[LNH/HCC] Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #58 [HCC42]

[Saxon Brenton]

LNH/HCC: Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #58  [HCC42] 
      
___  ___________________________ 
| |-|                           \ 
| |-| []                        /              #58 
| | | [] egion of               \  'The B-Movie Teenage Romance Thing' 
| | | []__ [] []   []  []       / (Part of High Concept Challenge #42)    
| | | [___][ \[]et.[]__[]eroes  \ 
| | |      []\ ]   [ __ ]       /    written by and copyright 2014 
| |-|      [] []   []  []       \          Saxon Brenton 
| |-|___________________________/ 
| | 
| |  
| | Cover shows an adolescent version of Limp-Asparagus Lad (in civvies) 
| | sitting on a wall next to an adolescent version of Senses Lass 
| | (also in civvies) and holding hands.  There is a high school in the 
| | background, with students entering and leaving.  And everybody is 
| | a robot.
| | 
|_| 
     
     
     Joshua Asimov was sitting on the wall after classes waiting for 
Mary-Ann Happenstance.  When she arrived she took one look at his black 
eye and asked, "What happened?"
     "I helped break up a fight," he said with his usual unconcerned 
tone of voice.  He jumped down, and together they began walking home.  
"Some of the bullies were picking on Paul because there had been a 
minor accident and his family can't afford to get cosmetic panel 
beating.  One of them was even idiotic enough to continue the scuffle 
even though the deputy principle heard and was there in seconds.  I was 
elbowed in the optics."
     "Eww," she said.  "You should be more careful."
     "We're young.  We're foolish.  We're under the misapprehension 
that we'll live forever," he replied with the dry irony that comes from 
careful observation of life and which needs only the tiniest touch of 
hyperbole.
     Mary-Ann gazed down the street of the college town where they 
lived.  She said, "You know, sometimes I think that's why some of the 
kids treat each other so badly.  They can't imagine anything other than 
an unchanging, unending period of high school.  And that makes the ones 
that are already bored resentful."
     "Perhaps," said Joshua.  "But I think maybe it's also that we're 
social mechas, and a lot of them will do anything to fit into their 
social circle - no matter how stupid peer group pressure makes them 
behave.  That acts as a social pressure cooker."
     "Ha!  And this despite all the TV shows and movies with 
non-conformists being the ones to save the day," she countered.
     The conversation continued like this, even after they had reached 
Mary-Ann's house and walked in the front door.  Her father looked up 
from the report he was preparing for his job as a college professor and 
listened to them.  "Are you two actually debating social theory?" he 
asked, amused.
     "Er, yes?" went Mary-Ann, momentarily on the back foot.
     "Most kids your age would be discussing things like dates and 
basketball games."
     She gave him a hug.  "Yes Daddy, but we're not most kids."
     He smiled indulgently and briefly returned the hug.  "No, I guess 
you aren't."  And that wasn't just the usual parental assumption that 
their children are always special talking.  "Hello Joshua," he said, 
shaking hands.
     "Hello sir."
     "That's quite a shiner.  I hope you gave as good as you got."
     "I was helping the deputy principle break up a fight," Joshua 
replied, giving an even more abreviated version of the story than he'd 
told to Mary-Ann.  "Giving or taking weren't important, just the stopping."
     And there it was again, realised Professor Happenstance.  Joshua 
was nowhere near as striking a figure as Mary-Ann, and it was frequently 
the case that you could overlook this exceptionally uninteresting 
looking young mecha, but time and again the Professor had noted that 
Joshua's thought processes ran in unexpected ways.  "So what are you up 
to this evening?" he asked, turning the conversation to a more mundane 
topic.
     "I wanted to ask to take Mary-Ann out to the movies," Joshua said. 
"They're showing 'Attack of the Human'."
     "That's fine.  Just as long as you have your homework done first," 
he told his daughter.
     "Of course," she said, as if this was obvious.
     "And I should be leaving so that I can finish mine," said Joshua.  
"I'll be back around eight."
     
