.|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED ---X------------------------------------------------------------------------- '|` PRESENTS DVANDOM | -. -. -. | ________| ____ \ ,___ \ ____ \ ________| | .' \ | | / ` | | | | | | | / ___| | | | | ` / | | __| | | < | __| | | | ,--- \ \ | | | \ | | \ ` | | | / | \ / | ___| _______-' ___| ____\ -______-' ____________| #57 - "Buying the Farm!" copyright 1995 by Dave Van Domelen ============================================================================= [cover shows Rotanna and the VAXX climbing up a tree to avoid a wave of Bisz. In the lower left hand corner, the page has been torn open and Bull of the Mighty Muddy Power Grangers is angrily asking, "Whut about us?"] ============================================================================= Kat pulled out of the Deepsea Robo, sliding back into her usual humanoid form as she did so. There was some internal damage from stressed components, but that was to be expected...you just couldn't get the same tolerances building parts in a gravity well. Nothing that Squidman couldn't fix himself. He'd picked up mechanical skills remarkably fast...almost as if he had a superhuman power to learn. He explained it as being a side effect of being written by someone who was not only a comicbook reader, but a diehard gamer. Thus it was natural that the ability of RPG characters to learn skills in days or hours would be reflected and parodied in this series. She sighed. Life was a lot less complicated before writers started pulling her around. Then again, it was in danger of becoming extremely simple as well...death tends to remove complications, yes? Well, for the dead person, anyway. Kat put a note in email to Squidman to let him know he could take care of fixing his Robo and the other two. Then she turned to the Projector designs. She almost felt sorry for telling Skysabre they were useless...with a few alterations they could really be quite powerful tools on the human scale. Probably why she hadn't considered them originally...never thought on the human scale before. Even when she was human, she thought she needed to come up to the scale of the RoboMACs to compete. It was patently obvious why these units had never really been developed in her home reality. A minor quirk in physical law which was almost unnoticeable normally resulted in catastrophic destabilization for free-standing forcefields unless ridiculous amounts of energy were used. But here that quirk was gone. In fact, a unit no larger than a wristwatch could hold a small neutrino sieve and generate a forcefield sheath that could stand up to a few shots before destabilization. And a unit like the harnesses 'Sabre had built for the guys could actually stop one or two shots from a Megaweapon, if properly modified.... Kat paused. There it was again, a slight twinge on her internal diagnostics. Her mind, set in its ways from the time she was a child, interpreted it as a passing wave of nausea, which meant the disturbance was located in her abdomen (just like she'd sneeze when her olfactory sensors had a glitch, or feel dizzy if her gyros got out of whack...human mind interpreting mechanical impulses). Nothing major, though, and a cursory diagnostic didn't show anything out of the ordinary. She made a mental note to do a full self- exam once she was done modifying the harnesses. Yes, these could work quite well. And protect the guys from any trickle- through they experienced when using full power attacks. She got to work. * * * * Across Sig.ago in a warehouse secretly owned by the Little Man via a chain of holding companies and fronts, two teams assessed their own losses and damage. And it wasn't as pretty an estimate as Kat's. "Dr., er, Zwarghoff and I think all the robots can be repaired within the next three days given the proper materials and tools," announced Dr. Zwarghoff. Dr. Zwarghoff nodded to Dr. Zwarghoff and added, "However, even when the repairs are complete, we doubt that we could field two complete teams. The Inbred has proved far too distractable and unreliable, as evidenced by the fact he wandered off some time last night and hasn't been seen since. In addition, if I'm to work day and night to repair the robots, I will be in no condition to help pilot any." "Nor would I," agreed Dr. Zwarghoff. "Not that I'm much of a pilot to begin with. So we need two more pilots, preferably experienced and trustworthy. Although in an emergency, the Destructoid could be formed by remote and controlled by as few as three human operators, although at vastly reduced performance." "Perhaps we can be of service in that capacity," spoke a figure that stepped out of a darkened corner of the warehouse. He was dressed in full personal armor and helmet, a helmet with a serpentine motif. A black heart was stitched into the breast of his armor jacket. His