LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #160: Beige Countdown Part Thirteen
Arthur Spitzer
arspitzer2 at gmail.com
Sun Jul 19 14:30:17 PDT 2020
You can sift through the racc list archive
https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/
or you can try google groups racc for the thirteenth part of Beige Countdown.
Okay, not really the thirteenth part of Beige Countdown, more a Saxon Brenton
interlude between the skipped issues of #4-2. First we have
Legion of Net.Heroes vII #27 -- where Saxon must be doing the bidding of the
Talking Gorilla Conspiracy with another Talking Ape two parter. And he
throws in a Gift-Wrapping Granny, an Outfielder Lad, and some folks from The
Hyphenated Eaters Corps for good measure.
And next we have LNH vII #28, which is the second part of this
storyline and 28.5 which corrects the mistake of #28 not actually
having all the words it was supposed to have. And I mean I guess
I could have edited both #28 and #28.5 so you never knew that Saxon
had that posting problem, but then none of these words would really
make any sense now would they?
*Ahem* anyways...
_
| | Classic
| | =
| | ____ ____ _ ____ ___
| |__ | [] | | [] | | | | [] | | _ \
|____| \__] \__ | |_| \__/ |_|\_\
||
|_| OF NET.HEROES
ADVENTURES #160
=====================
Beige Countdown Part Thirteen
=====================
From: Saxon Brenton <saxonb... at hotmail.com>
Subject: LNH: Legion of Net.Heroes Vol.2 #27
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 04:17:11 +0000 (UTC)
[LNH] Legion of Net.Heroes Vol.2 #27
Oh for crying out loud! It's... [facepalms] It's another talking ape story!
___ ___________________________
| |-| \
| |-| [] / #27
| | | [] egion of \ 'Funky Monkeys' part 1
| | | []__ [] [] [] [] / (Intermezzo - Act 4)
| | | [___][ \[]et.[]__[]eroes \ (A Beige Countdown tie-in)
| | | []\ ] [ __ ] /
| |-| [] [] [] [] \ written by and copyright 2008
| |-|___________________________/ Saxon Brenton
| |
| |
| |
| | Cover shows Super-Grover (yes, *that* Super-Grover) reprising
| | one of his classic roles by standing in front of the cover
| | and exclaiming, "DO NOT OPEN THIS NET.COMIC! There is a
| | monstrous pun at the end of this book!"
| |
|_|
[A Silver Age-style roster of characters in the form of a series of mug
shots in little circles runs down the side of the title page:]
Roll call for this issue:
o Fuzzy!
o Innovative-Offense Boy!
And introducing:
o Gift-Wrapping Granny!
o Outfielder Boy!
o The Hyphenated Eaters Corps!
These are just some of the super-powered do-gooders who belong to an
organisation that thinks that running around with your underwear on
the outside is acceptable as a fashion statement. They are: the
Legion of Net.Heroes!
@%%%%%%%%%%@
There were a bunch of teenagers hassling a 70 year old woman in
the foyer of the Legion of Net.Heroes HQ.
"You can't be here to join the Legion!" protested one of the teens
loudly. "Net.heroing is for people who can actually fight villains."
"Yeah, what are you going to do? Bake cookies for them?" asked
another pointedly.
"Really, young man?" said the elderly woman, who not only wasn't
intimidated by this but was sizing them up with a (not-quite-
metaphorical) laser death-ray stare. "And what makes you think the
Legion will let you join rather than packing you off to juvenile
detention?"
Fuzzy arrived after getting a tip off from Fred the receptionist
and yelled at them to shut up. "Okay, pipe down! This isn't a
kindergarten."
They quietened down. Fuzzy gave a nod to Fred (making it a large
enough movement that he could see it despite her powers of ambiguity,
while at the same time not making it so large that it looked like she
was doing an impersonation of a flamingo) and walked over to the group.
The senior citizen was black woman with glasses and a walking cane.
Her frizzy grey hair was tied back in a bun, and she was dressed in a
functional green dress with an elaborate bow made from pink ribbon on
her chest.
The five youngsters were a more motley crew. Three boys and two
girls, all in their mid-teens and wearing an assortment of amateur
costumes in lurid colours. Their eyes lit up at the sight of an honest-
to-goodness member of the Legion. They looked... enthusiastic.
.oO( Oh, Great Norton's Ghost, ) thought Fuzzy wearily. Legion fans.
Arguably they were the biggest pains-in-the-butts to come out of the
federal government's Net.ahuman Responsibility Act. After the disaster
at Stan.org the NRAct had been passed so that anyone with superhuman
powers had to register with the Legion in order to make sure that they
were trained properly and would use their powers responsibly...
[The narrative text will now pause for a moment so that the audience
can laugh hysterically at the notion of the LNH being exemplars of using
power responsibly. All done? Good, let's continue...]
A lot of people with powers had registered, and a lot of people
with powers had quite deliberately not registered. Some of them on the
not unreasonable grounds (although don't try to convince any of the
government bureaucrats of this) that they didn't have combat oriented
powers and weren't planning on becoming superheroes anyway.
Of course, not everyone who was a four-colour superhero or villain
actually had powers. That was fine. The Net.ahuman Responsibility Act
was phrased broadly enough to include non-powered costumed individuals
as well.
But *that* left a loophole for the fanboys.
Fuzzy had warned Irony Man that this could happen. He hadn't paid
her much heed, of course, but to be fair he was kind of busy dealing
with the big picture stuff. However, despite the high minded sounding
platitudes that he'd brushed her off with, the fact remained that she'd
been the one who had turned out to be correct. Not that she was bitter
or anything.
In any case, there were a number of superhero fanboys who were
taking the opportunity to dress up in a costume, name themselves with
some ludicrous pseudonym and join the Legion as though it were some sort
of holiday camp. Needless to say, most of them lacked actual powers,
not to mention any fighting skills to make up for that lack. Or survival
skills, for that matter.
.oO( And only this morning this had looked like it'd be a nice
day, ) Fuzzy thought sourly. .oO( Okay, let's keep it professional. )
"I take you kids are here for registration," she said.
"Yes miss!" said one boy, his chest puffing out with pride.
"Let's see what we've got here then." Fuzzy checked her data pad
for the list of names of newbies that she was to expect for today. Most
of them were listed together as a group. Oh great. A fan *club*. "Are
you the 'Hyphenated Eater Lads Corps'?" she asked.
"Yes!" went the boys.
"What!?" went the girls.
"There's a problem?" asked Fuzzy.
"We agreed that it would be 'Hyphenated Eater Corps'," complained
one of the girls.
"But we can't do proper homage to Cheesecake-Eater Lad if we don't
call ourselves 'Lads'!" countered the first boy with equal exasperation.
"I am not belonging to a group with such an inherently sexist
name!" said the other girl hotly. Fuzzy noted that her yellow, orange
and brown costume had a stylised jalapeno on it. Was this an indication
of her fiery temperament? The Legionnaire glanced a today's roll call
of enlistees and decided that, no, it probably meant that she was the
one code named Spicy-Mexican-Food-Eater Lass.
"Well then, how come you want to join the Legion of Net.HEROES
then, huh?" said another of the boys. "If you're going to get all
worked up about the words, why don't you get them to change their name
to Net.HEROINES?"
"Now you're just being stupid..."
"SHUT UP!" yelled Fuzzy.
They shut up and stared at her.
"You can sort it out between yourselves later, *in your own time*."
She held up the roster. "In the meantime, let's have your code names."
The boy who'd taken it upon himself to foist the word 'Lad' on the
group drew himself up, puffed out his chest again, set his arms akimbo in
a heroic stance and proclaimed, "I am Open-Face-Club-Sandwich-Eater Lad!"
"Spicy-Mexican-Food-Eater Lass, reporting for duty," said SMFELass,
not to be outdone in the enthusiasm department.
"Donut-Eater Lad," said another of the boys.
"Pasta-Eater Lad here, yo."
"I'm Pop-Tart-Eater Lass."
Fuzzy marked off their names. "Shouldn't there be a Healthy-
Breakfast-Eater Lad with you?"
"Uh, yeah, about that," said Donut-Eater Lad. "HeeBiE Lad had to
get taken to the doctor by his mother, because his problems with fresh
fruit were playing up again. We expect he'll turn up later today."
Fuzzy just nodded and made a note to that effect. She examined
the rest of the list. The only non-Eater Lad codename written down
here was: Gift-Wrapping Gr.
"Well, it looks like Gift-Wrapping Grrrl isn't here either," said Fuzzy.
"No. That would be me," said the old woman, easing herself up and
making her way across to Fuzzy. Although she was obviously reliant on
her cane she was otherwise quite spry, and was quickly examining the
list of names. "And the name isn't Girl. It's Granny," she added.
"Tsk. Abbreviations."
.oO( Ookaaay, ) thought Fuzzy. "And you're here, why?"
"Damn fool red tape, that's why," said Gift-Wrapping Granny. "The
Act says that people have to learn to use their superpowers responsibly.
That's fine. But nobody seems to have thought through how it affects
old people whose control of their powers is slipping just like their
memory or their bladders. What, I'm supposed to waste the rest of my
life stuck in remedial targeting practice classes because my eyesight's
going?"
.oO( 'Senility, superpowers, and you,' ) thought Fuzzy ungraciously.
"So what do you do?"
"I gift wrap things."
"And this is definitely a power and not a skill?"
