Mission #7: Jack the Squicker

~~~ 

Original story; Jack.

Fandom; Over The Hedge

Source; fanfiction.net

Disclaimer; Laburnum and Foxglove are mine, Skyfire and the briefly-mentioned Stormsong are Snowspine’s, Doctors Fitzgerald and Freedenberg are free for all PPC users to use. The fandom is, believe it or not, Over The Hedge (yes, the one with the cute fluffy little animals) which belongs to Dreamworks and does not deserve to be treated like this. The Stu and the concept belong to its author on the Pit and he should keep them to himself in future. The death method is copyright David Hopkins. The very briefly-mentioned Happy Tree Friends are copryight Mondo Mini Shows, and "Meet The Feebles" is copyright Peter Jackson. The band Slayer isn't mine either, and I'm not particularly interested in owning them - no offence meant to anyone who likes them by the opinions expressed by Laburnum in this mission.

“Tell me again how we ended up doing this,” Foxglove muttered, adjusting the police officer’s cap with which the Disguise Generator had provided her.

“Apparently we did such a good job on that series that the SO’s whoring us out to the Disturbing Acts of Violence Department,” Laburnum replied cynically, polishing her handgun on her blue shirt and examining it in the dawn light. “Seriously, I hear they’ve decided we’re no longer scareable and they’re sending us any similar shit that crops up.”

“Okay, I can get that – I’m probably less easy to shock than I was before seeing that lot. But Over The Hedge?! Why does Over The Hedge even have squickfic?!”

“Rule Thirty-Four, Fox. Rule Thirty-Four.” Laburnum sighed and leaned against the wall of the ramshackle house. “What I’m worried about is where all that classical music is coming from. Not bad, but it’s a little weird and it’s been going on for an annoyingly long time.”

Foxglove examined the Words making up their surroundings. “Gimme a minute … ah. It says here ‘about fifteen minuets had passed’. Heh, charge already and the Stu hasn’t even shown up … The Hedgies should be arriving any minute now, it says we’re on the other side of the forest from the housing development and they’re coming here because they think that area’s getting ‘too dangerous’.”

“Oh please, this is RJ and company, nothing’s too dangerous for them …” Laburnum looked over the street at the large hedge and saw something rustling at the bottom of it. As the agents watched, a little red cart pulled by several small animals appeared. Laburnum and Foxglove hid around the corner of the house to watch them. Finally, the irritating typo-induced music stopped. The Hedgies examined the house Laburnum and Foxglove were keeping watch on: it was the normal two story house but it was falling apart, the asphalt leading to the house was cracked and destroyed, parts of wood from the house were either missing or rotted out, the house itself was riddled with what appears to be bullet holes, the windows were broken and the grass looked like it hasn’t been cut in years, RJ’s face went sour at the sight.

“Look everyone, THAT house he can never go to, NEVER, got me?”

Everyone looked at the atrocious house and nodded.

“Good.”

Everyone took a look at the other houses, absolutely trap free, which of course would make it easier for them, so they went to the house on their far right and go down from their.

They were fortunate that many of the houses had doggie doors, this made it much easier to get in, and most of the humans were still asleep, I mean it was still 6:20 am.


“They’re going to take hours here, whaddya say we dig out our laptops and watch a DVD? I can portal back and get whatever, do you want snacks as well?”

“No, I think we’ll handle this mission better empty-stomached, I looked at the report. I’m with you on the DVD though.” Laburnum typed up the charge of “talking to the audience during the narrative in a third-person fic in an annoying manner”.

“I’m not watching Over The Hedge now.”

“Fine. Meet The Feebles? We’re watching one innocent childhood thing be defiled, we might as well watch ‘em mangle the Muppets.”

Foxglove opened a portal into the DVD cupboard back in the response centre and pulled out the appropriate one, and they sat down in the long grass to watch. Just as the agents were cheering as Heidi Hippo massacred the cast of the Feebles Variety Hour during the climax of the film, the Hedgies’ food cart trundled up to the path leading to the ominous house.

“Waitwaitwait … RJ warned them all not to go in that house just before they went off on their raiding elsewhere, and they apparently listened to him, and yet they’re just merrily walking into it anyway and none of them are saying anything?” Foxglove said disbelievingly. “Even Hammy’s not that careless!”

So they carelessly went to the last house….the very house RJ warned them about, when they got to the door, they noticed that it didn’t have a doggie door, but they got in because a chunk of the door on the bottom was missing so they squeezed through, when they got in the place was a mess, newspapers were strewn everywhere, most of them since 1992, when they got into the kitchen they saw it to be messy, dishes were stacked high, chicken bones were thrown everywhere, and the refrigerator itself was worn and rusty.

