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Mon Nov 23 06:00:05 PST 2009


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Digital JUMP! #1-3

Written by Andrew Perron
Collected edition cover by Naru Nanao

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Cover has Kid Enthusiastic, Casey von Aluminumfoil, Like Rouge, Faded 
Iron Master, Malachite Wendigo, the Militia leader, and the Baron 
wearing cheerleader outfits and posing with their pom-poms to their 
heads.  At the bottom, it reads: "Guaranteed to contain LESS or your 
money back!"

<---------------------->

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As the sun rose over the hills, the city began to waken.  On one of the 
hundreds of streets that crisscrossed Net.ropolis, a young boy was 
rollerblading along the sidewalk, straight towards the LNH.

Now, any Net.ropolitan citizen can tell you that, although they love 
(tolerate) their net.heroes, a non-net.hero hanging around in the 
vicinity of LNHHQ is about as dangerous as you can get.  Unless, of 
course... you're going there to *become* a net.hero.

Fred looked up from his issue of Dfandom.  The doors had opened, but he 
didn't see anyone... except for the head of hair hovering in front of 
the desk.

(I hope it's not Master Itt again,) he thought, looking down.

Up at him stared a face that couldn't possibly be more than 11 years 
old.  Unless the chronal energy adapter had shorted out again...

"Hi!  I'd like to join the Legion of Net.Heroes, please!"

-----------<>-----------

The fact that he got an audience with Ultimate Ninja and Doctor Stomper 
would seem preposterous to some.  How could one expect a small child to 
be up to the gargantuan task of holding up the torch of liberty?

First, the leader of the LNH knew that, if the flame of heroism burns 
bright and strong, then even the worst failings of the flesh can be 
overcome, and a true hero can emerge from the deepest of darks before 
the dawn.

Second, references.

"So you're the son of Record Man and Sakura Woman." Ultimate Ninja 
looked up at Doctor Stomper. "Who are...?"

"They were superheroes back in the 1960's," said Stomper. "Record Man 
could duplicate any feat in the Guin.net Book of World Records, and 
Sakura Woman was a Japa.netese heroine who could control wind and 
flower petals.  They dropped out of sight around 1978.  I guess they 
wanted to raise a family without worrying about the baby being taken 
and sent into the future to be trained as the ultimate warrior, then 
sent back as an angsty teenager to prevent the rise of a suppressive 
world regime."

"Indeed.  Thank you for the exposition, Doctor; you may go." Stomper 
bowed, then headed back to the medbay.

"Well.  James Takato Preponderation, age ten.  Level of education.... 
high school?"

"I graduated from Infi.net.y Academy in August, sir!"

"Ah.  One of... *those*." Ultimate Ninja muttered something about 
fantasies and author avatars. "Superhuman abilities: none.  How, 
exactly, do you propose to be a net.hero?"

"Super-science gadgetry!" The boy's face turned thoughtful. "I also 
have an encyclopedic knowledge of every Pokemon, but I'm not sure how 
impressed super-villains are by that..."

The Master of Martial Arts rubbed his temples.

-----------<>-----------

James stood in the Peril Room while Multi-Tasking Man brought up 
holographic testing program #362.  The walls faded away into what 
seemed to be a store of some kind.  A voice boomed out from behind the 
register.

"Beware, net.hero, for you bought your own doom when you went window 
shopping in... THE MOST DANGEROUS GAMERS-nyo!"

These words came from an oddly-dressed girl behind the counter, who was 
quickly joined by two more.

"Well, then," said James, his eye glinting, "guess I'll have to go on a 
rampage..."

The three tensed up, their muscles coiling, every sense stretched to 
ready for the attack...

"Ah, that was a good rampage!"

They fell over.

"We didn't even see him!" "He beat us singlehandedly!"

"He didn't do anything."

"Oh... right." They leapt into battle.

However, the proto-net.hero had not been idle.  As the rabbit-eared 
girl rushed towards him, he pulled the trigger on a hastily-assembled 
ray gun, bathing her in burning light... and making her clothes fall 
apart.