"Oh yes. Time was if any of the kids in my English classes were
playing up I would just sneak up behind them and give them a touch on
the shoulder, and they'd end up gift wrapped. These days I've got a bad
hip, so I have to use targeting sight instead, and that's where the
problem comes in." She looked over to the Hyphenated Eaters, who were
only half paying attention to her exposition, and specifically at Open-
Face-Club-Sandwich Lad, who'd been one of the youngsters that had been
giving her sass earlier. Her eyes glowed briefly, and then Open-Faced-
Club-Sandwich Lad was wrapped up lilac coloured tissue paper with a
ribbon and a simple bow. He struggled against his constraints and
made a garbled "Mmff-hff-mn-ffnfff" noise, then overbalanced and fell
to the floor.
The other Hyphenated Eaters froze. This was obviously a superpower
demonstration - even if it wasn't being carried out in the legendary
Peril Room - so they didn't have to take cover and start manoeuvring for
a counter attack like they would in a fight scene against a net.villain.
But if they moved to help Open-Face-Club-Sandwich Lad, would they be the
next one to be gift wrapped? Cranky old ladies could be vindictive,
you know.
"Well, that's lucky," mused Gift-Wrapping Granny. "It looks like I
actually aimed straight this time."
"You mentioned you were having trouble with that," said Fuzzy,
making another note on the data pad.
"Last week I was wrapping a birthday present for my grandson, and I
ended up hitting the cat next door instead," she said.
"I think taking you straight to see Organic Lass for the medical
might be the best place to start," said Fuzzy. She looked over to the
Hyphenated Eaters. "Will you get him unwrapped from that?" she said
testily. "I'm not going to have you people goofing off, all wrapped up
in coloured paper. You're in the Legion of Net.Heroes now!"
@%%%%%%%%%%@
Somewhere that was not the Legion of Net.Heroes HQ, villainous
activities were being set in motion.
Super-gorilla Krodd knuckled into the room where a group of
multicoloured minions were busy. "How are the preparations going?" he
asked.
"Everything is going to schedule," answered Cherry Red Chimpanzee,
who was the tech expert of the group. "We should be ready to proceed
tomorrow, as planned."
"Good," said Krodd, savouring his impending triumph. "Then, once
we have the Legion of Net.Heroes under my control, we shall use them to
bring the entire country, and then the entire planet, to heel! And the
best bit is, no matter how many new members the Legion recruits, it
will only help bring about my victory all the faster."
"Oook!" replied his minions in agreement. "Oook!Oook!Oook!Oook!Oook!"
@%%%%%%%%%%@
"According to the latest update of the registration paperwork from
the close of business hours yesterday, the Legion of Net.Heroes currently
has... fifteen thousand, three hundred and twenty seven members," said
Anal-Retentive Archive Kid, reading the information from his laptop.
"And from the looks of things they're all in here," said Bandwagon
Chick as she looked around the crowded cafeteria.
It was a joke, of the cutting-close-to-home type. The Legion of
Net.Heroes HQ and the rooms therein may have morphed and expanded (while
no one was looking, naturally), but it had not expanded enough to keep
the various net.heroes who were having lunch from being packed at the
tables very tightly.
"Dude, how are all these new members even being paid for?" asked
California Kid.
"Limbaugh Man and Coulter Woman keep ranting on about the payments
that the Federal government is giving to the Legion for each member,"
observed Shake-N-Bake Lass "They keep going on about 'waste of
taxpayers' money."
"Limbaugh Man and Coulter Woman *@;#](& would," said Innovative-
Offense Boy Lad dismissively. "No. If you look at the #$>?#@ amounts
involved, Hex Luthor's %;!@#$* payments into the Maria Stork Foundation
that manages the Legion's funding are a *&^%$ token amount."
Outfielder Boy, who was one of the newbies LNH members, spoke up,
"Doesn't most of the Stork Foundation's money come from licensing?
Media tie-ins and patents and stuff?"
Anal-Retentive Archive Kid nodded. "Licensing and patents for
commercial processes brings in even more that merchandising, investments
or donations actually, but overall, yeah you're right."
"There's a lot of &?*!@#&* cutting edge stuff that the techie
types have come up with over the years that for whatever *&)@#^
reason doesn't rely on thingy.thingy technology," said IOBoy.
"Which means it doesn't ^*&+#@ warp reality or need small-but-%$#@*-
dangerous amounts of drama to work. And that means it can be used by
anyone rather than only by *&^%$ net.ahumans." [_Dvandom Force_ #42
for the significance of thingy.thingy technology - Footnote Girl]
Frothing-At-The-Mouth Lad smirked. "And the weird thing is, it's
usually only the net.heroes who think of making legitimate commercial
profit that way. By comparison, even if a net.villain *does* invent
some type of superscience weapon that doesn't rely on .thingy tech,
villains are more likely to use it to go and rob a bank rather than
sell it for big bucks to the military or industry."
"So we can actually afford to have all these new members,"
summarised Fourth Wall Lass, soberly.
"Unless someone does something particularly silly and blows the
budget," quipped Frat Boy. There was a pause as everyone at the table
mentally added the inevitable 'but then, we *are* the Legion of
Net.Heroes' to the end of that.
"So, we're doomed then, huh?" said Ordinary Lady archly, which
prompted rueful laughter. However, Fourth Wall Lass brooded. She had
a really good idea of what the Writers were up to these days, not to
mention both Irony Man and Hex Luthor as well. And she knew that a lot
of the new Legionnaires were nothing more than expendable bodies in the
upcoming war against the Bryttle Brothers when Beige Midnight struck.
The knowledge did not sit well with her.
Meanwhile the conversation had moved on. "Actually," said Ordinary
Lady, "there'd probably be even more new members if Innovative-Offense
Boy," and here she nodded in the direction of her husband, "and Limp-
Asparagus Lad hadn't convinced Irony Man to waive the training period
for non-combatant superhumans and nonhumans."
"Like, how many more?" asked California Kid, curious.
Anal-Retentive Archive Kid shrugged. "Maybe double the current intake."
"But those people wouldn't be staying with the Legion after the
training period," pointed out Bandwagon Chick. "So it would only be a
short-term boost to Legion numbers. Hell, we can't even be sure that
the people we're training *now* will all stay with the Legion. There
are a lot of Nopes, you know," she said, referring to the various
trainees who had taken some variation on the code name Nope-I'm-Not-
Training-To-Be-A-Superhero as an indication of their long term
intentions. [as seen in _LNHv2_ #26 - Footnote Girl]
"There may be even more after they've had the opportunity to see
what things are like from the inside," said Outfielder Boy. Everybody
looked at him, and he flushed in embarrassment at suddenly being the
focus of so much attention. "Well, you know, some of the people who are
signing up are only attracted by the glamour of being a net.hero..."
"Glory hogs," said ARAK. "Good point."
Outfielder Boy nodded, warming up enough courage to bring up his
next point, "And then there are some of us who just don't know. I mean,
I'm a big fan of the Legion. I've got tons of fan stuff at home. And
I'd love to stick around, but I've got to be honest, I have no idea
whether I'll be good enough. After I'm sure my telepathy's under
proper control, I'll really have to see how things are running."
This elicited murmurs of approval. "At least you're being
responsible about it," said Shake-N-Bake Lass. Outfielder Boy blushed
again. Actually, he was being responsible and generally on his best
behaviour so that no one discovered that he had been the person who'd
been accidentally telepathically beaming amateur slash fiction at the
LNH-HQ. [_LNHv2_ #23 - Footnote Girl]
"Responsible... unlike the Hyphenated Eaters Corps?"
"Don't talk to me about the Hyphenated Eaters Corps," growled ARAK.
"The rumour mill says you had a run-in with some of them," said
Ordinary Lady.
"Spicy-Mexican-Food-Eater Lass got on my case about being support
staff," said ARAK. "I told her I was HIV positive and that if she
didn't behave herself I'd bleed on her."
"I can see why Fuzzy dumped them onto Cheesecake-Eater Lad to
nursemaid," grinned California Kid.
Bandwagon Chick said, "Getting back to the registration though, one
of the things that worries me is that just because the Legion is waiving
the training for obviously non-combat oriented powers, the government
isn't. It's still insisting on registering every superhuman it can."
"Well that's about *&^!@# power and control," explained Innovative-
Offense Boy. "Making sure that superhumans know how to use their @#>?%$
powers is a good idea, just like making sure everyone with a ;&$#@
driving licence knows how to drive properly. But that doesn't &^%* mean
that the process can't be organised badly, and it doesn't stop the %$^?#@
government trying to use it as a backdoor for increasing its own $#)#<
power."
"Especially when that government's headed up by Hex Luthor," said
Ordinary Lady pointedly. A rumble of general agreement briefly swept
the table. It was a contentious point with many of the Legionnaires.
The warnings of Bicycle-Repair Lad that the current President had, in
at least one prior version of continuity, been a supervillain may not
have been acted upon the Legion's leadership - but it hadn't gone
unnoticed by the rank and file. Even vocal supporters of Irony Man
and the need for the Legion to train people under the NRAct - which
included the likes of Innovative-Offense Boy, Limp-Asparagus Lad and
even Anal-Retentive Archive Kid - were mindful of whose administration
the legislation had been created by.
Fourth Wall Lass shifted in her seat, but said nothing.
@%%%%%%%%%%@
Outfielder Boy was standing just outside the LNH-HQ when the
villains attacked.
