Winners No Matter What
"New mission," Tasmin said.
"If you choose to accept," Allison added.
Tasmin looked at her partner and raised an eyebrow. "Wrong fandom."
"Hmm. Why don't the Flowers give us the option to accept missions or not?"
"They probably figured that very little work would get done if they'd let us choose."
"I don't see why. You accept anything thrown your way. They should just hire more like you, or clone you."
"Our new mission," Tasmin quickly continued, "involves the daughters of the A-Team and Frankie."
"They all had daughters? There must be something in the water."
"Some kind of rejuvenation potion," Tasmin said. "It's not clear when these daughters were all begotten, but the Team are still doing missions after they got their pardons in 1996."
"So much for an early retirement for Hannibal."
"The daughters form their own team."
"Of course they do."
"Called the Angel Squad."
"Naturally."
"And we are going to meet them at the Annual Team Defense, slash, Rescue Competition." Tasmin opened up a portal.
"The what?"
"A place where the Sues can show they can kick ass and have an in-story audience."
"Don't these Sues know that modesty is a virtue?" Allison stepped into the fic after Tasmin.
"Perhaps that is part of the problem with Sue-stories."
"That Sues aren't modest? I'd say that is definitely a problem."
"No, I meant the authors. In their daily lives they are encouraged to be modest or for some other reason don't get much opportunity to outshine everybody else. They write stories in which they can outshine everyone."
Allison shrugged. "I guess. I'm not going to excuse them for it though."
"Me neither."
Tasmin and Allison stood at the sideline of the competition field. The first event up was weapons and Jazz, Hannibal's daughter, would compete in this event. The other Sues egged her on.
Jazz nodded, & winks at them, she took a deep breath, & headed out to the field, she raised her gun, & she bellowed this out to the officials.
"Switching tenses, using non-text symbols in text, bad punctuation, using bold font when no emphasis is required, centring text. Should I go on?"
"I'm already spinning on my feet." Allison reached behind her to find something to hold on to.
The Team seemed to have the same problem, as they were all holding on to each other support. The others spoke warm words of encouragement to Hannibal.
That made Hannibal smile, & he said this to his friends & teammates.
Hannibal (smiling): Thanks, Guys.
"This makes me sad," Tasmin said. "And I said this to my partner. I'm sad."
"That actually makes me giggle," Allison replied. She giggled until Tasmin smacked her in the back of the head. "Troll?" Allison asked, rubbing the sore spot and trying to glare at her partner.
"Possibly. Or at the very least someone who hasn't read a book since kindergarten."
"I think that's rather harsh," Allison said. "On books written for preschoolers."
"Strange thing is: the spelling in this story is all right. It's style and grammar that's what's wrong with it. And what is supposed to be the is the antecedent of 'this'?"
Jazz put a perfect score on the board - naturally - and Hannibal jumped up from his seat shouting.
Next up was Face's daughter, nicknamed Stryker for being strikingly beautiful.
Allison only just managed to not roar out with laughter. Stryker's opponent didn't bother hiding his amusement.
She made her way to the ring, when her opponent, a man that is bigger than her, was laughing at the sight of her, & made fun of her.
The Sues egged their friend on to do well. The Team spoke warm words of encouragement to Face, who was worried the opponent would hurt his little girl.
"Rinse and repeat," Allison said. "How many Sues are there? Five. So we are basically going to get five times of two series of these verbal pats on the back, each time with a different recipient."
"You can't know that. We're only at the second event and Sue."
"Well, results from previous badfics enable me to make predictions for the future."
Stryker fought her opponent - though it was not mentioned according to the rules of what sport she would be judged - and won by a one point margin.
Stryker did a combination, & it got her the win, & added more points to her Team's total, her friends & sisters went nuts of Stryker winning.
Face & the Team went totally nuts, & they let out Sharp Applause, & Whistles,
"Ugh, why did Face have to have more than one daughter," Tasmin said. "It's just more people for us to kill."
"Not really," Allison replied. "I think it's meant that the other Sues from the Angel Squad are her sisters. As in, the Team all impregnated the same woman."
Tasmin glared at her partner. "You're not helping."
"Make me sit through this much longer and I'm going to be even less helpful."
"What, you don't want to see the special effects display Frankie's daughter is going to set up?"
"Nope. I want to go in and charge."
"Sadly, we can't go in until all the Sues have shown their Sueness."
Allison grumbled and crossed her arms. They weren't even halfway through the fic and so far the only thing recognisably A-Team had been the names of the five men on the bleachers. The men themselves she had not recognised. Either they were severely OOC, or portrayed as senile old men. She didn't know which would be worse for the characters.
The competition officials helped Santana junior set up her display.
"Officials helping a contestant, that ought to be grounds for disqualification," Allison grumbled.
"The Sues made up the rules for this game. I'm sure it exempts them from any acts not considered fair play."
Jazz: Kiddo, You are the best at this Special Effects Stuff, that is why we need you, you can do this, you done it enough on missions, just pretend like Stryker said to me, we are on our turf, & we are enjoying ourselves.
Siren: You know this routine in & out, you can do it even blindfolded, you can do this, you just put your mind to something, you can do it, Just believe in yourself, we are here out there in spirit with you.
Stryker: Don't give up, you are stronger than you realize, you should give yourself credit when it's due, just have fun, remember, you own this event, it does not own you.
Ice: Remember that also we love you, if you get yourself hurt, we won't forgive you.
"It's like one of those motivational audio tapes that were popular in the 80s, stuck in an infinite loop."
