[LNH] The Continuing Misadventuers of Miss Translation #15

[Jamie Rosen]

Low Budget Productions proudly presents

    The Continuing Misadventures of
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                                                                 #15
                                                   "Finishing Off"


                 [COVER: A tight close close-up of a gloved
                hand laying on the ground. Surrounding said
                glove is a wide assortment of pills of
                various sizes, shapes, and colours. At the
                bottom of the page, a bold caption reads:
                "Enter... the PHARMACY!"]


"NO I'm not WITH THEM!" the stranger snapped. "I'm not with ANYBODY
anymore, thanks to you! But that's all right... because THE PHARMACY
doesn't need ANYBODY!"

The Pharmacy?

"Hey," whispered Starts-Arguments-For-No-Apparent-Reason Kid, leaning
closer to Lamar Dunston. "Didn't he say that last issue?"

"It's establishing continuity," Lamar whispered back.

"Stop WHISPERING!" shouted The Pharmacy. "Stop WHISPERING and FIGHT!"

SAFNAR Kid and Miss Translation looked at each other, shrugged, and
charged.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" screamed Miss Translation as she ran.

"$#^%*#*@%*@%&@%@~!" shouted SAFNAR Kid as he followed.

"THAT'S more LIKE IT!" The Pharmacy exclaimed. "Now, FACE MY WRATH!" He
nimbly ducked out of the way of Miss Translation's clothesline and
lashed out with a side kick, catching her with a glancing blow, but
leaving himself open to a clubbing blow from
Starts-Arguments-For-No-Apparent-Reason Kid.

"Take that, Screaming Weenie," SAFNAR Kid said.

"And YOU take THIS!" The Pharmacy lashed out with one hand. "And call
me in the MORNING!"

SAFNAR Kid stumbled back as the concentrated power of decongestants
robbed him of vital fluids, leaving him dehydrated and choking on the
floor.

"As for YOU..." Before the Pharmacy could turn fully to Miss
Translation, he was struck by a spout of water from behind. Dripping,
the medicated menace whirled to face his attacker.

"Not so fast," Blue Wave intoned. A second blast of water narrowly
missed its target.

"BAH! I know what you need." The Pharmacy gestured in the direction of
his aquamarine adversary. "A blue pill for a blue hero -- have some
V1agra!"

A look of consternation crossed over Blue Wave's face, and he quickly
ducked behind one of the desks, silently cursing the clinging nature of
his uniform. .oO( Not a terribly heroic profile... )

The Pharmacy turned back to Miss Translation. "May cause DIZZINESS!
NAUSEA! And DIARRHEA!!!" he shrieked.

And it did.

Before he could seize the advantage he now had, however, he was
assaulted by a noxious odour, and the young lady emitting it.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Sleeps-With-Anything-Alive Girl was grappling him
with all her undead strength, and he seemed to be weakening... but he
still had some reserves left.

"Do not operate heavy MACHINERY!" He chuckled. "THIS medication may
cause drowsiness."

Nothing happened.

"This MEDICATION may cause DROWSINESS!"

SWAA Girl tightened her grip. .oO( You're not hurting my friends any
more than you already have, buster, ) she thought.

"This medication MAY cause drowsiness!"

But it didn't, and the Pharmacy began to stagger under her grip.

"This.... THis... muh...muh..."

At this point, Cheesecake-Eater Lad cracked him over the head with an
empty mixing bowl, and the Pharmacy collapsed into unconsciousness. As
he did so, the effects of his powers began to dissipate, and everyone
regained both their composure and control over their bodies.
Sleeps-With-Anything-Alive Girl kicked him while he was down -- just to
be sure.

"Phew," Miss Translation said, mopping her brow. "It was a definitive
fight."

"Yes," added Blue Wave. "Indeed."

They looked at SAFNAR Kid. "What? Oh. Oh, yeah. Boy. What a fight that
was."

The group trussed up the unconscious Net.Villain, and interrogated
Monsieur Cheval as they did so. "You two know each other?" SAFNAR Kid
asked.

