TEAM D.V.A.N.D.O.M. #50 -THE END- by RoboMACs_Master A Story of High Adventure and Highly Dubious Parody (You can say THAT again!) "I'm sorry, Squidman...but I can't serve on the same team as someone who would do that to a teammate," said Kat without preamble. She'd been hard hit by the events of the Industrial Revolution, seeing friends almost kill friends over ideology. "I..." started the Deepsea Detective. "Waitaminnit! We never crossed over with the Industrial Revolution, that wasn't even an LNH plotline." "D'oh!" said Sidewinder as he whapped his forehead. "The author put us in the wrong issue fifty." "Yeah! Put us back in our *own* angst, Author guy!" demanded Kat. [Okay, okay....] .|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED ---X------------------------------------------------------------------------- '|` PRESENTS DVANDOM | -. -. -. | ________| ____ \ ,___ \ ____ \ ________| | .' \ | | / ` | | | | | | | / ___| | | | | ` / | | __| | | < | __| | | | ,--- \ \ | | | \ | | \ ` | | | / | \ / | ___| _______-' ___| ____\ -______-' ____________| #50 - "Cross Purposes" copyright 1995 by Dave Van Domelen ============================================================================= [cover shows a high-tech ship hovering over a patchwork city.] ============================================================================= The scene opens with a tight shot of a largish cardboard box. The box is slightly rain-sodden and warped, with a hole in the top covered by a Bunzai Pizza box. On one side the words "VAXX.streetlevel.org" are scrawled in periwinkle crayon, faded and streaked enough to almost be unreadable. Faint snoring can be heard within. Pulling back slightly, three pairs of soggy shoes are visible, with small bits of trash from the alley adhering to them and ruining the polish. The cuffs of the pantslegs above the shoes are also darkened by rainwater and other liquids the men wearing the pants would rather not think of. "This the guy?" whispers one of the men as he idly rubs one of his shoes on the back of his pantsleg. The exercise fails to clean the shoe acceptibly, but now his pantsleg is totally schmutzed. The view expands enough to see up to the waists of the men. One is reaching under his sportscoat to pull out a gun. "Yeah. Let's do 'im before he...." "Wakes up?" snarled a computerized voice from inside the box. "Are you minions of the Sphammer Mr. Gain?" "Um, no?" offered one man. The view takes in the entire scene as this man is whapped on the head by the one with his gun out. "Of course we don't work for that two-bit adman!" he protested. "Oh. Okay," answered the voice. "Yeah, we work for da Little Man," replied the one with the really dirty pantsleg. "Hurm? Which little man? The one who taunts me in my nightmares and stalks my daydreams like an incubus?!?" The three stepped back. One whispered, "He's nuts!" "Shut up," snarls the one with the gun, apparently the trio's leader. He motioned for the others to pull their guns out as well. "We work fer THE Little Man, the guy what owns this town. And he doesn't appreciate your freelance heroin' work, 'specially since you seem interested in chokin' off free trade. We don't particularly like Mr. Gain, but he does pay us a piece of his action. So we gotta make an example of ya. Gun 'im." Shots rang out as the VAXX surged into a really bloody and disgusting round of personal combat. However, the viewpoint drifts away from this uncivilized display, instead following the motion of a pizza box thrown from the VAXX's home in the struggle. It is caught by the stiff Sig.ago winds and tumbles for several blocks before falling into a dumpster. Minutes later, the dumpster is tipped into a garbage truck which then trundles off to the landfill.... * * * * A few days had passed since the memorial service. Richard decided this was a respectful period of time and called a meeting of the remaining Dvandom Force members. Squidman called the fairly informal meeting to a semblance of order. "Unless any of you object," he looked to Kid Macro, Kopikat and Sidewinder, "Eagle is accepted as a full member of the team. Eagle...I know there is no actual current inhabitant of the Looniverse with that name, but it seems awkward...." "Don't worry, Squidman. I've selected a new codename. Skysabre." "Nice ring to it," nodded Kat. "All right, Skysabre, you asked for this meeting. I assume there's more to it than just the new codename and that thing you've been building on the rooftop." "Well, yes and no. 