DVANDOM _____ ______ _____ _______ GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL part 3 of 4 [ ]__ [ ] [] [ ]__)) [ ] ` [ ]__ #99 - "Evilution!" [ ] [ ] [] [ ] \\ [ ] [ ] copyright 1999 Dave Van Domelen [_] [_]__[] [_] \\ [_]___/ [_]____ -------]==+ <*> +==[------- [cover shows Shane and Picochu being beaten up by attacks coming from off-panel. At the bottom of the page are the silhouettes of a row of theater seats, with three figures sitting on the right side and gesturing mockingly at the action.] "What the heck is this?" Shane looked up at a tall structure by the side of the highway outside Freenet. It was like someone had built a single wall for a large building, then given up. After a pause, Shane added, "That wasn't a rhetorical question, Frank. What is it?" "Permission to speak, sir?" Frank snarked. Shane rolled his eyes. "Granted." "It's a drive-in movie theater, dummy. What, were you born yesterday?" "No, I was born fifty years from now," Shane punched Frank's handlebars. "Oh yeah. Anyway, people used to drive in to these drive-ins...hence the name...and watch movies after the sun went down. As multiplexes started to appear, the drive-in declined in popularity, and operators couldn't afford the major releases. So they got cheap and cheesy Z-grade movies, some of which were specifically made for the ever-lowering standards of the drive- ins. Some real stinkbombs, let me tell you. Why, my databanks include..." "I get the point. So this place shows bad movies?" "Not anymore, oh mighty overlord. Check out the sign. Out of business. Probably just rotting here until someone buys the land and turns it into a strip mall or storage unit farm," Frank speculated. "Well, it's the only structure for about a mile in either direction, so this must be the place where the Freenet Tym is located. C'mon, let's go in." Shane and ATV Frank motored up to the chained-off entrance, then scooted around the posts and onto the peculiarly rippled blacktop of the theater. "Anyone home?" Shane shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. The door of a shack garishly labeled "Snack Bar" opened up, and a slender red-headed girl stepped out. "Who wants to know?" she shouted. "A Hackemon trainer!" Shane shouted back, feeling a little silly as he did so. "This is getting silly!" she shouted. "Come on over here!" Frank bumped his way over the slight rises, no doubt taking the straight line route in order to make things uncomfortable for Shane. Soon they were at the door. "Hi, I'm MSTie," the jumpsuited girl extended a hand in greeting. "Shane Boxer," he replied, shaking her hand. "You live here?" "Nah," she shook her head, ponytail bobbing. "My aunt Pearl owns this place, she lets me hang out during the summer as long as I keep vandals out. Sometimes I show some of the really bad old movies in the vaults. It's a lot more fun now that I have my Hackemon to watch the movies with. So...what brings you here?" "A trainer named Brack," Shane paused as MSTie rolled her eyes, "um, he told me about you after I beat him in a duel. I'm looking for Patches." "Well, I make the CascadePatch," she beamed. "It lets your Hackemon post repeatedly on a single thread, adding one or two lines each time. It's not too useful in a fight, but it can be fun if you get together with the right trainers." "I don't suppose you'd give me the CascadePatch?" "Tsk, you must know the rules by now! You have to beat my Hackemon in a duel first!" Before Shane could even sigh, MSTie had thrown the door wide open. "Servow, I choose you!" What emerged was certainly the strangest Hackemon Shane had yet seen. It looked like a red gumball machine on a hoverskirt with useless little arms stuck on its sides...and then the whole thing covered in a layer of brown paper feathers, with a yellow construction paper beak completing the look. "You're in trouble now, big guy," smarmed the Servow, surprising Shane again. Unless that was all it could say, this was the most articulate Hackemon he'd yet met. "Um, go, DOS.duo!" Shane stammered as he released his newest acquisition. Might as well see what it could do against the little red fireplug of a Hackemon. The DOS.duo grew to full size as it jumped out of the Hackesack, playing Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" on