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Shippers: Rise of the Sues

Chapter Four: Nightmare on Sue Street



"Oh cool; morning news," Kimchi lifted the newspaper, studying the front page carefully.

Isaia glanced curiously over her friend's shoulder. "Isn't that from last mon..."

"Oh wow! Front page: Conor sucks!"

"Nice," the swordsman muttered from the opposite side of the mini-van's roof.

"Hey look, they even explain why on page two. Let's see, page two..." she unfolded the paper, humming as she mockingly searched through the articles. "Ah, okay. Here we go. Oh wow, this is a shocker. Hey Isaia, you know why Conor sucks?"

"Gee I wonder," he grumbled knowingly, having heard the reason several times over the course of the past few hours.

"Kimchi, maybe..."

"He sucks because he can't go one freaking turn without signaling! Not even when we've got thirty blasted shippers chasing after us!" Her tone grew louder as she delved further into the reason, throwing the paper out over the side of the vehicle.

What had been a crowd of thirty shippers had grown into a swarm of nearly one hundred, each pawing at the four sides of the van. Each felt a burning hunger, desiring nothing more than to find someone to infect with their wretched love for insensible character pairings.

The turn had brought them to the edge of a construction area, the lack of foundation rendering it little more than a deep pit that would have potentially killed the three had they driven off of it. Unable to reverse or to turn to escape, they found themselves sitting on the roof, making their last stand.

"...'Blasted'?" he glanced over his shoulder.

"What?" she asked.

"You really say 'blasted'?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Nothin'. That's not weird," he grinned as he looked out over his side, having never actually encountered someone who used the term beyond cartoon villains.

"You have a problem with the way I talk?" she glanced towards him.

"You have a problem with the way I drive?" he glanced back.

"Ah," Isaia interrupted, trying to prevent another argument between the two. "Maybe we should try to get out of here instead of fighting?"

"Fine," he muttered.

"He started it," she asserted defiantly.

"You started it!" the swordsman exclaimed.

"Your mom started it!"

"I don't think this is helping," Isaia lifted her sketchbook to her mouth, finding it increasingly difficult to calm the two.

"Look, we're just going to kill each other if we stay up here," he faced towards them, gripping the sheathed katana.

"So? We're stuck." Kimchi reminded him of their situation.

"Yeah; but we can either stay stuck up here, or we can give it a shot."

"But...Would you really want to become like one of those...?" Isaia pointed with slight disgust towards the shippers.

Near the rear of the van a group had crouched, tracing crude drawings in the sand of Azula and Aang engaging in activities both unlikely and inappropriate for their ages.

"That's why you're gonna stay up here and shoot me in the head if I get bit," he lifted his finger to his temple to demonstrate.

"Okay," Kimchi nodded without hesitation.

"Wait, what?!" Isaia stared.

"If I get bit, I don't want to end up like that. So I need you to shoot me if I start turning into one of them," he looked towards her. "I'd rather be dead than a shipper."

Conflicted, she turned her attention back toward the infected. Unable to form a definite resolve on the subject, she nodded her head meekly.

"Good. Alright, we're gonna need my ass-kicking-song for this," Conor smirked as he stood, uncovering the katana.

"Is that the one under 'Conor's-ass-kicking-playlist?" Kimchi browsed through the iPod they had commandeered from an Apple store.

"No, the one under that."

"...'Feel-good-tunes?" she lifted her eyebrow, questioning the title.

"Yeah. Get ready," he grinned as he pointed the blade out towards the pit that had blocked off their path. "Hey shippers, look! Avatar DVDs!"

The shippers continued shambling about, his words falling on deaf ears.

"...Okay," he lifted the sword back towards the area once more. "Let's try this again. Oh, em gee! Zuko hentai! Hotness. Or, hawtness. Whatever it is you say."

Isaia lifted her hand, stifling an amused snort at the tactic.

All at once they turned their attention in the direction he had pointed, a number of them stumbling over the ledge as others remained behind, having lost their infatuation with Zuko at the end of the second season when he shattered their dreams by going with a consistent and gradual method of character development rather than acting in the way they wanted him to.

"Now!" Conor glared, realizing this to be the best hand he would be dealt. Leaping from the roof he tore towards the scribbling group, his blade cutting clean through their skulls as he rushed by. The music poured through the air, Kimchi and Isaia picking off whichever shippers stood out as a clean shot.

The katana sliced through the air quickly, its path faltering only slightly as it moved from shipper to shipper. The lack of formal training had rendered him little more than a novice in the art, yet constant experience with the infected had refined him to a point inarguable skill.