The teenager was practising his telepathy. The idea was to block
out the thoughts of the crowd around him and focus instead on the mind
of a single person. The complication was that Outfielder Boy's powers
seemed to work best 'at range' - a fact that was obliquely hinted at by
his code name and yet at the same time deliberately obfuscated by his
vaguely baseball themed costume. He wasn't bothered by the thoughts of
the people thronging around him on the Net.ropolis sidewalk. He was,
however, being distracted by the thoughts of the people in neighbouring
states. Then something knocked him to the ground.
Puzzled and irritated, he looked up to see a gorilla standing over
him and the crowd of normal citizens sensibly running away. The gorilla
struck a significant Kirby pose and exposited: "Now, little human, you
will fear the awesome wrath... of Krodd!"
The newbie Legionnaire skittered backwards, but even as he did his
fanboyish mind worked feverishly. Krodd. Krodd. Now where had he
heard that name before? Maybe from reading one of the LNH's files? Or
perhaps from the endless speculation on one of the internet discussion
boards? Whatever the case, wasn't Krodd that the psionic gorilla that
You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad and Limp-Asparagus Lad had once
fought? Yes, that was it. [_Limp-Asparagus Lad Special_ #3 - Footnote
Girl] He'd only had telekinesis prior that confrontation, but had
stolen the Amulet of Gnaartu the Unspeakable God-Spider in order to
give himself powers of telepathy, and almost fried his brain in the
process. Well, it looked like he'd recovered.
Krodd continued to rant, which Outfielder Boy quickly used as his
opportunity to call for help with his probationary LNH comm.thingy. He
felt a small flush of excitement at having done so. This was his first
confrontation against a net.villain after all, and he was dreading
mucking it up. Then he felt his stomach sink as it occurred to him that
if he wanted to retain any heroing cred he'd have to engage the super
ape in witty banter until the other LNHers arrived. Gah! He sucked at
witty banter.
Uhm, okay, thought Outfielder Boy. Standing upright? Yes. Arms
akimbo? Yes. Now, I have to remember to project my voice so that I
don't suffer the embarrassment of having my villain go "What!? Speak
up!" or ruining any sound bites that the TV news might be trying to
make. And hope that my voice didn't go all squeaky. Darn puberty.
"Give it up Krodd," Outfielder Boy declaimed. "You're trying to
pick a fight scene right on the doorstep of the Legion of Net.Heroes.
Don't you realise how badly outnumbered you are?"
"One Legionnaire or a thousand. I don't care," bellowed Krodd.
"I will *crush* you all!"
"Then all of us will have to *&$@# crush you," said Innovative-
Offense Boy, who had just arrived with a group of LNHers, consisting
of... oh, let's pick some characters at random... Dog Boy, Writer's
Block Woman, Ordinary Lady, Kid Quickclick, Frothing-At-The-Mouth Lad
and Vigilante Guy.
"I gonna bag me a gorilla skin rug," said Vigilante Guy with relish
as he pointed his gun in Krodd's direction.
"That's bear skin rug, dear," said Writer's Block Woman.
"I'll grab one of those too, when I get the opportunity," said
Vigilante Guy, just before his gun was snatched out of his hands by an
unseen force.
"Not if my Furry Fruit Flavours defeat you first!" exclaimed Krodd
as his minions made themselves known. They were:
Apricoty Orange Orangutan! With her powers of F.I.S.S. [Flight,
invulnerability, strength, and speed - Footnote Girl]
Bananaey Yellow Bonobo! The speedster who can move lickety banana
split, and who was currently grinning as he stood holding the gun that
he had just snatched from Vigilante Guy's hands.
Berry Blue Baboon! With his cryonic powers.
Cherry Red Chimpanzee! The weird science tech expert.
Grapety Purple Gorilla! Who's big and strong.
and Limey Green Lemur! Who was wearing a pith helmet and drinking
a cup of Earl Grey tea, marking him as an immigrant. "Woo-woo. Frink.
P'tang," he said in a plummy voice, marking himself as an immigrant from
even further away than you originally thought.
"Pick your targets people!" yelled Innovative-Offense Boy.
Kid Quickclick and Bananaey Yellow Bonobo immediately began a
high speed chase of move and counter move as each tried to out manoeuvre
the other.
Grapety Purple Gorilla lumbered forward, and with his fists balled
up brought down in a crushing blow that would have pulped Vigilante Guy
if he had not leapt to one side at the last instant. Dog Boy transformed
into his canine form and harried Grapety Purple Gorilla, while Vigilante
Guy circled the villain and wondered how he could get in close enough to
kick Grapety Purple Gorilla in the groin.
Writer's Block Woman flew over and stood before Limey Green Lemur.
"Surrender now, implausibly twin themed villain. For I am Writer's Block
Woman, a lady and a hero, and I will not... Uh... Is that a cup of Earl
Grey tea?"
Limey Green Lemur nodded. "Frink," he confirmed.
Writer's Block Woman licked her lips. "I... uh. I thought that
lemurs drank grape juice."
Limey green Lemur contrived a look on his face that suggested he
was *appalled* that Writer's Block Woman could even *think* such a
thing. He lifted the cup to his lips, and then frowned. The tea was
cold. Before Writer's Block Woman's horrified eyes the lemur tipped the
cup and poured the tea on the ground. Writer's Block Woman sank to her
knees with a groan of disappointment at the loss of the tea, at which
point Limey Green Lemur clubbed her with his pith helmet.
Cherry Red Chimpanzee had taken to the air on a jetpack and along
with Berry Blue Baboon was harassing Ordinary Lady. Their plan was to
corner Ordinary Lady where one or the other Furry Fruit Flavour could
blast her, either with the stunulator gun or ice blasts, but the LNHer
was too fast for them. Instead she led them on a merry chase until she
had manipulated them into the position where Outfielder Boy was able to
knock Berry Blue Baboon unconscious.
@%%%%%%%%%%@
While all of this was happening, the citizens of Net.ropolis were
either fleeing or gawking, depending on how paranoid they felt about
being on the general vicinity of a fight scene. Hey, different people
have varying comfort levels for this sort of thing.
Now, take a look at that Hispanic seeming teenager over there. No,
not that one. The kid in the Metallica t-shirt. Yes, him. Okay. His
name is Xil. He is an alien. A green skinned shapeshifting alien!
Because, like, all comic book universes need green skinned shapeshifting
aliens to sneak around and infiltrate Earth and try to take it over. In
this case it's not the Skrulls, or the Martians, or even the Enelsians.
Xil was one of the vaguely insectiod Qwarsts. For those of you who
are old enough and nerdy enough to remember the halcyon days of the
comic book tie-ins to toy ranges in the 1980s, the Qwarsts look like
green skinned versions of the Insectors: basically human, but with
facetted, insectile eyes and antennae growing up from the bridge of
their noses. Got that? Good.
So now you may be wondering what the Qwarsts are doing on the
Looniearth. Oh noes! you may think to yourself. Those evil Qwarsts
have infiltrated the government and cooked up the controversial
Net.ahuman Responsibility Act and are using it to turn the heroes
against each other in an attempt to weaken the Looniearth's defences! To
which the answer is: they are doing no such thing. (If nothing else,
Arthur Spitzer would have my guts for garters if I tried to introduce a
plot point like that at this late stage of proceedings.)
They're just doing general lurking and infiltrating type stuff.
So why mention them at all?
Ah, well. The people posting to the scans_daily website noticed a
pattern, see. About how the Super-Skrull was chasing after Hulkling,
and Xavin was pursuing Lucy In The Sky, and even Crusader was spying
on Freedom Ring. The obvious conclusion was that the green skinned
shapeshifting aliens were after Earth's blond haired gay teenagers!
So, there's Xil. And he sees Outfielder Boy engaged in a fight
scene with other Legionnaires against the Furry Fruit Flavours. And Xil
thinks, .oO( Hey, he's kind of cute. )
You should be able to see where this is going.
WATCH OUT, Outfielder Boy! Watch out for green shapeshifting alien
COOTIES!
@%%%%%%%%%%@
With each moment that the ruckus at the Legion's front entrance
continued, even more Legionnaires turned up. But still Super-gorilla
Krodd didn't seem worried by the increasing number of opponents that he
and his group were having to face off against. It just didn't @"$%*&
fit, thought Innovative-Offense Boy. Krodd either had his brain still
fried from his run-in with the *%?@;* Amulet of Gnaartu, or he was up to
something. And while a highly charismatic leader, so charged with his
own insanity that they knew nothing of fear or common sense, could
indeed lead a group into either epic triumph or defeat, this just didn't
&}%;*@ feel right. So Innovative-Offense Boy dodged across the battle-
field, around where Frothing-At-The-Mouth Lad had joined Dog Boy and
Vigilante Guy in taking down Grapety Purple Gorilla and where You're-Not-
Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad and Captain Capitalize were wearing down
Apricoty Orange Orangutan, and thence moved to confront Krodd himself.
Krodd was using his telekinesis to bowl around a bunch of
Legionnaires, laughing uproariously as he did so. In fact, he and Cherry
Red Chimpanzee were among the two most effective combatants, after Cherry
Red Chimp had unleashed a probability distorting catastrophe grenade that
had caused many of the Legionnaires the trip over each other and foul
one another with their own attacks. Arguably it was only the Chimp's
intervention who had kept the Furry Fruit Flavours in the running for
this long against such overwhelming odds.
"Okay Krodd, what the $#!(* are you up to?" demanded IOBoy.
"Ah, Innovative-Offense Boy," grinned Krodd in a feral manner.