                    --==###==--
     
     It was night.  On a secluded hill top overlooking town was an open 
top car, and two teenagers who were making out.  The boy stopped, "Did 
you hear something, Wendy?"
     She listened.  "No, I don't hear anything."
     "Hmmm," Rusty went, looking suspiciously out at the moonlit 
countryside. "I think we should go."
     "I'm sure it was nothing..." the girl said, just as a creature 
leapt from the undergrowth and landed on the bonnet of the car.  By the 
light of the moon they could see that it was a monstrous human!
     "And now, foolish robos, I shall eat and digest you... with my 
fearsome ORGANS!" the creature exclaimed.  
     The theatre was suddenly filled with screams at the arrival of the 
human.  Not because it was a surprise - the title of the movie kind of 
gave it away - but more for the release of tension.
     And maybe a bit of gross out.  On screen the human was gratuitously 
showing off the plastic mock-ups of intestines that were arranged about 
the actor's torso in an attempt to look visceral and icky.
     "That's a really poor special effect," commented Joshua in an 
undertone.  
     "Suspend your disbelief," Mary-Ann advised, also in a whisper. 
"What would it be like to be in that situation?  What would it feel 
like... Oh, all right, that's just being gratuitous," she conceded as 
the human ripped Rusty's head off and ate it.
     "And your suspension of disbelief?" asked Joshua.
     "There's a difference between a bad special effect used because 
they didn't have the budget for anything better, and a poor plot choice 
made for shock value."
     Behind them another teenager rolled his eyes.  Paul leaned forward 
and snarked at his friends, "You know, if you two aren't going to get 
into the film, you didn't have to come in the first place."
     Mary-Ann smiled.  "And this is any different to everybody else not 
getting into the film because they're busy kissing?"
     The movie continued.  Wendy escaped and raised the alarm, but 
nobody believed her at first.  The body count continued to rise.  The 
army was called in.  Attacks were made, and failed.  Then the oil 
smeared ruins of the secret lab where the human had been held was found, 
and the secret of the creature's super-mechanical strength was 
discovered.  As was it corresponding weakness.  A final desperate attack 
was made.  Made even more desperate when the human outwitted and out-
flanked them.  Only the last minute save by Wendy grabbing the dropped 
spear and running it through the monster's chest averted disaster.  The 
film ended with the gruff old general musing that it was beauty that had 
killed the beast - which was a dreadfully cliche line but made the 
people in the audience who were still paying attention go, "Aaawww...".
     "Okay, but why was there a secret laboratory with a monster built 
in town?" asked Joshua rhetorically as the three of them walked out of 
the theatre's foyer.
     "I dunno," said Paul.  "Corporate R&D?  Secret military research?  
University thesis project?"
     "Someone had a nightmare and wanted to make it real?" suggested 
Mary-Ann.
     They paused on the opposite side of the street.  "Well, I guess 
I'll see you two at school on Monday..." began Paul, when he was 
interrupted by a horrible growl that sent a chill through their oil.
     Up on top of the awning to the building that they'd just left, 
highlighted dramatically by the 'Attack of the Human' marquee, was a 
human!  It didn't look like the one in the film.  The one in the film 
was obviously a mecha wearing a latex mask.  This was too lithe, built 
too much like a fast-moving lightweight predator, too much of an obvious 
carnivorous pack ape used to running down camelpards and rabbiphants to 
be anything but the real thing.
     The creature growled again, causing the crowd below it to take an 
instinctive step backward.  With a single leap that you would think 
would have been impossible from something made merely of meat, it jumped 
down to ground level and bared its teeth at a couple who had just exited.
     Mary-Ann grabbed an empty bottle from that litter bin and threw it, 
yelling "Hey!  Ugly!" as she did so.  It hit the human on the side of 
the head, causing it to spin around and howl at them.
     "What did you do that for!?" exclaimed Paul as she picked up a 
second bottle.
     "I'm distracting it," she said, not taking her eyes from the 
creature.  "We have room to run.  The crowd on the other side of the 
road don't.  Now, you're the science guy.  Which way do we go?"
     Paul took half a second before saying, "Okay, uhh...  Don't split 
up: safety in numbers.  Head for the lake.  They can't hold their breath 
for as long as we can.  Maybe we can find a way to drown it, or 
something..."
     Maybe the human was irritated by the talking.  Whatever the case, 
it chose that moment to charge across the street towards them, teeth 
bared in a show of intimidation.  It worked: the teenagers ran for it.
     "How long can it chase us?" asked Joshua as he threw a look over 
his shoulder.
     "A while," admitted Paul.  "Warm blooded animal, high energy 
metabolism.  It'll get energy from the sugars in its blood, then start 
burning any fat reserves, then start metabolising it's muscle mass.  
Mind you, fatigue poisons will make it give up the chase long before it 
gets to that point..."
     "Wait!" said Mary-Ann.  She stopped and looked back.  "Where did 
it go?"
    They looked about.  There was no sign of their human pursuer.  The 
street behind them, the houses on one side and the parkland on the other 
all appeared empty.  The three teenagers drew together in a defensive 
circle, facing outwards.
     "The path down to the lake runs curved rather than straight in this 
area," said Joshua.  "Maybe it tried to head us off by cutting across 
country through those bushes?"
     They looked at the bushes.  There was a rustling, and the glow of 
red eyes appeared.
     "Whew," said Mary-Ann in relief.  "It's just a robo-squirrel."
     Then there was a hideous mechanical screech, as the human leapt out 
of the bushes and grabbed the robo-squirrel in passing and dismembered 
it with its bare paws.  The teens fled in the opposite direction, back 