The same was certain of the two artists as they fired into the group, their accuracy improving considerably with each encounter. Where they had hesitated they now acted certainly, taking little time to target their next shot.

"You're...Closed...Minded..." one of the shippers shook as she lifted her hands towards Conor's back.

Spinning around, the sword slashed hard across the shipper's chest.

"Wait a minute," Kimchi lowered the crossbow, looking towards the iPod."

"What is it?" Isaia asked worriedly.

"...Is this 'Moscow'?" she yelled at Conor, the song sounding familiar to her.

"Kind of," he grinned as he gripped the hilt of the blade tightly, driving back a pair of shippers.

"What is this, Korean?" she lifted the iPod to get a better look at the track title.

"Can this wait...?" her friend's attention darted back and forth between the two, trying to pick off enough shippers to keep Conor safe.

"You even have the Korean version of 'Numa Numa'?" she called back towards the swordsman.

"Yup," he grunted, his eyes going wide as he lost the advantage the element of surprise had afforded him. The shippers shambled towards him, pushing him back towards a wall.

"Kimchi!" Isaia yelled, hurrying to reload a pistol.

"Eh?" Right, right," she set the iPod back down, loading another crossbow bolt.

Conor's teeth clenched, the sword tearing quickly from shipper to shipper as they pressed towards him. The sensation of being overwhelmed coursed through him, a coldness stabbing into him as he felt hope begin to slip from his grasp.

"Conor!" the artist screamed, fumbling to slide the clip in.

From both sides of the crowd two figures rushed by, passing one another as a number of shippers fell to the ground.

The figures spun rapidly along the outer rim of the group, the infected falling quickly as they tore through them.

The writer sliced the blade once more, breathing heavy with fear as he looked out over the ground.

"That was close," the first figure observed as she drew to a stop.

"Yeah, good thing we got here," the other noted happily, stopping beside her partner.

The two were twins, identically in nearly every feature save a slight difference in height. Where one wore dark clothing with a white messenger bag, the other donned the inverse. Both held a kodachi in each hand, lined with the blood of the shippers they had just decimated.

A look of confusion spread over Conor's face, having not met someone capable of articulate sentences beyond Isaia and Kimchi in quite some time.

The two artists dropped carefully from the roof of the mini-van, hurrying toward the twins.

"Whoa!" Kimchi exclaimed, amazed that they had finally encountered other uninfected people.

"Thank you so much," Isaia nodded her head, grateful to them for stepping in when they did.

"No problem!" the one in white smiled. "Shippers can't drive. So when we heard a car going by, we figured we should check it out."

"Thank you," Conor nodded his head, slowly regaining his composure.

"You're welcome," the other noted.

"Who are you?" Kimchi lifted an eyebrow, gathering up a few stray crossbow bolts.

"Ah, sorry about that! I'm Hanna," the one in white nodded.

"Fia," the second lifted her hand, wiping the blood off of her blades.

"Isaia," the artist smiled.

"Conor," he nodded, cleaning the sword.

"Kimchi."

"Wait," Hanna's eyes went wide, pointing towards the two. "You're Isaia...? And when you say Kimchi..."

"Kimchi Crusader," she shrugged as she offered her full alias.

"Whoa," Fia stared.

"What, what is it?" Conor's eyebrow rose, suspicious of the sudden change in atmosphere. He gripped the hilt of the sword as the two sprang forward, embracing his traveling companions.

"We were so worried!" Hanna lifted a hand to her mouth, relieved that the two had made it through the shipper uprising. "When we didn't see a post from either of you, we figured you were infected!"

"Wait, what do you mean 'post'?" Kimchi stared, puzzled. "The shippers took out the internet."

"Yeah, but right before they did, everyone in the community posted to confirm if they were still okay or not," Fia explained as she sheathed the swords.

"I didn't know," Isaia stared, her internet connection have been unfortunately disconnected days before the posts had started.

Kimchi let out an exasperated sigh, having been too occupied with college assignments to monitor the community well enough to know of such a thing.

Conor, being new to the community, simply had no idea.

"Booter's going to be so happy to hear you're both okay!" Hanna smiled.

"Booter's alright?!" the artist exclaimed, nearly dropping her sketchbook.

"Yeah, a lot of people are! C'mon, we'll take you to them," she offered with a wave of the hand.

The three grabbed what they felt necessary, hurrying after the twins as they made their way through the streets. They studied each detail of what was before them, anticipating some ambush of shippers.

"...We figured we'd be safe in a museum, but one of the scouts found a bunch of fan artists in there drawing their original characters over the paintings to show how much better they were," Fia explained. "Malls and shopping centers are out too, so our choices were kind of limited."

"Health food stores?" Kimchi guessed.