“Holy shit, was that all one sentence?” Laburnum said, blinking. “Okay, I’ve seen worse, but that’s still a few too many clauses.”

The two turned off the DVD, typed up “making the Hedgies stupid” and “using badly run-on sentences” on the chargelist, and got up to look through the kitchen window as Verne displayed one of the small hints of actual character in the fic by expressing his doubts to RJ.

“RJ, I’m not so sure about this place.”

“Huh, why not?”

“The tail is tingling!”

“The what…wait, what house did we…”

Suddenly he was interrupted by Heathers loud scream, they saw the refrigerator door open, and inside was severed fingers, toes, ears and eyeballs on plates, with chopped off hands with the missing fingers and feet with the missing toes, and a bowl that was filled with human blood, and on the top shelves were animal bodies that have been surgically cut open and the body’s organs have been removed.


Laburnum and Foxglove stared at the horrible scene, barely even noticing the violent shudder of the earth as the tense changed midsentence. Finally Laburnum broke the silence.

“Y’know, I never thought it would be possible to make a description of something that gross so impossibly boring.”

“It’s been done, remember we’ve encountered incredibly monotonous scenes involving child-rape?” Foxglove sighed. “Like ‘legolas by laura’; ‘and then he striped her and then he raped her’ etcetera … and then there was you-know-what, the eighth lovingly-described rape in a row starts to get pretty boring until they throw in the sharp objects. The difference being that this one could so easily have been really cool.”

“Well, it could if it didn’t involve the Hedgies.”

“True dat.”

Most of them gagged at the wretched site, but then they herd footsteps coming and they ran franticly trying to get out, then a person came to the kitchen and turned on the light, when they turned around they saw a young man who looked like he was in his early twenties, his bangs hanged to his chin and the rest reached to his back, he had a light beared and wore a tight stained white shirt with a pair of dirty blue jeans, his eyes were the same ice blue as RJ’s, he starred at the creatures with a surprise look, and then he smiled.

He jumped after them and they all ran screaming, he grabbed Hammy and RJ first, then Stella and Ozzie, with his hands full he grabbed a plastic bag that was on the kitchen table and scooped the rest up.


The assassins blinked.

“That was quick.”

“Wait, these are the beasties that managed to hold their own against both an adult male grizzly bear and the Verminator, and they can’t fight back against one guy with a plastic bag?” Laburnum said confusedly. “Why can’t they bite him or something? Why are Stella’s stink glands suddenly not working, if nothing else?”

“Because he’s a Marty Stu,” Foxglove explained bluntly. She glanced at the Words. “Apparently his name is Jackson Earl Simon, and he’s a metalhead teen’s idea of a psychopath.” They watched Jack Stu disappear from the kitchen. According to the Words, he was heading for the basement. Careful searching turned up a basement window, which they watched through as he put the Hedgies in the cages stacked at one wall.

They scanned the room, the walls were covered in yearbook pictures from the 90’s, must of the pictures were crudely marked with red pin marks, from the top dangled meat hooks that had bits of carrion sticking to the hooks and blood marks stained them, a book shelf was in front of the stairs, all of them were medical and anatomy books, and their was a table filled with surgical knives and scissors, most of them broken and rusty, on top was a medicine cabinet filled with chemicals and sedatives.

Then he went to RJ.

“Hmmm, you look a little filthy, let’s clean you up.”


“Can something be ‘a little filthy’? I kind of thought ‘filthy’ implied an extreme state.”

“You’re reaching for something to think about instead of the squick, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes.”

“… Thanks. I need something else to think about too.”

“Any time, Foxy Love.”

Examination of the Words proved that the Stu was taking RJ to the bathroom, which contained a bathtub full of human and animal organs for no practical reason other than “the author thinks it would look cool”. As RJ was rinsed off in the sink, according to the Words, Laburnum and Foxglove attempted to puzzle out how one could bear having the constant stink of a bathtub full of guts in one’s house, why the Stu had not yet died from various horrible diseases caused by such unsanitary conditions, and why the neighbours hadn’t noticed any smell yet.

As he grabbed a towel and dried him off, he put him back in the cage, Hammy and Heather began yelling and screaming at him to let them go.

The world shuddered violently as Jack and RJ suddenly reappeared in the basement, thanks to the awkward sentence structure causing the Stu to grab a towel in the bathroom and put RJ back in the cage in the basement at the same time.

“Wow. Teleporting Stu, impressive.”

“Forget it, he cant understand us.” RJ said disappointed, but then he turned to them.

“On the contrary, I can understand you just fine.”

They all stared in amazement.

“You…you can understand us?” Verne said in disbelief.

