[RACCies] Just Imagine Saxon Brenton Presents the Raccies... Again #3

[Adrian James McClure]

Because YOU demanded it (well, OK, no one actually demanded it, but
someone had to explain what happened to Haiku Gorilla's body so that he
could be brought back properly), it's the return of:

Just Imagine Saxon Brenton Presents the Raccies... Again! #3
"Who Killed Haiku Gorilla?"
or
"Issue Number Three"
by Adrian James McClure

***

	"So you were saying?" said Retcon Lad.  "What is this supposed to be
about?"

	"Well," said Pointless Awards Man IV:  The Voyage Home, "as I was
saying before I was so rudely interrupted by a subplot, this cascade
will be about..."

***

	The Shadowy Figure, who is probably not the same as any other
mysterious cosmic lurking-in-the-shadows kind of people that may have
appeared in anything I wrote, though you never know, stroked their chin
in a mysterious and thoughtful manner.  "Hmm," the Figure said.  "How
shall I dispose of this body in a manner that will prevent the LNH from
ever figuring out who murdered him?  It would make logical sense to
hide it somewhere in the middle of nowhere where no one would bother to
look...  No, that would be too obvious.  I have to use reverse
psychology.  I know!  I'll dump it in the LNH Cafeteria!  They'll never
think of that!  Then the universe will be safe...  So that I can have
my revenge on the LNH for the death of my daughter, Captain Killfile!"

	Wait a minute, since when was the Shadowy Figure Captain Killfile's
mother?

	"Since I gave birth to her, you idiot!"

	But weren't you a man just last issue?  I could swear Tom Russell
referred to "his finger" when you killed the Weevil Mastermind.

	"That was obviously a mistake.  Everywhere else he went out of his way
to avoid referring to me by a gendered pronoun.  Now, as I was about to
say before I was interrputed, I shall use the Weevil Mastermind's
teleportation system to drop the dead body of Haiku Gorilla in the LNH
Cafeteria, and then the world will be safe!"  The Shadowy Figure
extended her hand to press the button, and then...

***

	"Wait," said Retcon Lad, "I thought you were going to explain what
this cascade was supposed to be about?"

	"I was," said Pointless Awards Man IV:  The Voyage Home, "but I keep
getting interrupted by subplot scenes.  That does it.  We have to put a
stop to these subplot scenes right now so we can get around to the real
plot of this cascade!  Retcon Lad, are you able to use your powers
right now?"

	"I think so."

	"Then use them to bring Haiku Gorilla back to life!"

	Retcon Lad closed his eyes, concentrated and...

	ZAP!

***

	Just as the Shadowy Figure was about to press the suitably
menacing-looking button on the desk, Haiku Gorilla began to stir.  The
Shadowy Figure gasped.  "Due to reverse psychology," she said, "if
Haiku Gorilla comes back to life, the Legion will investigate his
death!  I can't allow that to happen!"  The Shadowy Figure pulled out a
mysterious weapon, and...

	ZAP!

***

	"Bring him back again!"

	ZAP!

***

	ZAP!

***
	ZAP!

***
	ZAP!

***

	ZAP!  ZAP!  ZAP!  ZAP!  ZAP!
	ZAP!  ZAP!  ZAP!  ZAP!  Winter snow
	ZAP!  ZAP!  ZAP!  ZAP!

***
	Suddenly, Retcon Lad's powers backfired on him and he was retconned
into no longer being a part of the cascade.  He vanished into
nothingness.  Haiku Gorilla fell down to the floor, dead permanently
this time.  And by "permanently" I mean "He'll come back as soon as his
fans get angry enough."  But anyway.  The Shadowy Figure finally
pressed the button, and...

	ZAP!

***

	"Did you hear what happened to Haiku Gorilla?" said Catalyst Lass,
eating lunch at the LNH Cafeteria.