'That thing' does form the focus of why I wanted to talk to all of you, but it does range pretty far afield. I suppose I should start with you, Sidewinder," said the future version of Acton Lord. "Me? Why?" "Think back, Sidewinder. Have you always had these unpredictable dimension-spanning powers?" "Nnnno...now that you mention it, I didn't start being able to jump around until the Kinda Big Darkness Saga. Originally I didn't really have much of a power, per se, I just tended to be really gung-ho at the beginning and end up on the sidelines by the end of a conflict. Always a bridesmaid, that sort of thing. Not that I *can't* lead, just that I tend to give up the job to someone better suited." "That's correct. And I was to blame for your new powers. Soon after realizing I had tapped into the Corruption Force, I started casting about for a good test subject. I wanted to see how far I could boost someone's powers before corruption set in, you see. And since you hadn't really been used in any significant role since the Cosmic Plot Device Caper, I chose you [Editor's note: this is an 'in story' retconning of how the author just sort of absorbed Sidewinder without checking to see if he was public domain]." "Thanks a bunch," snarled the ever-digressing hero. "Sorry. I was insane at the time. In any case, I didn't really know how to use my powers back then, and the changes were permanent. Of course, coming from me, they weren't without drawbacks. You could travel between realities...usually net.realities...at will, but often would then get dragged elsewhere right afterward. No matter what you set out to do, you always got sidetracked into something else." "Is this just a lengthy apology, or are you leading up to something?" asked Kat. "I'm getting there. You see, when I used you as my pawn in the Crysys of Ynfynyte Tyms, I discovered how to manipulate these excess energies more precisely. In fact, I discovered how to remove the extra powers from you, should you wish. Or at least dampen them to the point where you can, with effort, get things done that you actually wish to do." "DEFINITELY. It may be kinda neat at times, but I'm *really* getting sick of these powers. And finding out why I have them makes me even more eager to be rid of them," enthused Sidewinder. "Aside from the obvious question of what we'll do with another member depowered," started Squidman, "how does this tie in with that craft you've been building?" Skysabre brought up some schematics on the viewscreen of the meeting room. "Keep in mind, I doubt I'll be able to totally remove his powers. But I should be able to get rid of the more random elements, like those which take him out of the Looniverse against his will. But with the Penguin of Goon off in his own book, we need another way to travel through dimensions. The fact that the robotic dinosaur which attacked the LNHQ while we were all at the funeral was after the Time.Thingy indicates that DeFacto V is still out there and looking to regain his temporal empire. If we're to stop him, we need to be able to break out of the Looniverse. "By draining the extra energies from Sidewinder into this device," he pointed at a spot on the screen, "the Sidetrack Device, we should be able to break through the dimensional barriers. It may not be easily controlled or predictable, but it should do the trick. If nothing else, a few test runs should let me figure out how to make it easier to control. While I have this up, let me just point out a few more features of the vehicle. It acts as an additional RoboVector for my Projector form, giving me extra firepower as a jet and turning into powered armor for my humanoid mode. It can be fitted with detachable vehicle pods for the rest of you...I've modified the Cheeez Wedge fighters into servicable Battle Kraft. Later on I can work on making these vehicles into RoboVectors for you if you want me to." The room was silent for a moment, then Sidewinder stood up. "What are we waiting for? Let's get me cured, the sooner the better!" * * * * Far from the excessive exposition of the previous scene, Rotanna sat in a coffeeshop of the type frequented by NTB groupies and other "whiny goths." Her usual showy costume didn't fit her foul mood, so she had left it in her hotel room and was wearing black jeans and a t-shirt. Her unruly mane of blond hair was tied back in a ponytail and her eyes hid behind a pair of wire-rimmed sunglasses. In short, she didn't stand out at all in the place. In front of her was a "coffee," although to call this mass of slightly damp caffeine coffee would be like calling a sumo