"Dionne!" Clark called, hanging his coat on a hook just inside the front door. "How are you, hon?"

"I'm all right," Dionne smiled, emerging from the kitchen and hugging Clark tightly. "I have some stuff I need to explain to you, okay? It's-"

"Did James blow up the basement again?" Clark's grin vanished. "Because we can afford to have it redone, but he blew it up last year too and if he does-"

"No, honey, it's nothing to do with James. What would you say if I told you life was a book?"

"I'd—wait, is life a book?"

"Yes, and the author of that book is in the bedroom upstairs. Also she's fourteen. And we have a platoon of military officers upstairs grieving the loss of their commander, who was exploded just now."

"..April fool's?"

"No, seriously."

"I'm having trouble believing this, Dionne," Clark looked at her sternly.

"Go upstairs to our bedroom- I think that's where Candace is- and talk to her, I've really got to run. If I don't get to the hospital in time I don't know what will happen." Dionne wasn't normally thankful for working the night shift at the ER, but it did give her an excuse to dash and leave explanation to the kids.

Clark nodded hesitantly and kissed her goodbye, shutting the door after her and slowly climbing the stairs.

He was surprised to see a that a young girl actually was in their room, asleep on her stomach. He sat down next to her and shook her shoulder gently.

"Excuse me?"

Candace woke immediately and took a minute to get her bearings. "Okay, um, you're Clark, yeah?"

Clark blinked. "Yes, I am."

"So you're confused." Candace surmised.

Clark nodded silently under the impression that this would all make sense in a minute.

Clark immediately had specific and detailed knowledge of their predicament. He blinked.

"You see why we need to be here?" Candace asked as if she'd just explained everything verbally.

Clark nodded, speechless. "Oh, my God, I-"

"It's not a problem. Just let us be." Candace said, getting up. "Also, try not to associate with the neighbors too much."

"But where're you going?"

"James has been in the company of Felicetie Calliandria Hyacinth Songbird Smytheford for far too long." Candace said, leaving.

"Excuse me?" Candace knocked on the front door of the Smytheford mansion. She took a moment to think about it- this was a lower-middle-class neighborhood, the mansion stood out. She rolled her eyes. The Sues were not to be comprehended, only to be eliminated.

"Ah!" Felicetie opened the door and arranged her perfect features into a smile worth millions. "Candace! How are you? Please come in!"

Candace could hardly disobey.

The door was shut. Candace's heart sank. The first rule of flamery- never, under any circumstances, leave yourself alone with any Sue or Suethor. Despite her position as the foremost teenage author of her era- something she knew to be vaguely Sueish but at the same time couldn't bring herself to get rid of- she was nowhere near powerful enough to battle the higher orders of annoying perfection.

"Ah, authors. So gullible," Felicetie sighed happily. "Honestly, Candace dear, did you really think an author and five- no, four, sorry, I forgot about Scarface-"

Candace growled, deep in her throat, and narrowed her eyes. Dante had been a special favorite.

"-protagonists could really battle me? Me?" Felicetie laughed. "I knew I could get you over here if I just eliminated James Marlowe. Wonderful fellow, if a bit girly-"

"He was a bishounen, you virago, honor his legac-" Candace was suddenly unable to speak.

"Silence, rapscallion!"

Rapscallion? Really?

"But now that you're here- the author of the AMSEG, really-"

"My mother headed the DOBF for years before I was born, and I inherit it when she dies! This is my life, dash it, I'm not going to let you just-"

"SHUT UP, you- you-" Felicetie seemed at a loss for words. "I can just kill you and be done with it!"

The part of Candace's author's conscience (the part of her that was forever analyzing, recording, and making up characters, stories, and ideas) diagnosed Felicetie with severe antisocial and aggressive-narcissistic personality disorders, possibly bipolarity, and, if she was very very lucky, a superiority complex.

Very suddenly, a blinding light erupted from the center of the foyer where the Sue was standing. Candace shielded her eyes until it had dissipated, slowly reintroduced the light, and gasped at what she saw.

Where Felicetie had been standing was a woman- by no means the beauty of modern standards, but with a serenity and air of mystery that made her undeniably attractive. A soft glow radiated around her head and shoulders, and she floated maybe two or three inches off the ground.

While this was surprising, the most astonishing thing about her physical appearance was the huge wings, possibly twenty or so feet in span, that had sprouted from her shoulder blades and now hunched against the ceiling as if they were straining to be released.

"That's- that's not possible-" Candace breathed, her author's conscience going into overdrive.

Felicetie laughed, and it was the most beautiful and yet the most terrifying thing Candace had ever heard.

"No, seriously," Candace regained some ground. "The human musculoskeletal structure wouldn't accommodate that kind of appendage, people really aren't strong enough. Where're the bones attached? And you still have arms, that really shouldn't work like that."