up the hill and away from both the lake and the centre of town.
     "Now what?" demanded Joshua
     "I don't know!" exclaimed Mary-Ann.
     "Head for the high school," went Paul.  "There might be stuff there 
that we can use against it."
     "Stuff in the science labs?" asked Joshua as they ran the final 
block towards their new destination.
     "Stuff in the kitchen, actually...  Oh," he said at the sight of 
the building lit up and cars parked out the front.  "Oh yeah, basketball 
match this evening."
     "We can't lead that thing in there," said Mary-Ann, pulling to a 
stop.  "A crowd of people packed into a confined space will be 
defenceless."
     Joshua turned and saw the human still advancing after them.  "We'll 
have to risk it spliting up.  Paul, you go get whatever it is that you 
need from the kitchens.  We'll try and keep it distracted out here."
     Paul nodded and headed off one way, Joshua and Mary-Ann waiting a 
brief half second to make sure it wasn't following him before making 
their own deliberately noisy departure.
     The ruckus attracted the attention of a security guard.  "Hey, what 
do you two think you're doing..."
     "Monster on the loose!" Joshua yelled as a warning, just before the 
human leapt at the hapless guard and knocked him over.  The guard 
screamed and the human began tear at his arm at the shoulder socket.  
Mary-Ann threw the second bottle and hit the human in the head.  "No, 
you ugly thing!  It's us you want!"
     The guard kicked the human off from him in a panic.  No sooner had 
the creature rounded back towards its wounded prey than Joshua picked up 
some metal litter and began throwing it at it, trying to distract it 
again.  The creature paused and growled at Joshua.  Joshua carefully 
advanced, continuing to yell at it.  The human leapt at the boy, and 
Joshua turned and ran, only to discover the direction he'd taken was 
funnelling him towards the double doors leading into the basketball court.
     Mercifully the doors were closed.  Joshua turned, and with his back 
up against the doors watched the human running towards him.  At the last 
moment he tried to dodge, hoping to duck out of the way and get the human 
to knock itself unconscious or at least wound itself by slamming into the 
doors.  After all, they outwards, so it wasn't as though the creature 
could burst them open from this side.
     The first part of the plan worked, the second did not.  True, the 
doors opened outwards.  That simply meant the impact broke the doors off 
their hinges.
     There was a mighty crash as one of the doors gave way completely, 
depositing the human onto the sidelines of the court right at the 
halfway line.  It raised its head into the air and howled, advancing 
into the centre of the court and prompting the players and referees to 
hastily scuttle away to the sidelines.  Some of the people in the stands 
screamed.
     Joshua and Mary-Ann came trotting in, armed with whatever they 
could grab.  Barely a second or so later came the wounded guard, holding 
his arm.
     Joshua said, "Do we circle it and try to contain it in the middle?"
     "I'd prefer to lure it back outside away from people," countered 
Mary-Ann.
     "Start an orderly evacuation of the court," announced the guard to 
one of the referees, even though this was already obviously impossible 
as people were climbing up towards the top of the seating, clumping into 
fearful groups at the back.
     The human feinted at Joshua.  In response Mary-Ann pelted it with 
stuff in an attempt to keep it off balance.  "How long do we have keep 
this up?"
     "Not long," called Paul cheerfully as he ran in carrying a bottle 
of liquid.  "Hey, hairy guy!  Try this instead."  And he splashed the 
contents of the bottle over the human.
     The human looked puzzled for a second.  Then it exploded, sending 
great goobie globs of biological material out over the court.  
     "Eww," went Mary-Ann.  She was covered in the stuff.  She, Joshua, 
Paul and the guard had been closest to the detonation, and had taken the 
brunt of the splattering.  She started to wipe it off.  "Okay," she 
asked, "What was that stuff?"
     "Arsenic," said Paul.
     "The flavouring additive?" responded Joshua quizzically.  "You'll 
have to explain.  I don't see why it exploded from arsenic."
     "Humans use phosphorus to regulate the cells that make up their 
bodies.  Arsenic is similar enough to be mistaken for phosphorus and for 
their bodies to *try* to use it in its place, but different enough not 
to actually be *able* to work in its place," Paul explained.  "Which 
makes sense.  Arsenic is just below phosphorus on the periodic table, 
after all.  So anyway, a good dose of concentrated arsenic food 
flavouring was that was needed to disrupt the human's cell structure 
and make its body go 'boom'!"  He looked pleased with himself.  "It's 
a rather serious flaw in their biology, actually."
     The guard clapped his hand on Paul's shoulder in congratulation.  
"Well done, son.  They'll be calling you a hero for that."
     A cheer went up as the spectators - not sure what exactly was 
going on but grasping that the day had been saved - echoed the guard's 
sentiments.  
     And at that point - because this was a b-movie story and contrived 
timing is part of the genre - a squadron of cops and various concerned 
parents arrived.  Mary-Ann saw her father and rushed over to him.  
Joshua followed, leaving Paul in the centre of a crowd of admirers.
     "What happened here?" the Professor asked.
     They quickly explained the situation.  Professor Happenstance 
nodded gravely, then smiled when the story ended and all was revealed to 
be well.  He looked over to where Paul was happily soaking up some rare 
public adulation, and said, "You know, they'll be calling you two heroes 
as well."
     "Yes.  But that can wait for later," said Joshua calmly.  "Paul 
needs the acclaim more than we do."  And not for the first, or even the 
tenth time, Professor Happenstance observed that Joshua acted very 
strangely for a teenager.
     "Well, be that as it may," the Professor said. "Right now I'm proud 
of all three of you.  So let's go over and give Paul our congratulations."
     