	"Yeah," said Cannon Fodder.  "I sure hope he's OK and we can rescue
him soon.  I--"

	Just then, the dead body of Haiku Gorilla fell on Cannon Fodder from
out of nowhere, instantly killing him.  Catalyst Lass drew back in
shock.

	Before long, Ultimate Ninja had roped off the part of the LNHQ where
Haiku Gorilla's dead body lay.  He looked down at it and scowled
beneath his mask, pondering.  "Dead gorilla carcass in the cafeteria,"
he muttered.  "I have known the city, I have seen its true face..."  He
snapped to attention and turned to the crowd of Legionnaires who were
pressed around him.  "All right.  We need to assemble a team of
Legionnaires who can investigate Haiku Gorilla's death.  Let's see...
First, I'll call in Deductive Logic Man.  He can't appear in this issue
because the author hasn't read K.M. Wilcox's Aeneas and Ferris yet and
can't do him justice.  Dr. Stomper will autopsy him.  How is he, Dr.
Stomper?"

	"Not good," said Dr. Stomper.  "He won't come back from the dead for
at least a week unless his fans get VERY angry."

	"All right, to counteract any potential threats, I'll have..."
Ultimate Mercenary started waving his hands around frantically in the
crowd like a student who wanted to go to the bathroom.  "Let's see.
Master Blaster, Obscure Trivia Lad, Catalyst Lass..."  Ultimate
Mercenary started jumping up and down.  "Circe*, Nudist man, and..."

[*Whose first and so far only appearance was in the LNH International
Woman's Day Special by Jamie
Rosen.--Gratuitously-Using-Obscure-Characters Adrian]

	Ultimate Mercenary screamed "Pick me!  Pick me!" at the top of his
lungs.

	"...Never-Seen-Before-And-Never-Going-To-Be-Seen-Again Lad."  Ultimate
Mercenary collapsed on the floor and cried tears of bitter rage and
loneliness.

	Doctor Stomper was running arcane Kirbytech devices over Haiku
Gorilla's corpse.  "These readings indicate that he was killed by a
laser device manufactured by Bertrand Weevil Enterprises," he said.

	"OK," said Ultimate Ninja.  "The rest of you, report to a
flight.thingee and go to the House of Bertrand Weevil.  I'll call
Deductive Logic Man as soon as a writer shows up who knows how to write
him properly."

***

	Things were looking bad for Pointless Awards Man IV:  The Voyage Home.
 Not only had Retcon Lad disappeared to somewhere where PAM IV couldn't
follow his temporal track, but the subplot scenes were going on so long
that he'd never get a chance to advance his own plotline.  He needed to
call in someone else with retcon powers.  Someone so powerful that he
could not only set the main plot in motion but delete the whole Death
of Haiku Gorilla subplot too.

	"But who else had retcon-related powers? Well, there was Retcon
RACCoon...  But he would be too hard to convince.   Ultimate Mercenary
had recently developed the ability to sense changes to continuity.  If
PAM IV used some Red Krypto.net to reverse his powers, he would have
the ability to cause changes to continuity.  And he'd probably be very
happy to appear in a cascade given how he'd missed out on every major
crossover in the last two years due to his current author's ridiculous
slowness.  But did he really want this series to get involved in
_Ultimate Mercenary's_ ridiculously convoluted plotlines?  No.  So who
else...  He had it!  This character was pretty obscure, even though
he'd appeared in the very first LNH story.  But   the current author
was a shameless continuity whore, so there would be no problem with
that...

***

	The LNH flight.thingee zoomed through the skies above Net.ropolis,
heading straight for the infamous millionaire playboy insect Bertrand
Weevil's secluded mansion.  On board, things were not going so well.
Nudist Man was going out of his way to make his particular endowments
obvious to all and sundry.  Master Blaster, gripped by envy but
unwilling to admit inferiority in any particular department, was
futilely attempting to demonstrate his masculinity by chatting up
Circe.  Catalyst Lass was trying to defuse the tension by suggesting
in-flight movies and failing miserably.

