#and turning her into a martyr was a convenient way to kill two birds with one stone | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

duhragonball · 6 years ago

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (103/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous Chapters conveniently available here.

[8 February 233 Before Age. Planet Quadzityz.]

There was a long, complicated story behind the war currently raging on Quadzityz It told how the whole thing began over outdated laws and the government failing to collect taxes from the wealthiest members of its society. It told of several regime changes as the people revolted against the corrupt ruling class, only to find they had no idea what new system to install in its place. There were some fascinating side-stories about individuals who tried to ride out the chaos. A princess who went from hero to villain to martyr all in the span of a month. An idealistic leader who declared war on his neighbors rather than accept the need to address domestic unrest. A charismatic general who saw the conflict as a chance to build an new empire on the ashes of the Old Quadzityz. The general's husband, who turned against him when fortune tellers convinced him that he was prophesied to usher in the end of the universe. It was all very fascinating stuff. Over the next two hundred years, historians would make entire careers out of sifting through everything that happened.

Luffa didn't care about any of this. Her own personal account of the Quadzityz War was this: "I was busy dealing with other nonsense in other sectors, or I would have settled this a long time ago. Then some fool decided to bring slorgs into the fighting, and I have to kill them all before they start to breed and infest other planets. I am furious about this."

To be sure, Quadzityz was well beyond Federation space, the part of the galaxy that Luffa had staked as her home turf. Officially, her policy as Federatrix was to settle internal conflicts within its borders and to defend it from external invasions. Unofficially, Luffa pretty much did whatever she pleased, though she did try to stick to her mandate as a general rule. The Federation alliance was her idea, after all. But even from three sectors away, the presence of weaponized slorgs was a clear and present danger to the Federation, so it became her top priority as soon as she learned about it.

Making landfall on Quadzityz was no simple matter. The entire sector was involved in the war, and so Luffa had to fight all the way to the planet. Her star yacht, the Emerald Eye, lacked some of the defenses that a standard military transport would have, but Luffa had customized it over the years, and it had held up reasonably well in numerous war zones. Flying through hostile space was easy enough for her. Landing the ship, however, was a more difficult proposition, as it would be vulnerable to hostile fire from both air and ground forces. So Luffa plotted a course that would skim the atmosphere of the planet just long enough for her to travel the rest of the way on her own. The approach vector carried certain risks of its own, but it was so unorthodox that most of the other combatants were caught unawares, and neglected to attack.

Luffa stood in the cargo bay of her ship as it completed its descent into the atmosphere and began to level off. Once it started to point upwards to ascend back into space, she would make her jump.

"Any photographers around?" Luffa asked into the communicator she wore in her left ear.

"No, but we're about a hundred miles in the air right now," replied the voice on the other end. Her wife, Zatte, was on the bridge, and would mind the ship while Luffa prepared a landing site for her.

"Wouldn't put it past them to follow me here," Luffa grumbled. "There were enough of them on the last three planets in this sector. I'm starting to wonder if the correspondents start these wars just so they'll have something to report on."

"It wasn't that many," Zatte said. "And the shot of you smashing that armored transport was really cute."

Luffa winced at the word 'cute'. "It made me look like a chump," she said. "Any normal Saiyan could lift one of those things. And my eyes were closed, so it looks like I was straining myself."

"You worry too much," Zatte said. "I can promise you: nobody saw that photo and thought you were a weakling. But if it makes you feel any better, the only thing waiting for you down there are about fifty slorgs armed with cybernetic assault weapons."

"That's why I married you," Luffa said with a smirk. "You always know the right thing to say to cheer me up."

"See you soon," Zatte said.

The ship began to climb out of the atmosphere, and this was Luffa's signal to make her jump. With a deep breath and a running start, she leaped out of the cargo bay door, through the force field that maintained the pressure inside the ship, and into the thin air of the planet's thermosphere. In a single fluid motion, she contorted her body to face the Emerald Eye, and fired a beam of crimson light from her fingertips, which passed just over the dorsal hull. A moment later, an explosion could be seen in the distance, indicating that she had successfully destroyed her target, which was an enemy ship that had strayed a little too close for her liking.

Drawing her arms to her chest, she allowed herself to freefall head-first to the planet's surface, and then she transformed. Her normally black hair flashed into a gleaming golden color, while her brown eyes glowed an eerie green. Luffa applied her own immense ki energy to increase the speed of her descent, rocketing down to the planet like a missile. She slowed just enough as she reached the ground that her impact left only a small crater in the ground, though this was still more than enough to disrupt and confuse the enemies waiting for her.

Just as Zatte had promised, there were several dozen slorgs in the area, and she tore into them first, ignoring the Quadzity soldiers and their alien allies. Luffa's primary strategic objective was to remove all traces of slorgs from the sector, in order to ensure that they wouldn't breed and spread their population into Federation worlds. Her second objective was to find any Saiyans that happened to be participating in the war. She would interrogate these for any information she had concerning King Rehval, her most hated enemy. Her third objective was to put a stop to the fighting. Zatte didn't necessarily agree with the order of those priorities, but Luffa considered the matter academic, since she felt she could accomplish all three simultaneously. The sector was a mess, and the slorg problem was just a good place to get started.

Slorgs were not sapient creatures, though it was possible to train them to perform certain tasks, and certain rogue scientists had found ways to control them with cybernetic implants. These particular slorgs were of a self-sustaining product line. The initial batch contained cybernetics that would self-replicate, and when the slorgs mated, they were programmed/trained to install additional cybernetic implants into their young. In theory, any military who purchased these slorgs was supposed to have complete control over them, and they could shut them down or command them to self-destruct if needed, but Luffa knew that war wasn't as neat and tidy as munitions dealers and defense ministers liked to think. She had once fought another line of cyber-slorgs that were supposed to auto-sterilize after a certain period of time, but there was a bug in the program, and the slorgs managed to breed out of control anyway.

