Cover Illustration: Not Supposed to Be Like This (colored) by TaesoSpiritDragon

“Umasou is a great name! But what does it mean?”

— Umasou, You Are Umasou (2010)

Pre-Mission

Rashida slammed the door to RC #227 shut behind her with a kick of her back leg, still wrestling with the large slab of meat she held in her forepaws and teeth. A moment later, she dropped it on the floor and snorted loudly, wrinkling her nose at the scent.

“Ripper? Falchion? Are you here? I brought you some dinner!” she called out.

There was no response. Rashida sighed and rubbed her forehead with the pad of her paw. What were her partners up to?

A faint sound of music was playing from Ripper’s room, rather than the usual forest ambience. Setting the ypur ribs on top of her kitty bowl (which was obviously too small for the pillow-sized morsel), she headed over to investigate.

The two feathered agents were strutting around in Ripper’s den, swishing their tails and flaring their wings like scarlet banners. Their heads bobbed to the beat of the music playing from the loudspeakers on the ceiling ( “Open the door, get on the floor / Everybody walk the dinosaur” ) in perfect sync.

“What are you two doing?! ” the Sphinx agent growled.

Falchion squawked in alarm and whirled to face her. “Oh! Uh, hey, Rosie!” he said. “Just, uh, practicing our courtship moves! That’s all!”

“You don’t have time for dancing like idiots, you irresponsible tin turkey, let alone breeding ! And ‘Walk The Dinosaur’? Seriously?!”

“It was his idea,” said Ripper. “I would have been okay with anything.”

Rashida smacked the speaker control panel next to the door, not enough to damage it but enough to shut it off and show how annoyed she was. “Look, you two, you’re supposed to pull your own weight here in this RC. Falchion, I won’t take any crap about you buck-passing the responsibility for like, oh, cleaning up after yourself or whatever just because you’re under my roof. And Ripper, I know you’re in a very bad position in this nonexistent ‘pack’ of ours, but you’re supposed to make sure Falchion doesn’t slack off while at work.”

“We’re at work?” asked the Skarmory in surprise.

“We’re always at work,” the Sphinx growled back. “Even when we’re not on a mission, we’re supposed to be preparing for when we get the next one.”

“But Rashida, it’s the breeding season,” said Ripper. “I don’t want to be out of practice.”

“Hate to burst your bubble, kiddo, but you’ll never find a female of your species around here, ” said Rashida. “Besides, have you even eaten today? I got you some food. Rack of some poor old ypur who broke a leg somehow and had to be euthanized. Medium rare.”

The wet ripping noises from the direction of the kitty bowl told the albino Sphinx that Ripper had just changed the answer to that question from “no” to “yes”.

“I always wondered what those things taste like,” said Falchion.

“I was going to say the same,” Ripper added through a mouthful of ypur meat. “Do you want to eat as well, Rashida? I could stand down if you do.”

“Thanks, but –”

[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!]

Rashida went over to the console and slammed the big red button. “All right, forget I said that. But first…”

The male agents joined her in front of the console and read the report. Falchion cocked his head curiously. “Hmmm… Would now be a bad time to say I have no idea what to do?”

“You always say that,” said Rashida. “But I can’t blame you this time, seeing as You Are Umasou is a relatively obscure film.”

Falchion blinked twice and tilted his head to one side. “Who’s what now?”

“Basically, You Are Umasou is a Japanese animated feature film based on a children's book series of the same name, following a Tyrannosaurus raised among Maiasaura who in turn raises a baby Ankylosaurus ,” Ripper explained. “It's a lot like The Land Before Time, if it were told from Chomper’s point of view and emphasized the implications of a carnivorous dinosaur among herbivores.”

“I… guess that makes sense,” said Falchion. “Guess I’ll leave you two to handle the canon knowledge while I take care of SPaG and whatnot. So, you’ve seen that movie?”

“The alpha told me that she has heard of it, but hasn’t looked into it too much,” replied Ripper. “I, however, have watched it from start to finish. It only makes sense that I’d review it and other media related to my ancestral epoch and lineage. What interests me the most is that the species portrayed tend to coexist rather peacefully, rather than wage war against each other like they did in my homefic. Interspecies prejudices notwithstanding.”

“We’ll all have to disguise ourselves as prehistoric animals for this mission,” Falchion said finally. “Thankfully, that shouldn’t be much of a problem, at least for me. I’ve been meaning to try the Quetzalcoatlus disguise again.”

Ripper regurgitated a piece of meat for t rex the mini -Tyrannosaurus , and then looked at his partner in surprise. “You disguised yourself as a giant flyer?”

“Once. For a Teen Titans mission. Though in this case, I’ll probably fit in a lot better than I did back then, given the context. How ‘bout you guys?”

“I’ll be a T. rex , obviously,” said Rashida. “And Ripper will probably have to go through a bit of a makeover as well. The style of You Are Umasou is a bit different than what he’s normally used to.”

“As long as I retain my plumage, I’ll be satisfied with anything,” said Ripper.

“We’ll be a bit bigger than usual today,” said Rashida. “This means we’ll have a harder time not getting noticed. Just try and act natural for your species.”

“Can we at least have a few bites before we start the mission, though?” asked Falchion. “We may not get to do that if the fic goes too quickly.”

“Well, if you really need to,” the Sphinx agent replied, “a few bites will do, but make it fast. We don’t have all day.”

“I can share,” said Falchion. “Are you hungry as well?”

