LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #82: Mutton Mania Part Six

[Arthur Spitzer]

In this weeks reposting of stuff you can find in the eyrie archive
https://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/
we have the sixth section of Mutton Mania.


Mutton Mania #14, Rob Rogers returns.  And it's limbo time for
Substitute Lad.  Character limbo that is.

And for #15 some more Martin Phipps.  Is the Sheepshagger smart enough
to have invented his own SHAG gun?  Deja Sheep doesn't seem to think
so.


And now..


              _						
             | |      Classic			
             | |                      =
             | |      ____    ____    _    ____    ___
             | |__   | [] |  | [] |  | |  | [] |  | _ \  

             |____|   \__]    \__ |  |_|   \__/   |_|\_\
                                 ||
                                |_|  OF NET.HEROES

                                     ADVENTURES #82


                         =====================
                         Mutton Mania Part Six
                         =====================





PART FOURTEEN

Rob Rogers <rogersr at shore.net>

Silence.  Miles upon miles in every direction of empty, soundless,
grey.  The absence of any sensory stimulus whatsoever made it impossible for 
the young man in blue jeans, a T-shirt and a backwards baseball cap even to 
tell whether he was falling, flying, or simply hurtling through an endless 
void.  No sound passed through his vocal chords; he opened and closed his 
eyes, and felt it hardly made a difference in either case.  He might have 
believed himself dead, had it not been for the pounding headache in his 
temples and the memory -- fading faster with every moment -- that he was 
here, wherever here was, because someone had wished him away.

Minutes passed, or perhaps hours, or perhaps days.  There was no way to 
tell.  He pinched himself several times, rubbed his arms up and down in 
order to feel something, and in doing so dislodged a small package in his 
right pocket.  He grabbed at it, his eyes hungry for anything new or 
different, and flipped it open.  Inside a dull plastic case a flat, shining 
crystal screen blinked glowing green letters back at him.

"DO NOT BE ALARMED," the screen read.  "THE MEMORY LOSS AND SENSE OF 
DISORIENTATION YOU FEEL ARE CONDITIONS NATURAL TO YOUR
LOCATION.  YOU ARE IN LIMBO, A WORLD BETWEEN WORLDS FOR
UNUSED LOONIVERSAL CHARACTERS.  YOU HAVE ENTERED THIS WORLD BY
CHOICE AND WITH A PURPOSE, THOUGH YOU DO NOT REMEMBER MAKING
THIS CHOICE.  YOU HAVE COME HERE IN MY PLACE.  YOUR NAME IS
SUBSTITUTE LAD."

*  *  *

"Is it finished?" Captain Cleanup asked.  "And do you really need so many 
tools and so much...clutter...for such a simple project?"

"Never question the way I work," Gaffer replied.  "And yeah, it's finished, 
but I don't think we're going to get anything out of it."

"Hey, guys," Onion Lad said.  "What's taking everybody so long? Everybody 
else is ready to take on the Sheepshagger.  Lite's even worked out a 
merchandising deal with Mr. Paprika."

"I thought it might be useful to know what we're getting into," Captain 
Cleanup said.  "Gaffer here has built a device that uses the long strip of 
copper wire coming from Sheepshagger's headquarters as an information 
conduit.  He's trying to detect what, if anything, is going on at the other 
side."

"And I'm not finding much," Gaffer admitted, wiping beads of greasy sweat 
from his brow and rising up from his makeshift
workbench.  "The exposed wire is picking up too much interference. I'm not 
sure what more you expect to find, anyway: we already know what's on the 
other end.  A big, fat guy who's out for sheep and world domination.  In 
that order."

"There may be more to it than that," said Occultism Kid, his face lined with 
concern as he approached the three heroes.
"I thought I'd try transmuting a few of the sheep back to normal before we 
took on the Sheepshagger, to see how difficult it
would be in case he turned his SHAG weapon on us."

"Really?" Onion Lad said.  "You mean, there's now naked, teenage girls 
running around Legion headquarters?  Do
you know what this means?"

"That rec.arts.comics.creative has now become like
every other site on the Internet?" Captain Cleanup said.
Ignoring Gaffer's puzzled expression, he continued, "So
what happened?"