companion emerged a moment later, dressed in similar armor but devoid of customizing. "DeFacto... recruited us to help out." Dr. Zwarghoff was the first to speak, beating Dr. Zwarghoff to the punch. "I'm not sure we desire his help at this point. His methods do not exactly fill me with a sense of confidence, if what Dr. Zwarghoff says is true." "To be blunt, we were shanghaied here, our mecha taken over remotely without warning or our consent," added Dr. Zwarghoff. Jack Hunter nodded. "That's a pretty shoddy way to treat the hired help, even a bunch of hicks like these jokers." He nodded towards where the Grangers were playing a hand of poker, with the other three waiting for Mule to realize it was his ante. "Not to mention the poor intelligence reports we got...I think something like Kopikat's stealth ability should have been mentioned, eh?" While Hunter was talking, one of the new arrivals (Joe, if you must know) had walked over to where the foursome was playing cards. "Hey, hayseeds, pay attention while your betters are talking about important things!" Joe shouted, clouting Mule on the head for emphasis. Mule finally anted as a result. "Hay is like, for horses. Huuh huuh," said Reaper. "Oh, anybody got any, ummmm, threes?" "Nope, but you can have some two. Heh heh," replied Hellhound. Joe turned to face Cobra. "Look at these total morons. We're supposed to work with them? I bet they think Hee Haw's haute coteur." Mule stirred. "Someone say sumpin' 'bout Hee Haw?" There was a dangerous glint in his eyes as he folded his cards together and placed them in front of him. "Yeah, farm boy. I'm glad that waste of videotape was cancelled. Hell (TM), if it hadn't been cancelled, I mighta blown up the studio to make sure it went off the air," taunted Joe. Meanwhile, Cobra whispered something in Hunter's ear and the Constellation Gang leader pulled his people back behind the bulk of one of the Robos. Bull stood up and put a hand on Mule's shoulder to keep him sitting. "Mister," he started, "theyar's jest a few thing ya don't do. Ya don't plant winter wheat in spring, ya don't cut yer furrows down the slope of a hill and ya DON'T get Mule riled up about Hee Haw." Joe started to chuckle. "You mean someone actually misses that sho...." He never got to finish the sentence, for Mule suddenly slipped into a squat-thrust position without raising the level of his shoulders and gave Joe a fierce kick to the gut with both feet. Armor cracked and Joe flew backwards into a wall, denting in. Snorting with anger, Mule shoved Bull aside and charged towards Joe, only to be stopped by a bolt of green electricity from Cobra's hands, which made his tousled hair stand straight up and sent him into convulsions. "Dang, he musta seen it comin'! C'mon, Grangers, let's show these prettyboys ya don't pick on Mule! Assume fakey-looking stances!" ordered Bull. "Heh, he said ASSume," chuckled Hellhound as he fell into the fake-jutsu stance. "Huuh huuh...never assume, it makes an ass outta you," replied Reaper as he took a painful looking stance which couldn't possibly help in combat. "And me," corrected Hellhound. "That's what I said," grinned Reaper. "Shut up, dillmunch," growled Hellhound as he leaped as if on wires at Cobra, knocking his target over and ending the stream of green energy. "Check this out," said Reaper, "Mule made me this last time we were all, like, smashed." He pulled out (from where, it is uncertain) a long-handled scythe and pushed a button on it. The blade started to rotate at dangerously high speeds. "It slices, it dices, it kicks your butt!" He then did a fakey high jump which was totally non-ballistic and slammed the whirling blades of death into the wall where Joe was. Fortunately for Joe, Reaper's hang time had been so long he'd been able to get well out of the way. "Have some fire, scarecow!" sneered Hellhound as he bathed Cobra in a sheet of fire. "That's scareCROW, yew idgit," barked Bull as he added his own elecricity to the attack. Armor shuddered, melted and peeled back from Cobra, revealing the mechanical entity underneath. "Whoa...cool. He's, like, one of those Terminexers or something," gasped Reaper as he dropped to the ground. "OOF!" was his eloquent reply as Joe slammed his fists into Reaper's kidneys from behind. Reaper skidded forwards to join the other three, where Mule was just noticing he wasn't in pain any more. Bull frowned. He hadn't tried this since Sally had left, and wasn't totally sure it would work with just the four of them, but these strangers were tougher than they looked. And it wouldn't hurt to kick their sorry butts in an impressive way. "Grangers, deploy hypermegacannonplotdevice!" Bull shouted, waving his arms around in an official-looking manner. The others joined him and formed a sort of cheerleading display, triggering their Mighty Muddy Powers to summon