wrestler "chubby." Still, while it could have enabled a tree sloth to win a 50 meter dash, it did little to change her disposition. Leaving Dvandom Force had hurt. It was finally starting to feel like she had a family again, something she hadn't had since her father died. But what hurt even more was why she'd left...Squidman. He'd been the first net.hero she'd run across in her fledgling career as a mystic vigilante, he'd seemed so "together" despite his relative lack of training and experience. She'd even started to...no. That couldn't be now. Not a man who would kill his friend. Still, she'd almost been able to cope with it. She'd been alone before, she could handle herself, right? That she couldn't had been driven home quite painfully recently. Pulled through the aether by Hooded Ho'`od Win as part of some inane contest [see Triple Play #7, part of The Crossover Which Dare Not Speak Its Name], she'd been roundly trounced by Occultism Kid. She couldn't go back to the relative obscurity of the stage magician circuit...she was Known now. As one of the few magicians not tied up in NTB continuity, she was now subject to crossovers and one-shots and other such events. And she didn't have the power or skill to hold her own. Taking a sip of her drink, she shuddered for a moment as her teeth felt like they were dancing a chorus line. One thing was for sure, she couldn't sit here drinking potentially lethal amounts of caffeine for the rest of her life. That was someone else's M.O. anyway. But short of joining the Net.Trenchcoat Brigade (which she *really* didn't want to do), there was only one real option. She had to get herself revamped. * * * * Sidewinder peered out from behind the technospaghetti. "Man, I miss Kirbytech," he sighed. "Sorry," replied Skysabre without looking up from his instruments. "I've always been more of a Byrnetech type of inventor myself." "That would explain this really ugly and uncomfortable mesh suit you're making me wear." "If I still had access to the Corruption Force, I could simply draw the power out of you by force of will. Of course, if I still had access to it, it would have access to me and I'd be more than a little insane and have no inclination to help you," noted Skysabre. "Any side effects we should be aware of?" asked Squidman, who was standing by the door. "Like?" "Like blowing up the top three floors of the building, draining the entire Illi.net power grid or turning us all into sausages?" suggested Kid Macro, glad to be getting a line. "Well," started Skysabre with some uncertainty, "it *is* a fairly random and capricious power. But I *think* I've got those particular side effects accounted for and negated." Kid Macro started programming a hasty retreat into his wristcomps. "By the way, I can probably improve the responsivity of your wristcomps using my Cycloheart technology. But that's a project for later. Kat, everything look okay from your end?" "Aside from being more than a little leery about being part of any machine you'd make?" asked a head poking out the side of the device. "Apart from that, yes." "Then everything seems okay." Skysabre made a last check of the connections to the small object he'd named the Sidetrack Device. It was about a foot long and glowed faintly, as if it were one of Easily-Discovered Man's paperweights. "Activating...NOW!" A field of Byrne-Krackle (like Kirby Krackle, but it's a little messier looking) surrounded the device. "Woo...tingly!" observed Sidewinder. "Golly, that crazy gizmo really works!" noted Kid Macro, ripping off a catchphrase. After a few seconds, Skysabre threw the large (and really quite unnecessary) knife switch and deactivated the apparatus. The Sidetrack Device glowed quite brightly now and looked like it had been recently cleaned with a scouring pad. "How do you feel?" Squidman asked of the hopefully-depowered net.hero. "Pinker." "Like all the Slack has been drained from your body by the Con?" asked Kid Macro. "No...not like that. You read too many weird books. Pinker like pink jellybeans...that sort of flavor which defies any categorization but is unwholesomely sweet? I feel different, but it feels really odd...pink is the only way I can really describe it. Can I get out of this mesh suit now? It's giving me a really embarrassing rash." * * * * [A montage two-page-spread is inserted here, showing Skysabre installing the Sidetrack Device and Sidewinder working out in the gymnasium, trying to determine what powers if any he still had. If this were an Aeneas Boddy story, you'd get a song interwoven