its speaker-heads. It immediately seized the advantage in combat, kicking Servow over on its side. "Help! My arms are non-functional, MSTie!" Servow whimpered. "Come back, Servow," she gathered the Hackemon up in her arms. "Get that peripheral, Crowlithe!" If Servow had been strange, Crowlithe was downright surreal. It appeared to be a spindly golden robot made from desk lamp parts and sports equipment, then covered in a bad dog costume made from an old fuzzy carpet. "Grr, woof!" it said. "I'm a fire-type Hackemon, better watch out!" The DOS.duo tried to kick Crowlithe, but got its foot hung up in the loops of the tacky 1970s-vintage carpeting covering its opponent. From somewhere in the costume, Crowlithe produced a blowtorch and set fire to the DOS.duo's fuzzy feathers. It screeched in stereo, batting at the flames with its heads, which then also caught fire. Then the fire spread to Crowlithe's costume. "Um, this is bad," Crowlithe noted. "Hot! Hot! Hot!" "DOS.duo, stop, drop and roll!" Shane shouted. The birdlike Hackemon complied, pulling the much lighter Crowlithe to the blacktop with it. Both rolled along the ground, trying to put the fire out. Within a minute, the DOS.duo was extinguished, but also exhausted. And the Crowlithe was a mass of disconnected parts, with its still-masked head resting a few meters away. "Yo, Adrian," the head said, then its pingpongball eyes rolled back in their sockets. "Bulbas.org, get in there!" Shane released his second Hackemon. By this time, Servow was back on its hoverskirt, and bouncing confidently back into the fight. "Sayyyy," Servow said. "How many channels you get on that thing?" He tried to point at the monitor on Bulbas.org's back, but as mentioned earlier, he had non-functional arms. "Bulbas.org, cable whip!" Shane cried out. From behind the monitor, a pair of beige connector cables shot out and lashed against Servow's body. Paper feathers scattered everywhere. "Ow, that stings!" "Bulbas.org!" the squat Hackemon replied, ambling over and trying to take a bite out of Servow's hoverskirt. Servow skimmed backwards. "Oh, so ya wanna play rough, eh? Well, try THIS on for size. I'M HUGE!" he shouted, and suddenly he was! Well, compared to before, anyway. Still, Servow was now roughly two meters tall, and had shed the remaining construction paper. "Bulbas.org?" "Bulbas THIS!" Servow hopped up into the air, then landed on the Bulbas.org. There was a terrible rending sound as the propellors in Servow's hoverskirt chopped into the trapped Hackemon. Then, after a series of ricochet sound effects, Bulbas.org shot out from under the hoverskirt and skidded to a stop, unconscious and battered. Smugly satisfied, Servow returned to his proper size. "Come on, whatcha got? Bring it on!" "Picochu, go!" Shane ordered, hoping MSTie didn't have any other Hackemon available. Somehow, he figured she did, though. "Oho, an electrical one, eh?" Servow mused. "Gonna need some backup on this one. Come on out, guys!" At his command, from the doorway swarmed literally dozens of copies of the diminutive Hackemon. Picochu lashed out with its tail, and three of the Servows exploded, their heads launching into the air. "Yowie! I bet that hurt!" came the real Servow's voice from somewhere in the mob. "JEEEEEEEEEEEEED!" he shouted, in a piercing voice that forced Shane to cover his ears. Picochu didn't seem too happy with the noise either, but it didn't have any limbs with which to cover its ears. Shane realized that Servow's plan was to wait it out, wear down Picochu while sacrificing his copies. Copies, copies, copies...wait! "Picochu! Edit the copies into poppies!" Shane shouted. The electric mouse nodded cutely and invoked its powerful edit attack. "Pico!" Suddenly, there was once again only one Servow, surrounded in a field of poppies. "Poppies...poppies...poppies..." Crowlithe's head cackled. "Hey!" Servow whined. "No fair! I'm...ACHOO...allergic! ACHOO! ACHOO!" Within seconds, he'd sneezed himself over onto his side. "Poor Servow, get inside," MSTie cooed. "Gypseadra! I choose you!" An immense purple head with a big red button for its cyclopean eye emerged from the snack bar. And emerged. And emerged. A dozen meters or more of it were now outside, and more was still inside. "Oooh, pretty