As she smashed her fist into the face of one, shattering its six-inch teeth like a pane of glass, another slorg grabbed her from behind with its tentacles. Slorgs usually tried to perform a "death-shake" on their prey, lifting a creature up over its head and shaking it violently to break the animal's neck. The technique was probably millions of years old, but whoever had designed the cybernetics added a new twist: the plasma cannons mounted on the slorg's back would automatically train on the victim once the slorg raised them above its head. All of this was only a minor inconvenience for Luffa, however. Using her ki as a shield, she deflected the cannon fire into another slorg, and flipped herself around to drag her "captor" by its own tentacles, and slamming it into a third slorg. Even as she completed this maneuver, a fourth one came up from behind and grabbed her arms.

Now the Quadzity soldiers were getting involved. Taking up positions around her, they fired into the horde of slorgs, confident that the cybernetics would prevent the creatures from turning on their masters. Luffa found their tactics laughable. Just because the slorgs wouldn't go wild over friendly fire didn't mean that she couldn't use them as cover. The smart choice would have been to use the slorgs as a diversion and regroup to a more favorable position. That, or to call in air support. Truthfully, Luffa wasn't entirely sure what the best move would be for her opponents. Surrender, perhaps.

Bored with the slorgs, she cried out and increased her ki, generating an explosive wave that fried most of their circuits and drove them away from her. This was mostly to separate the live slorgs from the ones she had already killed. Before they could recover, she rushed each of them at breathtaking speed and fired a focused ki blast through their vital organs. Satisfied that there were no more for her to kill, she turned her attention to the conventional forces that now surrounded her. Thirty seconds after that, she used the lull in fighting to focus her senses on any ki signatures in the skies. Any manned airships would be detectable by their pilots, and she used this to aim her ki blasts. Drone weapons were still an issue, so she contacted Zatte on her earpiece to find out what the Emerald Eye's sensors could pick up. Zatte liked to flirt on the line, but her tactical reports were otherwise very clear and concise.

Luffa repeated this process for several more minutes, until at last she had pacified enough land and airspace to safely escort the Emerald Eye to the ground. There were risks in leaving the ship unattended, but Zatte had work to do on the surface, and Luffa was confident that she could secure alternate transportation if the star-yacht ended up being destroyed.

"Enjoying yourself?" Zatte asked when she stepped off the ramp leading from the entrance.

Luffa wiped the slorg blood from her arms before answering. "Yeah, this isn't half-bad. You need a lift to the command center?"

Zatte scanned the terrain with her one good eye. She drew her pistol, and Luffa turned to see if there was a target, then realized Zatte was only making use of the telescopic sight mounted on the barrel.

"Nah, I can make it," she said. Tapping her earpiece, she added: "I'll give a shout if anything goes wrong."

An explosion suddenly rocked the ground beneath them. Zatte took that as her cue to get moving. "You probably want to check that out. Have fun, okay?"

As Zatte ran, her body faded from sight. Her ability to manipulate energy allowed her to become virtually undetectable except by sound or smell. Luffa smiled as she watched her vanish, then she took off for her next target.

*******

"This is ridiculous," Lesseri said as she and Endive ran through the bombed out streets of Inoy, one of Quadzityz larger cities.

"You had no objections to the plan before we landed," Endive replied.

"Oh, I had objections," Lesseri said, "I just didn't bring them up because I didn't have any better ideas. This is probably our best bet, but it's still ridiculous."

With Luffa on the planet, it was only a matter of time before the war would come to an abrupt end. All three sides of the conflict had turned their attention on the Super Saiyan, and yet she had still managed to carve out a demilitarized zone on the planet's largest island. The only thing slowing Luffa down now was the need to defend her newly acquired territory, though she still found time to make raids deep behind enemy lines. At least the warring factions were keeping Luffa busy... for now.

All of that would change, however, if Luffa were to sense Saiyan power levels on the planet. That would happen almost instantly, unless the Saiyans suppressed their ki. The moment they used their powers for any feats of strength or speed, Luffa would notice it and come after them. There was a slim chance that she would be distracted by whatever she was doing, but Lesseri and Endive both knew that Luffa was obsessed with interrogating Saiyans in her search for King Rehval. Whatever Luffa was doing, it was almost certain that she was keeping an eye out for Saiyans, just in case any of them happened to show up.

The safest bet was to wait for Luffa to finish her business on Quadzityz and leave, but this carried risks of its own. Lesseri and Endive were counting on the war to act as a smokescreen. Once the planet was pacified, it would be difficult for them to move around on the planet without attracting attention, and even if Luffa left the planet, she would only be a subspace radio message away. Lesseri's group would have a head start if Luffa came after them, but they didn't like the idea of attracting Luffa's attention at this stage of their quest.

Endive's plan was dangerous, but it was the only logical course available to them: They would make their way to Quadzityz, and carry out their mission without using their ki at all. This meant that if they ran into serious trouble, that they wouldn't be able to defend themselves, but Endive reasoned that they could ease that burden by scavenging arms and armor from dead soldiers. She had hoped to secure a vehicle as well, but so far all the transports they had encountered were damaged beyond repair.

"Slorg up ahead," Lesseri said as she checked her binoculars.

"Can we go around it?" Endive asked.

Lesseri pulled out her handheld sensor device and pulled up an interactive map of the section of the city they were in. "Too many blues that way," she said as she pointed in a westerly direction. Then she gestured at the green markings on her own helmet and Endive's body armor. "It'd be tough to bluff our way past them with all this enemy gear we're wearing, and if we have to fight, I'd rather take my chances on the slorg. At least he won't call for help."

