Mission #30: New Recruits
This is another mission in the category: why are you writing fanfic if you are not going to use the canon characters?
A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum were founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts taken from New Recruits by Wolfman and Sketch. This mission is chronicled by IndeMaat
-oOo-
"Desert camouflage,"Allison said with a disgusted look. "What were you thinking?"
"Fic takes place in the desert," Tasmin simply replied.
"I'm blond. I can't wear beige. I really hate this disguise you picked out."
"You hate all the disguises I pick out."
"That's not true."
Tasmin raised an eyebrow.
Allison thought it over. "Yeah, that is true." She looked around. "So, where are we?"
"Somewhere in Iraq."
"Can you be a little more specific?"
"Somewhere in Iraq in a foxhole."
A foxhole formed itself around the two agents.
"Ill-described fic, ha?"
"Yup."
Two nearby explosions made Allison duck deeply into the foxhole, her hands covering her ears.
"What was that?"
"I'm not sure and neither are the authors." Tasmin pointed at the Words.
Chief Warrant Officer 2nd class, Matt “Duke” Krueger scampered across his squad’s defensive position finding only dead bodies to greet him. With thunderous explosions four grenades or mortars exploded near by and knocked Krueger off his feet and defining him.
"Well, at least they knew the impact was character forming." Allison pushed herself up to look over the edge of the foxhole. She saw a truck driving away.
The American had been caught by the Iraqi Republican Guard. After roughing him up they threw him in the back of a truck.
"I wonder how this collaboration worked," Tasmin pondered.
"There's two OCs. Perhaps they each took care of writing about one of them."
"So, each a chapter or a scene in turn." Tasmin nodded. "That's most practical. Going over each sentence together would take too much time."
"I think the advantage of a co-author is that you already have a beta-reader."
Duke assessed he was a POW. The truck he was in ground to a halt. He was thrown out and broke his left leg.
"Hmm. Time rift coming. Hold on."
"To what? There is nothing here, but sand and rock."
The time rift rocked the world around her as much as the explosions had done earlier. When she looked up again Allison found she was still in the foxhole, but the colour scheme was now black and white.
"What?"
"We're in a flashback. In movies they're often shown in black-and-white. The fic is just trying its best to keep up."
"Whose flashback are we in?"
"The Sue's. She is Commander Shane 'Eyes' Miller of the Royal British Commandos."
"I think she means Royal Marine Commandos."
"I think she means a different unit all together. The commandos don't take on women."
"Perhaps her first name confused them. They thought she was a boy."
"I think they would have found out about their mistake during her first physical fitness exam."
"Perhaps she is extremely flat-chested and hairy."
"Shut up." Tasmin glared at her partner.
Allison looked around. There wasn't much to see: a hill, a building and a dirt road. Up on the hill the Sue and a comrade lay in sniper position.
all she was told was that the guy was an Important Iraqi Leader, the only person she knew that fit that discription was Saddam Hussein, himself, "so" she thought," they want me to take out Saddam unoffically, I don't have a problem with that!
"What?" Allison jumped up. Tasmin quickly pulled her back down. "Does she have any idea how much trouble the military would officially be in if word got out that one of their officers got the unofficial assignment to ambush and kill Saddam?"
"Calm down, will you?"
"Hey, it may not bother you that this Sue is claiming to be British yet she has no qualms about sooting the principles of democracy and fair trial we are supposedly bringing to Iraq, but it does bother me."
"Hey, it bothers me too. Particularly, that she chose to take out Saddam while he was standing trial."
Luckily for the reputation of Britain as a democracy bound to the Rule of Law, the Sue and comrade fouled up and missed the convoy they had been waiting for by a few degrees.
The new Lt decided to get cocky and said "why don't you try and take another shot at him!", She replied under her breath something about 'One Shot, One Kill' and that a second shot would give away their hiding spot.
"Actually, it's the first shot that gives you away," Tasmin commented. "But if the second one follows close enough you can still catch them by surprise."
"I don't think you should give the Sue tactical advice." Allison sat cowering in the foxhole. She didn't like all these explosions much. She wondered how she had been able to sit through each and every one of the episodes of the A-Team.
"She could sure use some." Tasmin shook her head.
The Sue opened fire on the convoy with her rifle.
