DVANDOM  _____  ______   _____  _______   GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL part 4 of 4
[ ]__   [ ]  [] [ ]__)) [ ]   ` [ ]__     #100 - "CENTURY MARK!"
[ ]     [ ]  [] [ ] \\  [ ]     [ ]       copyright 1999 Dave Van Domelen
[_]     [_]__[] [_]  \\ [_]___/ [_]____   -------]==+   <*>   +==[-------

     [cover shows a black silhouette of Shane Boxer with a big white
      question mark in it.  Arrayed around him are a host of evil
      Hackemon led by the insidious Mew2K.  A banner across the top
      proclaims "FINAL ISSUE!"]

                           THE STORY SO FAR

     Thinking they have wrapped up most of their loose ends after defeating
the Century Pact, Dvandom Force has turned to mainly personal issues.  Lynk
traveled to the Dream Court to assume her full title as dreamqueen and also
deal with a potential threat to the waking world.  In the process, a lot of
buried feelings were brought to the surface, leading the team to a great deal
of introspection and discussion about where they stand in relationship to
each other.
     Shane Boxer, whose body contains the mind and spirit of a time-traveling
rebel from a now-alternate 2077, felt more and more useless as these events
progressed.  Only his physical powers, gained during his infiltration of the
Century Pact, made him feel like he belonged on the team.  Then, one morning,
he encountered a strange little creature called a Picochu, which robbed him
of his powers using its ability to Edit.  The Picochu was then injured before
Shane could track it down, and the damage left it unable to restore his
powers.
     Enter Dr. Elm, a local physician who had been tending Kat's recent
injuries.  He'd studied these creatures, collectively known as Hackemon, and
had some ideas on how Shane could assemble the resources needed to restore
his powers.  Shane embarked on a journey throughout the adjoining states,
fighting other Hackemon trainers and gaining the code Patches they had
designed.  Patches and Hackemon in hand, Shane returned to Dr. Elm's house to
see about using his hard-won prizes to restore his powers.
     Unfortunately, Dr. Elm was not the kindly physician he pretended to be.
Rather, he was a member of the Century Pact who had gone underground.  He had
created the Hackemon as part of a plan to gather resources and build the
orderly dictatorship that the Century Pact had intended.  A dictatorship that
would have brought back the future state Shane had been born into, and which
he had helped prevent from ever coming to pass.
     Taking the Patches, Dr. Elm transformed into his true Pact-created form
of Mew2K, announcing his intention to destroy the Net by undoing all the Y2K
repairs which had been performed.  With civilization reduced to rubble, he
and his Hackemon could carve a new empire that would last a thousand years!
     Note: the Hackemon Vultrix was mistakenly called Ultrix last issue.