"How hard would it have been to put in a little variation? One of the Sues saying: 'no need for the pep talk, girls. I know I am this great.'"
"Or have one of them fail at their event." Allison looked at Tasmin and half shrugged. "Yeah, that would have been too much to ask. Even if it gives the other Sues the opportunity to give their pep talk again, complete with predictions of future victories."
Santana junior added another perfect score to the Squad's total. Next up was BA's girl, whose event was moving heavy objects.
"I doubt this pentathlon is ever going to get Olympic status."
Par for the course, this time BA needed reassuring that his daughter was as brilliant as the others. Face managed to put his foot in his mouth.
Face: [...] she is not a quitter like her father
BA did not respond by pounding Face's face.
"The sheer mindlessness of this fic has numbed his sensitivities," Allison said. "Inever expected to charge a Sue with not getting Face's nose broken."
Siren was successful, she was so proud of the fact, that she inherited her father's Mechanical Knowledge, & Muscles,
"As if there is no training involved in maintaining those muscles." Allison looked at her partner. "I never see you go to the target range to practice shooting Sues, but that doesn't mean I am going to assume that your precision comes naturally to you."
"You should," Tasmin said. "I am that talented."
Last up was Murdock's daughter, Ice. Like BA's and Frankie's daughters, her main talent was what her father did best.
"At least Jazz and Stryker weren't completely moulded after their fathers," Allison said. "Jazz did not come up with a cunning plan and Stryker didn't pull off a successful scam."
"What are you suggesting? We applaud them for not being complete rip-offs?"
"I was suggesting we charge them with not knowing what Hannibal and Face's main talents are."
"Proceed."
Everyone left the stadium to go a grass field next to it.
Ice's part is not to let the enemy get her, she outmaneuvered them, & she only has to get her teammates, who are waiting in the middle of the Grassy Field, they smiled & gave her the "Thumbs Up", & got in the Chopper, & flew back to their position.
"I'm watching it and I have no idea what she is supposed to be doing. I'm not even sure who's flying this helicopter."
"I'm not watching it; the tense switches are making my head spin."
Regardless of what happened, or was supposed to happen, Ice won her event. A moment later the award ceremony took place. The Team were still nervous about the results, despite the fact that their daughters had won every event they took part in.
"It appears there were a few other events in this competition that weren't mentioned in the story," Tasmin said. "Otherwise, it could have never been a close call between who would get gold."
"According to the story, even after silver and bronze medals were awarded, it was still unknown which of two teams would get gold. Did the scoreboards have a major malfunction? Was no one writing the scores on their notepads? I've never been to a sporting event, or seen one on TV, where I didn't know who had won before they announced the winner in the award ceremony."
"It sounds more like how the winners in a beauty pageant are announced: third runner up, second runner up, leaving two people who could possibly the winner. So, charge for not knowing how a competition with an open scoring system works."
After receiving their medals, the Angel Squad went to the locker rooms to clean themselves up.
The agents were waiting for them when they came out of the shower. Because of the way the story was written, the Sues had been wearing their fatigues in the shower. They stood in the locker room in dripping wet clothes, pools forming at their feet.
Tasmin held both her Beretta 92SB and Colt M1911 pointed at the Sues.
Allison stood a little to the side, behind her partner. She cleared her throat. "C.J. 'Jazz' Smith, Alexis 'Ice' Murdock, Crystal 'Stryker' Peck, Bianca 'Siren' Baracus, and Maria 'Zap' Santana, we are Protectors of the Plot Continuum and we are here to charge you with crimes against The A-Team fandom and fanfiction in general. We charge you all with being the uncanonical daughters of, respectively, Hannibal, Murdock, Face, BA, and Frankie. We charge you with not inviting your mother, or mothers, to watch this event. I'm sure she or they would have been proud of you too.
"We charge you, Ice, Siren and Zap, with having the same talent as your fathers. We charge you, Jazz and Stryker, with not having competed in an event that is the main talent of your fathers. The way this story was set up, you made it look like you did not know what your fathers' main talent is. So, er, that's a charge for not knowing Hannibal's and Face's main talents. We charge you with giving the impression that your talents are gifts and don't require training to maintain them.
"We charge you with having the Team and Frankie be out of character to the point where they were unrecognisable. We charge you with BA not breaking Face's nose when Face called him a quitter. We charge you with not giving us a clue as to whether you were born before or after the Team got their pardons, and what age the Team members are now.
"We charge you with egging each other on for each event in exactly the same fashion. We charge you with your respective fathers being nervous for you and being reassured by the others In Exactly The Same Fashion. We charge you with winning each of your events. We charge you with winning each of your events and still not being sure you won the tournament. In a pentathlon it is possible to not win any of the separate events and still win the tournament. The other way around is just stupid.
"We charge you with using the ampersand in stead of the word 'and'. We charge you with not punctuating properly, with bolding narrative, with centring all text and with having narrative and dialogue say exactly the same thing. We charge you with being Mary Sues." Allison folded her notepad and stuffed it in a back pocket. She looked at the Sues who didn't seem to have moved since she started charging. "What's the matter with them?" she asked her partner. "I would have thought for sure they would have challenged some of these charges."
"They don't have enough personality to know what to do in a situation of obvious defeat," Tasmin replied. "You have been charged," she said to the Sues. "Your punishments for these crimes is death. You will not be mourned." Tasmin started popping off rounds.
Allison covered her ears and ducked away. When the noise stopped, she looked up and saw the Sues lying in their pools of blood and water.
Tasmin dropped her guns back in her duffel bag. "Time for us to go."