Rashida looked at the ypur rack and shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I think Ripper will have to handle the RA for this mission, though, so he should probably get it before we forget.”

“Why are you going to disguise yourself as a T. rex , anyway?” the Skarmory asked as he and Rashida tucked in.

The Sphinx agent swallowed and flashed an annoyed look at him. “Because there’s a Sue in this badfic. Someone has to be able to kill her.”

“A canon-distorting continuum straggler or a female Tyrannosaurus ?” said Ripper.

“Both, funnily enough. And she causes Light, a male Maiasaura and more importantly a canon , to fall in love with her.”

Falchion swallowed a beakful of meat and sighed. “This has ‘long day’ written all over it…”

As the agents prepared to get to work, t rex happily chowed down on the ypur meat.

Act One

• Soundtrack: Omae Umasou Da Na – ”What's Best For The Herd” + “They’re Eating Him!”

66 million years ago…

All was quiet on the Cretaceous plains. Prehistoric wild grasses and fern scrub rippled in the wind, dotted with groves of conifers and horsetail bushes, and the calls of birds and other dinosaurs echoed almost melodiously in the distance.

Suddenly, an enormous dark green dinosaur, with crimson stripes, massive back legs, tiny two-fingered arms, and a giant mouth full of sharp teeth, emerged from a clump of trees. Animals everywhere scattered before her immense and powerful form. Behind her strode a tall, long-beaked, bluish-gray pterosaur and a red-feathered raptor.

Rashida decided not to roar and announce her presence, even though she could have very well done so. If there really was a Sue in this fic, she could show up at any time and hear her. Falchion and Ripper likewise remained silent.

The disguised Sphinx agent abruptly lifted her head, her fierce red eyes narrowing. “Did you hear something?”

Falchion clicked his sword-like beak in anticipation and pointed it at a distant wood, from which a faint crashing sound was wafting towards them. “It’s coming from over there,” he said. “That could be her. Could it?”

“One way to find out,” said Ripper. “We go there and watch what happens.”

And that’s what the agents did. As they forged into the undergrowth, they saw a large creature moving quickly somewhere nearby. Was it another T. rex ?

Suta ran into the dark leafy forest, crushing plants beneath her as her gigantic feet penetrated the soft soil below.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," she sang, giggling mischievously. Suddenly, she heard rustling in the bushes.

"Ah, there you are!" She licked her lips. "Best you give up now, big jaws come for crying–"

Before she could finish, she got thrown into the ground. It was Heart, one of the most respected Big Jaw ever to exist. He was about a foot taller than Suta, and much stronger.

"Leave. Now." He spat, protecting three young maiasaura on his back.

"Urgh, come on! You always steal my prey. This isn't even your territory!" Suta hissed, struggling to get up.

Heart pinned her to the ground with his foot. "It's not your territory either." He made a good point. "I suggest you leave, before I make you."

The agents all exchanged uncomfortable glances.

“The prose smells a little beige today,” said Ripper, sniffing the air.

“Wait, you can smell prose?” asked Falchion.

Rashida sniffed as well. “Apparently. And this fic has an odor like stale bread in the Egyptian sun.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” the pterosaur replied, watching Heart help the smaller, gray-skinned tyrannosaur to her feet. “I can’t smell a damn thing.”

The group watched the canonical blue-green T. rex helping Suta up, waiting for the inevitable clichéd romantic moment. But they were in for a surprise. As soon as he’d turned his back on her, she rushed at him and bit him.

The two tyrannosaurs proceeded to fight each other, while a voice echoing overhead began to sing some kind of children’s nursery rhyme. “ Beware, beware, pay attention. / Big Jaw comes to steal crying children […] ”

Falchion looked down at Ripper, his small yellow eyes expressing a mixture of horror and total confusion.

“Big Jaw is the term used within this continuum to refer to tyrannosaurs like Heart,” said Ripper, obviously trying to ignore the carnage unfolding before the agents. “And the song the author’s using is canonical, too.”

“Are the ‘Big Jaws’ this violent in canon?” the azhdarchid asked, his voice betraying audible discomfort.

“Why wouldn’t they?” replied Ripper. “It’s a dinosaur-eat-dinosaur world out here.”

He ran towards her punching her and kicked her in the face, leaving a bloody scar on her eye. Suta fell to the ground.

"Where are the crying children? Jaws come for them."

"You're just like Baku..." she sighed, before becoming unconscious.

"Is she dead?" asked one of the three maiasaura, poking his head out of the bushes. Heart, walked closer to Suta's body, and put his head on her chest. She was still breathing, but barely.

“Damn it,” Rashida growled, gnashing her fifty railroad-spike-like teeth in a fearsome grimace.

“The dinosaurs never refer to each other by their genus names in canon,” Ripper noted. “Like in The Land Before Time , they have nicknames for the different species, like Big Jaw for the T. rex . I’m not sure if we can charge for that right now, as it seems that only the fic itself is doing this, but I suppose time will tell.”

“This chapter ends here,” said Rashida. “Or rather, the first part of this chapter; there’s several more before we can get to ‘Chapter Two’. Ripper, can you take us to the start of the next part?”

“I thought you’re the one who knows the coordinates,” he replied.

“Yes, but this disguise came with arms that are totally useless. Besides, you need to learn how to use the RA if you want to get anywhere fast.”

