___ _____, ____ __ __ , ____ ____ ____ // ` / || /|| \\ /||\\ /||\\ | // \ // ` /|| \\ \\__ /|| /||__// /||_\\_ /|| \\| || ____ ||-- /||__// \\ || || \\ || \\ || \\ \\ || \\ || \\ `___// `--. `--. --. `--. `--. `--. --. `--|| `---' `--. --. || _____, __ __, ____ ___ `=/ / || /||\\ /|| // ` // ` .|. COHERENT /|| /||_\\_ /|| ||-- \\__ --X------------------ || || \\ ||____, \\ \\ '|` COMICS UNINC `--. `--. `--. `-----, `---' `___// #5 - Alternate Darkness III: On The Flipseid Copyright 1996 by Dave Van Domelen \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\/////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////\/\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ [cover shows the LNH looking in shock and terror at a figure shrouded in seething energy effects. All that can be determined for sure about the figure is that he wears a leisure suit.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sig.Lad stood hesitantly at the doorway of the LNH med bay, uncertain if he wanted to go in. Through the door he could see several injured LNHers, at least one in as bad a condition as he'd left Sig.File Man in at the hospital. Net.heroing was supposed to be goofy, silly and fun adventure, not pain and perhaps death...not for characters like him, anyway. Someone inside noticed him. "May I help you?" Sig.Lad snapped out of his reverie. "Um, yes...I think so. Are you Doctor Stomper?" When the man nodded, Sig.Lad continued, "List Lad said I should come here for a medical scan...get a baseline in case I'm later replaced by a clone or alien invader or shapeshifter or whatnot. Although I'm not sure what use it'll be, since my power is to mutate." Doc Stomper put down his flatscreen computerpad and started to cross the room. "Even someone with your powers has certain unique elements that can be codified and kept for future reference...after all, if you changed too much, you would cease to be *you*, you see. Besides, we have experience with these matters, having members like Amorphous Lad and Fuzzy, who are similarly hard to lock down. Please lie on this table, I'll get the scanners set up. This will only be a preliminary scan, I'm afraid we're a bit too harried right now for me to perform a full investigation." Sig.Lad looked at the sleeping patients in the other beds and nodded gravely before getting onto the surface. "Speaking of the current crisis, Doctor...why was the LNHQ attacked like this? Wouldn't it be smarter to lure everyone out into a trap?" "Actually," came a voice from the doorway, "I'd like to know if there's an explanation for that sort of thing as well." "Ah, Sgt. Landers," said Doc Stomper as he activated the pinging and whirring scanner. "This attack in particular, or...?" Sgt. Landers waved a sheaf of printouts and replied, "In general. I was going over the records and plans for this place to see if there was anything we could do to make it more defensible, and what I found made almost no sense. The building has been around for generations longer than the LNH, yet it's always been called either the LNHQ or LNHHQ...the floorplans shift almost at random, it's bigger on the inside than the outside, and the number of sub-basements shifts over time. And that's just the start!" The Expert of Explanation fell into didactic mode. "According to Occultism Kid, this location is one of the strongest loci of what might be called magickal energies in the world. The Druids would have said it lay at the intersection of the majority of the world's ley lines, oriental geomancers would claim it has strong feng shui, and so forth. Whatever the name you have for it, this place has unique properties found nowhere else in the world. Simply put, it attracts heroes. Those who would defend the city, the world or all of reality are eventually drawn here by one coincidence or another, and many stay here. Other, more random properties, such as the architectural variability, are simply side effects of having so much retcotheric energy concentrated in one place." "But why do net.villains attack? Are they also drawn here?" Landers asked. "In a way. You see, the nature of reality makes it so that where there are heroes, there must be villains to oppose them. The place attracts heroes, the heroes attract villains. In addition, more cosmically-aware evil-doers know of the power they could have if they could harness or corrupt this place. It may be the single hardest place in the world to conquer, but once a firm control has been established, it works for the conqueror. I would surmise that whoever is behind our current woes is in that class of villains who would take the power of the LNHQ for themselves." He turned