.|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED ---X------------------------------------------------------------------------- '|` PRESENTS DVANDOM | -. -. -. | ________| ____ \ ,___ \ ____ \ ________| | .' \ | | / ` | | | | | | | / ___| | | | | ` / | | __| | | < | __| | | | ,--- \ \ | | | \ | | \ ` | | | / | \ / | ___| _______-' ___| ____\ -______-' ____________| #53 - "Hercules Unbound!" copyright 1995 by Dave Van Domelen ============================================================================= [cover has a combined LNH/Superguy cornerbox logo. Skysabre and Kopikat stand in the center of the page looking battered but determined as a huge humanoid shadow falls across them. Frigid winds whip snow across the barren scene.] ============================================================================= What The Heck Has Gone Before After determining he lacked the brute force to gain his objective of time travel [issue 49], DeFacto V aka Necrosaur has decided to gather more forces. In the process of doing so, he discovered that the supposedly fictional reality structure of the Superguy Altiverses was indeed "real" and accessible from the Looniverse [last issue]. He has gathered minions both in the Looniverse [last issue] and in the Superguy Altiverse [Team M.E.C.H.A. #60] to do his bidding, bidding which includes crushing Dvandom Force. Dvandom Force, in the meantime, has been out of the Looniverse in the nexus of realities known as Imnotsure, where the interdimensional avenger Net.us mistook Skysabre for his former self of Acton Lord [issues 50-51]. It turned out that Net.us was Master Workload's pawn, but the manifestation of Sidewinder's altered powers saved Skysabre from Net.us's FusionKansels. Bludwulf was met in Imnotsure, where he had taken on the identity of GinJack after losing his Liefeld-induced musculature. But, being relatively sane, the rest of Dvandom Force didn't make much of an effort to bring him home.... * * * * Skysabre unhooked the last of the cables from its port on the side of his new RoboVector and checked the readings one last time. There had been no apparent damage to the structure of the craft during either of the turbulent interdimensional crossings, but he'd wanted to make sure anyway. The computers were still digesting the data of the actual trip, trying to determine if there was a way to make it less stressful...there might come a time when injured people would have to be evacuated across realities, after all. Time to doublecheck his own systems, after that harrowing chase across Imnotsure. He stood in a clear area of the vehicle bay. "DVANDOMFORCE!" he shouted, slamming his fist down on the pressure- sensitive patch over his Series 9 Cyclo-heart. There was a slight electronic whine as he began to glow, liquid metal oozing from his pores and covering his body. With a bright flash, he was garbed in advanced powerarmor. "PROJECTOR!" was his cry as planes of force shot up and out from his body, assembling themselves rapidly into a towering humanoid form. He held out a hand and flexed it. No flaws in the force projectors that he could detect by self-diagnostic. He brought a sensor jack up to a small port on his energy-born body and it connected up to the physical body inside. Computer programs he'd had to reconstruct from memory started to check the parameters of his assumed form. He started to "sit back" to relax while the modern day's annoyingly slow computers did their work. Something felt wrong. He whirled to look behind him, careful not to foul the cable. "I'm impressed," said Kopikat, standing at her full height in humanoid form. "What gave me away?" "I'm not sure, but I assume you just pulled up to full size?" She nodded. "Then it was the atmospheric sensors on the skin of my Projector. They're mainly there to allow precision flight at high speeds, but I picked up the slight rush of air as you took up more volume." He disconnected the sensor cable. "That's good enough for me," he said, casting a baleful glare at the Dray 9000 supercomputer, workhorse of industry and research in this era, but lagged garbage compared to what he was used to. "What's good enough?" "Oh, I was running a detailed diagnostic on my Projector, but if the integrity is good enough to pick up pressure changes that small, there can't be anything wrong with it." He started to put the cable away. Kat sidled up to him and placed a hand on his arm. "Hmmm. Anything else you can feel, 'Sabre?" The Projector's face wasn't designed to show a wide range of expressions, but the