“Your arms would actually be quite strong, if the way Heart uses them is any indicator,” said Ripper, though he typed in the coordinates with his foot talons anyway. “They’d have to be in order to grab onto struggling prey.”

“True, but I wouldn’t be able to see the RA,” Rashida growled. “Anyway, the Sue is on the move. Or rather, Heart’s taking her to safety. Of course she’d recover from that fight with just a facial scar…”

Skipping past a brief Author’s Note (NOTE: Sorry guys not really any serious progress in the storyline, more will come in the next one.), the agents stepped through the portal and emerged just outside a cave that had been plugged by a large boulder.

The Sue had apparently been trapped inside, and needless to say, she wasn’t happy to find out about it.

The fic was largely from Suta’s POV, so that meant that the agents couldn’t tell where Heart was. They hid in some random trees next to the cave, however, just in case.

Sure enough, the canonical blue-green tyrannosaur appeared a moment later, along with a whole herd of yellow-colored, bipedal, plain-looking dinosaurs with no horns or claws or fancy ornaments. Like the triplets that Heart had been protecting, they were apparently Maiasaura. At the agents’ hiding place, Falchion looked at Ripper, waiting for his explanation. The raptor decided to humor him.

“The beaked grazer talking to Heart is his adopted brother, Light,” he noted. “But what is the herd doing here?”

“Shouldn’t they be worried that there’s a T. rex right in front of them?!” Falchion asked, shifting uneasily on his feet and folded wing-forelimbs.

“Heart’s mother chose to raise him with the complete knowledge that the herd wouldn’t take it well. He would reconcile with them once they saw how much he cared for his family. But where does Suta come into all of this?”

“According to the summary of this fic, Light will probably be falling head-over-tail for her pretty soon,” Rashida grumbled.

“Thank you for the mental image!” Falchion squawked. “How does that even work, anyway?! They’re not even in the same egg group!”

“Suta is indeed as far as you can get from Light, cladistically speaking,” Ripper added, earning a somewhat disdainful look from his female partner. “But apparently, Heart hasn’t fallen ill as far as I know, and neither have Light or his herd. They’d both be rightly cautious of Suta, albeit for different reasons.”

Rashida nodded. “The hadrosaurs are, of course, prey animals, and they’d naturally be concerned for their collective safety. And tyrannosaurs are territorial enough in canon that Heart would want her out of his turf as well.”

“Territorial? How do you know that?” asked Falchion.

“Fossil skulls of ‘Big Jaws’ discovered by humans show damage from the teeth of others of their species,” Ripper explained. “Face-biting during territorial disputes is common in a lot of modern animals, too.”

“I was thinking about how the T. rex es behaved in the context of the movie, actually. Do they really maul each other in canon?”

“Heart did fight another Big Jaw named Gonza and his pack in defense of Umasou. So I believe defensive aggression is still plausible.”

Suta pressed her forehead against the wall. "I am not a child! What are you going to do?! Just let me starve?!"

Heart stood dead silent. She made a good point; how was he going to keep her alive if she was stuck inside that cave? Heart felt his heart pounding in his chest again. He turned to the herd of maiasaura, and looked down at his feet. "…We need to let her out."

Everyone gasped. Surely he wasn't serious! , they thought.

"You're kidding!" the eldest maiasaura cried, walking over to Heart. "You are willing to put the herd at risk for stupid vermin like her?!"

"Just trust me," Heart said firmly. "You're a fool! You're going to kill us all-"

"Listen to him," Light said, interrupting the elder.

“On the other hand, that probably isn’t,” Rashida muttered, rolling her eyes in dismay.

“Charge for convincing Heart and Light to let her outta there a bit too easily,” said Falchion. “Though it’s a bit weird that she isn’t described as being Speshul. She’s just another T. rex .”

“And letting her out without keeping all the Maiasaura a safe distance away from her probably isn’t a smart idea, either,” the disguised Sphinx added. “But not a surprising decision for a creature with a walnut-sized brain.”

Ripper and Falchion both reacted violently to that. Falchion beat his wingtips against his sides and hissed like a ticked-off goose, while Ripper chose the more effective method of showing his serrated teeth in a nasty grimace.

“You take that back, right now, ” Ripper snapped. “Heart isn’t that stupid in canon, and neither is anyone else.”

“Who said he wasn’t? He was raised by herbivores – ”

“Herbivores who fully understood the risk of raising a predator like one of their own children. And Heart certainly wouldn’t –”

They were interrupted when Heart roundhouse-kicked and smashed the boulder blocking the cave to gravel, only for Suta to rush out and scatter the herd. She bore down on Light, forcing Heart to grab her by the neck with his teeth and hold her back.

“Look, if anybody’s got a brain to match her arm size, it’s Suta,” Falchion squawked. “Either that, or she simply doesn’t know how things work around Heart and company!”

“Well put, brother,” Ripper agreed. “Though to be fair, T. rex actually had a brain as large as a human’s, and Suta could easily be Suefluencing the canons like any other straggler.”

Rashida sighed and swished her tail. “All right, I’ll give you those. But I’m still under the impression that not everyone around here is using common sense.”

“I honestly wouldn’t expect anything else from badfic-influenced canons,” said Falchion.

Light was still on the ground, still in shock. "Those eyes…," Light thought to himself. "Wait, what I am thinking?" He shook the thought away. "Y-yeah I'm ok" Light told Heart while getting up, backing away from Heart and Suta.

Rashida stood there, dead-silent, grinding her razor-sharp teeth together.