"I'm wiping the floor with your Legion of Net.Heroes."
"Looks to me more like you're only just %!@/:*& holding your
ground." His eyes narrowed. "So I repeat the %@* question: what are
you really up to?"
"I should have guessed the strategist would have recognised my
feint," sneered Krodd. "But I am disappointed that you didn't deduce
what the feint covers."
"Fine," said IOBoy sarcastically. "I freely admit that my $!<*&~
tactical genius has been outwitted by your *&@#* criminal genius. Happy?"
Krodd leaned forward as though to share a conspiratorial whisper,
and hissed, "I want your minds!" Then he looked up and shouted, "Cherry
Red, *now*!"
At which point Cherry Red Chimpanzee activated the specially
designed psychic boosters that she had installed on the roofs around the
LNH-HQ just before the fight scene had commenced.
The last time that Super-gorilla Krodd had tried to take over the
minds of net.heroes with his tel.ape.athy, he had discovered that some
of them were resistant to it. [specifically, You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-
Enough Lad - Footnote Girl] This time he was prepared for that. After
all, no super power or even natural phenomenon was binary. There was no
such thing as either on or off. There was certainly no such thing as a
totally invulnerable mind. It was simply a matter of gathering enough
power to overwhelm the defences, which no matter how great had to be finite.
Krodd reached out and took control of the minds that had no
particular defences. And thanks to Cherry Red's psychic boosters, those
minds did not cause a drain on his tel.ape.athic powers, but instead fed
the mental energies of his victims back to him so that he had more power
with which to take control of more victims. Which gave him more power
to take over even more victims. Within moments he had made several such
mental upscalings, gathering more and more power until he was easily
able to overwhelm the natural mental resistance of the likes of You're-
Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad and a few others.
(Gosh, the Legion is so lucky that Krodd was putting all that extra
energy into power rather than range, otherwise he'd have gathered so
much energy as to overwhelm the resistance of the few people with
*really* high powered mental defences, and then there'd be no-one left
to fight his plan next issue.)
The super-gorilla laughed. "And that, little Legionnaires, is why
I wanted you all outside where I could get at you. And now, TAKE OFF
YOUR CLOTHES! Abase yourselves before me like the naked animals that
you are!"
As the Legionnaires (and some of the Net.ropolis citizens who'd
stuck around to rubberneck) began to take off their clothing, Krodd went
to check on the Furry Fruit Flavours. There was a mixture of injuries
and unconsciousness, but for the most part the apes were hale.
Then Krodd realises that the LNHers had stopped taking their
clothing off. He glared at the Legionnaires. "I said remove *ALL*
your clothing!"
"We... can't... #%@*&... do... that..." said the enthralled
Innovative-Offense Boy, who like all the LNHers had stripped down
to his tighty whities. "This isn't... an Acraphobe... story."
"All characters... must have... a bare minimum... of clothing,"
agreed Writers Block Woman.
The super gorilla gnashed his teeth in frustration. Curses! How
could it be that the blasted human nudity taboo was too strong for his
mind control to overcome? Krodd, of course, didn't know that the
Looniverse was a fictional reality and therefore didn't realise that
the need to cover nakedness was at least partly a genre convention
parody. It would take a lot more than mind control to overcome
something engrained into the laws of reality. "It doesn't matter!"
snarled Krodd. "Now that I have them under my control, I'll have
them strip off as much clothing as they can before moving on to conquer
the entire country. And then it will be...
"...ONE NATION, UNDIES VISIBLE, UNDER KRODD!"
The Furry Fruit Flavours punched their fists into the air in
triumph, chanting, "Oook!Oook!Oook!Oook!Oook!"
@%%%%%%%%%%@
Super Grover stands with his arms folded across his chest looking
very stern at the reader. "You see? What did I tell you about the
monstrous pun at the end of this book?"
---------
Character Credits:
This issue of LNHv2 starred:
Fuzzy created by Connie Hirsh.
Hyphenated Eaters Corps created by Mike Friedman.
Innovative-Offense Boy created by uplink (John Scheibeler).
Krodd and the Furry Fruit Flavours, Gift-Wrapping Granny, and
Outfielder Boy created by Saxon Brenton.
And also featured:
Anal-Retentive Archive Kid and Fourth Wall Lass created by Saxon Brenton.
Bandwagon Chick created by Sue Clark.
California Kid created by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes.
Captain Capitalize created by wReam (Ray Bingham).
Dog Boy created by Rene Villareal.
Frat Boy created by uplink (John Scheibeler).
Frothing-At-The-Mouth Lad created by Greg Morrow.
Kid Quickclick created by Ben Rawluk.
Ordinary Lady created by Martin Phipps.
Vigilante Guy created by Peter Milan.
Shake-N-Bake Lass created by Arsenal (Ted Brock).
Writers Block Woman created by Jaelle (Jessica Ihimaera-Smiler).
You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad created by Arthur Spitzer.
aaannnd Super-Grover, who has been cameoed without permission from the
estate of Jim Henson.
Author's Notes:
I misspelt 'hackemon' as 'hakemon' last issue. This despite the
fact that I had the mnemonic 'hackable monsters' sitting right in front
of me in the text.
And in case you're wondering: yes, I did write _Limp-Asparagus Lad
Special_ #3 (with Krodd's first appearance) not only as a constrained
vocabulary challenge story, and as an ape story, but also as a set up
for this story.
The Hyphenated Eater Corps were among the alternate future members
of the LNH listed in _Spite Grrrl_ #11 (which means that ultimately
they're Mike Friedman's fault :-) That said, while this is the Secret
Origin of the group, I suspect that the membership may not necessarily
be the same. I've quite deliberately introduced a few 'new' members and
used Pop Tart-Eater Lass rather than the Pop Tart-Eater Lad in
expectation that their code names get handed down as old members loose
interest in LNH fandom and leave and have their places filled with new
Hyphenated Eater Corps members. I've also taken the liberty of making
at least a few of them pains in the backside in the expectation that
eventually Cheesecake-Eater Lad will knock the rough edges off of them.
And does anyone else find it slightly weird that after the complaint
that Arsenal made back in 2001 about the Legion having too many one-joke
members (leading to things like the _Flame Wars IV_, where Jamie Rosen
and myself tried to give an excuse for most of them to be killed off)
that we now have a meta-story that encourages even more one-joke
characters to join?
And now, another roster entry:
GROUP NAME: Hyphenated Eater Corps
TYPE: Public Domain.
CREATED BY: Mike Friedman
MEMBERS: (present day)
Donut-Eater Lad
Healthy-Breakfast-Eater Lad
Open-Face-Club-Sandwich-Eater Lad
Pasta-Eater Lad
Pop-Tart-Eater Lass
Spicy-Mexican-Food-Eater Lass
ADD NOTES: This group was first mentioned in the alt.future story
in _Spite Grrrl_ #11, when its active membership was listed as:
Pop-Tart-Eater Lad, Donut-Eater Lad, Cheesecake-Eater Lad,
Spam-Eater Lad and Open-Face-Club-Sandwich-Eater Lad.
Its present day origin was in _Legion of Net.Heroes vol.2_ #27,
when a group of Cheesecake-Eater Lad fans used a loophole in
the Net.ahuman Responsibility Act to join the Legion.
-----
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon.... at uts.edu.au saxonb... at hotmail.com
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex
world of jet-powered apes and time-travel." - Superman, JLA Classified #3
From: Saxon Brenton <saxonb... at hotmail.com>
Subject: LNH: Legion of Net.Heroes Vol.2 #28
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 22:53:48 +0000 (UTC)
[LNH] Legion of Net.Heroes Vol.2 #28
The comic book that you have just purchased
(or maybe just stolen as an internet download)
is:
___ ___________________________
| |-| \ #28
| |-| [] / 'Funky Monkeys' part 2
| | | [] egion of \ (Intermezzo - Act 4)
| | | []__ [] [] [] [] / (A Beige Countdown tie-in)
| | | [___][ \[]et.[]__[]eroes \
| | | []\ ] [ __ ] / written by and copyright 2008
| |-| [] [] [] [] \ Saxon Brenton
| |-|___________________________/ with input from Jamas Enright
| |
| |
| |
| | The cover shows the Legion standing in the background with
| | expressions of shock or righteous determination on their faces.
| | In the foreground is a weeping purple gorilla sitting in the
| | pose of the Thinker. The cover blurb says: 'Why Is This
| | Gorilla Crying?'
|_|
[A Silver Age-style roster of characters in the form of a series of mug
shots in little circles runs down the side of the title page:]
Roll call for this issue:
o Cheesecake-Eater Lad!
o Fuzzy!
o Psionic Lad!
o Outfielder Boy!
o The Hyphenated Eaters Corps!
These are just some of the super-powered do-gooders who belong to an
organisation that thinks that running around with your underwear on
the outside is acceptable as a fashion statement. They are: the
Legion of Net.Heroes!
@%%%%%%%%%%@
Sniff.
"Wha...?"
"Just rest for a few seconds. Breathe deeply. Are you feeling any
pain?"
Fuzzy focused her eyes and discovered Cheesecake-Eater Lad kneeling
next to her, waving a piece of cheesecake under her nose. Irritably she
began to rise and push the cheesecake away. "Now isn't the time for
lunch..." she started to say, but she was cut short by the other
Legionnaire.
"Uh uh uh uh uh," he disagreed, waving a finger in emphasis.
