LNH: Alt.stralian Yarns #10: Q2 - Tenth Issue Spectacular! With Juxtaposition!

[Tarq]

In Alt.stralian Yarns #9, Been-Out-Bush-For-Way-Too-Long Man's adopted
son, Contempo Weapons Lad, left the family farm to become a net.hero.
Heeding his fathers advice, he joined his Aunt Boris' Super Duper
Awesome Team Force Go, only to become the only surviving member of the
team after they were sent to remove a really very small piece of
seaweed from the ocean. Finally returning to Super Duper's HQ in
Bris.bit, Contempo Weapons Lad is met by a whole bunch of media and
people who are a bit confused as to what's going on...

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ALT.STRALIAN YARNS #10
Q2 - Tenth Issue Spectacular! With Juxtaposition!
By Mitchell Crouch

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"...and so then Aunt Boris, too, was lost." Contempo Weapons Lad
solemnly stated to the gathered crowd at Super Duper Awesome Team
Force Go Headquarters. The crowd nodded mournfully, and a few people
let out mournful-sounding noises, such as "aaw", or "ooh", but no "la
la"s followed those "ooh"s, as that would have terribly inappropriate.
"However," he continued, "on a brighter note, the small piece of
seaweed that may have caused Bris.bit's swimmers a fraction of a
moment of minor inconvenience has been removed from the ocean, and
thus the mission was a complete success."

Tremendous applause erupted from the crowd, and this time the "ooh"s
were followed by "la la"s, or were simply the concluding sound made by
those who jubilantly cried "whoo" or "yew", as Alt.stralians often do
(particularly those found in the wild north).

"But what will happen to Super Duper Awesome Team Force Go now?"
inquired an inquisitive inquisitor. "Will you begin a new recruitment
drive to replenish your numbers?"

Contempo Weapons Lad, despite his opinion that the cheers before were
largely unwarranted, couldn't help but guffaw at this. "Oh, good
gracious gosh, no," he chuckled. "Come off it. Super Duper Awesome was
defeated by a piece of seaweed. And a sealion, I suppose. And their
own inability. No," he concluded, "Super Duper Awesome Team Force Go
is, from this moment onwards, disbanded."

More "aaw"s and "ooh"s commenced. These "ooh"s, as I'm sure you would
be aware, were not followed by "la la"s, nor were they the tail of
"whoo"s and "yew"s. They were just sad "ooh"s. Although I think a
minor percentage of them may have been left over from "poo"s, and
possibly even some very ill-mannered remarks about "Jew"s. But that's
hardly appropriate for a family-friendly comic, now, is it?

The crowd dispersed, and Contempo Weapons Lad sighed and went back
inside the HQ to begin cleaning up his former team mates personal
belongings. "Wait!" cried a voice from the crowd. "Wait, wait!"

CWLad turned around to see a brightly-coloured spandex-clad arm waving
around in the air, its owner fighting its way forward through the
backward-moving crowd. "Don't disband the Team! I want to join!"

Eventually, the figure burst forward from the crowd. He was a young
boy, of only about 12 or 13, and his costume featured ghastly patterns
formed from bright blues, greens and pinks, with a large yellow smiley
face on the chest. "I want to join, oh boy, oh boy, let me join, let
me join, I'm a net.hero, I'm a net.hero, oh boy, oh boy!!"

Contempo Weapons Lad looked the kid up and down for a moment. "Who the
heck are you?" he remarked dryly. "Double-Posting Boy?"

"No no, no no!" assured the hyperactive child. "I'm Obsessive-
Compulsive Boy, yeah, yep, uh-huh, that's me, that's me!!"

"Obsessive-Compul...?" Contempo Weapons Lad could only stare in
disbelief. "Hey, you know what? I really don't have time for this. Go
find a train to get run over by or something. Die in a fire. Jump off
a cliff. You get my drift."

"Hey wow, hey wow, oh my gosh, hey wow, that almost rhymed! It did, it
did, I swear, it did, it almost rhymed, you said, 'jump off a cliff,
you get my drift', which rhymes, almost, yeah, yep, uh-huh, oh boy, oh
boy, sure does, it rhymes, I swear, it does, I heard it, with my ears,
I did, I did, and it almost rhymed, and-"

SLAM!