Monsieur Cheval shook his head. "No. We received an anonymous tip today
that you were on your way -- I suppose he must have been that tipster."

"Do you have any idea why he would have been looking for vengeance
against you?" Lamar Dunston inquired. "Or us, for that matter?"

Again, the horse-man shook his head. "Net.Santo has made many enemies
in its time. As I'm sure you have, as Net.Heroes."

>>From outside the hidden laboratory, a door could be heard opening and
closing.

"Vee ahr 'eer. Vair ahr yoo?"

"In here, Norman French," Monsieur Cheval said.

Two men that the Net.Heroes recognized from the flight over entered the
secret laboratory. No point in beating around the bush: it was Negative
Manny and Norman French.

"Looks like we missed all the fun," Negative Manny said, surveying the
damage grimly. "Who's the dead guy?" He tapped Cannon Fodder with his
toe.

"Cannon Fodder," Blue Wave said.

"I should have known."

SAFNAR Kid cleared his throat. "Look, I hate to break up this little
meet'n'greet, but we kinda came here to rescue our teammates, and so
far I've only seen tubby over here." He jerked a thumb at
Cheesecake-Eater Lad. "Where's the beef?"

"Ah, yes, the alien," Monsieur Cheval said. "One moment." He left the
room.

Sleeps-With-Anything-Alive Girl turned to SAFNAR Kid. "Did you just
call the Normalizer 'the beef'?" she asked.

"It's a figure of speech."

"Uh-huh." She giggled in a decidedly zombie way, and he gave her the
skunk eye.

The assembled Net.ahumans stood around uncomfortably as they waited for
Monsieur Cheval to return. The only one who seemed unfazed was
Cheesecake-Eater Lad, who was merrily finishing up his cheesecake.
After what seemed like an eternity, the horse-man returned with a
suspiciously
normal-looking man in a suspiciously normal-looking suit and dark
glasses in tow.

"But I don't *wanna* go back to LNHHQ..." the Normalizer was whining.
"I wanna stay *heeere*."

"I'm afraid you cannot," Monsieur Cheval said. "You must go with your
friends."

"But I don't--" He noticed that his friends were right there. "Hi
guys."

"Hi," they said en masse.

"Who's the dead guy?" He tapped Cannon Fodder with his toe.

"Cannon Fodder."

"I should have known."

Lamar Dunston approached Monsieur Cheval. "Well, Monsieur Cheval, if
they are free to go?"

The workhorse glanced at Cheesecake-Eater Lad. "Is the recipe
complete?"

Cheesecake-Eater Lad smiled. "Not only is the recipe complete," he
said, "but so is the cheesecake!" He held it up for everyone to see --
it looked, well, like a normal cheesecake.

"Excellent," Monsieur Cheval said. "I shall offer it to the
unfortunates in the other room." He turned to Lamar and the Net.Heroes.
"You are all free to go. Many thanks for your understanding." He took
the cheesecake from C-EL and disappeared through the door.

Meanwhile, the unconscious figure on the floor began to stir. "Wha...
what HIT ME?" he asked. Then he saw the three new arrivals to the room.
"YOU!" he shouted at Negative Manny. "YOU!" he shouted at Norman
French. "YOU!!!!!" he shouted at the Normalizer. "I HATE YOU MORE THAN
ALL THE OTHERS! YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

The three new arrivals looked to their compatriots, who shrugged.

"If it wasn't for YOU, I would still be with my mentor, Captain
HYPOCHONDRIAC!" the Pharmacy accused.

"Um." The Normalizer looked around the room. "Sorry?"

"Your apologies mean NOTHING to me!" Breaking free of his bonds, he
leapt over the counter towards Cheesecake-Eater Lad, and grabbed the
food-stained papers from the countertop. "But NOW -- with this RECIPE
-- you will all feel the wrath of Skip-- I mean, THE PHARMACY!" And
with that, he vanished through a portal that looked an awful lot like
the sort of portal Net.Santo had a penchant for using.