their really big gun. The air crackled around them. Then Cobra smiled. A black bolt shot out of the shadows from which the pair had come, and Bull felt the power being drained from his body! "How...." "Yours is not to wonder how," sneered Joe, "yours is just to pull a plow." The bolt stopped and the Grangers collapsed in a heap, unable to summon the energy to even move. Even breathing was difficult. [Several universes away, Pinto Sally suddenly gasped, doubled over in pain, and fell to the ground. Link, who was closest to her at the time, was at her side within seconds. "What is it?" he asked. "Are you all right?" "Don'...know..." Sally gasped, staggering to her feet with Link's help. She had turned ghostly pale all of a sudden. "Felt like...bein' turned insahd out. Her accent faded momentarily as she realized, "I think something awful just happened." - interlude courtesy of Chris Meadows] "We will pilot the Destructoid," proclaimed Cobra. "Our minds are wired better for the task, and we're more reliable than these four. Do any of you have objections?" he asked as Joe walked over to the siphon device they had planted. Hunter didn't like the idea of being replaceable, but he liked less the idea of trying to fight these two right now. He would take their measure, find any weaknesses...then attack if need be. "No objections." Zwarghoff, for his part, was pleased to see the boorish Grangers suffer the indignity and he shook his head in restrained glee. "We will transport the Grangers elsewhere and return to help with repairs inside the hour." With that, the duo left with their prizes. * * * * A purple-haired figure emerged from a Pizza Pit. "Like, that hit the spot. Munchies conquered," he grinned. He paused. Something was, like, not right. He looked around for the source of his subconscious warning. His eyes fell on a dumpster. "Wow. Like, who welds dumpsters shut? Must be some raccoons from Hell (TM) 'round here, y'know? Now, where'd I leave that secret warehouse base....?" he asked himself, wandering off. ============================================================================= NEXT ISSUE: More of the actual story (big chunk of the Kooks of Magic this issue, see below)! Joe and Cobra pilot the Destructoid! More new armors debut! Team M.E.C.H.A. and their accursed ..... arrive in the Looniverse! ============================================================================= KOOKS OF MAGIC A Rotanna Solo Story Guest-Starring the VAXX Part Seven Most of us inhabit two worlds. One, the virtual world, is a place of plotlines and pixels, of expectations unmet or exceeded. The other is a twisted dream world, a reflection and rotation of the virtual world, where expectations are formed and frolicked in. The VAXX bounces between these worlds at random, unable to control what's real and what is not...and largely indifferent to the difference. In the dream world he is a mighty warrior, protector of Anna Tanner, who he sees as the Sheep Goddess. But in Sig.ago he's a bum who lives in a box in an alleyway. He and Anna share a secret, a secret which could destroy me. I could help them...but I'm only insane, not stupid..... .oOo. .oOo. Slowly the monitor-mask came off the VAXX's head, filling the view of the reader as the crude image of a face on it went blank. Anna gasped despite herself. For standing there was a weedy-looking middle-aged man, maybe five and a half feet tall and who couldn't be more than 130 lbs. Everything about his appearance said "academic," from his slightly unkempt hair to his ill-fitting dress shirt and loosened tie. His knuckles were permanently ingrained with chalk, and his pants showed signs of attempts to wipe chalk dust off of them. In short, he looked nothing like the small mountain of muscle which Anna knew as the VAXX. He set down the monitor and worked out a kink in his back for a moment, awkwardly waiting for Anna to make the first move. When she simply blinked in confusion, he sighed. "My name is Steven Walsh, and you might say I knew your father. Although he never had a daughter...I'm from another universe." .oOo. .oOo. "I'm not too sure about this, Steve," said a man wearing a cleanroom suit. "This all feels too much like _Altered States_, only without the mushrooms." Steve replied as he methodically stripped and started hooking himself up to the various sensors of the isolation tank. "That's why I'm doing this and not you, Roy. I'm a total flatscan on all Tesla registers. Even if we're successful beyond all expectation, at most I should gain mild powers or experience minor paranormal events. Nothing your small skills at sorcery can't handle if they get out of hand." He paused and turned on a recorder, speaking into a microphone he clipped to a collar around his throat. "1993 NSF research grant number 786642-Y33, Drs. Steven Walsh and Roy Tanner participating. Violation