     
=====
     
Character credits:
     Well, harking back to the Looniearth-A characters that these people 
are the other-dimensional counterparts of:
     Limp-Asparagus Lad (Joshua Asimov).  Owned by Saxon Brenton.  
Created by wReam and Mystic Mongoose.
     Senses Lass (Mary-Ann Happenstance).  Created by Martin Phipps.
     Professor Perhap (Percevil Happenstance).  Cretead by Mark 
Friedman.
     
     
Author's notes: 
     Written for the 42nd High Concept Challenge: "Outside the Walls of 
enre": Taking characters and putting them in an alternate universe that 
doesn't have superheroes.
     You know, to the best of my recollection, there's only been a 
handful of times that I've shown Limp-Asparagus Lad and Senses Lass 
actually together and interacting with one another.  One time was in 
continuity but was a flashback to when they were in conflict because 
she was still a supervillain member of the Union of the Useless, and the 
others take place out of continuity in the RACCCafe stories or the 
Carols By Candlelight Special.  (Errr... to the extent that the LNH 
imprint considers *anything* out of continuity, of course...)  Most of 
their relationship has happened off panel.
     Obviously this story does not help improve that statistic.  But it 
does allow me to hold up an only mildly distorting mirror to their 
relationship.
     The movie scene where the human attacks the teenagers was, of 
course, lifted wholsesale from the Futurama episode 'Fear Of A Bot 
Planet'.  The throw-the-common-foodstuff-at-the-monster-and-cause-it-
to-explode trick was based on a similar scene in the Dr Who epsiode 
'World War Three'.  FWIW, arsenic poisoning really does disrupt the 
operation of our cells by confusing it with the phosphorus that our 
bodies use - but in real life we don't explode.  Ah, b-movie science.
     
