Note: The PPC was originally created by Jay and Acacia. The fanfic being sporked (Snape and Lily) was originally written by Mark Twain jr.. Harry Potter is copyright J. K. Rowling, and Saw is copyright Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures. Florestan and Eusabius are originally property of Robert Schumann, but on virtue of being dead for a hundred and fifty five years, they now belong to me.

Mission 7: Rivalry Counseling with Jigsaw

In which Jigsaw’s M.O. actually ends up [not] working [as usual].

Eusabius had already booted up the Xbox and had been playing Mass Effect for some time by the time Florestan had returned. He held a clear vial of something in his hand, and he walked in. The Shumann mini growled playfully as Florestan entered.

The more calm agent turned to Florestan, his expression curious. “You look like you have seen a ghost,” said Eusabius.

“I just got a bombshell dropped on me at Medical Research,” replied Florestan as he shook his head. “Anyway, you know how it is.”

“Indeed.” Eusabius turned back to the game as Florestan looked on.

“So you went to Virmire, hm?”

“Yes,” replied the older agent. “I must say, I am not certain why people talk about this part of the game.”

Florestan shrugged. “It’s because of what happens very close to the end of it,” said the taller agent as he set the vial out of the reach of Shumann. “You’re still running around Saren’s labs, right?”

“Yes,” replied Eusabius.

“Have you run into the Prothean beacon?”

With this, Eusabius turned to Florestan, a slightly puzzled expression on his face. “There is a Prothean beacon in that lab?” he asked.

Florestan nodded. “I’ll take that as a no, then,” said Florestan. “Yeah, you’re not at the really crazy part yet. How much else did you get through?”

“Well… I did get through—”

[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE--]

Florestan rolled his eyes and walked over to the console, Eusabius pausing the game as he looked to the console.

When he pressed the accept button, Florestan looked back to his partner. “Hold that thought,” he replied, reading over the mission parameters. “We’ve got another mission.” He frowned, looking at the parameters again. He then blinked, nodding and looking back at Eusabius. “Hm, looks like a short one.”

“Which continua?” asked Eusabius.

“Harry Potter and Saw,” said Florestan with a shrug. “We have to go confront Jigsaw again.”

“Ah.” Eusabius gave a small smile as he stood up and placed the controller down. “I see. Does it involve a word cyclone?”

“Thankfully, no,” replied Florestan. “Unfortunately, we’ve got something else entirely to deal with, so… we’ll get to it when we get there. Anyway… We should get going.”

“I believe we should,” mentioned Eusabius. “Disguises?” he asked simply as he walked over to get some equipment from the shelves.

“Well… it’s mostly Harry Potter characters, so… we’ll go as wizards,” said Florestan as he set the disguises they were going to use. “I’m bringing the DORKS, though. Just in case.”

Eusabius nodded. “I believe it is a good thing you got me acquainted with the Saw franchise, yes?”

“Oh, yeah,” replied Florestan with a smile. “You ready?”

“When am I not?” Eusabius asked back.

The younger agent simply rolled his eyes, looking at the portal. “Rhetorical question, Eusabius,” he replied. “Let’s go see what happens here.”

----**----

1

Lily Evens, Severus Snape, and a death eater are captured by Jigsaw after the Maraudeur era.

Lily Evens was a perfectly even little mini-Aragog. It was so even it was a little creepy to Florestan. The Maraudeur mini that showed up, however, was somehow even stranger, what with having a stereotypical French moustache and all. Both minis approached, the Maraudeur mini looking at them rather suspiciously.

“Jesus Christ, first sentence of the whole story, and already we have two minis,” said the younger Disentangler. “Yay me, this is gonna be a good one.”

“Marauder era?” asked Eusabius as he pulled out the charge list and began writing. “Was that not placed in the 1970’s?”

“It was, and…” Florestan abruptly paused as Eusabius wrote down the relevant charge. “Wait… No, the first Saw had cell phones as part of the plot. And it’s being transplanted to the 70’s? That makes no sense!”

“I have already charged for it,” said Eusabius.

They wake up in a dark room disorientated.

Lily lay on her dorm room bed, studying for a test.

Florestan frowned as Lily woke up on her comfortable-looking bed. He would not have been so peeved, except for the fact that somehow the walls were still a poorly-lit, industrial steel-grey. Off to the side, Severus Snape woke up as if he had been in some kind of nightmare.

“Uh…” Florestan said, raising his finger. “What’s going on here?”

“To be certain, Florestan, I do not have the slightest idea,” replied Eusabius. “It may be, however, that the words are very undefined about the setting.”

“Perhaps,” said Florestan as he looked around.

Lily was very good at magic and wanted to be the best.

“Lily Evans being competitive?” asked Florestan. “I’m not sure that was really in character for her. Make that a charge for warping her character?”