"Absolutely nothing," Occultism Kid said.  "I thought at first I'd botched 
the spell, so I ran a few tests.  Turns
out these sheep were never teenaged girls in the first place."

"Please don't tell me that," Onion Lad said.  "I'd been building up a fairly 
meaningful relationship with one of
them.  Well, all right, it was a fairly shallow relationship,
but it had potential.  Well, to be honest about it..."

"I don't think Sheepshagger's SHAG weapon does anything
except increase the growth rate of sheep's wool," Occultism Kid said.  "I 
think someone wanted him -- and us -- to
think it was much more effective than it really was."

"But the ad," Gaffer said.  "And...Deja Sheep?"

"You know better than to believe an ad in the trades," Occultism Kid said.  
"And you apparently aren't familiar with Deja Dude's powers.  If he believed 
Sheepshagger could turn
him into a sheep...or, more precisely, if he believed someone
in a comic book he'd once read had the power to turn a super-
hero like himself into an animal...his own powers might be
influenced enough by the power of suggestion to effect the
change."

"Then why the sheep?" Captain Cleanup asked.

"I'm not sure," Occultism Kid said.  "I do know that if someone far removed 
from ourselves -- in another time,
another dimension, or another plane of existence --
wanted, for whatever reason, to kidnap a large number of
adolescent girls, it would have been impossible for him
to simply make them disappear without causing a
significant disruption in the fabric of reality.  Nature
-- even supernature -- abhors a vaccum.  However, if
someone were to simultaneously snatch the girls and
replace them with a herd of sheep -- like Indiana Jones
putting the bag of sand in the idol's place..."

"And it's probably no accident this entity
chose sheep," Captain Cleanup said.  "He must have
known of the Sheepshagger's plan to conquer the
world with sheep, and knew that throwing a flock
this size into our headquarters would cause enough confusion
to cover his tracks...not to mention ruin my freshly-
waxed floors..."

"So the question is," Occultism Kid said, "who would want an enormous crowd 
of dazed adolescent girls?"

"Who wouldn't?" Onion Lad and Gaffer replied in
unison, just as Steak & Potatoes Man arrived with
Easily-Discovered Man, Curly, Fred and Ultimate Sheep
in tow.

"Behold, my stalwart companions, the hot breath of
time's taxed stallion does dampen our collars with haste!"
Easily-Discovered Man said.  "We must proceed forthwith to
the lair of yon unnatural Scot, else our world be
transformed pastoral!"

"Change of plans," Gaffer said.  "We've had a
retcon while you guys were in the can."

"Where's The Indie and Easily-Discovered Man Lite?"
Captain Cleanup asked.

"Opinionated Lad sent them to get some weapons out of
the hangar bay," Steak & Potatoes Man replied.  "It was his Opinion we might 
need them in the battle ahead.  You know,
I thought I heard some weird noises coming from that
direction a few minutes ago -- almost like a bunch of angry
birds -- but everything's quieted down, now."

*  *  *

"I SHOULD HAVE SUSPECTED SOMETHING FROM THE START, BUT
YEARS WORKING SIDE-BY-SIDE WITH THE LEGION OF NET.HEROES,
RATHER THAN AGAINST THEM, DULLED MY SENSES SOMEWHAT," Substitute Lad read.  
"THE APPEARANCE OF THE SHEEP, TOGETHER WITH THE FLAME WAR RAGING THROUGH THE 
STREETS OF NET.ROPOLIS WAS ENOUGH TO
DRAW ME TO THEIR HEADQUARTERS, BUT NOTHING CAME TOGETHER UNTIL
I WITNESSED THE CHANGE IN DEJA DUDE.  I KNEW THEN THAT
THE MOST POWERFUL BEINGS IN OUR UNIVERSE WERE COMING UNDER THE
CONTROL OF SOME UNKNOWN FORCE.