“Yes, I realized my gift when I was younger, but I realized that I herd peoples screams for too long, and that animal screams are far more satisfying.”


“Whoopee. Evil!Stu. Charge for uncanonical powers, misuse of uncanonical powers, awful SPAG, rampant stupidity – none of the neighbours can smell all that gunk in his bathroom by now? Wouldn’t the smell be seeping out by now, particularly if the house is in such bad shape – cracks in the windows and between the planks and such?” Laburnum’s rantings took them over the next paragraph, as the Stu injected the Hedgies with “Demerol I.V.” Finally she ran out of breath, sighed, and said “Well, this is pretty bad, but we’ve seen gorier, I think we can cope …”

Suddenly, something which the author probably thought was suitably evil cackling echoed out from the Author’s Note as the world shuddered violently through a chapter change, followed by a few bars of blaring metal music as a quote from a song – Slayer’s “Dead Skin Mask”, according to the note – was used to “set the tone”. Then, before the agents could get up or react in any way, the Author’s Note echoed cheerily out over the scene …

Warning: contains scenes of bestiality, if you feel uncomfortable then discontinue reading now!

“… I hate you,” Foxglove groaned from her supine position among the uncut grass.

“Awwgh … here, let us distract ourselves by looking up those lyrics.” Laburnum sat up and typed something into the laptop. “Ah, here we go … wow, that is one truly strange song. Looks like it was written by a twelve-year-old goth kid who got hold of their older brother’s weed supply and a thesaurus at the same time. Shame, I quite liked the sound, but I can’t take it seriously with these words.”

“Stop that! If I have to watch this, so do you! Watch the Words, it’s getting to the bad parts now!”

“I quote; ‘Graze the skin with my finger tips / The brush of dead warm flesh pacifies the means / Incised members ornaments on my being / Adulating the skin before me’.”

Foxglove burst out giggling.

“See? You can’t hate me for long.”

Throbbing pain had woken him up, RJ groaned as he got up and noticed something, on his stomach/abdomen area there was stitches, the skin around it was red and puffy.

He looked to see that everyone had the same thing.

“Don’t worry, just a little experimental and exploratory surgery, nothing to worry about.”


“Great, looks like they’ll all have to go to Medical. Doc Fitz really hates it when we bring animals in there,” Laburnum sighed as Jack Stu leered unnervingly at Heather the possum. “Remember how mad he got when we brought Snowball 2 in that time?”

“I think we’re okay this time, he’s been rendered unshockable by what Redtooth looked like after you-know-who was done with him.”

He opened the cage and immediately grabbed her; she began screaming and struggling to get free.

“PUT MY HEATHER DOWN NOW YOU MONSTER!!” Ozzie shouted, then Jack starred into space.

“Heather….that was HER name.”


“Insertion of one sentence of Traumatic Backstory for our Poor Unstable Hero. What’s the betting it never shows up again?” Laburnum idly plucked grass from around the bottom of the basement window. “This is boring.”

Jack then turned to Hammy and RJ’s cage, then he smiled.

“You interest me more anyways.”

He reached into the cage and pulled out RJ and brought him to his face, he starred at him with the same ice blue eyes RJ had, but his were cold, lifeless, then he threw him on what seemed like an old fashioned dissecting table, which was heavily stained with coagulated blood.


The agents stared, transfixed in horror, as Jack stabbed needles through the unfortunate raccoon’s paws, pinning him to the board, and picked up a scalpel. What happened next was probably best left undescribed. Foxglove gagged and gurgled, one hand on her stomach and the other over her mouth.

“Okay, I spoke too soon … but Fox, this can’t be making you that sick! Are you the same girl who laughed while you watched two guys get violated in every accessible orifice by talking trees?”

“Rapist vermin aren’t supposed to be cute. The Hedgies are.”

“That’s never bothered you before! Foxglove, you demanded a day trip to the Simpsons universe just to tour Itchy and Scratchy Land. You watch the Happy Tree Friends while you eat.”

“Yeah, but … I watched this movie with my kid siblings when I went home during our vacation time. They can’t do this to something my baby sister likes so much! They just can’t! And if they must do it, why can’t they at least do it well?” Foxglove was on the verge between tears and giggling.

“So does that mean that once you finally get your baby sister and brothers hooked on Redwall we both have to take down all our crackfics in the fandom?”

“That’s different. We do them at least semi-well. And besides, one can’t rape one’s own childhood.”

“True. Though I assume our inner children must have manic depression.”

“Eh?”

“Bipolar kids sometimes display inappropriate hypersexual behaviour. We can’t rape our own childhoods, but they certainly seem to masturbate too much these days.”

“Ewwww, that joke is crossing a line.”

