Bently McQuinn Saves Literature

The next door wasn’t locked. And out from under the crack at the bottom came glowing pink and green lights. Bently rested his hand against the door. “Ready?” he asked Pansy.

She nodded her head. They both held their wands at the ready and threw the doors open.

Inside was a huge room with hundreds of green pipes traveling the height of the walls. The pink and green lights radiated from these mysteriously – everything else was dark. And in the middle sat a woman in the Wizard’s emerald throne, wearing a knee length grey skirt and a simple white top, with her hair wavy and her bangs slightly side-swept and her lips graced with bright pink lipstick. It was Stephanie Meyer.

“So McQuinn, you’re finally here,” she said, standing. She set her laptop to the side of her and took a few steps towards them. “I was wondering if you’d ever make it.”

“’Course I would. Your fairies aren’t that hard to kill, actually,” said Bently. His hand was itching for the sword.

“Oh, you’re so funny, McQuinn, here with your little girlfriend. I see you wrote her out of the Blank World. How romantic,” Meyer cooed.

Pansy made a face. “You’re a lunatic. How in the world did a crazy banshee like you get so powerful?”

“Oh my darling, it was all very easy,” Meyer began, smiling creepily. “Everyone thinks I don’t have power. But really, I have a lot. You see, alone I might not be powerful enough, but my fans… my fans all like to write too. So I simply asked them to write about the worlds I wanted to destroy first.”

“You… you… but why?” asked Bently, not being able to think of any good insults at the moment. “Why would you do this?”

“Why?” Meyer asked, her brown eyes flashing as she cackled in laughter. “Why? Because I’m sick and tired of people being mean to me!” Her voice seemed to sound like that of a twelve-year-old. “I hate, hate, hate going online every day to see people saying bad things about me ‘Oh look, Stephanie Meyer can’t write!’ ‘Yeah, that dumb bitch doesn’t know the eraser from the point on a pencil!’ ‘She should leave love stories to the professionals!’”

Meyer’s breathing was getting steadily more ragged. She was crazier than Bently thought.

“Well, I’m done with that now! I’m here to show the world that I am a good author! I am the best romance writer! That I am the best writer the world has ever seen! And no little boy and his girlfriend are going to stop me!”

Bently pulled out the sword as Meyer went for her laptop. Bently ran after her, swinging the sword. Pansy started shooting spells, but they didn’t seem to work at all.

“Fools!” Meyer cackled. “Your magic and amulets won’t work here! I am invincible!”

Bently brought the sword down on Meyer’s computer. She screamed and there was an electrical sound, and then Bently felt electricity coursing through him. He dropped the sword and fell to the ground, twitching in uncontrollable spasms. He heard Pansy screaming and Meyer laughing maniacally. Then his eyes shut tight, and he dropped into unconsciousness.

-

When Bently came to, he felt awful. Like someone had taken a hot iron and used it on his insides. Especially his sword arm. It felt completely barbequed.

“Bently! Wake up!”

That was Meggie’s voice. He glanced up to where he thought she was with his eyes half open. She, Pansy, Lucy, and King were all there, chained to the wall.

“Wake up!”

“Immawake, Meggie,” Bently slurred, trying to sit up. Pain shot up his injured arm, and of course, it just had to be his freaking right arm. Everything in the world seemed to be going wrong with that arm.

“Well McQuinn, it looks like this is it.”

Meyer was standing over him, holding his notebook and pen. “The only things in the world, in the universe, that could kill me are these. And I think they’ll go away now.” Meyer shredded the notebook in front of his eyes and snapped the pen in half.

“Now all I have to do is send you all to the Blank World, and it’s bye bye, Bently McQuinn and Friends.”

“Not so fast.”

Bently stood, and cleared his mind. This was his last hope. He had to try.

“Stephanie thought she had won. But she forgot one thing.”

Bently’s voice sounded different. It sounded more lyrical like when Meggie read.

“She forgot what true writers can do. True writers don’t need a pen or pencil. True writers don’t need paper or a computer. True writers can dream the words, and speak the words. True writers make their reality in their imaginations.”

“No,” Meyer whispered, too stunned to do anything.

“And this is what Stephanie Meyer forgot. She wasn’t a true writer, and Bently McQuinn was. ‘I BANISH YOU!’ Bently yelled at the top of his lungs. ‘I BANISH YOU FROM THE LITERARY WORLD FOR ALL ETERNITY! NOTHING YOU EVER WRITE AGAIN WILL COME ALIVE, OR OBEY YOU! I BREAK YOUR POWER, STEPHANIE MEYER!’”

Meyer screamed. A light was emitting from her chest, and it swallowed her, leaving nothing but the echo of her pain and failure.

“Stephanie Meyer, you just lost The Game.”