"GYAAAAAH!"  She slapped him, then ran out of the room.

He fell back and narrowly dodged a punch from the green-haired girl.  
She stopped short as the ray played over her, having been reversed and 
reflected by a handy mirror, and her dress expanded to cover both mouth 
and eyes.

Leaping over the girl, James skated toward his only remaining 
opponent-- but... 

"...no.  No!  Too... CUTE!" He had

ONLY.

ONE.

CHANCE.

So, he gave her a cookie.

She toddled off, nibbling at it.

"I did it!"

"..." said Multi-Tasking Man.

-----------<>-----------

James stood proudly as he was given his official LNH belt buckle, 
decoder ring, and Lollipop Hut coupon.

"So," remarked Cheesecake Eater Lad, "what are you going to call 
yourself?"

"From this day forward, I will be known to the world at large as... 
KID ENTHUSIASTIC!"

And he went to get some bread.

But as he stepped from the hero-kissed foyer, a voice called out.

"Aha, a net.hero steps from the mouth of the dungeon!  Such a unique 
will surely net many experience points for...

LIKE ROUGE!"

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end issue #1

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begin issue #2

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"Gasp!  It's a net.villain, right here on the steps of LNH HQ!  How 
foolish!"

"Quiet, you!  What are you supposed to do if you don't go into the 
dungeon?  Scum for singing happy drunks?"

"I'll stop you before these jokes can get any more in!"

"Hah!  It's unlikely that the RNG will grant you that chance!" The 
villain pulled out a glass bottle, filled with mysterious, glowing red 
liquid.

You feel yourself moving faster!
You have no more Crimson Potions of Speed.
You hit the Novice Net.Hero.
You hit the Novice Net.Hero.

Kid Enthusiastic staggered back from the volley of blows. "Two can play 
at that game!" He flipped a switch on his rollerblades.  Tiny rockets 
sprung out and ignited, shooting him around the net.villain (who was 
dressed in medieval leathers, and wore a backpack filled with random 
this and that).  "Have at you!" he shouted, jousting with a stun lance.

Like Rouge dodged and, as the hero passed, shot him in the back with a 
sling.

Kid E spun out and crashed, landing in the LNH recycling bins.  Covered 
in spam, discarded gzip files and Tsumemon, he woozily pushed himself 
up on one arm. "ah, ganging up on me, c'mon I'll take all seven of 
you..." He fell over.

Laughing evilly, the villain advanced upon the helpless young hero, 
pulling a steel rod engraved with alchemical symbols from his pack. 
"Well fought!  But no minion of Morgoth can escape my at-sign!"

James groggily pointed behind the bad guy. "hey, wuzzat?"

"Hah!  You won't fool me!  ...but wait, it's a cliche to say that and 
then fall prey to a real attack!  HA!  ...but the author could be going 
for the double-irony joke and have him defeat me while my back is 
turned.  But is he really smart enough?  I suppose if he puts it into 
my dialouge, he must be aware of the humor value, but if I'm already 
talking about it it's much too obvious..."

"Sounds like a dilemma.  Maybe you should sleep on it!"

"No, I think I can... huh?"

*GA-BONK!*

The person who really *had* been sneaking up behind him dropped the 
brick as Like Rouge slumped forward.  He wore a black bomber jacket 
with flames blazing along the bottom edge, black jeans and aviator 
goggles.  His skin was Caucasian-y and his hair was brown and spiky.  
Bending over, he helped the younger net.hero up.

Kid Enthusiastic brushed the dust off his beige jumpsuit (with a domino 
mask) and smiled. "Ah, you must be my new sidekick!"

"...eh?" He blinked. "Er, no.  I'm here to join the--"

"Hmmmm, outfit's good, a little flashy but that's what being a 
net.hero's about.  What about a name, maybe 'Fat Chocobo' or 'Lad 
Happyman'...  Do you have dead parents?  I could adopt you as my ward!"

