he always ends up in the middle of the trench run or caught in the battle over Endor. Its hell on Cal’s paintjob.”

“Just how far back do the two of you go, anyway?” Demo asked. “You make it all sound like this how every day is for you guys.”

“We’ve known each other for about four, five hundred years, give or take,” Kelk answered. “It gets tricky when you factor in all the time travel. And what makes you think this isn’t an every day for us?”

Foe just shook his head as he walked ahead of them. He knew Kelk knew that he could hear everything the two of them were talking about, and was just glad his friend hadn’t started telling any of the really embarrassing war stories. Soon they were in front of a large, run down old warehouse. Foe paused as he considered it. His tracker showed that the girls’ Versic energy was coming from here, but that kind of left him at a loss as how to open it up. He’d only know DA for a few months, but he was fairly sure that she would have booby trapped the front door…which meant that was his best chance of getting inside. Walking up to the huge sliding door, he knocked three times.

The door slid open, to reveal Apollo standing on the other side, wearing a bath towel that left little to the imagination. “Oh, hey Foe. It’s about time that you guys got here, did you find what you were looking for?”

“And then some,” Foe answered, nodding to his companions. “Apollo, this is Kelk, Demo, and Michelle. The first two are Authors, Michelle is with me. Folks, this is Apollo, local goddess and all around firebrand.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Kelk said, reaching down to take her hand before brushing his lips across it. Demo relied on the much more conventional, “Hey.”

Kelk paused as he sniffed the air. “I smell beakers and chemicals. There’s a lab nearby, isn’t there?”

Foe shrugged. “Probably. I’d say feel free to poke around, but this isn’t my place, so don’t blow it up.”

“Pish,” Kelk replied, waving a hand dismissively. “I haven’t accidentally blown anything up since last week. Come, Demo, we have supplies to filch.”

“Um, sure?” Demo said, following him inside.

Apollo just shook her head and smiled. “Well, you guys can borrow the couch if you want, I’m going to go get dressed. Shouldn’t take me long, but then I’m going to wake up Sanura.” She winked at Michelle. “Should take me about…oh, twenty minutes or so.”

“Thanks,” Michelle answered.

“Twenty minutes, hmmm?” Foe mused as the door slid shut behind them. “I wonder what we could do with that time?”

“Oh, I think we can come up with a few things,” Michelle replied, turning around to drape herself against him. The thin material of her costume did little to keep Foe from feeling every inch of her pressed against him, and his crotch bulged in appreciation. Their lips met, and their tongues not long after. His hands flowed across her body, amazed at how soft and warm she felt. She began to grind against him, her own desire growing more inflamed. His hands spread across her breasts and carefully pinched her nipples until she had to release him to gasp with the pleasure of it.

“We won’t have much time,” he cautioned her.

“Still, enough for a preview for later,” she replied, slowly unzipping his pants…

[The Great Sue Hunt]

“Well, the first thing you can do is get the hell off my hood!” Cal snarled as he poured raw electricity down his chassis and into Demorta’s ass.

“GODDAMN IT!” Demorta howled as he leaped off the car. “Stop tazzin’ me, bro!”

“Well, don’t sit on my hood!” Cal repeated. “I’m not a damned lawn chair, I’m one of the most advanced pieces of technology in an infinite number of Verses!”

“Yeah, but why are you talking?” Demorta asked.

“Because it makes it easier to deal with him,” Foe answered as he slid between them. “So, to start from the top?”

“Why the hell are there so many hot women?” Demorta demanded. “I mean, geeze, I go out every night and never come across anyone as fine as you!” He winked at Jem, then turned to Foe and Kelk. “And you gentlemen are lookin’ pretty sweet, if you catch my drift!”

“Uh, yeah,” Foe answered, mildly uncomfortable with Demorta’s clear case of Captain Jack syndrome. Kelk, by contrast, looked interested.

“Alright, alright, I dig it,” Demorta said with a nod. “You some kinda playa?”

“Please,” Kelk replied, materializing a jacket just so that he could tug on the collar. “I am more than a mere ‘player’. I am a Master of the game. Any game, just name it.”

“Niiiice,” Demorta answered, his grin getting wider. “So, why’d I get tazzed? Am I gonna get tazzed again?”