"What about that way?" Endive suggested. She pointed to a road leading northeast.

"Greens had a command post that way," Lesseri said. She tapped her finger on the part of the map she was referring to. "But the Blues knocked it out yesterday. Lot of rough terrain to cover, and then we'd have to climb in and out of a pretty big crater."

Endive smiled. "We could always wait here," she said. "Sooner or later, Luffa will fly in and kill the slorg for us."

"And she'll just fly off as soon as she's done, right?" Lesseri grumbled. "You don't know how she thinks. She'll try to get as much done here as she can before moving on. If she spots us, she'll think we're more enemy soldiers to round up. Once she's close enough to take our guns, she won't need to sense our ki. She'll know we're Saiyans from the smell of our body odor."

"True," Endive said.

"Well, I say we fight it," Lesseri said. "You with me?"

"Very well, it is just one slorg," Endive said, patting the sidearms she had strapped to her waist. "The Reds wouldn't have brought them into this unless these Green weapons weren't formidable. Let's try to set up a crossfire."

*******

Two hours later, Endive was beginning to think they should have waited for Luffa after all. There had been three slorgs, not just one, and there were at least twenty soldiers and mercenaries in the mix as well. This worked to their favor somewhat, as they could count on their enemies to fight each other, but it also made it that much harder for the Saiyan women to advance. Even without ki, the pair still had enough muscle to turne over a wrecked truck and use it as cover while they shot at the slorgs, but the cybernetic implants on the creatures allowed them to coordinate their attacks, which made things much more difficult.

"If we don't get out of here soon," Endive shouted over the blaster fire, "Luffa really will drop in on us!"

"I've got an idea," Lesseri said. "Cover me!"

Endive did as she asked, and laid down fire to keep the others from trying to pick off Lesseri as she leaped out from behind the truck. She jumped to a broken barricade, then to a lamp post, which she used to propel herself to a third-story window of a building along the intersection. The Greens and Blues were unsure how to proceed, since Lesseri was wearing parts of both of their uniforms. The slorgs ignored her completely, as they still had plenty of targets to shoot at. Endive waited, and for a moment, she began to wonder if Lesseri had found some way around the battle and left her behind.

Instead, there was a series of explosions from the building. Before anyone could react, a large chunk of the wall facing the battle tore away, and fell down upon the Greens. Some of them might have survived, but it would take them a long time to dig themselves out. The slorgs then turned their attention on the Blues, since they no longer recognized the buried Greens as a threat. In the time it took for their cybernetic implants to reconsider the battle, Endive managed to slip out into the open and scramble over the wreckage that now covered the Green position. She found Lesseri waiting for her on the other side.

"Why didn't you do that in the first place?" Endive asked.

"I didn't think I had enough explosives to pull it off," Lesseri said. "Then I realized I didn't need to bring down the whole building, just a big enough piece to take out one side. Probably just as well that we thinned the herd a little first."

They continued on their way, and were pleased to find that the rest of the journey was relatively clear of obstacles. At last, they arrived at an apartment building, with a penthouse comprising the top five floors.

"Should be a simple smash and grab," Lesseri said as she shot the lock off the service entrance and kicked the door open. "Or it will be, if Guawar and Treekul can tell us where to look."

Their ultimate goal was a thing called "Jindan", a rumored technique that would greatly increase a Saiyan's strength. While searching for the truth behind the rumors, Lesseri had met Treekul, and alchemical historian who recognized the term "Jindan" from her research. They formed an alliance, which eventually expanded to include Endive, and finally Guwar, a Saiyan mathematician. Without any real leads to speak of, Treekul had directed the Saiyans to locate ancient alchemical texts, which she believed contained techniques and formulae which would have been refined to create the Jindan power of today. To pursue this line of reasoning, she relied upon a mystic ability to track scrolls and other relics by extrapolating their position, using the known locations of other artifacts. Treekul's geomantic compass had led them to Quadzityz, and as they approached the planet, she had managed to narrow down the search to a single building in the city of Inoy, but this was the limit of Treekul's precision. However, Guwar believed that his skills could help refine her calculations, and so they had remained behind while Lesseri and Endive handled the mission.

"I'm sure our resident mathematician will come through for us," Endive said. She reached into her ruck sack and withdrew a bone from the gravesite they had robbed on their last mission.

"He'd better," Lesseri said as she took out her communicator to call their ship. "Because we don't have time to search this place room by room."

To his credit, Guwar was able to improve Treekul's precision, but only enough to narrow it down to the top three floors of the penthouse. For anything better, they had to take new readings, while Endive held the bone in the building, and then again after she had jogged one hundred yards due east of it. By the time she returned, Lesseri had the coordinates.

"68th floor, probably some kind of trophy room or private art gallery," she said as they took the elevator. When it requested a security clearance to go beyond the 60th floor, they simply opened the top of the elevator car and climbed the cables the rest of the way. Eight stories up, they forced the door to their destination.

"Be careful," Endive said as they got off on the 68th floor. "This building may be abandoned, but anyone rich enough to own a private collection of ancient artifacts may have invested in a security system."

"As long as it isn't slorgs," Lesseri said, "I think I can deal with that." She led the way as they crept through the hallway. Every so often, Lesseri would stop to check their position against the coordinates they had received from Guwar. "There it is," she said, pointing at what appeared to be an ordinary wall. "Must be some sort of secret entrance, but our prize is about seven feet beyond that wall."

"Fortunately, I have just the thing to open the passage," Endive said with a chuckle. She took a pair of her plasma weapons from her belt and assembled them into a larger gun. "I will only need a moment to angle the shot so as not to hit what we came for."

"Aim away from the floor," Lesseri said. "There might be pressure sensors to detect footsteps."