“Beats looking at the Words. Urgh.” Laburnum glanced through the basement window again as RJ was put back in the cage, now with a shallow but extremely large stomach wound, and started coughing blood – for no physiologically likely reason, since the scalpel had penetrated nothing but the skin, not the lungs or intestinal tract. “Hang in there, furbabies. Hang in there.”

Hammy ran over and looked at him, and tears filled his eyes, Jack then took another look at Heather, as he walked over, she hid behind her father, he wasted no time getting her, so he shoved Ozzie out of the way and grabbed Heather again and held her to his face, he began smiling as Heather quivered in fear, then out of nowhere, he stuck out his tongue and licked her body, giving a satisfied moan he held her in his palm and used his right hand to fondle her, she screamed as he continued to rub his fingers across her silky fur.

“Ah, here goes the bestiality …” Foxglove muttered, retching again, and Laburnum went very pale and swallowed hard.

“Um … I realise this should be the least of my worries, but this man is licking a wild possum. Was he never told how to handle small animals? Like, uh, ‘do not put your face in close proximity to small animals with very large claws and teeth’? Why isn’t she ripping his eyes out? Even if she’s not fighting back, uh, germs? Possums play about with garbage for a living, do you want that near your mouth?” Laburnum rambled in an attempt to distract them both.

“Uh, that’s true,” said Foxglove, swallowing a few times. “Charge for extreme stupidity … and for making Ozzie Possum utter the word ‘bastard’ …”

He then put Heather on the same dissecting table, but he instead but restraining straps on her hands and feet instead of piercing them, and grabbed the same blood coated scalpel.

The agents gaped in disgust at the Words, and at what they showed Jack Stu doing with the scalpel. Despite their state of shock and nausea, they couldn’t help but stop and giggle when the blade was applied to Heather’s “privet parts”. Laburnum glanced through the basement window and noticed that the fur on Heather’s lower regions was now turning into leaves, and her tail had been replaced by a branch. It looked rather strange and unpleasantly itchy.

“You better not have rabies you little bitch.” He said coldly.

“Well, it’s a bit fucking late to be concerned about that, isn’t it? Never thought I’d wish rabies on Heather Possum, poor thing …”

“Another case of ‘extreme stupidity’, I think. He really should have thought his actions through better if he’s that worried now,” Foxglove said, typing the charge as the Stu put Heather back in the cage with her understandably horrified father.

Practice allowed the assassins to stay upright as the chapter changed again, accompanied by a few bars from another song by the same band. Laburnum looked at the Words and reflected that a story which has chapters with titles like “Snuff Obscenity” is probably the literary equivalent of a big neon sign reading “RUN AWAY!” Checking of the actual story text revealed that it was now two hours later, and the Stu was sitting at the desk, enjoying a little reading time.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds in the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’”

He then sighed and closed the Holy Bible, then he looked at the creatures he ruled over.

“You know I’m your god, I hold your lives in my hands…”


“Great, this is the second target we’ve had to charge for blasphemy.” Laburnum noted the charge. “I may not call myself a member of any specific one, but no faith deserves to be used to justify any part of bad fanfic.”

“It beats being the subject of bad fanfic. Did I tell you I once found a Malfoy/Jesus fic?”

“… no, and I wish you hadn’t told me now either. Ick.”

“Well, it was in a friendslocked LJ post somewhere, so I never got to read it. But the summary was frightening enough.”

“Y’know, you’ve got me thinking now – do Chick tracts count as bad Bible fanfic?”

“We’ll have to ask Ben to ask his angel next time we run into the Castaways cast at the OFUR. Or ask Nick Lucifer next time he shows up … oh, wait, what’s the Stu doing now?”

He walked to a crowded closet next to the bookcase.

“They all stay with me.”

A smile came to his face, “And you’ll all stay with me too.”

He opened the closet, and dozens of gray naked corpses burst out of the room, they were hideously skinny and looked like skeletons with leathery skin, their jaws were frozen open as if fear was still something they could feel. They all began to whimper.


Hearing corpses whimper is extremely disturbing, but thanks to the author’s failure to note that the final instance of “they” was actually supposed to refer to the Hedgies, this is in fact what happened. Laburnum turned green and noted the charge, and an additional one; as she muttered lightheadedly to herself, “Can you fit ‘dozens’ of corpses in a closet? A few, yes, but dozens? Is it a closet or a room, anyway? Make up your mind!”

Foxglove tugged on Laburnum’s arm and hissed “Hide! We have company!”

They ducked around the corner of the house and watched a completely nondescript woman walk up the path and ring the doorbell. Jack Stu took RJ with him to answer the door for some reason, and the woman introduced herself as Myrtle King, a real estate agent. For some reason she saw nothing odd about the fact that her potential customer was answering the door while carrying a severely wounded raccoon, and so Foxglove noted the charge of “creating stupid supporting characters”. Jack invited her in for coffee, and without regard for her personal safety she agreed.