“We shall see what comes of that,” said Eusabius as someone knocked on the nearby door.

It was Snape. He was always in competition with Lily, which couldn't stand having someone almost as good as her.

“First, that should be ‘who’, not ‘which’,” replied Florestan. “Second, Snape and Lily in competition? Which leads me to ask this: when in the Marauders era does this take place?”

Eusabius checked the words to find an answer to Florestan’s question. “Hm… It does not say,” he said. “I will charge for failing to define when it happens.” He got to writing the charge down. “I assume something like this would make sense if it took place after their fifth year in Hogwarts.”

“Maybe,” replied Florestan. “But even then… Oh, we’ll have to see where that goes.”

"What do you want Snape?" Lily said in disgust.

"Just to say hi, and tell you I'm gonna make sure you fail my test."

"Oh please!" Lily slammed the door in his face and sell asleep.

Florestan facepalmed rather loudly at this, to which the mini-Lily Evens seemed to squeak in surprise.

“Okay, this author completely negated their friendship,” said Florestan. “Like, wasn’t it that Lily and Snape were best friends until Snape started studying the Dark Arts?”

“You forget that Snape calling Lily a mudblood was the final straw for her when she ended their friendship, but yes, it was,” replied Eusabius. “I believe one of these two may be a character replacement. I am not sure which one yet, however.”

“We’ll have to see,” replied Florestan, frowning as he watched an advertisement pop up for some product called ‘asleep’. “Also, word mishap.”

“I see it,” replied Eusabius as he jotted it down.

Lily woke up in a dark cold room. She was lying on a bed, unable to move.

Some of the scenery just changed itself, and Snape simply materialized in the corner, but apart from that, nothing had changed as Lily woke up.

Florestan looked around, a little puzzled. “Eusabius, was that supposed to be a scene change?”

“I believe so,” said the bulkier agent. “It does not help that there was no indication that the scene changed, I suppose.”

“It doesn’t,” replied Florestan as he looked around. “Seriously, what in the world, man? Mark your scene changes with something!”

She saw Snape huddled in a corner, and there were some other people, which Lily soon made out to be Maraudeurs.

The Maraudeur mini let out a squeal as the other three men in the room materialized. They were faceless, all of them wearing a warped version of the Gryffindor house robes.

At this, Eusabius walked closer to one of them. “Gryffindor…” he muttered. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I have no idea, but… I think this author might be doing some canon confusions,” replied Florestan. “We’ll have to see where he goes with that, but if it’s what I think it is...”

He left the remainder of the sentence to hang in the air, Eusabius getting the subtext immediately.

Lily noticed Snape holding something, which looked like a tape recorder.

"W-What's that, Snape?" Lily stammered.

Snape threw the tape recorder to her, and she pressed play.

Of course, the tape recorder manifested as a huge object with the large magnetic tape reels. When Lily caught it, therefore, she grunted from the effort of catching it, and then very slowly pressed play.

Florestan blinked, looking at Lily. And then, he facepalmed rather violently. “Oh,” he said. “That’s a tape recorder. From the seventies. Of course.”

Eusabius nodded, gesturing to the tape recorder. “And that is why the setting shift does not work.”

"Hello, Snape, I want to play a game. As you all lay here, you are inhaling a slow acting poison, one capable of turning your insides upside down. And only I have the antidote. You must go through a series of tests, and then you will find me, and I'll decide who gets it."

Florestan gritted his teeth. “God damn it, this guy replaced Jigsaw!”

“Yes, I do not remember Jigsaw speaking in such a manner either,” conceded Eusabius as he wrote this charge down. “He was always understated, no?”

“Yes, exactly,” said Florestan. He frowned further. “Actually, now that I think about it, Lily was abducted in her sleep, which never actually happens in the Saw canon.” Florestan looked around, taking in a sharp breath. “That’s not cool.”

“That is also true,” Eusabius conceded, writing it down as an extra charge. “This is beginning to turn into quite the canon-breaking excursion.”

“That it is, Eusabius,” replied the younger agent.

The recording stopped with a click, and everyone started to panic.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Snape yelled.

And immediately, the two agents looked at Snape, though Florestan’s look was more of a glare than it was a look.

“Snape is entirely out of character there,” replied Eusabius as he looked at the Harry Potter canon. “I do not believe he would yell something like that at all.”

“Yeah, he’s a character replacement, all right,” said Florestan. “Damn it… Just, damn it.”

"We need to go through that door!"

Lily looked at the direction Snape was pointing and saw three metal doors. They were marked with names. They first one had Lily's name on it, the second said Snape, and the third said Maradeurs. Lily tried hers but it was locked. But Snape's was open.