"Too small, and all the ones around here are exposed. Then it hit us; a place the shippers would avoid, and we'd have computer access." Hanna grinned as they turned the final corner, pointing towards their destination.

Conor smirked, realizing the validity of the argument. With no school to attend or work to be done, the building would probably be left alone by Avatar craving shippers.

The five walked into the library, the area devoid of all shipper activity.

Cold shotgun barrels lifted to either side as they stepped in, the twins lifting their hands to reassure the guards.

"It's fine guys, they're with us. You're gonna like this," Hanna grinned again, looking towards the main desk.

Behind it sat an older woman, her attention fixed on the monitor before her. Her hair was short, a pair of glasses resting at the edge of her nose as her hand moved quickly to copy down the figures and numbers before her.

"Hey Rufftoon," Fia greeted casually.

Isaia and Kimchi's eyes went wide.

Conor simply stared, fishing through his pocket as he wondered if he had left the keys to the mini-van behind.

"Hmm? Hanna, Fia, you're back! Oh, so there was a car after all!" she smiled towards the group of strangers.

"Guess who this is?" Hanna touched her hand to Isaia's shoulder.

"And this?" Fia followed suit, resting her palm on Kimchi's.

Rufftoon's eyebrows rose, having been unaware that she was going to be quizzed on something today. Blinking, she shook her head slightly from side to side with a gentle shrug.

"Isaia!" the twin in white grinned.

"And Kimchi Crusader!" the opposite added, adding icing to the cake.

The woman's mouth opened, her hand lifting slightly. She recognized the names instantly.

Overwhelmed by the presence of someone she admired so deeply, Isaia hurried towards Rufftoon, nearly leaping over the desk as she hugged her.

Kimchi followed suit, hurrying towards them to greet the veteran artist as she met the two with equal admiration and joy.

"I have no idea what's going on," Conor studied the scene carefully.

"Happens a lot around here," one guard nodded, resting the shotgun on his shoulder.

"Who's that?" he nodded towards the woman.

"Rufftoon."

"Ruff...Oh, wait. She was in 'Flight,' right?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. I love that book," he nodded, recalling visits home from college where his friend would lend him the volume and excitedly point out the sections he had enjoyed. He smiled as the memory passed quietly through his mind, watching as the girls talked happily with the woman they venerated.

"What's all this?" another girl stepped into the lobby from the opposite side of the library, witnessing the commotion. Her hair was blonde, her eyes confused as she watched the commotion. To her side stood another girl, studying the scene carefully.

"Booter! Look who we brought!" Hanna pointed excitedly towards the two, quickly slipping into an explanation of who they were and how they had come across them.

"Who're they?" Conor leaned towards one of the guards.

"Booter Freak, leads this whole operation."

"Who's that next to her?"

"You know Avatar Sues?"

"Yeah?"

"That's her."

The writer's eyes went wide with horror, the woman being more terrifying than any shipper he'd encountered. He had worriedly checked the AvatarSues journal every day for no other reason than making sure that his story hadn't found its way onto the page. When the shippers led their uprising, the one benefit was that his fanfiction could never be discovered and labeled as wretched.

Before him now stood the girl who had rendered him self-conscious and paranoid without even knowing of his existence.

"I'm so glad you're here!" Booter hugged her friend, smiling with relief that they had come through. "Here, come on in, let me show you around. You too," she pointed towards Conor.

Awkwardly he approached them, trying not to stare at the Avatar Sues author.

"You've already met Rufftoon; she takes care of communications and getting whatever information we might need," she motioned a hand towards the woman.

Rufftoon nodded with a smile, happy that they had come through unharmed.

"She used to run the Avatarsues livejournal entry. We call her 'Susie,' since she probably knows the most about them. She's pretty much my second in command," she nodded to the girl at her side.

"Glad you found us; we were worried about you," she smiled.

"You've met Hanna and Fia; they take care of field work and anything else we need to assign them to."

The twins nodded in unison.

"Alright; let's get you introduced to the others and settled in. It's good that there are three of you," she smiled.

"Why's that?" Conor glanced towards her curiously.

"Because," she grinned confidently. "I have a plan to take down the shippers. And the only thing holding me back was that I was short three people." With that she turned, making her way deeper into the library as the guards returned to their posts at the door.

There was a quick catch in Isaia's breath, the prospect of the shipper uprising ending filling her with a silent hope. She followed quickly, looking towards points of the library as Booter explained them.

Conor stared nervously towards Susie, still perturbed by her presence.

Kimchi smiled, following close to the others. Whether by coincidence or by the renewal of hope, the room had grown slightly brighter at Booter's mention of having a plan.