"You're half my age!  Anyway, how could I be your sidekick?  I haven't 
even joined the LNH yet!"

"I'm sure we could work out something under the table.  You don't mind 
being paid in turkey on rye, do you?"

"...right, I'm not carrying this conversation any further.  Much too 
silly." With that, he stepped forward, didn't slip on a conveniently 
placed banana peel, not causing him to crash into a rack of chocolate 
cream pies and totally avoided skidding uncontrollably into the doors 
of LNHHQ.

"Grrrrr!  How normal!  I won't forgive him for minus randomnity!" Exit 
Kid Enthusiastic, pogoing after.

-----------<>-----------

We join our heroes... we join the people this series has been about so 
far coming out of LNHHQ.  Kid Enthusiastic was laughing, while the 
unnamed black-clothing guy looked embarassed.

"I can't belive you *ate* the Einstein-Bose Quantum Flux Capacitance 
Reverser!"

"How was I supposed to know it wasn't a pickle?  Anyway, we have to do 
that expositiony thing now."

"Oh, right." Kid E pulled a stack of index cards from the breast pocket 
of his jumpsuit. "So!  You have the power to predict the future.  How 
interesting!"

"Yes-but-only-short-glances.  Also-I-can-read-people's-minds."

"Oh, I see.  And can you tell what number I'm thinking?"

"No-because-it-would-be-a-Hitchhiker's-Guide-reference-and-that-is-a-
cliche."

"I see, I see!  So what do you call yourself?  You only mentioned your 
real name, Casey von Aluminumfoil."

"Hmmm-I'm-not-sure-let-me-think-about-it-look-suddenly-over-your-
shoulder-and-say-'What's-that'?"

"I think that was a stage-- WHAT'S THAT?"

Dramatically, Kid Enthusiastic pointed at a black shape hanging in the 
sky.  The Superheroically Unnamed One shaded his eyes and looked up, 
the image resolving into one of the strangest things he'd seen in the 
last five minutes.

A large multi-propellered helicopter was hanging up in the sky.  That 
wasn't the weird part.  The weird part was the convention center 
dangling from the helicopter, a four-block-wide building pulled 
hundreds of feet into the air.

"Gasp!  Isn't the National Rifle Association's annual awards show being 
held in the Net.ropolis Convention Center today?"

"...how do you *know* these things?"

"Mahayana Buddhism.  Let's see what's going on!  We can take the 
Enthusiastic Plane!"

"You have your own AIRCRAFT?"

"Well..." Kid Enthusiastic pulled out a graphing calculator and began 
to type.  A tiny projector drew an image in flickering green light on 
the air below.  A pattern of crossed lines formed, followed by a point 
marked (0,0), an x-axis, and a y-axis.  Suddenly, it flashed and there, 
floating at knee height, was a perfectly flat white square.

"...ah.  I thought this would be called the Enthusiastic 
Cross-Section."

"Nah, that's just hyperbola."

Finished with the math jokes, they climbed on the floating geometric 
construct and flew off toward the sky-bound structure.  Kid E took out 
a pair of binoculars and scanned the chopper. "Hmmmmm, I've seen that 
symbol somewhere before..."

Casey abruptly looked up and raised his hands to his head.  James 
looked at him, but puzzlement turned to surprise when he was tackled to 
the surface of the plane, a hail of bullets passing through the space 
where his head had been moments before.

"ow.  Thanks."

"No problem - that's what precognition's for.  That and cheating at 
horse races."

"Indeed... but now I remember where I've seen that symbol!  That's the 
helicopter of...

THE PACIFIST MILITIA!"

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end issue #2

<---------------------->

begin issue #3

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The situation was tense.  Half an hour ago, the convention had been 
going along as smooth as sodium, when, like sodium, it exploded.  
People throughout the crowd threw off cloaks to reveal sawed-off 
shotguns (they'd sawed off the wrong end, but most of them had handguns 
as well).