“Wait, Jigsaw didn’t give them their own trap to get out of first?” asked Florestan. “What sense does that make?”

“It makes about as much sense as having a Saw crossover that takes place in the seventies,” Eusabius replied.

Florestan frowned, biting his lower lip as he nodded. “Yeah, you’ve got a point there,” he said. “Still, it’s like… What the hell?”

"What!" Lily said frusterated.

Lily exclaimed the word ‘what’ rather than asking about it in a shocked way. She then proceeded to move around the room in the closest thing resembling a fit that could be gleaned from the fact that it was just so over the top it was quite obviously meant to be silly. Her feet stamped all over the place, her arms waved about in the air, and her hair seemed to be whirling all over the place.

Almost immediately, Florestan snorted, covering his mouth with his hand to keep himself from laughing out loud. Eusabius glanced at his fellow agent before jotting it down as a charge.

But Lily saw a tape recorder taped to the door. She pressed play.

"Hello Lily, I want you to make a choice, you can go with Snape, or you can stick (hehe) around and find a key. But I warn you, do not go with company."

Florestan then promptly facepalmed as Lily touched the tape recorder and automatically started playing it. And of course, it had just randomly materialized on the door.

However, this was not what peeved Florestan most about this.

“Okay, this particular Jigsaw has to be a replacement,” he said. “Jigsaw chuckling in the middle of those things just never happens! It was always understated! He never fucking laughed! Ever! This fic is stupid! It’s stupid!”

"Fuck this! I'm going with Snape!"

"No, you have to play by the rules."

“And how the hell would… uh… whoever said that know that, anyway?” Florestan looked around, trying to find whoever had said the unattributed quote. “Nobody in this room can really be a Jigsaw apprentice, so…”

“Yes, that does seem rather odd that someone would know you have to play by the rules,” replied Eusabius with a short nod.

"Well help me out will you"

"Stick." Snape said.

"Ummm, Ok?"

"Look for something sticky"

“Look for something sticky?” asked Florestan. “Well, how the bloody hell did Snape get that from ‘stick around’?”

“I shall say that it is the plot speaking, and that we have much more egregious charges to look for,” replied Eusabius. “That is, if we see another explanation appear somewhere.”

2

1Lily looked around for something sticky, and sure enough there was a sticky part of the wall.

An extra ‘1’ floated into the scene and Lily found the sticky part of the wall in question. However, Florestan’s attention was focused elsewhere.

“Was that supposed to be a chapter division?” he asked. “Because I don’t see a floating two anywhere.”

Eusabius concentrated, checking the Words again and nodding. “I believe so,” he replied. “This was all posted as one chapter, but subdivided into chapters… Odd.”

“It’s laziness is what it is,” replied Florestan, shaking his head. “Charge for that, Eusabius…”

She hit the wall, until bricks came loose, and she found two keys.

As a part of the steel gray walls suddenly turned into a surface with bricks on it, Florestan frowned. He looked right at Lily as she punched the wall repeatedly.

“Uh… the last time someone had to look for stuff in the wall, they didn’t have to hit it,” he pointed out.

“The bricks came out on their own,” added Eusabius. “It may not be chargeable, however, though I do question why she is hitting a sticky wall. Depending on how adhesive the surface is, she may not have to hit it. More bad definition of the location, plus bad logic, I assume.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” replied Florestan with a shrug.

One key had a note on it saying do not use me.

“Now that is a Jigsaw trademark,” said Florestan, crossing his arms. “See, author? It’s not that difficult.”

She took the other key and put it in the keyhole. The door opened.

Of course, the door opened without Lily having to turn the key thanks to the poor description all around them.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Snape enter his door.

Ahead of her Lily saw a light switch, which she turned on cautiously. She was horrified at the sight of what she saw.

“Does that count as a redundancy?” asked Florestan.

“I am not certain,” replied Eusabius with a shrug. “However, I am not sure that Jigsaw would place his mazes in an area where there is a visible light switch.”

Florestan shrugged. “Some of his traps are better lit than others,” he mentioned. “I think there was that one part from Saw V where… I think it was that black chick that got electrocuted to death. Anyway, that was reasonably well-lit, so I don’t think we should—”

Before Florestan could finish his sentence, the scene shifted, and suddenly Florestan and Eusabius were both following Snape around.

Snape had walked for a while inside the long hallway and stopped suddenly when he saw a little girl chained up to a chair.

"Help me!" She weezed.

Florestan was slack-jawed at this. “W… What? Who…? Where…?”

Eusabius was not phased. “This… does not seem like something Jigsaw would do.”

“You’re damn right it’s not!” said Florestan, pointing his finger at the girl in rage. “This author is involving children in a Jigsaw trap! Children! That’s the one line the creators of the franchise never cross! Ever!”