pain that washed over it was obvious. "Don't," he replied quietly. "Don't what?" she asked playfully, not looking at his face. Then she picked up the cues in how he was standing, the way his free arm was moving aimlessly as if 'Sabre were torn between inaction and pushing her away. She looked up. "Just...don't. It can't work." He gently lifted her hand from his arm and turned away. "Why not? I'm not looking for love, just a little intimacy with one of the only other men in this reality who could give it. Look, I know already you don't feel that way about me, but...." Skysabre whirled around and cut her off. "NO...YOU...DON'T. That was Sig.Lad, remember? I haven't been him for a decade, and I wasn't the one you knew." He stopped, a mixture of pleading and fear on his simulated features. "Damn...I shouldn't say anything. He's still alive in this timeframe." "Who? DeFacto?" "No. Acton Lord. And he's had very little chance to change from the man I was when DeFacto hurled me into the timestream. I loved...he LOVES...you. Not in a way he's consciously aware of yet...it took a long time in limbo for me to realize it myself...but it has already affected his...my actions. I let you escape from Andale Atoll with the Green Trenchcoat, although I didn't really know why I did it at the time. The woman...yes, I listened to the conversation...was of no further use to me, but you would have made an excellent test subject or hostage. Maybe you could have escaped anyway. But the fact I was able to observe your conversation without your knowledge proves I had a few tricks you couldn't counter." There was a stunned silence for a moment. Kat broke it. "Then...you love me?" she asked, hoping that he didn't notice the slight tremble in her voice. He hung his head and turned away. "For years I did, mourning your loss and the fact I'd never done anything about it. Of course, as a villain, there was little I could have done...but far from nothing. Several lonely years building the Dvandomforce resistance organization, never knowing I was playing into DeFacto's hands even then." Kat picked up on what he wasn't saying in an instant. "Who was she?" "Her name was Athena. When I first rescued her and a number of other insurgents she was little more than a child in my eyes, although I suppose she already considered herself a woman. For a time I treated her like a daughter, and she stayed by my side waiting for me to realize she saw me as something other than a father. I was certainly old enough to be her father, but that didn't matter. In a world like that, chances at happiness are too important to let the old rules get in the way. She was one of the first Projector subjects after my own implant was installed, and while there was little time for romantic interludes, we were always together. With her, though, I did not make the mistake of silence." He paused, and Kat did not interrupt it. "We promised to be married if we still existed after preventing DeFacto's birth. Or if we overthrew him by more conventional means. Now she's gone forever...she may never have existed at all except in my memories. But I can't mourn until I know DeFacto can never rise again." "And you can't love again until you can mourn," completed Kat. "I understand. Believe me, I understand...." She shrank down and left the room silently, like a shadow flitting past. And moments later, the giant brown, red and grey robot was gone, replaced by a mere man. A man who could do something no projected body could do. Shed a tear. * * * * "Hey, doc!" shouted a young woman from behind a crate stamped "L.S.A Government Property - TOP SECRET" as she pried the top off. "What exactly 're we s'posed ta be lookin' for here, anyway?" Dr. Zwarghoff looked up from the manifests listed on his laptop computer. "Something dramatic, something that screams 'net.villain,'" he replied. "As opposed to screaming 'Little Man,' I take it," observed a hulking man who stepped up and lifted the top off the crate with his bare hands. "Here ya go, sis." "Thanks, Normy." She looked inside. "Planetary Fibrillator?" Zwarghoff pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "A little TOO dramatic, I'm afraid. It would cause planet-wide earthquakes." He checked his list again. "I do wish this material had been properly inventoried by content, rather than by where it was...appropriated from. Corvus, could you check the crate over there marked 'QRE' on the side? Questionable Research Ethics labs have produced some interesting things in the past." Cory snarled at being bossed