"Let's hope not," Endive replied. She stepped to one side and ended up straddling a chair as she chose a suitable trajectory. "We can't fly over them without using our ki, now can we?"

"We'll figure something out," Lesseri. "Go on, take the shot."

As soon as Endive did, the entire floor filled with the obnoxious shrill of an alarm system. Realizing the damage had already been done, Endive continued firing at the same portion of the wall, until she had destroyed a large enough piece for one of them to climb through to the other side.

"See if you can find a way to shut that damn thing off!" Lesseri shouted. "I'll take a look inside!"

Endive turned and went to search the rest of the penthouse, and Lesseri crawled through the hole in the wall. Since the alarm was already triggered, she threw caution to the wind and walked casually to the exact coordinates Guwar had given her. There, she found an old copper retort on a stand. A series of sigils and runes had been engraved across almost every square inch of its surface Nearby, she saw a scroll in a transparent plastic display case. It had been unrolled enough to read part of its contents, though Lesseri could make no sense of the handwriting or jargon. That would be up to Treekul. It frustrated her to be so dependent on someone else to interpret these clues, but she hadn't come this far to stop now. She changed a setting on one of her pistols, causing it to function more like a cutting torch than as a weapon, and used it to remove the scroll from its case. Then she scooped up the retort and made her way to the secret door into the foyer, which was clearly visible from the inside of the gallery. She had hoped that Endive would have found a way to shut off the damned alarm by now, but she supposed it didn't matter now that they were ready to leave.

As Lesseri stepped out into the foyer, she was suddenly grabbed from behind by some sort of mechanical arm. As she tried to shove it aside, it was joined by another arm, and then another. She twisted her body away from her assailant, and saw that it was a robot.

"Submit!" it cried over the blare of the alarm. Its design somewhat resembled a humanoid, but its torso was long and thin, with ten long, spindly arms attached to either side. The speaker on its head was located roughly where a person's mouth would be, and instead of eyes, it had two pairs of blinking lights. It had four legs, each about two feet in length, which now carried the machine forward as it continued its attack on Lesseri.

"Submit! Submit!" it repeated. Lesseri dropped the stolen items and reached for her sidearm, but just as she was about to fire on the robot, something else came from behind her and grabbed her arm, spoiling her aim. The plasma bolt went over the robot's head and destroyed a chunk of the ceiling.

Instinctively, Lesseri raised her free arm to try to hit her second opponent in the face with her elbow, but then she noticed the first one was still coming towards her, so she went limp instead, dropping to the floor. She was pleasantly surprised to see the robot pounce forward and strike its comrade, a second robot of the same model. It stilll hadn't released its hold on her arm, but neither robot could exploit that advantage, as they both struggled to untangle their other limbs from each other.

Lesseri wondered where the things had come from, and how they had managed to get so close to her without her noticing, and then she happened to look down and saw a third robot emerging from the floor. There was no opening; the machine seemed to rise up from the carpet like a swimmer coming up for air in a pool of water.

"Submit!" it cried as it grabbed hold of her left boot.

Lesseri remembered her sidearm and pointed it at the robot's face. She fired, destroying its entire upper body, but it's grip on her ankle didn't loosen at all. In fact, its other nine arms still seemed to be reaching for her, though more aimlessly than before. She changed the weapon's settings to fire a narrow beam, hoping that this would be enough to cut herself loose without hurting herself in the process, but before she could try, another metallic arm grabbed her. She looked around and found the first two robots had managed to get their act together.

"This is getting complicated..." she said under her breath.

Lesseri managed to roll clear of the other robot arms, though she was unable to free herself from the ones on her arm and leg. It would have been easy to rip them apart with her ki, but doing this would bring Luffa on them, and the situation hadn't gotten that desperate yet. Her muscular frame still had enough power to drag the robots along the floor, and for a moment she considered trying to escape this way. She even briefly thought about scooping up the copper retort and the scroll she had dropped, until she saw a fourth robot emerging from one of the walls. The mission could wait.

She moved as quickly as she could, and made it out of the foyer and around the corner to the hallway that led to the elevator. It was there she found Endive, who had run into a group of robots herself. They had already gotten the better of her, and had wrapped enough of their arms around her to immobilize her completely.

"They're coming out of the walls!" Endive shouted when she spotted Lesseri. The warning came too late, and if Endive had anything more useful to say, the robots stopped her before she got the chance. One of them unfolded its head into a long strip of metal, and wrapped this around her head, covering her mouth completely.

Lesseri moved closer, as she had no other idea on what to do. She would probably need Endive's help to get out of this mess, and even if she didn't, Endive was between Lesseri and the elevator. Endive's muffled screams were barely audible over the alarm and all of the robots chirping "Submit!" over and over. Lesseri wasn't sure if Endive was being hurt in some way, or if she was simply upset about being captured.

Then Lesseri felt two more robots grabbing her from behind, and she realized that Endive had been trying to warn her. Now that the reinforcements had arrived, the robots clinging to her boot and arm managed to right themselves and work together. Their forty limbs quickly linked together and wrapped themselves around Lesseri like a spider wrapping up its prey, and once they were finished, one of them unfolded its head to gag her, just like Endive.

Somehow, the robots were still able to move, despite being clustered together around their prisoners. Each group lifted the Saiyans into an upright position, and carried them back into the foyer. Lesseri found all of this humiliating, but decided that it would be rash to break free, since the robots hadn't actually hurt them yet. Eventually, someone would release them, if only to put them into some confinement cell, and she and Endive could figure out their next move from there.

"Capture complete!" one of the robots announced to no one. The alarm fell silent, and Lesseri was grateful for that small concession.

"Perimeter secure!" the robot continued. "Preparing prisoners for disposal!"