poppies!" Gypseadra burbled. "Picochu!" the little yellow Hackemon hurled itself at the newcomer. "Oh, no you don't," it replied somewhat hoarsely, wrapping several loops of its body around Picochu. "Pico!" it gasped, then fell unconscious. "Well, I count three Hackesacks, and three downed Hackemon, so I guess I win!" MSTie smirked. "No, not quite," Shane cast about almost desperately. "I have one more Hackemon, the one I rode in on. Frank, I choose you!" "ME?" the motorcycle said in shock. "I'm..." "You're a Cycler, a rare Hackemon. Now transform and attack!" Shane ordered. "He's been hard to train," Shane shrugged to MSTie. "That's why I don't keep him in a Hackesack." Frank turned into his robot mode. Despite the slenderness of his vehicle mode, he was almost a doughy robot, with his "fuel tank" forming a paunch. For some reason, he had a spit-curl on his forehead plating. "Okay, I know your type," Frank sneered as he stepped up to Gypseadra. "All romantic and mushy, you'd rather be mooning over some guy than fighting, am I right? Huh? Who is it?" "Richard Basehart!" Gypseadra replied indignantly. "Well, he's DEAD!" Frank shouted. "NOOOOOO!" Gypseadra lashed out with her head, knocking Frank across the lot and into the movie screen. "Poopie," Frank muttered as he pulled himself out of the hole he'd made. "That didn't work right." Transforming, he zipped back into the action, returning to his robot mode and trying to punch Gypseadra in the head. She dodged and wrapped her coils around Frank, pinning one arm. "Don't say mean things like that!" she shouted as he hammered ineffectually at her cable-like body. "C'mon, Frank! What's up?" Shane shouted. "Hey, tough guy, I don't have any built-in weapons here, okay?" Shane looked around for something, anything useful. Then he noticed that the sound of a generator in the snack bar was getting louder, putting out more power. And Gypseadra's tail was still inside. Of course! The other ones were self-motivated, but the huge Gypseadra was powered by a generator. Maybe that big red eye had some function.... "Push the button, Frank!" he shouted. A pained look crossed ATV Frank's faceplate, but he reached out with his free hand and stabbed the big red button that served as Gypseadra's eye. "Oh!" she exclaimed, then went limp. "Um, guess I should fix that design flaw, right?" MSTie smiled nervously. * * * * Algernon munched on a stick of Pocky as he walked down the main hallway of Furin.com High, and rattled the box. Only a few left, but soon he'd master the mystical art of creating his own. Something was wrong. He knew this was Furin.com High...but only a madman with dyslexia could have designed the hallway he was walking down. Floating staircases terminating in nothingness then restarting meters away, ceiling height that varied between zero and infinity and undulated like a mass of wet noodles, oddly-placed shower stalls in the hallway...weird. Then again, Furin.com was known for some pretty weird stuff. "Al-chan," came a voice from behind him, a young man trying to sound old and gruff. Algernon hated that nickname, especially since the other kids could hide behind the excuse that "Algernon" and "Al-chan" sounded the same to them. While it had been okay when he was little, the way Queue.no said it made it obvious he was calling Al a little girl. Al sighed and turned around. "What is it now, Queue.no? Your girlfriend tired of beating you up?" Queue.no shoved Al into the wall, which obliged by turning solid enough to take the abuse. His robes fluttered in a non-existent breeze. Being the son of the school headmaster let him get away with violations of the dress code. "Al-chan, I could smell your gaijin stench out in the yard." "I was born here, baka. My mother is Japanese." Queue.no wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Gaijin is as gaijin smells. You need a bath!" Before Al could react, he'd been swung around into one of the oddly- placed showers, and Queue.no was turning on the water. He tried to fight back, but somehow he didn't have the strength. Then he realized he was wearing clothing made from rice paper, and it was quickly dissolving in the stream of cold water he was being held under. A crowd started to gather, laughing and pointing, as the last of Al's