Foe shook his head. “You got tazzed because you’re an author. Most of your powers are a result of your ability to manifest the reality warping nature of your, well, nature. Stuff like that is a little risky to be allowed to run around free, so Rip tends to go and collect. It’s just easier that way. As for whether or not you’re going to get tazzed again… That sort of depends.”

“It depends?”

Foe shrugged. “Look, I’ll make this simple. We hunt Sues, reality warping entities who threaten the existence of the rest existence. They wield and incredibly wide range of powers, and tend to be quite powerful. I’ve seen more than a couple who throw lightning. So yeah, there’s always a chance you could get tazzed. Although…”

He leaned in close to Demorta, who leaned in so that he could hear Foe whisper, “If you come with us, you get to hang with the girls. I’ve got dibs on the blonde in white, but stick around. There’s many more where they came from. As long as you’ve got the skills you think you’ve got, you should do fine.”

[The Great Sue Hunt]

Foe frowned as he heard the news. “Kagome, do me a favor and call DA back, figure out where in Gotham they’re going to be. I really don’t want to show up with our usual ragtag look and get mistaken for the latest bunch of Joker wannabes or the like.”

He walked over to the table where the new Author was sitting up, still looking a little groggy. He grabbed the guy’s hand, surprised at the hidden strength there, and pulled him to his feet. “In case you missed the introductions, I’m Foe. Who are you?”

“Demorta?” the kid answered. It sounded like a question, as if he wasn’t sure himself. “I mean, Demorta. My name is Demorta.”

Foe nodded. “Do you know what a Mary Sue is?”

“I think so?” Demorta asked. “Some sort of really crappy fanfic writer, right?”

Foe shrugged. “Close enough for me. Congratulations, you are hereby drafted into…well, we don’t have a name, but we go around tracking down Mary Sues and making sure they don’t pose a threat to the multiverse. You have, as I just pointed out, been drafted into helping us fighting against them. You, apparently, are an Author, just like the rest of us.”

“What does that mean?” Demorta asked.

“Just that you wield an incredible amount of power that could get us all into a lot of trouble if someone isn’t there to keep an eye on you,” Foe explained.

“That explains the cars…” Demorta mumbled.

“What?” Foe asked.

“Nothing.”

Foe frowned. “Ok. Well, anyway. Looks like the Sues are out in Gotham, so that’s where we’re headed next, and you’re coming with us.” He turned to the girls. “Jem! Kagome! Come on, we’re moving out!”

“Wait!” Michelle called as she came hurrying in from another room. She had changed into a skintight white costume with gold highlights, and a large blue star centered on her chest. She flew across the room and landed gracefully next to Foe. “I’ve decided I’m coming with you.”

“You are?” Foe and Booster asked at the same time.

“I am,” she insisted, whirling on her brother. “You and Rip are disappearing at all hours and coming back whenever the two of you want. Well, this time its my turn. I’m going to go have an adventure of my own, and you can stay here and take care of Rani. And don’t try to argue this with me, because I have already made up my mind! There’s nothing you can say to keep me here!”

She linked her arm in Foe’s and said, “Let’s go.”

Foe looked at Booster and shrugged, gleefully hiding the smile from his face. Things were looking up, it seemed. There were Sues to kill, and a hot girl on his arm. His ride was waiting out front, and he was in a world he knew like the back of his hand, so there wasn’t much in the way of surprises waiting for him. He was actually whistling as they walked out of the building.

Only to stop dead when he spotted that Tarenth bastard Kelk leaning against Cal.

“FOE!” Kelk hollered with a wave at the same time Cal whined, “He won’t leave me alone!”

“Foe, who is that?” Jem asked as she moved to hover near his shoulder.

“That,” Foe growled, pointing to the man leaning against his car, “is Kelk. The reason he’s only wearing a pair of bright purple pants and nothing else is because of the fact that he’s simply not human. He’s from a race known as the Tarenth. Don’t ask where they’re from, because I’m not entirely sure myself. I only ran into him when we both ended up getting captured by the Ulatarim, who, if you can’t guess, are another alien race. Long story short, Kelk is a scoundrel’s scoundrel. Thief, playboy, and all around troublemaker. Inadvertently worshipped on at least three planets that I know of as a mischief god. I can pretty much guarantee he’ll try to get into your pants at one point or another, and will probably even succeed. On the other hand, there’s only two other people I’d rather have my back in a fight, and if he gives you his word he’ll never break it. Possibly bend it into a pretzel, but not actually break it.”