with this scene, but I don't do that. Sorry.] * * * * "Whew, that was an exhausting montage," noted Sidewinder as he wiped the sweat off his brow with a towel. "Put the towel away, we're in Skysabre's RoboVector, ready to take it on a test run," admonished Squidman. "Sorry, missed the scene change." <> came Skysabre's voice over the internal com systems. He was in jet form attached to the front of the craft. <> Everyone strapped into their seats and braced themselves. Then the craft shot straight up from the roof, twisting 90 degrees to point its nose up in a matter of seconds. The forces were uncomfortable, but not painful or life- threatening. Everyone lurched back and forth like Star Trek bridge crew would if they had the brains to wear seatbelts as Skysabre took the vehicle through a dizzying pattern not seen in the skies since Macross Plus episode 2. <> "Yeah, but I'm glad I didn't have a heavy lunch," answered Kid Macro. "I thought you'd be used to crazy maneuvering," noted Kat. "Well, yeah...but only when I'm the one in control," he admitted. <> The wild ride that ensued would easily have eaten up the effects budget if we were to show it here, so we won't. Suffice to say, even Kat felt a little nauseous by the time they came to a stop. <> Everyone unsteadily disengaged their safety harnesses and crawled up to the top of the odd-shaped vehicle. Below them was spread out a city which extended as far as the eye could see. It was a crazyquilt patchwork of differing architectures and styles...and technologies as well. Below horses pulled wagons next to hovercraft and flying carpets. "Hey, I know this place," exclaimed Sidewinder. "At least I think so. Never been above ground here. But I've ended up here more than once when my powers pulled me out of the Looniverse." "Where are we, then?" asked Squidman. "Imnotsure." "Well, can you give me a guess?" "Imnotsure." "Okay, okay. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." "I'm telling you! Imnotsure!" "Gah." He paused and wiped some imaginary sweat off his mask. "Listen, do the natives have a name for his place?" "Yep." "And has one of them told you what it is?" "Yep." "So what's the name?" "Imnotsure." "So you didn't trust the guy who told you?" "No, I trust him. He had no reason to lie." "What did he do? Was he someone who would know?" "Well, he was a member of the chamber of commerce, so he'd better know." "And when he told you the name, what did he say?" "Imnotsure." "D'oh! Certainly if he was a member of the chamber of commerce he had some literature about the place on him?" "Yep." "And it had the name of the place?" "Yep." "And you saw this name?" "Yep." "And you understood the writing?" "Yep." "So what did it say the name of this place was?" "Imnotsure." "THIRD BASE!" shouted Kat, Kid Macro and Skysabre in unison. Kat reached down and grabbed the narrative caption of a passing disheveled character. [Ah, Idyllic, Ignorant Imnotsure. City of uncertainties, where anything can happen except knowing exactly what's going on. Don't like the laws of physics? Cross the street and they may or may not change. I'm not sure.] "Oh, why didn't you say so?" demanded Squidman. "I felt the irresistable urge to milk the gag," replied Sidewinder. "Anyway, this is a sort of interdimensional city like many others, but with an important difference. You can never be totally sure if you're here. There's always an outside chance you're really in one of the dimensions abutting it, no matter how long you've lived here. By the same token, you can never be totally sure you're NOT here. My power, now in the Sidetrack Device, must be particularly susceptible to this effect. Getting out is simply a matter of raising the possibility of being elsewhere high enough." "So it's a sort of Crossr..." started Kid Macro before Kat clamped a hand over his mouth. "Shhhh! That's another place entirely," she warned him before removing the hand. "Oh yeah." "If I read this place correctly," started Squidman, "we should be looking for a bar of some sort." "I guess. As long as we don't run into a Net.Trenchcoater," noted Sidewinder. Skysabre pointed to a sign below that read "MARDER'S BAR" in flickering neon letters. "Looks like as good a place as any." The others nodded and Skysabre maneuvered his ship into the parking lot. The interior was smoky and generally disreputable, like you'd expect of an interdimensional city's bars. At one end of the bar a large lima bean with arms and legs was holding up an empty mug and whining, "Beeeeer...beeeeeer...." The bartender was