"An AWM .338 Lapua. Nice." Tasmin licked her lips. "Don't see why she translated the caliber to metric units, though."
"Probably because here Britain has gone totally metric. In this warped little world this Sue has created I bet I can't even buy a pint anymore."
"Write her up for that. And write her up for mistaking an AW, a long range weapon that has a five round feed, for an IW, a submachine gun with a thirty round feed. What point is there to using an accuracy weapon if you're not going to 'pay attention' to whom you take out?"
"No point," Allison concurred.
"You've only got five rounds. You better make them count."
"No point in ranting to me either."
"She would have stood a better chance using her handgun."
One of the Iraqis got close enough to the Sue to poke her in the gut with his own rifle. The Sue was dragged away to a truck and the flashback ended.
Colour returned to the world around Allison. She pushed herself up from her sitting position and looked around for the Words. The Sue was sitting in a prison cell singing songs to comfort herself.
Land of Hope and Glory
"Shut up," Allison hollered.
Tasmin raised her eyebrows at her partner.
"Always wanted to say that sometime." She grinned.
"Couldn't you have said it a little more quietly?"
"Doesn't work the same if you say it quietly."
The Sue didn't seem to be bothered by Allison's outburst as she kept on singing. Her voice, however, suddenly became muffled. The agents exchanged looks.
"Change of scene with change of POV," Tasmin determined.
In the cell next to the Sue's Duke woke up. Their introductions to one another were followed by an explosion that made the walls collapse.
"C'mon, get a hold of yourself Krueger, time to climb out of hell and get back home." Thought the beaten and hurting Warrant officer, slowly he made his way out of the rubble and into the night air finding chaos.
"That man must be in excruciating pain. He just broke his leg and now it gets caught under debris."
"Would it be too much to ask to imagine that the Iraqis that imprisoned him had put a cast on his leg and gave him plenty of morphine to fight the pain?"
"I don't think the world of this fic is that warped."
The Sue also dug herself out of the rubble.
Location: Somewhere in Iraq
Time: 0547 Local
Shane looked over at the Army Ranger
"Whom she couldn't see because morning twilight hadn't started yet, it was a new moon and the explosion had damaged the village's generator so there wasn't any electrical light either."
"You're forgetting about the fire that was started by the impact of the projectile."
"You're not helping." Tasmin glared at her partner.
"Besides, there was no mention of a generator, or a new moon."
"The Words previously said that it was August, 24th 2006. New moon was at August, 23rd 2006 at about 11.00 PM. Should still be new moon now. In fact, today moonrise is going to take place after sunrise. And sunrise doesn't take place until after 6.20 AM."
Allison gaped at her partner. "How do you know this?"
Tasmin shrugged. "It's the sort of thing I know."
"What, of every where?"
"Try me."
"Sunrise time of Perth on the 12th of February 1993?"
Tasmin thought for a moment.
"Southern Hemisphere too difficult for you?"
"Ten to six in the morning, give or take a couple of minutes."
"Moonset in Cardiff on 21 May 1975?"
"3 AM."
Allison gaped at her partner some more. "Look, Rainman," she finally managed, "you mind if we stop by in Vegas or Monte Carlo after this mission is over?"
"I don't count cards." Tasmin scrambled out of the foxhole.
"Doesn't matter, I'm sure they have a sideshow for freaks," Allison muttered. She got up and cautiously followed her partner.
The Sue had laid Duke down in a comfortable position to get her sidearm and knife. They were still in the hiding place where she had left them. Duke kept falling in and out of consciousness.
She carefully lifted Krueger and started to almost drag him off in the direction she had originally arrived in when she came on this Op. They made a slow trek of about 60 Klicks before the cool evening air hit them, and another day in the scorching heat and thirst became their main worry, just as she was hoping to find a good place to hole up and find some food, she noticed a faint glow in the distance.
"We're not going to follow them are we?" Allison asked. "I'm not a commando. I'm pretty sure I will die if I walk 60 kilometres in the desert without water. I happen to know Iraq has hot cloudless summers."
"I have water."
"Sun's not even out and you have sunstroke."
Tasmin chuckled. "We're taking a portal. I'm not taking the risk of having to carry you 40 clicks." She opened a portal.
