From: j_west@ngspib.secretorg.uk
To: faeries_kick_ass@flipflapbutterfly.fey
Subject: Any news?

Hey Flib! Any news re. Yakky? NGSPIB's hard work - just found out we were funding the BNP - switched to Oxfam. U need a hand w/anything?
B OK if I visit Faerie ne time soon? Fed up w/mortal realm.
Jx

* * *

Over the past six months, the NGSPIB had been revolutionised. Not only had L stopped the kidnap, oppression, extortion and liberal gifts of money to right-wing parties (having decided that J would have ordered it, had he been able to concentrate for five minutes instead of staring out of the window), she'd had the useless crap - once so useful to our formerly cheerful protagonists - cleared out of NGSPIB storerooms worldwide. The rooms had then been converted into schoolrooms for Third World children, humane research labs (this was achieved by a strategically placed 'e') and swimming pools for employees (even secret agents like to muck about with inflatable monstrosities). And not in that way either…
But not all the crap had proved useless. The few items that were actually good for something had been salvaged by J during a rare moment of interest in the real world, and carefully arranged in a secret room in HQ.
Even by the standards of this most secret [yeah right…] of organisations, the room was very, very…secret. No agent other than J had ever set foot inside those thick steel walls. True, they'd heard rumours of what was inside: a supercomputer constantly scanning the Net, TV networks and newspapers for any trace of some girl with an odd name; stacks of arcane books; a thing known only as the Interdimensional Portaloo… [one long-running joke that we will never let die, no matter how much you may beg us to ^_^][Why should we? It predates IBYKS by several years]
But they were just rumour, and those who whispered about them (or chatted about them loudly over their machine coffee [top-secret agents and they're still drinking reconstituted marsh water…life really does suck] knew they would never find out the truth. The room was behind several steel doors, which required increasingly personal scans to get past. The floor of the passages leading to the room was alarmed, and unless the words of an unreleased rap record (definitely not by Will Smith) were repeated backwards continually until you reached the final door, poison gas would be released into the air, instantly killing anything smaller than an elephant. [If anyone asks "What if an elephant tried to get in?" I will slap them][It could happen!]
This was all very well, but, unfortunately, J had left the window open.

* * *

From: faeries_kick_ass@flipflapbutterfly.fey
To: j_west@ngspib.secretorg.uk
Subject: Re: Any news?

J, you email like a chav.Never mind…
No luck with Yakky, but still trying. All's well in Faerie, but come and visit, I'm fed up too. This evening?
BNP?! Didn't know NGSPIB were so fascist… LOL you're going to be St. J of charity shops!
Flibx

* * *

A dark silhouette flowed over the windowsill and landed silently, poised and alert. No alarms rang, no deadly (if stereotypical) booby-traps whirred into life. (Had there been any, J would have been desiccated long ago - living largely in the past, he often forgot important things like passwords or codes. A week ago he'd nearly gassed himself while singing 'Barbie Girl' instead of the backwards rap) [Sometimes I don't know why we bother to say 'J isn't Will Smith!', because he really isn't]
The figure glanced over at the computer. There was a faint beep from the machine, and a window popped up:

RESULTS INCONCLUSIVE
RESTARTING SEARCH…

The intruder turned away, and moved over to the looming, chemical-scented presence of the Interdimensional Portaloo.

* * *

Flibbage pressed send, and stared pensively at the computer screen. She supposed there were some pressing royal duties Cabbage would be happy to explain to her.
With a sigh, she began to play Solitaire.
"Flib! You busy?" Bica called as she crashed through the door.
"Um - yes!" Flib exclaimed, hurriedly quitting Solitaire. "Um…liaising with the NGSPIB…cyber-liaising, that is."
"Sounds pervy," Bica commented.
"Shut up. What do you want?"
Bica sat down on Flibbage's bed, and began to fiddle with her nail polish. "I had a thought about Yakky," she began, in an offhand manner.
"Any thoughts are useful. Even yours, I suppose."
"Cow. Anyway, I was thinking…we're in Faerie, right?"
"You've only just noticed?"
"Shut up! So fairytales are important here."
"So?"
"So we get a princess to kiss Yakky and he'll wake up, right?"
Flib slowly swung around in her chair to stare at Bica. She spoiled the effect somewhat by spinning a little too far and having to scrabble back the other way.
"Oh my God." (I can't read that without thinking of Janice. Damn Janice!)
"What?" Bica snapped.
"No! No no no! You cannot have a crush on Yakky!"
"Why not?"
"Well, for one thing, he's Beansprout's boyfriend!"
"She tried to kill him!" Bica shouted, standing up and, regrettably, in a fit of teen faery pique, stamping her foot. "Sounds like there's a little bit of trouble in paradise, doesn't it? And it's not as if she's ever going to come back-"
Flibbage slapped her.
There was a horrible silence.
Bica glared at her and stormed out. Flibbage sank back into her chair and put her head in her hands.
A few seconds later, there was a knock at the door.
"WHAT?!" Flib shouted. The door flew open, and Flathryn fell into the room.
"Your Highn - your Majesty, you've got to come! Something terrible's happened!"
Flibbage sighed, and got up. Something rotten in the kingdom of Faerie? she thought. Too folking right.