a middle-aged fellow who was currently trying to explain the finer points of finance to a small-headed large-chested man waving a checkbook around in his tiny spatula-like hands. "No, Rob, just because there's still checks left in the checkbook doesn't mean there's still money left in the account. You may rake in money hand over tiny fist, but if you don't keep a better eye on it, you'll go broke fast. Your last check bounced, for that matter." "Aw, but that's no fun!" "Finances aren't supposed to be fun. But if I spend all my time helping you and your rich friends run your accounts, I won't be able to run my bar properly." "I'll pay you a lot of money." "Well, maybe the bar can slide a little. Oops, customers, just a second." He walked over to the end of the bar where the Dvandom Forcers stood. "You want to order something, or are you just waiting for a plot development?" "Plot development," answered Squidman. "Okay, take a seat over in the back with the rest of the superheroes." * * * * In another dimension entirely, Algernon Heckman puttered happily in his garden, ignoring for the first time in months his onerous duties as enforcer for the order-obsessed Werk. "Well, I was until you reminded of me, Mr. Narrator." Sorry about that. And apologies in advance for this. "Huh? AGH!" Algernon's mind was flooded with images of corruption and chaos. A fight on the moon. Wrestling with a winged horse. An endless bureaucracy corrupted into preventing order. Robots running amok. All reality itself threatened again and again. And a name. Acton Lord. "I GET the HINT already!" shouted Algernon as he pulled on his blue and white costume. Donning once more the mantle of Net.us, protector of the sanctity of newsspace, he teleported into the sanctum of his master, the alien Werk. Confronting the spiky creature, Net.us demanded, "What's up this time?" "Who disturbs my dream of order? Oh, it is the one who is like unto an executive assistant to me, Net.us. What brings you to my home?" "You do, you cosmic nutbar! You flooded my mind with images of someone I've never heard of called Acton Lord." "ACTON LORD! The corruptor! The off-topic drifter! The anti-Net.us! Every moment he is alive causes me indescribable pain!" "Why haven't I ever heard of him before?" "Because this is a crossover, my son. He is not from the orderly Net you normally tend for me, but from a far more vile one. He is in the trans- dimensional city, Imnotsure." "Can you at least give me a guess at his location?" "Silence! That gag has already been used this issue." "Okay, okay. But doesn't the nature of that place forbid certainty? How can you be sure he's there?" "The Merk is not bound by such rules...I KNOW. Now go and destroy this spreader of foulness!" "Alright, I'm going." And with that, Net.us teleported out. Slowly, the spiky Werk shifted form until he was nothing but a perfectly rendered CAD face. One which smiled.... ============================================================================== SPECIAL BACKUP FEATURE: Post-Funeral Angst by Mike Escutia Courtney sighed as she closed the door to her quarters. The funeral for Sig.Lad had been nice, if saddening, but there had been an unmistakable tension in the air, for reasons that she knew all too well. She rubbed her temples, moaning slightly at the small headache she had. Funerals always gave her headaches. Turning on her terminal, she logged into the mainframe (as search@lnhhq. lnh.org) and checked her messages. A flurry of posts from the LNH-L mailing list (which she lurked on), most of them flames. _Gee, I wonder why?_ A brief message from Roger expressing his condolences. Yet ANOTHER message from Cyber.Sell.Com (_If they think they can get away with sending this stuff to LNHers, they've got another think coming to them,_ she thought as she forwarded it to Multi-Tasking Man). And a message from Jenn and Chris (or Touri and Pli, depending on what you preferred calling them) saying that they wouldn't be able to fly in for the wedding and that she should call them to let them know how it went. At the bottom was a quick note requesting that she email them as soon as she got back to let them know she was in. So she did. Pause. [Talk request from jwd@link.mnh.org] beeped the computer. Courtney typed in the appropriate response. =Courtney?= -Jenn?- =Hi! So, how're you doing? How was the funeral?= -It was okay. You know, a funeral.- =Yeah...shame about Sig.Lad. You ever meet him?= -No...he and Dvandom Force moved to Sig.ago before I joined full-time, remember?