LNH/RACCies: Just Imagine Saxon Brenton vs. Andrew Perron in the Return of the RACCies! #10: Poledancing Phantoms of Limbo

[Andrew Perron]

"I think it's time... to split up!"

"We're flashing back to this again?"

"Yes!"

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PREHISTORIC PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

Just Imagine Saxon Brenton vs. Andrew Perron in the Return of the
RACCies! #10

"Poledancing Phantoms of Limbo"

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TEAM UPSILON
Mission: Get Plot-Error Man to the crystal wall at the center of the 
universe.
Plot-Error Man (naturally)
Bluetooth
Hi-Fi Lorelai

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Bluetooth watched as the wide-winged glider they rode floated down the 
seemingly bottomless pit.  He wondered how long it would take to get 
Plot-Error Man to the mysterious crystal wall where needed to be to 
exercise his powers and affect the Hungry Past.  He wondered if he 
would ever get the Legacy Beam back so that he could use it to cure the 
Dark Age Anti-Hero-ness that was overtaking him.  He wondered if he'd 
ever get credit for his own lines.

"Sigh."

Plot-Error Man looked over at him, but didn't say anything.  Bluetooth 
wondered what he was thinking.  Perhaps he was gauging the fitness of 
his allies.  If he was disappointed, Bluetooth couldn't blame him; 
Hi-Fi Lorelai seemed to be doing well, despite her own Legacy Beam-
based transformation, but Bluetooth was dragging the entire mission 
down with his instability and his--

Aw, crap, his angst.  Flowers!  Kittens!  Root beer floats!  Bicycling 
through the woods in spring!  Sun-shine, lollipops and rainbows, 
doo-doo-doo...

Plot-Error Man raised his eyebrow as Bluetooth started determinedly 
humming Lesley Gore.  He'd been wondering if he'd wanted one of the 
granola bars they'd brought along; in all the commotion, lunch had been 
skipped.  He shrugged and offered one to Hi-Fi Lorelai, who accepted 
and began nibbling chipmunk-style.

The shadows deepened as they glided further and further into the 
depths.  They landed, and made their way beneath the giant trampoline 
stretched across the chasm.  Stairs lead to a railinged walkway 
spiraling around the sides of the pit; mining lanterns were strung 
along the path, and an eerie iridescence twinkled far below.

"Gotta say, you've really made the place feel homey!" trilled Hi-Fi 
Lorelai. "How much time y'been spending down here?"

"Not much at all, actually," admitted Plot-Error Man. "After I 
accidentally created this universe, the first time I came down, most of 
this stuff was already here.  I thought it was just part of the 
retroactive history, but more has appeared since then."

"...well *that*'s creepy."

Plot-Error Man nodded to Bluetooth. "Yeah, I probably should have 
mentioned, more than likely we'll get ambushed down here."

"What."

"Yarharhar!" The leader of the Interim Iconoclasts leapt out of the 
shadows onto the surprisingly roomy ledge.  Bluetooth facepalmed as the 
rest of the Iconoclasts jumped out. "Greetings, O creator and crew!"

Hi-Fi Lorelai shifted into battle mode, and Plot-Error Man stepped 
forward, fixing the leader with a steely gaze. "I don't know who you 
are, or what your deal is, but if you try to stop us..."

The leader returned his gaze, waiting...

"..."

"...yes?"

"Um, I was trying to think of a badass way to finish that sentence."

The assembled crowd, Iconoclasts and heroes both, fell over.

The leader of the Iconoclasts recovered first, picking himself up and 
dusting himself off. "Yes, well.  Ye need not worry about that.  We're 
not here to fight.  The time's come to finally reveal the truth about 
the Interim Iconoclasts, which is--"

"NO!" came a metallic growl. "No more exposition, no more backstory, no 
more retcons!  GRATUITOUS FIGHT SCENE!!!"

"I think last issue really took it outta him," noted Hi-Fi Lorelai as 
Bluetooth leapt on a terrified, gibbering Iconoclast.

Plot-Error Man nodded and picked up a giant pencil one of the 
Iconoclasts had dropped. "Shall we?" Lorelai nodded, and the fight 
began in earnest.

The rounded tip of an otta hastily blocked snapping metal teeth.  
Plot-Error Man parried a shareeravadi with the pencil's graphite before 
twisting around to block a baseball bat with the eraser.  Hi-Fi Lorelai 
tied an Iconoclast up with her own kusari-fundo.  The Law of 
Conservation of Ninjutsu was working in the main characters' favor, but 
even so, it was hard going.