* * *

How to save her?
It had taken him hours to decide. During that time, he'd just let her fall. The chasm had become impossibly deep, but he could tolerate impossibility when it suited his purposes.
Water? No. At the speed she was going, it would as bad as hitting the ground. Portals had been over-used (damn straight…) A giant bird? Already been done.
How to save her? Hmm… [And this, Stu, is why internal monologues should be short, because they start getting like this]
Far below Beansprout, a tree began to grow out of the chasm wall.
What could he say? He was a sucker for the classics.
Beansprout hit the tree, which stopped her fall with a jolt that would have been excruciating, had she been conscious. The tree absorbed some of the shock, splintering and slowly beginning to tear away from the wall.
Quickly, he filled in a soft, mossy ground beneath her. When the tree gave, she fell all of two feet.
He grinned at the memory. For the past few months, he had been carefully mending her bones and organs (at terminal velocity, even a pillow could have done some damage) and decrypting that annoying falling-objects device that surrounded her. The interesting psychological problems…well, they could stay for now.
He checked his clock. Soon, it would be time to let her wake up.

* * *

[This next bit was at Tim's request, because he needed it for narrative purposes in his corner of Intertextuality, but he never used it. However Stu/Heathcliffe doesn't read IBYKS because he's lazy, so he gets punished like Tori did.]
"Heathcliffe! HEATHCLIFFE!" wailed Flelen. Flib, Cabbage and assorted Faeries(and Red!) looked on in nauseous horror.
Flelen was cradling Heathcliffe's head in her lap. Heathcliffe was sadly unaware of this fact, mainly because the rest of his body was scattered in various places across the clearing. [Tim asked us to kill him off. I couldn't remember if the words were 'so we can see the body' or 'so we can't see the body', but seeing as no-one's ever dead in fiction anyway unless you see the body, I went for the first option. The dismemberment? That was just for the fun]
"That's going to hurt in the morning," said Red. Cabbage mauled her.
"What did this?" Flibbage exclaimed.
"Don't ask me, it's your Realm," said Cabbage.
"Looks like the work of a basilisk," Red said sagely.
Cabbage stared at her. "No it doesn't!"
"Oh."
"How did you ever pass your Mythical Beasts CFC?!"
"Well, what do you think it is, then?"
"It could be anything! Grendel! A werewolf! A demon llama! Anything!"
"Hi everyone!" called J, bounding up to them and slipping on an entrail . "Ugh," he added, as he took in the scene before them.
"Right," said Cabbage. "Impose a curfew, Flibbage."
"I'm imposing a curfew, loyal subjects! Everyone inside till we find out what this thing is," Flib proclaimed. The faeries dispersed, Fljen and Flathryn leading the distraught Flelen away, murmuring "There there," and "We'll get you another one…" [He's never going to speak to me again, is he?][you can't hurt him, He's made of rubber!]
"Welcome back, J," Flib said heavily.
"Um…I might not be all that welcome."
"Why not?"
"Well…I came here by Portaloo…"
"Yes?"
"And when I went to use it, I noticed it was still warm and the coordinates were set to Faerie…"
Flibbage threw her crown at J. It hurt.
"But I suppose it's not your fault," she added later, as they went to check on Yakky.
"No," lied J. He had neglected to mention the open window.
Flibbage pushed open the door to Yakky's room, and stopped dead.
"Who the folk are you?!"
The silver-haired girl sitting by Yakky's bed stared coolly back at her. Her expression was faintly amused.
"Damn," J murmured.
Instantly, the girl's attention flicked to him. "Excuse me?"
"Um…I said…she's got ears! On her head!"
She raised her eyebrows. "He was right. You are an idiot."
"And you are…?" Flib snapped, slightly put out at being ignored.
"Dee," the girl said, brushing a stray hair out of Yakky's eyes. "I'm a friend of his."
"And you think you can just waltz into my palace and-"
"Yes, I do," Dee interrupted. "I read your emails. I was worried about him. Clearly you don't have a clue."
"You read our emails?"
"Maybe you should just go…" J said, glancing at Flib, who seemed seconds away from throwing a curse.
Dee snorted. (she probably said "Feh.") "You'd regret it if you sent me away."
"Sure we would," Flib said sarcastically.
"That's what I just said."
"Why?" J interrupted, before Flibbage exploded.
Dee looked scornfully at them both. "Because, idiot, I know how to wake him up."

To be continued…obviously…

WHO IS THIS MYSTERIOUS DEE?
WELL WE KNOW THAT ANYWAY, AH WHO CARES...