LNH: 58.5 #18

Lalo Martins lalo.martins at gmail.com
Mon Dec 17 06:02:43 PST 2007


"It's just you and me.  The New Misfits, and the Amazing Amazon!"

"Er", said Sammy.  "I'm sure we can work this out.  We're all
civilized net.ahumans--"

"Analytic, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's me."

"So tell me, Analytic.  Who am I, what are my powers, how do
they work, where do they come from, and why?"

Sammy opened his mouth for a rebuke, but his mind was flooded
with thousands of details, from her facial features, accent,
body language, type and design of her weapons, the small curved
smile of triumph in the full red lips, her vocabulary, fabric,
design and simbology of her costume, each detail telling
hundreds of possible stories, all being compared against a
massive mental database of people, of myths, legends and LNH
archives, of weapons and equipment magical, alien, technological
and even fictional, each answer spawning another 117 interesting
questions, revealing more and more and yet never all.  He tried
to take refuge in his irrational teenager side; but that side
was completely overtaken by his hormones, which -- for a
teenager with the superpower to notice hundreds of times more
detail than a normal person -- can sometimes be a little hard to
control.  Using all his willpower, he set aside a part of his
powerful mind to analyse his own situation.  He seemed to have a
few alternatives, none of which would help his friends in the
battle that was already starting to unfold.  The easiest and
most likely one was to pass out.  But he decided that the one
with the best long-term benefit would be to just relax and
"surf" the tsunami of information to its conclusion -- which
could take a few minutes or a few days.  With supreme effort, he
dropped to his knees, and lost himself in his own mind cage.
Before the end of the battle, he would drool a bit; but everyone
would be too busy to notice.

  =============================-=============================

Who Cares Studios awesometastically presents...
                        __________    ______
                       / ____( __ )  / ____/
                      /___ \/ __  | /___ \
                     ____/ / /_/ / ____/ /
                    /_____/\____(_)_____/

                             #18

                     Sexy and Seventeen

                       by Lalo Martins

                   Part 1 of Beige Twilight

http://www.lnhq.info/archives/58.5/

  =============================-=============================

Old Ugly and Howie K. made a perfectly executed coordinated
attack, like they had been practising for some time.  It came at
her from both flanks, leaving defense pretty much impossible.
But the Amazing Amazon swung her sword once, then stood there
with the sword where the swing ended, like a samurai.  Howie and
Old Ugly both fell, their wounds not fatal, but sufficient to
take them out for a few days.

"The sword is made of pure Awesomium", Sammy mumbled dreamily,
"clearly by the ghost of Muramasa."

"Good stuff", said Contraption Boy, pointing a Big Gun, as she
casually sheathed her sword.  "But what if I don't need to get
close to you?"

"Good for you", she said, firing four arrows in quick
succession.  The first pierced his Big Gun's trigger mechanism,
making it unusable; the second did the same to Locked Room's own
Big Gun, still holstered.  The third locked the door of the
Mystic Bandwagon shut, while the fourth, just in case, went
through one of its tires.

"Grife", Locked Room said.  "More Awesomium?"

"No", she replied.  "Desire.  I forge them myself", she told
them, as she put her bow -- made from a branch of Yggdrasil and
a piece of The Last Rope -- back into its slot on her back.

Blur surrounded her and focused all his(?) power on the warrior
(if we can use the word "focus" here).  At the same time, Smiley
approached, and her t-shird "said":

:-(

"I'm not immune to your emotion control", said the Amazing
Amazon.  "But my emotions are mine, and can be a weapon as any
other.  If I must be sad, I'll be sad about my brother's early
demise, and that's a great part of my motivation to be here."

"Way too spectacular", quoted Sammy.  "He was all right."

She swung her body in a Judo-like move, and threw Blur over her
shoulder at Smiley.  Her t-shirt became unreadable.

Blackbird walked up to her and stopped just one step away,
sadness and despair and loneliness pouring from his eyes like a
thick blizzard of small but heavy flakes of shadow, waiting for
a sign, his heart hiding a secret.  Music could be heard if you
closed your eyes.

"Ah", she said.  "The leader.  Still not over the loss of the
most important people in your life, and therefore probably the
most formidable opponent.  But can you really control all that
power?  You do realize it's a danger to yourself and the world,
unless and until you can?"

He waved his arms, and the shadows swirled around them both like
a dark version of a snow globe.  She just stood there, and all
the people in the area couldn't hold their tears, for the image
was sad yet the most beautiful thing they've ever seen, just a
second of their lives which could not be captured and would
never come back.

She walked closer and stared deeply into his eyes, as the
blizzard sparkled with shades of emotion loud enough for anyone
to smell and taste, like an unfulfilled promise crawling through
their skins.  That afternoon, Bingham Valley stopped, unable to
do any more work; the teachers knowing there was nothing
meaningful left to teach, the doctors sure the world was beyond
cure, the firemen feeling that the fires of the soul had been
reduced to harmless ember that night.

"I know what it's like", she whispered; only he was close enough
to hear, but every heart in range resonated to the same tune, in
brooding harmony.  "My brother is gone too.  And I understand
the despair of a world where hope is a teddy bear, that can help
you sleep warm, but can't ever move by itself.  We're all alone
together, too special to fit, to belong, to mean anything when
meaning is at best a comforting illusion."