The Pharmacy?

  * * *

Later, in a state that is neither life nor death:

*I'm sorry you got killed.*

"I'm used to it."

*It wasn't nice to see.*

Silence.

"We got Cheesecake-Eater Lad back, though."

*Yeah.

*Thank you for letting me come along. I know I don't really do much.*

"Well, it's nice to have someone to talk to."

*Yeah. It is.*

More silence.

"Oh. Looks like I'm coming back."

*Okay. I'll see you later.*

"Yeah, I guess you probably will."

Cannon Fodder snapped back to life.

  * * *

Meanwhile, back at the no-longer-abandoned-warehouse:

The Normalizer had taken news of their expulsion from the Legion of
Net.Heroes in stride, and had immediately made himself at home in their
new headquarters. In fact, at this very moment he was singing along
off-key to a techno remix of Chris Isaak while flipping through the
channels on the big screen tv, pausing just long enough to get people
interested in what was on before changing the channel. The rest of the
team had gathered in the open-concept kitchen on the far side of the
warehouse.

"Why did we rescue this dumb@$$ again?" asked SAFNAR Kid.

"Because he's our teammate," SWAA Girl said.

"So?"

"Because we're Net.Heroes," Blue Wave added.

"So?"

"That in our pulse of the detonation was cleared since then," answered
Miss Translation.

"So?"

"Because I took your wallet," the Normalizer hollered, holding it up
over his head.

"Gimme that!" SAFNAR Kid said, snatching it out of the alien's hand. He
opened the wallet and started going through it to see if any money was
missing, grumbling to himself all the while.

The Normalizer made as if he were wiping a tear from his eye behind his
sunglasses. "I missed you too!"


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Well, I was contractually required to include at least one fight scene
in this arc, so there, you got it.

I have to say, I'm quite happy with how I tied so many things together
here. Obviously there are still some loose ends, but I believe those
are called 'plot seeds' -- expect them to take root, sprout, and bear
fruit like an overripe simile. I plot Miss Translation by throwing as
many ideas as I can think of into a pot and letting them simmer; some
of them are ready to be served before others are, so something
mentioned offhandedly in one issue may turn out to be central in a
later issue. Like Skippy. Er, I mean The Pharmacy.

Speaking of whom, I'm sure some of you are thinking to yourself, "Why
'The Pharmacy'?" Well, it's like this. Remember Speedy? He was the
Green Arrow's sidekick for a while. Then he grew up and became Arsenal.
Well, Skippy was a sidekick, and his name is like "Speedy" (starts with
an 's', ends with a 'y', and is two syllables long.) 'r' is two letters
after 'p', and 'm' is two letters after 'k' (sPeedy -> aRsenal; sKippy
-> pharMacy) -- a stretch, I know. Plus, given his origin as a member
of the Legion that Needs the Hospital and a sidekick to Captain
Hypochondriac, it seems fairly logical (in a way) that he would develop
pharmaceutical powers. How did he develop those powers, and why is he a
man when five issues ago he was a boy? That'd be one of them there
'plot seeds' I mentioned earlier.


Negative Manny, Norman French, the Normalizer, Charles Edward Cheval,
Lamar Dunston, Miss Translation, Blue Wave, the Pharmacy,
Invisible-Intangible-Inaudible Lass and the unfortunate creations of
Net.Santo are mine and reserved.

Sleeps-With-Anything-Alive Girl is reserved (Yeah right!)
Starts-Arguments-For-No-Apparent-Reason Kid is reserved.

SAFNAR Kid created by Tom Russell, I think, although he was surprised
when I mentioned it, and SWAA Girl definitely created by Tom Russell.

Cannon Fodder created by wReam, I believe, and not reserved.

Many thanks to Carl Tashian's multibabel website Lost in Translation
<http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/> for helping with the unique
character of Miss Translation's speech. Mind you, where necessary I
have taken some liberties, to keep all of her words in the English
language.

Copyright 2005, baby!