LNH/REPOST: Digital JUMP! #2: "BRAILLE! Basu Gasu Bakuhatsu!"

[Drew Nilium]

Reposter's Note: Less ecchi humor this time! That said, the cliffhanger joke, 
and the way it goes in the next issue... well, I'll be kind to myself and note 
that it was *wholly thru ignorance* that I made the NRA innocent victims of what 
could certainly be read as left-wing terrorists. x-x

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PREHISTORIC PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS

IN ASSOCIATION WITH A THOUSAND YEARS OF BLOODY INTERNECINE SPELLING
BEES

 From the files of the Molybdenum Age...

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Digital JUMP!

Written by Andrew Perron
Cover art by Robert Ruehlmann

Issue #2 - BRAILLE!  Basu Gasu Bakuhatsu!

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

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"Last time, on Digital JUMP!"


"Go now, Lucy!"

"But Edmund, if the White Witch catches up to you -"

"Don't be a fool!  You have to get those nuclear launch codes to the
President!  Now GO!"

"Edmund..."

"Going somewhere?"

"My God!  Not... MAHATMA GHANDI!"


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      "Aha, a net.hero steps out from the mouth of the dungeon!  The
death of such a unique will surely net many experience points for
me..."

"LIKE ROUGE!"

"Copying and pasting from last issue, five minute penalty."

Curses.





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

"Quiet, you!  What are you supposed to do if you don't go into the
dungeon, anyway?  Scum for singing happy drunks?  Though if you're in
one that has a wilderness, I suppose..."

"You fool!  One person, downloading this issue from the archives a few
years from now, will understand that!  I'll stop you before these
jokes can get any more in!"

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


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


"Argh!" Kid Enthusiastic gasped as he staggered back from the volley
of blows. "Well, two can play at that game!" He leaned down and
flipped a switch on the side of his rollerblades.  Tiny rockets sprung
out and ignited, shooting him forward past the net.villain - who, it
should be said at *some* point, was dressed in medieval leathers, and
wore a backpack filled to bursting with random this and that - and
around in a wide arc, back at the criminal again.

"Have at you!" he shouted, jousting with a stun lance.  The Like Rouge
dodged and, as the hero passed, shot him in the back with a sling.

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

Laughing evilly and stereotypically, like an evil stereotypical
laughing villain who is stereotypical, evil and a parody of a green
monkey's style of speech, which it wasn't because he's based on
entirely different pop culture reference, though I suppose I could
have mixed that in if I wanted to, but I didn't because it's a parody
anyway and adding that in might have made the weight of the reference
collapse upon itself, forming a satirical black hole from which no
irony can escape...

Where was I?

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

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

"Hah!  You won't fool me with that old trick!  ...but wait, it's a
cliche for someone to say that and then fall prey to a real attack
from behind, isn't it?  HA!  ...but no, the author could be going for
the double-irony joke and have him defeat me while my back is turned.
But is he really smart enough to think of such a thing?  Then again, I
suppose if he puts it into my dialouge, he must be aware of the humor
value, but if I'm already talking about it it's much too obvious a
joke to use now..."

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

"No, I think I can figure it out... huh?"

*GA-BONK!*

The person who really *had* been sneaking up behind him (don't try to
second-guess God!) dropped the brick he was holding as Like Rouge
slumped forward.  He wore a black bomber jacket with flames blazing
along the bottom edge, black jeans and aviator goggles over his eyes.
His skin was Caucasian-y and his hair was brown and spiky.  Bending
over, he helped the younger net.hero up.

"Oof..." Kid Enthusiastic brushed the dust off his beige jumpsuit (Did
I mention he had one of those?  That's his costume, you know.  With a
domino mask.  Dangit.) and smiled. "Ah, hello!  You must be my new
sidekick!"

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

"Oh, don't be bashful.  Hmmmm, the outfit's good, a little flashy but
that's what being a superhero's about.  What about a name, maybe 'Fat
Chocobo' or 'Lad Happyman'...  Do you happen to have dead parents?  I
could adopt you as my ward!"

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

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

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

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

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But in the shadowy alley, a mysterious figure lurked, a mysterious
figure who would provide clues to the audience, setting up the first
story arc and establishing subplots that would carry on through
several different arcs, possibly culminating in several different spin-
off series and a critically accaimed movie with a string of
unsuccessful sequels.

He spoke.

"I hope they're ready."

"Our best chance... honestly, our only chance.  If they fail..."

"...they can't fail.  They mustn't."

"Oh, God... I hope they're ready."

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After that oddly serious interlude, we join our heroes...

(hmmm?  mmmm.  mmm...)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You have your own AIRCRAFT?"

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

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

"Nah, that's just hyperbola." *rimshot*

Finished with the math jokes, they climbed on the floating geometric
construct and flew off toward the sky-bound structure.  Kid E took
(hah, thought I was going to say "pulled", didn't you) out a pair of
binoculars and scanned the chopper.

"Hmmmmm, I've seen that symbol somewhere before..."

"Oh?  What symbol?"

He handed over the binoculars. "That thing that looks like a (/) over
a stylized machine gun."

"Ah.  ...I suppose there's no use in asking how you pronounced that."

"Pronounced what?"

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

"ow.  Thanks."

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

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

THE PACIFIST MILITIA!"

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SD-Casey: "Next Issue!"

"Another enemy announced dramatically at the end of the issue!
Sources say Diet Dr. Pepper contributed to the mental breakdown!"

"Nevertheless, now Kid Enthusiastic and Casey must save the NRA from
the clutches of violent nonviolence!  Hopefully, there won't be any
Charleton Heston jokes, or I might be forced to seek out emplyoment in
Limp-Asparagus Lad!"

"Next time on Digital JUMP!  CULUMON!  Cruel Bodhissattva's Thesis!"

"Kiss the vampire ladybug..."

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Author's Note:

Well, that was fun.  Less anime references this time, though that
wasn't a concious decision.

In case anyone's wondering, Like Rouge was a reference to a genre of
game called "rougelikes", and specifically the one known as Angband.
http://www.thangorodrim.net/ in case you want to know more.

Kid Enthusiastic, Like Rouge, Casey von Aluminumfoil, and the Pacifist
Militia are copyright Andrew Perron, 2002.  Buddhism is copyright
Siddhartha Guatama (and I almost spelled that right!), 535 BCE.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, is Excel-chan a side dish?

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Drew "I haven't referenced Excel Saga in a good while" Nilium