“Would a woman walking around the neighbourhood alone really come, alone, into the house of some guy they don’t know, who apparently lives alone, on the spur of the moment?” Laburnum asked sceptically.

“Not being a door-to-door salesperson, I wouldn’t know. Maybe she’s supposed to. But since this is bad horror fiction, she should know better.”

He walked into the kitchen and brewed some coffee; he paid no attention to her rambling and paid more attention to the coffee. As it was done he poured some in a cup but put a tiny silver orb into the coffee.

“Hello and good evening, Department of Redundancy Department? Yes, hya, oui, si, ja, hai, we have a case of unecessary and unrequired repetition,” Foxglove said into the CAD’s communicator function as Myrtle King drank the proffered coffee.

Suddenly she started to gag violently and started vomiting, blood and gooey bile came pouring out her mouth until she dropped dead on the floor.

“What did you do to her!?” RJ said in a frightened and angry tone.

“Cyanide…simple as that, you know…that reminds me of some videos of mine.”


Laburnum started to laugh wildly and leaned against the house for support.

“Uh? What’s funny?” Foxglove asked, sounding unnerved.

“Cyanide doesn’t do that!” Laburnum explained through stifled laughter. “Cyanide causes breathing problems, dizziness, heart attacks, and suffocation, not vomiting blood! If he must do things like this, would it kill him to look up a poison which actually works that way?”

“Videos…?”

“Yes, home made snuff films if you will.”


A long and extremely boring description of Jack Stu walking downstairs, putting RJ back in the cage with Hammy, taking out four videotapes, and walking back upstairs to haul down the body followed. It was almost enough to make the agents wish for the squick to start again just so they didn’t have to put up with the interminable descriptions of a guy walking back and forth.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this is getting really, really boring,” Foxglove said.

“I know! How is he making a story about murdering and torturing childrens’ film characters so dull?”

“Some weird form of inverted talent, I guess.”

He picked up the body and looked at the blood and vomit all over her mouth and clothes.

“How disgusting.” he said as he immediately stripped her naked.


“My thoughts exactly. C’mon, better watch from indoors now, it won’t be long till we can get him.” Foxglove placed the barrel of her gun to the lock on the door.

“No! Not like that, he’ll hear it!” Laburnum hissed urgently.

“Awww, spoilsport,” muttered Foxglove. “Ah well. I think the door’s so rotten we can just kick it down, but he’d hear that as well … looks like it’s time for the trusty hairpin.”

Said item was produced and used, and the agents entered the hallway, choking on the dust and trying not to trip over the piles of old newspapers. They found the basement door and carefully placed their ears against it while keeping their eyes on the Words to see what was going on. The fuzzy quality of the speech coming from behind the door proved that it was coming from the old poor-quality videotape the Stu was showing, the action of which was described in the Words …

A grown man wearing a bloodstained suit was chained to a chair, except one hand was free.

“Tell you what, if you take this gun to your head and fire, I’ll save you the suffering of a more disturbing death I have planned for you.”

Jack handed him a Desert Eagle pistol in his hand.

“N-no…no, come on I’ve got a wife and kids, PLEASE.” he threw the gun across the room which infuriated Jack, he walked over and picked up the gun.”

“Fucking people, can’t do shit for themselves.”

“NO!” but Jack fired the gun as a gung of blood shot out of his head and splattered onto the wall behind him and on the floor.


“Question,” said Foxglove, raising her hand. “If some guy chained me to a chair, leaving one hand free, and put a gun in that hand, while not holding any sort of weapon himself, what would stop me from using said gun on him? Particularly if it had more than one bullet, because then I could try to shoot the locks off the chains.”

“Another two questions,” said Laburnum, raising her own hand and peering at the Words and listening to the Stu switch off the video and rant at his captives in the basement. “First, not that I’m objecting to this as such, but if he promised a ‘more disturbing death’ why did he still just shoot him? Sheesh, we wouldn’t dream of demonstrating such a lack of imagination! Second, what the hell is a ‘gung’ of blood? I don’t even know what that word was supposed to be … ooh, another one. He shot him as the blood sprayed? So the wounds would have had to appear before the trigger was pulled …”

“Oh, I give up,” said Foxglove, throwing up her hands. “He’s about to molest Hammy, then that finishes all of the fic that’s been posted so far. We’d better go stop him before the fic ends.”

“Okay. Shoot first and ask questions later?”

“What were you planning to ask him?” said Foxglove, readying her gun. The two assassins backed up and launched themselves at the door.