clothing washed down the drain. "Ha!" Queue.no crowed. "Look at the little half-Japanese...he's only half a man, too!" Al frowned and looked down, to see that he was "smooth as a Ken doll." The crowd laughed even harder, and a teacher was shoving her way through it to see what the fuss was. The teacher turned out to be Kat, who took one look at Al and laughed louder than anyone else in the hallway...which was now an auditorium, with thousands of people looking and pointing. Al felt the flush of shame in his face. Things couldn't possibly get more embarrassing. "Gotcha," Al smiled. Queue.no did a doubletake. "What?" Then a wicked spear rammed through the bully's chest and twisted. The auditorium, the people and everything else faded away. Al was in his Kid Pocky uniform, and he was standing on the rolling hills of Harnegu, or Net.Zealand. Before him stood Rotanna, dreamqueen of this realm. And on the end of her spear squirmed the dream imp Zklmcgyx. "Owowowowowow!" the imp howled. There was no blood, but Zklmcgyx obviously wasn't having fun on the end of that dreamspear. "Listen well, imp," Rotanna said calmly and firmly. "This is your eviction notice. Get out of my dreamland." "But...what I...do is part of...the natural order," Zklmcgyx gasped. "And people have enough humiliating dreams on their own, without your help," Al smirked. "You're just a freeloader." "I checked around about you, imp," Rotanna smiled darkly. "Your own dreamland is empty, you drove away all the dreamers and consigned the barren island to drift farther and farther out into the hinterlands. Now you look for new places to play...but this won't be one of them. Die Stahltraumerin hasn't torn you to shreds because she thinks you're essentially harmless, but you ARE a nuisance. If you ever come back here, *I* will tear you to shreds and feed the pieces to narcoleptic dogs!" With that, she shook the imp from her spearhead, and then punted him with her armored boot. He sailed rapidly over the horizon. "Nice special effects," Al commented. Rotanna dismissed the spear and removed the headpiece from her somewhat intimidating armor of office. "Thanks. Um...I couldn't help but notice that Kat's presence was sort of the 'topper' to Zikky's assault. Wanna talk about it?" Al shrugged, sitting down on a nearby rock. "The freshest wounds are always the most attractive bait for that kind of fish. Oh, I know it's not me personally...Kat's spent so much time building walls that she can't build a door. But that doesn't stop my subconscious from fretting about it." "Do you want my honest assessment of your chances?" Anna sat as well. "Somewhere between slim and none, I'd expect. I knew that coming in... you don't literally move heaven and earth for something that's going to be easy, right?" he said, referring to how he'd managed to get himself reincarnated by the Source Code in his attempt to woo Kat. He'd figured that, as Acton Lord, he would never have gotten into a position to get close to her, what with fighting off the LNH every other day. "Pretty much. Closer to none right now," Anna idly played with the hem of her cloak for a moment, trying to decide how much to say. "She's really messed up. You might have had half a chance before the whole thing with Doug and their 'son,' but now she's carrying a huge load of guilt on top of her usual push-everyone-away tendencies. The fact that Doug forgave her so quickly and easily...at least from her perspective, it doesn't really count that he had over a year in the past to mull it over...actually made things worse. She's too used to being hated for her transgressions, and now she feels she has to hate herself to make up for it." "Did she dream about this?" Anna shook her head. "I try to stay away from her dreams without permission. They're not very pleasant territory anyway. No, I read her aura last week, part of checking her physical wounds. The more I studied the colors I saw, the more layers I peeled away from Kat's spirit. I've talked with her about it some, but she's not really comfortable opening up. And I can't really blame her. I can see her eventually coming out of her shell, or letting someone else into it, but it's not the kind of thing that's going to be resolved in a single storyline. More like years." Al