"No-one's ever-" Felicetie started, stunned.

"No, you shut up. I'm just getting started. How can you fit a five-story, million-square-foot mansion in middle-class residential area like this one, especially between two other houses? And how does that not draw attention? Do you live alone?"

Felicetie nodded.

"See, that shouldn't happen. You're, what, sixteen? So when your parents died-"

"My parents abandoned me when I was a baby, after forcing me to suffer through years of abuse at their hands-"

"Was this abuse verbal, physical, sexual…" Candace trailed off.

"Every horrible thing you can imagine, they did to me," Felicetie sniffed.

"Okay, so they did abuse you sexually. I'm ignoring the baby part for now. But when Will and I met you today you were extremely forward, and you flirted with James earlier in the park. Had you been sexually abused for years, you may have recovered normally but you would not be that promiscuous."

"I am not a slut!"

"Yes, you are, dear. And as for the baby; if you can suffer through years of abuse and then be abandoned as a baby- just no. A newborn stops being a newborn after about a month, after which it is an infant until it's two or three. These stages can be condensed into babyhood. After that comes childhood. If you suffered years of abuse before you were abandoned, you were not ditched as a baby." Candace smirked, seeing a puff of smoke appear at the hem of Felicetie's robe.

"But I was abused by the people who took me in-"

"Illogical. I realize that in the third universe some people take in babies only to abuse them, but in the secondary and primary worlds it wouldn't happen. Real authors tend to avoid the subject of child abuse, since the repercussions are difficult to deal with in most stories. Those who do generally avoid the abandonment theme, and those who go with abandonment try not to have abusive parents take the children in. What kind of secondary-primary world people would voluntarily accept a baby only to abuse it?" Candace asked rhetorically.

"And I was raped by a random stranger when I was-"

"Also illogical. Again, you're what, sixteen? Normally girls begin to develop sexually at about ten or eleven, yeah, but the outward physical signs usually show at thirteen or fourteen, a few years later for late bloomers. You show signs of having come past it, so you'd have been assaulted, what, ten or fifteen years ago? I can do this-"Candace reached forward and laid a hand on Felicetie's shoulder- "without your objecting. So you were five or under when you were raped. Mm-hm. Yeah. Definitely."

The puff of smoke rose into a matchstick-sized flame. Candace cheered mentally.

"I saved the lives of a hundred and seventy people in a wildfire-"

"You mean a forest fire?"

"Yeah!" Felicetie smiled, happy that she finally had something resembling support from Candace. "A huge forest fire. It covered half a square mile!"

"I doubt a hundred and seventy people would all be in half a square mile of forest area."

The flame grew, stronger and stronger.

"I deserve this, dammit, I've done enough!" Felicetie shrieked.

"Um, what do you deserve exactly?" Candace asked, edging toward the door. A large katana suddenly blocked her progress. "Eep!"

"I will crush you, mortal!" Felicetie thundered, and it could be heard from all corners of the world. Candace was deafened.

A second katana appeared just inches from where Candace's neck had been seconds before. Candace hurriedly ducked under both swords. Hopefully she could get out of there before she died, damning her characters to an endless frozen existence. It was a pity this had to happen, Will was so cute and Meris and Erica really had something there and Izzy was so into Michaels it was sickening.

Candace shut her eyes and lunged for the door, but was blocked by a thrown knife somehow rendering the door immovable.

"How does that even work?" Candace stopped to wonder before the newly airborne Mary Sue swooped down on her.

AN. Yay, cliffhanger!

I'm updating as fast as I can 'cause I'm gonna be gone for a month away from my baby and I won't be able to type. I'm going to sleepaway camp, yay! My parents are devastated. Also there's a swimming pool and tennis courts and fencing.

Oh, yeah. For those of you who didn't realize Meris was lesbian, shame. I said so in Chapter Seven.

I'm going to have to give these things names at some point, people. Remind me, will ya?

Katanas because Japan is the go-to Mary Sue country, not that I have anything against all you people who have any sort of affiliation with Japan. I'm actually trying to learn Japanese (pretty darn successfully for someone of my low intelligence and attention span, ridet) but I SWEAR I'M NOT A JAPANESE CULTURE FREAK! I SWEAR! I READ MANGA SOMETIMES BUT THAT'S IT AND I PREFER XKCD ANYWAY! I'M NOT, I SWEAR, I'M NOT EVEN A WHITE GIRL AND THAT'S THE MAJOR JAPANESE CULTURE FREAK DEMOGRAPHIC ANYWAY! I'M A SOUTH-ASIAN GIRL! I SWEAR!

Sorry. m(_-_)m. Rant.