“Apparently, even if you’ve already read the summary, the impact is still the same,” said Falchion, looking marginally less horrified than she was.

“Shut the neik up, you!” she growled.

Heart looked down at Suta, turning his head in curiosity. "Now what to do with you…"

He looked down to see Suta sticking her tongue out at him. "Why don't you just kill me!"

Heart rolled his eyes. "I don't like to kill things. I kill only to eat, and I don't eat my own kind. Every kill I do is quick and easy; I don't let my prey suffer. And I absolutely do not go out of my territory."

A stray comma flitted past the agents like a tiny bird.

“Heart actually isn’t faring too bad,” said Ripper, sniffing the air again. “He would respond in this manner in canon. Light is in more trouble, however, for obvious reasons.”

“And Suta is a whiny, backstabbing, six-ton piece of khara, as usual, ” Rashida finished. “Let’s get to the next part. Much as I want to bite her head off, we need more charges.”

“Why? Aside from her budding relationship with Light, she isn’t that bad,” said Falchion.

She glared at him, teeth bared. “I know you aren’t familiar with this continuum, Falchion, so I’ll say this only once: Never assume a Mary Sue is better than she seems. Saurian or otherwise.”

Act Two

• Soundtrack: Omae Umasou Da Na – ”Umasou” + “Heart and Light”

The agents emerged from the portal into the third part of the first chapter, which took them back to the cave where Suta had been held the night before. Today, she was being held hostage until the canons could figure out what to do with her.

The Sue was surprised to find that her earlier fight with Heart had left a scar on her face. The agents, however, were more shocked to see that it had somehow taken the shape of a star.

“I… I’ll take back what I said about her not being Speshul,” said Falchion.

“He kicked her in the face! He kicked her!” Rashida growled. “Isn’t that supposed to leave a single straight gash? You’d need to hit her more than once to give her a scar like that!”

"Heart!" she screamed, startling the maiasaura who were lying gently on their eggs as well as the agents. Ripper actually tucked his head between his wings, whereas Rashida and Falchion merely cringed.

“Be glad that according to recent studies, large dinosaurs like you seem to be less sensitive to loud noises than I would be,” the deinonychosaur grumbled, still clawing at his ears.

The agents were then hit by a scene shift which took them to a nearby forest. Falchion squawked and vaulted into the air, but Rashida ended up flat on her back and trapped Ripper under her tail.

“For a moment, I forgot those world-jolts existed back in the dinosaur age,” the disguised Sphinx snarled.

“So did I,” said Ripper, struggling out from under her tail. He sniffed the air and added, “I’m not sure if Suta liking berries would be considered canon-breaching or not. Big Jaws are meat-eaters, of course, Heart and Beckon the older Big Jaw enjoyed them all the same.”

Rashida had managed to roll over and use her tiny but powerful forelimbs to push herself back up to a standing position. “Heart’s arms are quite dextrous, as small as they are,” she added, “so his holding a scrap of meat from his previous meal isn’t chargeworthy, either.”

“Suta’s a Sue, though,” Falchion called out, dipping below the tree line to hear his partners better. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she decided she liked the berries.”

The agents listened to Heart explaining about Suta to Light. Rashida and Ripper hid in some bushes, while Falchion, who was not comfortable around so many trees packed closely together, circled overhead.

“So, Suta was part of Gonza’s pack?” asked Rashida, ducking just as Falchion buzzed her.

“Wait, whose pack?” the giant pterosaur asked, but he flew off before he could continue any further.

“I’ll explain later,” Ripper called after him before turning to Rashida. “When Heart and Light were younger, Gonza tried to prey on them, and Heart bit off part of his tail in defense of his adopted brother. That’s how he realized that he liked the taste of meat, which led to him leaving his family and living on his own.”

Falchion flew high over the heads of Heart and Light, but the canons’ voices were loud enough that he was able to hear the same story from the Big Jaw himself.

When he buzzed Rashida again, he had enough time to say, “She must’ve left the pack after Gonza died!”

The agents followed the canons back to the Maiasaura herd, Falchion landing next to them so he wouldn’t be out of the loop. Not surprisingly, Suta liked the berries, and like the other members of Gonza’s pack, she was now olive green with darker green stripes.

“Called it,” said Falchion.

“In her defense, she was starving,” said Ripper. “Besides, she could use some nutritional supplements. Modern alligators eat fruit every once in a while, so like Heart, her enjoying berries in small amounts isn’t implausible.”

“Yeah, but Heart was raised by herbivores,” the disguised Skarmory replied. “I doubt a carnivore raised by other carnivores would be so open-minded.”

“Why are you siding with her?!” Rashida growled through clenched fangs. “She’s making Light fall in love with her! Look at how he’s blushing at her! Take a whiff of his pheromones! Don’t tell me he’s not –”

“Because my last attempt at the life of a T. rex would’ve led to my death if Falchion hadn’t salvaged me,” Ripper hissed at her. “I do not want to even try provoking this one. Besides, apart from accidentally afflicting Light, she isn’t doing any significant harm to the rest of the herd.”

“But Light –”

“I don’t condone what she’s doing to him, either. None of us does. But if we can plan our ambush correctly, we can transplant her to another territory, and I can neuralyze her and the canons so this interaction never happened, and leave them be. That way, we can dispatch the badfic without causing unnecessary damage.”

“…Huh. Good point.”