     
----- 
Saxon Brenton   University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia 
     saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au     saxonbrenton at hotmail.com 
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex 
world of jet-powered apes and time-travel." - Superman, JLA Classified #3 
 
 
 
[LNH/HCC] Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #58  [HCC42] 
      
___  ___________________________ 
| |-|                           \ 
| |-| []                        /              #58 
| | | [] egion of               \  'The B-Movie Teenage Romance Thing' 
| | []__ [] []   []  []       / (Part of High Concept Challenge #42)    
| | | [___][ \[]et.[]__[]eroes  \ 
| | |      []\ ]   [ __ ]       /    written by and copyright 2014 
| |-|      [] []   []  []       \          Saxon Brenton 
| |-|___________________________/ 
| | 
| |  
| | Cover shows an adolescent version of Limp-Asparagus Lad (in civvies) 
| | sitting on a wall next to an adolescent version of Senses Lass 
| | (also in civvies) and holding hands.  There is a high school in the 
| | background, with students entering and leaving.  And everybody is 
| | a robot.
| | 
|_| 
     
     
     Joshua Asimov was sitting on the wall after classes waiting for 
Mary-Ann Happenstance.  When she arrived she took one look at his black 
eye and asked, "What happened?"
     "I helped break up a fight," he said with his usual unconcerned 
tone of voice.  He jumped down, and together they began walking home.  
"Some of the bullies were picking on Paul because there had been a 
minor accident and his family can't afford to get cosmetic panel 
beating.  One of them was even idiotic enough to continue the scuffle 
even though the deputy principle heard and was there in seconds.  I was 
elbowed in the optics."
     "Eww," she said.  "You should be more careful."
     "We're young.  We're foolish.  We're under the misapprehension 
that we'll live forever," he replied with the dry irony that comes from 
long observation and which needs only the tiniest touch of hyperbole.
     Mary-Ann gazed down the street of the college town where they 
lived.  She said, "You know, sometimes I think that's why some of the 
kids treat each other so badly.  They can't imagine anything other than 
an unchanging, unending period of high school.  And that makes the ones 
that are already bored resentful."
     "Perhaps," said Joshua.  "But I think maybe it's also that we're 
social mechas, and a lot of them will do anything to fit into their 
social circle - no matter how stupid peer group pressure makes them 
behave.  That acts as a social pressure cooker."
     "Ha!  And this despite all the TV shows and movies with 
non-conformists being the ones to save the day," she countered.
     The conversation continued like this, even after they had reached 
Mary-Ann's house and walked in the front door.  Her father looked up 
from the report he was preparing for his job as a college professor and 
listened to them.  "Are you two actually debating social theory?" he 
asked, amused.
     "Er, yes?" went Mary-Ann, momentarily on the back foot.
     "Most kids your age would be discussing things like dates and 
basketball games."
     She gave him a hug.  "Yes Daddy, but we're not most kids."
     He smiled indulgently and briefly returned the hug.  "No, I guess 
you aren't."  And that wasn't just the usual parental assumption that 
their children are always special talking.  "Hello Joshua," he said, 
shaking hands.
     "Hello sir."
     "That's quite a shiner.  I hope you gave as good as you got."
     "I was helping the deputy principle break up a fight," Joshua 
replied, giving an even more abreviated version of the story than he'd 
told to Mary-Ann.  "Giving or taking weren't important, just the stopping."
     And there it was again, realised Professor Happenstance.  Joshua 
was nowhere near as striking a figure as Mary-Ann, and it was frequently 
the case that you could overlook this exceptionally uninteresting 
looking young mecha, but time and again the Professor had noted that 
oshua's thought processes ran in unexpected ways.  "So what are you up 
to this evening?" he asked, turning the conversation to a more mundane 
topic.
     "I wanted to ask to take Mary-Ann out to the movies," Joshua said. 
"They're showing 'Attack of the Human'."
     "That's fine.  Just as long as you have your homework done first," 
he told his daughter.
     "Of course," she said, as if this was obvious.
     "And I should be leaving so that I can finish mine," said Joshua.  
"I'll be back around eight."
     