“I had my eye on you, you were my favorite from the start.”

He fondled him the same way he did Heather, and gave deep sighs, he then threw him on the dissecting table.

“Don’t worry…I won’t do much.”


At this point, Jack was interrupted by a loud bang as the basement door burst off its hinges, followed by another loud bang as someone fired a gun. Blood gushed from his raised hand before he realised what had happened. He started screaming. Foxglove daintily blew smoke away from the barrel of her gun and hopped over the handrail, landing neatly on the basement floor, gun aimed for another shot if necessary.

“Beautiful,” said Laburnum appreciatively, in what she probably thought was a reasonable “American cop” drawl but actually made her sound rather drunk. She strutted down the stairs, handcuffs and gun at the ready. “Awright, put ya hands up, boy.”

Jack Stu looked up from his wound. Foxglove’s aim was very good; the bullet had gone right through his hand and sunk into the plaster of the opposite wall.

“My hand! Ya motherfuckin’ bitches, whaddya done to my hand?!”

“Shot it. Duh,” said Foxglove. “You’re under arrest.”

“You’re not cops! Cops don’t shoot people before trying to arrest them! And you’re what, fourteen? You’re just a couple of kids in costumes! What’re you trying to pull, you cu-” Jack shut up quickly as he found two loaded guns pointed at his head.

“Maybe we’re not cops, but we are the ones with the guns. Behave yourself. And we’re both seventeen, for your information, though we should look older right now … gotta fix the Disguise Generator,” said Foxglove. Sure that Laburnum had the situation under control, she turned away and picked up the terrified Hammy, who, having been rendered genuinely stupid by the presence of the Stu, hadn’t remembered that it might have been a good idea to run. “Sh, sh, sh. C’mere, little guy, it’s okay.” Meanwhile, Laburnum pushed the Stu to the floor, handcuffed him, and recited the chargelist.

“Jackson Earl Simon, you are hereby charged with being a textbook Evil!Marty Stu; having appalling grammar, appalling spelling, appalling punctuation, and appallingly dull prose; using extremely run-on sentences; causing a narrator to talk to the audience in the narrative of a third-person fic in an annoying manner; making the Hedgies out of character; making the Hedgies incompetent; making the Hedgies stupid; creating stupid supporting characters; displaying rampant stupidity yourself; having noncanonical powers, namely understanding animal speech despite being a human; misusing said noncanonical powers; teleporting thanks to a bad case of Ing Disease; including just enough angsty backstory to be irritating without giving the story any actual point; creating gruesome and yet utterly uninteresting torture scenes, and believe me I never thought that was possible; torturing cute cuddly animals from a children’s film solely for shock value; committing bestiality with cute cuddly animals from a childrens’ film, again solely for shock value; being utterly pointless; causing Heather Possum to sprout leaves; committing blasphemy; causing corpses to whimper thanks to a case of the Pronoun Problem; having what may be either an unfeasibly large closet or a closet which transformed mysteriously into a room halfway through a sentence; having only minimal grasp of biology; not bothering to look up what cyanide actually does; and causing hardened assassins who kill cute cuddly things on a daily basis, that is, us – I mean we’re the assassins, not the cuddly things – to want to vomit.” Laburnum kicked the prone Stu in the ribs. “For this you are sentenced to death, but shooting is far too good for you. Fox, do you want to get that scalpel he was usi-”

“Actually I have a better idea,” said Foxglove. Laburnum looked up. Usually she was the one who thought up the ideas, Foxglove just sat back and enjoyed.

“Really? What?”

“Weeellll … how do you feel like getting into really deep trouble back at HQ? I’ll take as much of the blame as I can, but you’ll have to take some for not stopping me.”

“Eh, I could probably handle it if it means this guy gets what he deserves.”

“Then I’ll show you once we’ve taken care of business here.” Foxglove put away her gun and took out the hairpin again, and opened the locks on the cages one by one. “C’mon, little fuzzy things, come out! All safe now …”

Perhaps the Hedgies’s OOCness lingered and made them trusting, or perhaps they could tell that Foxglove and Laburnum were helping them. Either way, they carefully and nervously made their way out of the cages and clustered around the agents’ ankles.

“Think we should torch the house?” Laburnum asked, kicking Jack Stu again. “Can’t leave stuff like this in the neighbourhood, it’s a kiddies’ film!”

“Sure. Do we need something flammable to throw everywhere? I know how to steal petrol from cars, you need a length of hosepipe, good lung capacity and very good timing …” Foxglove offered.

“Nah, it’s a wooden house and it’s full of old newspapers – Stu’s fault, if he didn’t want us torching his house he shouldn’t have let it get so untidy. See if you can find some surgical spirit or booze or something to start it off with, though.”