The blizzard spun into a whirlwind, and the tears of a whole
neighborhood falling to the ground made a symphony like coffee
and honey, as life closed its eyes to look inside.  The night
decided that was the best cue to join the scene, but it didn't
so much fall, as it crept in, as if sprouting from the falling
tears, in beat to its own deep melody.

"But sometimes I dream", she whispered.  "Always with love."

And the night echoed: "So much love, it looks like everything
else, so far away."

"We are here, and being special will have to be enough."

"Waiting for a sign", the New Misfits all said, not sure why.

"Make believe in magic", she told Blackbird, touching both his
shoulders with her hands.  "Make believe in dreams.  Make
believe impossible."

"Nothing as it seems", he whispered back, dropping to his knees,
as the storm disappeared like it had never been there.

"You can't defeat me", she said, walking away from him towards
the three members of the team still standing.

"Why?", asked Sammy.

"What?"

"Of the questions you asked", he said, still unable to move,
"this is the most interesting one.  Why?"

She smiled.

"It's all for the best, Amy", he said.  "It's sad, but
necessary.  It all happened for a reason."

"How so?"

"There is a crisis coming, someone warned us.  A midnight, which
will make the twilight we've just seen look like a shadow of an
odd color.  And the ticking of the clock is not for us to stop."

"Yeah?"  She seemed to hesitate.

"And as you so clearly demonstrated, you wield the Amazing so
much better than Roger ever did or ever could.  Invisible hands
move us, but their owner is not stupid.  When the clock stops,
the Amazing Amazon will be there, and the world will say thanks."

She looked at him intently.  "I cannot accept this."

"It's the truth, however."

She blinked twice, turned her back, and left.

Bonnie watched her go, and when the Amazing Amazon was out of
sight, she still waited almost a minute; one and a half seconds
less than a minute, to be precise.  Then she started picking up
the pieces of her team.

  =============================-=============================

In Workolips, "Little Miss Trouble" -- or Clara -- walked into a
small office, where her friend "Doctor Violence" (Godd Fodder)
was sitting behind a desk.  The desk was covered with black
velvet, on top of which a large number of mind-boggling little
parts were spread, clearly separated into two groups.

"Any luck?", she asked.

"Nope", he said, frustration in his voice.  "Maybe the Existents
were telling the truth after all, when they said I'm only able
to use my 'genius' on weaponry."

"Maybe we should just continue ascending in the ranks until we
get our own Secretary Boxes."

"Is there really no way we can steal a live one?"

"Finding a broken one in the repair centers and getting it to
you unnoticed was the limit of my ability."

"And it was an useful test.  I mean, I kind of trust the
Existents; most of what they said has been proved true.  But we
really have no reason to believe they were completely level with
us, so I wanted to check."

"Can't you just reason the Secretary Box to be somehow
dangerous?  Maybe?"

"I did try.  But it seems being lethal is an essential function
of any Workoliptian of rank high enough to have a Secretary Box,
so it would be redundant for it to be offensive too."

"What's this other stuff?  It doesn't look like Workoliptian
tech... I've never seen this kind of system."

"It's a device I found on my first night here, and I've been
toying with ever since.  It seems to be dangerous, because I can
kind of understand how it works, and I was able to fit the
Secretary Box's power supply to it.  But I don't know what it
does... and honestly, given the power requirements, I'm afraid
to try it.  The power source I found in it was almost
unimaginably powerful, and yet it was a single charge.  The
Workoliptian one I replaced it with is even stronger, which
makes me really want to learn more about Workoliptian tech..."

She sighed.  "Well, good luck.  I have a sparring session
with Deadline in five minutes."

"Ouch.  Good luck"

She thanked him and left.

"Now", he said to the pieces in his desk.  "Let's put you back
together, you beautiful, beautiful fella.  I wonder where you
came from... but I'm sure I'll learn soon enough."

  =============================-=============================

Doctor Stomper walked into the Leader's office, where Fearless
Leader and Irony Man were playing darts with Ultimate Ninja's
spare shurikens.

"Done", he said.  "The robot duplicates are deactivated."

"Great", said Irony Man.  "The walking saltshaker was giving me
the creeps.  I'm sure it was on to us."

"That shouldn't be a problem anymore."

"What of the remaining Legionnaires?", Fearless Leader asked.

"Still haven't found anything wrong.  They're still disappearing
at midnight, but we've been replacing them with our own people,
so nobody will notice."

"Excellent.  This world is ours for the taking then."

  =============================-=============================

Starring:
 Amanda "Amy" Zing     The Amazing Amazon     mine
 Meredith Samuels      Analytic               mine
   ("Sammy")
 Old Ugly                                     mine
 Kiwi Kiwii Kiwi       Howie K.               mine
 Daniel Hunt           Contraption Boy        mine
 (unpronounceable)     Locked Room            mine
 Bonnie Chique         Bandwagon Chick        Sue Clark's
 Sue Jagger            Smiley                 mine
 Blur                  Blur                   mine
 Blackbird Jones       Blackbird              mine
 Carl Fowley           Doctor Violence        wReam's (special
                                              thanks to Dvandom)
 Clara Lee-Trobbo      Little Miss Trouble    mine



More information about the racc mailing list