[REPOST/LNH] Arthur E. L. Presence: Assassin #1 (Saviors of the Net epilogue)

[Arthur Spitzer]

Date: 21 Mar 2000 01:53:47 -0000
From: "Martin Phipps" <phippsmartin at hotmail.com>
Subject: [LNH] Arthur L. Presence: Assassin #1 (Saviours of the Net
epilogue)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative

Tinyville, 2000.  The town had finally been rebuilt after the nuclear
devastation of 1992.  With the clean up effort having been completed in only
a few years, investors were lured to Tinyville with the slogan "Lightening
never strikes twice in the same place!": presumably, if a world ending
nuclear holocaust were to occur, Tinyville (along with Hiroshima and
Nagasaki) would be the only places on Earth still standing.

It was in this unlikely place that Arthur L. Presence set up his new
suburban home.  Arthur L. Presence could write all of reality such that he
was the Lord of the Earth.  .o(Been there.  Done that.) he had thought to
himself.  He could choose to wipe his memory clean so that he was no longer
aware of his ability to write reality, or that he was even in a fictional
reality in the first place... but that would just make him a potential pawn
of any would be world conqueror who wanted to access his untapped power.

No, Tinyville was the right place for him to be... for now.

Arthur L. Presence sat comfortably in his living room chair watching the
Net.News.Network on his television, seemingly unaware of the presence of a
rival assassin in his home: the mysterious figure had apparently silently
teleported into his living room and was delighted to find his target off
guard but, effectively, out in the  open.  The assassin aimed his BIG gun at
his target.

SHHHRRRAAACCCKKK!!!  Arthur L. Presence disappeared.  Foam from the chair
scattered around the room.

"Net.Justice is served!" Pointless Death Man said with satisfaction.  He was
about to teleport away when he noticed something odd: Arthur L. Presence had
seemingly been vapourised and yet... where was the characteristic smell of
charred flesh that he had become so familiar with over the years?  The only
smell he could detect was that of burning foam, something that smelt quite
different from burned flesh.

Pointless Death Man crept forward to investigate.  Had his quarry eluded
him?  Had he been outwitted by this
mechanical-author-test-program-come-assassin?  He recognised a device that
had been placed on top of the television.

.o(A holographic projector!) Pointless Death Man thought.  (So Arthur L.
Presence expected me.  He's still alive!  But where is he?)

Pointless Death Man looked around for clues as to where Arthur L. Presence
might have disappeared to.  He couldn't let Arthur L. Presence go around
pointlessly killing unused characters to satisfy the bloodlust of LNH
readers.  That was _his_ job!  If Arthur L. Presence were to return to such
work then Pointless Death Man himself would end up, ironically enough, as a
redundant character and, from Pointless Death Man's sick perverted point of
view, that would make Pointless Death Man himself unfit to live!  One of
them had to die for the other to live!

Pointless Death Man noticed a piece of paper that was sticking out from
under the holographic projector on the television.  He moved the holographic
projector over to one side and picked up and unfolded the piece of paper.
He read the note.

"Two assassins in one Looniverse is one assassin too many.  One assassin had
to go.  My apologies."

Pointless Death Man gasped in horror.  It was a trap!  Arthur L. Presence
had agreed completely with Pointless Death Man's assessment of the situation
and had decided to eliminate him first, presumably before any of the authors
got the idea of using Pointless Death Man to eliminate Arthur L. Presence in
a bizarre twist of fate.

A few seconds passed as the terrified Pointless Death Man wondered what fate
Arthur L. Presence had in mind for him.  He got his answer as soon as he
heard the whining sound from his BIG gun that told him that it was going on
overload.  Pointless Death Man tried to throw the BIG gun away but couldn't.
  He tried to teleport away but couldn't.

.o(Is Arthur L. Presence insane?  All of Tinyville will be killed in the
explosion!)  Pointless Death Man noted how ironic it was that, with his
death assured, he would suddenly feel pity for a whole town of people being
pointlessly wiped out of existence!  Of course, when the residents of the
town are all fictional, and with not even a single one having been fleshed
out in the slightest for that matter, their deaths wouldn't mean anything to
the fully aware Arthur L. Presence.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As Tinyville was being devastated, one of the fish in a local pond silently
thought to himself, (Oh no!  Not again!)  Once again, that fish was one of
the few survivors of any species after the effect of the BIG gun's explosion
had made its way through Tinyville.

Irony Man, who had flown down from Net.ropolis to investigate the incredible
irony flux emerging from somewhere in the general area, had been flying over
nearby Coastal City when Tinyville went up.  The resultant electromagnetic
pulse rendered his armour useless.  He dropped towards the ground like a
rock.

.o(If I hadn't come down to investigate the irony flux in the first place, I
wouldn't be in this situation now,) Irony Man thought to himself.  (I guess
this is the end of Irony Man!)

Just then, Generic Man(tm) appeared from out of nowhere and caught Irony Man
before he hit the ground like a missile.

"Generic Man!" Irony Man said with surprise.  "I didn't expect to see you
here!"

"I do live here," Generic Man(tm) told him.

"But I thought you're copyright had been bought by Mi-T Big Comics!  Your
own creator couldn't use you without permission!"

"Which was a bit of a relief all things considered," Generic Man(tm) said,
reflecting on his relatively peaceful life with his wife June and their
daughters April and May, "but that was more than five years ago!  The
legalities preventing me from actually appearing in the Looniverse have
lapsed!"

"But you still can't appear in Superguy, right?" Irony Man asked.

Generic Man(tm) shrugged his shoulders.  "I wouldn't know about that.  I
haven't seen Deja Dude all this time.  What happened to him?"

"He's dead," Irony Man said, "or at least he is right now."  He referred to
the fact that Deja Dude had temporarily come back to life in Mutton Mania,
only to disappear when Opinionated Lad pointed out that his author hadn't
come up any story explaining away his apparent death.

"Too bad," Generic Man(tm) said, not really meaning it.  He looked over
towards Tinyville and saw that all that remained was a radioactive mushroom
cloud rising over a barren crater.  "This looked like his work."

"Perhaps its some other writer who is repeating old plot lines," Irony Man
suggested.  "After a while, it's hard for them to come up with anything
new."

"Harder for some more than others," Generic Man(tm) quipped.  "So do you
want me to take you to LNH HQ?"

"By all means!  I want to get my armour recharged as soon as possible!  I
have a feeling that whatever is going on... it's not over yet."


AUTHOR NOTES

I just had to write this.  Is this going to be _another_ cascade?  Maybe.  I
have the feeling Marc Singer was planning to write an Arthur L. Presence
story in the future (seeing as how he was still around at the end of SotN
and that this could be considered a bit of a plot dangler) so I thought I'd
get the ball rolling, so to speak.

Pointless Death Man was created by Drizzt (in Cry.Sig).  I didn't get
Drizzt's permission to kill him off... but the irony of having Pointless
Death Man offed by Arthur L. Presence (created by Steven Howard) was too
strong to resist! :)

Martin

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