“Was there not Daniel from Saw II and Jeff’s daughter in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th films?” asked Eusabius.

“Those don’t count!” replied Florestan. “Daniel was never in any real danger throughout Saw II, and Jeff’s daughter was probably going to get rescued by Hoffman anyway to solidify his alibi, so no, the children were never in danger!” He growled at the little girl. “This replacement is dead, Eusabius! Dead!”

"Don't worry!" he soothed.

She was no older then five Snape observed, and felt hatred for whoever did this.

The world shuddered, trying to make sense of what the Words were saying. Finally, five clones of Snape materialized around the room, all of them looking at the girl and all of them bearing the same scowl of hate towards Jigsaw.

“Uh…” Florestan glanced around, confused.

“She was no older than five,” Eusabius corrected, adding a new charge. “Also, I believe there is a comma missing in that sentence.”

He found a tape recorder and played it.

Because the room was very poorly described, the tape recorder in question floated in the air immediately in front of Snape. Thus, he was able to press play with a great amount of convenience.

"Hello Snape, the girl in front of you desires your help, in 2 minutes the chains will push against her body cutting her hands and legs off, in order to save her, you must untangle the chains, but I warn you, you shouldn't save her"

“Chains don’t ‘push’, Jigsaw, they pull,” said Florestan, frowning. “Jesus Christ, Jigsaw, you were a bloody civil engineer before your life got royally screwed over, you should know that!”

“The real Jigsaw was a civil engineer, anyway,” added Eusabius. “This Jigsaw, not so much, I am afraid.” He wrote down a new charge. “I am also under the impression that the true Jigsaw would never speak in run-on sentences, so I will charge for that as well.”

Snape quickly got to work, he got a massive bunch of it untangled and had 30 seconds left. His hands were so sweaty the chains slipped from his grip a few times. Then he noticed the clock 5 seconds were left. Then 4, then 3, then 2, then 1. She screamed. Snape still had time, and untangled the chains and threw them off of her.

The action followed was so fast that it seemed to happen on fast-forward. The two agents briefly wondered if the editor of the Saw franchise had stepped in to speed things along when suddenly, they noticed that Snape just threw all the chains off of the still unnamed girl.

“In one second!” said Florestan. “With the way those chains look, Eusabius… I mean, Christ! That should be impossible!”

“It certainly seems so,” agreed Eusabius, writing it down as a charge.

"Come on" He said.

The girl followed behind cautiously, as did the agents. Snape, the girl, and the agents all ran into a Maradeur a while later. He was lying strapped to the floor.

And then the agents noticed the form of a non-named Marauder as a third mini-aragog spawned a short distance away. In appearance, the Marauder kept on shifting between the appearances of four seemingly random Gryffindor students. Eusabius took one look at this before nodding.

“Ah, I think I know what is happening.”

“Some confusion with what a Marauder in Harry Potter is?” asked Florestan.

“Yes,” replied Eusabius. “I believe this author may be confusing a ‘Marauder’ with a Death Eater. The Marauders were a group of four Gryffindor students, yes?”

“James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew,” said Florestan. “Yes, because that’s who the Words are cycling through right now!”

“Yes,” said Eusabius. “However, in this story the Marauders seem to be generic men to be killed by Jigsaw. Hence, I think there is a confusion between a Marauder and a Death Eater.”

“Or he could just be bashing Gryffindor house in general,” said Florestan. “But yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t help that all these Marauders keep on showing up anonymously.”

The third mini-aragog walked up to Eusabius, and then seemed to nod. Like Maraudeur before it, Maradeur had a French moustache on its face, and a very French-looking cap on its head. It sidled up to Lily Evens and Maraudeur soon after, the three aragogs moving around.

In his mouth was a tape recorder he pressed play.

In spawning in the generic Marauder’s mouth, Florestan could have sworn that the huge 70’s-era tape recorder had just broken the poor guy’s jaw in a manner not unlike the reverse bear trap. However, Florestan was surprised to see the man’s hand fade through the chains to press play on the tape recorder inside of it.

“Wait… was that Snape who was supposed to press play?” asked Florestan.

“Knowing Jigsaw, perhaps,” said Eusabius, jotting it down as a charge. “That is good for a pronoun confusion.” He then glanced around the room. “Also, these events seem to be taking an unusually short amount of time to complete.”

“Ludicrously fast pacing,” said the younger agent, looking on at the events. “Charge for that.”

"Hello, again, the Maradeur you see here is trapped to the floor in 1 minute the ceiling above you will fall and kill him, will you save Hogwarts enemy if it means putting it at risk, or will you let him die."

“Yeah, he’s confusing Marauders with Death Eaters,” said Florestan. “But that just makes things more idiotic!”

“Why?” asked Eusabius.