to Sig.Lad, "I have the data I need, you may go take care of anything else you need to do now." After Sig.Lad had left and Doc Stomper had looked about to make sure all the patients were asleep, he added, "I know you dislike the name which has been hung on you, but consider that you are the only one among us now who has practical experience in leading people into a fight. The LNH is largely loners, oddballs and misfits. Perhaps among them is a potential leader of great brilliance, but we may not have the luxury of searching for him right now." Felix cut off any further arguments with a wave of his hand. "I know. Better to overstep my mission than let the LNH fall." He didn't add that he wouldn't actually be overstepping his mission...merely completing it well in advance of expectations. * * * * "Does everyone understand the situation?" Felix asked of the computer screen. The cafeteria roof had collapsed in places, and there was no other place large enough to hold the entire LNH at once, so he'd had an inter-room teleconference set up. "We have good reason to believe that there will be another attack on the LNHQ soon, and no reason to think it will be weaker than the last. The more combat-ready members should be ready to scramble at a moment's notice, and the rest should stay aware of the fastest route from their current position to either an exit or a sub-basement bunker." The murmurs of assent came over the link, and he heard the "Fearless Leader" name used over and over. Most LNHers thought it was his actual codename, as the name had spread far faster than the origin of the name. Still, Felix was surprised at how quickly the LNH had accepted him as leader, they must have felt the need for leadership but not known how to seek it out. A few had suggested trying to find Rebel Yell first, but even they had admitted that someone needed to take the reins in the interim, and that Felix was qualified. Before Felix could think of an appropriate closing word, Multi-Tasking Man overrode the main channel, brought the hastily-installed perimeter defense grid on-line, opened a box of Pocky and started another game of Rogue. "Sensor.- thingies indicate four high-power beings flying in from the west!" "Right, this is it, then!" Felix shouted. "Combat squad, meet me on the west lawn, everyone else take cover!" Slamming the off button on the computer, he grabbed his BIGGUN, activated the intercom.thingy installed in his headset and rushed for the door. * * * * Felix stood behind the wedge of combat-ready LNHers, hoping he'd stay in combat long enough to make a difference. Normals like him really didn't belong here, in a firezone between beings of immense power. In the wedge were a dozen of the more powerful LNHers. Cheeezarr and Makkaroni (who was munching on some ramen to activate his powers). Plot King. Sig.Lad, an unknown quantity but hopefully powerful enough to last through the fight. Irony Man in his newly-built Irony Armor. Occultism Kid. Contraption Man (builder of Irony Man's armor). Amorphous Lad. Organic Lass, who was to retreat if it turned out the foes were immune to her powers. Invisible Incendiary was around somewhere, holding his flames back for the moment so that he wouldn't give away his position. Finally, Cheesecake-Eater Lad and Multi-Tasking Man were present as support in case there was a chance to try any fancy tactics...if it looked like a straight-up brawl, they were to get clear. Seconds passed. Suddenly, Plot King was blown backwards by a powerful energy bolt from out of nowhere! Invisible Incendiary flared up. "They're lurking! And whoever's hiding them is too powerful for me to find!" An instant later, a blue fist appeared for a split second and II was laid out on the turf, slightly scorching it. "Makkaroni, Cheesecake-Eater Lad! The maneuver we discussed!" Felix shouted, activating his visor's enhanced optics in the hopes of finding the hidden villains. Meanwhile, Amorphous Lad had fallen to another of the energy blasts. Makkaroni winced, but turned to CC-ELad and took the proffered extra- sugary cheesecake, downing it in two bites. Any carbohydrates sufficed to activate his powers, but sugar gave him a short burst of much more intense speed...and a splitting headache. Suddenly, Makkaroni was everywhere that the other LNHers weren't, a blinding blur of speed filling the entire grounds. There was a solid WHACK! and he suddenly stopped, bouncing back from a female form that slowly became visible as it flew through the air and hit the wall with a sickening thud. It was Lurking Girl...yet, not quite. The other figures came into view. O'Brien, a large blue being with a small white