                    --==###==--
     
     It was night.  On a secluded hill top overlooking town was an open 
top car, and two teenagers who were making out.  The boy stopped, "Did 
you hear something, Wendy?"
     She listened.  "No, I don't hear anything."
     "Hmmm," Rusty went, looking suspiciously out at the moonlit 
countryside. "I think we should go."
     "I'm sure it was nothing..." the girl said, just as a creature 
leapt from the undergrowth and landed on the bonnet of the car.  By the 
light of the moon they could see that it was a monstrous human!
     "And now, foolish robos, I shall eat and digest you... with my 
fearsome ORGANS!" the creature exclaimed.  
     The theatre was suddenly filled with screams at the arrival of the 
human.  Not because it was a surprise - the title of the movie kind of 
gave it away - but more for the release of tension.
     And maybe a bit of gross out.  On screen the human was gratuitously 
showing off the plastic mock-ups of intestines that were arranged about 
the actor's torso in an attempt to look visceral and icky.
     "That's a really poor special effect," commented Joshua in an 
undertone.  
     "Suspend your disbelief," Mary-Ann advised, also in a whisper. 
"What would it be like to be in that situation?  What would it feel 
like... Oh, all right, that's just being gratuitous," she conceded as 
the human ripped Rusty's head off and ate it.
     "And your suspension of disbelief?" asked Joshua.
     "There's a difference between a bad special effect used because 
they didn't have the budget for anything better, and a poor plot choice 
made for shock value."
     Behind them another teenager rolled his eyes.  Paul leaned forward 
and snarked at his friends, "You know, if you two aren't going to get 
into the film, you didn't have to come in the first place."
     Mary-Ann smiled.  "And this is any different to everybody else not 
getting into the film because they're busy kissing?"
     The movie continued.  Wendy escaped and raised the alarm, but 
nobody believed her at first.  The body count continued to rise.  The 
army was called in.  Attacks were made, and failed.  Then the oil 
smeared ruins of the secret lab where the human had been held was found, 
and the secret of the creature's super-mechanical strength was 
discovered.  As was it corresponding weakness.  A final desperate attack 
was made.  Made even more desperate when the human outwitted and out-
flanked them.  Only the last minute save by Wendy grabbing the dropped 
spear and running it through the monster's chest averted disaster.  The 
film ended with the gruff old general musing that it was beauty that had 
killed the beast - which was a dreadfully cliche line but made the 
people in the audience who were still paying attention go, "Aaawww...".
     "Okay, but why was there a secret laboratory with a monster built 
in town?" asked Joshua rhetorically as the three of them walked out of 
the theatre's foyer.
     "I dunno," said Paul.  "Corporate R&D?  Secret military research?  
University thesis project?"
     "Someone had a nightmare and wanted to make it real?" suggested 
Mary-Ann.
     They paused on the opposite side of the street.  "Well, I guess 
I'll see you two at school on Monday..." began Paul, when he was 
interrupted by a horrible growl that sent a chill through their oil.
     Up on top of the awning to the building that they'd just left, 
highlighted dramatically by the 'Attack of the Human' marquee, was a 
human!  It didn't look like the one in the film.  The one in the film 
was obviously a mecha wearing a latex mask.  This was too lithe, built 
too much like a fast-moving lightweight predator, too much of an obvious 
carnivorous pack ape used to running down camelpards and rabbiphants to 
be anything but the real thing.
     The creature growled again, causing the crowd below it to take an 
instinctive step backward.  With a single leap that you would think 
would have been impossible from something made merely of meat, it jumped 
down to ground level and bared its teeth at a couple who had just exited.
     Mary-Ann grabbed an empty bottle from that litter bin and threw it, 
yelling "Hey!  Ugly!" as she did so.  It hit the human on the side of 
the head, causing it to spin around and howl at them.
     "What did you do that for!?" exclaimed Paul as she picked up a 
second bottle.
     "I'm distracting it," she said, not taking her eyes from the 
creature.  "We have room to run.  The crowd on the other side of the 
road don't.  Now, you're the science guy.  Which way do we go?"
     Paul took half a second before saying, "Okay, uhh...  Don't split 
up: safety in numbers.  Head for the lake.  They can't hold their breath 
for as long as we can.  Maybe we can find a way to drown it, or 
something..."
     Maybe the human was irritated by the talking.  Whatever the case, 
it chose that moment to charge across the street towards them, teeth 
bared in a show of intimidation.  It worked: the teenagers ran for it.
     "How long can it chase us?" demanded Joshua as he threw a look over 
his shoulder.
     "A while," admitted Paul.  "Warm blooded animal, high energy 
metabolism.  It'll get energy from the sugars in its blood, then start 
burning any fat reserves, then start metabolising it's muscle mass.  
Mind you, fatigue poisons will make it give up the chase long before it 
gets to that point."
     "Wait!" said Mary-Ann.  She stopped and looked back.  "Where did 
it go?"
    They looked about.  There was no sign of their human pursuer.  The 
street behind them, the houses on one side and the parkland on the other 
all appeared empty.  The three teenagers instinctively drew together in 
a defensive circle, facing outwards.
     "The path down to the lake runs curved rather than straight in this 
area," said Joshua.  "Maybe it tried to head us off by cutting across 
country through those bushes?"
     They looked at the bushes.  There was a rustling, and the glow of 
red eyes appeared.
     "Whew," said Mary-Ann in relief.  "It's just a robo-squirrel."
     Then there was a hideous mechanical screech, as the human leapt out 
of the bushes and grabbed the robo-squirrel in passing and dismembered 