Lesseri wasn't sure what that meant until she noticed Endive convulsing from within her restraints. She noticed a faint scent of ozone, and once she listened for it, Lesseri thought she could hear a slight buzz coming from Endive's position.

The robots were administering electrical shocks to her.

Lesseri wasn't sure why they had started with Endive, or what the ultimate purpose of this was. Was this meant to kill intruders, or was it part of an elaborate interrogation? Or were they simply being tortured to satisfy the penthouse owner's warped sense of justice? And how far could they let this go before they had no choice but to use their ki to escape?

"Physiological responses measured!" one of the robots said. "Preparing proper dosage!"

Lesseri looked on as one of the other robots holding Endive unfolded its head to reveal yet another arm, with a hypodermic needle attached to the end. From what it had said, she could only guess that the shock treatment was some kind of check to see how Endive's body would fare against whatever was in the needle. Was it poison? A sedative? Drugs to ensure her compliance? Lesseri was finding it more and more difficult to justify holding back. To hell with worrying about Luffa. At least the Super Saiyan was a known quantity. At least, if Lesseri used her ki, they would survive, and there was at least a chance they could run back to the ship and take off before Luffa caught up to them. Surely Endive understood that just as well as Lesseri did.

Then why hadn't Endive summoned her power to break free? Did she not realize the danger she was in? As the needle moved closer and closer to Endive's throat, she simply stared straight ahead, her eyebrows knitted into a tight frown. Did Endive had a plan, or was she just waiting until the last possible moment to make a move?

And then, just when Lesseri couldn't stand the suspense any longer, just when she was about to use her own ki to get them out of this mess, she felt it. It was a Saiyan ki, but not Endive's, or Lesseri's, and certainly not Guwar's, or even Luffa's.

She had no idea whose power she was sensing, or what it might mean...

NEXT: The Apostate

#dragon ball #fanfiction #super saiyan #luffa #lssjluffafic #zatte #lesseri #endive #quadzityz

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teaandforeshadowing · 8 years ago

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The “Mary is a Villain” Meta

Alternative Title: Redemption Arc, Schmedemption Arc

[also posted to reddit - go upvote!]

Mary might be Moran, or she might be Moriarty’s replacement, or she might be the real Moriarty, or his secret twin sister, or--whatever, the details aren’t important. What is important is that Mary is an evil person, and even though she died, the events of season 4 are fake (to an extent), and her story arc is far from over.

“But Mary sacrificed herself to save Sherlock!” you say, “They were all friends, the Watsons love each other!” I hear ya buddy. You can think that if you like, but there is undeniable proof that Mary is not as good a person as everyone thinks she is. (And I mean besides the assassin-for-hire part.) Mirroring and subtext tells us that her redemption arc was bullshit and you should not believe a word of her martyrdom because she was coded as a villain all the way up to - and after - her death.

And this meta is going to show that to you.

As a wee bab of a blogger way back in 2014, I wrote my very first meta about how seasons 1 and 3 are narratively similar and proved that Mary and Jim Moriarty served the same narrative purpose in terms of TJLC and Johnlock. Now, in light of season 4 (to be compared to season 2), I will use this meta to update that theory and expand on it better using my improved observational and meta-writing skills (thanks TST hell week!). In addition, I will list all the other ways Mary has been coded as Generally Evil in ways not directly connected to Moriarty, linked with appropriate metas written about those points!

This meta has 7 parts, numbered 1-7 for your convenience.

#1: The Part Where I Talk About Jim Moriarty #2: The Part Where I Talk About Mary Morstan (briefly) #3: The Part Where I Take a Short Break to Talk About the Abominable Bride #4: The Part Where I Talk About Mary Morstan (again) #5: The Part Where I Take Another Short Break to Talk About Shermit #6: The Part Where I Tie It All Together #7: Additional Potentially Superfluous but Equally Important Resources

TL;DR: Mary is a Villain. If you want to know how, you’re gonna have to read. [If you really must skim, the most important points I make are bolded, though I recommend reading everything for context.]

I apologize if a lot of this is copying off other metas, this is mostly building off things I’ve compiled in my “Maryarty” tag and sorting out thoughts about posts I’ve seen, but I will try to cite as many other metas as I can find that relate. If you find one already written about a specific point I mention, please link me so I can give proper credit!

The part where I talk about Jim Moriarty

Let's take a trip in the time machine and revisit the first season to explore Jim Moriarty's motivations. Moriarty is a consulting criminal that loves to play with Sherlock - he'll cook up the cases and Sherlock will solve them. That is, as long as he always holds the controls and Sherlock doesn't get too close - he'll have fun with the relationship as long as Sherlock doesn't find out what he's really doing behind the curtain. If he does, there will be consequences. The consequences for getting too close the first time involved strapping John to some semtex. Next time, he says he'll burn out Sherlock's heart.

On the roof at the end of season two, Jim admits he's become fed up with playing with Sherlock. Sherlock has become ordinary and boring like everyone else, and he's ready for the game to be over. But he's not going to just let him go. No, he's going to make sure the game ends with a bang. If Sherlock won't smarten up and play with him, then he can't be allowed to continue with anyone. (Sounds a lot like a Jealous Ex-Girlfriend if you ask me.) Jim has taken his friends hostage in order to get him to do what he wants, and he seals Sherlock's fate by shooting himself in the head and destroying Sherlock's only chance of saving them. By killing himself, Jim ensures that Sherlock dies too.

Jims narrative purpose in these two seasons was to present him with the opportunity to live his life removed from the mundane drivel of regular people that he’d gotten himself acquainted with. (Of course on a subtextual level, "people" means John.) With Jim, they could dance around each other playing clever games that no one else could hope to understand. Both Jim and Sherlock think Sherlock wants to be intellectually superior, above feelings and emotions, infinitely clever, but we both know that's not quite true. By choosing to jump and save his friends, Sherlock seals the deal that he doesn’t want what Jim is offering.