	"Hey, Circe," said Master Blaster.  "how would you like to see my meat
blaster?"  He was so desperate now that he didn't realize he'd already
used that particular pickup line.  Circe was no longer dignifying
Master Blaster's statements with a response, but glared at him with
more and more hatred each time and was definitely weighing the
advantages of turning him into a pig, even though he was flying the
flight.thingee.

	"Um," said Catalyst Lass, exuding as much confidence as she could
under the circumstances, "could we watch a movie?  How about, um, the
Guns of Navarone?"  She was straining her powers to the fullest, but
the tension in the room combined with the fact that one of the people
she was trying to exercise them on was a Greek goddess meant that her
suggestion fell like a lead weight.  She visibly deflated.

	"Did you know that the sequel to the novel 'The Guns of Navarone,'
'Force Ten from Navarone,' was the only sequel that Alistair Maclean
ever wrote?" said Obscure Trivia Lad.  "And that it is a sequel to the
movie and not the original novel?"  Everyone ignored him.

	"All right," said Catalyst Lass, "how about 'The Mad Adventures of
Rabbi Jacob'?"  No one said anything.
Never-Seen-Before-and-Never-Going-to-be-Seen-Again Lad, who had not
said anything for this whole conversation, was still sullenly staring
out the window.

	"Wait a minute," said Obscure Trivia Lad.  "Obscure Trivia Lad just
remembered that Never-Seen-Before-and-Never-Going-to-be-Seen-Again Lad
has already made an appearance.  He was originally suggested by Martin
Phipps to have amalgamated with Kid Recap to explain why he was
referred to as Recap Lad in a Flame Wars VI crossover.  Since he has
already appeared once and part of his powers are that he can never
appear again, this clearly cannot be the real
Never-Seen-Before-and-Never-Going-to-be-Seen-Again Lad."

	"You're right!" shouted Nudist Man.  "Explain yourself!"
Never-Seen-Before-and-Never-Going-to-be-Seen-Again Lad pulled out a gun
and shot him in the chest.  He then pressed a button on his image
inducer and his disguise fell away, revealing him as...

***

	Many blocks away from this battle, Ben Pierce was looking forward to
yet another ordinary day with his wife and family.  His life was, on
the whole, good.  Of course, there was a little part of it that he'd
never told anyone about.  Sometimes he even felt a kind of regret that
he hadn't had a chance to live it more fully.  But that was a long time
in his past.

	In those days, he'd been just a bored would-be comics artist who was
trying to start a career, when he had fallen prey to the manipulations
of evil net.villains back during the original Legion of Net.Heroes
cascade.  He had been hit with a radioactive pencil and given the power
to change any story around him.  Then he'd been brainwashed into
becoming a net.villain by the name of Plot-Error Man.  It hadn't lasted
for very long--the LNH had gotten ahold of him after a while and
restored his original personality.  He'd managed to start a
semi-successful career in comics, get married, and now he was living a
happy, normal life.  But sometimes he felt it was too normal.
Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he'd taken a
different choice once the LNH had removed his brainwashing, if he had
chosen a life of excitement and adventure...

	Then he realized he was feeling rising heady excitement, like when he
was rushing down a roller-coaster.  It was a feeling he had felt
before, and it could only mean one thing.  He was in another cascade
issue.

	There was a loud explosion and Ben's door was blasted off its hinges.
Oddly enough, it didn't wake the other members of his family up.
"Sorry about that," said the man who'd done it.  "I'm Pointless Awards
Man IV, and I need your help."

	Ben decided that he probably didn't want to live an excitement after
all.  "Leave me alone," he said.

	"You don't understand," said PAM IV.  "I can pay for the door.  There
is something far more important at stake.  I'm going to start a
cascade, Just Imagine Saxon Brenton Presents the Raccies... Again:  The
House of B.  It will be the greatest LNH story ever written."