“Because Snape showed interest in the Dark Arts when he was a student at Hogwarts,” replied Eusabius. “Well, that, and he considered joining the Death Eaters. So if this Snape lets this generic villain man die…”

Snape decided it was safer to let him die. And so he walked ahead and flinched when he heard a loud bang and a splatter, Snape knew was blood.

“And… Severus Snape has officially been replaced!” said Florestan, throwing his arms in the air in mock celebration. “Whoop de frickin’ doo.”

Snape saw a box with a gun in it. There was a note saying, "Don't use me" He takes it anyway and continues.

The box with the gun spawned right at the door, but Snape taking it confused Florestan very visibly.

“I do not believe guns were common technology in the Wizarding World,” replied Eusabius. “I think I shall charge Snape with knowing what a gun is. There is an extra one for using it should he decide to us it, yes?”

Florestan didn’t reply, as he was too busy facepalming at the proceedings to answer.

“I shall take that as a yes.” With this, Eusabius wrote down another charge, right as the scene change took them back to where Lily was. As they shifted, Florestan’s senses came back to him, and he frowned.

“Wait a minute,” said Florestan. “Eusabius, I just realized something.”

“What?” asked the older Disentangler.

“Snape’s trap… I just realized I don’t get the significance of it,” Florestan replied. “The metaphorical undertones were not clear. I don’t know if it happened because Snape’s problems weren’t defined or because the trap just seems arbitrary, but… that trap doesn’t really have a metaphorical significance.”

Eusabius nodded, seeing his partner’s point. “I see,” he said. “I will mark it down as a charge, then.”

3

Lily was horrified at the sight, she saw a door but in front of it was a cage that was supposed to be for dogs. Lily looked inside and she saw a body stuffed in there holding keys. A gold, a silver, and a bronze key. There was also a tape recorder.

“Yeah, I’m not sure Jigsaw would go through so much effort to stuff a dead body inside something that small,” said Florestan. “I mean… his apprentices probably aren’t around right now, and he is dying of brain cancer, so I dunno…”

"Hello Lily, one of these three keys will open the door.

Eusabius glanced at the tape recorder, which almost stuffed the body out of the cage. The recorder had somehow pressed play all by itself when Lily looked right at it. He glanced at Florestan, indicating the tape recorder with his writing implement.

“Is that normal for the Saw franchise?” asked Eusabius.

“For the later installments, yes,” replied the younger agent. “But given that they’re using tape recorders, I think the whole thing is probably supposed to be in the style of the earlier Saw films. So that should be a charge.”

But if you choose the wrong one 300 amps of electricity will enter your body killing you. I'll give you a little hint, it's one of the colors you can't stand to win."

And instantly, Florestan groaned. “Oh, come on!” he exclaimed. “Yeah, the franchise slaps you in the face with metaphorical undertones, but that’s just pushing it! Jigsaw’s metaphorical undertones are usually not that obvious, and he is never so flipping obvious about what the people were supposed to do! I mean, jeez, if he had been that obvious about what his test subjects were supposed to do, the body count in Saw V would be so much lower!”

“There is another issue with this as well,” said Eusabius, indicating the keys that Lily was now leaning over. “All of the keys there can conduct electricity, for they are all metals. Therefore, I do not believe it makes sense for only one of those keys to be a correct key.”

“Hm… That’s a good point,” said Florestan. “Also, isn’t death by electrocution supposed to depend on more than just how many Amps enter your body at one point?”

“Yes,” replied Eusabius. “I believe it is also determined by the length of the exposure, the path through the body, and a couple of other factors.” Eusabius looked over to Florestan. “Jigsaw knew this, yes?”

“Yeah, one of the traps in Saw V is an electrical trap involving multiple people,” said Florestan. “The idea was that if all five of the trap’s occupants had gotten there, then they could form an electric link with everyone between two points and they’d survive the electrocution.” He looked over at the door. “Unless this is an inescapable trap, that’s also possible…”

Lily picked the bronze key from the dead man’s hand. She then put it in the keyhole and turned cautiously, which of course caused lily herself to turn around in a full circle instead of turning the key. She jumped back but nothing happened. And the door opened.

Florestan frowned, and then nodded. “Yeah, that’s a bad science charge,” he said.

Inside was Lily walked through and saw a very old man laying on the bed..

“Jigsaw was not so old as to gain that descriptor, no?” asked Eusabius.

“Well, Tobin Bell is sixty-nine years old by this point, but that’s not ‘very old’,” said Florestan. “Either way, this guy’s a replacement Jigsaw, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“Ah, that is very true,” agreed Eusabius.

"Hello, Lily." The man said creepily.

"Umm, hi?" Lily said cautiously.

 “I believe Lily’s reaction is underwhelmed here,” replied Eusabius. “I would be more wary of this mysterious man.”