One man had gone to the podium and announced that the forces of 
pacifism planned to stage a sit-in to protest the growing prominence of 
violence in American culture and media.  The members of the convention 
were invited to join them in a completely non-compulsory fashion; any 
who disagreed with the principles of the protest could walk out the 
door.  The fact that the door was several hundred feet up in the air 
was waved off; after all, one had to deal with the consequences of 
one's own actions.

Now things were calm, but only because they had given up; the 
conventioneers were sitting down while the pacifist militiamen 
meditated, tranquilly but watchfully.  Their only companions were the 
tinkle of water from artfully crafted fountains (running even though 
the plumbing led off into nothingness), the rustle of the air 
conditioning, and the cartoon bomb noise slowly getting louder.

The skylight exploded, showering those below with broken glass.  In 
flew two costumed heroes on a square of light, which disappeared as 
they jumped to the floor.

"Stop right there!" shouted Kid Enthusiastic, which caused them all to 
unstop and unload with predictable inaccuracy.  He leapt into the air 
and pulled a ripcord hanging from his waist.  With a sudden *floomp*, 
concentric rings of unidentified energy beamed from Kid E's boots.  As 
the enemy looked up uncomprehendingly, he drew two guns from his 
jumpsuit.  Tossing one to his compatriot, he opened up with a spray of 
horseradish and sardine jellybeans!

As the lymph nodes of the first wave were scrambled by the misflavored 
stream, the second wave leapt upon Casey, who awkwardly started 
shooting.  The gun began to play a hauntingly beautiful melody, and 
everyone stopped to listen for a moment to the strange yet wonderful 
tones.

Which, of course, left them wide open to the anvils.

Kid Enthusiastic's boot jets cut out and dropped him into the middle of 
the wild melee.  With the crazy spinny jello shuriken and the belt-fed 
23mm submachine carrot, it looked like the heroes had the villains on 
the run.

*flush* *tinkle* *rustle* *rustle* *BOOM*

The door to the men's room bulged and cracked, then exploded outward.  
Out of the smoke stepped a man with a face that was at once beautiful 
and cruel, with an expression like a mad god who has found a worm in 
his apple.  Snarling, he shouted, "What is the meaning of this?"

...This is a bad guy, just so you know.

The now-ragged leader of the Pacifist Militia pulled himself up. 
"Who... who are you?"

A smirk. "You may call me..." *dramatic cape swish!* "Baron 
MacNottherealvillain!  And in the name of the Void... I'll destroy you 
all!"

"Remainder of my legions!  Shoot at him even though he just did 
something impressive that would make it a really bad idea to!"

The few soldiers still standing raised their guns and let loose, but to 
no avail.  With another smirk, he waved his hand and sent the bullets 
back, coinking the beleaugered militia in their collective heads and 
mailing them next-day air to Unconciousness Land. "Fools!  Don't you 
know it's bad grammar to end a sentence with a preposition?"

"Actually, modern grammatarians discount-- eep!" The commandless 
commander ducked beneath his podium.

"A *supervillain*!" Kid Enthusiastic faced the evil Baron. "What are 
your dastardly plans, you fiendish... you evil... Hey!" The Baron, 
paying no attention, was searching for something.

"Damn you, Ancient One....  Show yourself!" ("Oooh, there's an Ancient 
One!" "Sssh!") "I know you're here... I know you want *this*!" He held 
up a golden faucet, gleaming in the incandescent light.

*swishfwip!* The artifact sailed out of his hands and up into the 
rafters, where a hooded, cloaked figure caught it.  "Ha ha!" *BLAM* 
"...ow."

"Hah!  You don't think I'd be so foolish as to give you the *real* 
Atavist of Water?  No, I've got that in my *other* hand, here..." 
*swishfwip!* "Aw crap."

The figure leapt to the floor and threw off his cloak.  He was an older 
man, with gray hair and mottled, wrinkly white skin.  He wore a deep 
blue coat and pants that shimmered in the artifical light.

"Evil will never win against Good!  Especially Evil Magic, which is 
what you are using, against Good Magic, which is what I am using!"

