On the outskirts of a ruined town, inside a drab, gray-scale bunker lays a rebel army, composed primarily of inconsequential teens sworn against the reigning government power: the Other Girls. Among them is the one and only Mary Sue, a young, seemingly bland fourteen year old girl who has come to command the reverence of many for her completely natural yet utterly astounding ability to be offhandedly charming and politically revolutionary. This, of course, is despite her obliviousness to her perfection, which has come to be interpreted as modesty. Mary Sue is not like the Other Girls, who have taken to ruling the world with an iron fist, casting society into an era of poverty and depression with their cruelty and specific prejudice towards moderately unconventional teenagers. In fact, she is quite the opposite: a much-loved pariah who was notably the very first person on earth to recognize the faults in her present-day dystopia.
Currently, she stands crowded around a rotting wood podium with the other teens in her army, eyes locked on their leader, Raymond, who is standing in front of it: a tall, tan boy with serious eyes, a set jaw, and dreamy brown hair. He surveys the kids in the room, eyes grazing over each youthful face (taking an uncomfortable amount of time to assess Mary’s) before pulling out a crudely drawn map marked up with various x’s and arrows.
“This,” he begins, “is our battle plan for tomorrow night, when we will recklessly storm the Other Girls headquarters. In this meeting, I will assign jobs, assemble squadrons, and outline the structure of the attack. While I speak, feel free to fret over your personal lives with no regard for the fate of the world, as your love-lives do, of course, take precedence over this life-or-death situation.”
With that, Raymond launches into a long speech about, like, returning society to its natural state or whatever, and Mary Sue is left to let her thoughts wander. Naturally, they stray to boys. Mary had been caught up in something of a love triangle-- no, a love hexagon recently, having caught the eye of Aaron, Glenn, Lloyd, Ricky, Rico, and Raymond, ensnaring them with her beauty and token firebrand personality. The question, of course, was who to choose. Aaron, the mysterious loner who only aligned with the rebellion out of necessity; Glenn, her childhood friend; Lloyd, the overzealous errand boy who she had shown kindness to once on a whim; Ricky, the vampire; Rico, the werewolf; or Raymond, the leader of the rebellion against her much hated enemies, the Other Girls?
It was all so stressful, Mary reflected. Her allure was both a gift and a curse. If only Jesus hadn’t made her so wonderful--
A booming cough from Raymond interrupted her thought process. Heads whipped around simultaneously in response to his call, returning the teens in the room to the mission at hand. Raymond looked out at the crowd stonily for a moment before continuing.
“I have a final announcement about this plan,” he said. “Possibly the most crucial part.”
He paused for effect. If suspenseful music could be playing right now, it definitely would be.
“The one who will face the leader of the Other Girls when we get to the head office, the one with the critical job of defeating the dark overlord behind our community’s downfall, will be…”
Another pause.
“Mary Sue!”
A collective gasp swept across the room. Mary, flabbergasted, slapped her hand to her forehead in shock. “Are you sure I’m competent?!” She exclaimed. “T-This is just so sudden…”
Around her began a chorus of reassurance: an incoherent buzz of motivation and praise, urging Mary to ‘embrace her destiny’ and ‘save us all’.
“Our fate rests in your hands alone, Mary Sue,” warned Raymond.
For a moment, everyone was silent while Mary Sue contemplated her fate. ‘Am I strong enough?’ she wondered, ‘will my quirky rebelliousness and hyperbolized likability be enough to save the world?”
From the back of the crowd, a small cough was heard.
“Um,” came a hesitant voice, “not to be rude, here, but is it really responsible to entrust the future of humanity to an arbitrary teen? Not that she’s incompetent, but maybe we should consider at least backing her up, or…?”
It was Poindexter, the mild antagonist of the rebel army. Nobody liked Poindexter. He was always spoiling the atmosphere and he smelled kind of bad, almost as if he lived in a bunker and was forced to rough it due to a dismantled society or something.
Everybody’s faces soured with incredulity. “God, Poindexter,” one kid spat, “how could you be so ridiculously rational?”
Many agitated teens chittered their discontent, but a second and completely realistic hush fell over the room once more when people began to notice the tears brewing in Mary Sue’s eyes.
‘Of course,’ she thought. ‘Never mind that I’m easily the most popular girl among these 200 teenagers: I’m horrible! And stupid! And my nose is crooked!’ She began to bawl, and turned to run from the room. Halfway through her dramatic exit, however, she spun around and rushed back, only to slap Poindexter and return to her fleeing.
After her, the hasty footsteps of six lovesick teenage boys could be heard in pursuit of Mary’s.