smirked. "I've waited over twenty years, I can wait a few more...." * * * * [Song to the tune of the Pokemon TV show opening theme] I wanna be done with this quest It breaks logical laws. Catch them all, then I can rest, I wanna take a pause. [Rapid montage of still images runs under the first verse, showing Shane capturing an Ultrix, then fighting a trainer with electric Hackemon and accepting the ThunderPatch. Montage continues under entire song.] I hold my future in my hand Fate I can't abide... Teach Hackemon just what is planned My powers to un-hide. [Deep in a hidden valley, Shane encounters an encampment of leftover Dead.Nets driving psychedelic minibuses. Among them is a young Hackemon trainer, whose weird and wild charges give Shane a run for his money, but he rides away victorious, with the RainbowPatch.] Hackemon, gotta catch 'em all... They stole from me Restored, I just gotta be. [Shane's posse defeats a Jazz Trio of Hackemon and wins the SoulPatch, then gets his butt handed to him by a bunch of martial artist Hackemon. Heading into Wisconsi.net, Shane captures the printer-like Hackemon Unix, which is instrumental in defeating the Dairy Tym and winning the MarshPatch.] Hackemon, oh... I do contend That my body you must mend. [Shane wanders through the desolated lava fields of southeastern Min.net.sota, managing to capture a fire-breathing Charaset. His Hackemon don't do very well against the flames of the Hackemon at the nearby Tym, but ATV Frank's fire extinguisher tips the balance and saves the day. Shane gets the VolcanoPatch.] Hackemon, gotta catch 'em all... So catch a clue... Your power will put me true! You heal me and I'll heal you. Hackemon... [In the rolling hills of northeastern Io.wa, Shane fights his way through a maze of cornstalks to find the local Tym leader. Once there, his highly trained Hackemon make short work of the opposition, earning Shane the EarthPatch.] Gotta catch 'em all, Gotta catch 'em all, Hackemon! [Short clips of Shane looking aroung the rest of the area, but finding no more Tyms. So he heads back to Illi.net. Cue commercial break. Buy the Hackemon toys!] * * * * Shane sighed as he pulled into the driveway of Dr. Elm's house. He'd found every Tym, fought every trainer, earned every Patch there was, but Picochu still hadn't evolved into a Vichu. Hopefully Dr. Elm would be able to use the Patches to restore the damaged sectors of Picochu's memory, at least. That might be what held the little thing back. Oddly, over the past few weeks, Shane had grown to like the insufferably cute Hackemon. He'd even given thought to naming it. "Frank, take five. This could take a while," Shane said as he dismounted. "Sure thing, o evil overlord." Shane just rolled his eyes and went to the door. It opened before he could knock. "Ah, Mr. Boxer!" Dr. Elm exclaimed. "I thought I heard someone driving up. Do come in. How goes the quest?" Shane followed the man into his living room and sat down in an offered chair. "Good and bad. I think I've found all the Patches currently out there, although most of them seem pretty silly and pointless. But Picochu still hasn't evolved. Any luck from your end?" Dr. Elm steepled his fingers in front of his face. "Indeed, yes. I've been able to determine that these Hackemon are the result of the biomechanical experiments carried out up north by those villains you net.heroes defeated a while back with your giant robots." "Century Pact?" "Is that what they were called? Hm. Oh, could I have the Patches? They might be silly, but they represent insights into the coding of the Hackemon that could be very useful in dealing with your condition," Elm leaned towards Shane. Shane pulled a box of floppies out of his pack. "Sure, here ya go." Dr. Elm stood and took the box into an adjoining study, talking as he went. "It seems that the reason you were so profoundly affected by Picochu, as well as the reason you make such a good trainer, is the similarity in technology between you and the Hackemon. You are both products of the Century Pact's experimentation, after all." "How did you know I was..." Shane started to stand. "Your medical records, of course," Elm's hand was visible through the doorway, waving for Shane to sit back down. Sounds of computer use could be heard from