The agents left Chapter One, Part Three behind and portaled their way into the next part, where they immediately caught sight of the one major character who had not been featured by the fic up to this point.

Falchion’s eyes lit up as he saw the little pink-and-orange plant-eater toddling after Heart. “That… is… the CUTEST ARMORED DINO I’VE EVER SEEN! Rosie, can I glomp it? Please??”

“Of course not!” the disguised Sphinx growled at him. “First, he’s a canon , and second, he’s covered in bony plates and spikes. On top of that, Heart certainly won’t take kindly to his son being assaulted by a stranger.”

Falchion looked at her in disappointment, but didn’t argue. “Wait, Umasou is Heart’s son? He’s adopted, right?”

“Heart had planned to eat Umasou when he discovered him as an abandoned hatchling,” said Ripper. “But the ankylosaur imprinted upon him, and they had a familial relationship for the rest of the film. It helped Heart develop as a character.”

Suta’s cry of pain, courtesy of Umasou whacking her foot with his tail club, brought the agents back to full attention. Heart briefly introduced Umasou to her, and then she started worrying about Light.

“Isn’t that Heart’s job or something?” asked Falchion.

“Yes, but he says that Light is in the forest, and comparatively safe,” said Ripper.

“Safe?”

“Relatively speaking.”

Heart looked over into the forest entrance. "They wouldn't have gone far. Plus, Light is stronger than you think. He might seem a little shy at first, but in reality he is very courageous."

"Sounds like you and him get along pretty well," Suta replied, nibbling on the scrapped meat that Heart had put near her before.

"Well yeah, he is my brother."

Suta's smile turned into a frown, as she began to look away from Heart and Umasou. "I am sorry that I tried to hurt your family and the other Maiasaura. I just wanted to hunt."

Heart gave a pitiful smile and sat down next to Suta. "It's okay. I know how you feel; when I was young I did not have a pack or a 'territory', but of course you knew that already. I am sorry about Gonza." Heart sighed and gave a sad look, he seemed truly remorseful. "He attacked me, so I had no choice! He tried to stop me from helping my family and the rest of the Maiasaura."

“Hrm. I see two problems here,” said Ripper. “One, while the fic itself may refer to the dinosaurs by their genus names, the dinosaurs should not . They have perfectly valid nicknames for the species and no concept of modern taxonomy as far as I know. The reason I myself do is because I was engineered with human intellect and taught human concepts, and this herd has not undergone the same experience.”

Falchion stared at him blankly, and then cocked his head. “And what’s the second problem?”

“Bashing Gonza. I think. Of course, this instance is a bit more warranted than most, due to him attacking Heart and Light as juveniles and nearly eating Umasou. However, I have yet to see him act that spiteful to his own packmates, though what he did offscreen is open to interpretation.”

All of sudden, a voice came out from the forest , making the agents look up from their conversation . "Heart! Suta!" It was Light. He and his three siblings were holding handfuls of red berries.

While the agents watched, Suta was able to convince the rest canons that she didn’t mean to hurt anyone. However, the Maiasaura elder was standing behind a tree, watching Light and his friends. "This is bad. Very bad."

“Indeed so,” said Rashida. “Shall we move on to the next part of this chapter?”

“How long will it be before we get to Chapter Two?” asked Ripper, fiddling with the RA again.

“Forever, trust me,” replied Falchion.

Act Three

Soundtrack: Omae Umasou Da Na – ”Sunset” + “Big Jaw Comes To Steal Crying Children”

"Light!" a raspy voice called. It was the Elder Maiasaura, whom was standing secluded in the entrance of the forest. Light smiled at Heart and Suta before walking over to the forest.

"Elder! What do you need?" Light asked curiously. The Elder grabbed Light's arm, gripping it tightly as his claws dug into Light's skin.

"I don't want you to be around Suta," the Elder said.

Light gasped. "Why? Me and Heart have her under contr-"

Light was interrupted as the Elder Maiasaura squeezed Light's hand, causing blood to gush out. Light let out a painful moan and tried to run, causing the claws to dig deeper into his skin.

"She tried to kill us and your family, she is nothing but vermin. You're lucky I even let your idiot bother to be around."

The agents had skipped ahead of the end-of-chapter scene shift, but the next scene was only a few seconds later.

“Well, all of the stuff we’ve seen so far could’ve easily been condensed into one chapter,” said Falchion. “It’s not like they have a word count limit or anything.”

“Understandable,” Rashida growled. “What I’m more worried about is the fact that the herd leader is suddenly turning violent! Well, sort of. He’s threatening to kick Light out of the herd like he did with his mother!”

“He tried to crush Heart’s egg when it was first found,” said Ripper. “The safety of the herd is his number one priority, and he is willing to sacrifice the well-being of any one dinosaur to ensure it.”

“That… sounds pretty harsh, actually,” said Falchion.

“This land is not all sunshine and prehistoric butterflies, I’m afraid. You have to do whatever you can to survive, even if it is at the expense of everyone else.”

“Well, that explains a lot about how you think. Of course, we still think attempting to wipe out humanity goes a little too far…”

Ripper glared up at the giant pterosaur. “Please don’t talk about that ever again.”

The elder Maiasaura left Light alone with his problems, and the agents followed him back to where Heart and Suta were.

The chapter transitioned to Heart, Umasou, and the Sue, who explained her situation a little more. After Heart explained that he lived just beyond Gonza’s old territory, Suta cooed over Umasou in typical Suvian fashion.