"Can you even lift me?" Allison asked as she stepped through it. "I bet I've got at least 20 pounds on you."
-oOo-
The glow the Sue had detected came from a small camp. Tasmin told Allison to make a note that the sun had not set yet so there was no need for glowing fires. And that Duke, despite his broken leg and being dragged for 60 clicks, could still head off in some direction on his own. Tasmin started to smile.
'"What?" Allison asked. She tried to get comfortable behind the little sand dune they had chosen for a hiding place.
"Duke's my first Marty Sam, a male Mary Sue. They are rare."
"Really? I caught a Gary Stu on my second mission."
"Was that in that fandom where you ran out of Sues after three missions?"
"That be the one," Allison replied cheerfully.
Tasmin glared at her partner. She pulled a pair of night vision goggles from one of her pockets and turned her attention to the Sue. Despite Tasmin's claim that the sun hadn't set yet the fic had decided to follow the Sue's lead and made it dark.
"Where did you get those?"
"They came with the uniform."
Allison rolled her eyes. Of course they did.
"Charge: the A-Team has made a fire in enemy territory that can be seen from a distance."
"Are there any other kinds of fires?"
"No idea, but I doubt the A-Team would be making one of the first kind."
Allison searched her pockets and found a small penlight. The light helped her write up the charge. She quickly flicked it off before the Sue would notice its glow too. She was starting to take a liking to this uniform. There were all kinds of useful things in its pockets.
"You know." Tasmin put down the night goggles and turned to Allison. "The whole walking sixty clicks in about thirteen hours wouldn't have bothered me much if the Sue had first made a splint for Sam's broken leg, used whatever rubbish was lying around to build a travois, and scavenged for twenty minutes to find some food and water."
"What is a travois?"
"Sort of a sledge. She could have put Sammy-boy on it and pulled him through the desert. I'm sure commandos are dedicated to not leaving one of their own behind, but don't they teach them how to do that without getting killed in the process?"
"I would think creative survival skills would be an important part of their education."
"Exactly. Write the Sue up for having failed commando training."
Allison flicked on her penlight. "Not surprising as the RMC doesn't take on women."
"That's not necessarily the same. In 2001 the RMC accepted three women for commando training. None of them finished for various reasons, but that the RMC doesn't take on women obviously doesn't mean they won't give them commando training."
Allison nodded and turned off her penlight after she had jotted down the charge. She hadn't found any night goggles in her uniform pockets so she settled for following the fic through the Words.
The Sue crept up to the four men around the fire until she could make out the faces of three of them: BA, Hannibal and Murdock. Suddenly the fire flared, sending up a bright white light.
Tasmin pulled her night goggles off with a scream. "I think she has blinded me." Tasmin rubbed a hand over her eyes. "What happened?"
Slightly panicked Allison looked over the Words.
All she could make out of the fourth was the color of his hair, which was a mousy blonde, which was neatly cut but that was all she could see from where she was.
"It seems our Sue was able to make out Face's hair colour who was sitting between her and the fire."
Tasmin grunted in reply. "All hair gets a golden glow in firelight."
"She called him mousy blond."
"He's not going to like that."
"Don't think she's going to say it to him face to face."
Tasmin felt around for her goggles. "In the meantime, she's caused me to see spots. Why couldn't she have just seen his silhouette and said something about his shoulders?"
"Probably because readers know Face as the blond guy with the smile. Not as the guy with the strong shoulders that don't require shoulder pads." Allison swooned. "Hmm. Face's shoulders. Face has nice shoulders. I'm glad the A-Team often went on missions that required a wardrobe for him to show them off."
Tasmin coughed. "Could you pay attention, please. Until my vision returns I have to rely on your eyes to keep track of this fic."
"Right." Allison returned her attention to the Words that glowed up in the dark as stars only she could see. She narrated the short summary to Tasmin.
BA and Hannibal got up to inspect the noise the Sam was making. The Sue crept up closer to Face and waited for Murdock to get up and go into one of the tents before she jumped up and put a knife to Face' throat.
"Plot contrivance," Tasmin noted. "If Murdock hadn't gotten up she could have waited for the fire to turn cold before making her move."
"What I find interesting is that she heard Murdock and Face talk to one another, but didn't deduce from their accents they might be friendly forces."