[The Greater Travels of Foe: Walkin' the Wasteland]

After checking if they had any rooms (they didn't) I asked for some directions for work. I got aimed towards Sunny Smiles, the local troubleshooter. She was cute enough, and I wondered if my lackanookie situation was finally coming to an end. She was interested in me, all right, but more for my shooting skills than anything else. Ah well, at least I'd be getting paid, which was a step up in the world.

Not a bad shot for someone who just got out of bed.

Next up was some hunting apparently the local pests were getting into trouble down at the water supply, and we had to go deal with. It seemed like an easy enough task. Put a couple bullet holes in a few rats would probably be the easiest thing in the world, as far as I was concerned.

Except that those were the ugliest lizard rats in the world. As I got close the strange glove the Doc gave me began to chime. I felt it stab me with something, and the next thing I know all this crap was popping up in front of my eyes. It was clearly some sort of combat aid, giving me percentages and aiming points. There was probably a couple of combat drugs mixed in as well, as everything seemed to slow down for a minute. Not that it mattered though, as it only took a couple of bullets to finish the job. Next thing I know, I've scored a couple bottle of water from this blonde who was about to get ravaged, and Sunny tossed me a few bottlecaps for a job well done. Not exactly the greatest of rewards, but then I guess I wasn't expecting lavish riches from such a small town.

[The Greater Travels of Foe: Walkin' the Wasteland]

In my greater travels through the multiverse I've been many place and done many things. Along the way I've collected a different artifacts and companions, as well as suffered great trials and tribulations. Every once in a while, when I remember to, I document these travels so that I can share those experiences with others as well as remember what a fucking idiot I was. This is one such adventure, when I found myself stumbling around the Las Vegas Wasteland, years after the bombs had fallen...

The last thing I remembered was taking a job down at some sort of Pony Express type office. I had been wandering around the Wasteland for a couple of days, basically just taking in the sights, and hey, what better way to play tourist than to be given a specific destination? The entire thing was a little weird, since all they wanted me to do was take this poker chip to New Vegas. Struck me as odd, because seriously, even if it is a post apocalyptic wasteland, but shouldn't they have poker chips in New Vegas? Anyway, I didn't get past the town lines before some dude popped out in a bad striped suit with a couple of thugs. He demanded the chip, I said no, and next thing I know I'm getting buried alive.

Next thing I know, I'm waking up in a haze of white light, some fan spinning lazily overhead. I guess it beats waking up in a grave, though.

Some old guy was sitting in a chair next to my bed. Told me his name was Doc Brown, and that he'd helped dig me out of the ground. There'd been a bullet rattling around my skull, but he'd pulled it out and tried to patch me back together. His hands looked a little unsteady though, so I decided to check in a mirror to make sure I was my good ol' handsome self.

Not bad, not bad, though I must have been out for a quite a while to grow that mustache. Either way, I congratulated the Doc on doing a good job. I think he might have even cleaned my teeth for me, weird as that seemed...

Of course, that didn't stop the greedy bastard from stealing my clothes...

He wanted to check me out, make sure I was feeling fine. I asked if that meant he was going to perform a physical, but he instead he walked me over to a beaten looking arcade game. Ok, so maybe Doc Brown wasn't the greatest medical practitioner in the world. I never did do great with these things, but reached down and gave it a good squeeze anyway. Must not have been hard enough, because it insisted I was an cursed ugly bastard. Now, the cursed thing I couldn't argue, seeing as I had just had a bullet pulled out of my head, but ugly?! That just hurt!

After that he sat me down and gave a quick psych test, probably to make sure I hadn't suffered any permanent brain damage. He gave me all sorts of weird questions, even pulling out a Rorschach ink blot.

I wanted to say it sort of looked like a vagina, what with the clit up top and all that, but it didn't seem like an answer he'd appreciate. I probably just need to get laid. Once that was done, he gave me a spare suit and showed me the door. I nodded in thanks, and swiped his medkit.

Welcome to Goodsprings home of...a couple of rundown buildings, some beaten old folk, and a few cheap soldiers. Needing a drink, I decided to head to the local bar.