"So, then, Ancient One, you exposit so openly and yet still think to 
maintain suspension of belief?  Then have it your way... Die! And in 
dying, suffer!" With that, the Baron sent bolts of Unidentified Dark 
Energy at the old man.  However, the Ancient One was obviously 
prepared, as the blasts splashed off an invisible field.  With one 
hand, he gestured, summoning blue-white balls of energy; with the 
other, he tossed the gold faucet over his shoulder.

As the old man launched his attack, another cloaked figure leapt from 
the rafters, snatching the faucet and landing next to Kid Enthusiastic 
and Casey.

"Come on!" it whispered to them.

"But we have to get those bystanders out of there--"

"First things first!" It wrapped one arm around each of them and *flew* 
straight up and out the shattered skylight.  They smashed through the 
windshield of the helicopter, plowing through its pilots. "Quick, land 
this thing!"

"What, are you kidding?  I can't fly a helicopter!" shouted Casey, his 
character design temporarily changing to a large head and two-foot-tall 
body.

"...and you?" it said, looking at Kid Enthusiastic.

"Well, I flew during the War, but I don't think zeppelin training 
applies here..."

"Ah.  ...panic."

"AAAAAAGH!  AAAAAUUUUGH AAAAAH AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"OK, stop panicking." The mysterious figure sighed, and pulled its hood 
down.

Casey considered the light coming in through the shattered window very 
lucky, as it fell on smooth, tanned skin, plush red lips, auburn hair 
that shone like liquid...

Kid Enthusiastic quietly wiped the drool off.

"I suppose..." She knelt next to one of the downed men and chanted.  
Feathery wisps of light streamed from her hand into the prone body.

The pilot groaned and sat up... to find himself surrounded.

"Now, we're only going to ask this once..."

-----------<>-----------

By the time they got the building back on the ground, the flash and 
bang of magick unleashed was reaching an intensity intolerable.  The 
heroes opened up the doors, the convention members spilling out.  As 
the last bad joke soldiers were dragged outside, something huge burst 
out at tremendous speed, quickly disappearing in the distance.

They rushed in, to find the old man looking very pleased with himself. 
"Looks like the Baron was all talk and no walk, Lord of the Sith-wise."

"Yes!  And the Atavist of Water is right here!" The girl pulled out the 
gold faucet and presented it to the man, who admired it for a moment... 
then, eyes widening in shock, turned and
threw it across the room.  There was a fireball, and nothing was left 
of the artifact but ashes.

"...um, I'm guessing that was bad," Casey said.

"Very.  That man is powerful, cunning, and evil, and if he gets the 
other three Atavists--"

"He'll be able to take over the world?" said James, eyes shining.

"Exactly.  I know you may not trust me, but I must ask--"

"Woo!  Of course we'll help you save the world!" He pumped the elder's 
hand up and down.

"Now wait a--"

"Not now!  We have to hurry up and...

DO SOMETHING!"

-----------<>-----------

<---------------------->

Cover gallery:

<---------------------->

The cover of the first issue shows the screen of a 3-D fighting game.  
The red-haired female fighter has just kicked the glasses-wearing male 
character in the air, but the screen is frozen and the words "A New 
Challenger Has Appeared!" hover there.

<---------------------->

The cover of the second issue is Edvard Munch's "The Scream", except 
made entirely of tiny, ASCII letters, numbers, and symbols.  In the 
background, a man in a bomber jacket is standing, painted/typed in the 
same impressionistic style.

<---------------------->

The cover of the third issue has two dark clouds with glowing eyes 
standing in front of of a pulpit, with two scantily-clad girls in 
wedding veils holding boquets and standing next to them.  In the lower 
right corner is a tiny James, holding a sign that says "No animals 
harmed in the making of this comic."

<---------------------->

<---------------------->

Author's Note: What, are you kidding?  There was a big long thing at 
the beginning!  Shoo!

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, shoo! *waves apron*


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