- 9PM, the next day: in front of Other Girls Inc.-

After a long night of reassurance and lengthy, monologue-rich revelations, Mary Sue stands confidently beside Raymond with the rest of the army at their backs. The time has come for the final attack on the Other Girls, which will be the rebellion’s final effort against their enemy. This one attack, for the climax’s sake, weighs heavily on everybody’s shoulders.
But they are ready.
For they have Mary.
“Are you ready, guys?” Mary asks, her hair blowing in the wind.
Enthusiastic war cries erupt in reply.
“Alright,” she says, “Aaron, you pick the lock to the gates.”
“Like, whatever,” says the boy, flipping his hair before approaching the doors (which are held weakly closed by a rusty-looking padlock) with a bobby pin.
Conveniently, the group of thirteen through sixteen year olds breaks through the security of the world’s most powerful corporation within minutes.

The battle to the head office is simultaneously brutal and effortless; Mary Sue and the others charged through the pristine white halls, splattering the blood of white-clad guards across the shiny, also white tile floor (there’s definitely no symbolism here).
Some kids fell under the retaliation of the industry, shot down by tranquilizers (which are certainly not a euphemism for anything) or felled by the aggression of enraged security officers. Having done away with the obligatory casualties, however, Mary Sue and Raymond lead the others forward valiantly.
Through the corporation’s twisting hallways they charged, shrieking and attacking any authority figure to approach them. Eventually, they reach a silver elevator and cram inside it, briefly humming along to the music and tapping their feet while it rises to the top floor. Some kids, snickering, run their hands down the side-panel of buttons and select each floor. The next person to get on sure will be inconvenienced!

Finally, the army stops outside a gold-encrusted set of double-doors labeled “LEADER.” There is a moment of uneasy tension, and then Raymond steps forward towards Mary Sue.
“Mary,” he says, “I have something for you.”
Raymond shuffles through his pockets for a moment and fishes out a long blade, which glints in the harsh light of the pearly-white hallways. He thrusts it towards the bloodied and totally radical looking girl.
“This was my father’s blade: he used it when he fought in the war.”
“Which war?” A kid behind him asks.
“The war,” Raymond snaps irritably. “Anyway. He’s dead now, for presumably very tragic reasons. But since I believe in you so much, I think you should take it, as a sign of my faith in you.”
Gently, Raymond places the blade in Mary’s hands and leans in, placing a chaste kiss upon her lips. “Good luck,” he whispers.
Mary’s face flushes, but before she can reply, the doors to the leader’s office mysteriously swing open with a foreboding creek. She only looks back once, to send a shy smile Raymond’s way. In the act, however, she catches the forlorn gazes of Aaron, Glenn, Lloyd, Ricky, and Rico. Her heart quivers uncomfortably as she turns back around to continue into the office.