Physics categorization: Bose Transformation Studies. With the aid of certain Australian disciplines of directed dreaming along with use of subsonics to produce a mildly disoriented state, we are attempting to replicate the effects of the Bose Transformation without use of illegal and dangerous pharmaceuticals. If successful, theories predict a rise of an average of 3 points in my Tesla Index, peaked around the precognitive band." Roy depressed a number of switches and entered a command on the computer. Then he spoke into his own microphone, "Initiating subsonics and administering sedative to aid in attaining sleep. Alpha and Delta brainwave patterns continue to be normal, as far as I can tell...no gross abnormalities." Steve's eyelids started to flutter as he entered Rapid-Eye-Movement sleep. "Subject's training has allowed him to enter REM within 30 seconds of falling asleep. Adjusting subsonics to next stage...." .oOo. .oOo. "The next thing I know, I'm here. By concentrating, I can remember everything I've done as the VAXX, but a large part of my mind seems to shut down then...the price I pay for the power, I suppose. And, it seems, a defense mechanism against all the truths I know now. I can grasp them like slippery fish in a stream, but it's...uncomfortable to think about them too much right now." "So, my father never got married in your reality?" "No. Whatever the circumstances of his meeting your mother were in the Looniverse, they weren't present in our universe." Anna paused for a moment, then asked, "Since you can remember everything you do as the VAXX, could you tell me why he...you keep calling me the Sheep Goddess? Am I supposed to be a sheep or something?" "No..." he shook his head as he struggled to recall. "You're the shepherdess. They," he indicated some Biszes milling around in boredom, "are the sheep. You see, this place is a dreamscape, one of countless in existence. When dreams become powerful enough to breach the barriers between worlds, they often come here. The Bisz aren't just funny little creatures, they're dreams. By harvesting them, Gain is stealing dreams...a crime almost as bad as his spamming. I came here physically because of my experiments, but found also for some reason that I resonated into your Looniverse. Perhaps it was a side- effect of Constellation's many trips...I can see that now that I think about it." Anna smirked wryly. "So, he comes to the Looniverse and becomes a god. You come to the Looniverse and become a mental defective. Somewhere, some cosmic being's having a big laugh at your expense." Walsh returned the wry smirk, "Who's to say I'm not better off than he was? His price was months of pain and angst...while I slumbered in happy ignorance, powerful enough to repel any physical threat and too dim to comprehend any emotional threat. For perhaps the first time in my life I was actually happy for more than a few minutes at a time. Anna...mine was not a pleasant life. I was always a bitter outcast, shunned for my intelligence and lack of physical stature. I tried to find solace in my work, but nothing really seemed to help. Now I may still be an outcast, but I'm a happy one. Besides," he noted, "I don't think I can physically exist in the Looniverse as I am now. The monitor can only come off here, in dreams. And I wouldn't have it any other way." Anna held back a tear. When she was young, she'd read a copy of "Flowers for Alt.gernon." It had always struck her as a profoundly sad story. Yet here was someone who had taken the reverse journey...brilliant to stupid to brilliant...and wanted to go back to stupid anyway. Before either could say anything more, though, they turned to see a wave of Bisz sweeping towards them.... ============================================================================= Part Eight A horde of bored Biszes swept down on Anna and the man who became the VAXX, ravenous for something to do. Steven struggled with the monitor, trying to put it on and reassume his role as the VAXX in time to save Anna and himself, but nothing was happening. Suddenly a ripple opened up near the base of the slick-sided tree and a hand poked out. "Take my hand!" shouted a voice from, oddly enough, above. "And no cracks about my being a stranger in paradise!" Seeing little to lose, Anna and Steven grabbed the offered hand and were pulled through the ripple, which closed behind them just as the wave crashed. They found themselves in the crown of the tree, sitting on a picnic blanket spread across the leaves. It was surprisingly firm and stable. Especially since it was supporting a speaker tower taller than most people. "Hi there," spoke the voice of their rescuer, who had dramatically arranged to be behind them. He grinned as they whirled about. "Mr. Bose?" asked a startled Dr. Walsh as the monitor slipped from his fingers to plop onto the