Heart momentarily transformed into a very large copy of Umasou before turning back to his old self.

“Well, that’s the most interesting thing I’ve seen all day,” said Falchion.

“According to the Words, its supposed to be Heart who blushed faintly and picked up his sleeping son in his arms, and not Umasou,” said Ripper. “I think someone got the two of them confused.”

Rashida, meanwhile, had begun grinding her teeth again. “She’s… making… all of the canons… like her… Goddammit, can’t we just kill her already?!”

“We can’t just barge in on them right now,” said Ripper. “She’s with the rest of the herd and she could very well attack us if we make a wrong move.”

Heart called his mother and Light’s siblings over to meet the Sue just then, and she revealed that Baku had killed her mother.

When Hearts mother interrupted her story, a tiny dinosaur joined the agents.

Ripper looked down at it, curious. “It may seem that like in The Land Before Time , minis from this continuum are mini-dinosaurs. This one would be a mini- Maiasaura , because Heart’s mother’s name is misspelled.”

The mini-dinosaur chirped like a baby crocodile and nuzzled his leg.

“Let’s just get to the next chapter already,” Rashida growled. “It’s the last one. We can kill her then.”

Ripper and Falchion looked at each other uncomfortably, but didn’t argue.

They stepped through the portal and into the start of Chapter Two (“Finally,” muttered Ripper), which began a week after Suta’s arrival.

Suta counted as she flicked one in her mouth. "hey!" said a tiny voice, taking Suta by surprise and made her drop her berries. She looked down and saw Umasou pouting. "Umasou! Where did you come from? Where's that little jaw Heart?" Suta asked. "Little?" Umasou's voice called from behind her. she screamed and fell on her stomach. "Unfair!" she whined, moving her arms as if she was making snow angels "why did you sneak up behind me?!" Heart smiled and said "we have been here for five minutes, you must have been busy" "yeah!" Umasou said angrily. "Why are you guys here anyway? You already came by this morning to give me berries" Suta asked. Heart's smiled faded and he looked towards the forest "You have been here a week and the elder says it's time to be released". Suta looked down at the ground "okay" she said quietly.

That was when the agents heard a distant noise.

“Is there a thunderstorm coming?” asked Falchion.

“They didn’t mention anything like this…” said Ripper.

Rashida looked at the Words and gasped. “Oh, no. Everyone, take cover!”

The other agents looked towards the source of the noise. A massive storm cloud full of what looked like a million angry bees was moving towards them at an alarming speed.

“AAAAH! BEEDRILL SWARM!!” Falchion cried, preparing to launch himself into the air.

Ripper looked closer. “Those aren’t bees. They’re paragraph breaks.”

Falchion looked as well, and realized that Ripper was right.

“Oh, neik !” Rashida roared, the noise of the howling wind nearly drowning her out. “I should’ve expected this as soon as I saw all the lines mashed together!”

“What do we do?!” Falchion cried. “We didn’t bring any punctuation shields!”

Rashida would have facepalmed if her arms weren’t so small. “You idiots! ” she roared. “You should’ve thought ahead in case something like this…”

She trailed off, her voice drowned by the wind. A few moments later, the storm of paragraph breaks swept over them. The agents cried out in alarm as they were carried skyward by the accompanying hurricane-force winds (no doubt caused by the Words rambling so much). Falchion managed to grab Ripper’s tail with his beak and attempted to power-flap his way out of the storm, but Rashida was less lucky. Blown around helplessly, she suddenly found herself falling towards the ground in a diagonal arc. Unable to slow her fall, she silently hoped that Big Jaws were as durable as the Sharptooth from the first Land Before Time movie.

Unfortunately, she was falling towards the Sue, who had just fled the Maiasaura territory after Light had told her that he hated her. The sudden pain of paragraph breaks pelting her like hailstones alerted Suta to the fact that something was wrong, but she didn’t have time to look up before a dark-skinned Tyrannosaurus landed on top of her.

She struggled to get up from under her, angry and terrified. “What’s going on?!” she cried.

Falchion landed nearby, setting Ripper down as well, and gasped as he saw their partner right on top of the Sue, within reach of her deadly jaws.

“Suta,” Rashida snarled, “by order of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, you are hereby convicted of being a Mary Sue on account of the following charges: Making Light fall in love with you, having a star-shaped scar from a kick wound , being part of Gonza’s gang specifically to spread lies about him, making Light fall in love with you, having a trajeck past involving multiple canons , creating a nikomak Word Cyclone and a mini-dinosaur, AND MAKING LIGHT FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU! NOW DIE , YOU FOSSIL SCUM!! ”

“ROSIE, NO!!! ” Falchion screeched, but it was too late. Rashida had already lunged at Suta and was now sinking her teeth deep into her shoulder.

The two T. rex es began biting and tearing at each other viciously as Falchion and Ripper looked on, terrified but unable to do anything. Tumbling in the dirt, they raised a cloud of dust that began obscuring everything. Soon, the male agents couldn’t see the brutal struggle, and the angry roars coming from the dust cloud were now the only sign of it.

“She needs help!” Falchion cried. “We need to get help, quick!”

“I’ll open up a portal to the Cafeteria,” said Ripper, frantically punching coordinates into the RA with his claws. “There are always hunters there. We can rally them to fight!”

Within seconds, a large ring of blue light had opened up, and the agents rushed through as fast as their legs could carry them.