"There's a mind controlling villain on the loose, and *this*," he said,
proffering the cheesecake proudly, "is the only thing keeping you free
from his control at the moment. But you can't go around holding it
under your nose like smelling salts or something. So I *insist* that
you eat at least a mouthful of my mind-liberating fudge cheesecake. That
way you'll be protected for at least a few hours." He looked pointedly
at her. "Or do I have to get rough and use some more ninjitsu on you?"
It was then that Fuzzy realised the reason she was on the ground
was not because she had tripped, or fainted, or been knocked out with
gas, or whatever, but because Cheesecake-Eater Lad was holding her down.
And come to think of it, her tuckus was feeling rather tender. As if
she had landed heavily on her backside and would later be enjoying
bruises... A fact that was particularly noteworthy since she was
currently dressed only in her underwear rather than her armoured costume
of metastable weave.
She put two and two together and frowned at herself in irritation
over the mistake that she'd fallen into. It was easy to be lulled into
complacency when dealing with the amiable and tubby Cheesecake-Eater
Lad. Easy, and foolish. She shouldn't have made the error of forgetting
that he had been studying under Ultimate Ninja for a very long time.
"Mind controlling villain, huh?" she said, taking the cheesecake.
Because when you got right down to it, warding off mind control by
eating a cheesecake was a much preferable method to faffing around with
tinfoil hats. "That would be Super-gorilla Krodd then, wouldn't it?"
Cheesecake-Eater Lad nodded. "And his Furry Fruit Flavours."
"Them too. Mmm, chocolate fudge."
"Yeah. It turns out that the most effective flavour of mind-
liberating cheesecake is hollandaise ripple fudge. That protects you
for days. But not everyone will automatically eat that, so I had work
a trade off with chocolate instead."
"Wait, you've lost me there," protested Fuzzy. "If you've caught
someone who's being mind controlled, and you wave a piece of cheesecake
under their nose, then the smell is going to clear their heads. At that
point it isn't going to matter what the flavour is as long as it isn't
something that's going to out-and-out make them vomit. All you've got
to do is tell them to eat the cheesecake to protect themselves. I would
have thought that would be a no-brainer."
He looked at her ruefully. "Well, sure. If you've only got one
person to deal with. But if you've got a whole crowd, the then most
effective way to distribute it is to throw it in their faces. Then
they'll scrape some of it off with a finger tip just like in the old
slapstick comedy movies, and lick it and go "Hey, chocolate" and WHAMMO!
Instant freedom from mind control. But the problem with that trick is
that doesn't work so well with hollandaise sauce."
Ah yes, thought Fuzzy, the infamous Legion of Net.Heroes propensity
for starting food fights. Sooner or later someone was bound to find a
tactical use for it. "I can see you've thought this through very
carefully." She finished eating the cheesecake. "So, what's next?"
Cheesecake-Eater Lad explained. "I've only got a small supply of
the stuff, because I've only been doing test batches so far. And my
wrist dispensers are already getting low," he added, holding up one
arm to show the Kirby-tech wristlets he wore. Then he grinned in
anticipation. "So I need the help of someone else with stealth
abilities to sneak into the LNH-HQ kitchen and help me mix up an
industrial sized batch of mind-liberating cheesecake."
Fuzzy cracked her knuckles. "And then, rematch time."
"Oh yeah."
@%%%%%%%%%%@
The two superheroes carefully approached the Legion of Net.Heroes
Headquarters. At one point they saw one of the Furry Fruit Flavours
knuckling along the street. It was Apricoty Orange Orangutan. Fuzzy
went to pull her gun, only to remember that she hadn't retrieved a spare
costume from her locker yet. Cheesecake-Eater Lad shook his head,
mouthed, "Stealth", and then silently leapt upwards and wedged himself
into the corner between two walls to hide above eye height. Fuzzy took
her cue from him and turned up her power of ambiguity. The orangutan
went past them, oblivious to how close the net.heroes were.
Once Apricoty Orange Orangutan was gone Cheesecake-Eater Lad dropped
back down to the street with equal silence and whispered, "Come on."
They approached the front entrance on RACC.ham Avenue with the
intent of scouting out the general situation before circling around to
gain entrance through the small parkland out the back. They paused when
they saw what was happening at the building.
"What are they up to?" wondered Cheesecake-Eater Lad.
Fuzzy could only shake her head in bemusement. A contingent of
several hundred enthralled Legionnaires were busy at work constructing
what looked like a giant jungle gym around the LNH-HQ. And considering
that the LNH-HQ itself had increased in size to accommodate all the new
members enrolled because of the Net.ahuman Responsibility Act, this
meant that it was an absolutely enormous piece of metal framework.
"Whatever it is, it's being done on Krodd's orders, so it probably
can't be good," reasoned Fuzzy.
They continued on, encountering no significant opposition as they
made their way in through the rear entrance. (A mind-controlled Bad-
Timing Boy discovered them and almost set off a general alert, but Fuzzy
knocked him unconscious and locked him in a closet. What few other
encounters they had were near misses thanks to Fuzzy's Ambiguity Field.)
Finally they arrived at the kitchen. Cheesecake-Eater Lad peered
in through the windows set into the double doors. "Huh," he said with
mild surprise. "The Hyphenated Eaters Corps are still here."
"So how do we knock them out?" asked Fuzzy.
Cheesecake-Eater Lad looked thoughtful, then said, "We don't. They
might be useful in mixing up some more mind-liberating fudge cheesecake.
You make sure nobody sneaks up on us, and I'll use the last of the stuff
I have on me to free them."
"That's risky," Fuzzy warned. "If they raise the alarm first, we
could be up to out necks in mind controlled LNHers before we know it,
and with no backup plan."
"Possibly," C-ELad admitted. "But I've been supervising their
training as well as their kitchen duty over the past week. I don't
think they'll be that hard to take down in a fight. Well... yet, anyway.
Some of them show a lot of promise. But on the other hand they do all
know what they're doing with food preparation, and could save us a lot
of time. I think it's worth the risk."
Fuzzy made a noise at the back of her throat that, if interpreted
generously, could have been called agreement. Cheesecake-Eater Lad gave
her an inscrutable look. She said, "You really think they'll be helpful?"
"They're good kids," he said. "They're just a bit enthusiastic,
that's all." Then he added, "And there's also the matter of looking out
for our students. I still remember the recriminations about mentor
responsibility after all those kids got turned into zomkicks during the
'Crisis Of Infinite Sidekicks' crossover."
"Okay. It's your call. I'll cover your back."
With Fuzzy guarding the door and simultaneously trying to keep an
eye out for both passers-by in the corridor and on events in the kitchen,
Cheesecake-Eater Lad burst in and launched his assault. He was devastating.
The Hyphenated Eaters Corps were scattered about the kitchen rather
than clustered at one easy to access and attack point. Cheesecake-Eater
Lad did not allow this to concern him. Instead he focused on the basic
tactic of first taking out those trainees who were the greatest threats.
In his estimation that currently meant Spicy-Mexican-Food-Eater Lass and
Donut-Eater Lad.
Luckily Donut-Eater Lad was directly in front of him as he came
through the door. Cheesecake-Eater Lad ran in and without needing to
slow down vaulted over one of the work benches and squirted cheesecake
in his face. Then he waved his arm in a sharp arc, similarly blasting
Pop-Tart-Eater Lass and Open-Face-Club-Sandwich-Eater Lad in one
movement. Both Pasta-Eater Lad and Spicy-Mexican-Food-Eater Lass were
further away, but Pasta-Eater Lad made the blunder of closing in to
counterattack. Which was good, because the sooner that C-ELad could
take out Pasta-Eater Lad the quicker he could deal with Spicy-Mexican-Food-
Eater Lass, who was clearly moving to sound the alarm rather than fight.
With surprising grace Cheesecake-Eater Lad ducked and weaved between
the tubs of food stuffs and sharp kitchen implements that Pasta-Eater Lad
was throwing at him, all the while intent on chasing down Spicy-Mexican-
Food-Eater Lass. Pasta-Eater Lad he simply took out indirectly, tripping
him up en passant and squirting him with the mind-liberating cheesecake.
He launched himself at Spicy-Mexican-Food-Eater Lass.
She dodged to one side and threw kitchen utensils at him. This had
no more effect on Cheesecake-Eater Lad than when Pasta-Eater Lad had
tried it, and in fact it slowed her down for long enough to give him an
opening. He aimed and fired, and nothing happened. His dispensers had
finally run out.
As if that was going to stop Cheesecake-Eater Lad. He used a sweep
kick to knock her legs out from under her, and as he grappled with her
cast a look around the kitchen to see who was up from among the other
members of the Hyphenated Eaters Corps. "Club-Sandwich-Lad," he called.
"Get over here on the double!"
"Sir, yes sir!" Open-Face-Club-Sandwich-Eater Lad said as he ran over.
"Smear some of the mind-liberating cheesecake over her mouth."
"On it," OFCS-ELad said.
As soon as Spicy-Mexican-Food-Eater Lass had stopped struggling,
C-ELad asked, "You all right?"
"Yeah," she said. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," said Cheesecake-Eater Lad. He stood up and
looked around. "Everybody else okay?" When this elicited a round of
affirmatives, he rallied his troops. "Okay ladies and gentleman. We're
in an emergency situation here, and I'm going to need your help. Super-
gorilla Krodd is using his mental powers to mind control the Legion, and
I need to prepare as much of the mind-liberating fudge cheesecake as
possible to stop him. Quickly get yourselves cleaned and dressed while
Fuzzy and myself start preparing ingredients. We have a lot of work
ahead of us."