Florestan glanced at the Jigsaw replacement before looking back at Eusabius. “He’s an old man who’s dying of brain cancer,” he pointed out. “He’s not exactly a threat to her.”

“That is true,” stated Eusabius.

"I am the one responsible for your arrival. Snape should be arriving shortly'

"Shut up!" Lily shouted angrily at the man.

"Why do you do this to people?" She asked.

"Because most people don't appreciate life, so therefore they don't deserve it" The man croaked.

"You're sick." Lily said disgusted.

And with this, Florestan groaned. “Okay, first, what planet are we on now?” he asked. “Did we just step onto Neptune or something? That’s not how people talk! Second, Jigsaw’s motivations are all wrong! That’s how Amanda thinks, not Jigsaw himself!” He paused then, looking back at Lily. “And for that matter, why is he going after Lily? So she’s competitive. So what? Jigsaw’s usually got much bigger fish to fry than giving a life appreciation lesson to two students whose worst crimes are being mean to each other!” The now thoroughly annoyed agent growled at the Jigsaw replacement.

The man took out an oxygen mask and breathed into it. The door opened with a bang, and Snape entered with a gun and a little girl beside him.

“Okay, here’s Snape, for the denouement,” said Florestan.

The girl then took out a knife and started lashing away at Snape.

“W… What?” asked Florestan, balking at what he saw as the little girl began to slash at Snape with a knife. “That makes no sense!”

“It seems not,” says Eusabius. “Is there a comparable situation in canon?”

“Yes!” replied Florestan. “Saw IV has one of the victims in Tapp’s trap attack him with a knife after he freed her from his trap, but Jigsaw had told her that he was there to arrest her! Here, this girl has no explained reason to do that! This is just… I mean… This is so wrong on so many levels it’s not even funny!”

Eusabius checked the Words, his eyes widening slightly. He glanced at the little girl as Snape pulled the gun in front of him, asking ‘what’ in confusion. The girl went in for another attack but Snape fired his gun, but just before the bullet could strike true and kill the girl the bulkier agent had managed to shove her out of the way. Yelping in surprise, the girl dropped the knife and looked wildly at Eusabius, fear alight in her eyes. Eusabius himself felt a searing pain graze his stomach, and he grunted in reply as he fell to the ground. Fortunately, the angle was such that it looked as if the girl had been shot, and with the combination of some of Eusabius’ blood splattering onto the ground, it seemed as if Snape had shot the girl.

“Holy shit! Eusabius!”

The younger agent ran over to his fellow agent where he lay face down. “Eusabius, are you all right? Oh, God, please be all right!”

The older agent groaned, looking up at the little girl whose life he had just saved. “I think I shall be all right,” he stated, looking at the girl with a rare expression of shock showing on his face. He then grunted in pain, closing his eyes as he took a sharp intake of breath. “I believe his bullet may have grazed me.”

“Holy shit, Eusabius, that’s just…” Florestan shook his head, fumbling for his RA frantically. “You need to get to Medical, pronto! Hang in there, it’s gonna be all—!”

“I will live, I will live,” Eusabius reassured his partner as Florestan started freaking out. “We have a mission to finish; I will go straight to Medical when we kill the replacement. For now, we have a more important issue to deal with.” With this, he looked at the girl whose life he had just saved. The girl in question simply stared back, looking afraid for her life as she lay there. “You need to stay down,” said Eusabius, directing his command to the girl. “You need to pretend to be dead.”

The girl looked at the two agents, about to ask why when Jigsaw piped up behind them.

"I remember saying that you should just leave her to die, didn't I?

"Anyway" He continued.

The girl seemed to get the message immediately, and laid her head down to play dead. Florestan looked at Eusabius.

“Eusabius, I mean, Jesus Christ!” said Florestan, who was now clearly freaking out. “What if that bullet actually embedded itself in you? I mean… Jesus Christ on a pikestaff, Eusabius, what the hell were you thinking?”

“I may be so inclined to mention that the girl would have died had I not done anything,” stated Eusabius.

Florestan glanced to the girl worriedly and then back to Eusabius. “I… I don’t…”

“We will speak of this later. For now, we need to pick up one final charge.”

"This final test is a little competition. Where you can prove to one another, who is better. Let the game begin.

Florestan looked up briefly, grabbing a bandage from his bag of holding and applying it wordlessly to Eusabius’ bullet wound. “Jesus, Eusabius, you’re such an idiot!”

“Pay attention to the fic,” Eusabius urged his partner. “I will be all right, I can tell you this now.”

"No" Lily said

"I love you Snape."

"I Love you too, Lily."

Florestan looked on, staring with a slack jaw as Eusabius helped himself to his feet.

"Congratulations you passed the test.