=============================================================================

     Shane stared at Mew2K.  Like most Pact creations, he was a cyborg, a
mixture of original flesh and nanotechnological enhancements.  And like Shane
had been before Picochu stole his powers, Mew2K could appear quite normal
when he wanted to.
     Now, however, he looked decidedly abnormal.  Still vaguely humanoid, but
built on a totally different body plan.  Vaguely feline, with a more
triangular head and large eyes, Mew2K had long arms and short legs, with a
very low center of gravity.  A number of cables snaked around behind his
body, no doubt serving a function similar to that of the Psydock's...forced
interface. 
     "Elm," Shane contemptuously used the name Mew2K had abandoned, "people
aren't going to be too eager to follow someone who just destroyed the world
as they knew it."
     Mew2K laughed, metal fangs gleaming in the halflight coming in through
the MIME-encrusted windows.  "But *I* won't be the one who destroyed it!  It
will be the Millennium Bug, the result of short-sighted business and
government leaders and their money-saving policies.  *I* will be one of the
saviors of the Net, with my ability to heal ravaged systems," he lashed his
interface cables for emphasis.  "To be sure, I won't rule the world
immediately.  I lack the raw power of DeFacto V, or even of the leaders of
the Pact.  But I've already won over the hearts and minds of the next
generation with my Hackemon...I *will* rule the world by the time they have
children of their own."
     It seemed ludicrous on the surface...like following the leadership of a
television character just because kids liked him.  But weirder things had
happened in the Looniverse, Shane realized.  Like the serious threat of
Bhar'nee, or President Reagan's two terms in office.  A chill ran down
Shane's spine.  Offer order to the parents and play on the desires of the
children...it might actually work.
     "Yes, it WILL actually work," Mew2K sneered.  "Your mind is an open book
to one with my powers, rebel.  As are the minds of your teammates, who I've
had plenty of time to study.  A quick strike on them, and I'll have no
potential threats near enough to stop my plans!"
     "Except this one!" Shane shouted.  "Picochu!  Bulbas.org!  DOS.duo!
Vultrix!  Unix!  Charaset!  Attack!"
     With a flash of light, a phalanx of Hackemon appeared between Shane and
Mew2K, all ready to pounce...until Mew2K created a screen of light between
him and the Hackemon.
     "PLEASE," Mew2K sneered.  "I *created* the Hackemon...do you think I
wouldn't have kept the very best for myself?  I'll let you ponder that while
I go destroy your friends.  Exeggutable!  Fanficuno!  Windos!  Raytres!
Dragonerror!  Deal with these nuisances!"
     There was a flash of light in the other room as the other Hackemon were
freed from their Hackesacks, and they filed into the room, laughing evilly.
Their eyes glowed red, but despite this their eyesockets were deep and
shadowed. 
     "I'd say farewell, Mr. Boxer, but I don't wish for you to fare well.  So
goodbye, instead," Mew2K laughed as he rose into the air and ghosted out
through the roof of the house.
     Shane took a quick look at the opposition.  Exeggutable looked like some
sort of ambulatory fruit tree, but with program icons instead of fruit.
Fanficuno, Windos and Raytres were all birdlike creatures...the first seemed
to flicker and turn into trademarked characters briefly before turning back
into a bird; the second had "Windos 2000" imprinted on its breast; the last
looked computer-generated.  Finally, Dragonerror was almost too big to fit in
the room.  It reminded him a little of Pyre-ate, the Dragon of Warez, but
with shorter wings.
     Then the wall of light fell and they attacked.

               *              *              *              *

     ATV Frank turned a corner, and the lush vegetation of late summer
suddenly gave way to the bare trees and brown grass of December.  He nearly
swerved off the road.
     "Gah, I hate it when that happens," he muttered to no one in
particular.  He'd been around the Looniverse enough to know that such
"topical shifts" happened every so often, when it was important that the
story line up with some important date, but the Writer didn't want to tell
what happened in the intervening months.
     Then he stopped completely.  There was a Hackemon in the middle of the
road.  The second biggest one he'd seen, in fact.
     "Aren't you cute?" Frank cooed to the vaguely catlike Hackemon,
transforming to his Robo mode.
     "I prefer to be thought of as commanding, actually," the Hackemon
replied, a sardonic edge to its voice.  "Or terrifying, perhaps."
     Frank cocked his head, trying to work out how the Hackemon could
possibly be terrifying.
     Then it blasted him back into a hillside with mental energy, and Frank's
last thought as it erased his mind was, "Okay, you're terrifying."