around like dock labor, but went to the crate and started unbolting it. "Say, doc...why are we even doing this? I mean, these new mechs we have are extra bonus and all, but actually going out picking a fight with Dvandom Force? And why do something this silly ta accomplish it?" "We do this because the Little Man told us to," replied Jack Hunter as he stepped in out of the blazing Sig.ago heat and wiped the river of sweat out of his eyes. "Damn, I'm glad this warehouse is air conditioned." "If it weren't, I suspect there would be a large crater here right now," noted Zwarghoff without looking up. "True. Anyway, Cory, part of the deal to get the mechs was to use them against Dvandom Force." Hunter sat down on a crate that looked marginally safe. "And if we're going to do that, I'd rather bring them into a trap than just go try and knock their HQ over with Hercules." "Okay," said Shana [the "sis" mentioned earlier], "but why something silly like one of these gadgets?" "I'll field that one, Jack," replied her brother Norman. "Y'see, if we try to lure them into one of the Little Man's regular operations, there's two big disadvantages. One, they could end up shutting the operation down. Two, we might attract the wrong people, like a Yakuza strike wing or someone from the Queen Bee. By making it something blatant and net.villain-ish, we're guaranteed to get net.heroes. That's one reason this warehouse is maintained. It's full of technology that's pretty useless for the types of quiet activities needed to truly control a city, but that makes great diversions." "I'd still rather not go up against Dvandom Force at all," groused Cory. "It's not like they were seriously impacting our operations...they spend most of their time out of town...out of dimension, actually." Further exposition and argument was cut off by Cory getting the crate open. "Thermal Sink MKVI, it says." Zwarghoff's eyes lit up. "I do believe we have our lure...." * * * * DeFacto turned his attention away from the spy-eyes he had on his Looniversal pawns. They seemed to be performing their tasks adequately for now. He turned to the bit.listserv.superguy feed, hoping nothing important had been lost to him while it was down. After a moment, he had downloaded Team M.E.C.H.A. #61 and was chuckling to himself. Interesting how the same man in two different realities could be so different. The Zwarghoff here, despite abysmal luck surpassing his counterpart's by far, actually was turning out to be fairly competent and flexible, as his planning showed. Perhaps it was because of the adversity that he had been forced to improve. But *this* one...it was to laugh. Not only could he not read a simple manual, but he blamed it on others! All the parts needed to build the six-team mechs had been provided to Zwarghoff, plus redundant parts. The cash payment was strictly "gravy" for their efforts. But what does Zwarghoff do? He uses a *third* of the vital components on those ludicrous Agribots. Distrust of the schematics is one thing, wasting time and supplies to try and build his own mechs first was grossly inefficient. Not only that, but he managed to independently recreate the most grievous design flaw ever placed in a Robo...the faulty linkage which had allowed him, in his past live as Sig.Lad, to break the connection that bound the Demolition Team into Annihilator [Constellation #22-23 - Ed.]. Maybe when he actually reads the full manual he'll find out how to prevent that problem. If not... well, the Grangers *were* expendible, after all. So long as he got a good analysis of Summer 's nanotechnology and dimensional powers, the fate of his pawns was not really his concern. Yes, Miss could quite possibly be the key to it all. And the story unfolding in Team M.E.C.H.A. Journal gave him a good idea of how to subvert Summer if he had the opportunity.... * * * * Kid Macro [whose real name the author has managed to forget. Oops. - Ed.] strolled into the lobby of the Dvandom Force HQ wearing shorts and a tanktop and carrying a large water bottle. He waved distractedly to Sidewinder as he went to the elevator and pushed the down button, not looking out the window. "Sheesh...the workers can't get the health club built into the fourth floor soon enough for me. It's gonna be over a hundred degrees AGAIN today," he griped. Sig.ago was indeed in the grip of a record-breaking heatwave, and it was depressing all the heroes that they couldn't do much if anything against the lethal heat. Sidewinder looked up from his magazine. "100? I guess that means the