Jigsaw was given all of two seconds to look at the wizard and the witch before suddenly, he was knocked out of his bed and onto the floor. Before the Snape replacement or Lily could say a thing, Florestan ran in, elbowing the Snape replacement in the gut with as much force as he could. This caused Snape to drop his gun, which clattered on the floor without going off. Before Lily could intervene, Florestan had picked up the gun and pointed it at the Snape replacement.

“All right, you son of a bitch, I’ve had just about enough of this bullshit!” he shouted. “Severus Snape, I charge you with being a character replacement, being okay with killing a Death Eater expy, trying to kill a five year old girl, not being friends with Lily Evans at this point in time, confessing your love for her, and for shooting my fucking partner! Your ass is grass!”

Without hesitation, Florestan fired the gun multiple times, each shot directed at Snape. Lily let out a scream of fright, as did the little girl. The thoroughly enraged agent did not stop pulling the trigger until the gun clicked a couple of times, and by the time he did, the Snape replacement was already dead. When the sounds of the gunshots had faded out, only the sound of Florestan’s labored breathing was left.

He then looked over to the Jigsaw replacement, who looked on in shock. Florestan shook his head, and then walked over to where the girl had dropped the knife. He picked it up, and then looked to Eusabius, who had managed to stem the bleeding somewhat.

“Eusabius, the charge list,” said Florestan simply.

With a veneer of calm, the older agent handed Florestan the charge list. In exchange, Florestan handed him the RA. “Get yourself and the girl to Medical,” the younger agent stated. “You need to get that gunshot treated. I’ll handle things here.”

Eusabius nodded, and manipulated the RA. Soon enough, a portal to Medical opened up, and then Eusabius slowly walked in. The girl hesitated for a second, but upon Eusabius’ gesture, she followed him soon after. The minis all followed unceremoniously, and then the older agent then tossed the RA through the portal, which Florestan then used to close it.

After that, all that remained was to confront the replacement and continue fixing the canon.

“Right,” said Florestan, approaching the Jigsaw replacement. “Jigsaw, I am charging you with creation of minis, placing a franchise with cell phones and other assorted 2000’s technology in the 70’s, poorly defining the locations, letting a Slytherin walk around in the Gryffindor house without any visible repercussions, not specifying when in Lily and Snape’s schooling the story takes place, making Lily Evans and Severus Snape rivals in Hogwarts and thus completely negating their friendship from that era, trying to sell ‘asleep’, not marking the scene changes, having Jigsaw abduct a victim in their sleep, making someone be ‘frusterated’, not defining who is saying which line of dialogue, having whoever said that line know that you have to play by the rules in a Jigsaw trap, bad logic, involving children in a Jigsaw trap...” Florestan turned to the replacement, anger showing on his face. “You of all people should know that children are blameless and don’t have low appreciation of their lives.” He shook his head angrily. “Anyway, I further charge you for bad grammar, run-on sentences, having Snape perform an impossible feat, confusing Marauders with Death Eaters, ludicrously fast pacing, pronoun confusion, having Snape know what a gun is, having a Jigsaw trap that does not have a clear metaphorical undertone, making tape recorders press play by themselves in an early Saw movie, having a Jigsaw trap that has a much more obvious metaphorical undertone than your average Saw trap, usage of malapropisms, bad science, doing a very poor job of explaining why the girl is attacking Snape, callously attempting to kill a five year old girl, replacing the character of Severus Snape, warping the character of Lily Evans, having them both suddenly fall in love for absolutely no reason, having a happy ending in the Saw continuum, taking a piss on a potentially interesting concept, creation of an implausible crossover, annoying PPC agents, and being a character replacement.”

Florestan knelt down, and placed the knife at Jigsaw’s throat. “Normally, I’d give you a right to last words, but you lost that privilege when your Snape replacement shot my partner,” said Florestan. “Here, have a slit throat.”

And with this, the younger agent drew the blade across Jigsaw’s throat, eliciting another terrified shriek from Lily Evans as she stepped back. Florestan stood up, watching as the Jigsaw replacement expired soon after. With this, he turned to face Lily, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said, opening a portal back to Hogwarts.

“Why?” asked Lily, obviously terrified at what she had seen. “Aren’t you going to kill me too?”

“Sorry, you’ve got a canon role you need to fulfill,” said Florestan, who rose the neuralyzer in the air. “They may have been replacements, but you were not, so…” With this, Florestan closed his eyes and activated the neuralyzer. “All right, Lily Evans… You are a student at Hogwarts. Severus Snape is your best friend up until he calls you a mudblood, you are not competitive, and everything you just saw is a bad dream that you’ll forget as soon as you wake up.” With this, he opened a portal to Hogwarts. “That should take you back to Hogwarts. Be safe, Lily.”