               *              *              *              *

     The evil Hackemon charged.  Shane knew he only had the barest moment in
which to act...and he hoped that the Looniversal paradigms were still
holding.
     "Bulbas.org, FLASH!  DOS.duo, SCREECH!" he shouted, closing his eyes and
covering his ears.
     The two senses-shattering attacks went off, blinding and deafening the
enemy Hackemon partially.  They were too powerful to completely affect, but
hopefully this would be enough to do the job.
     "Unix, lay down a papertrail!  Everyone else, attack the Dragonerror!"
     The printer-like Hackemon started spitting reams of paper into the air,
confusing the already partly-senseless foes.  Chaos erupted, just as Shane
had hoped...evil is more powerful individually, but less able to work
together then the chips are down.
     Sparks from Picochu, razor-sharp CDROMs from Vultrix, cable lashes from
Bulbas.org and Charaset and savage kicks from DOS.duo hammered into the
isolated Dragonerror.  It reeled from the attacks, unable to get a clean shot
at anyone.  It went down without a single error message.  The odds were
getting better.
     "Unix, gift-wrap the Exeggutable!"
     In a scene reminiscent of the movie Brazil, a storm of paper clung to
the shrub-like Hackemon, keeping it from attacking or even moving.  Shane's
Hackemon had the idea by this point, and piled onto the Exeggutable,
rendering it quickly unconscious.
     Shane was about to shout in victory...then the Raytres burst from the
paper storm and breathed liquidy flames out.  Oddly, the paper didn't burn,
nor did anything else in the room, except for the target...Unix.  It screamed
electronically as badly computer-animated flames washed over it and set off
internal explosions.  The paper vanished, and three now-unhindered avian
Hackemon attacked in earnest.
     "Charaset, WHIRLWIND!" Shane shouted, and the draconian Hackemon
complied, kicking up a serious wind with its winglike keyboards.  Then the
Fanficuno vanished.
     Had it, though?  Suddenly, the Charaset was scored by three parallel
cuts as a SNIKT sound could be heard.  Shane tried to look at where the
attack had to come from, but something was keeping him from seeing anything
there.  [Editor's note: The Fanficuno has the power to turn into trademarked
characters.  Because of RACC's charter, this renders it invisible because no
one can describe it well enough to establish identity, lest trademark be
violated.  However, it is a dangerous power to use, as it might result in the
Fanficuno being expelled from the story.]
     "Charaset, use KEYBIND!  Vultrix, Bulbas.org, keep the Windos busy,
everyone else, on the Raytres!"
     Charaset flapped its keyboards again, and a shower of keycaps flew out,
striking everything in the immediate area and outlining the Fanficuno in a
cloud of plastic bits.  It struggled in the binding, but was not immediately
able to get free.
     Meanwhile, the Windos was cruelly installing Office 2000 on Vultrix's
hard drives, completely filling them and leaving the Hackemon unable to do
anything at all.  Bulbas.org flailed at the bird with its cables, but to
little effect.
     Raytres seemed to be faring less well.  The DOS.duo couldn't see its
creations, and therefore was unaffected by them.  Picochu was editing holes
in the barrier of reflective spheres the Raytres had erected, and the
battered Unix was gamely spitting out a few tattered sheets of paper to
distract it.
     "Time to take a personal hand in this," Shane said, stepping up to the
bound Fanficuno.  "Boot to the head!" he shouted as he kicked roughly where
the Hackemon's head seemed to be.  It collapsed in a heap.
     Shane turned just in time to see Vultrix collapse from a system error as
Windos turned to trying to sue Bulbas.org over its domain space.  And Raytres
had taken the time to put the Unix out completely, being unable to hit
Picochu and unable to affect DOS.duo.
     "Bulbas.org, invoke charter!"
     The reptilian Hackemon nodded, raising legal shields against corporate
ownership of an .org domain and rebuffing the attack.
     Unfortunately, the Windos decided at this point that teamwork might be
useful, and it flapped across the room to where its comrade was penned in by
the Picochu and DOS.duo.  With a casual shrug, it overwrote DOS with Windows
98, bringing the DOS.duo over to its side.
     "Picochu, uninstall!"
     "Pico!" it strained, but to no effect.  The programming was impossible
to cleanly uninstall.
     Meanwhile, the Bulbas.org had decided it wanted a new dance partner, and
it had sauntered over to the Raytres.  It started to glow.
     The action stopped as everyone looked at Bulbas.org.  It seemed to be
building power for something...but what?
     "BULBAS.ORG!" it shouted, and there was a bright flare of light.  When
Shane's vision cleared, he saw that Raytres was now confined to Bulbas.org's
monitor screen!  Of course...the SCREENCAPTURE maneuver!
     That *would* have left only one opponent, but it had recruited DOS.duo.
     "Windos!" the remaining original foe crowed, fixing Shane with an evil
stare.  That one word conveyed worlds of meaning...the Windos had decided to
stop messing with the Hackemon and kill their master.
     Before he could react, both Windos and DOS.duo rushed at him, sinking
their beaks into the flesh of his chest.  He saw red, tasted blood in his
mouth. 
     Shane sank against the wall as the two birds backed up for another
charge.  But...was Picochu...glowing?
     "Pico...Pico..." it stammered, in shock and denial.  "Pico...VICHU!" it
screamed as it suddenly evolved, growing in size and complexity.
     Windos turned to look at the newly-evolved Vichu, with some concern.  It
nodded, and the DOS.duo ran to attack the Vichu.
     "Vi!" 
     The DOS.duo stopped and shook its heads in confusion.  Somehow, the code
had been uninstalled!
     "Windos!" the remaining enemy screeched as it dove for Shane's face.  It
*would* complete its mission.
     "VICHU!" came the cry...and the Windos was no more.  It had been Edited
out of existence, along with the other defeated evil Hackemon.
     Shane smiled and tried to ignore the bubbling feeling in his chest as he
slid down the wall.  Picochu had finally evolved and gained full control over
its Edit power.  Too bad it was too late for Shane....