Obsessive-Compulsive Boy found himself facing the outer side of the
door to the ex-headquarters of Super Duper Awesome Team Force Go.

On the inner side of the door, Contempo Weapons Lad began to clean up,
furious that his efforts had been hampered by this annoying 'Obsessive-
Compulsive Boy' sod. He'd just had a net.hero team die in front of
him, all for the sake of a piece of _seaweed_ -- several people had
_died_ to make sure that Bris.bit's habitual beach bums didn't have to
put up with just scooping it out of the water themselves.

Slightly consumed by his infuriation, he worked well and hard late
into the night, until eventually he had to admit that it was getting a
bit dark, and frankly difficult to see what he was doing at all. Being
unable to find a light switch, he moved to the window, intending to
open the blinds so that the street lights could fill the ex-HQ with
candelas.

As he opened the blinds, he was met with a face pressed against the
window, deformed by the pressure of being held there. With a yelp,
Contempo Weapons Lad grabbed two primitive computer mice (they still
had cables -- imagine that, eh?) and swung them around quickly, poi-
style. Swinging them through the windows, they wrapped around the neck
of the visitor and pulled him in, choking and spluttering, through the
broken window of the glass.

Contempo Weapons Lad was just about the tighten the noose and lay into
the intruder when he noticed something familiar about a symbol on the
guys chest.

"Ob... Obsessive Compulsive Boy?" he asked, completely bedazzled.

"Hiya hi hi, that's me, that's me, I'm Obsessive-Compulsive Boy, yeah,
yeah, yep, hurk, ack, splutter, cough, ckhaargh ugh gu'uh gaaaaaark!"
he responded. Although the last part of that wasn't so much response
to Contempo Weapons Lad's questioning as it was response to Contempo
Weapons Lad pulling the cords on the mice tighter, effectively
suffocating him.

"I thought I told you to kill yourself?"

"Hack guh-huuuuuh bugh gkaaarghk."

CWLad rolled his eyes, and let go off the mice. OCBoy jumped straight
up, loosened the wires from around his neck and replied, "I did, I
did! I was looking for a really really cool way to do it, it was gunna
be heaps cool, I wasn't sure what it was gunna be yet, but it was
gunna be awesome, really really awesome, and then, and then, I ran
into this giant lizard who was runnin' around and killing people,
killing them like, dead, and I was like, wow, that would be a cool way
to die, so I tried to get it to kill me, but I don't know, it just
didn't, it didn't, it tried, I tried, we both tried, but it didn't,
and then the police came and started shooting at it, with guns, and
they went BANG, BANG BANG! BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG! And then they
shot some more and it all went BANG BANG BANG and even more, BANG
BANG, BANG BANG, and they were shooting at the lizard, BANG BANG BANG,
the policemen, they were shooting at the lizard, BANG, and-"

"Shut up and tell me why you're not dead yet."

"Well, the lizard, the lizard, it killed the police, and I was like,
oh, oh, but you were meant to kill me, and this one police, he was all
like, he said, he told me, he informed me that-"

"One police _man_. Not one police."

"-that I should go and, I should, I really should, go and get my
net.hero friends to come, and come, and come and come and come and
come and come and come and come and come and come and come and come
and-"

"Come and _what_?!" demanded Contempo Weapons Lad, who was now holding
Obsessive Compulsive Boy up in the air by his spandex where his collar
would be, if he did actually have one, which he did not.

"Come and help?"

"You realise, of course, that I am _not_ your friend?"

"Yeah you are, you are, yeah, you are! No one else has ever put up
with me for this long before, nope, never, not once, not ever, never,
ever, ever-"

"But there are people in danger." Contempo Weapons Lad sighed, and
rubbed his eyes. "Where did you say this silly lizard was?"