Unfortunately, Suta had chosen that precise moment to slam the crown of her head into Rashida’s belly. As the disguised Sphinx’s back was directly facing the portal, the end result was that the two of them ended up careening through it… straight into the rather populated Cafeteria.

Needless to say, chaos ensued – not quite legendary, but certainly deadly.

Suta had just enough time to realize that the T. rex she was headbutting had inexplicably turned into a much smaller animal, bone-white and fuzzy all over, before she threw her aside and prepared to charge at her. At the same time, dozens of smaller creatures, who had apparently been occupying the strange angular cavern moments before, screamed in terror and ran for their lives. The dinosaur’s tail thrashed blindly, upsetting several tables and chairs as she barreled towards Rashida. The Sphinx agent scrambled to her four padded feet and leaped off the table she had landed upon just as the T. rex chomped it to splinters.

Suta whirled and prepared to bite down on the escaping white-furred creature, but then she felt a set of massive claws sinking into the side of her neck. Ripper had leaped onto her in defense of his partner. At the same time, Falchion had flown up in front of her and began pecking and scratching at her face. Roaring, she wheeled around in a bid to throw her assailants off, managing to dislodge Ripper who tumbled dangerously close to her huge mouth.

“Ripper!” Falchion cried, but Suta snapped at him a second later. Before she could clamp down on his wing, a white blur swooped and slammed into her side, sinking her claws into her tough hide. Rashida couldn’t bite through, but she had gotten her attention. Suta roared and barreled towards the nearest wall, attempting to crush her into oblivion.

But before she could make her move, the giant theropod felt something tiny and sharp pierce the skin of her shoulder. An instant later, another prick hit her just below the knee, a third on her flank, and a fourth on the base of her tail.

It was the fifth, which struck her upper lip, that did it. The Security Dandelions’ tranquilizer darts were more than capable of taking down a beast as big as her.

She looked around at the plants, then the frightened agents, and finally the very pissed-off fuzzy white thingy, before finally realizing that she was in a very different world.

“Where am I?” was all she could ask, her voice sounding more groggy with every word, before she toppled over with a mighty crash and passed out then and there.

Post-Mission

The agents of RC #227 stood in total silence for a full three minutes. Nobody had any idea what to do, not even Rashida. Especially not Rashida. She hadn’t expected this to happen at all.

It wasn’t until the Security Dandelions had escorted them back to their RC (and moved Suta out of the Cafeteria besides) that anyone spoke up.

“Well, that escalated quickly,” said Falchion.

Rashida glared at him. “You shouldn’t have opened up the portal,” she said. “I had the situation handled well enough!”

“We thought you were losing,” said Ripper. “We were going to get help…”

“I am much older than that Sue was, and much stronger. I didn’t need help, thank you…”

“Oh, so you had no concerns whatsoever about getting your head bitten off?”

“Shut up.”

An hour of relative silence later…

[Bip.]

Falchion went over to the console and pecked the “Accept” button. “Uh… Rosie? It’s from the SO. You need to see him in his office immediately.”

Rashida looked at the console, visibly shaking. The Sunflower Official? Her ? Was this going to be like… that time?

Ripper reached a clawed wing towards her, saying, “Rashida, I –”

“No need,” she said, aiming a glare at him. “I’ll… I’ll talk to the Sunflower. Don’t come with me. Just wait for me until I’m done.”

And she raced out the door without another word.

“Rosie…” Falchion whimpered, his voice sounding plaintive.

“I… I don’t know what to do now,” said Ripper. “Will she come back?”

Falchion looked away, his eyes closed tight.

“What happened to her back then?” the Skarmory asked to nobody. “What happened…?”

**********

Rashida knocked on the door to the SO’s office, her entire body still trembling.

Enter , the voice spoke inside her head. She promptly opened the door with her forepaw, and prepared to step inside.

Instead, she stood there, her mouth hanging open, her eyes wide with shock. Two figures were sitting in front of the Sunflower: A thirty-foot-long carnivorous dinosaur with a scaly green, heavily scarred hide, and a sinuous creature curled up in a pile of shiny black scales and fluffy purple down.

I said, enter, said the Sunflower.

Suta turned her massive head to look at Rashida, flashing a scowl. “Excuse me, Fluffy, but are you seriously gonna just stand there and wait for some blind cave-dweller to lay eggs in your mouth? This big weed here wanted a word with you for a reason , you know!”

Before Rashida could say anything in response, she abruptly sneezed. The Chinese dragon, roused by the noise, raised his antlered head to look at her, his bright eyes widening in surprise.

“Mafdetiti?” he asked. “It has been such a long time… What untoward convolution of kismet conspired to bring you here? I have not been graced by your visage in many months.”

The Sphinx’s mouth gaped even wider. “T-Tianlong?”

For the last time, Agent Mafdetiti, the Sunflower insisted . Enter my office, and sit down. I haven’t got all day.

Rashida knew the official meant business, so she slowly paced into the room, finally sitting down on her haunches between the two reptiles. Suta glared down at her, teeth bared.

I understand that you want to make up for what happened, the Sunflower began. But that is not an excuse for today’s events. Your former partner here has been expressing concerns about you to us on and off for several weeks now, especially in light of some of your recent missions. Your conflict with a certain Sarah Katherine Squall on her last mission prior to being assigned has not gone unnoticed, for a start.

“She was a stubborn fool who wouldn’t listen to better judgement, and you all know that!” Rashida snapped.