               *              *              *              *

     Anna clutched her head in pain, almost immediately recognizing the
source of the pain as a psychic attack.  She concentrated on blocking it out,
unable to let herself hear the screams and cries of everyone else in the
house as they also suffered from the assault.  Collecting the last of her
almost-shattered nerves, Anna summoned the dream armor she had recently
gained.  While not very useful against physical attacks in the waking world,
it shielded her mind and spirit.
     The screaming in her mind now a dull whisper, Rotanna focused on the
source of the psychic barrage.  It was coming from the waking world...just
outside the house, in fact.  She sprinted for the door, calling up the wicked
dreamspear she controlled.  After almost tripping over Squidman's prone form,
she made it out into the back yard, which was cold and covered in a dusting
of snow.  The VAXX was already out there, staring up into the sky.
     "Ah, so nice of you to come out and greet your guest," a figure up in
the air purred.  Literally...for he looked vaguely like a humanoid cat.  "I'm
not too surprised you weathered my initial gambit," he added, "but I didn't
expect the monitor-headed moron to still be up and about."
     "Who are you?" Rotanna demanded.
     He chuckled, drifting down closer to the ground.  "I would say that it
isn't important, but it is...after all, you have some magical talent, and
knowing my name might help you focus it on me."
     He was interrupted as the VAXX jumped up and took a swipe at him, barely
missing.
     "Hrm, I suppose I should shut this one down," the attacker mused,
focusing his huge eyes on the VAXX.  "Stupid as he is, it shouldn't take much
to shut his mind off."
     Rotanna could feel the arc of psychic energy slamming into the VAXX,
turning off part of his mind.  But she knew the VAXX wasn't a moron...he was
instead gifted with more knowledge than his brain could process, omniscience
that had become a curse.  What effect might turning down the omniscience
have? 
     "Mew2K," the VAXX said in a coldly intelligent voice.  "Remnant of the
Century Pact, you seek to devastate the Net and build an empire out of the
pieces, not knowing that another of your brethren has similar but
incompatible goals."
     Rotanna decided to use this "Mew2K"'s momentary astonishment to her
advantage, hurling the dreamspear with all her might.
     Mew2K simply glanced at the dreamspear and it stopped in mid-flight.
Then it turned around and shot at the VAXX, impaling his head and dropping
him like a poleaxed steer.  An entity partly of the dreamlands, he was more
strongly affected by the spear than anyone else in the waking world would
have been.
     "I don't know why my attack suddenly turned him into a savant, but I can
investigate him further after I've dealt with you and then taken the time to
ensure that all of you are truly out of my way," Mew2K snarled.
     Rotanna knew she didn't have a chance on this field of battle.  Her
strongest weapon had been brushed aside as if it were nothing.  Time to
escape bodily into the dreamlands...she opened a portal and started to step
through.
     Then she screamed.
     "You may have avoided my broader attack, but you'll find my psychic
powers can easily overwhelm your defenses if I concentrate on you.  For now,
I like you just the way you are...you'll keep."
     Anna continued to scream, caught half in and half out of the portal,
unable to move, unable to even think....