“Does Bleepka burn?”

“Don’t you freakin’ dare! We need that!”

A quick search of the house failed to turn up any alcohol or cleaning fluids. Foxglove investigated the mysterious undescribed “chemicals and sedatives” mentioned earlier. Maybe they’d burn. She opened the bottles and sloshed or scattered the contents around, just in case. Laburnum, meanwhile, opened the fridge and tipped out the gory contents – the fire wouldn’t reach the things in there, and they needed to remove all the evidence. They scattered the newspapers as widely as possible throughout the rooms and basement, assisted by the Hedgies.

“Good boys!” said Laburnum, dropping Jack Stu at the top of the basement stairs and gingerly patting the three porcupine kids. “Thanks, guys … uh, look away, this is going to be gross.”

She went back downstairs, unhooked the corpse of Myrtle King from the ceiling where Jack had hung it, dragged it upstairs, knelt down beside it, and produced a knife.

“What are you doing?” asked Foxglove.

“Nearest flammable substance I can think of, and I want to make sure … an’ they’re usin’ the fat off an ole searat, ter set alight t’ the boat!” Laburnum sang, cutting and scraping. The Hedgies looked away in disgust, but didn’t run or try to stop her. “Eww, I’m gonna need a bath. This is way more disgusting than the vermin back at the OFUR ever made it look.”

Foxglove lit up a Bleepette as Laburnum scooped up the wounded RJ with one hand, hauled the whimpering Jack Stu upright with the other, and nodded.

“Okie-doke, little critters, run for the door right about now,” Foxglove said, neatly flicking the hot ash from the Bleepette onto a dry spot of the newspapers. They burned rapidly, the flame moving towards the greasy splatters over the larger pile of newspaper.

The group just reached the front door in time, and agents, Stu and wildlife hurled themselves out onto the lawn. The animals ran up to Foxglove and Laburnum and huddled around them, tugging at their socks and looking up at them gratefully. Under normal circumstances they’d never have behaved this way around humans, but they must have guessed anything was better than an Evil!Stu. Laburnum cradled RJ in one arm, put on her sunglasses, and picked up Heather.

“Okay, little guys, it’s all okay, you’re safe now,” she crooned as Foxglove took out the Portal Generator, opened a portal, and gestured towards it. Laburnum leaned through it into Doctor Fitzgerald’s lab.

“Hi!” she called happily. The doctor looked up in surprise from the complicated machine he was fiddling with at the other end of the room. “We got some for you here – you might want to call in the Disturbing Acts of Violence department.” Laburnum carefully placed the raccoon and the possum on the nearest operating table, then she and Foxglove firmly picked up the rest by the scruffs one by one and deposited them on the floor.

“What the- get those filthy animals out of here! This is an operating theatre, I have to keep it clean!”

“Uh, these guys are your patients. Over The Hedge squickfic.”

“What?”

“Yeah, that was my reaction too, doc,” Laburnum muttered. “Sorry to dump them on you on short notice, but I think RJ’s guts are about to fall out, so I’ll just leave you to deal with them and go kill the Stu if you don’t mind. They should be pretty docile, they’re still under Stu influence – we’ll be back to neuralyse them later.” She stepped back out of the portal, which faded. They were now alone with the Stu in the yard, backdropped by the now nicely-blazing house.

“Ah, it’s true, there’s nothing like a real fire to cheer you up!” Laburnum commented, grinning broadly. “So, what was your idea?”

Foxglove raised the Portal Generator again and pressed a few buttons. “Watch.”

The portal opened on a barren red desert. The air stank of sulphur and decay. The sky was a hideous blood-red, and no life was visible, but screams echoed from the distance.

“You just want to dump him in a des-…” Laburnum began, then trailed off as she recognised where they were. “Ohhh. Oh, I get it! Inspired by the Stu’s name?”

“Yeah, and we’re on the edge of his territory. I reckon he’s a fitting punishment for this guy anyway, and we do technically owe him a favour. We’ll get in trouble, but technically he’s not forbidden as an execution method yet …” Foxglove dragged the Stu forward and howled into the empty desert:

“DRIIIIIII-IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP!”

Something large, blue and spiky appeared from behind a pile of rocks in the middle distance and loped towards them with impressive speed. As it approached, it took on a more distinct form, the nature of which would have made anyone wish it had remained indistinct. There was something vaguely rodentine about it, but it was maybe the same size as a small truck. Its fur was shaggy and blue, like a Satanic Sonic the Hedgehog. Its pupil-less eyes glowed a lurid, sickly green, bright against the black eyeliner-like marks across its face. Its jaws were grossly distorted, pulled forwards like those of a deep-sea fish, and filled with sharp teeth. Muscles rippled beneath its coat as it ran. Finally it reached the group and stood upright, looming over them and exposing oh dear god …

“Excellent, I’d lost track of the date and I was hoping to catch you on a Friday so we could get the first word in,” said Foxglove, glancing at the abominable oozing organ and very quickly looking away. “Urgh.”