hat, and...Kid Kirby! A twisted and corrupted version of Kid Kirby, but the identity was clear. "What now?" asked Irony Man, appreciating the irony of having to fight a comrade who had been sent to find out what it was they were fighting. "We don't want to kill any of them, but even if they are the real things under mind control, we can't let them kill us. Multi-Tasking Man, check on Lurking Girl, the rest of you attack!" Felix shouted. Sig.Lad tapped the discs on his collar and an ASCII sword ( ={------ ) appeared in his hand. He swung it at O'Brien, only to have it bounce off the New Mod's armor. The responding energy blast knocked Sig.Lad back several meters, but didn't seem to totally take him out of the fight. Most of the remaining LNHers were concentrating on Kid Kirby, trying to contain him without killing him. Occultism Kid, meanwhile, was weaving a spell of containment that was keeping O'Brien at bay. Which left the big blue guy. "SM*RF SMASH!" it shouted as it rushed at Felix. Felix thumbed his BIGGUN to taser fire, but it was swatted out of his hand before he could fire. The backswing of the massive blue hand smashed him into the wall, but his padded armor held...barely. He could tell subtlety wasn't going to work on this big blue bruiser. Time to go the hard way. He tensed up all his muscles, too intent on this to notice that his muscles and veins were visible through his supposedly armored costume. The Angry Hyena technique he picked up during his tour in Core.ea should do the job...all tensed up, he was like rock. Any blows could be ignored...for a while. Afterwards he'd be in a thousand kinds of pain, but right now he could just wade in like a streetfighter. "SM*RF CRUSH PUNY...OOF!" exclaimed SM*RF as Felix smashed a double-hand strike into its solar plexus. It replied by grabbing Felix by the shoulders and squeezing in a bear hug. Felix brought his knee up, but to no avail...this thing didn't seem to have a soft spot where humans did. So he smashed his forehead into its huge, bulbous nose. He was momentarily blinded by the spray of purple blood, but was able to slip out of the grip. Leaping up, he executed two more hammerblows to the creature's face, causing it to reel back in pain. "YOU HURT SM*RF! YOU PAY!" Wiping the blood off his visor, Felix looked to see that Occultism Kid had been taken out of the fight by Kirby, but O'Brien was still firmly bound in some sort of mystic shackles. He let SM*RF think he was distracted, then ducked under the blind rush and threw the monstrosity into Kirby, who reflexively released his Power Kirby at the presumed attacker. SM*RF crackled and turned black before crumbling to dust. Kirby turned his attention to Felix. This was it. Game over. The power lashed out, but it didn't hit Felix. Someone had jumped out of the doorway and knocked him aside, taking the blast himself and charring to ashes. "Don't worry," Irony Man shouted, "it was Cannon Fodder...he'll be okay." Suddenly there was a tremendous BOOM and a tunnel formed in the sky overhead. "WHO DARES DEFILE THE POWER KIRBY?!?" demanded the figure who emerged, flaring with power and righteous wrath. "Kid Kirby!" gasped Cheeezarr. "But...." Hot on the Kirbian's heels, Continuity Champ emerged from the Boom Tube. "Our foe must be creating duplicates of powerful beings to send against us," he explained. Kid Kirby unleashed a bolt of raw power on his twisted double, and the villain reeled from the energies. Then a disc formed in the air underneath the twisted Kirby and the entrapped O'Brien. As the pair were drawn throught the hole in the middle, O'Brien cried out, "The Master will destroy you, as he will all defilers! This is not our final battle...!" * * * * "...when I finally got him out of range of the Work For Hire field, he recovered and was able to bring us back here in time to tip the balance of the fight," concluded Continuity Champ. "I can only presume our foe had made his copy of Kid Kirby before we arrived there, else there's little reason to copy him and not me." "I believe Browing Boy has found an answer to our mysterious foe's identity," added Doctor Stomper. Browsing Boy looked to Felix, then said, "Well, once I heard this might be related to the Disco Age, I started thumbing through back copies of Disco Beat magazine, and I ran across veiled references to a being known as Flipseid, lord of ToppPhorti and master of the dance mix. I gave the articles to List Lad to run through and list any clues there might be." List Lad picked up a pile of magazines filled with little yellow notetabs and bookmarks. "Flipseid's capabilities are vast, mostly whispered legends promulgated by his worshippers, the