               *              *              *              *

     Shane coughed, sending waves of pain across his skewered chest and
spurts of blood out of his mouth.  He knew the wound was fatal...maybe if
he'd been in a hospital right then, he could have been saved.  But even if
his Hackemon intuited his situation and carried him to help or brought in
paramedics, it would be too late.  Even now, there was more blood outside his
body than in it...or at least it looked that way.  And above the pain, above
everything, Shane just felt so *tired*.
     "Vi," the Vichu said to the other Hackemon.  It seemed to be moving with
a sense of purpose.  What was it planning to do?  Arrange a nice funeral?
Maybe go avenge Shane's death?
     The Vichu prodded the unconscious Hackemon, nudging them back into
wakefulness and getting them to stagger over to where Shane lay, forming a
rough semi-circle around him.  They seemed to be trying to track through his
cooling blood, without actually coming over and touching him.
     Then, at some signal Shane couldn't see, they all came forward.  They
placed hands, paws, heads, feet...whatever they could...on Shane's body.
Unix and Vultrix touched his arms, Charaset and DOS.duo his legs.  Bulbas.org
extended a cable and laid it on Shane's forehead.  And then Vichu settled
down over the wounds on Shane's chest.
     They started to hum.
     Oddly, Shane felt better.  He'd never been so close to death, so he
couldn't be sure if this wasn't just a moment of painlessness before the
final death rattle.  Or was it something the Hackemon were doing?
     Now they were glowing.  First, a pale grey luminescence, like a cloudy
sky at night near a city.  Then brighter and brighter, until Shane could
close his eyes and still see them.  The humming seemed to stay steady, but
soon Shane could hear the whole house rumbling in tune with it, so it must
have been getting a lot louder.

     And then...for a moment...Shane felt nothing at all.

     He opened his eyes.  The house was gone, utterly demolished to the point
that not one brick sat upon another.  There was no sign of Hackemon, either
his or the ones Vichu had somehow banished.
     He looked down at his chest, which was now...well, not whole.  But the
massive damage was gone, and over his heart was a familiar golden
touchplate.  
     Shane realized what had happened.  Somehow, his Hackemon had sacrificed
themselves.  Not just to heal him, but to bring back the powers he had lost.
     Panic gripped Shane.  The others!  They needed to be warned, if it
wasn't already too late!  The nearest working phone was over a mile away, but
in armored form he could cover that distance in a little over a minute.
     Shane tapped the touchplate, and metal started to seep out of his pores
to cover his skin...but something was different.  Not just metal was seeping
out, but a sort of starry darkness that was covering his body.  And it *felt*
different as well...this was more than mere armor or exoskeleton.  More than
a cybernetic enhancement.  It was as if he was being coated in a second soul.
     Then the darkness reached his eyes and the world lit up around him.  A
riot of color and sensation drenched him, senses he could barely describe,
yet which somehow were completely under his control.
     "What...what is this?" he asked of no one in particular.
     "Our gift," replied a voice that seemed to speak in his mind.  A
familiar voice, although it had never spoken those words before.
     "Vichu?" Shane asked, looking around to see if he'd missed seeing the
small Hackemon.
     "And more.  We are all in you now, although we all speak with my voice,"
Vichu explained.  "But we are no longer the Hackemon you collected and
carried, we are something more, thanks to you."
     "I didn't really do anything but make you fight," Shane shrugged
guiltily.  
     "No.  You inspired us to be selfless.  You forced us to transcend
ourselves and our origins.  And by merging with you, we changed from mere
machines to...something between machine and man.  We share a spirit, all of
us do.  But a spirit shared is not a spirit lessened...the restoration of our
body should be proof of that."
     Shane considered that.  And he knew of a similar situation from reading
Dvandom Force's history files.  "It's like Constellation, from before I came
to this time."
     "A good name," the voice in his mind said.  "And those of us who were
Hackemon...call us Matrix, for that is what we now form."
     "Well, Matrix...let's go warn Dvandom Force!"
     And with that, a new Constellation took to the sky.