Conclusion: Jim represents the life that Sherlock thinks he wants. Jim realizes that Sherlock prefers his new life with John instead, and he is willing to kill John in order to keep Sherlock to himself.

The Part Where I Talk About Mary Morstan (briefly)

Fast forward through The Hiatus and we meet Mary, whose usefulness as a character effectively ends when Sherlock comes back to life unless she’s a villain. John mentions several times that Mary was a rock for him as he was grieving Sherlock's death, that she really turned his life around. But he doesn't stop there - for the record, there were only two people who have ever done that for him, and Sherlock is the other.

The comparisons between Mary and Sherlock are rampant in The Sign of Three, with John saying "The two people I love most" (with no distinction between platonic and romantic love), Mary saying "Neither of us were the first" (again, the first what?? Friend?? Romance?? No distinction is made.) and Sherlock using the word "companion" in reference both him and Mary back to back (again again, with no distinction between platonic and marital companionship). Sherlock and Mary are equivalent in everyone's eyes - Mary is replacing Sherlock just as much as Sherlock could easily fit into Mary's role as the bride.

As you can see it's pretty hard to talk about Mary's role in the show without also talking about Johnlock, but that's not why I'm here. It is important to understand, though, how much Sherlock threatens Mary's life with John. Enough, apparently, to take advantage of a golden opportunity when Sherlock finds her in a compromising position. By shooting and killing Sherlock, she kills two birds with one stone - she eliminates the competition, and she gets to reprise her old role of being John's shoulder to cry on.

Conclusion: Mary represents the life that John thinks he wants. Mary realizes that John prefers his old life with Sherlock instead, and she is willing to kill Sherlock in order to keep John to herself.

Sound familiar? This conclusion allows us to assume that in season 4, Mary will continue to follow Jim's season 2 arc by dishing out the consequences of John's choice. (The consequences in Jim's case was The Fall.)

Except, that's not really what happens, is it? Mary dies a martyr in episode 1, helps John come to terms with his guilt surrounding his almost-affair, and lovingly narrates the culmination of this penultimate season, sending her two Baker Street Boys into the adventurous future with a smile from the Great Beyond.

Of course, we would accept this as truth if it weren't for all the evidence presented to us that continuously suggests the opposite.

The Part Where I Take a Short Break to Talk About The Abominable Bride

Before we dive into season 4, we need to take a short detour to The Abominable Bride, which served as a bridge between the two seasons and a sort of "decoder ring" for a lot of what happens in the show - it’s a dream that can be used to interpret what’s going on in “real life”, just like our dreams. It set up mirrors and parallels so that we saw certain characters (*cough* Mary) a certain way and could interpret their confusing and misleading actions and behavior the way they were meant to. The surface reading of season 4 is not a truthful one, and TAB is a big part of understanding why that is.

The title The Abominable Bride refers to the bride Emelia Ricoletti, who shot herself in the head, and then seemed to come back from the dead. It's foreshadowed throughout the episode (the he/she mixup, "virus in the data") that Sherlock is really just trying to figure out how Moriarty could have come back to life from shooting himself in the head. In the end, the bride draws back the veil to reveal that it really was Jim all along! This explicit reveal, which was the point of the entire episode, gives us an obvious comparison: Emelia Ricoletti is Jim Moriarty. She even dies to kill her husband, like Jim did on the roof. Sherlock subconsciously connects Emelia to Jim, so we should too.

But there's another mirror to be found here. A subtexual one: Mary is also a bride.

The show even reminds us of this as Bride Mary confronts Sherlock with her gun in his mind palace in HLV, instead of like, the assassin gear she's actually wearing when she shoots him. Sherlock subconsciously sees Mary as a bride, so we should too.

Even before the episode aired, this connection was made, and people speculated that Mary was The Bride that is referenced in the title of the episode. As it turns out, they were only partially wrong. When she is introduced in the episode, she's dressed as a widow (purely for the purpose of impish humor, but the subconscious connection of a being a wife is still there), and many first believed that this "client" was The Bride from the case. But when the veil is pulled away - shocker, it's Mary!

Using this evidence and the Transitive Property of Equality, we can assume that Mary is supposed to be subtextually compared with Moriarty. If Emelia = Jim, and Emelia = Mary, then Mary = Jim.

(In addition, even though Mary is shown not to be a part of The Conspiracy, it's shown to us through out the episode that Mary fits right in with them: she's joined the women's suffrage movement, feels neglected by her husband, and is far cleverer than anyone gives her credit for.)

The Part Where I Talk About Mary Morstan (again)

Ok so that short break wasn't really so short, but hopefully you've got a better understanding now how they show Mary's connections to Moriarty because it's time to move onto season 4!

Kind of. There's a lot of confusing stuff that happens in this season. Most of it has to do with subtext that seriously conflicts with Mary's "redemption" arc in The Six Thatchers. I think the easiest way to do this is to put everything in a list:

During setlock, shark imagery was seen that viewers began to associate with Mary because of the scenes they appeared in. There's a shitload of sharks swimming around when Sherlock narrates the tale of Samarra, a tale which turns out to be about Mary. Previously, Sherlock describes CAM as a shark from the London Aquarium, where Mary dies. This makes it sound like Mary is a victim and the Villainous Sharks are coming to get her, but if you take a look at this series of tweets from Mark Gatiss to Amanda Abbington, you'll see that the context changes entirely: Mary is the shark. Mark also describes Moriarty as a shark, so if he and Mary fulfill the same narrative purpose, then, well....