The Hyphenated Eaters Corps quickly scattered to get themselves
ready, with Pop-Tart-Eater Lass adding, "You can count on us sir."
@%%%%%%%%%%@
Xil wondered what the heck he was doing. However, this wonderment
was more of an 'I must be out of my mind' anxiety than any sort of
meaningful introspection. It wasn't going to be useful to carrying out
his plan, especially since his plan consisted solely of 'help that cute
Outfielder Boy guy'. And it certainly didn't extend far enough to
consider the consequences of his actions might be, what with giving
away classified technology to a native life form and all that.
You see, when the shapeshifting Qwarsts infiltrate a planet they
have various types of hand-wave-with-technobabble technology to help
maintain their cover. This includes handy little psi-screens that
prevent telepathic detection and coercion.
So when everyone in the area around the Legion of Net.Heroes HQ
began acting strangely and taking off their clothes, Xil had been
unaffected. It had taken him a while to realise what was happening and
what options were open to him. Not because he was stupid. He wasn't.
Nor was it because he didn't have any clues to go on. He'd been standing
nearby when Krodd had exposited what his villainous plan was. Rather,
it was because Xil was distracted for several dry mouthed minutes by the
sight of Outfielder Boy stripped down to his underwear.
Impulsively Xil had gone and retrieved another hand-wave-with-
technobabble psi-screen. Now he had returned with it, with the
intention of giving it to Outfielder Boy so that the Legionnaire could
resist Krodd's mental domination and defeat the villain.
Beyond that... Xil really hadn't given things much thought. He
simply snuck up, activated the second psi-screen and clasped it into the
other teenager's hands. Satisfaction made Xil's heart beat faster in
his thorax as Outfielder Boy blinked and returned to proper wakefulness.
Outfielder Boy focused on the young man in front of him, and said,
"Wha...?"
At which point Xil realised he had no idea what he should do next
and came over all bashful at the prospect of what inconvenient questions
the Legionnaire might ask. He blurted out, "You'll need this," - and
here he shook the psi-screen that he had clasped into Outfielder Boy's
hands - "to help you fight the bad guy." Then he ran away as fast as he
could.
Outfielder Boy stared after the departing teenager. Well, it was
only sensible for civilians to get out of the area where there was a
fight scene happening, he supposed. However, Outfielder Boy felt an
obligation to say thanks later on after the dust had settled, so after
a quick glance to make sure that he wasn't in any immediate danger of
being attacked by a villain or run over by a bus or something, he
focused his attention on getting a fix on the mind of the guy who'd
just rescued him.
It was tricky. It was so frustrating when there was something that
needed to be done urgently and he kept being fumbled fingered with his
mental senses. Then he found the mind he wanted. Oh... "Oh," he said.
For a stunned moment he didn't know what to do. Impulsively he called
out, "I think you're cute too!" Then he blushed. That was not
professional superhero behaviour.
"Outfielder Boy, you have got to get back to finding a way to
stopping Krodd," he admonished himself.
@%%%%%%%%%%@
The Hyphenated Eaters Corps quickly dressed in their costumes.
Their new costumes, that is. They may have looked exactly like their
previous, home made ones, but the costumes that they had been issued by
the Legion were made of metastable weave.
Okay, pause there for a moment and I'll explain metastable weave.
Yes, it's like fabric made of unstable molecules, except that amateur
fiction writers won't gets their butts sued off by Marvel Comics if they
talk about metastable weave. But like unstable molecules, clothing made
of metastable weave adapts to peoples' superpowers, can be programmed
to transform from civvies to costume when you need an instantaneous
quick change, is insulated, hard wearing, and when it *does* get damaged
in a fight will never be totally destroyed but instead will shred and
tatter in just such a way as to preserve modesty. Unless it's an
Acraphobe rated story, in which case the reader gets to see the
character's naughty bits.
Best of all, a costume of metastable weave makes you *look* like an
iconic superhero. Alex Ross may do some absolutely gorgeous
photorealism paintings of superheroes, but his figures are all wearing
clothes that wrinkle and bunch up so that they look like physically fit
adults who have been nagged by their kids into dressing up for
Halloween. Metastable weave doesn't do that. Metastable weave clings
to the body in just the right places, highlighting musculature while at
the same time covering over the vicious scars accumulated through years
of hand-to-hand combat with the forces of evil. People who wear
metastable weave *look* larger than life, and at least as far as their
clothing is concerned are always photogenic.
In any case, in an amazingly short time span Fuzzy found the Corps
back in action and taking over the cheesecake preparation, freeing her
up for sentry duty again. She threw a look over her shoulder as she
left the kitchen. She had to admit that Cheesecake-Eater Lad had the
teenagers well in hand. It made her feel a little bit less guilty about
they way she had palmed them off on him when they had first turned up...
Had it really been less than a week ago?
She shook her head ruefully, then pushed the whole thing out of her
mind. Guard duty in the middle of an enemy occupied building was
not the time to be dwelling on that sort of thing. Then she got a
telepathic message that almost scared the crap out of her.
=( Hey, Fuzzy. Incoming. ) She had already grabbed her gun before she consciously registered
that the tone was friendly. She didn't immediately recognise the 'voice'
however, and thought a stern and wary challenge of, .oO( Who's there? )
=( Psionic Lad, and I've collected Outfielder Boy. I'm glad we've
found you. I was beginning to wonder if anyone else was free. We're on
From: Saxon Brenton <saxonb... at hotmail.com>
Subject: LNH: Legion of Net.Heroes Vol.2 #28.5 (repost)
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:56:11 +0000 (UTC)
[LNH] Legion of Net.Heroes Vol.2 #28.5 (repost)
Repost note: The original post of this story was cut off at about
mid way when it appeared on usenet and Google groups, but came
through in whole on the mailing list and in the Eyrie archives
(http://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/racc/2008-July/004920.html).
For the benefit of those who only use Google, here is the concluding
half of the story, picking up at the most recent scene break. There
is about six paragraphs worth of overlap of text:
[]
[] egion of
[]__ [] [] [] []
[___][ \[]et.[]__[]eroes 'Funky Monkeys' part 2
[]\ ] [ __ ]
[] [] [] []
@%%%%%%%%%%@
The Hyphenated Eaters Corps quickly dressed in their costumes.
Their new costumes, that is. They may have looked exactly like their
previous, home made ones, but the costumes that they had been issued by
the Legion were made of metastable weave.
Okay, pause there for a moment and I'll explain metastable weave.
Yes, it's like fabric made of unstable molecules, except that amateur
fiction writers won't gets their butts sued off by Marvel Comics if they
talk about metastable weave. But like unstable molecules, clothing made
of metastable weave adapts to peoples' superpowers, can be programmed
to transform from civvies to costume when you need an instantaneous
quick change, is insulated, hard wearing, and when it *does* get damaged
in a fight will never be totally destroyed but instead will shred and
tatter in just such a way as to preserve modesty. Unless it's an
Acraphobe rated story, in which case the reader gets to see the
character's naughty bits.
Best of all, a costume of metastable weave makes you *look* like an
iconic superhero. Alex Ross may do some absolutely gorgeous
photorealism paintings of superheroes, but his figures are all wearing
clothes that wrinkle and bunch up so that they look like physically fit
adults who have been nagged by their kids into dressing up for
Halloween. Metastable weave doesn't do that. Metastable weave clings
to the body in just the right places, highlighting musculature while at
the same time covering over the vicious scars accumulated through years
of hand-to-hand combat with the forces of evil. People who wear
metastable weave *look* larger than life, and at least as far as their
clothing is concerned are always photogenic.
In any case, in an amazingly short time span Fuzzy found the Corps
back in action and taking over the cheesecake preparation, freeing her
up for sentry duty again. She threw a look over her shoulder as she
left the kitchen. She had to admit that Cheesecake-Eater Lad had the
teenagers well in hand. It made her feel a little bit less guilty about
they way she had palmed them off on him when they had first turned up...
Had it really been less than a week ago?
She shook her head ruefully, then pushed the whole thing out of her
mind. Guard duty in the middle of an enemy occupied building was
not the time to be dwelling on that sort of thing. Then she got a
telepathic message that almost scared the crap out of her.
=( Hey, Fuzzy. Incoming. )
She had already grabbed her gun before she consciously registered
that the tone was friendly. She didn't immediately recognise the 'voice'
however, and thought a stern and wary challenge of, .oO( Who's there? )
=( Psionic Lad, and I've collected Outfielder Boy. I'm glad we've
found you. I was beginning to wonder if anyone else was free. We're on
our way to your location, so don't go anywhere. )
As if that was likely, thought Fuzzy. She poked her head back into
the kitchen to warn the others, and the two newcomers had arrived by the
time she had finished passing on the message.
"I'm glad we found you all," Psionic Lad repeated. "Listen, I've
done some poking about, and I think I know what Krodd's planning."
"Well obviously his next move will be to extend his mind control,"
said Spicy-Mexican-Food-Eater Lass, who was the smartest of the
Hyphenated Eaters Corps, but also the prickliest because of her lack of
patience with those slower than herself. "Which implies that the thing
he's having built relates to that."
"Unless it's a distraction for his real plan," offered Pasta-Eater
Lad cheerfully, not bothering to look up from the food preparation he
was involved in.