               *              *              *              *

     Mew2K surveyed the headquarters of the defeated Dvandom Force.  All
felled within moments, thanks to his knowledge of their weaknesses.  True, he
had been cocky and underestimated the hulking VAXX, but this had only delayed
him by seconds and presented him with a potentially vast storehouse of useful
information to plumb.  Indeed, he had *not* known that any others of the
Century Pact had survived, and now probed the ether seeking a familiar
contact.  
     There!  To the east...Mandrake.  That one had never really believed in
the Pact's goals, and could pose a problem.  Still, his was the domain of
flesh, while Mew2K was master of the mind.  Mandrake could be dealt with in
due time.
     Now, how to permanently remove Dvandom Force from the picture?  Death
was not a wise move...too often a dead net.hero simply came back with new
powers and the specific abilities needed to defeat the one who killed him.
But death of the body wasn't necessary.  He had hours before his other plans
would require attention.  Plenty of time to wipe the minds of these
net.heroes and give them new ones.  Minds obedient to Mew2K and the ideals of
the Century Pact.  Ah, yes...delicious irony, that those who had thwarted
DeFacto V himself might now serve his aims.
     Suddenly, a presence registered on Mew2K's mind.  Powerful.  Coming from
the direction of his own house.  Could his Hackemon have come to join him
after killing...damn.  He almost slapped himself for neglecting the lesson he
was crowing about moments ago.  Although he was powerless, Shane Boxer was
still a net.hero, and killing him might have had undesirable but dramatic
consequences.
     Mew2K marshalled his resources and steeled himself against the impending
conflict.

               *              *              *              *

     Shane had flown before, back in his own time and body, when he was a
member of the rebel Dvandomforce.  But that had been with the assitance of a
jetpack, an external thing that pushed him into the air.  Now he was slicing
through the air as if he were an errant wind, a part of the sky rather than a
crude visitor.
     It was so exhilarating he almost forgot the seriousness of his mission.
Almost.
     "What's that flare?  The one that looks sort of C-sharp orange furry?"
he struggled with terms for the new senses he now "saw" with.
     "Mew2K," Matrix replied.  "And it looks like we're too late to warn the
others."
     "If we're too late to save them, then it's too late for ANYTHING to save
Elm!" Shane shouted, pouring on the speed and rocketing across the
countryside, leaving a starry trail in his wake.  The angular metallic pieces
covering parts of his body glowed like they were white-hot out of a forge,
and space itself seemed to sizzle and warp in the fraction of a second it
took him to close the gap with Mew2K.
     He was met with a sharp burst that nearly knocked him from the sky, and
gave him a massive headache.
     "Psychic...attack..." Matrix gasped.  "We're taking the...worst of it."
     Shane stretched out his arms and poured his anger at Mew2K.  Stars
erupted from his fingertips and sprayed against the evil Hackemon, bursting
as they hit.  The headache slackened as Mew2K gasped in pain himself.
     "You know what I really hate about you net.heroes?  Nothing orderly can
last in your presence.  Even the laws of nature wither around you...why don't
you people stay dead?!" Mew2K shouted, erecting a screen of light to block
the starry assault.
     "You know me, Elm...just gotta be the rebel," Shane sneered, recovering
his equilibrium.
     "Can't you see that I'm saving the world?" Mew2K snarled.  "It's full of
chaos and overpopulation and pain!  In one sweep, I will bring the world back
under rein, establish order and bring an end to hunger and want for those who
remain...it will be a world where all are equal!"
     "Equal as slaves!" Shane spat back.  "I've *lived* that world, Elm.
Sterile and cold, with no freedom or creativity.  Sure, everyone's well-fed
and has a roof over their heads, but there's no room for anyone to be
different!  It's the tyranny of the majority taken so far that there is no
freedom at all, where any deviance from the mean is stamped out.  That's not
equality...unless you count the equality of the grave!"
     "Then feel free to be equal in your *own* grave!" Mew2K shouted,
telekinetically lifting a metal post and hurling it at Shane's chest.  To
Shane's surprise, the starfield there parted, and the pole vanished into his
body with only a slight rippling sensation.
     Almost by reflex, Shane launched another barrage of stars, but it
glanced harmlessly off Mew2K's barrier.
     "We seem to be at an impasse here," Mew2K purred.  "I cannot hurt you,
you cannot harm me.  But...I can still wipe the minds of your friends while
we wait."  He chuckled evilly.
     "No!" Shane gasped.  He needed more power to get through those shields,
but he didn't know how the first Constellation had done it.  He knew about
the Comet Sword, but hadn't the faintest idea how to make one.
     "Then don't try to be the original Constellation," Matrix replied.  "You
have your own memories of how to power up."
     Matrix was right!  Before he'd been a net.hero, before he'd come to this
time from 2077, he had been a rebel.  Part of Dvandomforce.  And while he had
only ever posessed a low-level cyclo-heart implant, the principles were the
same all the way up to the powerful Series 8.  The wires and cybernetics
might have been removed from his body, but the memories remained...the
familiar patterns that had gone unused since his travels through time.
     He slammed a fist to his chest.  "DVANDOMFORCE!" he shouted, and the
glow from his body grew bright enough to rival the Sun.
     "PROJECTOR!"
     Stars flew from his body in every direction, with planes of glowing grey
force connecting them and forming a shape...a body....
     Mew2K looked up in shock as Shane's form was surrounded with light and
energy in the form of a giant, angular robot.  Easily as large as the
Hydrabuster or DeFacto V's Black Widow and Necrosaur bodies, but as heroic as
those were monstrous.  Mew2K lashed out with the full force of his psychic
and telekinetic powers, to no effect.
     The robot held its right arm up to the skies, as if reaching for
something.  A booming voice issued from it.  
     "MEGAWEAPON!"
     Lightning streaked from the cloudless sky and into the outstretched
hand, which closed about the crackling energy.  The lightning seethed and
sputtered and coalesced into a mighty sword.  An experimental weapon the
Dvandomforce rebels had never had the chance to test, but which rested in
Shane's memory...and now in his hand.
     And then, almost gently, Shane brought the blade down and sliced through
Mew2K's energy barrier as if it were not there.  A touch of the sword, and
the agent of stifling order burst into flames and vaporized.