"You can't arrest a jellyfish." There's a huge tank of jellyfish behind Mary as she leaps to save Sherlock.

Mary is a receptionist. So is the villain of the episode, it turns out. Also worth nothing that Ajay thought Mary was the one who betrayed A.G.R.A.

Sherlock's made-up story about Mr. Kingsley's wife being a spy sounds a lot like Mary. (Mr. Kingsley’s reactions to his deductions are also a bit unconventional, like John’s are.)

As Sherlock follows Ajay's Thatcher trail, he assumes that Moriarty is behind the whole thing. It turns out he's wrong, and it's about Mary.

Mary jokes about her daughter being the devil, then the antichrist, which would make her the devil.

She shows up to the desanctified church all ready to go with a paper full of chemical sedatives, just in case, right?

She assumes the identity of Gabrielle Ashdown, who is a character in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes that Sherlock does not trust.

Honestly the whole "running away" scene just screams that Mary is not done with her past as an assassin. If she really was a repentant housewife she wouldn't be so eager to return to her old ways of espionage.

She even insists on naming her daughter after herself and her "real" name that she used in the good old days of A.G.R.A. Yep, definitely done with that dark past, ready to leave it behind for good.

Sherlock never actually tells Mary to meet him at the aquarium. He tells John, but his message to Mary only reads "The curtain rises. The last act. It's not over." which is a line he uses to when presented with Moriarty's first pip in TGG, and in TAB when he's about to dive into Moriarty’s Emelia Ricoletti's case.

Again, Norbury, the villain, says she's the merchant in the story, but we just finished watching the part where Mary attempts to escape her fate at the hands of Ajay. And then Mary dies.

A DVD shows up at Baker Street marked "Miss Me?" - Moriarty's trademark phrase. But who's on it? Mary. “To Sherlock: Please watch this. From, Mary” would have worked just as well.

An after-credits scene has Mary telling Sherlock to "Go to Hell", which is completely out of context, but it still caused us to doubt the seemingly benevolent message of the DVD for an entire week before TLD aired.

TL;DR: We are supposed to second-guess Mary’s intentions for the entire duration of this episode. Mary’s redemption arc and death are not what they appear to be.

Even after Mary dies, she continues to have a pretty dominating presence in the show. She haunts John subconsciously, not dissimilar to the way the ghost of Moriarty haunts Sherlock. She also sets the entire events of The Lying Detective in motion with a single, pleading DVD. A DVD which purposely leads Sherlock to his death.

The Part Where I Take Another Short Break to Talk About Shermit

Ok well not specifically Shermit, but the #SherlockLive twitter event held on January 10th.

For those unfamiliar, this was an official event Sherlock (Mark and Steven) "hijacked" the official BBC One twitter account. He used the time he had to present us with a case he had recently solved in order to test our detective skills. You can see the case’s conclusion here, but in the end, it was revealed that the victim had done it! Just like Sherlock predicted in his Clue game with John.

Daniel Collard was a man who "had a violent past, but apparently has redeemed himself and isn't that person anymore,"; however, evidence proved that he was still an unpleasant person (see above bullet points). His wife, Sophie, was unhappy with him and was secretly in love with someone else, “Joey”, an affair that Daniel soon found out about.

Then, being the clever man he was, Daniel came up with a plan to get revenge involving doctored photos, phony tweets, and faked security camera footage that framed his wife's secret lover for his death. Since Sophie was not content in their marriage, Daniel meant for his death to destroy the relationship she really wanted.

Now, looking at the other details of this case, a very easy connection can be made between Daniel and Mary: "brilliant sociopath commits suicide in such a way that it is intended to frame and destroy spouse and spouse's lover, conveniently initialed S and J, while incidentally implying that brilliant sociopath was also having an affair that ended when one of the parties became pregnant". [see: The Baby Isn't John's.]

The Part Where I Tie Everything Together

While reading this, it might have become clear to some of you that there is a recurring theme here, which I will point out to you soon, but in order to fully understand what I'm about to drop on alla-y'all right now, you need to understand how mirrors work as a literary device (because recently this lack of understanding has been causing some fandom drama). If you already understand this, feel free to skip the next paragraph.

A mirror is a character that is used to highlight certain traits in another, typically more important character. We can draw parallels between these two characters based on traits they have in common and make inferences and predictions about them based on what they don't have in common or what happens to them. Sometimes the story will explicitly tell us that the two characters are similar, but a lot of the time it will be more subtle, such as having the characters wear very similar outfits, or having them say the exact same conversation with/phrase to the same character. As a literary device, mirrors can foreshadow events, reveal background information that was previously unknown/unconfirmed, or show us how a character really feels about a situation without having them tell us outright. See here for some quick examples.

Now I will lay it out for you as clearly as I can:

Moriarty killed himself on the roof in order to condemn Sherlock to suicide after he became too boring as posthumous revenge.

This mirror alone should be enough to conclude that Mary's death was intentional and served a bigger purpose. But TPTB were kind enough to provide us with yet another mirror:

Emelia Ricoletti faked her death - with witnesses - so she could kill her neglectful husband as posthumous revenge.

Emelia and Moriarty's deaths both had similar meanings, so since Mary mirrors both of these characters, it's actually kind of obvious that Mary's death did not have good intentions. HOWEVER!! TPBP were extra super kind enough to provide us with YET ANOTHER mirror!

Daniel Collard killed himself in a way that framed his wife's lover in order to ruin their relationship as posthumous revenge.

This one occurs after Mary's death in The Six Thatchers, as if to frame it from both sides that there's more to it than meets the eye.

And if you take that last one into consideration when thinking about Mary’s role last season, Jim’s role in season 2, and The DVD, it becomes almost painfully obvious that Mary’s death served as a way to separate John and Sherlock permanently.