"It's the former," said Psionic Lad. "That giant metal frame is
going to be a psychic broadcaster aerial that he can blanket the whole
world with his mental commands. See, from what I can figure out it's
like this. When Krodd first got his psi powers he was surprised by the
fact that not everyone was automatically susceptible to them. So he's
had a system set up that lets him gather more power from the minds he's
already dominated. Taking out the Legion was strategically sound as
well as a act of revenge, but we're going to have to stop him before he
implements his next phase of attack and grows stronger still. We," and
here Psionic Lad indicated everybody present in the kitchen, "may not
be able to withstand his control if he increases his power up another
level of magnitude."
"Cheesecake-Eater Lad," ventured Spicy-Mexican-Food-Eater Lass.
"The first batch of chocolate fudge is almost ready, but if Krodd
carries out his plan any time soon we may need to start preparing the
hollandaise sauce ripple instead."
Psionic Lad looked confused. "Hollandaise sauce?"
"We've got different flavours of cheesecake that are good for
protecting against different strengths of mind control," said Cheesecake-
Easter Lad distractedly as he considered the problem. "How soon is he
likely to start use the broadcasting web?"
Psionic Lad shrugged. "Any time within the next few hours, I guess."
"Okay then. Pasta-Eater Lad, Pop-Tart-Eater Lass, you finish
making that chocolate fudge cheesecake," Cheescake-Eater Lad ordered.
"The rest of you start on the hollandaise sauce ripple straight away."
He looked at Fuzzy and Psionic Lad. "We're going to need to find a way
to spray this over as many LNHers as quickly as possible."
"A pity almost everybody is outside," said Fuzzy thoughtfully.
"There's an obvious way to do it indoors."
@%%%%%%%%%%@
Just under an hour later Outfielder Boy and Open-Faced-Club-Sandwich-
Eater Lad were making a few final adjustments to the pipes in the plant
room. "Okay, that's got it, I think," said Outfielder Boy as he used a
wrench to tighten the final connection.
"You think?"
"Dude, I honestly doubt if the sprinkler system was designed to
distribute cheesecake through the building. It'll pump the stuff in,"
he said, gesturing to the vat of cheesecake they had just connected up,
"but I have no idea if it'll flow through the pipes."
Open-Faced-Club-Sandwich-Eater Lad looked pensive. "Well, it's the
hollandaise sauce ripple fudge," he said. "It's been watered down to
the consistency that it should flow through the pipes, but still be
strong enough to wake up people who are under mind control." He checked
the connections again. "How did you manage to resist Krodd's control,
by the way? Special mental training?"
"Me? Jeez no, I wasn't able to. I had to have outside help."
"Oh," went OFCS-ELad, still somewhat distracted and making the
assumption that he'd had assistance from Psionic Lad. "I guess that's
it then. You can tell the others that we're..." and then he was cut
off as he was suddenly smothered in wrapping paper. .oO( Aw fsck! Not
again, ) he fumed.
Outfielder Boy looked up to see Gift-Wrapping Granny in her bloomers
at the door. Now, he was essentially a good hearted kid, so his main
reaction was, .oO( Oh no! Another enslaved Legionnaire! ) But he was
also shallow enough in certain areas that he also thought, .oO( Ew! Ew!
Ew! Naked wrinkly old person flesh! Ew! )
=( Are you okay? )= asked Psionic Lad, who had picked up that last bit.
=( Small problem. Taking care of it now, )= Outfielder Boy thought
back. He jumped to one side as she tried to blast him with her eye
beams, grabbed some of the cheesecake that they had on hand for just
such an emergency, and thwacked her in the face with it.
Gift-Wrapping Granny blinked, scraped off some of the cheescake with
her finger, licked it and said, "Hmm. Hollandaise sauce."
=( Well done, )= observed Psionic Lad.
=( Thanks, )= Outfielder Boy replied, then telepathically passed on
the information that they were set up as he started tearing off the
paper from OFCS-ELad.
Psionic Lad himself was concealed near the foyer of the building
with some equipment that he and Pop-Tart-Eater Lass had snuck out from
the kitchen. He had been a bit worried about Outfielder Boy and
Open-Faced-Club-Sandwich-Eater Lad, since of the three teams sent to
make arrangements to spray cheesecake in and around the LNH-HQ theirs
had been the only one without the ability to render themselves
undetectable to some extent. The internal sprinklers had simply been a
lower priority because, as noted, almost everybody was outside. However,
the boys seemed to have things in hand.
"Look," stage whispered Pop-Tart-Eater Lass, although there was no
need to keep their voices down. The mental 'don't notice us' that
Psionic Lad was sending out would cover anything up to normal speaking
tones. Psionic Lad looked where she was indicating, then sent a second
heads up back to the boys in the plant room and to Fuzzy and Cheesecake-
Eater Lad's team on the roof: =( Krodd's coming with the Furry Fruit
Flavours. Get ready, he may be about to start! )
.oO( Firing up the pumps, ) Fuzzy replied.
@%%%%%%%%%%@
Super-gorilla Krodd knuckled out the front door with his entourage
of minions. He looked up with pride at the completed giant neural
webwork. It was magnificent. And now he was ready to begin the next
phase of his plans.
However, just as he was about to give the orders to Cherry Red
Chimp, there was the distant sound of a pump, and a shower of something
soft and semi-liquid and smelling alternately of chocolate and
hollandaise sauce began to fall from somewhere above the building. At
the same time the sprinkler system went off and showered runny
cheesecake throughout the LNH-HQ (which you just *know* is going to
stain the carpets something dreadful).
Krodd gave the order, "Go and find out what's happening," but got
no further because Psionic Lad and Pop-Tart-Eater Lass came out of
hiding and started using a firehose to spray cheesecake over those
enthralled Legionnaires who were present at the front of the building.
To Krodd's momentary bemusement they didn't even aim at him or the Furry
Fruit Flavours, instead spraying upwards and outwards to sprinkle as
wide an area as possible. What possible use could that be?
Almost immediately Psionic Lad began broadcasting, =( Legion alert!
We have mind controlling villains on the premises! Disable the antenna
web and then fight the villains at the front entrance! )= At which
point hundreds of Legionnaires either started to converge at the front
of the LNH-HQ or use their powers to tear apart or melt or disintegrate
the giant metal scaffolding.
Bananey Yellow Bonobo zoomed forward and tore apart the pump that
Psionic Lad and Pop-Tart-Eater Lass were using - but he was far too
late to stop his team's reversal of fortunes. And anyway, he almost
immediately had to fend off the attention of Kid Quickclick (who was
back for a rematch) as well as several other Legionnaires. Psionic Lad
turned his attention to Krodd and began to mentally battle against
the super-gorilla. The ape's power was much diminished, but still
considerable thanks to the number of non-net.heroes he still had under
his control who were out in the streets surrounding the LNH-HQ and
therefore too far away to be covered in the spray of cheesecake.
You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad leapt forward to confront
Grapety Purple Gorilla. Yay! Another opportunity for fan-pleasing
frivolous fisticuffs! Grapety Purple Gorilla just sighed, then dropped
and rolled onto his back and grabbed the overenthusiastic net.hero as he
came within grappling range, using the LNHer's own momentum to catapult
him across the street.
The Legionnaire went -CRASH!!!- into a wall, the rose up looking
mightily peeved. "No, you villain! You're supposed to *fight* me!"
Grapety Purple Gorilla continued to look at him with a hangdog
expression and didn't bother to disagree with him. Actually, it was
GPG's job to *defeat* him, but if the net.hero failed to realise what
rules the game was being played to, well that was to the ape's advantage
wasn't it? Was there anything in the bag of tricks that Cherry Red
Chimpanzee had prepared? Hmmm...
Grapety Purple Gorilla took a deep breath and held it, threw a
grenade and watched YNHMHELad take a face full of superfast acting
sleeping gas, causing him to fall unconscious (but not without some
dramatic thrashing about first). Grapety Purple Gorilla poked him once
with a big meaty finger to make sure he was insensate, then looked up to
see what else was happening. Well, obviously nothing good for his team,
as the Furry Fruit Flavours were surrounded by hundreds of angry
net.heroes in cheesecake stained underwear.
Berry Blue Baboon was trying to use his ice blasts but was being
overwhelmed by the combined efforts of Captain Napalm and Invisible
Incendiary. Similarly Apricoty Orange Orangutan was slowly being forced
back by Kid-Not-Appearing-In-Any-Beige-Midnight Story and CAPTAIN
CAPITALIZE.
Limey Green Lemur had been worked into a frothing rage by Frat Boy.
It seemed that the lemur's faux-British reserve made him particularly
susceptible to Frat Boy's power to make people rant about the antics
of irresponsible young people. "Frink!" the lemur blustered about
philistines who drank beer rather than tea - and *cold* beer at that!
Then Writers Block Woman grabbed the lemur's pith helmet and clubbed him
with it. "Revenge," she declared, "is mine!"
Out of all this Cherry Red Chimpanzee seemed to be doing the best.
She used a displacement device to make herself slightly out of phase
with where she appeared to be. Then, once that bit of personal protection
was in place, she went to town, gleefully jetting around the field of
combat and attacking Legionnaires left-right-and-centre with an arsenal
of toys. A number of net.heroes were brought down when she stuck little
devices onto them which nullified the heroes' invulnerability to their
own powers. An antigravity ray made people begin to float away, meaning
that other net.heroes with flight had to divert their efforts in order
to rescue them. And a vertigo inducer had any number of LNHers reeling
and falling to their knees.