               *              *              *              *

     "I have to go," Shane shook his head.  "I'm too powerful for this world,
even now while I'm still learning.  If I stayed, I'd eventually give in to
the temptation to use my powers to fix everything wrong with the world."
     "What's so bad about that?" Rotanna demanded.
     "Speaking as one who's been there," Al interjected, "absolute power
tends to corrupt absolutely."
     "Well, there's that," Squidman nodded.
     Shane shook his head.  "No, that's not the problem.  Even if I never
lost sight of what's good and all that, I'd be a hypocrite if I tried to fix
everything.  That was the Pact's obsession.  How can anyone be free if
they're not free to make mistakes?  Keeping things from falling apart is one
thing...net.heroes do it all the time.  But pretty soon I'll be so far out of
that league that Kid Kirby'll look like an invalid next to me.  Come on,
after all the time this group has spent fighting to keep cosmic powers from
controlling the world, do you think I want to become one of them, even with
the best of intentions?"
     "But..." Macroman finally said, "if your intentions are to preserve
freedom, how could you turn into a Master Workload?"
     Shane shrugged.  "I don't know how, but I'm sure it'd happen
eventually.  But you can't *force* freedom.  Anything I do would keep someone
from actually making a choice for himself, herself or itself.  And could I
remove one person's free will to preserve another's?  The question was tricky
enough when all I could do was beat people up really well.  But at some point
I'm going to figure out how to mess with minds and even spirits."  He
sighed.  "Look, it may not be goodbye forever.  Maybe I'll grow in spirit as
well as in power, and be able to resist the urge to play God.  Maybe I'll
find the original Constellation out there and he'll have some pointers for
me...who knows, maybe he's already worked it out and is living happily in
suburbia with a wife and kids."
     "We understand," Squidman laid a hand on Shane's shoulder.  "With great
power comes great responsibility, or so the cliche goes.  And sometimes the
responsible thing to do is to take the next bus out of town, give yourself
time to come to grips with things.  I hope it doesn't take you TOO long,
though," he grinned behind the cowl.
     "Well...oh, crap.  I forgot.  Just a minute," Shane tapped his chest,
bringing out his starry second skin.  Then he flew out the door so quickly
that even Macroman couldn't follow his motion.
     A somewhat nervous minute and a half later, Shane reappeared, with a
limp metal body in his arms.  
     "Mew2K got to Frank on his way here...wiped his mind completely.  And
his most recent backups were done before we left on our Hackemon hunt...but
that's probably for the best.  I didn't really treat him as well as I should
have.  When you bring him back online, tell him I'm sorry."
     Shane set the body down.
     "Well, unless..." Shane started.
     "Hold it right there, mister," Anna interrupted.  "Could you drop the
stars for a second?"
     Shane nodded and sent the starskin back inside himself.
     Then Anna grabbed him and gave him the most passionate kiss he could
remember ever getting.  When she finally broke off, he was gasping for air.
     "Good luck out there," Anna smiled.  "But I think you've already found
what you were really looking for."
     Shane wasn't quite sure what she meant, but smiled and nodded.
     "Well, unless Kat would like to give me a goodbye kiss as well," Shane
smirked, grinning at the "Hell, no" look Kat shot him, "I guess this is
farewell.  I'll write, if I can find an interdimensional post office and can
actually explain anything I run into," he grinned as he tapped his chest
again.  
     The stars welled up around him.
     And then he flew off to see the real stars....