Additional Potentially Superfluous but Equally Important Resources

Before I link you to all the resources I've amassed, I think that it's vital to point out that it's been two months since Mary's arc finally ended in The Lying Detective, and BBC is still putting out new content related to Mary, as if they don’t want us to forget about her just yet:

First, after she died in The Six Thatchers, they released some promo pics which, before the context of The Lying Detective, suggested that Mary was still alive.

Then was her completely unnecessary second DVD in The Final Problem. The last thing they present to us in this season finale is a voiceover of a character that is long-dead and irrelevant, as if they want her presence to stick in our mind

For the special cinema screening of The Final Problem, they included extra bonus content that was basically a mini documentary about Mary.

The BBC worldwide Showcase on February 20th gave us this charming little dancing-Sherlocks routine in front of a backdrop of... Mary deductions...

Masterpiece PBS posted this video on February 28th, in which Martin and Amanda talk about their characters' relationship, accompanied by clips that don't really support their claims. At all.

There's a lot more that points towards Mary's villainy other than the parallels and connections I've pointed out above, but frankly the issue has already been beaten to death, so instead of reiterating what's already been said, I'm going to link you to as many metas as I can - metas that inspired this post and contributed to it as I was writing it up. They do not have any direct connection towards what I've already said, but simply exist as more proof that Mary is a villain on the show.

If you have a favorite that I’ve missed, please let me know and I can add it!

In no particular order:

Mary and Jim are not only narrative equals, but also serve to symbolize the two biggest obstacles in homosexual relationships; Mary represents heteronormativity, and Jim represents homophobia.

She's first shown to us with a black hat on (which makes her look like Sherlock for one thing), but in Old Western movies, viewers are able to easily identify Baddie Outlaws from the good guys by the colors of their hats. (See: Westworld)

Mary is The Woman in Green, a villain from another Holmes adaptation, and a femme fatale.

She's frequently shown onscreen in her fiery red coat/cardigan, which is not necessarily the type of color that is warm, comforting, or inviting. Brown is non-threatening, blue is trustworthy, red is warning, wrong, bad.

She says "You should put that on a T-shirt", which is later mirrored by Magnussen.

Mrs. Hudson is a John mirror, so Mr. Hudson (the criminal) is meant to symbolize Mary - John and Mary had known each other for less than 6 months before he proposed.

The scene at the end of The Abominable Bride parallels almost perfectly with that of Mary's reveal in his Last Vow: "Isn't that right Lady Carmichael/Smallwood?" but is actually Moriarty/Mary.

They left out the Garridebs brother named John in their canon nod in TFP, which makes Mary Killer Evans, the villain from the story.

Mary is Eurus and the true East Wind.

Mary is a "shoot first, ask questions later" kind of girl. And she might have actually killed the flight attendant.

Mary lies. A lot.

Her arc and musical themes mirror those of Irene, another villain.

There's a lot of stuff here if you want to just scroll down to "These are the facts", they've got the links laid out very nicely.

References to Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe indicate that Mary is a plant by Moriarty to get between Sherlock and John.

Mary's death was posthumous revenge, video proof.

Sherlock texts Mary the same way he texts Jim.

The Six Thatchers is an inverted retelling of ACD's The Final Problem, with Mary as Professor Moriarty.

Remember that time when John had something strapped to his chect and a villain compared him to a pet?

Mary's view of what "trust" is isn't exactly encouraging, and she uses love as a weapon. I know there are other more extensive metas out there, so if anyone would like to link me to them I'd be grateful!

Certain musical motifs used at certain times indicates malicious intent.

Mary is described as satanic in the script. And guess what? So is Moriarty.

A short list of why we should be side-eyeing Mary's redemption arc and death.

Mary's single tear and trembling gun hand in the His Last Vow script (which doesn't make it into the aired version) conflicts with what happens immediately after.

Mary's death scene is.... weird.

Parallels to Lady Smallwood gives us more reason to think Mary is trying to drive Sherlock and John apart

If we assume that Mary is American, then it's possible that she could have plans to stalk/menace John after framing him for her death.

After some pretty great foreshadowing, Mary's redemption arc is very poorly executed.

Making those DVDs is actually super irresponsible and doesn't make any sense narratively.

Mary was never nice to John before The Six Thatchers.

There's a trademarked Villain Head Tilt in the show, and Mary does it.

Sherlock is really only dramatic in the presence of Mary.

Mary's death being faked is foreshadowed using canon hints.

The Black Pearl of the Borgias case draws parallels between Moriarty and Mary.

More parallels between Norbury and Mary.

There are Moriarty symbols in the nursery.

Mary is probably responsible for Tablisi going "wrong"

Honestly her death was just really unrealistic.

Connections between Mary and the number 58 suggest she's evil, but Sherlock can't see it because he's in love with John.

The game is never over, John. But there may be some new players now.

I cited a LOT of meta (71 links total!!) in here that I tried my best to link back to OPs and major contributors that I’ve tagged here. Thanks for having such great analyses!

@rominatrix @inevitably-johnlocked @sussexbound-main @welovethebeekeeper @toxicsemicolon @darlingsubstitution @jenna221b @sherlockianbee @hubblegleeflower @incurablylazydevil @allroadsleadbacktobakerstreet @beejohnlocked @watsonshoneybee @abitnotgood @silentauroriamthereal @deducingbbcsherlock @cheuwing @holmesianscholar @loveismyrevolution @sherlock-overflow-error @may-shepard @marcespot @kinklock @johnsjawline @havetardiswilltimetravel @redwidows @the-blue-carbuncle @tjlcisthenewsexy @visionandperception @swishyspock @weeesi @finalproblem @miadifferent @wssh-watson @thefinalrugpull @cartopathy @riteofashkente

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