~ * ~

Contempo Weapons Lad and Obsessive-Compulsive Boy rounded the corner
to see several civilians and policeman who had been slaughtered in
various amusing ways. I really can't be bothered to list them all, but
just imagine, if you will, every single possible way that someone
could be killed by a six-foot Yoshi-like creature that would make you
laugh, giggle, and/or chortle heartily. The remnants of your sick
homicidal visage are what our daring heroes stumbled upon. You jerk.

"My gosh," gasped Contempo Weapons Lad. "This _is_ a slaughter! It
would take some kind of real jerk to envision this!"

There, in the middle of it all, was the lizard itself, slurping an ice-
cream happily. "Look look look!" chirped Obsessive-Compulsive Boy. "I
told you, didn't I, I told you, I swear I told you that there was a,
a, big silly lizard!"

Contempo Weapons Lads eyes narrowed as he removed a wallet from a
nearby corpse. "Silly Lizard, eh? Let's show this Silly Lizard a thing
or two." He flicked a credit card, or a drivers licence, or some small
plastic card out of the wallet. The writing on the card, or pictures,
or design, or whatever, is completely beside the point. If you really
want something solid and definite, then the person's name was 'Walker
Chadwick-Watkins'. Happy? Hmph. You know, actually, it's an
interesting but little-known fact about Walker Chadwick-Watkins, that
his name has three Ws, three As, and three Ks, one of each in his
given name, with the remaining two of each being split up between the
two hyphenated words that form his last name. Fascinating man, was
Walker Chadwick-Watkins. You know, before he had his spinal column
forcibly removed by a giant lizard with a broken clock and half a cake
of chocolate-scented soap, he was a magician. Not a stage magician,
mind you, not one of those phoneys who gets up and chops a person in
half or whatnot, but a real magician. He used to shoot clods of
rhodium from his hands and thulium shrapnel from his eyes, which
usually left them mighty bloodshot, let me tell you. He needed glasses
because of this in his later life, as well, which provided him with an
excellent disguise when he was off fighting extra-dimensional horrors
or whatnot. Just slip off the glasses, and bing! Instant lack-of-
recognition from anyone, ever. This is probably why he was never
recognised up to this point in time, when Contempo Weapons Lad read
his name off of his plastic card that he snapped in half, wielding a
sharp pointy half-a-card in each hand.

"Silly Lizard!" called out Contempo Weapons Lad, approaching the
hulking bubble-eyed creature. "Your reign of terror has come to an
end!"

"Mhow?" the Silly Lizard inquired innocently.

"Don't try to fool me with your insidious mind games!" spat CWLad.
"I've seen what you can do! Sure, I haven't actually seen you do it,
but rather be told that you did it by an annoyingly persistent super-
powered being who I have no reason to suspect doesn't have ulterior
motives of his own in order to gain my trust and then dispose of me at
the last second, leaving Bris.bit open to attack by an array of
net.villains and heinous criminals, no sir, but I'm still shockingly
arrogant and thus believe it was you all along!"

"Mhow." stated the Silly Lizard, clearly very confused by this turn of
events.

Contempo Weapons Lad, having seen enough, jumped into action against
the giant reptile. Going straight for the throat, he lunged at the
Lizard with his pointy pieces of plastic sticking out in front of him.
The plastic snapped as it collided with thick scales.

The Silly Lizard looked from the even-more-broken pieces of plastic to
Contempo Weapons Lad and back again. "Oh," stated the Lad. "That was
meant to happen. I swear." The Lizard responded by licking Contempo
Weapons Lad's cheek enthusiastically.

"Contempo Weapons Lad!" called out Obsessive-Compulsive Boy as he
prised a massive rifle out of the cold, dead hands of a policeman. "I
got a, I, I got a rifle so you can shoot, with a pow pow and a bang
bang!!"

The older young hero snorted. "A rifle? My good golly gosh..." He looked
around for something a tad more... innovative. Spotting a rather large
pot plant, he ran over to it and yanked it off the ground by the plant
itself, sending the pot flying into the face of the Silly Lizard.

"Mhow?!" screeched the Lizard as it wobbled about, clearly dazed. He
was just about to fall to the ground in defeat when an enraged
Contempo Weapons Lad jumped on top of him, shoving the pot-shaped clod
of dirt at the bottom of the plant into the Lizard's face.