Inside, she follows a long, dark hallway lit only by medieval torches and the light from outside the doors. It’s a weirdly long walk to the end, as time seems to slow down in response to the slowly building suspense.
The darkness of the hallway is abruptly interrupted by a complex computer-system, laid across the wall of a dead-end. Positioned in front of the system is a tall swivel chair whose back covers the identity of the one positioned in it.
“Hey!” Mary Sue shouts. “Show yourself!”
Starting off quietly, a tiny giggle comes from behind the chair. It slowly rises in volume, turning into full laughter and then crescendoing into a mad cackle. A thin white hand places itself on a nearby computer monitor and twists, subsequently spinning the swivel chair to face in Mary’s direction. Finally, Mary Sue looks into the face of her long-time tormenter and growls.
“Conformist!”
The villain is a woman in her early thirties, dressed in a crisp maroon business suit with ruby lipstick and spidery eyelashes. She taps her heeled shoes on the floor and smirks at Mary, cocking her head to the side.
“You deviate marginally from the societal norm,” the woman comments in a overly sweet, mellifluous voice. “You fool! Clearly that makes you radically different from the Other Girls regime. Have they really sent you, a plain and unassuming teenager, to challenge me?”
Mary Sue, undeterred, pulls out Raymond’s blade and brandishes it daringly before the woman. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to us?!” She cries, the emotion from her entire ordeal swelling in her voice. She thinks of Aaron, Glenn, Lloyd, Ricky, Rico, and Raymond and, frustrated by her inability to choose between them, shrieks. “You’re horrible people!”
The woman before her shakes her head and rises to her feet graciously with a vaguely evil chuckle. “I must disagree, you little minority, you. The true evil lies in your kind, who condescended to me in my childhood when I was weak and helpless. After a miraculous rise to power in my twenties, I swore to take out my personal problems on the world, because that’s what well-developed villains do!”
“Wait, really?”
“Um, yeah, pretty sure.” Briefly breaking the fourth wall, the leader of the Other Girls reaches over and snatches up the nearest young adult novel, flips through it, and nods in approval.
“Yup!”
“Oh. Well… I still have to defeat you!” The sizzle of anger in the room reignites itself.
“However could you defeat me, child?” Asks the villain condescendingly.
“You underestimate me,” Mary Sue says, suddenly filled with bravado. “For I finally came to understand the origins of my birth last night, while questioning my capability to take you on. I realized, through a random and previously unmentioned vision, that I am, in fact, a GOD!”
Light began to erupt from every one of Mary Sue’s orifices, and she gradually rose into the air to hang suspended above the leader of the Other Girls. In a conglomerate of thousands of voices, booming together to create one wrathful cry, she speaks:
“In 1941, in the beautiful Baekdu Mountains of North Korea, my birth was heralded by a glowing star in the heavens and a shining double rainbow. I descended to earth on the wings of angels to grace the world with my presence: that of the almighty Kim Jong Il-- I mean, Mary Sue! And with this power, granted to me by the gods above, I will destroy you!”
With that, Mary Sue filled the room with a blinding white light and eradicated the Other Girl’s leader, turning her to ash as she yelled curses to the teens who bullied her in her youth in a pitiful deconstruction of villainy.
May slowly returned to the floor with a sigh, wiping her brow with the sleeve of her shirt. She stood there for a moment, looking at the pile of ash that was once her arch-enemy. “Too easy,” she boasted with a grin.
Suddenly, a flurry of footsteps danced over the cold stone floors and she was faced with her six cheering love interests. “We knew you could do it!” They shouted. “You’re amazing!”
“But Mary,” Rico said, interrupted the celebration. “Which one of us do you choose? Who will you give your love to?” Six pairs of hopeful eyes turns to assail her.
“Um, uh… Well, I--” Mary looked over the faces of the infatuated gentlemen. They were all so appealing in their own, highly cliché ways… how could she pick just one of them?
Then, it came to her: the perfect solution.
“I pick all of you!” She exclaimed.
The six teens broke out in joyful cheers, moving in on Mary to hoist her on their shoulders, creating a throne for her from their own bodies.
“Mar-y Sue! Mar-y Sue!” They chanted, carrying her out of the dark corridors of the dethroned leader’s office and into an unsatisfying (yet happy) ending.