PPC: The Musical

PPC: The Musical is a multi-chapter PPC story by Ekwy, originally written in 2004 and posted on LiveJournal between August 28 and October 16 in 2005.

The story is set in fall, 2004. It follows the adventures of Agents Ekwy Fields, Milano Cricket, Nea Forrest, and Loki as they investigate strange disappearances from Headquarters. Also, they sing, because it's a musical. How odd.

Plot

Spoiler Alert! This article contains one or more spoilers. This is a potentially bad thing. Be careful reading on if you are not well-versed in the continuum or not caught up!

When otherwise normally insane agents start bursting into song and dance for no apparent reason, it's cause for concern, but all in all not that weird for the PPC. Lots of franchises have musical episodes, after all. It happens. The Flowers put Headquarters on lockdown to prevent the songfic influence from spreading while they figure out what's causing it and request all agents to remain in their response centers.

But then agents start to go missing.

One of them is Agent Nea Forrest. When her partner and love interest Loki finds out, he and Nea's former partners Ekwy Fields and Milano Cricket resolve to take matters into their own hands. Ekwy and Milano recall noticing an urple tinge to their portal when they came back from their last mission, right before the singing started. They're able to backtrace the source of the urple and go there in search of Nea.

They find themselves in a city called Sparklee, a shining, perfect place where everyone is beautiful, talented, and kind... in other words, a city of Suvians. Loki, a former Stu, finds the place vaguely familiar and fears for Nea's safety. He flatters one of the residents into giving the agents directions to her location: a dungeon in the predictable fantasy castle. They go straight away, but are stopped at the gate by a mysterious and powerful entity known only as She. Ekwy and Milano are knocked out, and Loki is offered a chance to return to his old life, but he resists.

Meanwhile, Nea wakes up in a cell, having been knocked unconscious earlier, and she's not alone. Her roommates are four Mary Sues That Weren't (MSTWs), teenagers born in Sparklee who turned out not to be perfect enough for Suvian society and were locked away, supposedly for their own good. Once Nea convinces them she isn't going to kill them despite the fact that she is an assassin and they are (technically) Sues, they help each other escape. Along the way, they find another missing agent, Newmoon, and break her out, too.

The escapees run into Loki, Ekwy, and Milano outside the castle, ironically doing more to help the would-be rescuers than the other way around. Blessie, one of the MSTWs, takes the group to the apartment she used to live in with her mother to rest and make plans. There are still agents trapped in the dungeons, and the MSTWs suspect that Suvian scientists are performing experiments to make babies into even more powerful Suvians. If so, the agents resolve to put a stop to it.

They know that four agents and four MSTWs by themselves won't be enough, though, so they send Newmoon and Cornelia (an MSTW with a burdensome unicorn horn) back to HQ for reinforcements. Blessie stays in the apartment to hold down the fort while the others split up to investigate the castle: Ekwy, Milano, and Zit (an MSTW with acne) to rescue agents; Loki, Nea, and Spot (an MSTW with a large birthmark on her face) to see if the experiments are real.

What they find is almost worse. The children in the castle may be the products of impossible genetics, but they are well cared-for as long as they're Sueish enough. Some more teenage MSTWs, however, are being caged in a laboratory and abused, waiting to be forced into a powerful machine that will turn them into full-blown Sues. Loki discovers that the process has only worked once before, and it didn't go exactly as planned: the subject, Blank, became more beautiful, but was also unstable and had to be kept under guard. Loki realizes that the singing affecting both HQ and Sparklee is a side-effect of the machine. Also, unbeknownst to anyone, Blank's scream for help when she transformed echoed through the multiverse, causing the trans-dimensional snatching of agents from HQ to Sparklee.

Ekwy's group successfully rescues the agents imprisoned in the castle dungeon, and everyone returns to Blessie's apartment to report. Meanwhile, reinforcements from HQ have poured in. The mission is simple: invade the castle, rescue the MSTWs, destroy the machine.

But of course, nothing is ever that simple for PPC agents. They get in easily enough, but are quickly bogged down in combat with Warrior!Sues when a robot clone of Legolas, of all things, sounds the alarm. Spot, Blessie, and Zit, realizing they're useless in combat, slip away and find Blank, only for her to be possessed by She. She plays on Spot's feelings for Blank to trick Spot into freeing Her. Nea, having followed the MSTWs, confronts Her, but all four are subdued by Her magical Mary Sue powers. Ekwy and Loki arrive just in time to see Nea pass out. Ekwy goes for help while Loki keeps Her busy. He almost gives in to the temptation to become a Stu again, but his love for Nea helps him to refuse long enough for more agents to fight their way through. They overwhelm Her with canon sources and perform a mass exorcism, forcing her and all other Suvian influence from Blank's body.

With the battle over, the agents rescue Blank and the other MSTWs (and the Legolas-bot), taking the injured to Medical. Ekwy and Milano blow up the Machine, putting a stop to the musical numbers. They don't all quite live happily ever after, but Nea and Loki are able to talk through Loki's experience more or less like reasonable adults, Spot and Blank are able to be together, and life in the PPC gets back to normal.

At least until the next time something weird happens.

Characters

The Protectors

PPC: The Musical stars Agents Ekwy and Milano and Agents Nea and Loki of the Department of Mary Sues, Harry Potter Division.

They rescue the following agents from the Sparklee Castle dungeons:

Newmoon Ginger

Tormod Milask

Vemi Fincaran Leto Haven

Over sixty agents answer the call to aid in the invasion of the Sparklee Castle laboratory, including:

Honorificus Penny Smith Doc Filth Navaeh Jocelyn

Maly Gata Rumor Rhus Radicans Erin Mirestone

Isabel Isilya Meneltari (Mel) Pooki Lethargy Cygna Hoshiko

Janet Ackerly Glass Kyra Green Chelsea Miller

Other PPC personnel featured in the story:

The Sunflower Official Allie Rosie Cotton Bomull Nenya Gabriel Pythia

SilentStep Elena Shmuckleigh Jira Foley Amandalyn

Kit Bjam Doctor Fitzgerald

The Mary Sues That Weren't

These four, imprisoned with Nea, team up with the agents:

• Blessie (formerly Pyralis Smaugsdottir) - a part-dragon girl with an explosive sneeze who suffers chronic upper respiratory infections;
• Cornelia - a part-unicorn girl whose horn and hooves are so heavy she can barely function;
• Spot - a beautiful girl with the misfortune to have a large, brown birthmark on her face;
• Zit - a rare male; he has bad acne and is more interested in fixing things than being suave anyway.

They later rescue their friends Blank, Mouse, Vidja, and Whisper. All eight return with the agents to PPC Headquarters. Sadly, Mouse doesn't survive the abuse she suffered while held captive.

Links

• PPC: The Musical song list with disclaimers
• PPC: The Musical tag in Ekwy's LiveJournal
  • Chapter 1: "Something Wicked This Way Comes"
  • Chapter 2: "Six-Oh-Two"
  • Chapter 3: "Wonderful World, Beautiful People"
  • Chapter 4: "She"
  • Chapter 5: "The Great Pretender"
  • Chapter 6: "Pearls"
  • Chapter 7: "Perfect"
  • Chapter 8: "Eyes Like Yours"
  • Chapter 9: "The End of All Hope," Part 1, Part 2
  • Extended Edition I: Epilogue, Deleted Scenes, Character Images
  • Extended Edition II: Interview