CWLad repeated this motion numerous times, bludgeoning the twitching
Lizard again and again for several minutes after he'd stopped moving.
When he no longer had the strength to effectively wield the pot plant,
he allowed it to fall off to the side.

The Lizard's eyes were gone, replaced instead by comically large black
Xs on either side of his face. His mouth was stuffed completely full
of dirt, and no small amount of blood had spilt from his nose. By
which I do not mean that there was no blood, not even a small amount,
but rather a larger amount than a small amount, so much so that it
would be referred to as a large amount as opposed to a small amount.
Do you see?

Obsessive-Compulsive Boy came over to observe his partner's handiwork,
and the colour drained from his face. "Is he safe now?" he asked
without preamble.

"Safe?" Contempo Weapons Lad mused. "I hadn't really thought about it.
Someone could still get really hurt if they tripped over his corpse,
though. Or cut themselves on his razor-sharp teeth."

"What razor-sharp teeth?"

"Those razor-sharp teeth."

"Those are just squishy pink gums."

"No, no, Obsessive-Compulsive Boy, that's what the bad guys _want_ you
to think."

"Aah," said Obsessive-Compulsive Boy, as if this explained all of
life's mysteries. After a moment of watching his partner make the
Silly Lizard 'safe', he added, "You know, CW, you know, I think, I
really do, I think, and what I think is that I learnt an awful lot
working with you today, I did, I think. I think I did, you know."

"Cool," murmured Contempo Weapons Lad distractedly as he mopped up the
Silly Lizard's dangerously slippery blood with his unused spandex
mask, gloves, and booties.

"I think we should team up. Like, hero-sidekick style."

"Awesome, yeah..."

"Uuh... CW? Are you listening? Hello, Contempo, Contempo Weapons Lad,
I'm talking and I was wondering if you were--"

"Yeah, yeah, cool, yeah..."

"Okay! Well, I thought we could join up, and be all supery duo like,
you know? And have like, an awesome name like, like, oh, oh, I don't
know, I don't know, but something really really really really cool!
Like 'Contempo Weapons Lad and Obsessive-Compulsive Boy'! Or 'The Duo
Contempo'! Do you like that one, CW?"

"Yeah, whatever..."

"Hoorayippidydoodahdayay!!" shrieked OCBoy jubilantly as he fixed
himself to the older net.hero with a massive bear hug. "Buddies
forever!"

Contempo Weapons Lad began pushing the overly-eager sidekick off him
and convincing himself that he should probably listen to the annoying
sod just about now. "Wait, stop! Get off me! What the heck do you
think you're doing?!"

"We're buddies, we're pals, we're partners, yay! I'm a sidekick, hoo,
ha! I'm a sidekick, hoo, ha! Bam bam, doo whappa doo wah, yeah!"

"What?! No!! I never-"

"Duo Contempo forever, yaaay!"

"_What_ did you just call us?!"

"Duo Con-temp-o! Duo Con-temp-o!"

"No, listen, you little son of a-"

"And just think!" exclaimed Obsessive-Compulsive Boy, "Of the wonders
that we shall work throughout the lands! Together, side-by-side,
righting wrongs, fighting bad guys, and occasionally staying up past
bad time to defeat evils! But only really really evil evils, because
otherwise they'd let us go to bed on time, wouldn't they? They would,
right?"

Contempo Weapons Lad gripped his head between his hands, his mouth
open in a silent scream. Because instinctively, he knew, on a gut
level, that he was now stuck with Obsessive-Compulsive Boy. For a
long, long time to come. Well, actually just seven months. But that's
a long, long time with Obsessive-Compulsive Boy, yeah? Yeah.

I am such a cruel writer.

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I'm posting this today rather than tomorrow because things have taken
an unexpected turn around here and everything's gone a bit hectic for
a while. I *think* I'll be able to get the Leadership Crisis stories
done, but I regret to inform you all that I can't make any promises at
this point.

~Mitchell.