"Perhaps she thought they were Americans that had crossed over to the dark side."
"She didn't think anything of their accents."
The Sue gave Face instruction and then removed her hand that had been covering his mouth. Murdock returned.
She slowly removed her hand from 'Face's' mouth, just as his ball cap wearing friend returned from the tents and sat down next to him.
"Without noticing her," Allison added.
"Did our Sue become invisible?"
"That, or she gave Murdock night blindness."
"He couldn't have become a pilot if he had night blindness."
"Then there's the option that the Sue can actually hide in Face's shadow."
"And Face is so impressed by being held at knife point he forgets to give Murdock winked coded messages."
"Do they have those?"
"I don't know, but they know each other through and through. One look and they know there is trouble."
"It gets worse though. With Murdock there still sitting beside them she manages to whisper some more into Face's ear."
"Perhaps Murdock is supposed to lull her into a false sense of security." Tasmin chuckled.
"The A-Team doesn't do false sense of security. They do the 'point gun to head of enemy and take away their weapons' kind of security."
"Good point."
"I mean, did she give him sunstroke? In the flickering light he sees someone holding his friend at knife point, the patch on her arm shows she's British. Oh well, he thinks, the British are our buddies-"
"We never think that."
Allison briefly grunted, then she continued on Murdock's supposed trail of thought: "I'll just sit down and see if there is also something sharp she'd like to point at me. Has he never heard of dress up?!"
"Have you never heard of keeping your rants short so we can get through this fic quicker?"
Allison grunted again, but didn't start an argument on lengthy rants.
BA and Hannibal brought the Sam back to the camp.
"Part of her plan was for her comrade to get caught by potential hostiles? I think we've just met our dumbest Sue to date!" Tasmin exclaimed. "She drags him nearly forty miles through the desert and then she lets him get caught?"
"That may not have been part of the plan." Allison started to laugh. "I think this is the first time we are both ranting about the Sue."
"Yeah, I noticed too. You don't usually rant. Do you need some chocolate to make you feel better?"
"Thanks, I found the stash in my own uniform." Alison pulled a block of Swiss chocolate from her pocket, opened the packet and broke off a piece.
The fire flared up bright white again.
"What was that?" Tasmin grabbed for Allison's arm. Her vision was still mostly blotches, but she had noticed that.
Allison checked he Words. "Apparently the Sam can see the Sue where Murdock couldn't and now he gives away her position.
Shane groaned and stood up shaking her head in disbelief at what Duke had just done, the men in the group including the Blonde haired 'Face' guy (when had 'Face' gotten up?, she thought), were looking towards her in shock as they saw the light of the fire glinting off of her knife which she still held tightly in her hands to protect herself if the occasion arose.
"The Sue started yelling at Sam," Allison narrated. "Her plan was for the Sam to get caught so who ever had him could give him medical aid, but now she was a prisoner too."
"A long-winded prisoner."
"Sunstroke must have made her delirious."
"Nah, delirium is a core characteristic of a Sue."
"Hannibal asks her what is going on and the Sue goes off on a rant about being given away again."
"Ranting seems to be contagious."
"I'm not sharing my chocolate with her." Allison broke off another piece and started chewing on it. Her jaws moved menacingly and she didn't stop to give Tasmin the play-by-play.
As she looked over at this man, she noticed that he had alook of understanding on his face and that he was nodding his head at the words she had just told them, she then realised that his face was quite good looking considering he had the peak of his cap pulled low over his eyes.
Tasmin knew from the "umph" her partner made it was better not to ask.
"Apparently Face wants to comfort her," Allison said in the time it took her to break off another piece of chocolate.
"Why? Did she drop the knife, take a shower, put on some pretty clothes and some make-up?"
"Nope, because she has two X-chromosomes."
"Face performed a DNA test on her?"
Allison scowled at her partner for a moment before she realised that they were both commenting on the same faulty Sue logic: Face making a pass at any woman under any circumstance. She swallowed her nasty reply. Instead she read the Words and said: "The Sue finally decided to rattle off her name, rank and serial number. To the surprise of everyone."
"They're surprised at a female commando, at least that's something."
"Nope, they seem to be surprised that a commando can rattle off her name, rank and serial number."