the study. "In fact, it's almost as if Picochu was designed to hunt down others experimented on by the Century Pact and remove their powers, a sort of failsafe against rebellion." Shane noticed the light coming in the window seemed to be dimming, and turned around to look outside. The sky wasn't clouding up, but something seemed to be blocking the light. "Uh, Doc...something's going on outside?" "Oh, don't mind that. It's just Mr. MIME. He likes to coat the house in layers of MIME-formatting. I'll have one of my Hackemon clean it off once Mr. Mime gets bored and stops." Something clicked in Shane's head. "Say...for someone who didn't recognize the name of the Century Pact, you seem to know an awful lot about them." Dr. Elm's voice seemed different now, somehow. Like it was coming from inside Shane's head, rather than from the study. "Well, I'm afraid this has all been a bit of a trap, traitor." Shane reflexively jumped up and tapped his chest. Of course, since he'd lost his powers, nothing happened. Elm continued, "I needed to distract Dvandom Force and the LNH from my operations here, and sending you on a simplistic quest seemed a good way to point fingers elsewhere. Plus, you did a great deal of work for me, collecting all those Patches. I wasn't lying when I said that they would be useful, despite their inanity." Shane tried to rush the doctor, but a blast of energy threw him back into the boot room and blurred his vision. An indistinct figure wavered into view as Shane blinked. Elm's voice explained, "With these Patches, I will be able to undo all the various repairs done on the Net to ameliorate the so-called Millennium Bug. Once January first rolls around, the world as you now know it will end. I and my Hackemon minions will be the only ones in any condition to pick up the pieces, and we will build the order that you prevented DeFacto V from re-establishing, rebel." Shane shook his head, clearing his vision some. Dr. Elm didn't seem to be quite human anymore, instead looking like a man-sized Hackemon. "You're part of the Century Pact!" he gasped. "A part smart enough to go to ground while Dvandom Force did their little mopping up operation, yes," Elm's voice sneered. "Not that smart, Elm. There's plenty of LNHers out there who'll detect what you're doing before it's too late. There's months to go before the calendar flips." "Will they? I think they might think this part of the world is perfectly safe under the watchful eye of Dvandom Force. Nor is there as much time as you think...while it may be late summer outside, it is nearly December on the Net. Oh...and don't call me Elm, that hasn't been my real name since the Pact changed me. Call me..." he paused for dramatic effect. "MEW2K!" ============================================================================ Next Issue: Will Shane be able to stop the evil Mew2K? Will the writer be able to put out the next issue before the year 2000? What will be the fates of everyone in this final issue of Dvandom Force, "Century Mark!" ============================================================================ Author's Notes: Here's the conversions and injoke explanations. Freenet Tym - MSTie = Pokemon trainer Misty. "MSTie" is a term for a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The gags here are mainly MST3K-based. Servow = Spearow + Tom Servo Crowlithe = Growlithe + Crow T. Robot Gypseadra = Seadra + Gypsy Cycler = Scyther + motorcycle, and no, Frank's not really a Hackemon. Naughty Shane, cheating and taking advantage of a girl.... Dream Sequence - Furin.com High = Furrinkan High, setting of the Ranma 1/2 series. Refs in this scene come mainly from that series. Queue.no = Kuno Tatewara, the Blue Thunder of Furrinkan High. His "girlfriend" as mentioned could be a version of either Akane or Ranma-chan, either of whom can kick his butt. Montage - All the Patches correspond to Badges in the Pokemon game, and Shane gets them in roughly the order you're supposed to in the game. However, I took major liberties with the people you fight to get the Patches. Ultrix = Vulpix with a 9-sectored hard drive for a tail. Unix = Onix as a printer with a 28 foot trail of paper. Charaset = Charizard with keyboards for wings. Dr. Elm's House - Mr. MIME = Mr. Mime Mew2K = Mewtwo