most vile of the Disco Age adherents. However, eliminating exaggerations and contradictions in the lists, I can safely say that he's immensely powerful, and can create dance remixes of ANYTHING. Not just songs." Doctor Stomper leapt in, "Thus, we had the theory that these Servants of Disco we fought were remixes of other people, not the people themselves. Placing our captive Lurking Girl into the scanning apparatus, I was able to confirm that her DNA sequence had indeed been remixed, giving her more power and making her repetitive. This is not the real Lurking Girl, any more than what we fought was the real Kid Kirby." Felix stood. "Okay, we have an idea of who we're up against. If Flipseid is trying to bring back the Age of Disco, we must stop him. Doctor Stomper, Organic Lass...how many casualties were there in the last battle, and what is the condition of our current wounded?" Organic Lass consulted a chart, and replied, "Aside from Cannon Fodder, who still hasn't shown up where he normally reappears after death, no one suffered more than minor injuries in the second fight. Squid Boy has physically recovered, but Sidewinder is still out of it. And...." She stopped short, staring at the open doorway. In it was Cannon Fodder. But that wasn't what surprised her...he always came back eventually. But usually he wasn't carrying a baby when he did. * * * * The mysterious figure still hovered over the displaced planet Capxan. His minions had been defeated, but that mattered little. After all, they were merely early tools, suitable for carrying out his will when he was at low ebb, and suitable for distracting his enemies from his broader plans. But if they were destroyed, that merely saved him the bother of destroying them himself when he no longer had any use at all for them. Below, his new slaves were industriously making his will into reality. The Capxantites had tremendous pent-up energy and a need to release it somehow, now that they had been removed from the Sage Stars and placed under Work For Hire. And he gave them a means to release that energy. The planet below him was no longer spherical. It had been hammered into a flattened square shape by the mighty Capxantites in mere minutes. A feat that would take a fleet of planetary construction ships a lifetime to accomplish had been undertaken in a tiny fraction of that time. Now parts of the surface began to gleam with light as the Capxantites moved from gross planetary reshaping to the delicate task of manufacturing and installing plastic squares filled with pressure-sensitive photoelectric material...squares that lit up different colors when stepped on, or could be controlled from a central location to form patterns. And in minutes it was done. Where there had been a thriving planet, there was now a dancefloor the likes of which none had ever seen. He was pleased, and descended to the surface to meet the adulation of his new subjects. The moment his platform shoes touched the floor, a spotlight shone down on him from above. His bellbottoms swirled as he struck an opening pose. The light shimmered from his rhinestone-studded silk jacket and the gold chains that hung around his neck onto his open shirt collar. Then the music started and he whipped his face around to peer into the camera. A face that was black and ridged like a vinyl record. The face of...FLIPSEID. The music echoed into the night and the universe shuddered.... ============================================================================ Author's Notes: Some characters either used by permission, some I didn't give permission but I don't think they'll mind too much, and the rest were taken from the ranks of the "public domain." Check out the old roster, recently reposted, for some of the creators of the older characters. Kid Kirby created by Jameel al Khafiz, Continuity Champ by Drizzt, Cheeezarr and Makkaroni by Kyle Lucke, Occultism Kid by Josh Guerink, Organic Lass by Rebecca Drayer, Invisible Incendiary by Steve Hutchison, and no doubt I'm leaving a few out. SM*RF was inspired by the main character of "Tales to Smurfify" on the Superguy list. Check out http://pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu/~dvandom/ in the Images section for a picture of Fearless Leader (and yes, I know I messed up his rank insignia, there should be two more hashes on the bottom and the top hashes should be more curved). Next Issue: The mysterious baby's secret is revealed (well, anyone who read The Great Darkness Saga in LSH knows most of the secret)! Birth of Squidman! The final battle against Flipseid and the forces of Disco! Stay tuned for Stranger Tales #6, "The Great Disco Saga"!