“Whaddya want, furless?” snarled the thing. “It had better be good or I’m sticking you all in the walls for tomorrow.”

“Ah ah, Mister Drip. Remember the contract,” said Laburnum, smirking. The blue horror rolled its eyes. Or at least, its expression suggested that it was trying to roll its eyes – it’s very hard to tell with a being that has no pupils.

“Yes, I know. The lives, souls, sanity and orifices of any being involved with the Canon Protection Initiative are off-limits under any circumstances, breaking of this contract results in yadda yadda yadda.”

“You may also remember we owe you a debt after … certain happenings.” Foxglove kicked Jack Stu forwards. “Will this do?”

Drip dragged the quivering Stu forwards and sniffed at him, grabbed his arm and twisted until he yelped, then licked his face.

“Ohh yessssss. Not bad for one of Kane’s species, not bad at all, shame he’s alive but I guess you can’t have everything …”

“Oh, and his first name is Jack.”

“Wow, really? Perfect.” Drip gripped the frantically kicking Stu harder and clasped the other paw over Jack Stu’s mouth to stifle his screaming. “Hush, new pet. Master is talking to the nice little girls. Yess, I’d say your debt is paid. Now fuck off and let me play with it.”

“Glad you’re happy. I’d suggest sending him into the Musical Holes arena, but going by his home fic he’d probably enjoy that,” Laburnum said, bowing and grinning. “Keep him to yourself. Try to go easy on him for a bit, living humans are fragile and it’ll be boring if you puree him before you even start.”

Drip nodded curtly, took Jackson Earl Simon in his teeth, and lumbered off into the distance, accompanied by the Stu’s sobs.

~~~

“You know, the point of this idea wasn’t so you could pay for permission to do these things,” said Skyfire coldly.

“Oh, come on, you saw that fic! And it doesn’t count against you if they’re Sues and Stus – reverse karma, remember? And you got fifty Ankh-Morpork dollars out of it!” Laburnum protested.

“I don’t care, it’s a vile practice!” Skyfire shook the brightly-coloured moneybank, which was in the shape of a happily grinning octopus, in disgust. At first glance there was nothing odd about this moneybank, until one realised that the big friendly letters on the side read “Rape Jar”. “I really do worry about you! One day you could slip up and try that on an actual person!” She put the newly-filled bank down on Doctor Freedenberg’s desk. “I’m sorry, sir. I know they can break this habit and with our help they will, but I don’t think this way is working very well.”

Much to Skyfire’s annoyance, Doctor Freedenberg kept her and Stormsong back in his office for two additional hours after the appointment time ended, because, as he said, “You’re the only Mossflower vermin I’ve ever seen object to receiving free money.”

~~~

[Author's note; I know, the Rape Jar (as opposed to a Swear Jar) is tasteless, and I am aware that real-life rape is among the Top Ten Least Funny Things Possible and I apologise profusely to anyone who actually has been through it in real life, but once I had the mental image I couldn’t resist using it. And of course it had to be an octopus. Tentacoo wape! L&F will be stopping with the rapey deaths now – though I may write a thing where they give the 4chan asshat who keeps trolling the Pit to one of the Holders. Hey, we need to vent, and he’s from 4chan, not our fault he only paid attention to the Yiff In Hell meme and not how to get through the Holders Series alive …

I usually attempt to use less text taken directly from the fic, but when each sentence is a paragraph long that’s pretty hard.

Yes, that’s another reference to Meet The Feebles, as in what Naomi threatened to tie S&S up in front of during their co-mission. Look it up on YouTube to understand exactly why they’d be horrified by it (particularly Sebastian’s big song and dance number). I love that movie.

The “favour” the girls owe Drip is something to do with the crossover chapter we’re planning for the OFUR. I don’t know what they did to him yet, but he wasn’t pleased. If you aren’t familiar with Drip, he’s the personification of Lust in the epic webcomic Jack. I’m sure you can guess what he does to people. He also has a shapeshifting penis, which isn’t so bad unless it’s “Skinless Friday” (hence Foxglove’s comment).

“Hya” is the best I could find when searching for the Anglicisation of the Bengali word for “yes”. Hope it’s at least close to correct.

I actually do sometimes watch the Happy Tree Friends while I eat.]

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Back to Writing

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Questions? Comments? Email me at wordsmith101NOSPAM@btopenworld.com (don't forget to delete the NOSPAM first).