blanket. "Netlurker?" asked an equally startled Anna at the same time. "Heya, Doc, so you did come here after all!" beamed Tymythy Twystyd, who then turned to Anna and made a bzzzt sound. "Wrong answer. Anyway, after you disappeared trying to dupe my powers, I figured I kinda owed it to your friends to find you in my off time. Besides, the whole directed dreaming thing seemed like a much better way for me to scrye the future than my old way," he shuddered at memories of peanut brittle and Barney, aftereffects of one of his more spectacularly unsuccessful attempts to read the future. "I take it from the computer parts there that you're the guy I've seen bounding around this place for the last few months?" When Dr. Walsh nodded, Tym slapped his forehead. "I feel so stupid for not checking that angle out. Anyway, once I wake up I can probably work out a way to bring you back home..." Walsh cut him off. "I'm not leaving. I prefer it here...or more accurately, in the Looniverse." Tym adopted a mock-stern posture, "Immigration services in the Looniverse aren't going to like this steady flow of illegal aliens, you know." He snapped back to his usual casual demeanor, "But whatever. You haven't been killed or destroyed any universes yet, so I doubt you will if I leave you alone. Mind if I tell everyone you're okay? Good." Meanwhile, Anna's attention had been caught by a glittering mistlike hand draped over one of the nearby branches. "What's this?" she asked, hoping one of the two knew. Tym shrugged, but Walsh answered, "It looks like a shadow of some mystical or semi-mystical object that exists or existed in the Looniverse." A lightbulb appeared above Tym's head (literally...think of who we're talking about here). "Say, that looks kinda like that funky glove Sig.Lad was wearing last time I saw him...too bad about his death, by the way." It did indeed look like a very transparent Gauntlet of GIF, Anna realized. She reached out to pick it up. "Ah ah ah!" warned Tym. "You never know what'll happen touching stuff around here." Anna ignored him and grabbed the gauntlet from its resting place, and recoiled as it flowed over her hand and soaked in, disappearing. "What?" "At a guess, I'd say you simply absorbed the mystical potential of it," replied Walsh, "being attuned to magic in the first place. It was only a shadow, after all, with the real object being vaporized on this spot in the Looniverse. You see, this tree corresponds to a building in Sig.ago, probably the one where Sig.Lad died, or maybe a nearby one with the gauntlet being blown here by the explosion or aetheric winds." Any further exposition was cut off as the three paused to stare at a tiny figure fluttering by. It looked like Kopikat with dragon's wings and wearing a black trenchcoat, but was only about ten centimeters tall. "What the...?" asked Anna. Tym chuckled. "I get it. It's Dave's muse. And it looks like a tiny Kat. Heh," he laughed at a joke the others didn't really get. "But...assuming you mean Dave our writer (and I don't like breaking the fourth wall as much as the other characters, so let's get past this fast, okay?), why would he have a muse? He's not really a Superguy Author, he's just crossing over," asked Anna. "Well, it *is* only a dream-manifestation, so make of it what you will. Although there's more than one kind of muse, you know, just like there's more than one kind of dream dimension," explained Walsh. Tym shuddered. "Oooh, I think I'm starting to wake up...I feel all cryptic and dreamy and stuff." Anna turned to him. "Before you go, do you think you could get me out of here?" It was too late, Tym was already fading as the faint ringing of a distant alarm clock could be heard. He smiled cryptically and pointed at a spider spinning its home between two branches, then was gone. =========================================================================== Author's Notes: "Okay, Mister Writer Man, why does your muse look like a tiny me?" demanded Kopikat. "Um, it does? What do you think? What should I think?" "Those are all the wrong answers!" [cut away as terrible rending of flesh ensues] =========================================================================== Real Author's Notes: The preceding gag was lifted from Savage Henry: Headstrong #3, with Kat in the place of Caroline and me in the place of Henry. I was tempted to use a small plumed serpent in place of Kat, but didn't want to risk the scene from the previous Author's Notes happening in real life. }-> Oh, and for the record, parts 7 and 8 were originally outlined as all being part 7, with parts 7-9 slated for this issue. I don't think they'd all fit now.... Next issue will have parts 9-10, which may end up being just the stuff I had planned for part 8...whee! When this finally finishes, I'll be collecting all the Kooks of Magic parts into one big honking TEB.