Letting out a deep sigh Tasmin dropped her head against Allison's shoulder.
Allison quickly stuffed some chocolate in her partner's mouth. "Don't give up now. We'll make it through this. We've been through worse," Allison said to lift her partner's spirits.
"When? " Tasmin moaned.
"Er, I can't quite recall, but there must be some reason I blank out large chunks of the mission we've been on."
"Sounds reasonable." Tasmin sat up straight again. "It also seems my vision is returning."
The Sue continued to tell about her mission and how it had gone wrong.
"Everything you tell now doesn't have to be tortured out of you later." Tasmin felt around for her duffel bag and pulled out two bottles of water. She passed one on to Allison.
"True. Thanks." Allison screwed off the cap and took a large gulp. So did Tasmin.
Shane stopped and shuddered, the group noticed this even though she had tried to hide the fact but without any luck.
Before anyone could move to comfort her she once more continued,
Tasmin nearly chocked on her water. "What's with all the comforting for crying out loud? She's a Green Beret; they're Green Berets. They do not sit around the campfire holding hands."
"I think the Sue is showing why the RMC doesn't take on women."
"And a good job she does of it too." Tasmin pulled a bar of chocolate from one of her own pockets, and almost ate it wrapper and all.
Shane looked the man squarely in the face and replied in a voice that dripped with venom, "The S.O.B. beheaded my Lieutenant right in front of me, no questions asked, no trial, no nothing!
"Ah, well," Allison said calmly. "You were about to bestow the same honour on Saddam. Don't expect fair trials from your enemies if you are not at least willing to offer them yourself."
"She is entitled to a little anger. She was about to kill someone in front of his men, no questions asked, no trial, no nothing. We know how upset the Iraqis got over that."
"Good to hear your sarcasm returned in the wake of your vision." Allison toasted Tasmin's water bottle with hers.
"I think the sarcasm was never gone."
After the Sue had related her entire story up to the point she met the Sam, Hannibal introduced the A-Team. The Sue was impressed. The Sam was still falling in and out of consciousness. It caused the view of himself to switch from first to third person.
Voices tumbling around my head saying things everything fading in and out slowly ever so slowly the sounds become words and words shortly thereafter convey meaning and the haze slowly starts to lift from Duke’s mind.
He heard the Sue bantering with the A-Team and either recognized her voice or her trademark response. He asked her how her brother was. The shock of recognition caused the fic to switch to present tense shortly.
"Oah,"Allison groaned. "Too much chocolate. I'm feeling a little carsick."
"I don't think it was the chocolate that did that," Tasmin replied. "I think it's this fic that is suddenly pressing heavily upon us. I'm even getting a little short of breath." Tasmin drank her water bottle empty and returned it to her duffel bag.
"What's causing that?"
Tasmin pointed up. "The Words are all bold. They're pressing on us as clouds on a hot day."
Allison felt a wind rustle through her hair. "Time rift?" she shouted over the accompanying noise.
"No, helicopter," Tasmin shouted back.
As if on cue a blacked out MH-53 made a landing about 100 yards away from where we were all sitting. The doors opened and red light spilled out, the next thing I knew I was assisted up and we all made our way into the helicopter. Only one person was carried and it was not Duke.
"I suggest we take a portal and discuss somewhere else whether the Sam should have been the one being carried." Allison choked on some sand that was blown in her mouth.
"I doubt discussion is necessary." Tasmin opened a portal nonetheless and the two agents went through it as quickly as possible.
-oOo-
The portal had brought the agents to a den.
"I think I may have taken us a little too far," Tasmin said.
Allison eyed their new disguises: power suits. An unusual choice for a disguise, but not one she disliked a priori. "Whatever. I'm go not going back into that sandbox. You'll just have to read up on it. " Allison discovered the new disguise came with a holster in the low of her back. It was, however, empty.
Tasmin sat down on the edge of the table and turned her attention to the words.
The helicopter took the A-Team and extras to a little airstrip where a Leer Jet was waiting. BA had woken up and was complaining about having to get on a plane. On the plane was a CIA man that complained about the A-Team taking live cargo with them; the Sue and the Sam complained that the CIA man had no consideration for the POWs that had just been tortured. Everyone got over their gripes -- the CIA man grudgingly -- and the plane took off.