"I SUSPECTED THE ENTITY WOULD STRIKE EITHER ULTIMATE
NINJA OR OPINIONATED LAD NEXT, AND THEN ELIMINATE ME AS A
POTENTIAL THREAT," the blinking screen continued.  "IT WAS IMPERATIVE THAT I 
REMAINED BOTH ACTIVE AND UNDETECTED BY
BOTH MY ENEMY AND MY ALLIES.  WHILE THE HEROES LISTENED
TO THE SHEEPSHAGGER'S TAUNTS, I CONTACTED YOU.  YOUR
ABILITIES TO TEMPORARILY DUPLICATE THE POWERS OF ANY OTHER
BEING ALLOWED YOU TO CONVINCE OPINIONATED LAD YOU WERE ME,
LEAVING ME FREE TO CONTINUE MY INVESTIGATION.  THEY WILL
ALSO ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE LIMBO -- ONCE YOU HAVE COMPLETED
ONE FINAL ERRAND FOR ME."

Substitute Lad finished reading, then closed the
plastic screen and folded the device into his pocket.
Closing his eyes, he let his consciousness fade and his
subconscious call into being the powers he himself barely
understood.  If what Tsar Chasm believed were true, he'd need
everything in his arsenal to face the danger that lay ahead.


______________________________________________________
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PART FIFTEEN

Martin Phipps (phippsmartin at hotmail.com)

Deja Sheep's cosmic senses had told him everything that was going on at LNH 
HQ.  You didn't know Deja Dude had cosmic senses?  Well, even if he didn't, 
so many comic book characters had cosmic senses that he could just imitate 
one that did.  So there!

Anyway, his senses told him that his friends, his supposed friends mind you, 
were too busy arguing amongst themselves to come get him.  Do they follow 
the copper trail or do they explore the astral plane?  Do they walk into a 
possible trap or do they safely hang out in LNH HQ?  First they leave LNH HQ 
and get half way to the warehouse district, then they are back at LNH HQ 
making preparations.  It was frustrating!

Deja Sheep then realised that he should be able to teleport away.  So many 
comic book characters teleport and, thus, so could he.  He'd still be a 
sheep but he wouldn't have to worry about what Sheepshagger might do to him. 
  He gave it a try.

Nothing happened.  His mental powers worked but not his physical powers.  It 
was as if his mind had been transferred into the body of a sheep.

That was it!  The Sheepshagger must have switched his mind with that of a 
sheep!  His real body had to be lying naked in a field somewhere, unable to 
express even the most rudiamentary thought.  This alone was small comfort 
but, having realised this, he might yet be able to find a way to defeat the 
Sheepshagger all by himself!

Yes, the Sheepshagger: he'd just finished giving Deja Sheep a bath but was 
called away before he could... do the deed.  Deja Sheep trembled with fear 
as he heard Sheepshagger return.

"Ah'm afraid ye'll haf ta wait, dearie.  Y'friends are on their way."

Finally.

"They're walkin' right inta my trap!  Ah'll turn'em all inta sheep and them 
they'll have to give me what I want!"

Deja Sheep tried to make sense of what the Sheepshagger had said.  (It was a 
very thick Scottish accent.)  If Deja Sheep was right, the Sheepshagger 
didn't _literally_ turn people into sheep, just switched their bodies with 
sheep, leaving their minds where they were.

Could it be that the Sheepshagger himself didn't know this?  It made sense: 
he didn't seem smart enough to invent the SHAG gun by himself. So who did?

Deja Sheep considered all the LNH's major villains.  Unfortunately, he'd 
been "dead" for a few years and wasn't familiar with the current lineup.  He 
did remember one likely villain, however: King Konquerer. He was both 
malevalent enough and resourceful enough to have developed the SHAG gun... 
and he was from Net.Zealand!  It made sense: King Konquerer would get the 
Sheepshagger to "turn the LNH into sheep" but, in reality, the LNH would 
actually be helpless in the clutches of King Konquerer!  It was diabolical!

The only thing left for Deja Sheep to do would be to try to switch his mind 
back to his true body which, presumably, was in Net.Zealand.  He should be 
able to do this: it was simple mind transference after all, nothing that 
hadn't been done before.  Once he was back in his own body, he would leave 
this cascade story once and for all and get back to work.

He started to concentrate.

==========
Next Week: Mutton Mania Part Seven!!!!!!!
==========

Arthur "Same Classic Channel.  But Same Time?  Probably not." Spitzer