snow'll burn off before noon, then." Kid Macro nodded and then started to step into the elevator as it arrived. Pause. "Snow?" He looked out the window to see a heavy blizzard. * * * * "Well, at least it's not so hot," commented Kid Macro as the team boarded Skysabre's RoboVector [which really needs a name...suggestions, anyone? - Ed.] in the hangar bay. "Don't joke," admonished Squidman. "If anything, the death toll will be greater from this unexpected cold than from the heat." "Sorry." <> came 'Sabre's voice over the intercom. <> "Agreed," said Squidman. "So far, it doesn't fit the known MO of any net.villain in the files, but any number of Mad Scientist types may be behind it. Not to mention the possibility that it's not a villain at all." "True," realized Sidewinder. "It could be some inventor type was trying to do something about the heat wave and went overboard." "In any case, we need to find out what's causing it and turn it off before the streets of Sig.ago are littered with the frozen corpses of the homeless and any stuck outside too long." Squidman's expression was grim beneath his mask. Suddenly the ice and cold cut off like a switch. <> "Three hundred?" gasped Kid Macro, pulling off the parka he was wearing. "Kelvin. About eighty Fahrenheit," replied Kopikat, slightly amused by the quaint measurement systems used in this era. "Is there a definite center to it, 'Sabre? It looks roughly like a hemisphere elongated by winds from my window," noted Squidman. <> "I still can't get over how many abandoned warehouses there are in this reality," sighed Kat. "Blame the 1980s building boom," countered Sidewinder. "You should see Denver. Oh, right, you did [Constellation #22-23 - Ed.]." <> With that, the ship lurched sideways hard enough to slam Kid Macro into a wall. He peeled himself off and strapped in. Squidman punched up a holodisplay of the area. Three blips were chasing them, size and shape conforming to military jets, but speed far in excess of their abilities. "DeFacto's duo and another?" he asked of Skysabre. <> Just then a missile slammed into the craft from below. Squidman wrestled with the manual controls that had just been turned over to him as the vehicle spun away from Skysabre. "I'm on it!" shouted Kat, leaping towards an air duct and oozing out of the vehicle. She dropped quickly down into the cold which had disgorged the attack. "Damn! This has got to be a trap," cursed Squidman has he fought to get the craft under control. * * * * Kat adjusted her sensors to compensate for the driving snow as she dropped silently to the ground. Three traces that indicated active Integrity Fields showed up to her right. She switched to panthress form and padded silently in that direction. Three outlines became visible, all humanoid, all large. The smallest was easily twice human size, while the largest was nearly as tall as Skysabre's Projector form. Then the snow suddenly slacked off and she was plainly visible to the trio, despite having taken the precaution of turning white. "Let's see how a cat likes dealing with a bear!" shouted the smallest one, firing a laser that sizzled past Kat. Piloted Robos...she could take'em. After all, she knew from long and painful experience that a human in a Robo was no match for a true RoboMAC. She pounced, knocking the small one aside and lashing her tail at the mid-sized one with the missile rack in passing as she made for the big one, who was probably the leader. And if not, he was at least most dangerous. She was swatted aside almost contemptuously. (That'll teach me to get cocky,) she thought. Then she renewed the attack. * * * * Three on one odds weren't his favorite thing in the world, but at least this was a threat he could face, unlike Net.us. Skysabre looped up in a Mach 2 Immelman turn that would have killed an unenhanced human pilot and lanced out at the F-16 with his Neutrino Blocker, to no effect. That confirmed it, only DeFacto would know about the weapon to be able to counteract it, these guys were definitely piloting DeFacto-made mechs. And they were definitely using Neutrino Sieves, he could tell from the ambient levels dropping off. Swinging around again he made a move for the slowest of the trio, a Harrier jump jet. First he feinted towards the F-16, then at the last second.... A horrible ripping feeling cut through his body. An attack? None had been launched...damn! There *had* been a flaw in his Projector, and it was breaking up. Then the missile exploded nearby, forcing a veer to the left that caused his projected force