The bleeding haze around Bluetooth's brain thinned for a moment as a 
thought insistently tapped along the edges.  The people, the ones who 
weren't fighting him - they were fighting the same enemies as him.  
Teamwork.  Friendship.  The whole shebang.  It hit him between the eyes 
like an ambush of amiability.

Plot-Error Man turned to look as Bluetooth shook his head, coming out 
of his grim-n'-gritty fugue. "You okay now?"

"Yeah, I... yeah.  Thanks for pullin' me out."

"No problem.  You might want to let go of him."

Bluetooth noticed the mild cramp in his hand from holding the leader of 
the Interim Iconoclasts in the air.  He let go, and the aforementioned 
leader who I really hope gets a name soon stood, dusting himself off 
once more. "So... ye're done now?"

"Yep."

"No more fussin' and fightin'?"

"Nope."

"Good.  Now, the truth about the Interim Iconoclasts!" He clapped his 
hands, and the Iconoclasts brought a crate for him to stand on, a 
curtain to dramatically billow behind him, and appropriate mood 
lighting.  He hopped up on the crate and began his story.

"There has always been a place known as Limbo, where the cast-off 
pieces of the world dwell!  But when this new world was created, the 
ghosts of lost subplots and forgotten characters were pulled in to fill 
the gaps!"

"All was peaceful - for a time!  But then one man, who had faded 
memories of a place that half-existed, noticed that something was 
wrong!  The life of this world was ebbing!  He found others like him, 
and together, they formed the Interim Iconoclasts!"

Bluetooth, Plot-Error Man and Hi-Fi Lorelai cheered and applauded. "So 
short!  Amazing!"

"But what is it that's threatening this world?"

"It was made too well!" The leader pointed at Plot-Error Man. "T'was 
created as fantasy, completely cut off from ongoing stories, without 
conflict - without drama!"

Hi-Fi Lorelai gasped. "Of course!  The Looniverse is dependent on drama 
as its prime motivating force, so if you produced a world like it that 
was cut off from Writers and had no internal sources of drama, it would 
die from energy starvation!"

"How do you know so much about cosmology?"

"I'm a student of apocalyptic lore!" she said perkily.

"Aye, that it would," said the leader. "We swore that, to save this 
word, we would beg, borrow or steal the drama it needed - and steal we 
did!"

"What!?" said Plot-Error Man. "From where?"

"From unfinished stories!  D'ye *know* how many LNH authors leave their 
stories without an ending?  But the drama from the plots that would 
have been still exists, floating free, ripe for the taking!"

"...criminy." Plot-Error Man shook his head. "I'm not very good at this 
worldbuilding thing."

"So are you going to attack us, not going to attack us, maybe attack 
us?" asked Hi-Fi Lorelai.

"Nay!" declared the leader. "Why would we - for you are our saviors!"

"I became the city's grimy yellow Jesus, streaked by smog and filth in 
the shadow of the moon..."

Ignoring Bluetooth, Plot-Error Man said, "Saviors?  What do you mean?"

"Do y'not see?  Your journey into this world, your battles with 
villainy - your story is a stable source of true drama!"

Hi-Fi Lorelai thought about gasping, but decided it was passe at this 
point. "Naturally!  There's conflict *and* readers!"

"Indeed!" The leader hopped off of the crate, marched up to Plot-Error 
Man, and knelt, holding out his glaive-guissarme. "We pledge ourselves 
to your cause." The rest of the Interim Iconoclasts knelt as well, 
except for a few who thought it was demeaning or had problems with 
hierarchical leadership.

Plot-Error Man swallowed. "Um..." He took the glaive-guissarme. "Arise?  
M-maybe?"

The once-leader waved his hand. "Arise...?"

Plot-Error Man thought for a moment... "Oh!  Arise, Sir Isaurian!"

Sir Isaurian hopped up on his feet. "Excellent!" Then he took his 
weapon back, because seriously, Plot-Error Man doesn't know how to use 
that thing.

"So, are we *finally* going to get going?"

"Indeed!  For in the depths lies the final thing standing between us 
and our goal... the cybernetic disembodied head of Ernest Hemingway 
attached to the body of a gorilla!"

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Author's Note: That's right, I *still* haven't gotten to Hemingway.  
Bwahahaha.

Plot-Error Man created by Jef Kolodziej
Never-Gets-Credit-For-His-Dialogue Lad created by Arthur Spitzer, 
turned into Bluetooth by Jamie Rosen
All other characters created by Andrew Perron

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, cybernetic disembodied head of 
Ernest Hemingway attached to the body of a gorilla created by taking 
the head of Ernest Hemingway and cybernetically attaching it to a 
gorilla.