“Well, looks like we have some decisions to make here people, do we recruit them or let them go on their merry way?” Hanable asked his team.
"What!" Tasmin jumped up.
"That's an unusual mini. Guess we have to find that plane after all."
"I didn't mean that. Hannibal doesn't know these clowns from Adam and he wants to recruit them on this Team. What does he think they will add?"
"If they are really clowns, lots of merriment."
Tasmin narrowed her eyes and glared at her partner.
"They're Soldier!Sues. It would be surprising if they didn't join the Team." Allison waved it away. "Now, question. Why does my disguise have a skirt, but does yours have trousers?"
Tasmin shrugged. "You have better legs than I."
The Sue and the Sam were taken to a CIA safe house where they received medical attention. A few days later Hannibal went to visit the Sam and gave him two options: to return to his unit or join the A-Team. He gave him a day to think about it. Then he went over to the room of the Sue.
The door to the den stood slightly ajar and the two PPC agents watched what was going on, peering carefully around the door.
standing in the doorway was Shane with her hair down and slightly damp, wearing shorts and tee shirt that read 'I may be a Pain in the butt...' on the front and on the back it read, 'but I'm a Military Pain in the butt!. "
"I want one of those CIA issue T-shirts,"Allison said.
"What makes you think it is CIA issue?"
"Well, it's not army regulation; she didn't have an overnight bag with her when she escaped the prison cell; I doubt the CIA had let her go shopping just yet from a safe house, thus the CIA must have supplied that T-shirt to her themselves."
"Fair enough. Put it on your Christmas list. And while you're writing that down, write her up for twirling around for Hannibal to show it off."
Allison took a note while Hannibal went into the room.
"What can I do for you Colonel?" asked Shane as she picked up a brush from the dresser and noticing his smirk in the mirror 'He's reading the shirt' she thought, and started to brush her long hair into a long ponytail that hung down to her butt, even tied up her hair was longer than regulation dictated, but she hated having short hair, it just wasn't her.
"And write her up for breaking regulation and getting away with it."
"It's a Sue thing."
"Short hair isn't her thing," Tasmin taunted. "Long hair isn't the army's thing. Or does your army have a thing for long hair?" Tasmin looked at her partner.
"Er, if I'd have to guess: no. But who knows that kind of Mohawks they have underneath those Beefeater hats."
Hannibal gave the Sue three options.
"Why is she getting three options?" Allison asked.
"Because he knows she's fickle." Tasmin shook her head. "Not only does she get more options she also gets to think about them longer."
"I was just thinking. Here we have two Sues, one clearly a bigger Sue than the other."
"I'm not so sure about that yet."
"Which one do we kill first?"
"First we charge them, then we kill them."
"Not really an answer to my question."
"We have to go. This chapter has come to an end." Tasmin opened up a portal.
Allison closed the door of the den. "We're not going back into the sandbox, are we?"
"Not just yet." Tasmin picked up her duffel bag and jerked her head sideways to indicate Allison should step through the portal.
-oOo-
When the story continued six months had passed. The Sam had joined the Team, the Sue had not. Yet. The Sue was drilling a batch of new commando recruits. Allison and Tasmin had joined the drill line in their disguises of a six foot tall and a six foot one tall man respectively.
"I personally know of a 'Yank' who has survived more shit than most people and walked out of hell all fucked up, but alive!, I don't even think that you lot have what it takes to do that yet! That is the reason you are here to learn how to get out alive if you are caught!" Shane added with some vehmence.
One recruit got's cocky and went, "Oh Yeah!, and how would you know about that Ma'am?, I thought that incident was classified!"
Allison coughed lightly to get the attention of her partner who stood next to her. "A recruit knows about a classified incident," she said from the corner of her mouth.
Tasmin coughed back. "A recruit speaks before spoken to."
The Sam came bobbling up to the Sue wearing a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and a tan beret.
Allison shivered. "It's late February. We're in Devon, England. I know it's warm for the time of the year, but it's hardly weather for wearing shorts."
"Should be about ten degrees Celsius now. That's fifty in Fahrenheit."
"What? Are you a human thermometre as well?"
"It's a statistic." Tasmin shrugged.