body to pop like a balloon. He fell into the cold. ============================================================================= Next Issue: Dvandom Force faces the Constellation Gang full on! DeFacto continues to manipulate events in the Superguy Altiverse! And maybe Acton Lord will get a scene longer than twenty lines! ============================================================================= KOOKS OF MAGIC - Book Three A Rotanna Solo Story Guest-starring The VAXX As happened enough that he no longer let it bother him, VAXX found himself in a different part of the city with no very good idea how he got there. He had faint memories of fighting Leopardicamelsaurs in Net.Zealand, but those faded like most other memories of that mystical place. He was standing on top of a Pizza Pit franchise in the middle of a raging blizzard. He was *pretty* sure it wasn't winter yet, and wondered why it was snowing. Then it stopped snowing, and VAXX decided it never had been snowing, that it had been another one of Those Things. "Hello, Br'er Laptop," oozed a voice from behind him. VAXX whirled as quickly as he could on the snow-covered roof without falling. "Who are you?" "I'm Mister Gain, seller of wares and spinner of spells." He pulled out a square-barrelled CHOOM gun and pointed it at VAXX. "And I'm afraid I have to remove you from the game for a while." "DIE, WIZARD!" the VAXX shouted as he leaped at Gain. Well, tried to leap. He slipped on the melting slush and fell on his face, narrowly avoiding a shot that tore over his hunched shoulders. Skidding forward on the ice, he slammed into Gain and carried the two off the edge of the roof. A thought percolated through his processor. "If you're a wizard, why the gun?" "Maybe I'm not a very good wizard...why else stoop to spamming, eh? Or maybe my spells simply cannot affect you because of who you are. You don't *know* who you really are, do you? Those disks must have been corrupted, so sad. I do so hate to kill someone who doesn't even know who's dying, but so it goes," he managed to say through gritted teeth as they struggled in the snowdrifts. CHOOM! "Ow," said the VAXX, looking at the square hole burned through his shoulder. He followed this up by eloquently fainting. Gain gestured and a small horde of Biszes wearing parkas pushed the fallen hero into a dumpster, then pulled out small arcwelders and started sealing it. "There, that should do for now," smirked Gain. .oOo. .oOo. Rotanna awoke to find herself in full costume, tied up in a multitude of wires and straps and chains, enough to actually slow her down for a minute or two. She also noted the rather submissive pose she had been bound in. "Ah, so you're awake," came a voice from what seemed to be the bathroom. He stepped out into the doorway, lit from behind so Anna couldn't make out any features. He also seemed to be wearing a large tribal mask of some sort. "I'm Mister Gain, you may know of me," he sneered. "Let me guess. This is where you use me to get back at every customer who hasn't bought your cheesy products, every door slammed in your face, every spam of yours that was cancelled, and gain some sort of sick mercantile revenge. Am I close?" "Well, so much for plan A," he sighed. Behind him a small creature snickered. "SHUT UP!" he shouted, pounding it to goo. "You know, when you remove them from Harnegu, Biszes turn capitalistic? They'll do just about anything for the Almighty Buck. Back in Harnegu, the place your friend the VAXX calls Net.Zealand, they live communally...but not here, no sireebob." As he talked, Rotanna slipped out of the bonds. He didn't seem to be paying too much attention. "Oh, I know a great deal. I know about how your magic works, for instance, and its connection to Harnegu...did you know that's rot-13 for 'Unearth?' And poor VAXX, drawn to you and not knowing why. I could tell you all about yourself, you know. Of course, maybe you don't want to hear. Maybe you'd rather do something uncouth like CUT OFF MY HEAD!" he shouted as he whirled to face her, a cleaver in his hand, ready to throw. She had no choice. She leaped at him, diving under the cleaver that embedded itself in the opposite wall. She could make him out clearly now as she bowled him over into the bathroom. She grabbed the grinning mask and pulled it away...it stank of mystic power and she didn't want to see what it did. Then she looked at the face under the mask, the face of "Mr. Gain." "Hello, Anna. You really should write more, your mother worries so," said Roy Tanner, aka Rotara. "dad...?"