it with its bare paws.  The teens fled in the opposite direction, back 
up the hill and away from both the lake and the centre of town.
     "Now what?" demanded Joshua
     "I don't know!" exclaimed Mary-Ann.
     "Head for the high school," went Paul.  "There might be stuff there 
that we can use against it."
     "Stuff in the science labs?" asked Joshua as they ran the final 
block towards their new destination.
     "Stuff in the kitchen, actually...  Oh," he said at the sight of 
the building lit up and cars parked out the front.  "Oh yeah, basketball 
match this evening."
     "We can't lead that thing in there," said Mary-Ann, pulling to a 
stop.  "A crowd of people packed into a confined space will be 
defenceless."
     Joshua turned and saw the human still advancing after them.  "We'll 
have to risk it.  Split up.  Paul, you go get whatever it is that you 
need from the kitchens.  We'll try and keep it distracted out here."
     Paul nodded and headed off one way, Joshua and Mary-Ann waiting a 
brief half second to make sure it wasn't following him before making 
their own deliberately noisy departure.
     The ruckus attracted the attention of a security guard.  "Hey, what 
do you two think you're doing..."
     "Monster on the loose!" Joshua yelled as a warning, just before the 
human leapt at the hapless guard and knocked him over.  The guard 
screamed and the human began tear at his arm at the shoulder socket.  
Mary-Ann threw the second bottle and hit the human in the head.  "No, 
you ugly thing!  It's us you want!"
     The guard kicked the human off from him in a panic.  No sooner had 
the creature rounded back towards its wounded prey than Joshua picked up 
some metal litter and began throwing it at it, trying to distract it 
again.  The creature paused and growled at Joshua.  Joshua carefully 
advanced, continuing to yell at it.  The human leapt at the boy, and 
Joshua turned and ran, only to discover the direction he'd taken was 
funnelling him towards the double doors leading into the basketball court.
     Mercifully the doors were closed.  Joshua turned, and with his back 
up against the doors watched the human running towards him.  At the last 
moment he tried to dodge, hoping to duck out of the way and get the human 
to knock itself unconscious or at least wound itself by slamming into the 
doors.  After all, they outwards, so it wasn't as though the creature 
could burst them open from this side.
     The first part of the plan worked, the second did not.  True, the 
doors opened outwards.  That simply meant the impact broke the doors off 
their hinges.
     There was a mighty crash as one of the doors gave way completely, 
depositing the human onto the sidelines of the court right at the 
halfway line.  It raised its head into the air and howled, advancing 
into the centre of the court and prompting the players and referees to 
hastily scuttle away to the sidelines.  Some of the people in the stands 
screamed.
     Joshua and Mary-Ann came trotting in, armed with whatever they 
could grab.  Barely a second or so later came the wounded guard, holding 
his arm.
     Joshua said, "Do we circle it and try to contain it in the middle?"
     "I'd prefer to lure it back outside away from people," countered 
Mary-Ann.
     "Start an orderly evacuation of the court," announced the guard to 
one of the referees, even though this was already obviously impossible 
as people were climbing up towards the top of the seating, clumping into 
fearful groups at the back.
     The human feinted at Joshua.  In response Mary-Ann threw stuff at 
it.  "How long do we have keep this up?"
     "Not long," called Paul cheerfully as he ran in carrying a bottle 
of liquid.  "Hey, hairy guy!  Try this instead."  And he splashed the 
contents of the bottle over the human.
     The human looked puzzled for a second.  Then it exploded, sending 
great goobie globs of biological material out over the court.  
     "Eww," went Mary-Ann.  She was covered in the stuff.  She, Joshua, 
Paul and the guard had been closest to the detonation, and had taken the 
brunt of the splattering.  She started to wipe it off.  "Okay," she 
asked, "What was that stuff?"
     "Arsenic," said Paul.
     "The flavouring additive?" responded Joshua quizzically.  "You'll 
have to explain.  I don't see why it exploded from arsenic."
     "Humans use phosphorus to regulate the cells that make up their 
bodies.  Arsenic is similar enough to be mistaken for phosphorus and for 
their bodies to *try* to use it in its place, but different enough not 
to actually be *able* to work in its place," Paul explained.  "Which 
makes sense.  Arsenic is just below phosphorus on the periodic table, 
after all.  So anyway, a good dose of concentrated arsenic food 
flavouring was that was needed to disrupt the human's cell structure 
and make its body go 'boom'!"  He looked pleased with himself.  "It's 
a rather serious flaw in their biology, actually."
     The guard clapped his hand on Paul's shoulder in congratulation.  
"Well done, son.  They'll be calling you a hero for that."
     A cheer went up as the spectators - not sure what exactly was 
going on but grasping that the day had been saved - echoed the guard's 
sentiments.  
     And at that point - because this was a b-movie story and contrived 
timing is part of the genre - a squadron of cops and various concerned 
parents arrived.  Mary-Ann saw her father and rushed over to him.  
Joshua followed, leaving Paul in the centre of a crowd of admirers.
     "What happened here?" the Professor asked.
     They quickly explained the situation.  Professor Happenstance 
nodded gravely, then smiled when the story ended and all was revealed to 
be well.  He looked over to where Paul was happily soaking up some rare 
public adulation, and said, "You know, they'll be calling you two heroes 
as well."
     "Yes.  But that can wait for later," said Joshua calmly.  "Paul 
needs the acclaim more than we do."  And not for the first, or even the 
tenth time, Professor Happenstance observed that Joshua acted very 
strangely for a teenager.
     "Well, be that as it may," the Professor said. "Right now I'm proud 
of all three of you.  So let's go over and give Paul our congratulations."
     