               *              *              *              *

     Sidewinder walks out onto a blank stage, a lone spotlight tracking him
as he moves.  He stops at the center and looks out at you, the reader.
     "Well, that's it.  End of the series.  Finito."
     Pause.
     "What, not everything was resolved?  Of course not.  Maybe a little more
was taken care of than you noticed, but I won't go into that.  Kat and Al?
He's still pining, she's still rebuffing...that one's gonna take a while, and
I'm sure most of you have been there or seen that sort of thing happen before
anyway.  Dreamland revolution?  Who knows?  Seeds for a future story, or
maybe just something to make you think.  Mandrake?  That's something going on
in Alt.Riders, and if you're not reading that already, shame on you.  Anyway,
even in stories, there's always going to be a few loose ends, things that
really can't or won't tie up neatly when the main action ends.  I'm okay with
that, it makes me feel a little more alive, a little more real.  Gives me
hope that maybe, someday, we'll all get together and tell another story to
each other."
     Another pause.
     "Yeah, to each other.  Even if all you do is sit there and read, that
contributes something to the experience for everyone.  And if you're inspired
to write, then so much the better.  In the end, we're all stories of some
sort, some of us just happen to be made of flesh and blood while others are
made of dots and lines.  I've had the privilege of being along for the ride
for a big chunk of this particular story, even if I was doomed to sit on the
sidelines most of the time.  But for once..."
     Sidewinder smiles and looks around to make sure he's alone on the stage.
     "For once, *I* get the last word."
     The light winks out.
     The curtain falls.
     The fourth wall closes in.

=============================================================================

Next Issue:

     There isn't one!

=============================================================================

Author's Notes:

     Well, it's been a long run.  I may not have been the first LNH writer to
hit 100 issues on a single title, but it *is* a pretty small group.  In the
tradition of Superguy, I decided a while ago to end this series at #100, a
nice round number.  While I don't have the stats all together, one hundred
issues works out to nearly half a million lines of text, several million
words, and something like 50 megs of memory.  Not too shabby.  But I've been
running out of steam lately, especially since the LNH overall has become less
of a place for me to interact with as people graduate, stop having time to
write, etc.  The fact that I've put out less than ten issues in all of 1999
is a definite sign that it's about time for me to move on to other things.
The fire in my belly that led to all of X-Post Facto being written in
something like five days doesn't burn anymore.  At least, not for LNH.  More
of a low simmer now.
     Mind you, I'm not dramatically leaving the LNH forever or anything like
that.  But if I write more LNH, it won't be titled Constellation or Dvandom
Force, and it'll start over at #1.  Maybe I'll write more stories with cast
from Dvandom Force, but probably not for a while.  Mind you, this doesn't
mean I'm throwing them out into the public domain...I don't want to check my
mail someday and get told that some new writer's doing his own book with Kid
Pocky and Kat, for instance.  I'm not killing them off and I'm not making
them totally inaccessible, but they're not free for everyone to use, either.
     Anyway, that said, I'll still be writing on rec.arts.comics.creative
until circumstances force me to stop (like, if I get a tenure-track teaching
job that sucks up 60 hours a week while I get started).  Look for more ASH,
maybe some LNH or Superguy, etc.

     Finally, a few more Pokemon references explained:

     Exeggutable = Exeggutor + executable
     Fanficuno = Articuno + fanfic
     Windos = Zapdos + Windows
     Raytres = Moltres + ray trace
     Dragonerror = Dragonair + error message

     And yes, I just had to keep the bad language joke of having the
Legendary Hackemon with uno, dos, tres in their names.  Serially-Numbered
Hackemon, woo.