Allison decided to ask no further.
The Sue greeted the Sam and asked how he was doing. The Sam said he had a new job and that they'd like her to join too.
" You remember the guys who pulled us out of the cat box?"
" Yeah" replied Shane, all the while the mouths of the recruits were getting wider and wider with all the new info they were hearing.
"This is supposed to be Britain's finest? They can't even control their jaw muscles."
"Cut them some slack. These men are trained to face the atrocities of war, not the atrocities of fiction. Most PPC agents twitched when they saw their first Sue."
"A lot of PPC agents twitch at every Sue they meet."
"it means me giving up my cushy job baby sitting these newbies and training them to be 'the best of the best', and my regular paycheque."
"Well that will all be taken care of, if you decide to join us."
"Your mission, should you choose to accept it," Tasmin said. Allison chuckled. The Sue glared in their direction. Quickly they both stood to attention.
The Sam suggested going to the range for some target practice.
The recruits groaned at the mention of the range
"Defamation of character of Royal Marine Commando recruits," Allison growled.
"I thought we already had that one."
"No, we already had defamation of character of the Royal Marine Commandos. This is a different charge."
"If you say so."
The Sue told the recruits to be at the range in 20 minutes with their equipment and dismissed them. The line-up turned about face and set off in line at a running pace. Tasmin and Allison ran in-line with them, but turned right when the group passed a conveniently placed motor vehicle. The agents cautiously looked over the hood to further follow the antics of the Sue and the Sam.
According to the Sam the Sue had scared Face into still being afraid of strong willed women.
"Yeah, right," Tasmin said. "What's with these Sues and always putting down Face?"
"I think it's revenge. Face would never look at a girl like Sue twice, so he has to be punished for his insolence."
Tasmin quickly ducked and pulled Allison down with her as the Sue and the Sam walked passed the truck the agents were hiding behind.
"How many 3x5 notecards do you think we can liberate before we can get to the range?"
"How many do you need?", asked Shane reaching into her jacket pocket and holding up a wad of 3x5 notecards 8" thick, "I always bring more than I need, in case I need to relieve a little stress!", she added with a grin.
"Those were note cards?" Allison said. "I thought she was anatomically a little lopsided."
"Well, she is, if one of her hands is big enough to hold on a wad of cards that is eight inches thick."
"Typo or bad maths?"
"If it's a typo it is most likely she mis-hit the four or the five. That's still pretty thick."
"Or she mistook the numerical keypad on the computer keyboard for the keypad of a phone or remote control and meant to hit the two."
"The two would be possible to hold on to. Still would make her look lopsided, though."
The Sue and the Sam continued with their jibber-jabber until they were out of sight and hearing range of the two agents. Allison leaned against the wheel of the truck. "Do we charge them now, and by that I mean, before they get their guns and cannons?"
"I don't know. We definitely have enough charges against them for being Sues male slash female, plot inconsistencies and defamation of character of established institutions, but we haven't got all that much on them for misrepresentation of the A-Team."
"We have bashing Face, Hannibal out of character for wanting to recruit them, and Murdock OOC or night blind for not seeing her. And BA forgetting his fear of flying on the plane."
"Not really enough. I suggest we wait until they have hooked up with the A-Team again."
"That could be a while. They're probably first going to show off their targeting skills at the firing range."
"I say we wait."
Quietly the agents waited by the truck. After a while Allison got bored and asked Tasmin how long they had been waiting already.
"About two minutes."
"Feels more like two years," Allison replied. She leaned back against the wheel.
A portal opened a few yards in front of the agents. A projectile was thrown from it and the portal closed again. Both agents ducked to get out of the trajectory of the piece of paper wrapped around a brick. It made a dent in the truck.
Tasmin picked up the brick and removed the note. "It says here we can't come back to headquarters until we have charged the Sue."
"We knew that already." Allison rolled her eyes. "Do they even know you're on this mission? You'd never go back without charging the Sue." She stood up. "It doesn't look like there's going to be any action any time soon. I'm getting hungry. Let's find these Sues, charge them, kill them and go back to the office."
"Fine." Tasmin got up too. "But if it turns out we did not have enough fandom charges, it's going to be your head that's going to roll first."