     
=====
     
Character credits:
     Well, harking back to the Looniearth-A characters that these people 
are the other-dimensional counterparts of:
     Limp-Asparagus Lad (Joshua Asimov).  Owned by Saxon Brenton.  
Created by wReam and Mystic Mongoose.
     Senses Lass (Mary-Ann Happenstance).  Created by Martin Phipps.
     Professor Perhap (Percevil Happenstance).  Created by Mark 
Friedman.
     
     
Author's notes: 
     Written for the 42nd High Concept Challenge: "Outside the Walls of 
Genre": Taking characters and putting them in an alternate universe that 
doesn't have superheroes.
     You know, to the best of my recollection, there's only been a 
handful of times that I've shown Limp-Asparagus Lad and Senses Lass 
actually together and interacting with one another.  One time was in 
continuity but was a flashback to when they were in conflict because 
she was still a supervillain member of the Union of the Useless, and the 
others take place out of continuity in the RACCCafe stories or the 
Carols By Candlelight Special.  (Errr... to the extent that the LNH 
imprint considers *anything* out of continuity, of course...)  Most of 
their relationship has happened off panel.
     Obviously this story does not help improve that statistic.  But it 
does allow me to hold up an only mildly distorting mirror to their 
relationship.
     The movie scene where the human attacks the teenagers was, of 
course, lifted wholesale from the Futurama episode 'Fear Of A Bot 
Planet'.  The throw-the-common-foodstuff-at-the-monster-and-cause-it-
to-explode trick was based on a similar scene in the Dr Who episode 
'World War Three'.  FWIW, arsenic poisoning really does disrupt the 
operation of our cells by confusing it with the phosphorus that our 
bodies use - but in real life we don't explode.  Ah, b-movie science.
     
     
----- 
Saxon Brenton   University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia 
     saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au     saxonbrenton at hotmail.com 
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex 
world of jet-powered apes and time-travel." - Superman, JLA Classified #3