With this, Lily Evans walked through the portal back to Hogwarts. Florestan fiddled around with the RA, and then looked around as the World began to rumble. He then quickly opened up a portal to Medical, walking in just as the non-canon location dissolved into nothing.

----**----

Nearly a full hour of nervously waiting later, Florestan stood up as Dr. Fitzgerald walked up to him. It had been a tortuous half hour for the DIC agent, and finally seeing someone attending to him was a great relief.

“How’s he doing, doctor?” asked Florestan.

Dr. Fitzgerald nodded. “Well, Eusabius does have an entry wound from the bullet in question,” he said. “However, before you panic, the bullet did not damage any internal organs.”

Florestan let out a sigh of relief. “Good, that’s always a good thing,” said Florestan. “So he’s all right, then.”

“Yes, he should be all right,” replied the doctor. “He will need to stay here for a day, but we should have him feeling good as new by then.”

Florestan nodded, giving a smile. “Thank you, doctor,” he said. “Eusabius is a good friend. I’d hate to have to do missions without him again.”

“He was insufferably polite throughout,” added Dr. Fitzgerald. “It actually made it a little easier, since he was very cooperative during examinations. That’s good.” He nodded, looking at the taller agent. “However, there is also the matter of the girl you picked up on this latest mission.”

“You mean the one Eusabius saved by jumping in front of her bullet?” asked Florestan.

“Yes,” said Dr. Fitzgerald. “Now, I sent her to the Nursery straight away. Teyala has managed to fill in most of the paperwork, but the girl does need a name.”

Florestan nodded. “I see,” he says. “Yeah, I’ll think of something, and I’ll stop by the Nursery on my way out to get to her about that.” The DIC agent nodded. “Can I see Eusabius?”

“Certainly,” replied Dr. Fitzgerald, walking back in the direction he came from. “This way, please.”

----**----

Florestan entered Eusabius’ room in Medical with a little bit of trepidation. However, upon seeing that Eusabius was indeed conscious and looking right at the door lifted a huge metaphorical weight off of the younger agent.

He walked up to the bed briefly, giving a soft smile to his partner. “Hey,” said Florestan. “You feelin’ all right?”

“Yes, I am all right,” said the older agent. “The girl is also well.” Eusabius looked up at Florestan. “How are you feeling, Florestan?”

The younger agent nodded. “I’m just glad you’re going to be all right,” he said simply. “I’m still a little angry at you for jumping in front of the bullet, you know. I thought you were going to die for a second there… But…” He glanced back to the door. “You did save her life, and here you are, so…”

“Indeed,” said Eusabius. “I think I have given her a suitable name. But I believe I shall need you to relay it to whoever is in charge of the paperwork.”

Florestan nodded, kneeling close to Eusabius as the older agent sat up. “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

“Her name will be Clara Weick,” replied Eusabius.

Florestan blinked. “After Schumann’s wife?” he asked. “I… Uh… Okay. That works, I suppose. She didn’t really have any defining characteristics in her fic of origin, so… Yeah, that works.” Florestan smiled again, looking at Eusabius.

Soon after, the two agents hugged, Florestan being careful not to upset Eusabius’ bullet wound. Florestan nodded against Eusabius, not saying a word. This hug was held for a few seconds, and then Florestan slowly parted from his partner. The two Disentanglers nodded, neither of them saying a word to each other.

“I’m… going to go hang out with Maria,” said Florestan. “Well, after I get the name issue sorted out.” The younger DIC agent nodded. “Get well soon, Eusabius.”

“I shall see what I can do,” replied Eusabius, giving a well-meaning smirk to his partner.

Florestan chuckled, his mood feeling a little brighter than before. And with this, he gave Eusabius one last wave before heading out of Medical to relay the information to the Nursery.

Somehow, Florestan had a feeling everything would turn out all right.

----**----

A/N: Hello again, people.

Well, we have a short F&E mission this time. I would post the collab with gaijinguy, but he hasn’t been on much as of late, so I’m afraid I’ll have to postpone that mission, because it’s not quite finished yet. We’re getting close to it, but… still.

Anyway, crazy times were had with this particular badfic. I mean, the fact that it has a Saw trap end with them getting over their hubris and then living happily ever after just doesn’t work. And there were numerous ways that both canons were defied, so that doesn’t help anyone. Especially not poor James Potter and the other Marauders.

Yeah… Eusabius getting shot near the end was a last-minute detail I threw in. Don’t worry, Florestan won’t go into dramatics about it. He’s only Florestan if he goes insane with other things. You know how it is. I’d like to thank DML for looking over the last half of the mission to make sure it all felt more or less right.

Anyhow, that’s this rather short mission. So I hope you guys enjoyed it!

-Herr Wozzeck