Cherry Red was just about to throw out a bag's worth of totally
frictionless marbles into the path of Kid Quickclick when her jetpack
cut out. And her backups (including a gravity sheath parachute) didn't
work either. The ape fell and landed at the feet of a female LNHer
wearing a bomber jacket. "That's just about enough of that," said
Glitch Girl and then gave Cherry Red Chimp a solid right hook punch to
the jaw. Cherry Red went down unconscious, and Glitch Girl relaxed the
concentration that she had been focusing to make the chimpanzee's
technology fail. She also massaged her smarting knuckles. "So worth
it," she said with satisfaction.
Psionic Lad was finding it hard going trying to overcome Krodd and
decided to call in some specialised assistance. =( WikiBoy, I need your
help over here, )= he called telepathically. WikiBoy, the Legionnaire
Anyone Can Edit, made a field combat dash up to him. "Hi. What do
you need?"
"I need you to be a power booster," said Psionic Lad. Immediately
he felt an increase in his own mental powers. Unfortunately Krodd felt
the increase in power too and upscaled his response to match Psionic
Lad's attack. "I mean, you are a touch contact power booster only,"
Psionic Lad hastily amended, and placed his hand on WikiBoy's shoulder.
Instantly the power balance shifted, and Psionic Lad made quick work of
the gorilla.
The fight quickly became a rout, and all too soon there was nothing
left of it but the Red Herring skipping about in mid air doing a mocking
dance and going, "Ooo yeah! Ooo yeah! Who owns the fight scene now?"
Nothing left of it? Er, no. Not quite. The neural webwork was
done in, and the simian villains were captured and piled (some of them
unconscious, some of them not) in an ungainly heap, but there was
something the net.heroes were forgetting.
"Mommy, why aren't they wearing clothes?"
The LNHers stopped dead in their tracks. Some of them turned to
face the child who had spoken. GAK! They were all in their underwear!
As the child blinked his eyes (and sucked his thumb), the Legionnaires
all ran (or flew, or teleported) inside, leaving only those few
individuals who were already dressed or didn't wear clothing in the
first place.
"Kiwi," said a voice in a 'nothing to see here, move along' tone.
Rolling her eyes at the latest LNH antics, the mother pulled her
child on their way.
@%%%%%%%%%%@
Epilogue 1:
Later that afternoon Gift-Wrapping Granny returned to the Legion's
headquarters after going home for a shower and change of clothes. She
encountered Anal-Retentive Archive Kid, who had changed his clothes but
still had cheesecake dried into his hair. "Haven't had the opportunity
to wash up yet?" she asked, not without sympathy.
He rolled his eyes in self deprecating amusement. "'Fraid not. I
picked one of the high numbers on the shower queue."
She hesitated, then said. "I wanted to ask you something. If
you don't mind."
"Sure, go ahead."
"Organic Lass prescribed a course of Urple Ray treatments to
improve my vision. They're working quite well. But the Urple Ray
is supposed to be capricious, and some of the people I asked mentioned
that you hadn't had much luck with it."
He nodded. "That's right. I'm HIV positive, and the Urple Ray
hasn't done anything to cure that, or even do much to keep it in
remission that prescription medication wasn't doing already."
"Oh," she said, momentarily flummoxed. "I'm sorry. I didn't
realise it wasn't..."
"An injury gained in battle?" He shrugged. "Well, technically it
is, but that's neither here nor there. The thing is, when it works the
Urple Ray can heal almost anything, far beyond the scope of normal
medical science - but like all .thingie technology it runs on drama, and
means that sometimes it doesn't work for any explicable reason."
That was an oversimplification of course, since .thingy technology
- when it failed - usually did so for story related reasons of dramatic
tension.
"Anyway, the bottom line is that even with super science, there
doesn't seem to be a universal panacea. Just like with Krodd and his
attempts to create the ultimate mind control power, you either reach
the point of dimishing returns or find some other sort of drawback."
Epilogue 2:
Nick (alias Outfielder Boy) was dressed in civvies as he walked
through the city. He was focusing his attention on trying to find this
Xil kid, and while he was making progress with that task it was taking
up a lot of his concentration. After he almost walked into a wall he
had taken to pausing every block or so to locate his target, then walking
a block or so, then pausing again. Eventually he found the teenager he
was looking for.
Xil looked up and saw Nick. He stared at him in panic, with the
thoughts .oO( Oh my god, he's come for me! ) blazing in his mind, and
which if Nick had been able to see would have probably found endearing.
"Hey there," said the net.hero. "I wanted to return this to you,"
he said, handing back the psi-screen, "and say thanks for the loan of
it. It really came in useful. Against Krodd, I mean."
"Uhm. Okay. I'm glad about that."
"I'm Nick, by the way. And you're Xil, right?"
"Jamie Xil," the Qwarst corrected with his cover name. Nick could
see the boy suddenly become skittish again, and went, "Right, right,
sorry. My mistake. Uhm."
"Was there anything else?"
"Uh, I thought maybe we could talk. You know. About stuff."
Xil looked undecided for a second, then smiled and said, "Yeah,
sure. That'd be great."
Later they ended up sharing a pizza for dinner before catching a movie.
---------
Character Credits:
This issue of LNHv2 starred:
Cheesecake-Eater Lad created by Matthew Jotham Millheiser.
Fuzzy created by Connie Hirsh.
Hyphenated Eaters Corps created by Mike Friedman.
Psionic Lad created by Carolyn Vaughan.
Krodd and the Furry Fruit Flavours, and Outfielder Boy created by
Saxon Brenton.
And also featured:
Anal-Retentive Archive Kid and Gift-Wrapping Granny created by Saxon
Brenton.
Bad-Timing Boy created by Vernon Harmon.
CAPTAIN CAPITALIZE created by wReam (Ray Bingham).
Captain Napalm created by [unknown].
Glitch Girl created by Marie Antoon.
Frat Boy created by uplink (John Scheibeler).
Invisible Incendiary created by Steve Hutchison.
Kid Quickclick created by Ben Rawluk.
Kid-Not-Appearing-In-Any-Beige-Midnight-Story created by Matt Rossi.
Kiwis created by Ian Porrell.
Red Herring created by Kieran O'Callaghan.
WikiBoy created by Tom Russell.
Writers Block Woman created by Jaelle (Jessica Ihimaera-Smiler).
You're-Not-Hitting-Me-Hard-Enough Lad created by Arthur Spitzer.
Author's notes:
Let's talk about mind control as a plot device. Considering how
annoying it is when it's over used (and here we have to point the finger
at Chris Claremont's near-fetish with it) I feel a bit guilty about using
it twice in rapid succession - first in 'Attack Of The vampire Cows' in
#24 and again in #27-28. Still, #24 was a Ripping Dancer story designed
to showcase her versatility. When she was introduced in _LNHv2_ #14 she
boasted that she could rip through anything, and I decided to take her
at her word and it was necessary to show her ripping through mental
enslavements as well as physical objects and the fabric of space-time. By
contrast Krodd's mind control was used solely because it was a quick way
for me to set up the 'One nation, undies visible, under Krodd' joke. It
was lazy of me, and I admit it.
That said, there *is* a useful story point to Krodd's antics, which
is to show that Legionnaires are aware of the problem and are working to
counter it. Whether or not they actually succeed is beside the point.
Mind control is a relatively popular story element - even if it tends to
be used as a plot device to take out a large number of characters and
generate dramatic tension. In any case different types of mind
controlling techniques will trump or be trumped by different types of
mental defences, depending on the power and quality of the technology,
psionics, miracles, magic, or baked goods involved.
Another roster entry. It seems that Fuzzy's entry hasn't been
updated since the original, uber brief version originally posted to
usenet back in the 1990s. *Obviously* she needs an extended update
suitable for inclusion on the web.
NAME: Fuzzy
TYPE: Public Domain.
CREATED BY: Connie Hirsch.
POWERS: "Vagueness and ambiguity that confound my enemies." Has an
Ambiguity Field of variable area and intensity which can be used
for a range of confusion causing effects. Carries a handgun.
ADD NOTES: Spent some time as male prior to the first _Flame Wars_
because of confusion among the Writers.
Has brown hair, although this usually isn't apparent.
PERSONALITY: Originally given to confusing people with vague or
contradictory statements. Started speaking more plainly during her
angry-with-newbies phase. Has grown into a tough and competent crime
fighter, but now tends to be the straight woman to a lot of the
Legion's silliness. As Arthur Spitzer once noted: "A happy well-
adjusted Fuzzy who gets along with people is a boring Fuzzy."
IMPORTANT APPEARANCES:
Developed a resentment of the new characters that Writers were
introducing into the Legion (_Pliable Lad_ #30), eventually blocking
the LNH membership application of Green Cheeezarr (_C.H.E.E.E.Z.
Corps_ #17) and fighting Writers Block Woman (_Writers-Block Woman
(and Mouse)_ #17) before being assigned by Ultimate Ninja to mentor
the Misfits (_Misfits_ #3). Has since dealt with her anger issues
and so was unaffected by the hated inciting One-Man-Abusive Reaction
(_Flame Wars 4_ #3).
-----
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon.... at uts.edu.au saxonb... at hotmail.com
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex
world of jet-powered apes and time-travel." - Superman, JLA Classified #3
==========
Next Week: The Countdown Part Fourteen!
==========
Arthur "Same Classic Channel. But Same Time? Probably not." Spitzer
More information about the racc
mailing list