"If we hurry we can just catch up with the Sues." Allison started at running pace in the direction of the Sue and the Sam. Not much later she had caught up with them.
"Commander Shane 'Eyes' Miller?"
The Sue turned around when Allison called her name. "Yeah?"
"We're with the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. We're here to charge you with crimes against fanfiction in general and A-Team fandom in particular, but since you managed to write an A-Team fanfic with hardly any A-Team in it, I will mostly charge you with the former."
"What are you talking about, charging me?"
Allison ignored the question and pulled her note pad from a pocket. "We charge you with being a Mary Sue. You are a woman in the Royal Marine Commandos -- which for some reason you call the Royal British Commandos -- which doesn't have any female commandos. You take on an assignment to kill Saddam in an ambush, while the British military would never give you such an assignment, particularly not because Saddam was standing trial at the time you took a shot at him.
"We charge you with dragging a man -- him," Allison pointed, "through the desert during the day for 60 kilometres and without water. Not to mention that he outweighs you by at least 60 pounds."
"Excuse me. I'm a commando. That's how dedicated we are to saving our buddies."
Allison looked up. "Shall I add defamation of character of the RMC to the list of charges? You are making them look stupid by not applying any survival skills or tactics before setting off for a trip through the desert."
The Sue glared at her. She might have attacked Allison, if it weren't for the fact that the agent stood out of arms reach and Tasmin had a gun trained on the Sue.
"Further we charge you with not knowing when the sun rises or sets in Iraq, thus making it light when it should be dark and dark when it should be light. We charge you with translating the caliber of a gun to metric units. We charge you with using a long range weapon with five rounds for randomly shooting around."
"I was panicking."
"You sure were. But considering the training you were supposed to have had, that's no excuse. Oh yeah, we charge you with defamation of character of RMC recruits. They don't have loose jaw muscles and most of them have shot a handgun before they made it as a recruit.
"Then we have a bunch of charges against you for making the A-Team look stupid. They would not make a fire in enemy territory that could be seen from a distance. Murdock would notice if there was someone sitting right behind Face holding a knife to his throat whispering things at him. Face would not offer comfort to a fellow Green Beret, particularly not if that person had moments earlier held a knife to his throat. The guy has some standards: he does not come on to women who have threatened to kill him. Hannibal would not ask someone they had just pulled out of the desert to join the Team. How would he possibly know you could be of use to the Team? And BA does not fly."
"Are you done?" the Sue asked as Allison paused to study her notes.
Allison shrugged. "Pretty much so. You have been charged. Do you understand these charges? Your punishment is death. Tasmin will execute you now."
The Sue started to argue, but Tasmin caught her off by shooting her in the head. The Sue fell to the ground. The Sam quickly raised his cane and threatened the agents with it.
Allison gave him a weary look. "Chief Warrant Officer Second Class, Matt 'Duke' Krueger. We charge you with bad spelling, bad grammar, switching point of view and tenses. We charge you with still being able to head off in some direction with a broken leg after having spent a day being dragged through a desert without any water. We charge you with being asked to join the A-Team without the Team knowing who you are or whether your leg will ever properly heal. Seen as it is now six months after you broke it and you are still walking with a cane, I can't really see how you could be of much use to the A-Team. Other than that the four of them are probably geriatrics in this story, and despite your bum leg you are probably the fittest of the lot.
"We charge you with not being carried aboard the helicopter despite your injuries, with wearing shorts in winter and with being a Marty Sam. Your punishment is also death and Tasmin will also shoot you."
Tasmin had fired her gun before Allison had finished talking.
Allison put her note pad away. "That's done. Do we need to find that recruit that spoke out of line and shoot him too?"
Tasmin thought about it for a moment. "Let's leave him. He's own stupidity will probably kill him sooner or later." She returned her gun to her duffel bag and pulled out the remote activator. "Let's get you fed."
-oOo-
A/N: Giving exact times and dates for when scenes are taking place requires that the circumstances -- like whether it is dark or what temperature it is -- match those times. Fair enough, most readers will not look up the exact temperature it was in Devon on 26 February 2007, but most have enough grasp of geography and climate to think it was too chilly to wear shorts and a t-shirt. It's little details like that that can throw a reader from a story just as easily as a trek through the desert.