- =Oh, that's right...I've met him a few times. He stopped by my room to give me his condolences when Pli turned up...missing after that Retcon Hour mess. Hang on...Pli just told me to tell you that he last saw Sig.Lad at that big gathering when Constellation announced he was leaving the Looniverse. He's worked with him on occasion, too.= -Ah.- -Jenn...do you think Squidman was right in killing Sig.Lad?- =I don't know...he did what he had to do, I guess.= -I think he was wrong. There HAD to have been some other way to stop DeFacto. Or DeFacto V. Or whatever he's called.- Pause. =[Hi, Courtney, it's Pli...I don't know if Squidman was right in killing Sig.Lad...I don't think *anybody* knows, not even Squidman himself...but he did the only thing he could do at the time. And Sig.Lad knew the risks. We all do.]= -Hi Pli....yeah, I guess you've got a point there. I'm just confused, I guess.- =[Hmm...you could talk to Special Bonding Boy (I can't believe I just typed that).]= -Isn't he a little...well, you know...overzealous about his job?- =[Depends on the writer.]= -Er...right.- =Jenn again. Well, we've got to get going. We're going to catch "Johnny Mnemonic" with the people next door. Talk to you later.= -Okay...bye.- [Connection closed.] the computer beeped. Courtney got up and got ready for bed. It was getting late, and the funeral, along with the other events of the day, had worn her out. Turning off the lights, she climbed into bed, still thinking. Maybe Squidman was right in killing Sig.Lad. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe only Sig.Lad knew for sure. ============================================================================= NEXT ISSUE: Net.us Versus Skysabre, place your bets now! Also, Rotanna gets her own backup miniseries in these pages, guest-starring the VAXX! And how DID that Bunzai box get into the Looniverse anyway? Oh, and maybe the author will have figured out what Sidewinder's new powers are, if any.... ============================================================================= Author's Notes Way back when I was just starting out in the LNH, I shared a problem with several other writers. I didn't know that the characters on the roster actually belonged to anyone, and felt I could use them however I wanted. So in the Kinda Big Darkness Saga (see the archives for a copy) I took the character Sidewinder and used him as a plot device, giving him flight and the ability to "sidewind" between newsgroups. Later on I decided that Sidewinder had actually always been a time-displaced alt.version of Acton Lord (the Golden Age Acton Lord, to be precise) and that he'd killed Flatulence Lad. When I revealed all of this in my first chapted of the Electrocutioner's Song crossover, I was informed that not only was Sidewinder someone's property, but that the creator (Mark McConnell) was still around and might take unkindly to my retconning him into a clone of my villain. A quick rewrite was worked up (I think Scav did the honors, but I'm not totally sure anymore) and Sidewinder had merely been replaced by the Golden Age Acton Lord and held prisoner in Acton Lord's moonbase. After that I kept my hands off Sidewinder for a while, and so did most everyone else, actually. Months passed, a year even. Then Mark (who played one of the other Wizards on LegionMUSH) asked me to use Sidewinder again, so I put him in a few cameo shots, places where I needed a target for some exposition. Eventually Mark explained to me Sidewinder's initial concept, which I then used in his part in the lead-up to Crysys of Ynfynyte Tyms. But I was still left with all this extra power I'd tacked onto the character. That and the fact that the character's true power kept kicking in and making me forget to include Sidewinder in any stories. Finally it hit me. I could explain away the increases in power in the context of the story, and use that to generate a new plot device. And that was the main seed for this story. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the guy now.... In other notes, Marder's Bar is a parody of Munden's Bar in Cynosure (the basis for Imnotsure). Larry Marder, creator of Beanworld and current Image business manager was the bartender. I think you can figure out who "Rob" was. And the scene with Net.us and the Werk was lifted pretty closely from Crossroads #5, the big First Comics crossover series. Net.us being Nexus of course, and Skysabre (lucky guy) getting to be Dreadstar (hey, I thought Constellation was the Dreadstar ripoff (he was, but he retired...sides, he'd clean Net.us's clock) Oh).