	"Really?  Better than Jungle Cheesecake?  Tales of the LNH?  Dvandom
Force?"

	"Really.  But I can't get the plot of this cascade started because
forces of evil are trying to prevent it, and because I keep getting cut
off by subplot scenes whenever I'm about to explain it.  You need to
use your powers of retcon to try to defeat my enemies and delete all
the subplots from existance."

	"You can't ask me to do this," said Ben.  "It's crazy, it's...  Better
than Dvandom Force?"

	"Yes."

	He took PAM IV's hand, knowing he'd regret it.  "All right."

***

	Elsewhere, the Shadowy Figure cursed at the top of her lungs.  Her
enemy had found a being capable of defeating her plans.  She had to
respond in kind.  She had only one ally who could potentially stand up
to Plot-Error Man:  the damned soul of her own dead son, who like her
daughter had been killed by legendary heroes of his age.  The
witch/shadow-creature raised her hands in arcane gestures and chanted,
"Come forth from the depths of Net.Hell, my son...  COME FORTH,
GREN.DEL!!!"

WILL GREN.DEL KILL PLOT-ERROR MAN BEFORE HE CAN GET THE PLOT OF THIS
CASCADE STARTED?
WILL HAIKU GORILLA EVER COME BACK?
WHERE IS RETCON LAD?
WHO IS NEVER-SEEN-BEFORE-AND-NEVER-GOING-TO-BE-SEEN-AGAIN LAD REALLY?
WILL THIS CASCADE EVER HAVE ANY CONNECTION WHATSOEVER TO THE RACCIES
AND TO THE PREVIOUS CASCADE?
AND WILL ANYONE EVER WRITE ANOTHER ISSUE?
These questions may or may not be answered in the next issue (if there
is one), of...
JUST IMAGINE SAXON BRENTON PRESENTS THE RACCIES... AGAIN!

Author's notes:
I intended this to be a nice, short, manageable cascade issue but it
ended up being almost as long as one of my regular issues.  Oh well.
As Arthur Spitzer hasn't written Saviors of the Net #18, I have no idea
whether Captain Killfile's death can plausibly be blamed by her mother
on the LNH or not.  On the other hand, the relatives of dead villains
are practially required by law to blame their deaths on their enemies.

Overlong character credits:
Ultimate Ninja and Cannon Fodder created by wReam
Dr. Stomper created by T.M. Neeck
Obscure Trivia Lad created by Brian Perler
Catalyst Lass created by Elisabeth Riba
Master Blaster created by Martin Phipps and based on Robert Ramirez
Pointless Awards Man IV:  The Voyage Home created by Jesse Willey
Retcon Lad created and reserved by Saxon Brenton.  His use in this
cascade is presumably OK considering that Saxon Brenton didn't object
in his End of Month Reviews of the first two issues.
The Weevil Mastermind, The Shadowy Figure (Gren.del's Mother), and
Nudist Man created by Tom Russell and are public domain
Haiku Gorilla created by Tom Russell.  When I wrote him about using
Haiku Gorilla in another story, he said that Haiku Gorilla is reserved
but usable with permission; I don't know what his status in relation to
this cascade is but I assume it's OK to dump his body back in the LNHQ.
Captain Killfile and Retcon RACCoon created by Arthur Spitzer
Ultimate Mercenary created by Tom Russell and reserved and usable with
permissioon by me.  He's not supposed to be part of this cascade, his
appearance was just supposed to be a brief cameo.
Circe created by Homer, who was not Homer but another man of the same
name, and brough into LNH by Jamie Rosen
Never-Seen-Before-and-NEver-Going-to-be-Seen-Again Lad created by
Martin Phipps.
Plot-Error Man created by Jef Kolodziej, I think
Gren.del created by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon who is presumably not
Homer, though you never know, and brought into the LNH by me.  He can
be considered public domain.