“In what sense?” asked Tianlong. “Sarah is good at what she does. She was a well-developed character in her homefic, and she certainly isn’t incompetent in her responsibility of disentangling the numerous interwoven contortions of mismatched continua she’s witnessed since joining the PPC.”

“So what? She’s still partnered with the wrong people! You know what happened to her partner too, right?”

“So I have been told. I myself am still upset with the Flowers for being so careless. But even if you contest her team arrangement, Squall is better suited to the DIC than she was at Floaters. The Flowers knew this well enough.”

What we are more concerned about, the Sunflower cut in, is that you are wanting in discretion and self-control. I understand why you act this way. I had trouble with Rayner after he recovered from that mission as well. But your recklessness goes hand-in-hand with folly, and that is not how we handle things around here. To that end, the Hyacinth and I have agreed to take you off commission until you can better control yourself.

“WHAT?!” Rashida roared.

Do not complain to me. We should’ve been more thorough with your treatment following the incident last year.

“But what about Falchion? And Ripper, for that matter? Where will they go?”

They will be staying in RC #227 for the time being. They’re already a team, and anyway, they have nowhere else to go.

“Can’t you just move Ripper out and give Falchion a new partner? Ripper is –”

“A former Stu who regrets his historical misdeeds sincerely and deeply,” Tianlong interrupted. “Everyone understands that he is recuperating and has no desire to damage the plot continuum anymore. Wouldn’t it be fair that you do the same?”

Suta, who hadn’t spoken at all up to this point, looked down at Rashida with an apologetic expression. “To put the snaky thing’s words in proper speech,” she said, “you can’t just think that all of us deserve to die just because one of them tried to kill you!”

Rashida stared up at her, horrified. “You know?!”

“The weed and the snake told me everything. I’m so sorry to hear of what happened…”

“Sh-shut up! It’s not important –”

It is , I’m afraid. It’s inflicted so much emotional damage upon you that I don’t think you’ll ever be able to completely recover. You will need extensive consultation before you can continue work as a Floater, or as an agent at all for that matter.

“I tried to tell you this before you transferred,” Tianlong said sadly. “And Suta, I am a dragon , not a snake. There is a difference.”

“Not to me,” Suta replied, rolling her eyes at him.

Rashida bowed her head in acceptance of the Sunflower’s words, but then she remembered something else. “What about Suta? What will you do to her?”

We addressed her situation before you arrived. For a six-ton carnivore who supposedly relies more on brutal primeval instinct than reason, she does seem rather… harmless, I should say.

“Brutal? Harmless?! I’ll give you harmless, you overgrown –” Suta growled, flailing her tiny arms at the Flower. Rashida guessed that he’d belittled her like this several times before.

She will be training as an agent, though we’re still not sure where she will go. We’re leaning towards the DIA, but she may need to witness a few missions before we can settle on her permanent career.

“What’s a career?” asked Suta.

“An occupation that secures your future,” said Tianlong. “I am sorry to say that you cannot go back to where you came from. There is no place for you there.”

Rashida looked first at Suta and then at the Sunflower in a shocked rage. “But she – she’s a –”

I am well aware that she is a Sue and an intrinsic threat to the multiverse, thank you. But while I don’t condone her actions either, it seems that Suta is not as much of a danger as most examples are. However, you seem to believe that every single badfic character is dangerous, and that attitude can be a double-edged sword at times. You have to understand that not every badfic character is a Mary Sue, notwithstanding what that one replacement did to you, your old partner, and the team you were helping.

Rashida didn’t even know what to say. For the first time in many months, her red-pink eyes were truly fearful.

She felt a sinuous, scaly tail rest upon her shoulder, the brush-like tip dangling freely.

“If I’d had my way,” said Tianlong, his whiskered face frowning, “I would have transferred instead of you. It would have been less hazardous for both of us.”

“But… the DIA is…” Rashida began, but she choked off with a sob. She buried her face in her forepaws, too overcome to say anything.

Rashida, you should have understood that transferring to Floaters is not a choice to be made lightly , said the Sunflower. The risk of being sent into a badfic as dangerous as that one is greater than in the DIA, and you know how many fics you’ve been sent into since you’ve joined. I stand by my decision to temporarily decommission you. You will need to stay in FicPsych until you recover enough to work once more.

Tianlong patted his partner’s shoulder with the tip of his tail, taking care not to get paint on her fur. “I will take care of things from here,” he said. “You won’t have to worry about your partners. But Suta will have to join us no matter what you say. She has no choice.”

“But… how are you going to feed her?” the Sphinx agent asked, putting her forepaws back onto the floor. “Sue or not, she’s a T. rex! She’ll need to eat the equivalent of over two hundred people a year to stay alive! If you want her that badly, don’t ask me to feed her, because I want nothing to do with her after today.”

“Uh, yeah, what she said,” added Suta. “What am I supposed to eat around here, anyway?”

“We have hundreds of Mary Sues coming in every day,” said Tianlong, smiling serenely at her. “I am certain that you will obtain your daily sustenance just fine.”

The Tyrannosaurus looked marginally happier after that, choosing to ignore Rashida pressing her forepaw to her forehead next to her. “Great!” she said. “When do we start?”

[END]

Rescued characters:

• Suta (adopted by SkarmorySilver)

Rescued minis:

• You Are Umasou (mini-dinosaurs):
  • Hearts mother (Maiasaura)